Wednesday #20 - Why I Wouldn't Want J.R.R. Tolkien to Kill Me

WHOA! It's been 20 weeks! You know the saying, time flies... and I forget the rest of it. 20 weeks guys (and girls). We're almost halfway through the year at this point, and it's starting to look up for us at this point. I mean, my Advanced Placement tests are now finished, after tonight I have very small obligations towards my acting class, and in a couple days, when the seniors from my high school leave, one of my classes gets reduced down to three students... Yep, it's almost time to checkout excessively large volumes of books from the library and spend hours each day in a hammock reading... But until that time, I said I was going to talk about AP tests, and so I shall.

AP Tests: Good, Bad, Ugly

     Good: N/A
     Bad: N/A
     Ugly: N/A (I told you, I can't talk about them...)
   
     Luckily, I have another post prepared!

Why I Wouldn't Want J.R.R. Tolkien To Kill Me

     First of all, I don't want anyone to kill me. I'd rather hold off on dying for as long as possible (or at least until next year, we've got a good thing going here). What I'm saying here is that I wouldn't want J.R.R. Tolkien to be the author of my demise (no matter how awesome it would be). The reasoning is simple: Tolkien's track record. Over the course of his works (specifically The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and any film adaptations of his works), many people and creatures die. And just about all of them in horrible, agonizing ways.
Boromir: Son of Denethor, captain of the Citadel Guard of Gondor, best known Tolkien death. He dies when the Uruk captain sends three arrows into Boromir's torso at relatively close range, while Boromir was defending Merry and Pippin in the closing pages/minutes of The Fellowship of the Ring. Not only did he die after the arrows were resting comfortably in his torso, but he thought that he was responsible for the terrible death of the Merry and Pippin at the hands of Saruman, but also for the ultimate heat death of Middle Earth, thinking that his actions against Frodo caused the quest of the Fellowship to fail by separating the Ringbearer from those competent enough to protect him.

Denethor: Okay, Denethor wasn’t the nicest of people. He made irrational decisions as Steward of Gondor, was a royal jerk to Faramir (well, a pseudo-royal jerk; he was only steward, not king), and he was responsible for the deaths of the soldiers who attempted to retake Osgiliath. Despite all of that negative karma, did he really deserve this:

            Anyone with some serious daddy issues may think so, but dying with the belief that Gondor has fallen, and even though his son is (miraculously) not dead, he seemed set in his belief that Middle-Earth would fall and burn… Kinda like he did…

Theodin: Going with our theme of dying rulers, let’s look at how Theodin of Rohan bites it. In the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Theodin is attacked by the leader of the Nazgul, The Witch-King of Agmar. And a Fell Beast. From the air. Sneak attack style.

Theodin and horse were then released from the maw of the Fell Beast, resulting in a horse-on-king trajectory. Theodin then was crushed again when the Fell Beast stood on the horse… Sure Theodin died with a sort of peace of mind that we all hope for, but I’d rather not have the horse involved.

Sauron: Yeah, I’m going to sympathize with the villain, because he died not once, but twice (in the movies. The books bring the death count up to 4). First, his fingers are severed, and he explodes

Then, he spends 3000 years or so as a spirit, till he returns… As a great Eye… Lidless, wreathed in flame… You know of what I speak… (the Eye of Sauron) (imagine the gold Mordor has to dish out yearly for the eye drops to keep that under control). Sauron starts getting things working again, re-stokes the fires of Mount Doom, and all of a sudden, bloop, Ring + Volcano. And we get this:

Gandalf: Here’s where it gets ugly. Technically, Gandalf never died… his spirit returned to Valinor, and he trained (kinda), and then was sent back as Gandalf the White. But, think about how long he had to wait. Sure, it was only three days (after fighting a demon for 10 days, you’d be tired too), but each moment was like “a life time of the Earth”… there are 24 hours in a day, so in three days there are 72 hours. In each hour, there are 60 minutes, so 4,320 in three days. And that’s 259,200 seconds. The Earth is currently 4.54 billion years old. If the world ended today (and that was the standard age of the Earth), Gandalf had to wait 1,176,768,000,000,000 years before returning to Middle Earth… and he returned naked on top of a mountain. 

Well, there's your two posts. See y'all next week!

I sit beside the fire and think...

by J. R. R. Tolkien
I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

 “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring