Hidden Nuggets we see all the time...

[Gaelivor]

"In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt"

This is utterly false. The very fact we play this game proves that. Every person who plays this game and loves that novel are part of one of those two sides. The novel was a hit in every nation that was part of the winning side and once translated (into more languages than any other work of fiction in history) into those living in the lands who were once part of the losers of that conflict.

Once again, his defenses regarding any comparison to the current events of his life or the suggestion he drew inspriation or examples are weak at best. Just another author offended when someone notices his sources and who takes personal affront when it is suggested he did not think his personal fiction up out of thin air.

But I do agree that the non-weapon drawing aspects of the game are great and wish there could be more. I feel it is a mistake that a cook cannot continue his education unless he travel into some valley leagues away to fight his way through to some monster he must kill before he may continue to the next crafting tier. I was REALLY looking forward to a completely non-violent, non-warrior character. Ah well.

Bottom line, they did a fantastic job with all the "little nuggets" and not just ones from the book. The FEEL of the Shire, the Barrow-downs, the Chetwood, the Mysty Mountains, on and on, is what makes the game for me. I feel like I am in Middle-earth much of the time. Just the way I like it.

[EMPIRENZ]

This seems as good a place as any to ask...

If one was to read the books, having never read any, where would you start?

The Hobbit?
Fotr?

What is the correct order?

[MalakNour]

This seems as good a place as any to ask...

If one was to read the books, having never read any, where would you start?

The Hobbit?
Fotr?

What is the correct order?

pretty much like you said... the hobbit.. then the lord of the rings trilogy

[SniperCT]

pretty much like you said... the hobbit.. then the lord of the rings trilogy

And then if you feel brave, the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

[EMPIRENZ]

Ok, I may have to bite the bullet and read them.

Ive been putting it off for years.... but you people make fantasy sound fun

[zaldar]

Yup, that's what I thought in the first time when I see it, and he is "MAD" :P

You know I watch that show and I had never made that connection until now. Has anyone told him about it I wonder? I mean he does love to see himself in other things, part of his character and all. The fight he was in when the writers were on strike was hilarious.

For my little connection up in the mistys the dwarf you give the goblin pots to I think his name is Yavanna though I may be wrong. Tries to use them and sets himself on fire, that is hilarious and very well done. Love that part of the quest!

[zaldar]

"In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt"

This is utterly false. The very we play this game proves that. Every person who plays this game and loves that novel are part of one of those two sides. The novel was a hit in every nation that was part of the winning side and once translated (into more languages than any other work of fiction in history) into those living in the lands who were once part of the losers of that conflict.

Once again, his defenses regarding any comparison to the current events of his life or the suggestion he drew inspriation or examples are weak at best. Just another author offended when someone notices his sources and who takes personal affront when it is suggested he did not think his personal fiction up out of thin air.

But I do agree that the non-weapon drawing aspects of the game are great and wish there could be more. I feel it is a mistake that a cook cannot continue his education unless he travel into some valley leagues away to fight his way through to some monster he must kill before he may continue to the next crafting tier. I was REALLY looking forward to a completely non-violent, non-warrior character. Ah well.

Bottom line, they did a fantastic job with all the "little nuggets" and not just ones from the book. The FEEL of the Shire, the Barrow-downs, the Chetwood, the Mysty Mountains, on and on, is what makes the game for me. I feel like I am in Middle-earth much of the time. Just the way I like it.

He is talking about the leaders of the countries more than the countries themselves and really was he that far off? We didn't destroy our weapons still haven't and we don't respect small countries that don't believe the be all and end all of life is work and development I mean we call them the third world. Hobbits I have always respected but I do see them as children, and I have more respect for elves and those that go out and change the world *shrug*. Yes I know the hobbit is the hero but thats one

[zaldar]

Thank you for the welcome. Since the answer is still indeterminite, may I just pass along my most avid suggestion for the opening of at least some of those doors (and perhaps simple locks on the rest, since even that is better than painted wall).




I'm glad my rather loquacious habit is appreciated. And I agree that such a quest would be a wonderful idea and a worthy deed.



