The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[Overtaxed]

Well....I hope it's that. It seems to me that that is the most important character trait that distinguishes him from Boromir.

BTW, I did end up watching the bootleg FOTR today. :)

[HairOfTheDog]

Did the nostalgia of it bring a tear to your eye?

It was funny.... when I was cleaning up my hard drive last week, I couldn't delete that old file without saving a copy. And I have the better bootleg DVD rip that came after it. Still, that old Divx copy just has a place in my heart! - I put it on CD and kept it.

[SuziQ]

Sounds like you had a good Christmas! How much snow did y'all end up getting in Pittsburgh? We had just a drizzle at noon, then it really picked up at 2:30. Since then we've gotten over 8" !! Sir SuziQ went out and cranked up the snow thrower to clear that up, but will have to do it again in the morning because we're supposed to have even more snow tonight; it will continue until midnight then taper off toward morning.

I decorate a big pyramidal yew in our backyard with medium multi color and small white lights. We can see it when we're sitting at the kitchen table. Right now is is COVERED with snow, but you can still see the lights shining through. It is SO pretty! All the bushes in the front of the house are totally covered in snow. I just realized we forgot to put up the snowman measuring stick! Maybe the ground isn't too frozen for that yet! Last year we put it up in Nov. and it hardly snowed at all!

[Overtaxed]

Did the nostalgia of it bring a tear to your eye?

Yes! LOL. Somehow The Movie doesn't seem complete without the glitches.

[Overtaxed]

Since then we've gotten over 8" !! Sir SuziQ went out and cranked up the snow thrower to clear that up, but will have to do it again in the morning because we're supposed to have even more snow tonight;

Shoot! Does that mean that if I move to KS I'll have to get a snow thrower?

[HairOfTheDog]

Snow throwers are cool tools...

[JenB]

We have about three inches on the ground right now and more falling. Dad and Jill are going skiing tomorrow!

My grandmother stayed over and she's making us miserable. First we had to watch a dumb skating program and now she has on possibly the most vile piece of liberal propoganda I've ever seen - "The West Wing". I'm going to Amazon and looking at Aragorn posters.

[osagebowman]

Hair: just kidding, with "wood being our only naturally renewable resource" we only need to use it wisely.

The "creaking" bow was only a couple of places, e.g., when Faramir's men were drawing a bead on Smeagol in the pool, but it was not an everytime thing.

Sue commented, "it's a tension enhancing device" just before she whispered (ever so lovingly) "remember, it's a MOVIE". Oops, I have a tendency to forget that occasionally.

[osagebowman]

OT: well, I guess you can if you want to, I don't think it is a requirement. Don't have one myself, but then again, we only have 24 ft of driveway.

[Overtaxed]

Hehehe....I don't even own a snow shovel.

[JenB]

Our snowblower doesn't have wheels. It had treads, like a little tank. It throws snow and anything else twenty horizontal feet. It can handle up to three feet of snow at a time.

See, our driveway is long and really, really steep, so any time we get more than two inches of snow, we'd be stuck. Dad loves getting out the snowblower. He doesn't mow so I guess it's his "guy" thing.

[HairOfTheDog]

This cordless sawsall will be very cool to have. I will no longer be limited to a 200 foot radius of my cords. I can go.... any where! Heh.

I think it is a tension enhancing device... I can hear it in my mind... I probably woulda done the same thing! "we need a creaking sound here!"

[HairOfTheDog]

Our snowblower doesn't have wheels. It had treads, like a little tank.

Super cool!

Only really obsessive people here would have a snow blower. We have snow on the ground an average of 48 hours per winter 'round these parts!

[JenB]

Yeah, my uncle lives out in your area and he says he never gets snow....

Here, we get snow. Not often more than a foot, but it comes.

[JameRetief]

I responded a bit on my Daily Tolkien thread about the Faramir "controversy". Since you mentioned it here, I thought I would restate the main points.

It is not known what Faramir's actual thoughts were because Tolkien did not provide us with that insight-remember that Tolkien liked to use ambiguity for effect. Instead we are presented Faramir through the point of view of the Hobbits with their internal dialogue.

Spoken words can decieve, and especially if the One Ring is attempting to influence that person.

Frodo distinctly does not trust Boromir because fo the influence of the Ring, paraphrasing here "it would seem like wisdom but for the warning of my heart...[warning] against trust in the strength and truth of Men."

The first time reader-guided only by Frodo and Sam's point of view-are not privy to the foreknowledge and see potential danger as the Hobbits do.

Frodo witnessed Boromir, a normally courageous, honest and capable man fall to the lure of the Ring even though Boromir's words would indicate otherwise. From Frodo's point of view, why should Faramir, Boromir's own brother, be any different.

The only individual not influenced/tempted by the Ring is Bombadil, all others are susceptible and Frodo knows this. Since Faramir would also be under some influence of the Ring, trusting his words would be perilous as long as he is in a position to take the Ring.

[JenB]

You've got some good points. But Faramir is gentler in the book - not to Frodo's eyes, perhaps, but in his actions. At least it reads that way to me, but I am willing to concede that I have read the books so often that I am reading in something that is not there.

Please, don't get the "Who is Tom Bombadil" thing started. It's worse than the Balrog wing discussion...

[Overtaxed]

Mmmmm.....Balrog wings...

Faramir in the movie seems a bit rougher. In the book he tries to persuade the hobbits to trust him much like Strider at the Prancing Pony.

[JenB]

Balrogs have wings and Jackson showed them...

[JenB]

Christmas Spam!

[JenB]

Christmas Spam!