If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!?

Cafe Society
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1342

Wow! you guys are brilliant.

The third showing in which it was shown the glorious brightness of the king’s face and the hideous dryness of Sauron’s likeness and a thing like to a little ring whereby is understood that all shall be well and all shall be well.

And in the first shewing, to my humble understanding I looked up and said, blissed Lord show me what all this means, and I understood with my ghostly sight and not with my bodily sight a light like a shining of the very sun on water in the summer and the light was bright and glad and filled me with everlasting gladness and around the great light were flying many other lights all flying here and there. And I said blissed Lord what meanst this? And he said to my ghostly understanding, this is the coming of the King to Gondor and the light is the shining of his coming and the water is the everlasting livelyness of his coming, by which I understood that he comes to give life and not to take it. And in my second seeing I saw a hideous fire that burned and an eye in the midst of this hideous fire and the eye waxed ever dry and dry and blinked not in the midst of the fire and coming to the fire I saw a little thing, like to a ring of gold and no bigger than the littlest ring that might go on a child’s hand. And I quaked with fear and said blissed Lord is this not the coming of the King to Gondor? And he said to mine ghostly understanding and not to my bodily ears, Nay child this is not the coming of the King to Gondor, but by this you must understand the eye of Sauron that waxes drier and drier and in which there is no life, but fear not my darling for all you and your even-hobbits will not fall into the fire but the fire has consumed itself and the power which it made for itself. And all this I was told for the comfort of all my even-hobbits.
-from the Showings of Primula of Longbottom (with my apologies to Julian of Norwhich.)

1343

Wow! you guys are brilliant.

The third showing in which it was shown the glorious brightness of the king’s face and the hideous dryness of Sauron’s likeness and a thing like to a little ring whereby is understood that all shall be well and all shall be well.

And in the first shewing, to my humble understanding I looked up and said, blissed Lord show me what all this means, and I understood with my ghostly sight and not with my bodily sight a light like a shining of the very sun on water in the summer and the light was bright and glad and filled me with everlasting gladness and around the great light were flying many other lights all flying here and there. And I said blissed Lord what meanst this? And he said to my ghostly understanding, this is the coming of the King to Gondor and the light is the shining of his coming and the water is the everlasting livelyness of his coming, by which I understood that he comes to give life and not to take it. And in my second seeing I saw a hideous fire that burned and an eye in the midst of this hideous fire and the eye waxed ever dry and dry and blinked not in the midst of the fire and coming to the fire I saw a little thing, like to a ring of gold and no bigger than the littlest ring that might go on a child’s hand. And I quaked with fear and said blissed Lord is this not the coming of the King to Gondor? And he said to mine ghostly understanding and not to my bodily ears, Nay child this is not the coming of the King to Gondor, but by this you must understand the eye of Sauron that waxes drier and drier and in which there is no life, but fear not my darling for all you and your even-hobbits will not fall into the fire but the fire has consumed itself and the power which it made for itself. And all this I was told for the comfort of all my even-hobbits.
-from the Showings of Primula of Longbottom (with my apologies to Julian of Norwhich.)

1344

oops, sorry for the double post.

1345

LotR a la Tammy Wynette (I don’t THINK this has been done yet…)

Stand By Your Sam

Sometimes it’s hard to be a hobbit,
Giving all your strength to just one ring.
You’ll have bad times,
And it’ll have good times,
Doing things that you don’t understand.
But if you want to finish your quest,
Even though you can hardly stand,
You must rely on, though you he spies on,
'Cause after all, he’s just your Sam.

Stand by your Sam,
He’ll give two arms to cling to,
He’ll even bear your ring when you
Are hurt by spiders and orcs.
Stand by your Sam,
And show the world you love him,
Keep giving all the love you can,
Stand by your Sam!

You must, of course, imagine the twangy guitars in the background. Can anyone else think of some more classic country parodies?

1346

There once was a hobbit named Frodo,
A wizard warned: “Out on the road-o,
If you’re hit by Black Riders
Get help quick from Strider
Or you’ll wind up as dead as a dodo!”

There once was a stout dwarf named Gimli
Whose courage was utterly legendary;
“When my axe is at work,
I slay Trolls and Orcs,
And the Uruk-Hai I will treat similarly.”

There once was a Wizard named Gandalf,
Who’s death had been quite widely heard of
He said: “It’s tough you know,
I had to let go,
Or the fiend would’ve taken my hand off!”

