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E-text: Book IV, Chapter 13

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David Salo

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Jul 21, 2001, 8:05:14 AM7/21/01
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THE PLOT CHOICES OF MASTER SAMWISE

When Sam opened his eyes, he saw a curious wizened face that he hardly
recognized staring at him. "Mr. Frodo, Sir?" he said, in a voice that
utterly belied his proletarian sympathies.

"Sss!" came the answer. "Not wicked Baggins, no no, _saddam_.
Baggins cheats us, runs away yes. He must pay!"

"Gullible? Gulible?" Sam replied in a shocked voice. He reached up to
grab one skinny arm. "Is that you?"

The creature twitched his arm away, sending Sam reeling back. "Ss!
Mustn't use those names, no no. No use, no Gullible, no Gulible any more.
They're losst, Precious, lost."

"You _sound_ like Gullible," Sam said. "But you look like--" he
hesitated for a moment, viewing the sunken cheeks and withered belly --
"You look more like, uh, Spiegel."

"Ach! Ss! Spiegel's lossst, Precious, lossst, _saddam_! No more
Gullible, no more Gulible, no more Spiegel. All lost." The creature began
to weep, hot tears that steamed as they touched the stone floor.

Sam took the opportunity to look around him. He seemed to be in a
cavern or hall of dark stones that reached up to impossible heights. High
above him, perhaps, was a strip of clouded sky, tinged with pink, lit
horribly from underneath by the fevered neon glow of Mordor.

"Gullible. Spiegel. Whoever you are," Sam said sternly, "I can see
there's a whole lot of exposition coming, and that's a fact. You'd better
come out with it at once, or we'll be worriting about it the whole journey,
wherever we're going, and that's a fact, as the saying is."

"Ach! No! Nassty hobbit hurtses our ears with Midlands dialect and
rustic proverbs," the creature said sulkily.

"You'd better talk, or there'll be more to come, as my Gaffer used to
say, when the fit took him, if you take my meaning!" Sam said. He was
beginning to feel more nearly alive, and he noticed that the back of his
head hurt and his bladder was very full.

The creature sighed and muttered to itself: "We'll suck on eggses
yet, my Precious!" But as the exposition would have to come in somewhere,
it swallowed its indignation, sat down cross-legged and began to speak to
itself, sharing the exposition with another voice of higher pitch. A blue
light and a pink light alternated in its eyes as it spoke.
"We was all in Shelob's nightclub, yes Precious, and Gulible (yes
Precious, we spells it that way) was feeling very horny, oh yes. But
Precious Spiegel, she had eyes only for Gorbush, indeed she did."
"Gorbush was very fine, very masculine, made Spiegel feel womanly, yes!"
"But Gulible was jealous, he was. He thought up a fine plan, made it
work, yess. He remembered Shelob had ancient artifacts from Atlantis."
"Teleportation devices they was, yess precious."
"So he suggested to Spiegel that we teleport into Mordor, he did,
clever Gulible, go straight to Nurnenshire."
"And then he took Spiegel to a back room where hobbitses wasn't looking."
"And then we both entered into the teleportation chambers, we did,
Precious."
"But wicked Gulible knew that the device only worked from chamber to
chamber; and if the second chamber wasn't empty, then the DNA would fuse,
yes it would."
"So clever Gulible laughed manically, saying, 'now we can be together
forever, Precious', and he pressed the button."
"And now we is together. Gulible and Spiegel. But there is no more
Gulible, no more Spiegel. They're both lost, _saddam_. No more Gorbush,
no Precious!" The creature began to weep again.

"You were saying something?" asked Sam as he returned from relieving
himself at the base of one of the tall stones.

* * *

Sam regarded the miserable thing pitilessly. He would have preferred
to ignore it, but there were conspicuous loose plot ends and he might need
it to help tie them up. "All right, you!" he said. "I can't keep on
thinking of you as 'creature', so I'm going to have to give you a name."

It looked up hopefully. "Guligel? Spieble?" it asked timorously.
Sam snorted.

"I think I'll call you by that awful sound you keep making all the time."

"_Saddam_?" it cried out in horror.

"No, no, those horrible snaky noises, hisses, what do you call them..."

"Ssibilantss they is, yess Preciouss."

"Sibilant. That's right. Sibilant you are then. And I'm getting
tired of neuter pronouns, so I'm just going to assign you a gender. _No_,
I'm not going to look. I think I'll make you feminine, just so there's no
chance of confusing us in a pronominal-laden paragraph."

"Sss, thank you Master!" Sibilant said, as she fawned upon Sam and
capered. "Happy we is, happy as fissh, Precious!"

"Speaking of Precious, where is it? And where has Master Frodo got to?"

"Sss, Sibilant must engage in more exposition before Master Sam is
satissfied, yess?"

"Oh, all right," Sam said wearily.

"Boromir(TM), Bombadildo and his narcoterrorists fell upon us out of
the blue. We were still recovering from our recent transformation and
could do nothing but watch. Sauron's Orcish guards pulled out their
_mashingonz_, evil Southron weapons that spat hard chunks of metal, studded
all over with spikes for that medieval look, yes_saddam_, we remembers.
The narcoterrorists were massacreed. Bombadildo fled, singing as he went:
"Hen house and chicken coop, roosters, hens and pullets, Sauron's Sekuritet
with armor-piercing..."

"Skip that part," grumbled Sam.

Sibilant took a breath. "But still Boromir(TM) kept coming, though he
was full of metal chunks. He was waving halberds and maces and guisarmes
and becs-de-corbin, threatening to slice, dice, pit and peel Sauron, until
he ran into Shelob's 20000-volt web." Sibilant stopped and looked around.

"Well?" exclaimed Sam. "He survived, right?"

"No, Boromir(TM) was fried dead on the spot."

"Impossible! Boromir(TM) was a main character, one of the Fellowship!
He can't have been killed, or my name'll be Ted Sandyman."

Sibilant cackled. "Oh, no? Well, just to make sure, the Sekuritet
chopped his body into small bite-sized chunks and dissolved them in acid
and threw the acid into the icy Anduin, where the litigators invalidated
his trademark, yes they did, _saddam_. But poor Sibilant saved one part as
a souvenir, yes we did." Winking slily, she pulled out of a pocket, among
her bat-wings and goblins'-teeth, a thin membrane with seven holes,
fringed with fur along the top.

"What's that?" said Sam. "It looks almost like Boromir(TM)'s fa..."
The remains of Sam's last dinner found their long home on the stony
floor of that dim, desolate place, far from hope upon the Marches of
Mordor.

* * *

"The exposition's still not done, drat you!" Sam exclaimed later.
"Our readers still don't know what happened to Master Frodo!"

"And who will read this story, eh Precious?" Sibilant snickered.

"I don't know. People will buy anything these days, as my Gaffer used
to say, bless his apophthegmatic soul. If nothing else, Minas Tirith(TM)
could make it into a movie. I'm the hero of course, and you're the cute
talking animal with big eyes, but we'll need a villain. Now where's Master
Frodo got to?"

"He's betrayed us, yes he has, _saddam_. He believes that Sauron is
his father, wants to get his inheritance from him. He coshed you over the
head with a trout, called you a sanctimonious liberal-leftist petty
bourgeois armchair revolutionary, and left you for dead, he did, _saddam_,
went into Mordor with Sauron and Shelob. Then Sibilant has to sneak, sneak
after, carrying great fat hobbit."

"He WHAT?!!!" Sam's outrage was so great it would have deserved even
more than three exclamation points, if it were not for the wise advice of
the Manual of Style. "Why, the filthy little aristocrat! I'll see him
hanged from a lantern, I will, or my name's not Sam Gamgee.
Petty-bourgeois! I'll petty bourgeois him, and filet him and firk him.
The Fig of Spain! We'll see who's the armchair revolutionary when we get
back to the Shire, yes we will."
Sam had now found purpose for his lonely journey into the neon-lit
asphalt wastelands of Mordor. Vengeance. If once he could go, his anger
would bear him down all the roads of the world, pursuing, until he had him
at last: Frodo. Then Frodo would die in a corner. Yes, Sam mused to
himself. This was what he had set out to do. It might not bring about the
Revolution, but it would be uniquely satisfying.
"All right, then Sibilant. Third time's the charm, as the Central
Committee used to say three times. You've led me this far; now I want you
to lead me into Mordor. But first you must swear after me:
To eternally confound the wicked plans of tyrants, aristocrats, and
the bourgeois;
To eternally struggle for the Glorious Proletarian Revolution;
To obey the orders of the Central Committee and its representatives."

