/arda/ - Tolkien's Legendarium

>>1771

You posted the thumbnail.

>>2070

This Celebrimbor is great. Elves should be depicted with such physiques more often. Shame the background isn't filled with other half-naked elven smiths flexing their well-developed muscles and maybe making some jewelry.

>>2070

It just me, or does the size of the Witch King and the Fellbeast seem a little bit disproportionate?

>>2072

The wings certainly seem big enough to carry man and beast. Guess he had to make it a bit smaller otherwise Eowen would have been behind the beast.

>>2071

I think the noldor were buffer than other elves

>>2094

I unironically think that this movie was a better adaption than the new one.

>>2097

Not just better. Much better.

>>2089

They certainly were the most physical(ly active) of the Elves, with their martial temperament, mining, smithing and building of massive fortresses. I think they had the skills, ego and material culture to be the ones to sculpt very un-Christian depictions of their own physiques.

>>2103

EOWYN AND THE NAZGUL

>>2109

Thanks for clearing that up.

>>2199

Was considering uploading the good stuff from them, I don't have a scanner though.

the best decision Jackson made

was bringing in John Howe and Alan Lee

>>2261

I always disliked the movie version of Sauron during the war of the ring being just solely the eye, I think it diminishes him more than anything. They could have easily added the dialogue lines talking about Saurons phyiscal form from the books

>>2269

Maybe it would have been better if the image of the eye only appeared when looking through the palantir?

>>2238

The concept art is very kino. I think they hired actual tolkien-autists to make them.

>>2270

Yeah, absolutely. Even though we don't encounter him directly in physical form in the ROTK book, the fact that Sauron himself is on the way when Frodo gets captured definitely adds to the tension

>>2273

>the fact that Sauron himself is on the way when Frodo gets captured definitely adds to the tension

Is he really? I'm positive Sauron is heavily implied to be doing nothing but sitting on his arse looking out of his tower all the way through the book.

>>2274

I was thinking of this passage from the Two Towers:

>Full description of every article, garment, weapon, letter, ring. or trinket is to be sent to Lugbúrz at once, and to Lugbúrz only. And the prisoner is to be kept safe and intact, under pain of death for every member of the guard, until He sends or comes Himself.

I suppose it didnt mean he was on his way per se, but I always thought of it as that.

>>2275

It doesn't seem impossible that Sauron was up and about, but based on how the good guys' plan hinged on Sauron assuming the Ring was in Gondor, and how Sauron's metaphorical gaze apparently emanating from his tower is implied to turn from the battle at Black Gate to Mount Doom when Frodo and pals are there, I'd say it would have been a Nazgul or some lesser lieutenant that would have gone to check the ruckus at Cirith Ungol. The orc report wasn't about the Ring, but some elf or sneaky dwarf, after all.

My interpretation is based on the image I have of Sauron at the time as a demented gaffer that has had one too many hits to his head, and really doesn't want to risk another costly bodily death by leaving his tower ever again, similarly to how Morgoth was in the end. I imagine dueling with an elf lord at an unimportant mountain pass would have been one the last things he would have wanted to do.

>>2276

True. Didn't work out too well for Morgoth when he tried to look like a tough guy in front of his minions when Fingolfin challenged him.

Thinking about it more, it does only mean that the guards of Cirith Ungol were told to report the capture of prisoners and if they had any rings, doesn't mean the message got sent before orcs gonna orc and they all killed each other

>>2281

>if they had any rings

This part throws me off a bit. How common is the audience supposed to think magical rings actually are? A lot of the behaviour of the characters (like Gandalf taking his sweet time even though he was aware of a ring that turned mortals invisible) only makes sense if there's plenty of magical rings to go around, but we only get to read about the sauronic sixteen plus Three plus One, and Saruman's failed(?) attempts, if I recall correctly.

>>2282

Magic rings are rare. There are some lesser ones other than the rings of power though.

I think you misread the passage though, it doesn't mean magic rings, it just says report all of their possessions. I only mentioned specifically rings in my reply because it was the only part that was relevant.

Sauron's troops are told to report all clothes, letters, rings etc to disguise what Sauron is actually looking for. IIRC only the nazgul were aware of the ring of power because they couldn't act against Sauron. If the orcs and evil men were told "Hey keep an eye out for this magic ring our Lord needs for his power" then every single soldier in Mordor's armies would be plotting to steal it if it showed up.

TL;DR Magic rings are rare, but not so impossibly rare that Gandalf shat his pants when Bilbo did a magic trick with one and Sauron was hiding his true objectives

>>2282

From all we know, magic rings are purely from Sauron's coming to Eregion, and neither predate nor postdate it. Sauron being a Maia once under Aule, probably had the ability already under his belt before then. It's hard to imagine that forging magic rings would be beyond the ability of say, the forges of Gondolin which already produced plenty of considerable artifacts in their heyday, but as far as the prose is concerned, rings are purely from Eregion.