(no subject)

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one a little bothered by Dumbledore? Not only with the fact he could end up in the Guinness Book Of World Records for "Most Incompetent Headmaster of All Time" (though I'm sure there's worse. :P), but also because...he just bugs me. I know JKR was trying to write him as the "flawed Yoda", so to speak (and to be fair, he's nowhere near Yoda. XD), but it's also how...preachy he gets. Towards Fudge, for example. You know, in Goblet of Fire, with, "You place too much importance on purity of blood, yadda yadda et cetera et cetera" -- which considering how he treated Tom Riddle and the Slytherins is...slightly hypocritical isn't it? Probably bad writing on JKR's part, though. :/

Anyways, sorry 'bout the rambling. Thoughts?

Comments

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, "ambition is evil" can kind of be traced back to Tolkien. Which probably makes it worse. :/ *Cough* Morgoth *Cough*

Still...yeah, you'd think JKR would have caught that...

[sunnyskywalker]

And Saruman wanting to learn too much about light and prisms and new uses for metals. Clearly this can only lead to control freakiness and treeless wastelands. (Where did the Dwarves put all the waste rock and dirt from their mining, anyway?)

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

True. :)

Honestly, I have no idea where they put the waste rock and dirt. A garbage disposal? :/ *Is shot*

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe the Lonely Mountain is lonely because it used to be a perfectly flat plain until they started dumping all their tailings from everywhere in Middle Earth there. And, er, any mining in it was thanks to improved techniques that helped them get more out of the tailings. Yeah.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

*This*, just this. :D

Dwarfs

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Dwarfs were supposed to have a supernatural affinity with metals and rocks weren't they? Gimli says something of the kind.

Re: Dwarfs

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the heads-up. :)

Re: Dwarfs

[sunnyskywalker]

Yes, but surely there would still be some waste? Especially from hollowing out all those giant halls in Moria?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Dwarves were created by Aule, Vala of the earth, so probably learned from him how to mine responsibly. They probably used parts of it for decorations, sculptures, or defensive works. And on the subject of Saruman (and Sauron, and Morgoth) - lots of people in Middle-Earth wanted to be great, including Aragorn and Galadriel. And for generic ambitions that didn't involve ruling people, pretty much everyone with a name in the First Age had some great ambition or other. Tolkien recognised that ambition causes evil when followed without care for the harm it does others, not of itself.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Ah. Gotcha. :)

Seriously, Tolkien could teach Rowling a great many things. :P

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

That indeed. I think it also says something that his main heroes (the hobbits) are average people.

[sunnyskywalker]

They probably have magic, non-toxic substances they can use to separate out the gold etc. instead of cyanide and such. That's one of the big RL causes of mining pollution. Still hard to see how all the waste rock could have been turned into statues or defensive works I don't remember seeing (though I might have just missed them, or maybe they were on another part of the mountain), given the size of those halls, but that's something I guess I'll let Tolkien slide on.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

With respect to Morgoth, Tolkien got it from Milton. (And while we're on the subject, Satan does all this exemplary work as captain of the Host only to have God's son, who no one's ever seen before and who has no experience of commanding angels, nepotistically promoted to the top job, and is then told that there's a new favourite species made in God's image and how they're the pinnacle of Creation - no wonder he resigned.) And while I'm very much a Tolkien fan, I too sympathise with Morgoth's initial desires (is it really so bad to want to create independently of your parent?) Of course, when we see the music he wanted to sing it tries to dominate and drown out everything else, but if Iluvatar had just said "here's the Secret Fire, go have fun", things could have been so different (and we'd have been spared Turin's endless whining).

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

"With respect to Morgoth, Tolkien got it from Milton. (And while we're on the subject, Satan does all this exemplary work as captain of the Host only to have God's son, who no one's ever seen before and who has no experience of commanding angels, nepotistically promoted to the top job, and is then told that there's a new favourite species made in God's image and how they're the pinnacle of Creation - no wonder he resigned.)"

"You know what -- I'm starting my own religion. F--k you guys!" XD

(No offense to anyone who's religious, BTW. :)

"And while I'm very much a Tolkien fan, I too sympathise with Morgoth's initial desires (is it really so bad to want to create independently of your parent?)"

Well, I think the really bad part was him throwing an age-long hissy fit afterward. But yeah...I get what you mean. :)

"Of course, when we see the music he wanted to sing it tries to dominate and drown out everything else, but if Iluvatar had just said "here's the Secret Fire, go have fun", things could have been so different (and we'd have been spared Turin's endless whining)."

Very true, my dear friend. Very true. :)

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the really bad part was him throwing an age-long hissy fit afterward. But yeah...I get what you mean. :)

You understate - there were three ages of stars before the Sun was created (and that's not counting however long they spent with the Lamps and the Trees, not to mention the time they took building the place) ::removes pedant hat::

Wasn't Lorien or Nienna supposed to have some sort of therapy-related power? They really failed there, I think.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

They should have hired Wang Fire. :P /ATLA joke.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

No problem is beyond his ability to solve!

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

So, LoTR is like Paradise Lost with more awesome? (I HATED PL, but read it because I was 18 and really wanted to be cultured)

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, and with less moral questionability on God's part (Eru at least explicitly states that Arda is the Valar's responsibility and demonstrates that Morgoth's evil, once modified, improves the situation).

And my gods, I agree with you so much about Paradise Lost. It's so dull! Pandaemonium gets raised and Satan has a chat with Chaos on his epic journey into Eden, and that's about all I can remember finding impressive! (That and how utterly crap Uriel is at guarding Eden).

Paradise lost...

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you forget the best definition of Woman's Place in all of literature:

He for God only, she for the god in him....

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

"So, LoTR is like Paradise Lost with more awesome? (I HATED PL, but read it because I was 18 and really wanted to be cultured)"

I couldn't really get through PARADISE LOST, just because it was so thickly written. Let's say at the end of the book I was kind of disappointed, really. :(

And yes, LOTR is like Paradise Lost with more awesome, as you said. :3 (It has *Gollum*, for Chrissake! :D)

[sunnyskywalker]

Paradise Lost is a lot better if you've had a lot of the context drilled into your head before you read it. There's this passage that sounds like it's just talking about the cannons that Satan and co. built, but if you break out the Oxford English Dictionary and find out that "grain" can be referring to a rosary bead as well as powder, suddenly it's a sneaky anti-Catholic diatribe! Plus Raphael blushing when Adam asks him about angel!sex is pretty funny, and given that angels were explicitly established as gender-bending there really ought to be more fanfic about that.

But trying to read it while looking up every third word isn't very fun at all.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow...

I mostly just remember going off on random mythological tangents that were so long I had forgotten who was being compared to whoever it was by the time he got back to the story.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

The thing with Morgoth's ambition... I think it's kind of like the difference between writing because you want to write a great story, and writing because you want to be a great author. Is it about creating something wonderful, or about you being wonderful?

Trying to create something wonderful when it's primarily about you wanting to be great isn't likely to work very well. Not that it's likely to be disastrous the way Morgoth turned out! But you aren't likely to succeed in creating something wonderful.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Well said! :D