There is a Lord of the Rings MMO (like World of Warcraft) and a guy made a video recording a walk from the Shire to Mordor. Like you can just walk from the Shire to Mordor in the game. And it's almost 10 hours long in real world time to do that! But on top of that the whole journey is narrated by the Lord of the Rings audio book, with the relevant parts of the journey.
I wonder what Tolkien would say of so much of the symbolism from his novels being used to bootstrap a horrible dystopian control grid? Would he approve or disapprove? The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder.
>>The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder.
If anything, it's their portrayal in the Rings of Power that is idiotic(trying to humanize them) - they aren't human, they don't have families or friends or internal lives and psychological doubts going through their heads - they are meant to be a force("force" like in "force of nature") of evil, not a misunderstood and exploited race of intelligent beings.
For an actually interesting take on "hey what if the orcs are actually intelligent people" there is The Last Ringbearer by a Russian author, presenting LOTR from the perspective of Mordor(it's not a good book, but was an amusing read)
I will however agree with you that it's truly insane how we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it?
> we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it?
The Palantir are not evil creations in the book iirc. They were used by the great kings to see whatever they wished.
Heck, even in the book Aragorn uses the Palantir to make a critical decision turning the tide of battle.
In the book the Palantir are technically neutral devices for Seeing things, that, it turns out, are inherently prone to misuse and once used for Evil, are incredibly difficult to use in any other way.
A better metaphor (accidental or not) for surveillance technology I've never seen.
My favorite recent LotR media:
There is a Lord of the Rings MMO (like World of Warcraft) and a guy made a video recording a walk from the Shire to Mordor. Like you can just walk from the Shire to Mordor in the game. And it's almost 10 hours long in real world time to do that! But on top of that the whole journey is narrated by the Lord of the Rings audio book, with the relevant parts of the journey.
https://youtu.be/LYipECdYpXc
Incredibly relaxing
This is the most magnificent audio version ever recorded of The Hobbit - by Nicol Williamson in the early 1970's.
Zip file with mp3 in it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2aPKgVVguOKMOOqWskaliOviYr...
Best enjoyed on a rainy afternoon in an armchair with a cup of tea.
Excellent, but my favourite has to be the Rob Inglis recordings (of both The Hobbit and LOTR). The songs are top notch, and his voice is perfect, esp. for the tone of the Hobbit. https://archive.org/details/TheHobbitAudiobook/The+Hobbit/Ch...
nice - gandalf meets merlin. do love Nicol Williamson
This is so good. You can tell that Andy Serkis based his gollum voice off of this.
Is there a version minus the music?
Tolkien discovering tape recording in 1952 and immediately reading The Hobbit into it for 30 minutes is the most author thing ever.
Of course he didn't live to see the Peter Jackson movies but I think I've heard his son didn't like them
The Hobbit movies had nothing to do with the books.
I wonder what Tolkien would say of so much of the symbolism from his novels being used to bootstrap a horrible dystopian control grid? Would he approve or disapprove? The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder.
> The way that orcs are dehumanized
Orcs aren't human, though. If anything, they were deelfized
I'll just leave this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_moral_dilemma
Fascinating thank you. I was only aware of the surface level concern around the orcs.
>>The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder.
If anything, it's their portrayal in the Rings of Power that is idiotic(trying to humanize them) - they aren't human, they don't have families or friends or internal lives and psychological doubts going through their heads - they are meant to be a force("force" like in "force of nature") of evil, not a misunderstood and exploited race of intelligent beings.
For an actually interesting take on "hey what if the orcs are actually intelligent people" there is The Last Ringbearer by a Russian author, presenting LOTR from the perspective of Mordor(it's not a good book, but was an amusing read)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
I will however agree with you that it's truly insane how we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it?
> we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it?
The Palantir are not evil creations in the book iirc. They were used by the great kings to see whatever they wished.
Heck, even in the book Aragorn uses the Palantir to make a critical decision turning the tide of battle.
In the book the Palantir are technically neutral devices for Seeing things, that, it turns out, are inherently prone to misuse and once used for Evil, are incredibly difficult to use in any other way.
A better metaphor (accidental or not) for surveillance technology I've never seen.
> A better metaphor (accidental or not) for surveillance technology I've never seen.
"We are easily corrupted"
[1] https://www.westword.com/opinion/opinion-palantir-technologi...
[2] https://www.pogo.org/investigates/stephen-miller-conflicts-o...
There must be some pretty industrial strength compartmentalising going on.
are we the baddies?
wink wink
Palantir, Anduril, Istari, and there's even a home security one called Sauron, you can't make this shit up.
Back in my day, LotR names were used for cool metal bands like Gorgoroth, Amon Amarth, Cirith Ungol, Carach Angren, Burzum, etc.
There is band called Silmarils as well