Jonathan | ExploringTolkien.com
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I love listening to Tolkien tell his own stories (hard as he is to understand). Here's a hard-to-find (enhanced) excerpt from The Hobbit ("Roast Mutton").
I can imagine him telling this story to his kids, sitting in before him, enraptured by the 3 trolls about to roast Bilbo.
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Elrond, the herald of Gil-Galad who fought in the Last Alliance, is now a "canny" architect. Galadriel, who never fought in the War of Wrath or Last Alliance, is now a "commander" of armies.
It's the woke rewriting of Tolkien into beta males & alpha females.
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“It’s a money-making venture and I’m not interested in watching that or being in it. Good luck to them and all that stuff but it’s not like the real thing." Bernard Hill on
#TheRingsofPower
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#LOTRonPrime
Showrunner McKay asks, "Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?"
Let me help.
No. You can't.
Tolkien spent his life creating The Silmarillion & you can write what he couldn't in a few years?
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1/ This might be a risky statement: The primary problem in
#TheRingsofPower
isn't that that they're changing Tolkien. It's that it's poorly written, poorly plotted, poorly paced, poorly directed, with poorly constructed characters... The entire project is an amateur exercise.
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How to win over fans:
1.When you change Tolkien’s story and characters, keep deflecting and tell them you love Tolkien.
2.When fans point out your changes, call them racist trolls.
What a winning strategy…
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The
#LOTRonPrime
trailer didn’t let us sit on one shot for more than a second… the long iconic shot of the fellowship moving over that crest in the teaser trailer for Jackson’s trilogy let us get to know _something_ about the films. This gave us nothing to hold on to.
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On this day 49 years ago,
#JRRTolkien
took his final voyage into the west. Yet, his work lives on, kindling a secret fire in those that journey into his Middle-earth. Today, Amazon did their best to extinguish that fire with a small vision of his incredible world. They failed.
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Tolkien understood why Christmas is worth celebrating.
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"But Númenor was, in some ways, a blank canvas." ~ JD Payne, Showrunner
Pharazon goes from Númenorean captain & commander to "advisor". Miriel becomes a queen regent (and is the military leader now).
I guess it's a blank canvas if you're painting over what was already created.
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"And Galadriel leapt into the air to smite the ice troll. Her sword rang strong and true. Her body floated like Neo in the Matrix." ~ The Histories of Middle-earth, Vol 💩
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Hey look! It's 4 completely made up characters that Tolkien didn't write one word about in any book, note, or letter! 🤦♂️ Good to know the showrunners are always going "back to the books" at every turn... don't believe your lyin' eyes, folks.
#RingsOfPower
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“Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” … the
#LOTRonPrime
trailer felt disjointed and more like a promo for a video game at E3. I’ll reserve my final judgment for when they give us a real trailer, but those red flags still are still flying.
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This one scene that Tolkien wrote in the 1940s delivers more emotional impact in 5 seconds than an entire movie about girly pink dolls taking down the fake "patriarchy".
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Inflation hits us all in different ways. Today, $1 billion will only get you the costume wardrobe from the local high school’s Othello performance. Sad.
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I wasn't a huge fan of Nuclear Galadriel, but Jackson had the good sense to only put her in armor when she's overcoming the lure of the ring. In
#LOTRonPrime
we get warrior princess Galadriel, & architect politician Elrond. I bet my axe a female dwarf will make Durin look a fool.
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This is a clear visual description of how Númenorean ships were constructed to transport their volunteer armies in
#TheRingsOfPower
. I have no more questions.
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Do not attempt to “come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote”. Exhibit A.
#RingsOfPower
#Tolkien
#Hubris
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Here's Hera, the new hero of this re-written story of Helm Hammerhand. Tolkien never gave her a name, and only wrote this about her: "[Freca] asked the hand of Helm’s daughter for his son Wulf." That's it. Nothing else.
I have thoughts... 1/15
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Safe space for fans of
#LOTR
? Good grief. Jordan Peterson said "In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive." If you're offended by fans who'd rather see Galadriel/elves/M-E as written, it's time you leave the soft-padded walls of your school to start thinking.
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The more I think about it, I bet Tom Shippey decided to leave
#TheRingsOfPower
on his own. Five minutes spent in this show's writers room would be enough for me to abandon all hope.