"Swear by what, eh Precious?" Sibilant asked, eyes narrowed and
fingers twitching.

"Well... say, where is the Precious?" Sam answered.

"We thought _we_ was the Precious," Sibilant responded with some confusion.

"No, you silly split personality! I mean the Ring! The Great Ring!
The Ring of Wogah!" Sam expostulated.

"Oh, that," Sibilant meditated. "I nips it out of Baggins's pocket as
he traipses off after Ssauron and Sshelob. Here it is." And Sibilant
handed the Ring to Sam.

* * *

Sam looked thoughtfully at the One Ring as it lay in his hand,
admiring its sweetly curving sides, its luscious edges, its delicate warm
rosy hues. It was altogether admirable. And it was his, to do with as he
pleased. A smile touched the edges of his lips, the first since he had
awoken at the beginning of the chapter. "Sibilant," he said, "you are a
genius. You have given me the true means of revenge."

"Revenge, Precious? Sam isn't going to use the Ring for its myssstic
powers of Wogah?"

"No. What's the thing that Sauron least wants us to do? Ahem, that's
a rhetorical question, Sibilant, don't interrupt. We're going to throw the
Ring into the Crack of Doom on Mt. Viagra."

"Oh," interjected Sibilant. "Okay."

And so, observing the chapter's end fast approaching, Sam and Sibilant
(Sibilant and Sam) strode forth, down hall and up stair and over pass and
past turret. They passed, silently, the hideous, buck-toothed Watchers of
Minas Goofy and saw the Tanks roll forth. They eluded the frightful Ticket
Sellers of Minas Epcot. They collapsed a dozen pages of text into four
sentences. And at last they stood upon the very edge of Mordor, looking
out over the flat Asphalt Wastelands fringed by greasy diners and
third-rate drive-ins, for in truth, the Culture that Sauron promised was no
more than pop culture. Here Sam stood, hands balled into fists upon his
hips, glaring into the distance. Somewhere out there was Frodo: alive, and
taken in by the Enemy.

Öjevind Lång

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Jul 21, 2001, 8:13:42 AM7/21/01
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David Salo hath written:

>THE PLOT CHOICES OF MASTER SAMWISE

[snip]

> And so, observing the chapter's end fast approaching, Sam and Sibilant
>(Sibilant and Sam) strode forth, down hall and up stair and over pass and
>past turret. They passed, silently, the hideous, buck-toothed Watchers of
>Minas Goofy and saw the Tanks roll forth. They eluded the frightful Ticket
>Sellers of Minas Epcot. They collapsed a dozen pages of text into four
>sentences. And at last they stood upon the very edge of Mordor, looking
>out over the flat Asphalt Wastelands fringed by greasy diners and
>third-rate drive-ins, for in truth, the Culture that Sauron promised was no
>more than pop culture. Here Sam stood, hands balled into fists upon his
>hips, glaring into the distance. Somewhere out there was Frodo: alive, and
>taken in by the Enemy.

This is suspense-building, indeed... Though I, being eViol, am rather
rooting for Frodo.
LOL - great chapter!

Öjevind

”Luke, I have a most definite feeling of danger lurking inside that cave. Go
and investigate; I’ll wait for you here.”

(From "The Diary of a Redneck Jedi")


O. Sharp

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Jul 21, 2001, 1:30:50 PM7/21/01
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David Salo <ds...@usa.net> wrote, and wrote brilliantly:
[...]

> "Ach! No! Nassty hobbit hurtses our ears with Midlands dialect and
> rustic proverbs," the creature said sulkily.

Sibilant shows great wisdom here. :)

> Sibilant cackled. "Oh, no? Well, just to make sure, the Sekuritet
> chopped his body into small bite-sized chunks and dissolved them in acid
> and threw the acid into the icy Anduin, where the litigators invalidated

> his trademark, yes they did, _saddam_. [...]"

Well, _that_ ought to do it. :) Though I continue to have this awful
feeling that someone will try to find yet _another_ way to bring him
back... :/

> "And who will read this story, eh Precious?" Sibilant snickered.

> "I don't know. People will buy anything these days, as my Gaffer
> used to say, bless his apophthegmatic soul."

This terrible fact has been haunting me from the day we started this
E-Text. :) Very, very well done! :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
o...@drizzle.com ..."Apophthegmatic"?!

