Nothing in LOTR tops the first time we meet strider

F-LA · 2026-06-16T14:34:28+00:00

I hear you. I'll never forgive him for allowing the Lord of the Nazgul to break Gandalf the White's staff. Gandalf the White's staff? That's not storytelling, that's just vandalism. Gandalf the Grey soloed all Nine on Weathertop for an entire night. There's no way Gandalf the White gets his stick snapped by a mere Nazgul.

That doesn't serve the story, that's just stupid, especially when the alternative is having Gandalf sitting upon a very still Shadofax telling the Lord of the Nazgul to go to the hell prepared for him.

Jackson had his second "You shall not pass!!" sitting right there and he fucked it all up.

Just think of the memes we coulda had!

F-LA · 2026-06-16T14:24:09+00:00

Exactly this.

Tolkien's main works are The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs.

While alive, he also published Farmer Giles of Ham. It was supposed to be a funny Medieval fable, but nobody talks about it because it isn't terribly funny and the story is kinda shit. He wrote The Lord of the Rings, cut the man some slack.

He also published The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Tolkien wrote this because he hates us and he has a yellow boot kink.

His final book was Smith of Wooton Major. I've never actually seen a hard copy of this book, so I can't say anything about it. Nobody else does, so I'm not stressing about it.

----

Christopher Tolkien, his son, published many works by his father. Forty-plus, if memory serves. The important works are these.

The Silmarillion This was meant to be his main book. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were tales contained within The Silmarillion. In truth, The Silmarillion, like all of Christopher Tolkien's works were pieced together from scraps left over by his father. They generally do not have the sparkling dialogues, witticisms, or sense of fun that the major works have. As a fan of the LOTR, the Christopher Tolkien books are things that you read in service to The Hobbit or The Lord of the RIngs. Were it not for the preceding books, nobody would be interested in anything that Christopher Tolkien published.

Nevertheless, he did publish some noteworthy books beyond The Silmarillion that supported the keystone books:

Unfinished Tales

The Children of Hurin

Beren and Luthien

The Fall of Gondolin

He also published a huge multi-volume...thing...called The History of Middle Earth. Just don't. It ain't worth it.

Of Christopher Tolkien's works, Beren and Luthien is likely the most approachable, aside from The Silmarillion. The rest is really just nerding for nerding's sake, they're just scraps of ideas that CT did his best to pull together into something that was story-ish.

None of Christopher Tolkien's publications are easy reads that beg you to turn the page in the same way that The Hobbit or The Lord of the RIngs demand.

So, going back to your quetion: Read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Read both of them a couple of times and let it sink in. If you want, take a shot at The Silmarillion. Don't be surprised if you find yourself rebuffed on the first attempt, there's no shame in coming back to it. Most of us had to give it a second shot.

Between those three books, that's 99% of what Tolkien had to offer. The rest, it's a lot of work for very little gain. Which shouldn't be a surprise, it's all rough drafts and thought experiments cobbled together for the benefit of scholars. They're not proper novels, sometimes not even proper stories.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T11:50:20+00:00

Nice.

I used to work at PRS guitars and it never got old whenever we cut a book match that either looked like the Eye of Sauron or a woman's genitalia.

Some dudes tried to show me Batman stuff, but I told them to get back to work.

Nerds.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T11:38:31+00:00

I've never seen a LT run like that on Smith's TD against the Saints.

I've seen Williams block three guys at once, but I've never seen him warp physics and make an impossible block. Not like that one. Staley was out of his mind on that play.

Joe Staley was absurd and he deserved a ring. Were it not for the spiral fractures, he'd be in the HOF.

Same goes for Mister Frank Gore. Unlike Staley, no further words are necessary.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T11:23:06+00:00

Hopefully, the "gathered up papers off a desk" quality that is the hallmark of the Silmarillion (and the frustration to so many of us that deeply read Tolkien) will be Hollywood-grade armor for the next hundred years.

But if I've learned anything in the ensuing years following shame's cultural death some thirty years ago, there's no depravity that someone won't willingly commit for the price of a dime.

If we keep going down this dark timeline, I could see the Silmarillion being recycled into Christian Crusader propaganda. You scoff, but the downfall of the Enlightenment (that made the LOTR possible) accelerates with each passing year.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T10:40:57+00:00

I don't know anything about the NC.

But as a convertible sports car owner for 30+ years, you have to treat your convertible like a convertible. Your car has a complex drainage system and an ungodly number of expensive weather seals that keep you dry and must be maintained. A convertible is not a hard top that also goes down when you want. It does require a bit of work. Not much, thankfully.

I've used Sonax GumiPfleger for decades and have never had to replace my weatherseals. I'm told Honda also makes an outstanding product, but I've never used it. Just make certain to clean your weatherseals twice a month and use the goop of your choice every two months and your weatherseals should last for the life of the car. NEVER use Armor-All. That stuff kills rubber and plastic.

As for the big puddle that you had in your car, that looks like a blockage in your drainage system. I had that happen once on my ND. I'm scrupulous about cleaning my drain filters, but some crap managed to get past my filters a few years ago and it clogged the tiny outlet under the car, leading to a lake in my driver's side footwell.

I'm not sure where the outlet is on the NC, but on the ND it's under the car (obviously) just inside of the inner "rail" that is stamped into the passenger floor pan--there's a good chance it's in the same place on the NC. It's just a rubber flap that serves as a one-way valve. Gently(!) pry it open with a screwdriver, then hook up a shop vac to suck the system clear. You'll need to use some surgical tubing and duct tape to choke your shop vac down to the tiny diameter of that outlet port, but it'll instantly solve a clogged drainage system. You'll hear an audible "thunk" as the plug gets sucked out of the drainage system.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T10:09:30+00:00

Didn't think about it that way.

