Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' 179
HughPickens.com writes: Julie Beck writes in The Atlantic that though science and fantasy seem to be polar opposites, a Venn diagram of "scientists" and "Lord of the Rings fans" have a large overlap which could (lovingly!) be labeled "nerds." Several animal species have been named after characters from the books, including wasps, crocodiles, and even a dinosaur named after Sauron, "Given Tolkien's passion for nomenclature, his coinage, over decades, of enormous numbers of euphonious names—not to mention scientists' fondness for Tolkien—it is perhaps inevitable that Tolkien has been accorded formal taxonomic commemoration like no other author," writes Henry Gee. Other disciplines aren't left out of the fun—there's a geologically interesting region in Australia called the "Mordor Alkaline Igneous Complex," a pair of asteroids named "Tolkien" and "Bilbo," and a crater on Mercury also named "Tolkien."
"It has been documented that Middle-Earth caught the attention of students and practitioners of science from the early days of Tolkien fandom. For example, in the 1960s, the Tolkien Society members were said to mainly consist of 'students, teachers, scientists, or psychologists,'" writes Kristine Larsen, an astronomy professor at Central Connecticut State University, in her paper "SAURON, Mount Doom, and Elvish Moths: The Influence of Tolkien on Modern Science." "When you have scientists who are fans of pop culture, they're going to see the science in it," says Larson. "It's just such an intricate universe. It's so geeky. You can delve into it. There's the languages of it, the geography of it, and the lineages. It's very detail oriented, and scientists in general like things that have depth and detail." Larson has also written papers on using Tolkien as a teaching tool, and discusses with her astronomy students, for example, the likelihood that the heavenly body Borgil, which appears in the first book of the trilogy, can be identified as the star Aldebaran. "I use this as a hook to get students interested in science," says Larson. "I'm also interested in recovering all the science that Tolkien quietly wove into Middle Earth because there's science in there that the casual reader has not recognized."
"It has been documented that Middle-Earth caught the attention of students and practitioners of science from the early days of Tolkien fandom. For example, in the 1960s, the Tolkien Society members were said to mainly consist of 'students, teachers, scientists, or psychologists,'" writes Kristine Larsen, an astronomy professor at Central Connecticut State University, in her paper "SAURON, Mount Doom, and Elvish Moths: The Influence of Tolkien on Modern Science." "When you have scientists who are fans of pop culture, they're going to see the science in it," says Larson. "It's just such an intricate universe. It's so geeky. You can delve into it. There's the languages of it, the geography of it, and the lineages. It's very detail oriented, and scientists in general like things that have depth and detail." Larson has also written papers on using Tolkien as a teaching tool, and discusses with her astronomy students, for example, the likelihood that the heavenly body Borgil, which appears in the first book of the trilogy, can be identified as the star Aldebaran. "I use this as a hook to get students interested in science," says Larson. "I'm also interested in recovering all the science that Tolkien quietly wove into Middle Earth because there's science in there that the casual reader has not recognized."
"It's very detail oriented" (Score:2, Funny)
Except for those pesky Eagles, who fix all the problems, except for that one huge Ring problem wherein no one bothers to ask for their help.
Plot Hole (Score:2)
Except for those pesky Eagles, who fix all the problems, except for that one huge Ring problem wherein no one bothers to ask for their help.
I'm a huge fan of the books, but did see a meme earlier today pointing out that great big plot hole. :)
Short version: why didn't they just ask the Eagles to fly them to Mordor? Or over the mountains?
Re:Plot Hole (Score:4, Informative)
Because hobbits tend to fall off the back of eagles during aerial combats with fellbeasts. No, flying them in on eagles is a terrible idea.
Re:Plot Hole (Score:5, Informative)
Short version: why didn't they just ask the Eagles to fly them to Mordor? Or over the mountains?
Short (prevalent) answer: Eagles would be extremely easy to spot over the skies of Mordor, and thus would be stopped before they got to Mount Doom. They were willing/able to pick up Frodo at the end because Sauron had already been defeated.
More discussion here [tolkiengateway.net]
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Short version: why didn't they just ask the Eagles to fly them to Mordor? Or over the mountains?
Short (prevalent) answer: Eagles would be extremely easy to spot over the skies of Mordor, and thus would be stopped before they got to Mount Doom. They were willing/able to pick up Frodo at the end because Sauron had already been defeated.