Steuard Jensen

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Jul 21, 2001, 2:40:59 PM7/21/01
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Quoth ds...@usa.net (David Salo) in article
<dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net>:
> THE PLOT CHOICES OF MASTER SAMWISE

I must say that this is a masterful job of condensing the ever-fraying
plot back down to something managable. :) I'll admit that I myself
would have made some slightly different choices here and there (I
think that more could have been done with Spiegel and Gulible in the
chapters that they were distinct, and I had high hopes that Boromir, a
confirmed Good Guy, would end up inheriting the rulership of
Gondor(TM)... I'm a sucker for a happy ending), but I'm quite content
with the way that things have gone.

If I might make a request of authors following this chapter in Book
VI, I'd ask that everyone try to build from this foundation and
develop it more, rather than twisting the story back into a shape that
it no longer has. I think that the Etext as a whole has suffered a
bit from chapters radically altering the existing state of the story,
even when the individual chapters that resulted were great in
themselves. I've just had a very disjointed feeling as I've read the
book recently, and I've seen too many promising ideas get lost in the
shuffle without ever being developed. Anyway, enough ranting, I'll go
on and comment on the chapter. :)

> "Gullible? Gulible?" Sam replied in a shocked voice.

Very cute, this. :)

> "Sibilant. That's right. Sibilant you are then. And I'm
> getting tired of neuter pronouns, so I'm just going to assign you a
> gender. _No_, I'm not going to look. I think I'll make you
> feminine, just so there's no chance of confusing us in a
> pronominal-laden paragraph."

Great! As they travel through Mordor, this will give us points over
the original LotR already. :)

> "No, Boromir(TM) was fried dead on the spot."

...


> Sibilant cackled. "Oh, no? Well, just to make sure, the
> Sekuritet chopped his body into small bite-sized chunks and
> dissolved them in acid and threw the acid into the icy Anduin, where
> the litigators invalidated his trademark, yes they did, _saddam_.
> But poor Sibilant saved one part as a souvenir, yes we did."
> Winking slily, she pulled out of a pocket, among her bat-wings and
> goblins'-teeth, a thin membrane with seven holes, fringed with fur
> along the top.

You don't do things halfway, do you? :) I think this pretty much
wraps it up for poor Boromir... any attempt to bring him back at this
point would be miserably convoluted. In the true Etext spirit, we'll
just have to deal with it this time. :)

> "And who will read this story, eh Precious?" Sibilant snickered.

Another great reference here. :)

> I'm the hero of course, and you're the cute talking animal with big
> eyes, but we'll need a villain. Now where's Master Frodo got to?"

Very nice transition, too. :)

> "No. What's the thing that Sauron least wants us to do? Ahem,
> that's a rhetorical question, Sibilant, don't interrupt. We're
> going to throw the Ring into the Crack of Doom on Mt. Viagra."

And the story is following the original once again, admittedly with
the roles {Frodo, Sam, Gollum} rotated to {Sam, Sibilant, Frodo}. An
excellent state for the Etext to be in, I'd say. :) [Ok, folks, this
is exactly what I'm talking about: multiple chapters could be filled
with spectacularly funny parody based on this reassignment of roles
alone. Do whatever seems best to you, but for goodness sake take
advantage of the great setup that you're given in the first place!]

> And at last they stood upon the very edge of Mordor, looking out
> over the flat Asphalt Wastelands fringed by greasy diners and
> third-rate drive-ins, for in truth, the Culture that Sauron promised
> was no more than pop culture. Here Sam stood, hands balled into
> fists upon his hips, glaring into the distance. Somewhere out there
> was Frodo: alive, and taken in by the Enemy.

I like it: another good parody of the original, and we even have
actual protagonists and antagonists again. Sauron is evil, Frodo is
ambiguous and perhaps deluded, Sam is, well, justly perturbed, at
least, and Sibilant seems reasonably faithful.

It looks like I'm on the spot again, though. I'll try to assemble V.1
reasonably quickly, but the pace has certainly picked up... I haven't
reread the end of Book III yet, or searched through the middle of Book
IV for relevant tidbits. I'll be as hasty as I can.

Steuard Jensen

Count Menelvagor

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Jul 21, 2001, 2:51:14 PM7/21/01
to
ds...@usa.net (David Salo) wrote in message news:<dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net>...

