# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**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, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/61 "2010-03-26T15:18:56Z")
Fëanor was one scary dude. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/62 "2010-03-26T15:51:03Z")
Tom “Da Bomb” Bombadil had a sweet set-up with the Barrow-wights. They’d pretend to run away when he came along singing a “magic” song (for which rescue he’d charge a pretty penny under the guise of buying something for the wife). This would improve his own rep (and prevent his wife from straying due to fear of the scary wights), and in return he’d just happen to arrive too late on occasion to allow the wights to keep their own rep as baddies and get some loot as well. ---
**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 29, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/63 "2010-03-29T03:32:32Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > I read a fanfic with that theme years ago. I probably would have preferred that the memory remained buried. OMFG… I was _kidding!_ :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/64 "2010-03-29T06:49:43Z")
David Brin pointed out there’s two sides to every [story](http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2002/12/17/tolkien_brin/index.html?x). > [@](#): > > Ask yourself: “How would Sauron have described the situation?” > > And then: “What might ‘really’ have happened?” > > Now ponder something that comes through even the party-line demonization of a crushed enemy – this clear-cut and undeniable fact: Sauron’s army was the one that included every species and race on Middle Earth, including all the despised colors of humanity, and all the lower classes. > > Hmm. Did they all leave their homes and march to war thinking, “Oh, goody, let’s go serve an evil Dark Lord”? > > Or might they instead have thought they were the “good guys,” with a justifiable grievance worth fighting for, rebelling against an ancient, rigid, pyramid-shaped, feudal hierarchy topped by invader-alien elfs and their Numenorean-colonialist human lackeys? > > Picture, for a moment, Sauron the Eternal Rebel, relentlessly maligned by the victors of the War of the Ring – the royalists who control the bards and scribes (and moviemakers). Sauron, champion of the common Middle Earthling! Vanquished but still revered by the innumerable poor and oppressed who sit in their squalid huts, wary of the royal secret police with their magical spy-eyes, yet continuing to whisper stories, secretly dreaming and hoping that someday he will return … bringing more rings. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/65 "2010-03-29T10:43:19Z")
> [@Skald](#): > > The answer is that the Elves’ theology is wrong. Eru is the author of all, and that includes both good and evil. Seeking to purge as much of the chaotic and cruel portions of himself as possible, he separates himself into two aspects. Melkor is pure malice; Manwë is pure benevolence. As Eru intended, Melkor set about with the despoiling of Arda, the murder of countless Elves and Men, the ravishing of endless maidens, and so forth. In the process of doing this, he spreads his power among many, and thus diminishes himself. At the end of the First Age, when Melkor, now Morgoth, was exiled into the Void, he was much diminished; and so Eru could safely re-assimilate him into himself. You’re familar with the works of Mani, but you’re not clear how this is heretical from mainstream Judeo-Christian doctrine? Color me confused. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/66 "2010-03-29T14:39:57Z")
Turin was a total douche who did not deserve Belegs friendship, Thingols good will or the love of Niniel and that elf maiden whos name escapes me at the moment. He was like a spoiled rich brat who expected special treatment because daddy was a big shot. ---
**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 29, 2010, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/67 "2010-03-29T23:25:04Z")
> [@Autolycus](#): > > You’re familar with the works of Mani, but you’re not clear how this is heretical from mainstream Judeo-Christian doctrine? Color me confused. The color of confusion is chartreuse. I’m sending the monkeys over with hair dye. Of course I know that this is my reading of Manwe & Morgoth, if applied to Christian theology, would be entirely heretical. That’s why I named the thread as I did. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/68 "2010-03-29T23:48:06Z")
I see, said the blind man. ---
**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 30, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/69 "2010-03-30T03:23:50Z")
> [@Autolycus](#): > > I see, said the blind man. …as he picked up his Dwarven hammer and saw. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/70 "2010-03-30T03:35:41Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > - Hobbits aren’t a kind of Men. They’re a similar but quite different species. _Homo floresiensis_, to be precise. > [@](#): > > - Balrogs had real but vestigial wings. They couldn’t fly but damn, they looked badass. But if a balrog began running on a treadmill, without limit to its speed, could it achieve flight? :eek: ---
**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 30, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/71 "2010-03-30T03:37:45Z")
I think I saw that on _Mythbusters_, but I forget what the answer was. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776/72 "2010-03-30T14:17:17Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > But if a balrog began running on a treadmill, without limit to its speed, could it achieve flight? :eek: I don’t think a treadmill can fly no matter how fast the balrog is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-time-has-come-to-speak-the-truth-about-middle-earth/533776.md?page=3)