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Rings of Power: Three Threads for the Elven Lords (book spoilers)


Werthead

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27 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Not 100% the same thing, but there are medieval treatises from when knights were wearing full plate armor where it's stated that a knight in full harness is supposed to run I'm not sure for how long (and sprint, not jog) and be able to leap on the back of a horse unaided. 

Well, they had to fight in it all day not infrequently.  Those people were strong.  Presumably Tolkien's elves even more so?

Heat seems to be more of a problem than cold for armor -- unless snowing / raining perhaps?

In that endless ordeal in the deserts for the crusaders in the 12th C. known as the Horns of Hattin, even their chain mail and helmets (full plate armor was not yet) were torture in the heat. 

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8 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

That is either a remarkably poor understanding of everything he has ever said or written or a very bad attempt at attacking an intellectual without using actual arguments.

No, it's simply a note of his breathtaking naivete and basic ignorance when it comes to international geopolitics, yet his hilarious insistence on trying to continue to comment on them.

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It's saying that if Rohan and Gondor are to base military enterprises (i.e. kill a lot of people) on moral principles or ideas, then they need to be held to a -much- higher standard than the forces they oppose, lest they end up doing more harm than good, or even doing at least as much harm as the forces they oppose.

History and basic logic show us well the dangers of not adhering to such a basic principle. But every time there is a conflict, there are some who think it is acceptable to reduce the "enemy" to orks, because "moral clarity" is apparently something to be proud of.

To put it simply: if you start calling an entire people "orks," then you're in the wrong, regardless of the situation. Any "moral clarity" not based on the defense of human life isn't actually moral, but a means to an end.

When your country is under an utterly unprovoked attack launched with the goal of genocide, murder of the civilian population and empire-building, there is absolutely every justification of the defenders to defeat the invaders by every means at their disposal, whether in a fictional context or in a factual one.

Or maybe Denethor should have sought appeasement of Sauron when the orc legions were overrunning the Pelennor Fields and slaughtering his people en masse? The responsibility of the invader is to withdraw, or die. There is no middle ground unless the invaded country chooses there to be one.

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13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

No, it's simply a note of his breathtaking naivete and basic ignorance when it comes to international geopolitics, yet his hilarious insistence on trying to continue to comment on them.

When your country is under an utterly unprovoked attack launched with the goal of genocide, murder of the civilian population and empire-building, there is absolutely every justification of the defenders to defeat the invaders by every means at their disposal, whether in a fictional context or in a factual one.

Or maybe Denethor should have sought appeasement of Sauron when the orc legions were overrunning the Pelennor Fields and slaughtering his people en masse? The responsibility of the invader is to withdraw, or die. There is no middle ground unless the invaded country chooses there to be one.

To get a bit Chomsky-esque for a moment, the Haradrim had some genuine grievances with Gondor, just as the Dunlendings did with Rohan.

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17 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

He was using the stick to write the constellation that he needs for the Stargate coordinates. :P

The cross over I didn't know I needed. Thank you.

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Just now, Werthead said:

When your country is under an utterly unprovoked attack launched with the goal of genocide, murder of the civilian population and empire-building, there is absolutely every justification of the defenders to defeat the invaders by every means at their disposal, whether in a fictional context or in a factual one.

The speed at which you jump to the bolded, combined with actually using the orc analogy (right after I warned about it), is telling enough. It's truly remarkable how blind you are to the paradoxes and dangers of your thought process, while simultaneously attacking the intellectual who dedicated almost his entire life to exposing precisely such paradoxes and dangers. You either have absolutely no clue or you are trying to bait me into a conversation I'd rather not have, especially not in the wrong thread.

Look dude, if you hate the Russians so much, why don't you take those feelings somewhere else, uh? Hit the gym, welcome refugees, or (if it's really too much for you to handle), take a plane there and join the fight. But attacking intellectuals or boarders in a LotR thread of all places will not get you what you want. You are my problem as much as I'm yours, and you are obviously in no state to have a fruitful exchange, so maybe it's best to leave some topics to the people who actually understand what they're talking about.

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3 hours ago, Rhom said:

Halbarad on the raft is another misdirection.  Could be a dude.  Could be Sauron.  

Do you mean Halbrand?  Because yeah I think the first two eps did more to suggest he was Sauron than meteor man.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

That is either a remarkably poor understanding of everything he has ever said or written or a very bad attempt at attacking an intellectual without using actual arguments.

It's remarkably poor understanding not to recognize Chomsky's blatant biases.  And there's absolutely no reason to call him an "intellectual" on anything relating to political analysis - indeed he himself dismisses and belittles those that are.