> THE PLOT CHOICES OF MASTER SAMWISE

<sneep>

The plot thickens, or does something, nazwaz ...

Aris Katsaris

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Jul 21, 2001, 4:25:48 PM7/21/01
to

O. Sharp <o...@drizzle.com> wrote in message
news:99573664...@yabetcha.drizzle.com...

> > "And who will read this story, eh Precious?" Sibilant snickered.
>
> > "I don't know. People will buy anything these days, as my Gaffer
> > used to say, bless his apophthegmatic soul."
>
> This terrible fact has been haunting me from the day we started this
> E-Text. :) Very, very well done! :)

As for me, I'm just shocked that *anyone* outside Greece, knows the
word "apophtegma".... :-)

Aris Katsaris


Mercedes McTaggart

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Jul 21, 2001, 4:44:12 PM7/21/01
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In article <%0k67.198$_4.1...@news.uchicago.edu>, Steuard Jensen
<sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu> writes (snipped a bit):

>I must say that this is a masterful job of condensing the ever-fraying
>plot back down to something managable. :)

Agreed.

>If I might make a request of authors following this chapter in Book
>VI, I'd ask that everyone try to build from this foundation and
>develop it more, rather than twisting the story back into a shape that
>it no longer has.

Agreed even more strongly :-)

If a relative rabt virgin may be allowed to tentatively voice an
opinion? (covers head preparatory to heavy things dropping on it from a
great height)...

Would it be possible (or permissible) for _ONE_ person to edit the whole
when it is finally completed - with input and assistance from all the
contributors, of course?

I think it would result in a much better tale with more punch, coherence
and internal integrity. But that's just my background in publishing and
print speaking - I may be totally wrong...

Still... it's always been my experience that anything designed by
committee is invariably inferior to something designed by one master-
hand. I know the E-Text does not exactly fall into that category but it
seems to me that it loses as much as it gains from having so many hands
involved in its creation.

So.. any chance of an editor being chosen to - er - "edit" it?

Not that I am volunteering you understand!

Forgive me if I have put my foot in it :-)

Best wishes,
Mercedes McTaggart

John Elliott

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Jul 21, 2001, 4:45:29 PM7/21/01
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sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote:
>You don't do things halfway, do you? :) I think this pretty much
>wraps it up for poor Boromir... any attempt to bring him back at this
>point would be miserably convoluted.

As long as he didn't have an outstanding dinner invitation. Ghosts
seeking vengeance will do *anything* to keep their dinner appointments.

--
------------- http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html --------------------
John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
|SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------)

David Sulger

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Jul 22, 2001, 12:06:28 AM7/22/01
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Steuard Jensen wrote:

>I think that the Etext as a whole has
>suffered a bit from chapters radically
>altering the existing state of the story,
>even when the individual chapters that
>resulted were great in themselves.

I agree. This has been my position about the whole thing all along.
Too many authors tried to introduce new elements while ignoring material
that came before. Like you said, it gives a lot of the whole a
disjointed feeling.

--Dave

ds50.geo @ yahoo.com

Assorted Tolkien stuff: http://www.geocities.com/ds50.geo/tolkien

David Salo

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Jul 22, 2001, 1:39:17 PM7/22/01
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In article <10878-3B5...@storefull-251.iap.bryant.webtv.net>,
or...@webtv.net (David Sulger) wrote:

> Steuard Jensen wrote:
>
> >I think that the Etext as a whole has
> >suffered a bit from chapters radically
> >altering the existing state of the story,
> >even when the individual chapters that
> >resulted were great in themselves.
>
> I agree. This has been my position about the whole thing all along.
> Too many authors tried to introduce new elements while ignoring material
> that came before. Like you said, it gives a lot of the whole a
> disjointed feeling.