More discussion here [tolkiengateway.net]
Oh, yes, there are lots of possible answers we can make up to rationalize it, but at the end of the day we know we're rationalizing it. Like rationalizing Han Solo's discussion of making the Kessel Run in a number of parsecs is because he skirted closer to a black hole so technically he was crossing less space. As an author if you mean something like that you have to "hang a lantern" on it and either demonstrate your knowledge of the plot hole or have somebody share the reason it's not a hole.
Besides, Naz
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The entire point of the books is missed if the eagles drop the ring in. Sorry, not a great ring of power, just a magic bauble of the sorts you find in D&D. It's not just a story of a great big adventure. The point is the struggle with the ring, the struggle between the factions, the struggle most of the people had with themselves, and so forth.
Or to use a word from Pratchett: narrativium.
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The entire point of the books is missed if the eagles drop the ring in. Sorry, not a great ring of power, just a magic bauble of the sorts you find in D&D. It's not just a story of a great big adventure. The point is the struggle with the ring, the struggle between the factions, the struggle most of the people had with themselves, and so forth.
Or to use a word from Pratchett: narrativium.
The Hamlet Defense! (I.e. why didn't Hamlet just kill his Uncle in Act I?)
Very true and an entirely legitimate narrative device; it's just much more impressive when the storyteller shows awareness of the hole (and preferably has a bit of fun with it). Like if you had that last host of the Captains of the West surrounded by all the armies of Morder at the Black Gate, and then the eagles show up, and Merry turns to Gandalf and is all "Er... Why didn't we--"
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The Fell Beasts didn't need to be ridden. The Servants of Sauron were completely capable of acting on their own. It's not a rationalization. You'd have to learn a bit more to know this, but as you've already closed your mind I rather doubt you're in the mood for learning. Plus, studying Tolkien-lore is much like being good at chess...it's a useless skill that only pleases its student. Your time would be better spent learning applied skills.
They were, but they didn't appear until later in the book and I don't believe there was an indication that they were known to exist by the Fellowship before they were encountered. Of course, IIRC there was some lore in the Silmarillian about the flying beasts from Angband, but I can't remember for sure offhand whether that included beasts on the small scale (as opposed to dragons).
In any event, your post-hoc explanation may make perfect sense, but without some hard evidence that the author made a decision
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"It seems that nobody noticed this alleged plot-hole during Tolkien's lifetime, as there is no surviving letter where Tolkien is inquired so." To quote from here: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki... [tolkiengateway.net]
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Honesty, the nerd tendency to reject the statement "but at the end of the day we know we're rationalizing it" is sad, pathetic, hilarious, and fascinating.
This is collective hand-wringing about the mechanics of the good guys and the bad guys, and how to make everything self consistent.
The collective wedgie which seems required by this scenario would be completely epic.
Please, do carry on. This shit is funny. All I can think of is Comic Book Guy saying "it clearly shows here that the fell beasts are autono
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The problem is that the supposed plot hole is pretty much just as nerdy. The story happened how it happened. Why didn't it happen differently? Because that's not how it was written.
If you're not satisfied with that answer -- and don't get me wrong; I think it's reasonable to want the plot fo hold up to light scrutiny -- then I don't need to be satisfied that your objection is a checkmate if I can think of a perfectly plausible rationale.
I don't know whether or not Tolkien thought the Eagles through befor
Rationalization (Score:2)
Honesty, the nerd tendency to reject the statement "but at the end of the day we know we're rationalizing it" is sad, pathetic, hilarious, and fascinating.
Actually, that would be a really interesting study--self-awareness of rationalization. I bet you could tie it in in a useful way with learned intentional decision-making and self-improvement. It's an interesting question what the overlap to the nerd and geek communities are, but those communities are not clearly defined so you've got a whole field to build up. I wonder what studies have been done already... mmm...
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>> Are you calling Luke Skywalker a nerd?
No, Mark Hamill is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
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The better answer, from the full lore, is: union rules. The Ents and the Eagles were created to watch over flora and fauna, respectively, mostly to protect them from man. The Wizards were created to watch over man. These duties were handed down directly from the god of Tolkien's world (who's name escapes me). It simply wouldn't be right for Gandalf to ask the Eagles to do his own damn job for him.
Rescuing Gandalf personally, that's a favor to a coworker "sure, I'll give you a ride to work - pick you up
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How can you miss the entire story - the whole plot line was to keep the whereabouts of the ring hidden, distract Sauron and company, and get the ring into Mt Doom. Flying eagles (which Sauron would be able to see) would just instantly attract his attention and locate the ring. Mission over.
OK, my geek card is burning.
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"The Nazgul weren't on fellbeasts either."
Why do you think this? The fell beasts are explicitly mentioned between the fellowship leaving Lothlorien and the breaking. The Nazguk lost their horses before the council. There's no telling how early the Nazgul actually had access to the fell beasts.
Note that the desire for stealth also applies to the Nazgul. They were not working openly until much later, so would reasonably have been avoiding flying.
"You're assuming they went to Mordor only because Sauron had los
but they intervene in The Hobbit (Score:2)
Re:Plot Hole (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a few more [tolkiengateway.net]. Who's the eldest being in Middle Earth, Tom Bombadil or Treebeard? Is mithril "supple as linen", and if so why did Bilbo hurt himself when slapping Frodo's mithril coat? So Galadriel knows Sauron's thoughts that concern the elves, but didn't know of Saruman's betrayal, or never saw relevant to mention it to Gandalf? Why does Gandalf warn people against using devices "of an art deeper than we possess ourselves" when talking about the palantir and yet have no problem with with the fellowship using all sorts of magical items of arts deeper than they possess (glowing elvish swords, daggers from the barrow, the Phial of Galadriel, Galadriel's box of earth, etc)? Is "Sauron" (lit. "abominable") a name that he despises and does not permit his underlings to speak, and if so, why does he have his messenger refer to him as "Lord Sauron the Great" and a servant refer to himself as "the mouth of Sauron"? Are Thranduil's favorite gems emeralds, or white-colored gems? Did Sauron prohibit the Nazgûl to traverse west of the Anduin, and if so why did one fly over the Fellowship at Hollin? Etc.
Tolkien was human. Humans make mistakes and oversights.
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Tolkien was human. Humans make mistakes and oversights.
Indeed. He could also have kept Aragorn as a hobbit named Trotter [tolkiengateway.net] instead of a human and now we would be debating a number of different inconsistencies.
Who's the eldest being in Middle Earth, Tom Bombadil or Treebeard?
It would seem pretty obvious that Treebeard cannot be older than Tom Bombadil (who claims to remember "the first raindrop and the first acorn"). I would hardly consider this a "most noticeable inconsistency"
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But Gandalf calls Treebeard "the oldest of all living things" and Celeborn calls him "Eldest".
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multiple source stories liek the Bible (Score:2)
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But also, there's no plot hole for which no moderately credible explanation can't be concocted after the fact.
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Hmmm .. it isn't not not true because we can't not retroactively make it not untrue by leveraging bad grammar and sophistry to decree that it was true when it may well have not have been at the time we said it wasn't?
You shouldn't not don't write sentences which aren't like that, unless you don't not want people to not understand you. ;-)
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You missed the point because you were too busy being smart.
Re:Plot Hole (Score:5, Informative)
Bombadil was "eldest and fatherless".
Treebeard was merely the eldest Ent. Note that the Ents were awakened to sentience by the Elves, so Galadriel (who was among the Firstborn of the Elves) was older than Treebeard as well.
Note that the age of any particular Elf is problematic in general - very few of the Firstborn were mentioned by name, which is not the same as "only a few of the Firstborn were still alive in Middle Earth (much less in Valinor)".
Because they weren't speaking English, and it's annoying to have names for characters vary within a literary work? Or possibly because the comment about "he permits his name to be neither spelt nor spoken" was an exaggeration by Gandalf (the wisest of the Maiar) when speaking of Sauron (the most powerful of the Maiar)?
Because he meant "an art deeper than *I* possess" when he said that (he was using the Royal "we"...). The work of Feanor was beyond even the Maiar, unlike sharp pointy things made by Elves and handed out by same to diverse characters....
Saruman was NOT an elf (it's not clear what he was - perhaps a Maiar like Gandalf). So "thoughts that concern the elves" didn't apply. Note that the thoughts in question weren't "thoughts of interest to elves", but "thought about the elves".
Oh, and the mithril shirt pretty much had to be hard enough to stop a blade, or there was no point to it. Most likely the "supple as linen" was marketing-speak for "amazingly light and flexible by the standards of a mailshirt". What, you didn't think they had marketing in Middle Earth? Marketing was one of those evils even older than Sauron that was mentioned in passing....
