death to capslock

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).

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"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. :)

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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.

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

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No problem is beyond his ability to solve!

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XD

You win a free Internet for that. :3

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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)

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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).

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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....

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Oh, and how noble it is that Adam heroically eats the fruit to be with Eve. It's not enough that the woman is responsible for humanity's fall, it has to be the result of how the man loves her so much, because the already-existing guilt clearly wasn't enough.

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Plus there is Sin, who sounds like she ought to be out doing stuff right from the beginning, but no... she's the doorkeeper who can't control her kids. And is now ugly.

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Beauty equals goodness? :P

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Pretty much! And in fact in almost exactly the way it does in the GFFA - she was pretty once, but definitively turning to the dark side with the rebellion and all ruined her looks. She and Palpatine could start a support group.

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Okay, that last sentence was just *awesome*. XD

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Not to mention her origin is Milton's snide little jab at Athena and by extension all pagan wisdom.

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That's pretty sad. :/

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"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)

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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.

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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.

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Those got old, yeah. Focus on the angel!sex :D

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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.

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