Posted on 02/15/2002 7:01:31 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
George Washington was like Bilbo. He found the courage to willingly part with the instruments of power...thereby breaking the power that had ruled the affairs of men for centuries and millenia.
The biblical character in the Book of Acts, Barnabus, was like Gandalf...an encourager, someone whose focus was on stirring others to courageously exercise their gifts and abilities.
"as I am REALLY trying to not push it too fast for people who are NOT here all the time. Some of our best posters actually have lives that interfere with their participation, and I would hate to leave them behind."
There are many "morsels" to consider, offered in this thread, bringing insight, tieing loose threads together, expanding and amplifying the story. It has re-awakened the original joy of the works.
For those of us that have read Tolkien's LOTR once twenty years ago; and now seeing the movie, this is a welcome and enchanting discussion, thanks so much for launching it. The bit of a moderate pace of a week allows deeper assimilation.
Spike Lee was being interviewed on Biography recently, and he commented, that "music videos had reduced viewers attention spans to 5 second blips or less; making it difficult to develop character and tell profound stories."
We are so into "fast" and "extreme" everything ... food ... cars ... romances ... sports ... commercials ... road rage, resulting from inconvience or delay ...cell phones and doing three things at once. Real life can not begin to keep us with the hyper speed of it. Makes for impatience and instant frustration, etc.
Thanks for the slow down.
"Gandalf...an encourager, someone whose focus was on stirring others to courageously exercise their gifts and abilities."
Gandolf is a favorite character, as well as Bilbo.
I will re-read your post when we are tempted to rush... No new chapter yet!
According to the Foreword, The Shadow of the Past "is one of the oldest parts of the tale" and basically tells you what the problem with Bilbo's ring is and what must be done to fix the problem. It also foreshadows how hard it is going to be to "fix" the problem.
Like I said last chapter..."Poor Frodo!" (no Lobelia jokes this time!) :)
Why isn't there a set of 5 rings? (It busts up our pretty set of odd numbers.)
Because the Ents didn't want any and nobody asked the Hobbits, that's why. They only made rings for 'important' races. ;-)
NewCenturions, in one of Tolkien's published Letters he said that Elves have slightly pointed ears. The word for "ear" and "leaf" are related, indicating that there's some connection between the shape of an Elf's ear and a (presumable pointy) leaf. Hope that helps!
You realize that letting me on this thread is like giving a needle to an addict!
Yeah. Tell me about it!
Yes, but why didn't they make 5 rings for the Dwarves and 7 for mortal Men?
The great rings (the three, seven, nine and One) weren't the only ones, you know. There were lesser rings, but we don't really know anything about them. I think it might be that each ring was originally made for a particular person. The elf-rings went to Galadril, Cirdan, and Gil-Galad, the three greatest Elves this side of the sea. The Seven presumably went to various Dwarf kings, since one belonged to the line of kings that were Thorin's ancestors. As for the Nine, it's possible that they were made for nine great Men of the time. We don't really know. At least I don't, maybe the answer is in one of the "History of Middle-Earth" books that I haven't read.
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