This is patently bizarre. Middle-Earth is meant to be the ancient continent that became Eurasia.
Oh good, then Eowyn is still available.
“conjure up a small tac-nuke”?
Eh, it’s just aluminum really, isn’t it? Or maybe something in the platinum group, considering those were only “discovered” & named in the 19th Century iirc.
My Screw up would probably consist of charging into a brigade of Orcs, screaming like a maniac, while we were trying to sneak past them. Although my former companions might be able to sneak away while the Orcs try to deal with a surprise berserker attack.
Skald, your posts amuse me to no end. Since I’m so darned klutzy irl, my vote for me as Frodo would be to have dropped the damn thing and lost it to a ringwriath or something, halfway through book One.
My husband just urged me to post, he would have wasted time by using it for a cock-ring (*since the Ring could expand to fit any size, even his epic, uh, you know what… lol)!!
Weirdest? You must mean the most awesome! I want more info on this so I can participate.
ETA: I’d advocate the Council send a group to sneak into Nurnen and foment rebellion. Can’t imagine the slaves there are too happy. But I see that not ending well both for the good guys and the rebel slaves.
Actually, tilkal is made from a combination of gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead, hence the name (it’s an acronym of the Quenya names for those metals).
And no, I didn’t have to look that up. Why do you ask?
Dude. It’s the Straight Dope. There’s no need to ask that.
Honestly, I think that one day I’ll log in to find that you’ve all given up on English and just lapsed into Quenya forevermore.
Modern sensibility – what do you mean I have to walk for days without a shower? I don’t want a bath in a river; I want a shower every damn day! Yes, I need to take these pills every day in the morning, and these every day before bed – my doctor told me to – and I need refills, where do I get the refills?
So let me try to understand – because your ancestors were heroic, you are going to be king? Not from anything you yourself have done, just because you have the “right” genes? It doesn’t matter does what people do now, it only matters who’s ancestors fraught heroically before, where people end up in leadership rolls. Let me quote something “Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!” or in your case ancestral wedding ceremonies.
I’d load up on a nice arsenal of modern firepower, slay orcs like crazy, and then get face-to-face with Sauron, and unload a standard assload of 00 buck into him at point-blank range…
…only to discover, to my utter chagrin, that the Boom-Stick doesn’t work on him.
But it does make him angry. Very, very angry.
Oh my, yes, does it ever…
Me: “You can have my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead, hands!”
And indeed the people of Minas Tirith were asked if they were willing for Aragorn to enter their city and be their King, and they all shouted yea with one voice, so there’s your mandate from the masses right there.
So, what you’re saying is, all the residents of the city were herded out of their houses into an open field, surrounded by a heavily armed and experienced-in-killing military, and when asked if anyone objected to the leader of that heavily-armed military ruling the city, nobody spoke up.
Well, I’m convinced that as far as public mandate goes, that’s basically the equivalent of a long publicly-funded campaign with vigorous well-moderated debate culminating in a secret ballot for a proportionally-representative assembly that then forms a governing coalition.