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3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The speed at which you jump to the bolded, combined with actually using the orc analogy (right after I warned about it), is telling enough. It's truly remarkable how blind you are to the paradoxes and dangers of your thought process, while simultaneously attacking the intellectual who dedicated almost his entire life to exposing precisely such paradoxes and dangers. You either have absolutely no clue or you are trying to bait me into a conversation I'd rather not have, especially not in the wrong thread.

Look dude, if you hate the Russians so much, why don't you take those feelings somewhere else, uh? Hit the gym, welcome refugees, or (if it's really too much for you to handle), take a plane there and join the fight. But attacking intellectuals or boarders in a LotR thread of all places will not get you what you want. You are my problem as much as I'm yours, and you are obviously in no state to have a fruitful exchange, so maybe it's best to leave some topics to the people who actually understand what they're talking about.

Aww. Sounds like you are upset. News of the massive Russian defeats and the rolling back of their fascist and genocidal plan for Ukraine getting to you? Sorry that the money you bet on a Russian victory and how many dead Ukrainian children that would been bought with will now be lost. 

I suggest now taking your justification for fascism, revolting moral cowardice and Putin apologia and fucking right off with it, along with your wholly unearned attempts at condescension. You know considerably less than I do about this subject and watching you attempt to word salad your way to some kind of a point is truly laughable.

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12 minutes ago, Ran said:

For Eru's sake, I just thought the McSweeneys piece was funny!

It was.  And just as undergrads over the decades use his book as a doorstop, once again poor Howard Zinn gets ignored.

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40 minutes ago, DMC said:

It was.  And just as undergrads over the decades use his book as a doorstop, once again poor Howard Zinn gets ignored.

To be fair, his viewpoint on contemporary geopolitics, The Rings of Power, or anything else that's happened since 2010 is considerably harder to get than Chomsky's.

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11 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Examples please. 

Chomsky was an infamous apologist for the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, going to quite extraordinary lengths to try to discredit eyewitness accounts from refugees of atrocities, and spent years arguing the death toll in Cambodia was exaggerated (if anything, it now appears to have been undercounted). He praised the Chinese and North Vietnamese Communist Parties even after it became public knowledge that both regimes had killed thousands during their rise to power, and more since. He was a Mao fanboy and only barely acknowledged the great Chinese famine that killed millions in the late 1950s when it came to light. He tried to justify the 9/11 attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda, and subsequent attacks on allied Western countries, and infamously claimed less people had died on 9/11 (2,977) than in the American missile attack on the Al-Shifa factory in Khartoum (1). He then tried to manufacture fake death figures by invoking Human Rights Watch to back up his claims, and they told him to fuck off.

Chomsky has also demanded that American military and civilian leaders face war crimes tribunals and potential execution for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan and bombing dams in North Korea, whilst also demanding the same for Israeli leaders engaged in military action against the Palestinians, but rejected the same for Pol Pot or Mao or anyone who, basically, isn't American or an American ally.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

It was.  And just as undergrads over the decades use his book as a doorstop, once again poor Howard Zinn gets ignored.

Quote

“You wanna read a real history book? Read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. That book'll knock you on your ass.”

 

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3 hours ago, Werthead said:

No, it's simply a note of his breathtaking naivete and basic ignorance when it comes to international geopolitics, yet his hilarious insistence on trying to continue to comment on them.

When your country is under an utterly unprovoked attack launched with the goal of genocide, murder of the civilian population and empire-building, there is absolutely every justification of the defenders to defeat the invaders by every means at their disposal, whether in a fictional context or in a factual one.

Or maybe Denethor should have sought appeasement of Sauron when the orc legions were overrunning the Pelennor Fields and slaughtering his people en masse? The responsibility of the invader is to withdraw, or die. There is no middle ground unless the invaded country chooses there to be one.

My attitude to war (in fact or fiction) is the same as Paul McCartney:

“What does it matter to ya/ when you gotta job to do, ya gotta do it well/ ya gotta give the other fella hell!”

Aragorn and Faramir don’t enjoy war, but they just accept it as a fact of life.  And, no one was in the mood to take prisoners at the Pelennor Fields.

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Honestly we should not even have the debate over who is or isn't Sauron (if the show is interested in actually adapting Tolkien). Annatar should show up in Eregion, seduce Celebrimbor (not like that) and clash with Galadriel. End of story, no hobbits, no Numenoreans (yet), no people on a raft in the middle of an occean. If people ignorant of the books get spoiled, so be it as to his true identity. The strength of your actors and writing should make up for a spoiled mystery.

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