I just though of a sort of nugget, or at least a lore-related anecdote, to share. I logged on to my lore-master in Celondim to check his mail before going to bed and encountered another player that was roleplaying. Such a rarity, at least in my experience thus far, was not to go to waste. When she mentioned the lovely evening, I agreed by saying that the Valacirca was particularly bright. Naturally, she asked what it was, so I beckoned to a nearby terrace and pointed it out above a northern hill just as the first light of dawn began to alight to my right. The fact that I could do that and know that even such a minor lore element as a constellation is exactly where it is expected to be excites me immensely. In my opinion, it is this that makes the game wonderful, with the combat, questing, and loot being secondary to the experience.

If you are on elendilmir I have a kinship that would love to have you....need more heavy RPs like yourself.

[Valamagne]

Ok, I may have to bite the bullet and read them.

Ive been putting it off for years.... but you people make fantasy sound fun

Uh, a point of correction....
The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings (War of the Ring), and The Silmarilion are not fantasy....it all REALLY happened!!!


Hehe....I think Tolkien had started to create a minor mythology for England...persoanlly, I think he succeeded

[Vayde_Vilya]

"In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt"

This is utterly false. The very we play this game proves that. Every person who plays this game and loves that novel are part of one of those two sides. The novel was a hit in every nation that was part of the winning side and once translated (into more languages than any other work of fiction in history) into those living in the lands who were once part of the losers of that conflict.

Once again, his defenses regarding any comparison to the current events of his life or the suggestion he drew inspriation or examples are weak at best. Just another author offended when someone notices his sources and who takes personal affront when it is suggested he did not think his personal fiction up out of thin air.

But I do agree that the non-weapon drawing aspects of the game are great and wish there could be more. I feel it is a mistake that a cook cannot continue his education unless he travel into some valley leagues away to fight his way through to some monster he must kill before he may continue to the next crafting tier. I was REALLY looking forward to a completely non-violent, non-warrior character. Ah well.

Bottom line, they did a fantastic job with all the "little nuggets" and not just ones from the book. The FEEL of the Shire, the Barrow-downs, the Chetwood, the Mysty Mountains, on and on, is what makes the game for me. I feel like I am in Middle-earth much of the time. Just the way I like it.

I think you misread the quote a little bit when you say, "Every person who plays this game and loves that novel are part of one of those two sides." If you look more closely at the paragraph, the "two sides" are not the two sides of our reality or of either world war. He is referring to the two sides he created previously in the paragraph:

If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth.

He's talking about his own little riff there, and how the basic cohesive elements of the story no longer make sense when you try to combine the elements from the real war and the legendary war together in allegory. That the books have swept the world is proof that they were not allegory for either real war. If they were, the losing side would identify with Sauron or Saruman and their side, and hate the books as foolish lies.

To be more specific, the legendary war (as he calls it) was a war of good against evil, of light against darkness, absolute versus absolute, human versus inhuman. The real wars, containing however much bloodshed and however much evil and however much inhumanity, were wars between men. That the books are treasured on both sides now just goes to show that the majority of the people on each were members of the realistic, imperfect, "good" side, and that Sauron's forces were not involved.

That fact, that in-applicability to most modern conflicts, is probably the greatest weakness LotR has. But, as Tolkien is suggesting, the focus was entirely elsewhere.

--------

Sorry to derail! More nuggets!

[Lithya]

I would like to point out something in the Dwarven housing areas, "neighbor". Makes me grind my teeth every time I see a "neighbor" seeing as I am an English woman and Tolkien was an English man. *grumbles* I'd just prefer that things although not lore-related would be thought over thoroughly to coincide with the overall feel of the rest of the game. I mean, you have English accents (although some sound quite silly to me) on nearly all the NPCs so why name an NPC using an American spelling?

Oh and in Book 12 there are some spelling errors in the quests but I'd have to go back and look again.

/end of nitpicking

[Berephon]

I would like to point out something in the Dwarven housing areas, "neighbor". Makes me grind my teeth every time I see a "neighbor" seeing as I am an English woman and Tolkien was an English man. *grumbles* I'd just prefer that things although not lore-related would be thought over thoroughly to coincide with the overall feel of the rest of the game. I mean, you have English accents (although some sound quite silly to me) on nearly all the NPCs so why name an NPC using an American spelling?
/end of nitpicking

We are aware of this...it should be fixed by Book 13. British-spellings (or rather Tolkien-spellings, as he did make use of certain Americanisms, such as the -ize ending, versus -ise) are supposed to be used, and this is a case where it should be neighbour.

