We could have had it aaallllll- pet peeve fandoms

They talk about the decision in the "making of" stuff and yeah that was. Pretty much the thought process. They back-justified it as "well, the Shelob's Lair stuff chronologically happens later," but it was "we didn't have enough time with both the battle and the extra bits we tacked on with Arwen and Random Extra Elves and Faramir teleporting to Osgiliath with Frodo."

 

Oh yeah, that was cool! I love the Dwarves, I would have happily watched a movie about the Dwarves…but the movies didn't really spend much time developing the Dwarves except for Thorin (and arguably I guess Fili and Kili but the whole romance subplot and everything that went with it was a massive clusterfuck, so I don't feel too charitable there).
The Neil Finn song from the first movie is perfection, though:


eta:

THIIIIIIIIIIS.

 

I think they did a fairly good job with Balin, too, but yeah, the rest of the dwarves kinda got shafted. It's not like they were lacking for character development time, either!

 

Also that makes me think: do people from Middle Earth watch Fellowship and react the same way we do to those kids cartoons that have exactly 1 black kid, 1 latino kid, 1 asian kid, 1 disabled kid, 1 girl, and then 2 to 4 white guys?

 

I do suspect that in the case of LotR, part of it is that Tolkien's speeches tend to be long and in very formal language and laden with historical references, and "snappy" works better on film. I do have a problem with them taking word-for-word text and then putting it in a completely different context, though. (e.g. that ever-so-dramatic song Pippin sings in RotK? If you've read the book you know it's actually a jaunty walking song and the next verse is about coming home and making a sandwich and taking a nap.) (I'm legitimately mad about them giving the Houses of Healing speech about Eowyn to Wormtongue being rapey, though.)

 

And most of the dwarves in the book of The Hobbit are just fill-up-the-numbers blank slates, so half of them could have quietly been changed to women with absolutely no impact on the plot.

 

Likewise, there's like maybe half a dozen characters in the whole legendarium with a canonical skin color, and fewer if you're willing to strategically interpret some "fair"s. Hell, I don't believe there's any canonical support for pointy ears, so dark-skinned Elrond literally has more canonical support than pointy-eared Elrond (by way of one or more of the houses of the Edain that he's descended from being described as "swarthy")

 

IIRC the word for "ear" shares a root with "leaf", which could be interpreted as meaning leaf-shaped ears. But yeah, I take your point.

 

I thiiink pointy ears was in one of Tolkien's letters, but yeah, it's never mentioned in the book.

Meanwhile, several Hobbit groups are explicitly mentioned to be brown-skinned, and yet Bilbo's party at the start of the first movie is lily-white all 'round. :::///

 

This is my single biggest issues with the Hobbit films. The book isn't just about Bilbo plot wise. It's about him thematically and character wise. He is The Hobbit. He is the backbone of the book. He is everything the book is. It isn't just "Oh this historical shit for the setting happened". Thematically the book is about Bilbo's growth as a person and how even the most unassuming and loserly person can be someone truly brave and adventurous and innovative and just heroic.

It's not the dwarves' book, Jackson. Stop giving Bilbo's feats to other people and focusing on plot shit outside of him to the detriment of the thematic and narrative focus on him and his character.

 

"I am afraid, if you will need drawings of hobbits in various attitudes, I must leave it in the hands of someone who can draw. ... I picture a fairly human figure ... fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown)."
JRRT - Letters #27, writing to Houghton Mifflin circa March-April 1938

"LAS(1) - *lasse leaf: Q lasse, N lhass; Q lasselanta leaf-fall, autumn, N lhasbelin (*lasskwelene), cf. Q Narqelion [kwel].Lhasgalen Greenleaf, Gnome name of Laurelin. (Some think this is related to the next and *lasse 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].)