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Geez. Who decided that Boba Fett needed to be made empathetic and weak (and it's just a boring show)? ..likely the same strain of people making decisions on Amazon's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power". Maybe if I set my expectations REALLY low I won't be disappointed!
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The Hill: Hobbiton Across the Water - J.R.R. Tolkien
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"I love my wife so much, that I only want her to change the way she talks, the way she looks, where she travels, the people she spends time with, her motivations and inspirations... and her personality.
But I love her so much!" 😚
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If this picture of the young Captain of Gondor absolutely ripping a heater gets more likes then your podcast with the
@MiddleearthMixr
is awesome! 😏
Had an absolute blast with
@MiddleearthMixr
this week talking about Elrond the Unbeliever, Sauron's big eye, and how Saruman became Sauron's lackey in the film!
WATCH 👇
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Everything is made up in this shot. Galadriel and Miriel never met. They never used a Palantir (and which Palantir would this be?). And the entire story will be carried by the the STRONG FEMALE WARRIOR--these new writers don't know how to write strong femininity in any other way.
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"The men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times and more than ten times their match would ring them in a sea of enemies."
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Bombadil in The Rings of Power will guide the dirty little sociopaths--er, Harfoots over to the Shire so he can settle nearby.
The Rings of Power is like an insect parasite that controls the host's body. It might look like Tolkien, but inside it's a mindless, spiritless zombie.
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"Galadriel, Commander of the Northern Armies. I half expected you to arrive caked in mud."
"This time frostbite. And troll blood."
🤢
To quote the book (Unfinished Tales): "When news of [Sauron's invasion] reached Gil-galad he sent out a force under Elrond."
#TheRingsOfPower
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@ilIestWillis
Tell me you've never read the Silmarillion without telling me you've never read the Silmarillion.
The most Tolkien thing is how Mithril is the magic yin-Yang metal that will solve the elves problems.
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Barrow-wights were sent by the Witch-king of Angmar. 3500 years after the rings were were created.
I can't stress enough how little the creators of this show care about what Tolkien ACTUALLY wrote.
The subscriber cover for The Lord Of The Rings:
#TheRingsOfPower
issue is a ghoulish illustration of the ghastly Barrow-wights – the terrifying Tolkien monsters brought to life in Season 2. Created by concept artist
@einar_art
.
Newsstand covers on sale Thurs 4 July.
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"When we originally shot the scene, Frodo pushed Gollum off the ledge into the fires below. It was straight-out murder, but at the time we were okay with it because we felt everyone wanted Frodo to kill Gollum. But, of course, it was very un-Tolkien." ~Peter Jackson
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Finally, after 70 years and hundreds of millions of simpletons reading LOTR, we are wise enough in our wokeness to read how homoerotic and queer it truly is.
As
@TheCriticalDri2
says:
Go Away Now.
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The final trailer for
#TheRingsOfPower
again confirms that they are simply creating a story with names and places from Tolkien's world... but the story is something COMPLETELY different.
WATCH ▸▸▸
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2/ The poor writing began early in episode 1. We learned that rocks look down and ships look up--and this was supposed to be some sort of wonderful guiding statement about how to live--but it's so clunky and unimaginative. And the entire show suffers from this.
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4/ The plot never recovers from their complete ignorance of geography and time: Celebrimbor and Elrond walk to Khazad Dum. The new forge is built in a couple days. The Númenoreans get to Middle-earth practically overnight. The writers don't care about making the world REAL.
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1) Read the Vanity Fair article and there’s a lot of red flags. My first thoughts follow…
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@BriannaWu
Ferdinand Porsche was a member of the Nazi party and the SS.
Owning one Porsche (or more) is a character test.
You failed the test
@BriannaWu
.
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Uhhhhhh... Hmm. This is Númenor, the height of human artistry. 😂 ... I just keep wondering if it can get worse, and they keep upping the ante! Can't wait till next week!
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15/ ... but sticking to what Tolkien wrote wouldn't have hurt either... 😁
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3/ This show is smeared with bad writing... "The Wine of victory is sweetest for those in whose bitter trials it has fermented." “Sweep the enemy from the land like salt off the table.” “Where there is love it is truly never dark.” And thats when they're TRYING to write well!