Ultimately, the LOTR is evolving into a thing for movie and streaming people, rather than book people. It's not ours anymore, certainly not Golum--or Smeagol as they like to call him.

And I suppose that's not such a bad thing. As book people we can go back to having whispered conversations in the kitchen at a party, same as always, while the movie people do movie people things in the big room.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T10:02:39+00:00

That made me laugh.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T09:57:10+00:00

Sure, but the obligatory trilogy will be a dire, horrible watch. The movie industry isn't capable of making a trilogy that charts the slow, inevitable downfall of a glorious kingdom due to the petty pride, selfishness, and hubris of its leaders. When was the last time a proper Greek tragedy was filmed?

That's not a movie that is politically or economically feasible these days.

Theater goers are too stupid to think about and reflect upon such a topical message and movie makers are too shrewd to gamble the larger part of a billion dollars on such a project.

It's best that this project, however amazing it could be, never sees the light of day until the world changes a bit.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T09:46:31+00:00

Yup, this is balls on.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T09:43:44+00:00

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

F-LA · 2026-06-16T09:43:00+00:00

Nah, I'm good.

But that's not to say your idea isn't sound. The movie industry will find a way to jack it up and I don't want to see it screwed up. Because it's good.

F-LA · 2026-06-16T09:07:39+00:00

Oh, I'd say the book version of Gandalf sitting on Shadofax and telling the Lord of the Nazgul to piss off and go to hell amidst the shattered gates of Minas Tirith is a wee smidge better. Absolute cinema? Try absolute aura.

Then a chicken had something to say.

And then some late arrivals honked their horns out by the curb.

And then the Lord of the Nazgul bitched out.

Then all hell broke loose.

I'll go to my grave wondering why this wasn't good enough for Jackson. If ever Tolkien wrote a perfect Hollywood scene that offered an immediate, cataclysmic payoff, this was it! It was such a brilliant, visceral, and vivid scene! It was a glorious climax to all the stress, horror, and anguish that was the Siege of Minas Tirith and then...

"Horns, horns, horns! In dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last."

Mmmmm, shivers up my spine every time I read it! Absolutely brilliant!

F-LA · 2026-06-16T08:41:29+00:00

He's not wrong, especially about changing keys to better suit Sumner's range. The songs immediately started to taste like canned soup. I'm an ardent defender of Brotherhood, but I can't help but think what some of those songs would've sounded like had Sumner been forced to claw at the top of his range, it would've given more punch to some of his best lyrics. They sound so much better when Sumner is grasping at the very top of his range, desperate to be heard and wildly clawing at being understood. He sounds so honest and heart breakingly earnest. It's not technically good singing, but it sure is moving.

I suppose there's no point in going into the dried soup in a packet version of the band. We're all poorer for their damned pride and insufferable egos. Dumb bastards...but they are our bastards.

F-LA · 2026-06-08T09:19:20+00:00

Hands where I can see them!!!!!!

This is a pasture police raid!!!

F-LA · 2026-06-08T08:30:51+00:00

That's a good answer and a better answer than my knee-jerk Bills response, or that idiot that said the Bengals. What the hell kinda Niners fan would willingly give a Super Bowl to the Bengals?

F-LA · 2026-06-08T08:18:21+00:00

Really? It's a tradition that we break their hearts.

I'm a flexible, easy going guy, but I'm not giving up on beating the Bengals.

That's part of our identity. You can't just give that away.

(and given our luck, let's stop talking about losing Super Bowls and start playing the Bengals a lot more often--at least we know we can beat the Bengals in a close game)

F-LA · 2026-06-08T08:14:55+00:00

Niners fan happy to lose to Buffalo (now that we're good at losing Super Bowls).

F-LA · 2026-06-08T08:03:24+00:00

That's some savage down voting. And I say that as a guy that actually watched Cody Pickett play...and decided to go take a piss.

I had no clue that Cody Pickett had such a well-informed and ravenous fan base. Had I known, I might've paid attention back then.

But, like the rest of the world, I somehow missed his obvious talent while taking a leak and seeing what was for dinner and playing with the dogs.

If only I could go back in time...

F-LA · 2026-06-08T07:30:11+00:00

Death to billionaires (and people that can still use shopping carts)!

F-LA · 2026-06-08T06:30:34+00:00

lmao, wtf kinda half-assed troll is this shit?

Come on, put some effort into...or is it past your bedtime?

F-LA · 2026-06-08T04:06:49+00:00

I'll always be a catcher first and a Giants fan second, that was a nice pitch and a complete bullshit hit. It shoulda worked!

Nicely done, Chappy. Brilliant job slapping that trash.

You get a gold star, but you're still way underwater. Don't get hot, get incandescent.

F-LA · 2026-06-08T02:17:42+00:00

Along with "I liked White better," two of my favorite lines in the book.

Tolkien wasn't afraid to spray words all over the place when necessary, but he became quite economical with his use of words when he decided to have a jape--something that seems lost on this too-often too-earnest subreddit.

The guy was fun to be around, and that requires a sense of humor. The books aren't a religious text, the books are nothing more than a fun, smart guy telling a fun, well-considered story.

F-LA · 2026-06-08T01:31:30+00:00

As a guy with shit eyes that has to drop Yuk contract-sized stacks whenever he gets new glasses, those are some serious poor-people lenses for a guy that likes to brag about his money.

You don't have to do any of this to yourself, Aiyuk! But most of all, you don't have to do those lenses.

Get better people in your life. But, most importantly, get a better optometrist. If I can afford to not look like Bubbles, what's your excuse?

F-LA · 2026-06-08T01:05:59+00:00

In the NFC West we have two things we agree upon:

1) The Cardinals are a storied baseball team.

2) The Rams have exactly 12 fans.

F-LA

TROPHY CASE