LAS(2) - listen. N lhaw ears (of one person), old dual *lasu - whence singular lhewig. Q. lar, lasta- listen; lasta listening, hearing - Lastalaika 'sharp-ears', a name, cf. N Lhathleg. N lhathron hearer, listener, eavesdropper (< *la(n)sro-ndo); lhathro or lhathrado listen in, eavesdrop."
The Lost Road and Other Writings, Etymologies
CT 1987 working from JRRT manuscripts written circa 1936-1940


edit: some relevant quotes from the Professor's writings about Elves and pointed ears.

 

(I am incredibly charmed by Tolkien, he of the elaborate maps and landscape sketches, saying "I must leave it in the hands of someone who can draw." :D)

Yep. I think part of the problem was that Jackson et al didn't say "we're adapting The Hobbit", they said "we're adapting the LOTR prequel". Which…technically, sure, but that's a terrible way to look at it. The Hobbit is not an epic, it should not be viewed solely as the setup for an epic, it is the story of a dang hobbit who goes on an adventure.

 

I stand corrected!

 

Okay but, elves with ears the size and shape of a maple leaf.

 

A Bigleaf Maple leaf.

 

Petition to please make Whedon get some fucking therapy or something to deal with the way he keeps burning everything to the ground. Because from where I'm sitting, the man's main issue is that he cannot stand happy endings, or even just happy middles. He hates happiness in general. (This is pretty clear from most of his writing decisions, but he made it explicit in one of the director's cuts for Buffy - the episode where her mom dies, and Buffy has what's practically a dream sequence where she saves her mom only for the show to go "lol no, she ded".) Because yes, it's nice - cathartic, at least - to see characters suffer and struggle, but...Buffy? She's got a Calling where it's been made clear that just taking a night off can result in people getting hurt or killed. So if she's going to keep fighting, she...kinda needs a really strong reason to get up in the mornings, honestly?

And just. Angry screeching about Willow, in general. There's no reason given for her thinking Buffy got sent to hell, after dying! It makes no sense for magic to suddenly be Actually Addictive, and Willow's not a junkie looking for a high - she's a control freak and she always has been, the reason she's reluctant to let go of magic isn't The Drugs, it's that it gives her an easy button for all of the problems she faces with life! She historically turns to magic in times of stress, once she gets good at it that it'll reliably work - see: Willow going, in high school, "hey, the obvious solution to me having what turn out to be very reciprocated feelings for Xander when I'm already in a pretty happy relationship with Oz, and when those feelings already resulted in both of us cheating on our respective partners, is to do a spell and make it so that I don't have those feelings any more".

...and while we're on the topic of Oz, can we just address that, y'know, maybe it isn't actually in character for the most sensible character in the cast who isn't an adult to go "well, shit, I cheated on my girlfriend and then nearly ate her, time to go do some extensive soul-searching in Tibet without actually properly breaking up with her or even giving her warning that I'm leaving the country"? Like. What the hell, writers. The Oz we'd known up to that point would have, at bare minimum, left a note. Or written a letter. Or told her in person, or left a message on her answering machine. There were myriad ways for her to find out that weren't "yeah, no, he dropped out. And bought out the rest of the band's shares for the van, and then left."
And can we address that, having left the way he did, he does not get to go "oh, actually, I have An Emotion about Willow being in a relationship with someone who isn't me, and that emotion is 'jealousy'". (Well, okay, I mean, he can. But also no, because it'd been a goddamn year since he left, and as far as Willow knew, he could be dead.)

