The Gold Plated Ambulance

[Ben Kenobi]

Listen, you can take your empathy for the worst people and cram it in your peace pipe and smoke it.

Good! Your hate has made you powerful!

[Ben Kenobi]

And having been married for probably longer than ben had been alive, I'll concur that real marriage isn't what Ben thinks it is. I will actually claim expertise on that subject.

Out of curiousity - did your course include the Simarillion, which wasn't published until 1979?

[MRT144]

today on minor attitude makeover, jag tackles his toughest case to date: Sava, a typical Chicago everyman who takes no guff and always gives a piece of his mind.

YEAH I GOT YOUR ATTIDUE MAKEOVER RIGH THERE

/grabs crotch

I'm ready to produce your reality show Mr Murdoch.

[Sava]

How much do I get per episode?

[rah]

Out of curiousity - did your course include the Simarillion, which wasn't published until 1979?

No, I took the course in just before it was released. And I wasn't married then also, but that doesn't change my earned expertise on the matter.

[Ben Kenobi]

No, I took the course in just before it was released. And I wasn't married then also, but that doesn't change my earned expertise on the matter.

So how exactly would your course in LOTR pertain to understanding the story of Beren and Luthien?

[DaShi]

It's great to be able to get all your meanness out on someone nobody likes. Then it's consequence-free, because nobody will call you out on it. Awesome.

It is, isn't it? I'm still wondering how far I can go.

[MRT144]

How much do I get per episode?

1 Large pizza of your choice from any place that delivers to your address
1 6 pack of 22 oz cans of any american style lager produced in the chicagoland area or downstate illinois area.
1 dub sack of any strain commonly found in the chicagoland area
1 Club magazine of newest vintage

[rah]

It doesn't. Did you miss the after I claimed expertise on the subject matter? Not exactly subtle.

[Sava]

1 Large pizza of your choice from any place that delivers to your address
1 6 pack of 22 oz cans of any american style lager produced in the chicagoland area or downstate illinois area.
1 dub sack of any strain commonly found in the chicagoland area
1 Club magazine of newest vintage

SOLD!

[Sava]

It's great to be able to get all your meanness out on someone nobody likes. Then it's consequence-free, because nobody will call you out on it. Awesome.

Why else do you think I come here? It's not for the intellectually stimulating discussions.

[Ben Kenobi]

Did you miss the after I claimed expertise on the subject matter? Not exactly subtle.

Actually I wasn't claiming expertise wrt to LOTR, but rather on folks like Waugh and Sassoon. It was a part of my war history class on the first world war that included sections on prominent writers. We all got randomly assigned authors. There are quite a few similarities between their writing and Tolkein's.

[MRT144]

Why else do you think I come here? It's not for the intellectually stimulating discussions.

I used to think I was getting mental exercise in swatting down illogical and poorly constructed arguments or at least being humorous but I realize now that I'm wasting my time on one person who doesnt deserve another second of it.

[Sava]

I used to think I was getting mental exercise in swatting down illogical and poorly constructed arguments or at least being humorous but I realize now that I'm wasting my time on one person who doesnt deserve another second of it.

Agree.

[Elok]

WRT LOTR parallels:

Gondor is Byzantium: waning culture preserving the memory of an ancient, vastly more powerful civilization, under assault by its longtime enemy from the east. Rohan is Catholic Europe, a younger and less sophisticated people descended from roaming barbarians who settled down in land granted by the ancestors of Gondor. Rohan is sympathetic to Gondor's plight, but preoccupied with its own troubles. It doesn't come to help until most of Gondor's lands have been overrun by its enemies. So there you go: LOTR is an alternative history of the Crusades, where both Christian peoples keep faith and the power of Islam is broken forever. There are strong geographic similarities, in terms of relative positions, the terrain...Osgiliath is right where Constantinople should be, but Minas Tirith has the nigh-unbreakable fortifications.

There. That fits the story at least as well as a WWII allegory--better, in places--and makes sense in that Tolkien was a medievalist. But Tolkien, to my knowledge, never mentioned anything like this. The only allusions to Byzantium in the story are the "dromunds," used exclusively by the Enemy, and possibly the evil Variags (Wiki claims they were modeled on the Varangian Guard). Furthermore, Tolkien was a Catholic living in the West during a time when the "effete Oriental despots" view of Byzantium still held sway in most scholarship. So it's all crap. The fact that it fits the narrative so well is almost certainly coincidence, and says far more about me than about Tolkien or the world he created.