November 13, 2005

Elvish... hm....

Hatched by Dafydd

Another one of these cheesy personality tests, this one asking to which race of Middle Earth you belong.

My result:

 

All right; but I don't know whether I answered honestly, or whether I subconsciously answered in the (obvious) way that would result in a "score" of Elvish!

Sachi came out as Numenorean, just like Hugh Hewitt (from whom I stole the link to the test; a tip of a Numenorean helm):

 

You can take the test here. Let me know what you got!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 13, 2005, at the time of 9:51 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: cdquarles

Dafydd,

I saw this link at CQ if I remember correctly. Numenorean, of course :) and you can follow my link to see it.

The above hissed in response by: cdquarles [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 13, 2005 10:41 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

Cheesy? More like childish...

Rohirrim, it said of me - but, who knows... I didn't know a single one of the 'leaders' named (just picked one,) and since I know nothing of the foolishness from whence this drivel comes, can only guess at any significance that might come of it.

This is adult pursuit of... what?

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 6:00 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

RonC:

This is adult pursuit of... what?

Well, great works of literature, for one.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 7:40 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dave Schuler

Rohirrim.

The above hissed in response by: Dave Schuler [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 8:10 AM

The following hissed in response by: Steelhand

Another Numenorean.

BTW, since when is all time to be spent on adult pursuits? Trying to always be adult seems the most childish pursuit of all!

Kudos to the elfish Dafydd, may your (verbal) arrows fly straight; and heroic Rohirrim Dave, may your horse bear you safely through many battles.

The above hissed in response by: Steelhand [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 9:36 AM

The following hissed in response by: Hal

Looks like I'm the first Dwarf to show his face.

I might be short, but at least I get a cool beard and a big freakin' axe! (Now, whether or not that's reflective of my blogging style is up for debate . . . )

The above hissed in response by: Hal [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 1:40 PM

The following hissed in response by: matoko kusanagi

ha ha! I'm a Rohirrim! I knew that before i took the test--i read the books in grade school! We played we were Riders of Rohan on our ponies! And i was always Eowyn....
Rohirrim--fierce, courageous, loyal.
RonC, do you ride (horses)? i think they give that a lot of weight. ;)

And actually, more than one person has likened me to Eowyn as an adult....

Merry crawled on all fours like a dazed beast, and such a horror was on him that he was blind and sick...Then out of the blackness in his mind he thought he heard [Dernholm/Eowyn] speaking....
"Begone foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
(the Lord of the Nazghul:) "Hinder me! Thou fool--no living man may hinder me!"
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Eowyn laughed,
and the clear voice had the ring of steel.
"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman!"

fooled you too, didn't i, dafydd? ;-)

The above hissed in response by: matoko kusanagi [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 2:00 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terry Gain

Daffyd,
I think I am being generous, as is my habit, in suggesting that your post is two parts ethereal and lyrical and only one part perceptive.

K is one of the great thinkers of our time. He is up there with Steyn, Hansen, Barrone and Hinderaker. One should be very hesitant, and careful, before one disagrees with any of these gentlemen.

Krugman, on the other hand, is not merely a moron, but a vicious little moron. To suggest that there is anything K said comparable to the idiocies of kruglittleman is odious.

K is right. We need to reduce our demand for oil. As much as I respect him, Limbaugh is wrong on this issue. We cannot but delay the inevitable by harvesting more oil. The supply is finite. If we don't find a substitute we had better get ready for a radical change in our lifestyle.

Measures which encourage conservation will give us more breathing room while we search for alternatives to oil.

In the lead up to the liberation of Iraq I referred to this as the Aquarian Justification for the war- the reasoning of one who could see 50 years into the future. Fifty years from now the world's oil supplies will likely have been exhauausted. What kind of world will it be if, in the next 50 years the wealth of the oil producing counties is spent on weapons and palaces rather than infrastructure-physical and democratic?

The above hissed in response by: Terry Gain [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 3:44 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Terry Gain:

Hm... I suspect you meant to leave that last comment in an earlier post, A Sunshine Republican....

You might want to copy it and repost; after you've moved it, I'll delete the copy here. Otherwise, people will be rather puzzled what "K" has to do with J.R.R.Tolkien (if the Lord of the Rings were written by Kafka, "K" would make more sense).

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 4:36 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dana Pico

Numenorean for me.

Ron: I've read Lord of the Rings probably a dozen times, and each time is better than the last. It is probably the greatest work of English Literature of the twentieth century.

It can be difficult to get into, without a decent start. The Hobbit is a better place to start, even though that is far more escapist readiong than LOTR; it will give you a real head start on the trilogy.

The movies were OK, of course, but not really as true to the trilogy as I'd have liked. Part of that is cause by trying to make an action-adventure film out of what is really storytelling.

The above hissed in response by: Dana Pico [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 5:16 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terry Gain

Actually Daffyd, my post- call it the war on error, like the war on terror, belonged in two places. The wise will find it (convincing) nonetheless.

The above hissed in response by: Terry Gain [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 6:03 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Terry Gain:

All right, if you must. Don't make a habit of it though, please.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 6:41 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, created a now-famous work of fantasy for children, and was a friend of Clive Staples Lewis, who also wrote classic fantasy stories for children.

Adults today find these fantasies interesting, but though I've tried, I cannot get excited over the stories of either writer – they were, after all, designed for children. In addition, all previews of the various Lord of the Rings movies have flatly turned me off.

That these are 'great works of literature' I have no quarrel with – they are just not the kind of literature that I find edifying.

But, thanks Dafydd – and Dana – and matoko, for your responses. Funny – yes I have ridden many a horse in my 65 years – mostly during my youth, in the summer on western ranches during branding-time when they needed hands that were reliably handy with a rope.

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2005 10:17 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

RonC:

The Lord of the Rings was never written for children.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 1:31 AM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

OK - just for fun, I went looking for the 'Rohirrim' today.

Rohirrim - "tall and long-limbed; their hair, flaxen-pale, flowed under their light helms, and streamed in long braids behind them; their faces were stern and keen."

Seems these were what Tolkien wished the Anglo-Saxons might have been - "Tolkien always believed that if these early Britons had horses, a strong cavalry like the Rohirrim, that they could have repulsed William the Conqueror."

My crash-course on Tolkien's fantasy came from Tolkien Geek

8^)

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 6:14 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

"The Lord of the Rings was never written for children."

Seems funny... the Hobbit was? It is a "triolgy" with the same characters in each - but, heaven forbid that children would want to know the 'rest of the story?'

Methinks the argument weak - as someone (who made the films) said it wasn't written for children, because they desperately wanted adults to believe they were the chosen audience. Perhaps the filming was for adults, the books for children? Perhaps too, adults today are more adolescent than they once were; with making a life less demanding, they can be distracted and spend more time in a world of fantasy.

There are many who say that Tolkien, including himself, wrote his books for children, but one source implies they are for older children. The following quotes apply...

"Fantasy

Many children's writers have been influenced by J R R Tolkien, whose The Hobbit (1937) and its sequel, the three-volume Lord of the Rings (1954–55), are set in the comprehensively imagined world of Middle-earth. His friend C S Lewis produced the allegorical chronicles of Narnia, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)."

and

"Another title that young children have been drawn to inevitably in recent years is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I tell children, This book will mean so much more to you after you have experienced loss; please save it for junior high.”. There is only one first time to read Catch-22 and appreciate the dark satire; don’t ruin that special moment by jumping the gun."

interestingly - the publishers were looking for more children's stories, but I find this on one website:

"Tolkien applied himself only unwillingly to this task, but soon he was inspired, and what meant to be another book for children grew into The Lord of the Rings, truly [more?] a sequel to the Silmarillion than to the Hobbit. This huge story took twelve years to complete, and it was not published until Tolkien was approaching retirement. When it did reach print, its extraordinary popularity took him by surprise.

After retirement, Tolkien and his wife lived first in the Headington area of Oxford, then moved to Bournemouth, but after his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien returned to Oxford and died after a very brief illness on 2nd September 1973, leaving his great mythological van legendary cycle The Silmarillion to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher."

So the real 'trilogy' was really completed (partially I assume) by his son. In continuing this 'crash course' I've learned one thing - Tolkien didn't make but 10,000 (pounds, I would assume) on his works. What a pity - since the movies probably made millions.

This then upholds the idea that the sequel to the Hobbit got out of hand – and became something that it was not supposed to be - originally intended for children – and became an adult tale of fantasy.

It’s kind of like our Constitution - that has become a fantasy today...

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 7:36 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

good grief, I corrected all the typos - then pasted back in all of them... sorry 'bout that.

But, you'll figure out what I meant the words to be...

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 7:38 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

One last comment, Dafydd...

My 'crash course' has enlightened – I never thought of fantasy as anything but escapism – a kind of science fiction set in olden times versus the future. Then I ran across this...

“History became legend – and legend became history”

...and suddenly the comment, “Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Saruman may not be as fantastical as you once thought.” – at least put a question mark where none has existed in my evaluation of Tolkien and LoTR.

I read history prodigiously – and now... good grief, can a 65-year-old stodgy old conservative actually be thinking... well, I’ll let you know if I bite...

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 9:17 PM

The following hissed in response by: RonC

Pardon the link malfunction... it should have been:

“History became legend – and legend became history”

.

The above hissed in response by: RonC [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2005 9:20 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

RonC:

"The Lord of the Rings was never written for children."

Seems funny... the Hobbit was? It is a "triolgy" with the same characters in each - but, heaven forbid that children would want to know the 'rest of the story?'

Let's start with the point that the Lord of the Rings "trilogy" (it was only cut into thirds for ease of publication) was published seventeen years after the Hobbit. The Hobbit is a completely self-contained story; he had no idea he would write LoTR long afterward.

He actually began developing the universe in which both are set (along with many other stories) many years before he wrote any fiction, likely while he was still fighting in the trenches in World War I. It grew out of his interest in ancient languages... Anglo-Saxon, various Celtic languages, ancient Norse, classical languages, and others (his "Elvish" grammar was based upon Finnish).

The Hobbit was written as a children's story; LoTR, although it shared a couple of characters, was written for adults. As some note, the publishers wanted it to be a simple sequel; it clearly was not and was not intended to be by the author.

Ron, instead of reading about the book, why not just read the flipping thing itself? You will quickly see the pacing, characters, action, emotion, loss, and growth are not in the least geared towards children. It is an adult book for adult minds.

This is not to say there is anything of a sexual nature in it; there isn't. But the very concept of the quest to destroy what could be the greatest boon to the world simply because it is too powerful (and irredeemably tainted with evil) would simply be incomprehensible to a child's mind. Your 65 year old mind will neither be bored nor restive.

(Some chronological children have adult minds and can understand the book, but it's rare that anyone younger than adolescence can do so.)

Believe me, I know about these sorts of things. It's my job!

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 16, 2005 12:31 AM

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