More angry screeching about Angel, and about how Spike was handled near the end. Because oh my god, Spike had more reason to help Buffy, and he did not even have a fucking soul, Angel had to get guilted into it and the episode where we're shown why he started stalking Buffy and helping her implies that he basically only did it because of a massive amount of Catholic guilt and a heaping helping of "but she's cute". And oh my god, the stupid curse. Like. Can we talk about the fucking curse? And how a) 'Angellus' and 'Angel' are not actually different people? Angel just wants to pretend that he's a completely different person from Angellus, because if he and Angellus are the same person, then oh gosh, look at all those corpses piled up; Angel has no idea how to start actually atoning for fuck-all. And b) the correct response to "oh hey, I've got a curse on me that means that if I ever have a single moment of True Happiness, my soul will get yanked out and I'll go from a mopey git who broods in the shadows to being a pretentious psycho who thinks he's An Artist" is to go "hey, dearest beloved who I haven't actually known all that long and who is barely a fifth of my age, I'd love to do The Sex, but turns out, I should probably refrain from doing anything actually enjoyable ever until I get this curse dealt with". (And why the hell is it that his Moment Of True Happiness is not just The Full Sex, but specifically The Full Sex with Buffy Summers? He hasn't been happy for a single moment for the whole hundred years or so that he's been cursed? Or was it just that he wasn't happy enough, in the right mystical way? Because I've read some of the books, as a teenager, and several people try to trigger the curse's requirements and nope, turns out that the only one who meets the qualification for "touch it and your soul slips its moorings" is Buffy Summers.)
(And oh my god, Giles, why the hell were you letting Angel lurk around and stalk your Slayer to begin with?)

And moving on to screech about Spike, but - he had plenty of good reasons to help Buffy, none of which had anything to do with guilt or wanting to become a better person or atone or any of the baggage Angel has (and he'd have a better idea of how to start making up for his past sins, too, I feel like). And then he realizes that he's become fond of Buffy and oh hey, he's in love with her. And he mostly doesn't do anything about it, because he understands what a fucking boundary is! He doesn't even try to make a move till she makes it clear that she's interested (and if she's using him to hurt herself with - well, he's used to being someone else's tool for self-harm, Dru did it too). And then the writers go "hey, we're Deeply Feminist, so how about we have Spike try to sexually assault Buffy?"

(Riley can go sit in the dump, like the garbage child he is. Xander is...Flawed, mostly in the "he was decent at the time he was written, but it hasn't held up well" kind of ways.)

Point of argument: I'm pretty sure Lavan is asexual, or possibly just too traumatized to have any interest or awareness of relationships outside of friendship, workplace and battlefield bonds, and familial. There's a few lines at the end of his book where it gets pointed out that the girl who was nursing a crush on him had to give it up once he was dead and all she had was notes that mostly went along the lines of "that headache potion helped, but can you make it taste less awful?"; there wasn't anything in his notes or letters to her that gave her anything she could build up into "well, he would've noticed me eventually, even if he was lifebonded with his Companion".
But yes, it is hugely awkward that his soulmate is a fucking horse.

(I'd forgotten that Vanyel was 14 at the series start. I keep being sure that he's, like, sixteen or so when his dad sends him off to court. Because that'd make a lot more sense than "he's just entering puberty", honestly, with how his dad keeps anxiously fretting about Van being disinterested in women.)

Also! Can we also address "appropriate punishment for a sexual offender is to mind-whammy him into reliving the trauma he's put his victims through from their perspective, with this to last until he feels Genuine Remorse for his actions, at which point he'll theoretically be sane enough to execute"? Done to a different person, by the Good Guy who is supposed to be the moral compass for the reigning monarch. And everyone else goes "well, as long as you don't do it on the reg, y'know?"

I remember being confused about why the elves were doing NASCAR, but shrugging about it since it...at least read well? But yes, Lackey's got really awesome setting ideas...and then fucks it up.

Pern in general doesn't make sense! I just had a fridge moment over "why the hell was it not possible for the settlers to phone home for help or relocation" - like, in Dragonsdawn, it's written as being a huge dramatic thing that they can't get an s.o.s. signal out and expect to have it be answered for some ridiculous amount of time, "by which time, we may all be dead anyways". But it doesn't make sense! I mean, sure, it's handwaved as 'well, they wanted to be Space Amish', but - it still? doesn't make sense? like - why are you sending a colony so far out beyond the reaches of known civilization that there's no reasonable expectation for a call for help getting through and being answered within a time-frame where it's plausible that the people calling for help are still alive? Why is there no one coming by to check on the colony at any point? This reads less as "oh, they're going off to be Space Amish" and more "okay, all of you are Deeply Awkward to have around, so go over here please, where there'll be a plausible explanation for your tragic demise", now that I think about it; it's all traumatized war heroes (fresh from the war that just ended) and people who don't quite fit in with modern society, mainly.