There once was an Elf Queen, Galadriel,
Who was tempted to try on a little jewel;
“If I put on the Ring,
I’ll be a terrible Queen
And you’ll be sorry my dear, mark my words you will.”

There once was a ranger named Aragorn
Who for an Elf Princess was love-lorn.
“If I can’t have Arwen
My heart will be starvin’
It would be better if I never had been born.”

1347

Some classic R n’ B, anyone?

“(Mordor) We’ll Take you There”
Oh, we knows a place,
Ain’t no Master crying,
Ain’t no hobbits worried,
Ain’t no Yellow Facessss,
Nasssty Yellow Facessss!
Help you, Smeagol will help you help you now,
Help you, we’ll take you there.
Help you, we’ll take you there.
Mordor, we’ll take you there.
Oh, let Smeagol take you there!
“Mercy, Mercy Me (The Trilogy)”
Whoa, oh mercy, mercy me,
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be,
No, no, where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from Mordor in the East.
Whoa, oh mercy, mercy me,
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be,
No, no, uruk-hai run over all the lands you see,
Orcs full of enmity.
Whoa, oh mercy, mercy me,
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be,
No, no, balrogs underground and crebain fly,
Men and dwarves who live nearby are dying.
Whoa, oh mercy, mercy me,
Oh, things ain’t what they used to be, no.
What about this Middle Earth, my friend,
How much more of this from Sauron can she stand?
“I’ll Put It On”
I’ve been really trying, baby,
Trying to bear this ring for so long,
And if you felt the way I feel, baby,
You’d know, oh, you’d know…
I’ll put it on,
Oh, I’ll put it on,
I’ll put it on, precious,
I’ll put it on…
…There’s nothing wrong with me claiming you,
And wearing the One Ring can never be wrong
If my heart is true…
“Sam By Me”
When the Eye has come,
And the land is stark,
And Mount Doom is the
Only thing I see.
I won’t be afraid,
No, I won’t be afraid,
Just as long as I’ve got Sam by me.
Oh darling, darling Sam by me,
Oh Sam, by me,
Oh Sam, Sam by me, Sam by me…

1348

Brilliant all brilliant, particlularly Bogart as Frodo. I’d love to see Orson Wells directing “Citizen Frodo” and the attempt to find out the meaning of “the precious.”

1349

Wow. First off, I don’t belong here. looks about guiltily Ah well.
The Ayn Rand post deserves credit.

I hope this hasn’t been done (et alium cliches)

Vonnegut:

Tom sang as he walked. This would have struck the hobbits as odd, save that no one else was doing anything but singing and walking. Out of context, even the yellow boots seemed fairly sane.

A few miles, the willow tree was forgotten. As most things are, on a quest. Quests do not treat memories kindly. They are things of the future, quests. Even the present had begun to fade. Everything except the ring, the ring, Frodo knew. He knew his fellows as well, but it was not the same thing. They he could only visualize going somewhere, doing something, projecting themselves into the future. The ring was always now.

Frodo never tried to think of himself. One might imagine he was scared.

I would write more, but I don’t think we want to see that ducks out

Don’t Hurt Me!

– Jux

1350

27 pages and no one’s done something like this poor attempt of mine (and while I didn’t jine up due to this thread, it’s what’s going to keep me sticking around you fine folks):

“It was the end of the Third Age of Middle Earth, fifty (okay, 77 for you purists) years after the Battle of Five Armies. The Fellowship project was a nightmare given form, a quest where humans and hobbits could work out their differences loquaciously. It was a dangerous quest, they were all alone in their flight. The year is 3018. The name of the place is Barad-dur Five”

–Baradur 5, by J. Michael Straczynski

1351

Ring Space - by Mike Judge

Gandalf: Yeeah, Frodo. Hi. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about the ring? We’re going to have to ask you go ahead and destroy it in Mount Doom n’Kay. And that’s the way we’re dealing with the ring from now on, yeah. Did you get the memo?

Frodo: Oh, yeah. I have a copy of the memo right here. The problem was - I forgot. It was just the one time and there’s plenty of time to go to Mordor and throw it into the crack of Doom, so, it’s really not even a problem yet.

Gandalf: Yeeah, well if you could go ahead and remember to do that from now on that’d be great, yeeah. Thanks, Frodo. And I’ll send you another copy of that memo, greeat.

Frodo: Uh…

<seconds later>

Aragorn: Frodo! Hi. We need to talk about a problem with the one ring. Did you get the memo?