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#TheRingsofPower
doesn't only twist Tolkien's works, it twists laws of reality to reach a ridiculous climax. Between girl boss moments & cruel assaults against the English language, we are left w/ a show that disdains what Tolkien wrote.
WATCH ▸▸▸
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5/ For example, the entire plot of the necessity of the new forge is ignored. The forge is so important that Elrond has to travel to Khazad Dum to make-up with Durin after 20 years of silence. Then, they completely ignore it. It was filler "plot".
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14/ So, if the show would've been crafted with precision and care, guided by expert hands who had a passion for the show, it COULD have been good--without Respecting the Lore. But it wasn't. Not even close. The entire show is an exercise in how NOT to craft a timeless story.
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1/ This
#TheRingsofPower
trailer concentrates on. 1: Rewritten Galadriel. 2: Rewritten Tar-Miriel. 3: New Character Arondir. 4: New Character Halbrand. 5: New Character Disa. 6: New Harfoots. 7: Galadriel in Númenor. 8: Elrond lecturing Galadriel. 9: The Meteor Man.
Watch the Official Trailer for
#TheRingsOfPower
now. Join us in Middle-earth on September 2.
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Tolkien meant to write, “She was a warrior, greater and more fearsome than Húrin, who led her emasculated men into battle. She forged an alliance with Galadriel to lead the fight against Sauron since the men were too fearful.”
#RingsOfPower
!
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12/ Bronwyn is a healer. And an orc-killer. And a military leader. And invincible.
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7/ Remember when you 1st learned to write & were told, Show, don't tell? This show TELLS us & NEVER SHOWS us anything. They don't SHOW: Galadriel and Elrond's strong friendship; the Harfoots need for secrecy; Gil-galad's distrust of Galadriel; Celebrimbor's excellence as a smith.
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9/ The poor directing makes the show feel small, inconsequential. Númenor is supposed to be an amazing culture--and we get those sweeping shots that make it look huge and majestic. But once the directing gets into the city, everything is tight, small, claustrophobic.
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11/ The characters are really just caricatures. Galadriel is a single-minded revenge monster until a volcano blasts that out of her. Nori and Poppy are amateur Frodo and Sam replicas. Gil-galad is played with community-theatre nobility. Celebrimbor never smiths anything.
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10/ For example, Galadriel trains a 15 person army on random steps in a back alley. In the next scene the sword fighting is inexpertly executed, w/ silly movements, & edited badly with jerky cuts & awkward slo-mo. Checkout
@shadiversity
's deconstruction at
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13/ One more thing. The writers likely feel like lifting direct quotes from Tolkien's writing and putting them in new characters mouths is paying homage to him... but it only serves to display how bad most of the writing is by showing us what EXPERT word-smithing really is.
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Guess who's coming to dinner! Elrond!
#TheRingsofPower
showrunners keep telling us they're going "back to the book"--I'm still trying to figure which book they mean.
Listening to the "banter" here, maybe it's a Nicholas Sparks novel? 😏
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14) Amazon can make as many claims that what they’ve created really is Tolkien’s world. 1/2 of Tolkien fandom won’t buy it, though. My expectations weren’t high for this show to begin with. They just dropped much much lower.
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8/ And because it doesn't SHOW us anything, the pacing dies in every conversation that tells us about relationships, about plots and plans, about distrust and love. The show's plot and pacing die within a casket of amateur mediocrity.
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6/ The poor pacing of the show starts right in episode 1. After a clumsy prologue, we see Brave Commander Galadriel leading her "army" into the frozen north. Then it's on to the slow harfoots. Then to some discussions in Lindon. Nothing HAPPENS in episode 1 until The Meteor.
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Faramir and Frodo in Ithilien - Catherine Karina Chmiel
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12) I believe Tolkien knew what he was doing when he wrote his stories. And for Amazon to come in and inject their own modern sensibilities into it while throwing ad hominem attacks at Tolkien fans with deep vested interest in his work (like me) won’t end well for them.
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"Like Melkor, they are possessed by dark thoughts of their own imaginings... and seek not so much to increase their own power & glory, but to bring
#Tolkien
’s down to their grubby station, where everything can be reduced to race & sex & politics."
