I’m watching The Fellowship of the Ring on tv, and the orcs were just awakened in the Mines of Moria. Frodo drew his sword, Sting, and, as expected, it glowed blue. Gandalf also draws his sword, but it doesn’t glow. Isn’t he wielding Glamdring? I seem to recall he picked this sword up in The Hobbit, and it also glowed blue when near orcs.
Um, because it’s pretend?
lissener, just… stop. Just stop. Now, child.
You’re right about Gandalf wielding Glamdring, and it should glow near orcs. I’m thinking it was just an oversight that it doesn’t. I can’t remember, does Sting glow the whole battle?
Possibly related: Anduril, Aragorn’s sword, is supposed to burn with white fire when he uses it. They dropped that for the movies because it would have looked like he was using a lightsaber.
but thats not ever a right answer anyway. Being pretend, is all the more reason it should magically glow.
Glamdring does glow:
The movies aren’t canon obviously, and they got it wrong. Their reasoning, if they did think about it, was probably that without a movie “The Hobbit”, there is no back story about Glamdring, and it would only confuse people. Which is silly, but likely the kind of thinking that would cause a decision like that to be made.
Namecalling in CS aside, my point is the in fiction–let alone fantasy–the rules are the author’s to make, not the reader’s to hold up to some arbitrary real-world standard of consistency or [absurd]physical laws[/absurd]. There’re some such inconsistencies that are obviously products of ignorance or arrogance (cf. Spielberg’s entire, um, how you say oeuvre, pardonez moi my French). But with an author like Tolkien, who’s way beyond such amateurity, this kind of fanboy wanking is, well, childish, to volley that back atcha, sb.
Ah, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it.
How about threadshitting in CS?
I’m not sure I understand your point here. The issue isn’t whether Gandalf’s sword glowed in the book. I can’t remember, and I don’t have a copy handy. It very well could be written as glowing in the book. There could even be no mention of the sword’s glow in the book, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t glowing. If this were the case, perhaps Tolkein presumed his readers would be astute enough to assume that it was glowing. My question is why it doesn’t glow in the film version, which seems to be a reasonable question.
That rule is not as cut and dried. It’s frowned upon, but AFAIK not explicitly forbidden. Probably because it’s not as likely to be as clearly definable as namecalling; it’s usually going to be debatable. Case in point: there’s no threadshitting in this thread, as far as I can tell; my response, for instance, is a perfectly valid response to the OP. Threadshitting is not a vaguely negative response to a question thrown open for whatever answers are on offer; in my understanding, threadshitting is when a thread is begun explicitly to praise or enjoy something, or a funeral thread, and someone drops in for the sole purpose of, well, *shitting *in the thread. An answer that Miller disagrees with but that is otherwise a perfectly valid response to the OP is, well let’s just call that a subjective definition.
Your mileage obviously varies. See? Gray areas are necessarily harder to police. Like, for instance hijacks: frowned upon, not outright forbidden, otherwise your post would be worth a mention, as far as I understand the definition of “hijack.” (Not to mention junior modding . . .)
Easy peasy! Next question? Oh wait, that would continue your hijack. Nevermind!
Astoundingly inanely argued, Sir, with nary an insight in sight! Congratulations! In other words, you don’t know the answer to the question asked, which I will paraphrase for your benefit as “what sword is Gandalf using in the movie version of The Fellowship of the Ring, Glamdring or something else, does anyone say why it doesn’t gleam,” and instead manage to state the obvious. Nobody was speaking of real-world standards, not even of Tolkien, but of PJ.
I believe, to the OP, that Gandalf’s sword is not identified in the film versions, and therefore the answer that Bootis gave is correct. If you’d like I could check out the director’s commentary for useful insights.
And I did. Answer almost as expected. I believe it’s Phillipa Boyen (but I can’t tell the women apart :)):
**PB: **Somebody asked me why Glamdring wasn’t glowing. I must admit I didn’t know why.
**PJ: **Probably due to budgetary cuts.
So the sword’s Glamdring, they knew it should be glowing, and they didn’t do it for a reason none of them really remember anymore.
Is it wrong that I think that would have been awesome?
And actually, as many faults as I find with the movies, (and I do still love them anyways) the more I’m thinking about this, the more it probably makes sense to have Frodo’s sword be the only one that glows. Dramatic liberties simply have to be made when translating literature to the screen, and the impact of Frodo’s sword glowing would be diminished if Gandalf’s did as well, especially without explanation. It would make it seem more like ancient elven forged swords are a dime a dozen.
Cheap batteries.
Which the reader or viewer could be excused for believing, given the preponderance of named legendary swords in the hands of our main characters.
It’s like one of those crazy Japanese video games where a troupe of misfits go on a noble quest, and then partway through the story you discover that the whiny kid leading the whole thing is “He Who Was Foretold” and the strong silent sidekick is actually “The Lost Heir To Something Really Important”, and so forth. Where do they come up with stories like that, anyway?? 
Yep, just listened to it. They could have elaborated, but it’s not worth it. Anyway, it makes Sting seem unique and gives Frodo a cool weapon and trick for the next movies.
They messed up and it doesn’t matter.
Well obviously Glamdring had a dimmer switch. A blade that glows when Orcs are around is obviously useful; but sometimes it’s also useful to have a non-glowing blade when Orcs are around.
Stop it, lissener. Your attitude here is not called for and your answers aren’t contributing to the thread.
Uh . . . a thread discussing consistency of fantasy elements has no room in it for . . . a discussion on the consistency of fantasy elements? Noted, added to my mental CS sticky.