New Dinosaur Named After the Eye of Sauron

SchrodingerZ writes "95 million years ago, the dinosaur Sauroniops pachytholus roamed northern Africa. Fossils, originally found in southern Morocco, only consisted of the upper skull, which included the eerie looking eye socket which resembles the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies. Using skull comparison, it is theorized the two-legged meat-eater would have been 40 feet tall, challenging the Tyrannosaurus Rex in height. More fossils are needed for a full analysis, but so far it is very clear this dinosaur towered over many."

Missed chance

[Fishead]

Should have called it "Sauronsaur".

Nasty...

[Kupfernigk]

I think we get that Tolkien had it in for technology, but he was hardly subtle about it. When I was interviewed for Durham, (UK university) I had a most interesting discussion with the college admissions tutor about C P Snow and the "two cultures" - the deep separation between science and the arts in the UK. He thought that people like Tolkien really did not understand civilisation at quite a deep level, and were afraid of technology because it had led to social mobility - the middle and upper classes didn't like the way that engineers and the companies they started made so much money, and they couldn't rely on "connections" to get their children into them - mathematical and practical ability was needed.

On this reading, Tolkien's creation of Sauron as an embodiment of evil is just the British class system at work.

All the "good guys" in Tolkien are one percenters; even the Baggins are very rich. So you could say that Tolkien was a kind of Republican shock-jock, he just didn't think of writing that Sauron was actually born in Kenya, and was a Muslim Communist.

I like the Terry Pratchett version [plot spoiler alert], in which the entire plot of LOTR turns out to have occurred in a backward, barbaric country, and missionaries are sent out to rescue the surviving Orcs.