When I got the job of doing this chapter (as a last-minute replacement)
I did so on the understanding that I would prune the plot. I looked at the
end of the book as a door with a keyhole which the plot would have to get
through to go further. I regret not being able to do much more than that,
but I thought that the book had been stalled long enough.
I don't think Boromir's returning in the flesh. But I shouldn't be
surprised if his spirit returns to haunt Dr. Faramir, or others. But
Boromir's death is realistic, insofar as such a thing is possible within
the text: whatever their personalities are like, you can't expect to
physically attack Sauron and Shelob and _not_ get slagged. Permanently.
The violence also provides a slightly darker overtone to what had been a
bouncy but directionless sexfest; I suspect we'll need to draw on that
darker side in the next book.
Gulible and Spiegel are still _there_, in the sense of having separate
psychological profiles which can still surface; they're just united in a
single body. Is this state of affairs permanent? Well, to quote another
character, "To _do the job_ as you put it -- what hope is there that we
ever shall? And if we do, who knows what will come of that? If the One
goes into the Fire, and we are at hand?" He didn't know the answer.
Neither do I.
I think that the fourth book will probably turn out to have been the
most chaotic, in that the three added chapters had a greater disorganizing
effect than was foreseen, both by allowing new plot twists and by making
the amount of information that a new writer had to absorb even more
overloaded than it was. The same problem shouldn't arise in later books.

DS

Steuard Jensen

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Jul 22, 2001, 2:51:11 PM7/22/01
to
Quoth Mercedes McTaggart <Merc...@s2498spamnot.freeuk.com> in article
<ib3FxHAc...@spamfree.fsnet.co.uk>:
> If a relative rabt virgin may be allowed to tentatively voice an
> opinion? (covers head preparatory to heavy things dropping on it
> from a great height)...

Hey, we were all "relative r.a.b.t virgins" once... and by and large,
these groups have been very good in encouraging newcomers to
contribute (though there have been exceptions at times when newcomers
have stumbled into one of the Great Debates in unlucky ways). At any
rate, nobody will ever complain about a well-written, open-minded
post, no matter who it's from. :)

> Would it be possible (or permissible) for _ONE_ person to edit the
> whole when it is finally completed - with input and assistance from
> all the contributors, of course?

I agree that this could conceivably improve the overall story
immensely, but I don't think that it will happen, and I'm not even
sure that it should. First of all, you'd need to find someone to do
all that work, and I'm reasonably sure that O. Sharp, Ojevind, and I
would all opt out based on time constraints alone (guys, let me know
if I'm wrong here). There are others who have contributed
substantially to the project as well, but I think that in just about
every case, the required time commitment would make this a low
priority. Even if O., Ojevind, and I worked together as a small
committee (which might be the best solution, balancing out individual
preferences a little), it would still be an enormous undertaking.

Second, you'd be forced to decide what formed the "essential" humor
and content of the parody, which would be remarkably difficult. Every
chapter has its own tone, its own focus... and sometimes it is
remarkably difficult to compare different peoples' contributions. It
might be that truly excellent material would be cut out simply because
it didn't fit with the overall arc that was decided on... perhaps only
because later chapters' authors failed to take advantage of its
potential. Which plot thread do you keep: the great idea in chapter N
that the following author didn't even notice, or the mediocre idea in
chapter N+1 that formed the basis for the rest of the Book Y? (Mind
you, I have _no_ specific examples in mind here.)

Along the same lines, it seems likely that entire chapters might have
to be rewritten or cut out simply because there was no easy way to
reconcile their content with the greater story. When a single writer
edits her own work, that process is painful enough, but here we'd have
to say, "Sorry, but your work just isn't good enough," or "Sorry, but
your contribution just doesn't seem to fit"... and it would be easy to
read the latter as a nice way of saying the former (it could even be
true). In a collaborative project like this without any particular
screening process for volunteers, it's pretty awful to come back after
the fact and make someone write their chapter from scratch, or worse,
to give it to someone else who will "do it right". We knew from the
start that it would be a mixed bag.

If I were going to go back and edit the Etext, the whole thing would
probably end up looking considerably more like the chapters that I
wrote (which some might appreciate and others might abhor), and the
same would go for any other editor. It might be _most_ interesting to
let every contributor go through and use the available chapters to
construct their own "ideal Etext", all of which we could then compare
and choose between... but that _certainly_ won't happen. :)

> I think it would result in a much better tale with more punch, coherence
> and internal integrity. But that's just my background in publishing and
> print speaking - I may be totally wrong...

I agree that it would result in a better tale, but I'm just afraid
that it would end up resulting in a tale that only a quarter of the
participants would approve of or even enjoy. Given the genesis and
history of the project, it's probably impossible to turn it into a
unified whole at this point.

