Gandalf

The five armies are goblins, eagles, dwarves, elves, and men. Beorne doesn't count as an army, although it might take one to kill him. Sand worms don't count either because they are from Dune.

Note that Beorne is rescuing Thorin.

by Matthew Stewart

So, Frodo puts on the ring while at Amon Hen and within moments, Sauron starts looking toward him. If not for Gandalf's interference, he'd have been seen.

But, mere seconds later, Frodo puts the ring right back on again and heads to the boats and is apparently not seen.

Much later, Sam puts on the ring in Mordor to chase after Frodo, but he's not seen by Sauron. Then, at the last moment, when Frodo puts on the ring in Mt Doom, Sauron is instantly aware.

Putting on the ring in the Shire appears to never alert Sauron, but does alert the black riders when they're close.

I have no doubt that there are rules being applied here. Tolkien never does anything randomly. So, what are the rules? Is there something magical about Amon Hen that made it especially dangerous? Is it simply being on top of a hill so that there's a clear line of sight between Barad-dûr and wherever the ring is?

This is a miniature scene of Boromir's last stand at Amon Hen when he was defending Merry and Pippin from the Uruk Hai and orcs.

I was hoping that this was a kit or something, because I'd love to paint this. But, it appears to be a custom project someone did using games workshop miniatures.

from this forum

I just learned about this Conqueror exercise challenge where you follow along on Frodo's 1815 mile journey. My eyes are probably a lot bigger than my feet on this one, but I'm going to try and do the whole thing on my own. They have the ability to form fellowships with other people, but I'm going to see if I can do it myself.

It's a pretty cool system where they send you messages and postcards and story events and eventually medals when you complete each challenge. The ones related to things like climbing Everest seem pretty cool, but I jumped on this when I saw the Lord of the Rings themed one.

I really wish this was directly integrated into my Peloton. But, sadly, I need to enter the distances manually. Still really cool though.

I love the Arkham Horror LCG, but I just couldn't get into the LOTR LCG. There just isn't enough story in it.

The funny thing is that I was motivated to try it because of the video game Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game. It seems like it's a video game version of the card game, but there's all kinds of exposition that makes it really fun to play. When I tried the actual card game, I was really disappointed that it didn't do the same thing.

I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a prophecy that Isengard would stand until the forest moved against it, or something to that effect. However, I cannot figure out where I got that from.

I thought it was actually the reason why he intentionally destroyed the forest. He was trying to prevent the prophecy while actually causing it.

Yet, I cannot find any proof of this. Did I just imagine this?

The image came from here.

The reason why Gandalf left the ring with Bilbo and then Frodo for so many years is because he wasn't really sure what it was. Yet, when Bilbo acted weird, he became suspicious, so he ended up travelling all the way to Minas Tirith to read about rings.

This is the place where Isildur ruled at one point, so it makes sense that knowledge of the ring resided there.

Note that it's roughly 1000 miles from Minas Tirith to the Shire, so that's a heck of a trip to visit the library!

Found this here, but am not sure who the author is.

The image is by Luca Bonatti.

I think the mystery of the entwives is such a poignant thing. The idea that every ent's death means the entire species is one step closer to oblivion. The idea that the ents are just lonely all the time because they're missing their loved ones.

It is pretty funny the way Treebeard just says they lost them and cannot find them. One theory is that the moving elm tree that Sam heard about in The Shire could have been an entwife. But, it seems more likely to me that it's an Ent that was looking for the entwives. Who knows, there's always hope.

One great thing about Tolkien is that he just doesn't answer questions like this. I think he always talked about them like he had theories about them, but he didn't really know. So, there's no "word of god" about what happened to them.

The poem goes:

One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the darkness bind them.

In what way does the one ring find anything? Do we have some reference, besides this poem, that Sauron could use the ring to know where all other ring wearers were?

The other 3 lines seem true. The one ring was about control and certainly had the ability to rule and control other ring wearers. But, not sure about finding them.

The Lego Hobbit and Lego Lord of the Rings games are only $5 on Steam right now, so I'm buying both.

This is from the old game The Hobbit for the Apple II.

I think I might have played either it or The Fellowship of the Ring on the Apple II, but I don't have them in my old software collection, so I'm not sure.

But, if I recall correctly, these are actually kind of a mix of text adventure and graphics. A lot like an Infocom game, but with graphics for each room.

One of the great things about The Lord of the Rings is that the actual Lord of the Ring has, like, two lines in the entire series. He's talked about quite a lot, but he literally only speaks that one time when Pippin grabs the Palantir.

He's even mentioned in The Hobbit as the necromancer. And for anyone who thinks that's a retcon, there are earlier sources where we find that the name of the necromancer was always Sauron, even prior to the LOTR being written.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR Rings of Power]

To anyone who has watched Rings of Power and read The Silmarillion, how accurate was that portrayal? He is actually portrayed as a rather nice guy, although as I write this I recall something about how Sauron was very charasmatic before some event that ruined his ability to transform and appear nice. Cannot recall what that was. Maybe the downfall of Morgoth or something?