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Re. Treebeard, see above.
So are we to interpret all statements of extreme facts in Tolkien to be mere exaggerations?
Even if we go with your interpretation, if Gandalf possesses the art to make all of those things, why doesn't he?
Really? The defection of the member of the White Council isn't of concern to the elves?
Okay, so we now need to interpret Tolkien as not only exaggerations, but also full of marketing speech?
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Someone making authoritative comments on Slashdot, and yet not well-versed in the Tolkien lore? How could this be? :)
Galadriel was not a Firstborn at all, she was of the royal house of the Noldor, being a daughter of Finarfin.
Saruman was certainly a maia - how is that unclear? It says so in the Unfinished Tales.
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All things indicate that all of the wizards were Maiar, and hence Saruman was one as well. It would follow that Galadriel's power, which is merely over the elves would not work on the Maiar.
For the palantir, I read that as cautioning others from fooling around with objects whose power is beyond their own understanding. Since the palantir fell into the hands of the Rohirrim recently, Gandalf would have (and did) want to study it further before determining whether it was a boon or a bane.
The description of th
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At the crucial moment Frodo could not destroy the ring! The long trek was needed to bring about the fight in which Gollum reclaims the ring and then, in his exhaustion, falls with it into the crevasse.
Also Sauron was distracted by all the fighting and uncertainty caused by the rumors of the ring being carried around.
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One does not simply fly into Mordor.
Re:Plot Hole (Score:4, Insightful)
One does not simply fly into Mordor.
I've got a postal worker on a gyrocopter that proves you're wrong.
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Short answer: flying Nazgul.
Better to slink along under cover on the ground than to fly exposed and get instantly nailed.
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Because Sauron could've swatted them down like flies. The closer you get to Morder, Barad-dur, and Mt. Doom the more powerful he was. Like the inverse square law. Elrond says something like, "Even a powerful elf lord like Glorfindel could not burn a path to Mount Doom." Gladariel, Elrond, Gandalf, and Glorfindel together could not take on the journey. In the council at Rivendell they even say that they could not use force but had to rely on stealth.
So, eagles flying in would be a suicidal headlong assault.
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And the answer has been given out for years and years, yet there is always a generation who thinks they are the first to consider the idea.
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Today? That one's been around forever.
Indeed, I am sure that many, many posts of many self-admittedly brilliant minds with exactly the same observation are sitting in thirty-year-old alt.sex.binaries.lotr.eagles.plothole usenet archives, each one basking brightly in the author's originality, wit, and critical thinking skills.
Was sorry to see point hat go.
http://www.ealasaid.com/misc/v... [ealasaid.com]
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that's how a lot of geeks think
don't get an apple tv or roku or something simple, build a home PC, connect to TV and make up complicated instructions to do something simple like watch a movie or netflix
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And of course, Tolkien was a linguistics geek himself, and the world of Middle Earth with all it's history was in fact created as a "teaching tool", or at least a learning tool. All the migrations of the Elves to and from the West, and the interactions between the Elves who returned and the Dark Elves (who never saw the light of the Two Trees) - all of that business - was a sandbox to think about how languages evolved.
By making his own languages, and his own history, he could think about how specific word
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Geeks wouldn't quite be geeks if they felt like deferring all the difficult (i.e. interesting) things to some company while at the same time giving them money. Get a clue.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Eagles are representations of those who dwell beyond the Sea,
Actually, most of them were born in the Midwest or Texas.
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Try the veal.
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i thought they were in philadelphia.
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Shakespeare (Score:3)
Actually, the most fun I've seen in parallels to LOTR is not in science, but in Shakespeare. (Tolkien was an English Prof, remember.) First, the "Crack of Doom" is a phrase which comes from the Scottish Play. Second, two of Sauron's great captains fell in ways in was prophesied MacBeth should fall: The Lord of the Nazgul was struck down by no man of woman born; and Saruman was struck down when the forest came to Isengard.
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the Scottish Play
GOOD LUCK at your next performance of MACBETH!
Fucking thespians and their superstitions.
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the Scottish Play
GOOD LUCK at your next performance of MACBETH!
Fucking thespians and their superstitions.
I see you were once rejected by a group of thespians and happy to tempt the wrath of the big whatever from high above, regardless of context. Hurray! It's so much less smiting for the rest of us. Of course, I suppose that might presuppose a law of conservation of smiting...
On the other hand, perhaps theater superstitions were just created by Roko's Basilisk. I mean, if you were Roko's Basilisk and you were bored...
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GOOD LUCK at your next performance of MACBETH!
You don't, by chance, write for the UNIX Fortune program, do you?
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You don't, by chance, write for the UNIX Fortune program, do you?
Yow!!!
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Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends!
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Aahhhhh. Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Puck will make amends.
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Actually, the most fun I've seen in parallels to LOTR is not in science, but in Shakespeare.
You may want to read Norse mythology some time.
Parts of it may seem strangely familiar.
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You may want to read Norse mythology some time.
Parts of it may seem strangely familiar.
Especially this bit, from Voluspa:
There was Motsognir | the mightiest made
Of all the dwarfs, | and Durin next;
Many a likeness | of men they made,
The dwarfs in the earth, | as Durin said.
Nyi and Nithi, | Northri and Suthri,
Austri and Vestri, | Althjof, Dvalin,
Nar and Nain, | Niping, Dain,
Bifur, Bofur, | Bombur, Nori,
An and Onar, | Ai, Mjothvitnir.
Vigg and Gandalf | Vindalf, Thrain,
Thekk and Thorin, | Thror, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath,-- | now have I told--
Regin and Rathsvith-- | the list aright.
Fili, Kili, |
Re:Shakespeare (Score:4, Insightful)
But Saruman was washed away by Neptune's great ocean.
Hahahah. Silly movie. He was defeated by the Ents...
Although actually, his later death in the book was incredibly well done, with Frodo's words incredibly moving, even after the Scouring of the Shire, showing the profound hopefulness of the book--while perfectly catching and distilling the core of an audience response to Aristotelian tragedy.
"No, Sam!" said Frodo, "Do not kill him even now. For he has not hurt me, And in any case I do not wish him to be slain in this evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it."
Article is total bilge water (Score:2)
Just because most of the fans of lord of the rings are (claimed to be) scientists (no actual study was done) does not mean that most scientists are fans of lord of the rings.
And honestly, lord of the rings stinks as a piece of literature. Give me a good sci-fi (or even not-so-good) any day.
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I wouldn't so much crap on it. Overall, it was a very good set of novels. But there were definitely some pretty annoying things about it. My top three:
1) All the singing in Fellowship.
2) The structure of The Two Towers (Specifically: Tell the entire story of one half of the split group. Then go back in time and tell the entire story of the other half. Reader must pay obsessive detail to minutia in order to get the two halves time-synced.)
3) Aragorn can't ever just tell anyone his name. It always ha
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LOL ... heresy!! Turn in your nerd badge!! Burn the witch!
Honestly though, you don't have to like Tolkien, but you also can't say anything about the modern fantasy genre without in some way referencing him ... wizards, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and dragons ... you either have these things in the idiom of Tolkien, or you consciously have them not in the idiom of Tolkien.
But you can't have any of these things without either following his roadmap, or explicitly rejecting it. You certainly can't have those th
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Of course, no one else can say anything about hobbits. The Tolkien estate has sued in order to ensure that. Thus, we have "halflings". Good thing he didn't actually invent all those other terms, or it wouldn't have been possible to blatantly pillage all his ideas and package them as a game. I guess today it's been long enough that we can call it an *homage*.
But to your point, absolutely. The world Tolkein created shaped our modern-day mythos of traditional fantasy. That is, his interpretations of elve
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The Bard's Tale - a pretty widely played RPG in the 1980's - had "hobbits." But I also doubt EA paid anything for its use of "Mongo" (Blazing Saddles) or any of the the ripped-off tunes in the software: everyone was just a lot less uptight then.
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I'm going to guess that, more than anything, Bard's Tale was just lucky enough to slip under the radar. I don't think it happened because "everyone was a lot less uptight". Videogames were still very much a cottage industry back then, not the multi-billion dollar industry that today rivals Hollywood.
Remember, D&D was famously forced to remove Hobbits and a few other Tolkein-specific terms, and this was back in the seventies.
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Elves and dwarves, and are from germanic legends, and first appear in Old English and Norse writings.
The Brothers Grimm popularized dwarves long before Tolkien was born.
Dragons have been present in legends around the world since antiquity.
Tolkien can be credited with the modern concept of orcs, but the words orc and goblin are much older. Old English glossaries record the word OE orc corresponding with Latin Orcus (deity of the Underworld), and synonymous with thyrs "ogre", as well as "hell devil".
Hobbits
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You're not understanding what I am saying.
I am NOT saying Tolkien invented all of those things. I am saying, in the context of the fantasy genre, in which all of these things co-exist and have a specific relationship with one another ... that template is 100% based on Tolkien.
At which point, people will write scenarios which are kind of mostly similar to what Tolkien wrote .. or they consciously reject Tolkien and then go against what he laid out.
But if you write something which has humans, elves, dwarves,
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That would presume that every writer actually read Tolkien - a very dubious assumption, since (a) there were plenty of writers who wrote fantasy before Tolkien wrote LotR, and (b) that many modern writers would even bother reading it. I bought the series on sale because of the hype, and after 50 pages put it down because it sucks pretty much on the same level as C. S. Lewis.
Have I seen the movie? I walked into a relative's basement and after a minute I asked "What the heck is this anyway?" "Lord of the Ri
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Tolkien was a poor second-rate wannabe of HG Wells and Jules Verne, or if you want to go back a few centuries, Johnathan Swift.
Chalk is a second-rate cheese and oranges are rubbish apples. Honestly, Tolkien was working in a completely different genre from all of them. Wells and Verne wrote stories essentially exploring the effects of a single idea, and using them to reflect on society. Swift was a satirist, and everything was a reflection of us. Tolkien, in essence, simply wrote a story. The parallels to ourselves serve to make the story more comprehensible -- signposting, basically.
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Honestly though, you don't have to like Tolkien, but you also can't say anything about the modern fantasy genre without in some way referencing him ... wizards, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and dragons ... you either have these things in the idiom of Tolkien, or you consciously have them not in the idiom of Tolkien.
A pity that Tolkien didn't invent any of those - then his estate could sue the modern fantasy genre into non-existence, and nothing of value would be lost except Anne McCaffrey's works. :-)
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And honestly, lord of the rings stinks as a piece of literature. Give me a good sci-fi (or even not-so-good) any day.
Here's what one great SF author thinks about Tolkien's literary style:
http://www.lordotrings.com/boo... [lordotrings.com]
So ... (Score:2)
So, nerds like nerdy things, then? And such nerdyness leads to an affinity for nerdy things?
Well, I'm totally shocked I tell you.
This sounds like a fluff piece written to appeal to neither scientists nor nerds, and passed off as some great insight.
Nonsense (Score:2)
It's precisely why I can't stand these books. I can't suspend my disbelief that middle earth exists, that magic exists, not the way they use or describe it.
I would imagine more scientists get into comics, with even more detailed and well defined universe, often with rules that are consistent with our own or at least plausibly explained enough to suspend disbelief.
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Nonsense
It's precisely why I can't stand these books. I can't suspend my disbelief that middle earth exists, that magic exists, not the way they use or describe it.
You do know there are other people on this planet who aren't you, right?
I would imagine more scientists get into comics
And I imagine that... well, you can make your own joke there. But it doesn't make it true.
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Well, DUH.
I posted an opinion to contrast against the story, which is nothing more than an opinion.
I would almost guarantee that more scientists are into comics than fantasy set in a middle age type world, because one gets you thinking, the other is dumb entertainment that isn't even plausible.
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I would imagine more scientists get into comics, with even more detailed and well defined universe, often with rules that are consistent with our own or at least plausibly explained enough to suspend disbelief.
Comics have historically been so poorly consistent internally that fans don't bat an eyelid at the biannual festival of Retconia, when the Mobius Mitten is donned in order to undo Galamuncher's attack on the third planet in the system Sol, incidentally raising some popular characters from the dead.
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Yes. It's easier for me to suspend disbelief that a human could train himself up and become a vigilante with billions of dollars, or that aliens might have different physiologies that we perceive as powers as opposed to a bunch of fantasy creatures existing in a fantasy realm using fantasy forces none of which is remotely plausible.
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Tolkien saw realistic trees in his imagination. (Score:2)
By this I mean if you asked a typical person to picture a tree in his mind, he'd picture a green blob on a brown stick sticking up out of flat green space. Tolkien is the kind of person who'd picture an individual specimen of a specific species of tree growing in a place with unique and describable topography. And the concreteness with which he imagines this kind of thing shows in his writing.
