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I'm writing a separate post because this is such a different topic. A colleague of mine (Ed) in the English Department taught a course called Fantasy, which included both fantasy and sci fi lit. For about 15 years, he asked me to come in and cover one book, initially Gibson's Neuromancer. One of his books was The Fellowship of the Ring. One day he asks me, "what is the power of the one ring?". It makes lesser ones invisible, but not the powerful ones. If, for example, Aragorn had taken the ring for himself, what would he now be able to do that he couldn't before? We never actually came to definitive conclusion (maybe that's the point) but I'd be curious to hear what you folks think.
Power over all the lesser rings, and the powers that they bestowed on their possessors.

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

On the fly leaf ... Power and evil.
 
I'm writing a separate post because this is such a different topic. A colleague of mine (Ed) in the English Department taught a course called Fantasy, which included both fantasy and sci fi lit. For about 15 years, he asked me to come in and cover one book, initially Gibson's Neuromancer. One of his books was The Fellowship of the Ring. One day he asks me, "what is the power of the one ring?". It makes lesser ones invisible, but not the powerful ones. If, for example, Aragorn had taken the ring for himself, what would he now be able to do that he couldn't before? We never actually came to definitive conclusion (maybe that's the point) but I'd be curious to hear what you folks think.
To answer what power the Ring could bestow on its wielder, I think you have to define what power a Maia has - they are angelic beings, both righteous (Gandalf) and fallen (Sauron, Saruman, balrogs). Tolkien never actually quantified what their power is, and I don't think he meant to either. Certainly when Tolkien writes of the Ring's power he is writing of a large part of the power of a mighty, fallen Maia. It's working could be seen as similar to how the Great Rings of the Elves worked - such as how Galadriel kept Lothlórien enchanted, it felt like perpetual springtime, so she could control the weather to a degree, she could influence the growth of the trees and other living things within the borders, and she could also keep the borders hidden and confound the attempts of enemies to pierce the boundaries of the land. The Elven Rings were made by High Elves with experience of Valinor, where the Ainur (Maiar and Valar) lived, so the power as such might be close to the kind of power an individual Maia would have, bringing us back to Sauron. Power to exert one's will to influence matter and minds around you. That's the best explanation I can give.
 
I just rewatched both the Hobbit and the LOTR films, and found them astoundigly unemotional. Waaayyyy too much action strung together.

I might upset some people here, but I thought the Harry Potter films did a much better job of balancing the action with the character development and bringing the "mundane", non-plot driving aspects of the magic world to life much more strongly than the LOTR films ever did.

GoT was also good at bringing to life world and characters, at least until season 7.
I wash my hands of the Hobbit films. I am in perpetual umbrage over the ridiculous idea of a romantic relationship between a Dwarf and an Elf, it's not only a giant "screw you" to Tolkien's mythos, but it also specifically undermines the friendship between Gimli and Legolas in LOTR, which was a momentous and special friendship as it specifically represented a symbolic healing of the longstanding hatred between Elves and Dwarves, stretching back to the days of Beren and Luthien in the First Age. Just as Aragorn and Arwen were a typology of Beren and Luthien's relationship, bringing some of that "holy" marriage back into the latter days from back when the relationship between Beren and Luthian was specifically and uniquely sanctioned by the Valar, Gimli and Legolas brought a healing arc in the sad story of Elves and Dwarves.

But there is a lot of emotion in the LOTR films, maybe not in quite the same way as the books of course, but there were real, deep relationships formed between the cast members during their extensive time together filming all three movies. There have been excellent long-term friendships between cast - there's a newish podcast called The Friendship Onion, hosted by Dom Monahan and Billy Boyd (Merry and Pippin). They are lifetime friends as a result of LOTR, and not only that, but they have basically embodied the lives of hobbits, not in a false way, but naturally. They talk about food and adventures and simple things in life all the time, and their long lasting fondness for the other hobbits, Sean Astin and Elijah Wood. They have been trying to get the other two to play league of Legends with them for some time with no success, and the obvious thing I can feel as a listener is that Billy and Dom just really want to get the other two hobbits together to play the fantasy game with them. Anyway, I use this as an example of the way the friendships between the cast members come through in a very real way in the films, and I appreciate it when I watch them. Not to mention other cool facts like Viggo Mortensen wearing his sword and armor everywhere he went, getting in forehead-bashing contests with Orlando Bloom, and generally roughhousing all the time with the Uruk-Hai stuntment and actors. Lots of awesome background to those movies.
 
To answer what power the Ring could bestow on its wielder, I think you have to define what power a Maia has - they are angelic beings, both righteous (Gandalf) and fallen (Sauron, Saruman, balrogs). Tolkien never actually quantified what their power is, and I don't think he meant to either. Certainly when Tolkien writes of the Ring's power he is writing of a large part of the power of a mighty, fallen Maia. It's working could be seen as similar to how the Great Rings of the Elves worked - such as how Galadriel kept Lothlórien enchanted, it felt like perpetual springtime, so she could control the weather to a degree, she could influence the growth of the trees and other living things within the borders, and she could also keep the borders hidden and confound the attempts of enemies to pierce the boundaries of the land. The Elven Rings were made by High Elves with experience of Valinor, where the Ainur (Maiar and Valar) lived, so the power as such might be close to the kind of power an individual Maia would have, bringing us back to Sauron. Power to exert one's will to influence matter and minds around you. That's the best explanation I can give.
It helps to remember that Gothmog (Sauron's boss) was a fallen Maia (or Valar, I can't recall).
 
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It helps to remember that Gothmog (Sauron's boss) was a fallen Maia.
Indeed, he was "Lord of Balrogs." All the Balrogs were Maiar. Balrog (or in Quenya, "vala-raukor") translates to "demon of flame." It's possible that Gothmog would have been of a similar level of spirit, or power, as Saruman, Gandalf and the other wizards. Since Gandalf matched up against a Balrog and won, but barely (and technically his material form died), Saruman as a slightly greater wizard might be closer to Gothmog.
 
We were also big fans of the TV series LOST. It did mystery, humor, and character development really well. The end of pretty much every episode made you wanting to watch the next one. It kinda painted itself in the corner at the end, where they couldn’t possibly deliver answers to all the questions they threw out there, but you were watching every little thing for a clue. Pretty epic though was when in the last season, one of the characters cooks a red herring for a meal. :D
 
I’m not sure we have a ‘guess the mystery object’ game over here or not...but I’m sure we can get one going, and you’ll feel right at home!
You cheeky B**ger!! - It's Mr B who is obsessed with that. I feel a bit snubbed that no one said where they were going ... :-(

Feel free to suggest other threads which may be of interest (not Guess the Location !)
 
Feel free to suggest other threads which may be of interest (not Guess the Location !)
This one is a photo association thread:
 
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The same happens here, images are resized to be a max of 1600x1600. Even though it'll accept bigger files to be uploaded they'll be resized down when they are saved to the post.
That above image is displaying at ~1473x2200. At least it is for me. That is roughly 60% of the full image size.
 
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