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“People’s Republic”
“People’s Army”
“People’s Choice”
Read into it what you will. 😏 Seems the paid for people at the top with all the money make the nominations… 🤨
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13) (When the original LOTR films released, New Line Cinema knew we () were “purists”—they still engaged us & certainly didn’t call us names. And they never asked us to take down our complete list of film changes… they knew they needed fans on their side)
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All Tolkien wrote about her was "he asked the hand of Helm’s daughter for his son Wulf."
But grrrrrl power for *modern audiences* demands she goes front and center. With the biggest possible sword.
Like Star Wars, Tolkien TV and movies are just poor fan fiction now.
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@David_Leavitt
This is tiresome. And juvenile. The simple mind makes statements like this because it doesn't understand context, the excellence of the original work, and can only see through lenses of its own progressive myopia.
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"If they won't write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves; but it is very laborious." ~ C.S. Lewis to J.R.R. Tolkien
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But none of the screencaps here actually happened in anything Tolkien wrote.
And it's not showing off Galadriel's vision. It's showing her at the Dagor Bragollach, even though Tolkien never said she fought there.
Stop making things up, Amazon.
A new teaser for “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is here, showing off Galadriel’s terrifying vision, a man wreathed in fire, and adorable harfoots.
Watch the epic video now:
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I admit I'm not a fan of Anime. But I'm less of a fan of changing Tolkien's story to suit your own desires. We HAVE the story Tolkien wrote with the characters he found important. Use THAT.
Definitely looks like that's not the story they're telling. 14/15
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Elven Architecture 101: Make sure you use a single taut rope to secure the strength of your structures... I hope they use those ropes to secure the forge! Could come tumbling down any second!
#TheRingsofPower
isn't just rewriting Tolkien, it's inventing new ways of stupid.
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In the recent Hollywood Reporter article about
#TheRingsofPower
season 2, Amazon proudly states that they're lying to fans on being faithful to Tolkien, creating a "real" world, & heeding criticism.
They're delusional, stupid, or villainous.
WATCH ▸▸▸
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A good director who reluctantly decided to direct on a short timeline is still miles better than a corporate exercise made as a money grab. Peter Jackson at least still cared about Tolkien.
What are your thoughts on the Hobbit Trilogy AFTER seeing the first season of The Rings of Power?
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Do not attempt to “come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote”. Exhibit B.
#RingsOfPower
#Tolkien
#NotTolkien
#NotHobbits
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Redefining things is the best way to make things better! Recession… woman… warrior… Galadriel… Elrond… Hobbit… Tolkien…
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I found the proper ancient helm for our new warrior princess Galadriel... 🏈
FYI, the trailer for The Rings of Power will be shown at the beginning of the third quarter - probably around 8:15-8:30 ET, 5:15-5:30 PT.
Fumble, touchdown, or forfeit, what's your call?
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"It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them – as long as it was possible... to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937
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11) I know a lot folks (like Vanity Fair) will say that what I’m pointing out is a “reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind.” What I say is not reflexive nor anonymous. It comes from a love of the world Tolkien created over his entire lifetime…
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Woah! I can be the FIRST ONE to review
#TheRingsOfPower
! 😏 Just shut down the ratings Amazon and pretend people actually like it...
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He's making the same point Tolkien makes in On Fairy-Stories (you can't have recovery-escape-consolation if the art draws you back to the world you're escaping from). The adjectives are more... erm, aggressive.
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2/ When people wonder why there is such a fan backlash against this show, THIS is why. There is nearly NOTHING in this trailer that a lifelong, hardcore, Tolkien reader like me can point to and say, "Hey, that's from the books!"
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"We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren't going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies." ~ Peter Jackson
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#TheRingsOfPower
is really raising their simile game with every episode! This week we got the timeless maxim, "We will sweep the enemy from the land like salt off the table." ... So stunning! So powerful!
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Rings of Power is what liberal/left art does to the conservative Lord of the Rings. They are the orc creators, warping this beautiful creation in their own twisted image.
Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, you witless worm.
Conservatives are incapable of producing good art because they lack empathy, which means they are incapable of creating anything which communicates to a larger audience. When they try to produce art, they only end up producing clumsy in-group signaling.
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The Hobbit Graphic Novel 1 - Eclipse Comics
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"There is no symbolism or allegory in my story. '5 wizards = 5 senses' is wholly foreign to my thinking. There were 5 wizards & that is just a unique part of history. To ask if the Orcs are Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, 1957
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