When I was young I read and re-read Lord of the Rings for the magic. Forty years later, I re-read Lord of the Rings
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure your information on general psychology is accurate, or appropriate.
I've taught tree identification to scouts and scout leaders. I can say from experience that people do not consciously see details, even if they're looking at a specimen right in front of them. It's as if their conscious perception stops as soon as their brain dredges up the word "tree". You can tell a typical person to look at a tree for a minute, then have them turn their back and describe it. What you get, even after you instructed them to look *carefully* at the tree, isn't much more specific than "g
so far so good (Score:2)
An awful lot of scientists (at least us old guys) like Asimov & Heinlein and various other scifi authors who gave us all sorts of words which have graduated to general useage. (not to mention, say "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor" and "reverse the polarity")
OTOH, I shudder to think that maybe in 50 years someone will write "all scientists love GoT and name things after the characters."
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"reverse the polarity"
Not sure about the 24th century, but if you asked an engineer today if he put the batteries in the right way around you'd like get a punch in the head captain or not.
Bree Creek Quandrangle (Score:2)
If you had a structural geology class in the last 15 years there's a good chance you spent many hours with the Bree Creek Quadrangle exercises.
It's mythology void of religious superstition. (Score:2)
To me there's no question of why smart people like LOTR: It's mythology completely void of superstition and inflated superimposed real-world meaning. Which makes it every more and a million times more beautyful than anything abrahamic or other book-religions have to offer.
You can read LOTR, dive into the very first, very detailed completely fantasy world, with own languages and glyphs, poetry a huge history and lot's more with out it being degraded and shoehorned into real-world implications. Everyone know'
Some love it so much they retell it (Score:2)
Kiril Yeskov [wikipedia.org] wrote The Last Ring-Bearer [wikipedia.org] from the premise that "history is written by the victors" and that, perhaps, Lord of the Rings was propaganda written by the victors of the War of the RIng.
Language got me (Score:2)
For me it was the use of language. Te archaic but lyrical English and the appendices. After I had read it the first time, I think I was 11 or 12, I read the appendices and suddenly I realized huge feat and amount of effort he put into the work. Both in the backstory and in the linguistics. It was eye opening.
Scientists (Score:2)
students, teachers, scientists, or psychologists
Psychologists are social scientists, you insensitive clod!
techies like detailed backstories (Score:2)
Re:Tolkien overexposure (Score:5, Informative)
Or, alternately, Lew Rockwell and others are poncy, pretentious literati who deem themselves the arbiters of what it and isn't true, and nobody gives a shit what they think?
Tolkien himself said:
So, maybe the people who are saying "it is or it isn't this" are largely full of shit?
(Which, I think, is what you said in your last paragraph before the quote).
Re: (Score:2)
Or, alternatively, because I think people saying LoTR was about socialism, or the left/right, or whatever -- to be largely bullshit by academics making claims about Tolkien which may or may not be founded in reality.
It's like art people sitting around discussing the metaphysical and cultural significance of a can of shit. I find most of this stuff to be something you could generate by algorithm, which means I tend to view it as meaningless drivel and fluff.
there will be remakes and interpretations (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>> Astronomy students need a hook to be intersted in science?
General education, basketweaving and social science majors hoping to dink through a 100-level science elective on their way to an $20K annual salary need a hook to be interested in science.
There - fixed that for you!
Re: (Score:2)
Whose primary fans are bored housewives looking for a bodice-ripper novel, or LARP geeks who giggle at the idea of "smallclothes" or "moons blood". And tits. Can't have an HBO miniseries w/o tits.
"From the Earth to the Moon" and "Band of Brothers" suggest you can have an HBO mini-series with little, or no, exposure.
Band of Brothers had one scene of toplessness. I think The Pacific had maybe 3-4.
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No he wasn't. He was Roman Catholic. Which not a Christian in the view of many fundamentalists.
Re: (Score:2)
Because Tolkein was a Christian I would have thought that the humanist scientists would hate him and his books. I am sure that Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson hate him.
"Three very large persons sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gravy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawin
Re: (Score:3)
At least in my experience there seems to be a large overlap between climbers, Co. Sci. peeps, and Mathematicians.