# The time has come to speak the TRUTH about Middle-earth! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 25, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776 "2010-03-25T17:57:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/41 "2010-03-25T23:03:37Z")
For the entirety of the books, Sauron had been amassing a huge army and cranking out Orcs by the boatload. He didn’t need the ring at all. If he had devoted his army to simply killing all of Middle Earth, he would have succeeded. His Ring Wraiths alone would be enough to wipe out small countries. Little could stand in their way. Had he focused his efforts not on attacking Gondor or Rohan directly and just happened to run into the last of the line of kings, the Ring Bearer, and Gandalf, there was nothing most of the known world could have done to stop him. If he delayed his war for a few more decades, he would have taken over without all of that unpleasant business. Without the quest of the Ring, many things would have fallen apart by themselves. The Ents would be extinct. Denethor would have ruled his country into the ground. Rohan and Gondor would still be split. And the Elves would have eventually all left with no one to help out. Even Gollum might have single-handedly stopped events in their tracks had he been left alone to sniff out the ring himself. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/42 "2010-03-25T23:06:04Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > For the entirety of the books, Sauron had been amassing a huge army and cranking out Orcs by the boatload. He didn’t need the ring at all. If he had devoted his army to simply killing all of Middle Earth, he would have succeeded. > > His Ring Wraiths alone would be enough to wipe out small countries. Little could stand in their way. Had he focused his efforts not on attacking Gondor or Rohan directly and just happened to run into the last of the line of kings, the Ring Bearer, and Gandalf, there was nothing most of the known world could have done to stop him. If he delayed his war for a few more decades, he would have taken over without all of that unpleasant business. Without the quest of the Ring, many things would have fallen apart by themselves. The Ents would be extinct. Denethor would have ruled his country into the ground. Rohan and Gondor would still be split. And the Elves would have eventually all left with no one to help out. Even Gollum might have single-handedly stopped events in their tracks had he been left alone to sniff out the ring himself. 😕 It’s said even in the books that Sauron did not need to be in possession of the Ring to win. At best, retrieving the Ring would have hastened his victory. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/43 "2010-03-25T23:42:38Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > It’s said even in the books that Sauron did not need to be in possession of the Ring to win. At best, retrieving the Ring would have hastened his victory. And, of course, a lot of the reason that things came to a head was due to Saruman’s own machinations. He was searching for the Ring, and a lot of drama would undoubtedly have boiled up even without the Fellowship. Sauron was also convinced that the heirs of Isildur were seeking the Ring to use against him. A big reason he was anxious to find the Ring was to keep it out of the hands of others he suspected, or knew, were seeking it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/44 "2010-03-26T00:58:41Z")
Probably doesn’t need to be said, but [this guy](http://www.sauronsblog.com/) is still trying to set the record straight. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/45 "2010-03-26T01:49:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_Q](#): > > Probably doesn’t need to be said, but [this guy](http://www.sauronsblog.com/) is still trying to set the record straight. Manwë the Dickless Prick! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/46 "2010-03-26T02:12:08Z")
Elrond’s wife didn’t really go to the Undying West after she was kidnapped and ravished by orcs. She _stayed_ with the orcs because they satisfied her like Elrond never could. He just told everyone the cover story because he was so embarrassed. His sons, deeply shamed, later made it their quest to kill every last orc they could find. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/47 "2010-03-26T02:44:41Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Stick with me, **Skald**. Old School Druids can teleport. > > And you know my rant. > > Gandalf-Smandalf. Candy-ass magic-user wannabe that can’t DPS his way out of a wet paperbag. > > OH YAY! Gandalf the Useless made a fire and some glowie-lights. Maybe if he’d learned Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Stinking Cloud, or Cloudkill instead, he coulda done something useful in battle. Dude wears cloth armor and enters melee combat? Even a first-level noob knows better than that. > > Casters are fearsome, powerful wielders of arcane might. Not impotent old fools that can’t even cast Magic Missile. Bah. Gandalf fought off all nine ringwraiths at Weathertop using multiple lightening spells while he was looking for Frodo and company. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/48 "2010-03-26T03:19:31Z")
> [@](#): > > False. Elvish males generally have a significantly lower sex drive than their human counterparts (and why wouldn’t they? if you’re not getting any right now there’s always next century, right?), but Elvish females don’t necessarily. > > The passionate intensity of human males compared to male Elves is a large part of the reason that Elf-women are sometimes tempted to mate with them, even at the cost of sacrificing millennia of togetherness for those brief few decades of hot mayfly sex. For Arwen to have borne not only Eldarion but also more than one daughter in a mere hundred years or so amounts to breeding like rabbits by Elvish standards. Y’know, that _would_ explain why all of the attested pairings of the Children of Illuvatar in history were a female elf and a male human. Presumably, male Maia have even lower sex drives than elves, which explains why Melian was willing to slum it up with Thingol. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/49 "2010-03-26T04:08:41Z")
Goldberry was as smoking hot as any spirit of nature could ever be. Completely uninhibited, she always seemed to be in the middle of an extended 'gasm, and didn’t care who knew it. We can only guess what kind of dancing she and Tom did to entertain the hobbits during their stay, but it was at least very, very good. The hobbits could only move on from the entire episode by forgetting most of it and never speaking much about the rest. It is no wonder that Tom couldn’t be bothered with anything as trivial as the rise and fall of Middle Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/50 "2010-03-26T04:17:07Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Gandalf fought off all nine ringwraiths at Weathertop using multiple lightening [sic] spells while he was looking for Frodo and company. It’s a little unclear from the text (FOTR “The Council of Elrond,” p. 281 of my Houghton Miffling 1993 edition) if all nine were there. It must’ve been quite a battle, though; the flashing of light was seen from far off, and Gandalf said, “I was hard put to it indeed: such light and flame cannot have been seen on Weathertop since the war-beacons of old.” ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/51 "2010-03-26T04:27:33Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Elrond’s wife didn’t really go to the Undying West after she was kidnapped and ravished by orcs. She _stayed_ with the orcs because they satisfied her like Elrond never could. He just told everyone the cover story because he was so embarrassed. His sons, deeply shamed, later made it their quest to kill every last orc they could find. I read a fanfic with that theme years ago. I probably would have preferred that the memory remained buried. ---
**Author:** ![MeDrewNotYou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@MeDrewNotYou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeDrewNotYou)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/52 "2010-03-26T04:52:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Y’know, that _would_ explain why all of the attested pairings of the Children of Illuvatar in history were a female elf and a male human. Presumably, male Maia have even lower sex drives than elves, which explains why Melian was willing to slum it up with Thingol. It comforts me to know that, in all the way elves are superior to me, I’ve still got them beat where it _really_ counts. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/53 "2010-03-26T05:22:37Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > I read a fanfic with that theme years ago. I probably would have preferred that the memory remained buried. In terms of Elrond-centered fan fiction, that probably ranks as [quite tame](http://www.cracked.com/article_16554_the-5-most-baffling-sex-scenes-in-history-fanfiction.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/54 "2010-03-26T05:54:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Y’know, that _would_ explain why all of the attested pairings of the Children of Illuvatar in history were a female elf and a male human. Presumably, male Maia have even lower sex drives than elves, which explains why Melian was willing to slum it up with Thingol. Right on. This is the Straight Dope on Elvenlust, folks. Mind you, that’s not to say that male Elves aren’t really really **good** at having transcendent mindblowing sex when they happen to get around to it. But for the most part, they don’t get **hungry** for it the way that mortal Men do, with their short lifespans and imperative drive to reproduce. (Exceptions may occur from time to time, especially in the case of unrequited desire; I’d bet that Celebrimbor’s hopeless love for Galadriel may have been of that form.) When they’re not getting caught up in Greek-god-style tragic struggles for power and dominion with other immortal beings, Elves (for the most part) are emotionally a sort of super-yogis, able to focus beyond the feelings of the moment to the impersonal joys and woes of the whole world. This is a state of mind largely incompatible with desperate horniness and other persistent forms of emotional tumult, which is why Elves are so frequently amused by (and often insufferably smug about) what seems to them the chronic borderline hysteria experienced by mortals. While this general principle applies equally to male and female Elves, female Elves are by nature more empathetically attuned to the emotions of other creatures. Which is why it’s such a turn-on for, say, a Luthien to have a Beren pursuing her so passionately, even though she knows that by her chronological frame of reference, their love is bound to be extremely short-lived. Or maybe **especially** because she knows it. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/55 "2010-03-26T06:37:22Z")
Denethor questioned Pippin via a game of Charades: this is why it took him an hour to glean practically nothing. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/56 "2010-03-26T06:59:16Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I doubt that many Texans have read LOTR. Or anything else, for that matter. Why the sam hell would we go readin’ some ding dang book, when they done already made that awesome pitcher show of it with Aerosmith’s daughter in it? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/57 "2010-03-26T10:19:19Z")
There are fat elves. They are kept locked up due to elvish body-fascism. > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > - Aragorn and Arwen probably had premarital sex. I mean, c’mon, _decades_ of heartfelt dewy romance but no nookie? The mind boggles. We even know the time and place, Cerin Amroth 2890, where Aragorn “never came again as mortal man”. There was much peering into palantirs and straining of staffs (in a purely thaumological sense) that day. Much as birds are descended from dinosaurs, Melkor bred the race of dragons from bird stock. His blunder was was choosing the Magpie as his starting point. ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/58 "2010-03-26T12:33:45Z")
Tom Bombadil is actually an escapee from an entirely different book, which he considered to be too frilly, flaming and fanciful, even for him. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/59 "2010-03-26T14:59:38Z")
That’s right, I said it. After her husband Thingol was slain, in no small part do to his own asshattery, did she say, “Well, with the King gone, and his heir gone, perhaps I should stay here to protect the people from Morgoth”? No. She withdrew her power from the Girdle of Melian and hied her ownself back to Aman, leaving her trusting subjects to be conquered, raped, murdered, enslaved, and in many cases eaten by Orcs. Melian is the fourth most evil person in The Silmarillion. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/60 "2010-03-26T15:18:38Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Fool of a Took! > > THAT is the best you can come up with? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? > > Hang your head in shame. My then-seven-year-old niece brought that up, as have 2,439,448 people in Texas alone. Now that hurt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776.md?page=4)