Frodo: Oh, Strider, yeah. Gandalf just talked to me about it. I forgot to throw the ring into the crack of doom just one time. I got the memo, so I’ll do it that way from now on.

Aragorn: Yeah. It’s just that, we’re throwing the one ring into the crack of doom.

***(jump to)

Bombadil: I want you to relax…deeper and deeper…

(jump to)

Frodo with a power drill at the gates of Mordor.

1352

"Then wear a gold ring if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold -ringed love, high-bouncing lover,
Where did you disappear to!?”

In my younger and more vulnerably years Gandalf gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you have the one true ring that binds all others and gives you mastery on middle earth,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had all the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more, but I understood he meant a great deal more than that.

<<<ugh…sooo tired…enough for now>>>

1353

Unexpected Error Reading Drive: LotR
(A)bort, ®etry, (F)ail?

1354

Actually, I believe there have now been three of those. But they’ve all been different.

1355

LOTR as told by Forrest Gump…

(sitting on a park bench, speaking to an elderly black woman waiting for a bus, in a slow southern drawl) I read this book once. And it had all sorts of mystical beings in it, and it had a ring in it.

I gave a ring to Jenny…

But the ring in this book, it was bad, and it made people turn bad, too. Do you think people can turn bad because of a ring?

(the elderly black woman says “oh, I think so, sometimes, yes, mmhmm”)

So do I. My momma always said that people were more than the sum of their parts…maybe that’s what she meant…

But anyway, there was a wizard, and his name was Gandolph, or somethin’ like that. And this wizard, he sent this little guy, his name was Fred, I think? to have the ring destroyed. But it was a dangerous trip.

I took a dangerous trip once…

(the elderly black woman says “oh?” politely and nods her head)

Yes…I went to Viet-Nam, and got shot at…I didn’t like it…I bet Fred didn’t like his trip much either…but Momma always said “Life is like a box of crayons… sooner or later, you leave’em by the radiator and they melt”…just like that ring did when Fred threw it in the volcano…

(the elderly black woman’s bus comes and she leaves)

1356

LOTR as told by Rain Man (the Dustin Hoffman character)…

(with head occasionally twitching to the side and an otherwise total lack of facial affect)…there was ONE ring…One ring… ONE ring… it belonged to the DARK lord…(nod)…to the DARK lord…

but it was STOlen…yeah, it was STOlen…

so FROdo and Sam…they took it to MORdor…and they had to walk…yeah, they had to WALK… they couldn’t fly to Vegas…and they couldn’t DRIVE…

I’m an excellent DRIVER…a really excellent DRIver…

1357

Once I was young and had so much more orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this; in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won’t do – just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out. It came with the ring, the one ring, the ring that took us for this roiling, riding flight in a crazy young world whose crossing began not at beginning, but middle earth.

LOTR- Jack Kerouac

1358

MMercurius, thanks for the compliments. :slight_smile: Writing this stuff has been unbelievably refreshing!!!
Mocroidh, I thought I would hurt myself over the Tammy Wynette–and the R&B is brilliant. Just brilliant. Damn. I’m going to have to get a lot better. But in the mean time, here are a couple more Burma Shave signs:

That Legolas,
So smooth of cheek
Makes women swoon
Their knees go weak
Burma Shave

On Gimli’s cheek
No razor glides
Can’t tell the Dwarf men
From their brides.
Burma Shave

Respectfully submitted,
KathleenTheCritic

1359

And the Tappet Brothers get in on the act…

Click: Welcome to today’s “Ring Talk”. Now, while my brother gets his head out of Morgoth’s underpants, I’ll talk to our first caller, whose name is Gandalf. Hello, where are you calling from?

Caller: Middle Earth.

Clack: MIDDLE Earth? Is that out by the Berkshires?

Click: Yeah, when you look at the sky, can you see UPPER Earth?

Caller: No, it’s in the West. Look, I’m trying to research a ring.

Click: Well, TELL us about it.

Clack: Yeah, when you get on Ring Talk, you’re supposed to talk about rings, not geography.

Caller: A nephew of a friend of mine inherited a ring. It looks like it’s Second Age, gold, smooth, impervious to damage. Oh, and it makes you invisible if you wear it.

Click: Wheeew! Second Age? I get it. Where did he get the ring?

Clack: He inherited it.

Click: We KNOW that, but is the Uncle still alive?

Caller: Oh yes! In fact, he’s at least eleventy-one, and he doesn’t look a day over 50.

Clack: And how did the Uncle come by it?

Caller: Well, he says he won it in a poker game or found it at the bottom of a tin of bootpolish, he can’t remember which.

Click: Right. Well, should we tell you what to do?

Clack: No, dummy. Don’t tell him. Just leave him to dangle. He calls up, and asks for advice, and you taunt him with “do you want to know”?

Click: (laughing) Well, I don’t want to just guess. Maybe he LIKES talking to us.

Clack: (laughing harder) Well, if he does, he’s got a lot to learn about making friends.

Click: (Laughter)

Clack: OK, OK, here’s whatcha do. Go to your friend’s house…

Click: I hope you’re writing this down.

Clack: Shut up, will you? Anyway, go to your friend’s house, build a big fire in the fireplace, and chuck the ring into it when the fire gets good and hot.

Click: NO! You’re nuts! It’ll melt. Don’t listen to my brother! He’s either drunk or an idiot. Actually, I think he’s both.

Clack: Leave the ring in there for awhile. If the ring melts, then it’s just something that some rube passed off to your friend’s uncle, or a priceless heirloom from your friend’s family that you’ve destroyed because you have a suspicious mind.

Click: My money’s on the rube. Ring in the fire! It’s Johnny Cash all over again.

Clack: But if the Ring DOESN’T melt, pull it out of the fire, and when it cools down a little, look at the outside of the Ring. You’ll be able to read little markings on the side.

Click: What will it say, “Made in Taiwan”? “Maximum pressure: 38 PSI”?

Clack: No, it should have letters in The Black Speech, saying something like “One Ring to rule them, One Ring To Find Them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness, bind them.”

Caller: REALLY? The Black Speech?

Click: Yes. And if you really want to be sure, call Sauron at the Barad-Dur. He’s got the owner’s manual and specifications. He’ll want you to bring the Ring in, but don’t do it. Dark Lords charge an arm and a leg, literally, for ring verification.

Caller: Thanks for the information. I had no idea.

Clack: Thanks for your call! Good luck.

1360

An excerpt from Infinite Quest by David Foster Wallace:

And so these orcs were heading back to their particular horde having only captured two hobbits, said hobbits having been manacled together and now being escorted, with somewhat more prodding than strictly necessary, back to the orcs’ camp. And this outcome was not desired by all the participants in pretty much all the ways that a thing can be not desireable by people who are nonetheless doing it. As regarding the hobbits, they were as far from where they would have liked to have been as it was possible to be, literally and figuratively. Since being hobbits naturally meant that their wants were both modest and exceedingly particular[sup]872[/sup], and in so being were completely predictable. And were they in their hobbit holes in the Shire the amount of prodding and manacling was also completely predictable in the sense that it never happened at all. But the situation’s utter lack of desirability among the orcs was somewhat more multi-layered. At first glance the orcs appeared to be in their milieu to the same degree that the hobbits weren’t, except for the unbreakable risk/reward system which informed much of the orc hierarchy. And whereas it was a boost to one’s standing to bring back live captives, the utter lack of agression they showed by being alive made it obvious that they had posed no risk at all. And so while these particular orcs had done precisely what was required of them w/r/t their tasks within the horde, everything about the outcome of their mission would open them to scorn and ridicule within the larger social structure, in that the hobbits by their very unfamiliarity would attract attention among the orcs, their small size and pitiful weapon-handling skills would show that their captors had not faced even the slightest danger, and that any attempt at mitigation by the orcs by pointing out that the very unfamiliarity and inoffensiveness of the hobbits indicated that they were undertaking a uniquely important mission would be seen as a pathetic after-the-fact attempt to rationalize[sup]873[/sup] the failure; and so but anyway these orcs would have no choice but to redeem themselves and relieve their aggressively bad tempers[sup]874[/sup] by undertaking another mission, which they would devoutly hope to be incredibly hazardous and the importance of which be damned.

[sub]872. Which particular combination of factors, vis. their simplicity and persnicketiness, put them in a strange position of being undemanding in a very demanding way, and vice versa. Which explains why hobbits interacted so rarely with the other residents of M.E., and they with the hobbits, but, again, for equal and opposite reasons.

  1. No less pathetic for it being true.

  2. Which explains why so many of the denizens of M.E. interacted so rarely with orcs. And then only once.[/sub]

1361

Thanks! I think yours have been pretty damn brilliant as well!:slight_smile: