# Watching LOTR again, couple questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth\ **Created:** [December 10, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616 "2012-12-10T16:51:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**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:** [December 11, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/81 "2012-12-11T22:17:20Z")
And it’s believed that he was eventually allowed to go West, too, because of that. He didn’t need it as desperately as Frodo did (he was still able to live out a full and fulfilling life in the Shire), but he was entitled to it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/82 "2012-12-11T22:25:05Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Wasn’t Sam a ringbearer for an hour or so? True, but temps never get invited out to the cool parties with the regular employees. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/83 "2012-12-11T22:43:24Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > To add to this, this is another spot that, frankly, the movie screwed up. In the book, Gimli was much more aware that “Hey, we haven’t heard from those guys in like 25 years, they probably didn’t just run out of stamps.” but he was still very curious to find out what had happened, and, really, to just look on the ancestral home of his people. None of this “Yeah, we should go through Moria, Balin is sure to throw a feast for us.” crap from the film. In fairness, while it’s not the choice I would have made or liked to see, that’s not exactly a screw-up. I think the movie deliberately compressed Middle-Earth time in many places, to conform more to expectations about genre stories and cinema narratives. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/84 "2012-12-11T22:57:50Z")
Sam may have gone voer eventually. It’s not clear. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/85 "2012-12-11T23:02:04Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Sam may have gone voer eventually. It’s not clear. Sam went over years before. Oh, wait, that’s not what you meant. 😉 My wife has pointed out that, if your read LotR as “slash” fan-fic (primarily Sam and Frodo, but also Aragorn and Legolas), it works pretty well, with no rewriting needed at all. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/86 "2012-12-11T23:31:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Face Heel Turn saw 2 posts saying this - what does it mean? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/87 "2012-12-11T23:32:07Z")
> [@JackieLikesVariety](#): > > saw 2 posts saying this - what does it mean? A face is a good guy, a heel is a bad guy. A face heel turn is when a good guy becomes a bad guy. ---
**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:** [December 11, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/88 "2012-12-11T23:44:17Z")
The term originally comes from pro wrestling, where the wrestlers have to be identified as “good guys” or “bad guys” to keep the story interesting. But sometimes, they want to have a fight between two “faces”, or two “heels”, so one of them has to turn. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/89 "2012-12-12T04:03:58Z")
Frodo wasn’t like most hobbits, and was not happy in the Shire anymore, due to his guilt and wound, as mentioned above. Bilbo, as a true adventurer adventurer, was also not really happy in the Shire. Both had born the ring, so they got the privilege of going where they would be happier. You call Valinor like heaven, but you are missing one important part of that: there is no sickness, no pain in heaven. So they would be happy. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/90 "2012-12-12T04:22:33Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Sam may have gone voer eventually. It’s not clear. If I recall correctly, the time line in the appendix of my copy states that Sam did indeed travel to the West. After Rose died, Sam set his affairs in order and entrusted the (red?) book to his daughter Elanor, who was the last person to see him before he rode to the Gray Havens and across the sea. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/91 "2012-12-12T04:30:15Z")
Did he go by himself? All the elves and Gandalf would have already been gone for a while by that point right? ---
**Author:** ![GreedySmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a698b9/32.png) [@GreedySmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreedySmurf)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/92 "2012-12-12T04:33:45Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > How the hell did I get 60 years??! :😕: I think it was 60 years between the events of The Hobbit and Bilbo’s party. Maybe that’s where you got it from? On the 17 years gap. For me the movie was clear that there was the passing of some measure of time between the party and Gandalf showing back up in The Shire to whisk Frodo away. Not 17 years true, but some time. 17 years in the books! That’s a hell of a lot of research!! ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/93 "2012-12-12T05:26:56Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > 1. Is the “no man may kill me” thing by the Witch King just a setup to an ironic death? A man could have stabbed him like Eowyn did and done the same damage, right? > [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > It took a woman AND a hobbit to kill the witch-king. But no man. AND (in the book) a special sword. Yes, in the movie it’s just an ironic death and one or two men would’ve had the ability to do it. But in one of the incidents from the first book that didn’t make it into the movie, Merry obtained a special sword. Merry’s strike with it made the Witch-King vulnerable to Eowyn’s regular sword. Here’s the quote from the third book after the killing: > [@](#): > > Then he [Merry] looked for his sword that he had let fall; for even as he struck his blow his arm was numbed, and now he could only use his left hand. And behold! there lay his weapon, but the blade was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire; and as he watched it, it writhed and withered and was consumed. > > So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/94 "2012-12-12T05:55:03Z")
> [@GreedySmurf](#): > > I think it was 60 years between the events of The Hobbit and Bilbo’s party. Maybe that’s where you got it from? In the chapter itself (shadow of the past) “Gandalf was thinking of another morning nearly 60 years ago when Bilbo ran out of his hole without a pocket handkerchief.” ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/95 "2012-12-12T07:00:11Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Did he go by himself? All the elves and Gandalf would have already been gone for a while by that point right? Gandalf went when Bilbo and Frodo did, and so did Galadriel and Elrond, but there were still a fair number of elves about the place. Legolas, for a start, stuck around until Aragorn died and then, legend had it, took Gimli with him (the only dwarf ever to make the trip or even to want to), and this was some time after Sam went west. Legolas was head of a sizeable elf colony by that time and it’s likely that there were still elves there after he left. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/96 "2012-12-12T07:39:34Z")
Celeborn stuck around Rivendell after Galadriel left and assisted Peregrine (or was it Meriodoc?) in compiling the tale of years. It was said that when Celeborn left, he was the last chief living witness to events in the elder days. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/97 "2012-12-12T07:44:51Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > AND (in the book) a special sword. > > Yes, in the movie it’s just an ironic death and one or two men would’ve had the ability to do it. But in one of the incidents from the first book that didn’t make it into the movie, Merry obtained a special sword. Merry’s strike with it made the Witch-King vulnerable to Eowyn’s regular sword. Here’s the quote from the third book after the killing: > > > [@](#): > > > > Then he [Merry] looked for his sword that he had let fall; for even as he struck his blow his arm was numbed, and now he could only use his left hand. And behold! there lay his weapon, but the blade was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire; and as he watched it, it writhed and withered and was consumed. Although the origin of the sword and how it was crucial to give Eowyn the chance to kill the Witch King was not explicitly described in the movie, that visual image does occur. The movie shows Merry stabbing the Witch King from behind (in the leg maybe?) with his sword, the Nazgul drops to his knees, and Merry instantly clutches his arm in pain and falls over backward (without some other blow or injury causing it), and it seems like there’s smoke coming off of his hand or his sword (not quite in the frame so you can’t tell). In this [video clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNPeJAgBzo), Merry stabs the Witch King at 1:54 I remember noticing it when I first watched the movie and thinking it was a nice touch that they added to the movie for people who are familiar with the books, and I was actually somewhat disappointed that the Extended Edition of the DVD didn’t have a scene somewhere explaining it. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/98 "2012-12-12T15:31:03Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > In fairness, while it’s not the choice I would have made or liked to see, that’s not exactly a screw-up. I think the movie deliberately compressed Middle-Earth time in many places, to conform more to expectations about genre stories and cinema narratives. Doesn’t really fly as an explanation for me when the dwarf corpses they find are dessicated husks that have clearly been dead for a GOOD long time. (They’re practically skeletons.) What’s more, GANDALF clearly seems to view the idea of going to Moria as a BAD IDEA (“No Gimli, I would not take the road through the mines of Moria unless I had no other choice.”) which seems at odds with the idea that there’s a good chance that it’s a thriving dwarf colony. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/99 "2012-12-12T15:46:02Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > Although the origin of the sword and how it was crucial to give Eowyn the chance to kill the Witch King was not explicitly described in the movie, that visual image does occur. The movie shows Merry stabbing the Witch King from behind (in the leg maybe?) with his sword, the Nazgul drops to his knees, and Merry instantly clutches his arm in pain and falls over backward (without some other blow or injury causing it), and it seems like there’s smoke coming off of his hand or his sword (not quite in the frame so you can’t tell). In this [video clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNPeJAgBzo), Merry stabs the Witch King at 1:54 > > I remember noticing it when I first watched the movie and thinking it was a nice touch that they added to the movie for people who are familiar with the books, and I was actually somewhat disappointed that the Extended Edition of the DVD didn’t have a scene somewhere explaining it. In the movie, Aragorn gave the swords to the Hobbits during their journey from Bree to Rivendell, right before the Nine attacked them on Weathertop. He just dumped them on the ground and said something like “Here, you’ll need these.” Nothing whatsoever special about them at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616/100 "2012-12-12T16:03:16Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > DnD magic is based on the Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance. In there the limit on your power is how many spells you could hold in your mind at once (IIRC commonly 3-4) and that you have to re-commit a spell to memory once having used it - so when you prepare for an expedition you need to correctly guess which spells are likely to be most useful, and pre-load them into your mind. IOW it’s more an ammunition and speed of reloading limit than a power limit. Scooped! I was going to mention that the original D&D creators (Gygax and Arneson) were explicit about being heavily influenced by Vance (in addition to Tolkien, of course). here’s what Wikipedia says about magic in the _Dying Earth_ series: > [@](#): > > In the Dying Earth, wizards use magic primarily by memorizing lengthy formulas for spells, and then activating them by speaking the proper commands. Once cast, the spell formula is instantly forgotten, requiring the wizard to reread and re-memorize them. Because even talented wizards can only memorize and “load” a handful of spells, wizards also have to rely on magical relics and on their other skills and talents to protect them. There are only one hundred spells which are still known to mankind, out of thousands which were discovered over the course of history. Pandelume implies that what the people of the Dying Earth call “magic” actually has a scientific origin; he indicates that many spells were invented through the use of mathematics and mundane sciences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/watching-lotr-again-couple-questions/643616.md?page=6)