Second-guessing and Misunderstanding Tolkien

Deimos said:

You are obviously suffering from

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Indeed, this Ent suffers from many things, including a distinct excess of twigs.
But grump badge envy...in fact envy of any sort...is hoped not to be among them.
(That is, among the sufferings, not the twigs.)

speak I disparagingly? I do not think so. More, I trust, thoughtfully.

As I place grumpness on one side of my scales, and happiness on the other, the happiness outweighs the other by a nearly infiltration.

Yet these are my scales. There are those for whom grumpness IS happiness. Their scales have entirely different weights and balances.

Old Ent said:

There are those for whom grumpiness IS happiness.

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Have you met any? Must be odd people.

Happiness and grumpiness are to me the end points of a continuum. Where on this continuum my reaction falls is mainly determined by the stimulus. I say mainly because on any given day, my "default mood" is determined by many other factors. Sleep is a major one, as probably everyone would confirm. No I'm not happy when my reactions tend towards the grumpy side. But they are in the main appropriate to the stimulus, in my view.

Olorgando said:

Have you met any? Must be odd people.

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Indeed. Several in my long life.
They are indeed a singular type.

Never happy unless they're making someone else equally as unhappy as they are, dragging those around them down into their same dumps... then they are, for a brief period happy.

They are the scoffers, the backstabbers, the naysayers, the slanderers... those who complain endlessly about everything. At times, their special forte is the personal attack...trying to demean the other. But if the other is not easily demeaned and made to feel bad, but rather 'calls them out' in their game, they are instantly the victim, oh woe is me, being attacked unjustly themselves. (Which doesn't help their grumpness at all.)

Oh yes... we are surrounded by those for whom grumpness is indeed happiness - putting others down so they can (seemingly) climb up.

It is a sad life...one which they themselves don't see they are in.

And now I suppose, I must chastise myself, adding this so we get back on track. 😞

Old Ent said:

And now I suppose, I must chastise myself, adding this so we get back on track. 😞

View attachment 23647

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Isn't Radaghast the only one who stays on track? OK, some people comment on the links, but the nature of the questions - let me put it this way, they've run off the rails in a serious way ... or maybe better, they don't even know there are rails ...

Olorgando said:

Have you met any? Must be odd people.

Happiness and grumpiness are to me the end points of a continuum. Where on this continuum my reaction falls is mainly determined by the stimulus. I say mainly because on any given day, my "default mood" is determined by many other factors. Sleep is a major one, as probably everyone would confirm. No I'm not happy when my reactions tend towards the grumpy side. But they are in the main appropriate to the stimulus, in my view.

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Grumpiness is in the eye of the beholder.
I have been called a killjoy because I pointed out to some folks that 2+2 = 4. That is, I pointed out a concrete reality that they said was "hurtful".
Yep... gravity can be "hurtful" if you choose to ignore it.
Anyway, that is why I said I'm OK with being awarded a Grump (or curmudgeon) Badge.
I'm OK with 2+2 = 4 ....not so much with 2+2 = whatever is not "hurtful".

Is it canon that Thranduil sent Legolas to Aragorn? If he was with him, why did he not meet Frodo with Aragorn?

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The Hobbit movies should be shot out of a cannon.

This doesn't exactly fit the thread description, but I'll put it here anyway: someone asked "Is LOTR worth reading?".

It's not a stupid question to ask -- but on a subreddit called "Tolkienfans"?

There were a number of rather sarcastic answers, I'm afraid.

Aragorn spent much of his early life battling orcs and other creatures in the North. How in the world did he do that with a broken sword?

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I'm only posting this question for context (I think it's a fair question) ; I'm more concerned about one of the answers, specifically the one from the AI 'ChatGPT' feature on Quora, which provided the following response:

Aragorn actually did not spend much of his early life battling orcs and other creatures with a broken sword. In J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Aragorn's sword, Andúril, is broken by Sauron's servant, the Mouth of Sauron, during the Battle of the Black Gate. Aragorn is able to reforge the sword with the help of the elven smiths of Rivendell, and uses it to defeat Sauron and claim his rightful place as King of Gondor.

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🤨

I followed up with this bot, pointing out the error and got this response:

Aragorn, being a descendant of Isildur, inherited the sword and carried it with him throughout his journeys. During the Battle of the Black Gate, the Mouth of Sauron taunted Aragorn by showing him the broken hilt of Narsil, which had been kept by Sauron's servants as a trophy. Aragorn later reforged the sword with the help of the elven smiths of Rivendell, using the shards of the original blade and the metal of another sword, and wielded it in the final battles against Sauron's armies.

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😕

The mind boggles. I pointed out the incorrectness of this as well and finally got a correct response, though it is still displaying the original incorrect response on Quora 🙄

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

This doesn't exactly fit the thread description, but I'll put it here anyway: someone asked "Is LOTR worth reading?".

It's not a stupid question to ask -- but on a subreddit called "Tolkienfans"?

There were a number of rather sarcastic answers, I'm afraid.

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Yeah, saw a couple of similar questions on Quora recently. Very annoying.

More AI zanery:

Question:

What kind of Elves fought at helms deep and why did only Legolas survive?

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AI answer:

The Elves that fought at Helms Deep were of the Galadhrim, or tree-people, led by Lord Glorfindel. They were allies of the Rohirrim and Gondorians, and came to the aid of Rohan during the Battle of Helm's Deep. As for why only Legolas survived, it is not entirely clear. It is possible that he was simply a skilled warrior, or that he was lucky in his survival. It is also worth noting that Lord Glorfindel was not present in the book, but in the movie adaptation, but it is not specified if any other elven warriors were present.

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Radaghast said:

More AI zanery:
Question:
AI answer:

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a central concept behind AI that of a software able to "learn"?
I'm sure that it's decades ago, when nobody expected software to be intelligent, programmers realized the concept of "garbage in - garbage out". 🤔

How powerful was Sméagol before he became Gollum?

How powerful is he as Gollum? 🤔

How powerful is he as Smeagol/Gollum?
And however powerful that is, is he even more powerful as Gollum/Smeagol?
And....and... does that power pale beside the might of Smeagol-Gollum?
Good heavens... the scholarship, the erudition that such questions evince, throw me into paroxysms of academic envy; I am undone. 😱

Correct me if I am wrong, but this thread is for ridiculous questions/statements made about Tolkien's work that make it glaringly clear they've never actually read his works, right?

As for my contribution, I have a close friend that sees eye to eye with me on many things. However, on Tolkien he and I do not agree at all. He has never read the books or even watched more than a few isolated scenes of the PJ films. He is a Harry Potter fan (which no issue there, I love Harry Potter too), but he made the following arguement for why LOTR is BORING AND GENERIC FANTASY.

He said something to the effect of: "Why do you like LOTR so much? It is so boring and generic, it doesn't have any real depth or complex motivations and the story is essentially a shallow tale of good vs evil. The good characters are good beyond doubt and the evil guy is just pure evil without any real motivations or depth."

Suffice to say, I was livid and did my best to try to explain how completely backwards he was. It is in fact so the opposite, with the varied and layered efforts Tolkien went through to show the complex and insidious nature of evil and how the temptation to achieve good ends through evil/questionable means can eventually lead to the downfall of the original good that one may have possessed.

Anyways, he didn't really want to engage in my discussion and so ends my rant.

LaurelinBearsFruit said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but this thread is for ridiculous questions/statements made about Tolkien's work that make it glaringly clear they've never actually read his works, right?

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Pretty much, though sadly, I think some people have read the works and still come away with the wrong impression. Generally it's for any zany questions about anything Middle-earth-related.

LaurelinBearsFruit said:

He said something to the effect of: "Why do you like LOTR so much? It is so boring and generic, it doesn't have any real depth or complex motivations and the story is essentially a shallow tale of good vs evil. The good characters are good beyond doubt and the evil guy is just pure evil without any real motivations or depth."

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Not sure how Harry Potter doesn't fit his biased perception. What layers does Voldemort have, exactly? (I would say Snape is the only truly multifaceted character in the series). And how can he even offer an opinion without having even read the book? That alone should disqualify anything he has to say, imho.

LaurelinBearsFruit said:

Anyways, he didn't really want to engage in my discussion and so ends my rant.

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I'd chalk that up as a victory.

@Radaghast I see! First of all, I totally agree that his complete lack of exposure to any of Tolkien's works disqualifies him. I still wanted to make my point to him though and his unwillingness to engage was frustrating but I knew I could have countered or defended any point he might have made so I didn't let it bother me.

Other than that, I have had friends who only know the movies ask why Gandalf never casts any regular spells (fireball, lightning bolt, etc.), which always makes me chuckle.

Radaghast said:

...Not sure how Harry Potter doesn't fit his biased perception. What layers does Voldemort have, exactly? (I would say Snape is the only truly multifaceted character in the series). And how can he even offer an opinion without having even read the book? That alone should disqualify anything he has to say, imho.

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'Zactly.
I decided a long time ago when the HP series [finally!] ended that it was written for juveniles.
Not all juvie fiction is 2 dimensional reminiscent of comic books (cf. the "juvenile" novels of RAH), but HP certainly is.

LaurelinBearsFruit said:

Other than that, I have had friends who only know the movies ask why Gandalf never casts any regular spells (fireball, lightning bolt, etc.), which always makes me chuckle.

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Well, he's used fire plenty, just needs something to burn. This is something that PJ could have shown in the movies, but, for some stupid reason, didn't. It's not until the awful Hobbit movies that we see this ability.

LaurelinBearsFruit said:

this thread is for ridiculous questions/statements made about Tolkien's work that make it glaringly clear they've never actually read his works, right?

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I linked a "stupidest things people have said" thread on the previous page, but it's from twenty years ago, so we could start a new one, though Radaghast appears to be amenable to a fairly loose definition of the subject? I'll give one of mine; does this fit?

Some years ago I was looking through the books at a rummage sale, chatting casually with a woman next to me, who must have mentioned something about not finding much of collectible or reading interest. I said "I saw a first printing Lord of the Rings paperback set over there". She gave me a look, and replied "Hobbits spouting pithy witticisms isn't my idea of good reading".

That needed a long answer, or none. I decided on none.