And around and around and around turns the good earth...

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...all things must change as the seasons go by...


Here's a neat site you may not know about:


Shire-Reckoning.com


At this site, you can read about the Shire calendar and how it was conceived and constructed, access an archive of posts detailing what happened in Middle Earth on each day of the Ring Quest, and learn how you can overlay the Shire calendar onto our own in order to use it regularly. There's also a cool page about the phases of the Moon in LOTR.

Enjoy!

Alternative Tolkien - H.P. Lovecraft

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H.P. Lovecraft:



If I were to tell you the true story behind the unmaking of that ring...that ring!...you would think me mad. Horrors such as are scribed in ancient tomes of eldritch evil cannot compare to the terror...the cruel, cold, brain-crushing terror!...that we felt in the lair of that foul spirit which raimed itself in arachnid form, that vile scavenger, that horrid arcane leech lingering at the border's of Sauron's Black Land...

Okay, I'm embarassed

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About those Alternative Tolkien posts:

I meant to do an introductory post, and I thought I had, but no. D'oh! I do this now.


Of the Alternative Tolkiens, only the first post I made, the Raymond Chandler one, is something I actually came up with. The others I'm posting are versions that I picked up around the web about five years ago, when these were all the rage for a little while. I have a big archive of them, and I'm putting them up in my LJ, one a day, for your amusement.

So I'm afraid I have to break it to you: I'm not that good a writer. *is sheepish*

But if I come up with any others on my own, be sure that I'll note that so you all can admire my brilliance. ;)

Just a movie? Maybe not

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claudia603 was posting about watching the LOTR films, and a commenter mentioned things overheard in the audience. This put me in mind of something that happened to me at the theater which has stuck with me, and I think always will. I posted about it at TORn back in the day, but I'd like to share it with you all now.

When ROTK came out, I went for my third viewing to a theater just a few blocks from my house. I got there right before the show so it was really packed. (The only seat I could find was in the front row, yikes!)

Now you all know when a theater is packed you can't pick and choose who you'll sit next to. I sat down with a bit of trepidation next to two teenage guys who had that smartass look about them. But hey, ROTK! I'm not gonna miss a showing just 'cause other people aren't Ringers.

So the show started and soon my fears came true. The guys started making comments. Not loud ones, and not nasty, but they didn't take the film very seriously. (Although they did like it, I could tell.) So I just ignored them.

Now, with ROTK during its theatrical run, I cried every damn time. (Except the first time, when I was too busy getting used to the shape of the film story and couldn't dive into the emotions. Also, I was exhausted from the precious NINE HOURS.) But each time, I cried at a different spot. This time it was Pippin's song that did me in, and I started to sniffle, really wanting to sob, but you know - quiet scene, plus crowd.

So I'm trying to breathe, and tears are running down my face. The guys are joshing, and then the one sitting next to me heard me sniffling and looked over at me. I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was surprised, and then he turned and whispered something I couldn't hear to his friend. And guess what?

They never said another word.

All through the rest of the film, they were quiet. They just watched, and by the end I could tell they appreciated the story in a different way than they had enjoyed it at first. I think it stopped being something to roll their eyes at, and that maybe seeing me crying had opened them up to the possibility that there might be something there for them that they hadn't known before. Maybe that taught them something they might take into the real world. Who knows?

It's a little thing, but for me it summarizes so much about LOTR, the films, the impact they had, and what film can accomplish, writ large as well as writ small. Maybe some people might be turned off a bad path by these movies (as they have been by the books). I don't know. I just know it was a really important moment for me.

To quote Ten Bears, "That is all I have to say."

Alternative Tolkien - Sigmund Freud

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Sigmund Freud:


The ring is clearly a symbol of the mother-figure into which the bearer feels the irresistible urge to thrust his finger (obviously a phallic symbol). The ensuing penetration of the ring is accompanied by a deep sense of elation but also a deep sub-conscious shame manifested by the sudden invisibility. The ring wearer does not want others to witness his shaming fetish but is also, at the same time, acutely aware that a sudden disappearance must bring acute attention upon him. Therefore, the ring bearer must find a private moment in which to succumb to the guilty pleasure of the ring.

It is interesting to note that the urge to wear the ring becomes irresistibly strong in the presence of the Nazgul, obviously representing the 9 faces of fatherhood. The father figure sublimating his own acts of unconscious jealously towards the adopted son for his lust acts as a reinforcer towards the sons manifest desire.

The Fellowship in this case clearly represents the son's attempt to overthrow his father in order to fully take advantage of his lust for his mother. Each character in the fellowship corresponds to a different facet of the personality and they are constantly in conflict with each other over the desired action that they must take.

The creation of the ring itself must be noted as interesting as it was the original Ur-Father figure who manifested such an entity. From this, it is clear that the son figure is projecting his own unconscious lust upon his father. This is probably an sub-conscious attempt to rationalize the killing of his father. The proposed destruction of the ring is a vain attempt to remove the power from his over controlling father and break away in order to gain his own freedom of action. However, it is clear that the son figure could never really destroy his lust and merely tries to repress it until the pressure becomes so intense that he finally performs a complete shift in personality and embraces his mother-lust.