(And why are they all so fixated on metal? I get that research wasn't as easy back then, but - they have perfectly good ceramic-making materials! Most of their daily-use tools that need a sharp edge should be made out of ceramic! And! And what about knitting, is someone gonna have to re-invent the circular needle on Pern? What about interchangeable needles?)
(I would love to listen to your ranting about why Pern's economy makes no sense, though! Because I agree that it probably doesn't, but I'm not sure why it doesn't.)

I remember my feelings on it being more "oh okay, this is happening then, I guess". So, same.

 

Y'alls LOTR rantings made me want to locate an untranslated copy and read it
I tried reading the absolutely atrocious Hohlbein translation when I was like 10 and didn't even know ADHD was a thing, so you can guess how that went.

 

I will say that I don't remotely begrudge people who have trouble getting through LotR- it's dense and meandering and full of random multi-page songs that don't impact the plot and extended descriptions of the scenery, and that's not everyone's cup of tea. A lot of people get bogged down in the hundreds and hundreds of pages of Hobbits slooowly walking across a relatively short distance at the beginning of Fellowship, which almost every adaptation shortens to about five minutes of stuff before they hit Bree and the pacing speeds up a lot.

 

I should probably reread at some point. The last and only time I read them was when I was around twelve years old and the first movie had just come out.

Yeah, that was a stupid move :( I like the fairy dinner!

 

Yeah, that's fair. I put it that way because the "uhh so you want to fuck a horse??" is lampshaded frequently in-story, and literally every lifemate pair I can recall does make it romantic/sexual. So it read to me more as "Lackey doesn't want to write this but it totally happened", rather than "did not happen at all".

To make matters worse: He's not only not a virgin at fourteen, he's slept with multiple girls before going to Haven, including a prostitute his father hired to bang the gay away.

Sad part is, the mind-whammy punishment happens often enough that I'm actually not sure which instance you're referring to. XP Lackey really likes revenge-as-due-punishment.

The thing about the NASCAR that bugs me is that it just... felt jarring to me, like Lackey figures her spergs are so inherently interesting to everyone that she doesn't need to put in the work to convince us they're neat. The books read well, but I always had a nagging "... why is this happening??". It's not "elves doing NASCAR", it's "elves, who happen to do NASCAR because everyone loves NASCAR". Compare, like... Emma Bull's War for the Oaks, or Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher's Jackalope Wives, or Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road, which are very clearly about a special interest, but which explain why they're magic, why they're important, why we should care. You could take NASCAR out of Born to Run, and it would still make sense, but you couldn't have Jackalope Wives without Arizonan vegetation and folklore.

I dunno, that one is definitely a subjective stylistic thing; just a personal pet peeve.

The versions of "can't communicate back" that I've seen which seem vaguely sensible are "all inhabitable planets are lightyears away and we don't have FTL travel or communication, all ships are generation ships". But that's not what's happening here, yeah. -_- Like, people... do go live out in the boonies beyond the reach of help. But either they're idiots, or they plan for "oops this place is way less habitable than expected" a lot better. "Oops, this planet turned out to be semi-uninhabitable" should have been something they planned for, or the failure to plan for it should have been a huge d'oh moment on their part.

Honestly, they probably would have reinvented nalebinding ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nålebinding ) first if they're working from scratch, but that's ancient tech. Like, at least two thousand years old, probably older. And that's assuming that none of these Space Amish, who deliberately went to another planet to work with their hands, who brought fiber-plants with them, already knew how to knit. (tl;dr they totally brought knitting with them. -_-)

I have so many economy thoughts. o_o