The Defenders of Gondolin were Insular Upper-Class Snobs.

[Tupac Shakur]

It's too bad Ecthy isn't around to look upon this thread and weep.

[Aeson]

Ungoliant pwned everyone/thing, perhaps even herself

[Zevico]

There was something Tolkienesque about the language. So it's not surprising that this is about the Silmarillion, which is like the Lord of the Rings for super-ultra-elite-extra nerds, of which I, unfortunately, am not one.

[Elok]

Dang, I was expecting only Al to not get it, and be proud of that fact. Should I try to lament the decline of our age in Quenya? I hope not, because I don't actually know Quenya. Or even Sindarin.

[loinburger]

I opened this thread expecting it to be about gondolas.

Pretty much anything in the first age puts its third age counterpart to shame. Morgoth >>> Sauron, Ancalagon the Black >>> Smaug, Ungoliant >>> Shelob, Gothmog >>> the unnamed Balrog who sort of kills Gandalf, etc. I only wish that the Silmarillion (and the Book of Lost Tales, and the Lays of Belariand, etc) read more like heroic fantasy books and less like history books.

[Kuciwalker]

liar

LOTR was boring enough to put me off reading whatever other crappy stuff Tolkien wrote.

[Felch]

It's a tough read, but it separates the true nerds from the Harry Potter fans.

[Guynemer]

I enjoyed reading the LOTR greatly (once I got passed Tom Bombadil, that is), but the thought of cracking the whatever-it-is-that-starts-with-S, knowing its reputation, was never seriously entertained.

[Felch]

Tom Bombadil is the test. If you like him, and you dig the whole idea of a world bigger than the story, then you'll like the Silmarillion. If you thought that he was a giant waste of paper and ink, then you shouldn't bother. First time I read LotR, I just wanted to race into the plot, and everything between Buckland and Bree annoyed the hell out of me. Since then old Tom has grown on me.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Harry Potter
Tom Bombadil

[Guynemer]

No. **** Tom Bombadil.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Tom Bombadil doesn't care about your ****ing

[Tupac Shakur]

Pretty much anything in the first age puts its third age counterpart to shame. Morgoth >>> Sauron, Ancalagon the Black >>> Smaug, Ungoliant >>> Shelob, Gothmog >>> the unnamed Balrog who sort of kills Gandalf, etc. I only wish that the Silmarillion (and the Book of Lost Tales, and the Lays of Belariand, etc) read more like heroic fantasy books and less like history books.

QFT. I actually like that the First Age stuff reads more like history than heroic fantasy, but I can understand why that's a turn off to most people.

No. **** Tom Bombadil.

**** you. Tom Bombabil is one of the great mysteries of Middle-Earth.

[BeBMan]

This reminds me of my re-interpretation (possibly revisionist view) of "The Matrix" where I demonstrated how Neo et al. are fascists believing in their own superiority, and consequently started to mass-murder normal people (dehumanized as "parts" or "agents" of the matrix) to gain totalitarian control over society.

[MRT144]

I googled Gondolin and got some lords of the ring thing.

The sad thing is, most of your knowledge and the way you connect with the world is through google and wiki.