Posted on 03/14/2002 5:07:26 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
This is a continuation of the infamous thread New Zealander Builds Hobbit Hole originally posted on January 26, 2001 by John Farson, who at the time undoubtedly thought he had found a rather obscure article that would elicit a few replies and die out. Without knowing it, he became the founder of the Hobbit Hole. For reasons incomprehensible to some, the thread grew to over 4100 replies. It became the place for hobbits and friends of hobbits to chit chat and share LoTR news and views, hang out, and talk amongst ourselves in the comfort of familiar surroundings.
In keeping with the new posting guidelines, the thread idea is continuing here, as will the Green Dragon Inn, our more structured spin-off thread, as soon as we figure out how to move all the good discussion that has been had there. As for the Hobbit Hole, we will just start fresh, bringing only a few mathoms such as the picture above with us to make it feel like home, and perhaps a walk down memory lane:
Our discussion has been light:
It very well may be that a thread named "New Zealander builds Hobbit hole" will end up being the longest Tolkien thread of them all, with some of the best heartfelt content... Sorry John, but I would have rather it had been one with a more distinguished title!… post 252 - HairOfTheDog
However, I can still celebrate, with quiet dignity, the fact that what started as a laugh about some wacko in New Zealand has mutated and grown into a multifaceted discussion of the art, literature, and philosophy that is Tolkien. And now that I've managed to write the most pompous sentence of my entire life, I agree, Rosie… post 506 - JenB
Hah! I was number 1000!! (Elvish victory dance... wait, no; that would be too flitty) … post 1001 - BibChr
Real men don't have to be afraid of being flitty! Go for it. – post 1011 – HairOfTheDog
Seventeen years to research one mystical object seems a bit excessive… post 1007 - JenB
Okay...who's the wise guy who didn't renew Gandalf's research grant?… post 1024 – Overtaxed
To the very philosophical:
…Judas Iscariot obviously was a good man, or he wouldn't have been chosen to be one of the Apostles. He loved Jesus, like all of the Apostles, but he betrayed him. Yet without his betrayal, the Passion and Crucifixion would never have occurred, and mankind would not have been redeemed. So without his self-destruction infinite good would not have been accomplished. I certainly do not mean this to be irreverant but it seems to me that this describes the character of Gollum, in the scenes so movingly portrayed above… Lucius Cornelius Sulla
To fun but heartfelt debates about the integrity and worth of some of the characters…
…Anyone else notice how Boromir treats the hobbits? He's very fond of them but he seems to think of them as children - ruffling Frodo's hair, calls them all 'little ones'. He likes them, but I don't think he really respects them… post 1536 - JenB
Yes... Tolkien told us not to trust Boromir right off the bat when he began to laugh at Bilbo, until he realized that the Council obviously held this hobbit in high esteem. What a pompous dolt… post 1538 - HairOfTheDog
…I think almost every fault of his can be traced directly back to his blindness to anything spiritual or unseen. He considers the halflings as children, because that is what they look like. He considers the only hope of the ring to be in taking it and using it for a victory in the physical realm. He cannot see what the hobbits are truly made of, he cannot see the unseen hope of what the destruction of the ring might mean--the destruction of Sauron himself, and he cannot see the unseen danger that lies in the use of the ring itself… I just feel sorry for Boromir--he is like a blind but honorable man, trying to take the right path on the road but missing the right path entirely because he simply cannot see it… post 1548 - Penny1
Boromir isn't a jerk, he's a jock… post 2401 – Overtaxed
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Oh, I think by the time Frodo reaches the Cracks, he's not even himself anymore! I think he's not only on the brink of a dangerous place physically, he's on the brink of losing himself completely during the exchange with Gollum. But for some reason, the take-over isn't complete till he actually has to throw the Ring in. The person speaking to Gollum is not Frodo, but the "Wheel of Fire" that Sam sees. After the Ring is destroyed, Frodo not only comes back to himself, but comes back with the unbearable (to him) knowledge of what it's like to be completely without compassion. I think that's why it's so important to him to be compassionate in the Shire… post 2506 - 2Jedismom
…Regarding Frodo's compassion... it's a little too much at the end. Even Merry tells him that he's going to have to quit being so darn nice. But you're right. He's learned a lesson about evil that very few ever learn since it wasn't an external lesson but an internal one. (Those kinds of lessons have the greatest impact) Not only did he totally succumb to it, but he was rather ruthless to my little Smeagol… post 2516 - carton253
Well that Frodo was a big mean bully! (to Smeagol)… post 2519 – Overtaxed
So as you can see, everything JRR Tolkien (and Peter Jackson) is welcome here in our New Row, our soon-to-be familiar New Hobbit Hole…; philosophy, opinion, good talk and frequent silliness.
Timing is everything.......Hobbit Hole Etiquette: Lesson 1 - A "Precious" post shall consist of a post number ending in at least two(2) zeroes. ;^)
We need a FAQ!
For instance, are practice sneaks allowed?
Au revoir have a good rest and we'll hopefully see you tomorrow.
Lil'Freeper has been finding some great snippets about what Elrond may have been thinking about when he mentioned the dangers of studying the enemy. I think you would be a valuable contributor to that conversation.
I think so, but need to check with my lady (and myself, for that matter) that nothing else is happening.
"Of all enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debt and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war ... and in the degeneracy of manners and morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
--James Madison (August 1793)"War ought to be no man's wish.
--Thomas Paine,
"The Forester's Letters." (April 24, 1776)"War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout the society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.
--Randolph Bourne,
War is the Health of the State (1917)"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what section or clause is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battle in any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it?
--Daniel Webster,
speech before the House, 1/14/1814"All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates. Note how the 'emergency' taxes of World War II have hardened into permanent fiscal policy. While a few of the more irritating war agencies were dropped, others were enlarged, under various pretexts, and the sum total is more intervention and more interveners than we suffered before 1939.
--Frank Chodorov
"A Jeremiad", analysis (August, 1950)"When the war closed...we were challenged with a peace-time choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines--doctrines of paternalism and state socialism.
--Herbert Hoover,
Speech in New York City (Oct. 22, 1928)
New Day (1928) p. 154"War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results. ... War is just one more big government program.
--Joseph Sobran (1991)"America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the [first] World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these "isms" wouldn't today be sweeping the continent in Europe and breaking down parliamentary government, and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives.
--Winston Churchill
speaking with an American reporter (1937) Oxford DOQ"The wisest and best of our people
Despaired as deeply, found hope no easier,
Knew nothing, no way to end this inequal
War of men and devils, warriors
And monsterous fiends.
--Beowulf, c. 900 AD."War - hard apprenticeship of freedom.
--Edward Everett,
eulogy of George Washington. (February 22, 1856)"There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.
--Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America (1835)"We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
--William Shakespeare,
Henry V Act III, sc vi"Here dead we lie because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
--A. E. Housman"My kind of loyalty was to one's country, not to it's institutions or to its office holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to.
--Mark Twain,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.
--G. K. Chesterton,
The Defendant (1901)
:-) Yeah, during dinner the other night, at a restaurant, after some "refreshment," I quoted the last sentence, the famous one, with a fair amount of force.
Everyone seemed pleased, though.
Under normal circumstances, I'm a fairly quiet person.
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