The nice, ordinary guy always gets stuck dealing with the bollocks that the powerful and mighty have created.
Or perhaps it’s simpler than I thought:
-If you’re going to wear expensive custom jewellery into battle, wear strong gloves.
Dwarf-tossing, while a tasteless and humiliating practice, can on rare occasions be used for good.
Bring it back.
[QUOTE=What Exit?]
You seem really hung up on this. Maybe you should see somebody about your fascination with this concept.
In the meantime, it comes off a bit offensive when you keep doing this in Tolkein related threads. Perhaps you could please refrain.
Jim
[/QUOTE]
Seconded.
“If people like your story enough eventually they will make a really bad MMORPG loosely based on said story…”
-XT
[QUOTE=glee]
Seconded.
[/QUOTE]
Thirded!
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Entropy. Everything always gets weaker, uglier, shorter lived, and so on. Tolkienverse history is a long slide of decay from superhuman wisdom and glory to mundane dullness and folly.
[/QUOTE]
Well put, if a bit sad. It does seem to be a common theme…though I suppose one could say that the hero’s of the story were FIGHTING said entropy, and did their part to at least partially roll it back (Return of the King and all that).
-XT
[QUOTE=Humble Servant]
Yeah, you gotta pick just one, because I said so.
So, you got no power, magic, gold or height? Made a few mistakes? Don’t matter, bub, you gotta go do what you’re called to do anyway, even if you think you might not be able to it all:
The small can influence the world, so act even if you think it won’t matter.
Alternatives?
[/QUOTE]
The encroachment of industrialization muddled with an invasion by the Saracens.
When Satan ignites the big flaming vagina atop his dark tower of power, you’d better have Mithras on your side, or you’re fucked.
Ize sittin in yor mountain, playin wit yor reeng.
It’s very hard to accomplish anything good, so work together at it. And, every now and then, get high.
If you really must imbue an artifact with all your evil essence and power, make it a big, unwieldy artifact that’s easy to find later - a bright pink grand piano, say - ‘cos you know you’re only gonna fraggin’ lose the bloody thing.
[QUOTE=Middlea]
I believe Tolkien in his letters said the story was about death.
[/QUOTE]
He did indeed, several times. From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (Houghton Mifflin 2000):
Letter 186, p. 246 - From a letter to Joanna de Bortadino, undated (thought to be from April 1956): “…The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ to leave and seemingly to lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race ‘doomed’ not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete…”
Letter 203, p. 262 - From a letter to Herbert Schiro, November 17, 1957: “…I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion; that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man!”
Letter 208, p. 267 - From a letter to C. Ouboter, Voorhoeve en Dietrich, Rotterdam, April 10, 1958: “…it is only in reading the work (with criticisms in mind) that I become aware of the dominance of the theme of Death. (Not that there is any original ‘message’ in that: most of human art & thought is similarly preoccupied)…”
Letter 211, p. 284 - From a letter to Rhona Beare, October 14, 1958: “…I might say that if the tale is ‘about’ anything (other than itself), it is not as seems widely supposed about ‘power.’ Power-seeking is only the motive-power that sets events going, and is relatively important, I think. It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the ‘escapes’: serial longevity, and hoarding memory.”
Personally, I think LOTR is about the corrupting influence of great power; the need for good people to fight evil, sometimes to the point of ennobling self-sacrifice; and the abiding power of love and hope.
But we know what Tolkien thought was THE theme.
Where there’s a whip, there’s a way.
Hold on to the precious things in life.
[QUOTE=Humble Servant]
Okay, what’t THE theme of The Hobbit?
…
[/QUOTE]
Why, it’s the same as that of LOTR:
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph]
That no matter how bad things get, or how dark and hopeless they seem, giant sentient eagles will come to rescue you and your friends and make everything OK.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Staggerlee]
Hold on to the precious things in life..
[/QUOTE]
You misspelled preciousssss… 
[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
If you really must imbue an artifact with all your evil essence and power, make it a big, unwieldy artifact that’s easy to find later - a bright pink grand piano, say - ‘cos you know you’re only gonna fraggin’ lose the bloody thing.
[/QUOTE]
Something difficult to conceal and impossible for hobbits to carry. Check.
[QUOTE=JSexton]
Something difficult to conceal and impossible for hobbits to carry. Check.
[/QUOTE]
Lindsey Lohan!
[QUOTE=JSexton]
Something difficult to conceal and impossible for hobbits to carry. Check.
[/QUOTE]
Well, imagine if Isildur had dropped Sauron’s pink grand piano in the river, and Smeagol had hauled it out and dragged it to a cave in the Misty Mountains: it would have made it easier to track down later - just follow the distant sounds of show tunes.
“In further news today, a bunch of midgets threw Lindsey Lohan into a volcano. There was much rejoicing.”