[KainXI]

We are aware of this...it should be fixed by Book 13. British-spellings (or rather Tolkien-spellings, as he did make use of certain Americanisms, such as the -ize ending, versus -ise) are supposed to be used, and this is a case where it should be neighbour.

What's the point of that extra U in there? Sounds to me like you are just trying to cheat at Scrabble.

/Eddie Izzard

[Gaelivor]

I started with the Hobbit, but I know many people never read it or read it later.

But if you read the Hobbit first, remember that the Lord of the Rings is a much more adult version of the history of Middle-earth.

The way I see it, the children's book, The Hobbit, is a tale of Middle-earth told as a folk legend (at least one dwarf has blue hair, the wolves talk to you like the ones out of fairy tales, trolls wear trousers and have names like Tom. Even the use of the word Goblin instead of Orc is more lighthearted and fairy tale like.) The Lord of the Rings starts off in a similar vein, through the dancing and singing Tom Bombadil, but quickly evloves into an adult novel in the traditon of the heroic quest sagas, with deep and complex themes under pinning a "fantasy" plotline.

I see them being different episodes in the same (fictional) history. All that stuff really happened, but like our own ancient histories, some episodes came down to us as folk tales like Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel, with basis in now lost fact and others came down to us as highly detailed histories, even if they still contained supernatural elements, like the Iliad telling the story of the Trojan War, but includes direct intervention of the Greek Gods, for example.

And there is NOTHING in the novel that says wargs spiders cannot speak to humans, as they clearly do in the Hobbit or that the cave troll in Moria did not have a name like Tom or wear trousers. It is just not mentioned. So I do see them both as valid texts to be included in the same reality. The telling of the tale is in a different style, but it is the same tale.

[EMPIRENZ]

What's the point of that extra U in there? Sounds to me like you are just trying to cheat at Scrabble.

/Eddie Izzard

Because its the correct way to do it!
It changes the sound of the word (ever so slightly).
Take Color/Colour - without the U the first 'o' to me reads as a hard 'o' much in the same veign as colon. The U softens this and gives colour its correct sound.

[LOTRFan101]

My favorite "nugget" is that you can read the letters. It's not just, "Take this letter to Saeradan"; it's, "take this letter which you can read and have Sharkey and Isengard be dropped on top of you and make you smile."

[Lohi]

Because its the correct way to do it!

It's up for debate :-) Basically the American colonies split off before there were any spelling police, and different regions would have different ways of spelling. It's an entirely modern concept that there should be strict rules about standard spelling and grammar that don't change over time and place. When it comes to spelling, modern English is one of the oddest languages out there, requiring more memorization than common sense.

Middle Earth I am sure does not have any spelling rules or grammar police. I've got a gut feel that Westron is just as muddled and irrational as English, whereas Dwarvish is phonetic so that spelling is a non-issue (ala Finnish or Esperanto). But I haven't reviewed the appendices in a while so I could be wrong.

[vyperboy]

And there is NOTHING in the novel that says wargs spiders cannot speak to humans, as they clearly do in the Hobbit or that the cave troll in Moria did not have a name like Tom or wear trousers. It is just not mentioned. So I do see them both as valid texts to be included in the same reality. The telling of the tale is in a different style, but it is the same tale.

As a matter of fact, there is a quest where you have a conversation with a warg....

[DYMongoose]

What's the point of that extra U in there? Sounds to me like you are just trying to cheat at Scrabble.

/Eddie Izzard

Now I just wanna talk quickly about language, and then we can all go. Yeah, language. They do say Britain and America are two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s true. No, they say, “two countries separated by a common language,” that’s the line; it’s an Oscar Wilde line, I think. And we do pronounce things in a different way, like you say “caterpillar” and we say “caterpillar,” and… You say “aluminum” and we say “aluminium.” You say, “centrifugal” and we say “centrifugal.” You say, “leisure” and we say “lizuray.” You say “baysil” and we say “bahsil.” You say “’erbs” and we say “herbs,” because there’s a ******* “H” in it… But you spell through THRU, and I’m with you on that, ‘cause we spell it “THRUFF,” and that’s trying to cheat at Scrabble.

“How can we get that “OU” sound?”

“Well, a “U” will work,”

“What about an “O” as well?”

“We don’t need it, we’re fine.”

“No, I think an “O” in.”

“Well, all right.”

“And a “G” as well.”

“What?!”

“Yes, a “G” would be good. We need a silent “G” in the background, in case of any accidents or something.”

“Well, all right.”

“And an “H” as well.”

“*******‘ell! Hang on.”

“An “H” in case some herbs come along.”

“All right…”

“And a Q, and a P, and a Z… Look it’s a word in Scrabble that’s 480 points!”

[Dantee]

That would be a bug.

but its kinda cool... the fish floating in the air.. "catch me so you can cook me. "

who would need to fish if you could just catch them in the air

[Burning_Tyger]

It's up for debate :-) Basically the American colonies split off before there were any spelling police, and different regions would have different ways of spelling. It's an entirely modern concept that there should be strict rules about standard spelling and grammar that don't change over time and place.

Actually, I am fairly certain the English language had plenty of conventional spelling rules at the time the North American colonies were formed. It has nothing to do with the natural differentiation of language separated over time. After all, Canadians use the English spelling and they were colonies as well. We Americans used the English spelling as well through most of the 18th and 19th centuries.

No, our "American" way of spelling can almost soley be attributed to Mirriam Webster, who back in the 1800's "revised" the spelling of many words to make more sense to American phonetic conventions. His changes gained notoriety and were accepted as the correct "American spelling" over the course of some years. Almost all the words where our spelling differs from the English spelling are the result of Mirriam Webster's changes, not some natural change of the language over time. So for you English that despise our spelling, now you have the culprit. Feel free to burn effigies of Old Man Webster at your leisure.

For those English who are hardcore purists that despise our changes to the spelling, keep in mind that "proper" English did the same thing to the French that entered the language in the middle ages with the Normans. The English often changed the spelling to suit English phonetic conventions. That is all Webster did for Americans. It's a normal thing for cultures to do, and doing so doesn't make the new spellings invalid.

But hey, I like both spellings. I just think they help to differentiate our cultures a bit, and variety is the spice of life, right?

Edit: As has been pointed out to me, the correct name of he man is Noah Webster, not Mirriam Webster, which is a series of American dictionaries. It was a careless mistake on my part. Thanks to Lohi for pointing out my mistake.

[Lohi]

No, our "American" way of spelling can almost soley be attributed to Mirriam Webster,

I'm sure you mean Noah Webster. His first dictionary was 1828. His goal was education.

And the language has changed a lot over time. Try reading some Civil War era newspapers. Or the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_spelling for some interesting bits. Ie, modern Brits drop the "u" from some -our words that were in Samuel Johnson's dictionary.

[Cleitanious]

Actually before the Revolutionary war its been found that many Englishmen considered the American pronunciation of many words (except those in Boston and other colonies which I quote "Sound quite whiny.". are more correct then the previously proper "English-English". Simply because they liked the way we said things better then their own pronunciations.

Quoted from a PBS documentary on the Revolutionary War which I cannot remember the exact title of.

[Beornling]

SNIP… Look it’s a word in Scrabble that’s 480 points!”

I hate you...

I wasted ages trying to come up with ANYTHING longer than four tiles using those letters.

lol

/scrabblenutter

[Burning_Tyger]

I'm sure you mean Noah Webster. His first dictionary was 1828. His goal was education.

And the language has changed a lot over time. Try reading some Civil War era newspapers. Or the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_spelling for some interesting bits. Ie, modern Brits drop the "u" from some -our words that were in Samuel Johnson's dictionary.

Yes...you are right. I meant Noah Webster. Mirriam Webster is the dictionary :-). Sorry for the mistake. And while I agree that the language has evolved in a normal way over time, I was specifically referring to the spelling differences in our two countries versions of English. And in that regard, most of the spelling changes were indeed the direct result of Noah Webster's changes. But he did not have exclusive reign over all the changes in our spoken and written language. Thanks for the link.