> ...it seems to me that [the Etext] loses as much as it gains from


> having so many hands involved in its creation.

I'm pretty firmly against that claim, primarily because it's only the
mass of volunteers that has allowed the book to get written at all. :)
O. Sharp would never have written the whole thing alone, and it
wouldn't have helped much to have had just Ojevind and me working
along with him. Unless you're claiming that the Etext as it stands is
worse than nothing, I think the many contributors were absolutely
essential. :)

> So.. any chance of an editor being chosen to - er - "edit" it?

If you actually wanted to try, it might be interesting to see the
result... but I'm actually not sure just how easy it would be, or who
would support such an idea if it were seriously proposed. Among other
things, we decided early on that copyright to each chapter was
retained by its author, so to edit those chapters you'd need direct
permission from each of them: major editing rights were never
something that the administrative team asked for or were given. (No,
it's probably not a problem in this context, and picky legal details
are always a pain, but at the very least it reflects the creative
control of the authors over their chapters that we've supported.) You
might actually have trouble tracking down some contributors: I'm not
sure that they're all still at their listed email addresses.

Steuard Jensen

Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 22, 2001, 3:09:27 PM7/22/01
to
Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) wrote in message news:<6bfb27a8.0107...@posting.google.com>...


/me ignores various subtle critiques of his own chapter;-]

Just one request.

Can someone please bring back Spiegel as a separate character? I
thought she showed potential to develop into an interesting character;
but just as soon as she starts to come to a sort of maturity, she gets
in effect killed.

The bit about pop culture isn't entirely consistent with what has been
said in previous chapters in Book IV, but we won't dwell on that.

Personally, I *like* weird plot shifts -- so long as they're *my*
weird plot shifts;-].

Öjevind Lång

unread,
Jul 22, 2001, 4:44:13 PM7/22/01
to
Steuard Jensen hath written:

[snip a bit for brevity]

I kept this as more or less containing the gist of what you say. I agree
with it all, Steuard.

Öjevind


Aris Katsaris

unread,
Jul 22, 2001, 4:59:35 PM7/22/01
to

Count Menelvagor <Menel...@mailandnews.com> wrote in message
news:6bfb27a8.01072...@posting.google.com...

> Can someone please bring back Spiegel as a separate character?

No, please DON'T! Let's not start the whole "ignoring what other people
wrote" thing again... It only leads to confusion.

Aris Katsaris


Steuard Jensen

unread,
Jul 22, 2001, 7:09:32 PM7/22/01
to
Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) in article
<6bfb27a8.01072...@posting.google.com>:
> Can someone please bring back Spiegel as a separate character? I
> thought she showed potential to develop into an interesting
> character; but just as soon as she starts to come to a sort of
> maturity, she gets in effect killed.

I do agree with you (that's why I separated her from Gulible in the
first place, though that didn't work out particularly well), but as I
said (or at least implied) elsewhere, I'd prefer it if we started
taking the chapters before ours more seriously. Everyone is
disappointed by some of the directions taken in most chapters, I
think: it's an inevitable consequence of not writing every single
chapter oneself. I think that the Etext as a whole will be better if
we minimize the miracles and implausible events needed to twist the
text back into what we each believe to be its ideal state.

Admittedly, my last chapter had a few odd bits, the splitting of
Spiegel and Gulible in particular, but those were on the whole
attempts to reconcile earlier chapters than attempts to make the plot
fit my own ideal vision. I'll try to be as faithful to what's gone
before in V.1 as I can, though as the first to write a chapter in
_modern_ Minas Mickey/Minas Tirith, I have a fair bit of latitude.
It'll be tricky, but I think it's worth it. :)

I think that at this point, we're stuck developing Sibilant instead,
which will at least make parallels with the original story easier (as
I suggested in my first post to this thread). On the whole, I
appreciate that.

> The bit about pop culture isn't entirely consistent with what has
> been said in previous chapters in Book IV, but we won't dwell on
> that.

In what way? This is our first view of Mordor, and Sauron is after
all the Master of Lies. It seems that he's turned out to be a little
less honest and good than has been seen from outside his own land.

> Personally, I *like* weird plot shifts -- so long as they're *my*
> weird plot shifts;-].

The trouble being that _everyone_ has that attitude... and _everyone_
inserts their own weird plot shifts at the expense of everyone else's.
One or two bizarre changes in direction adds a wacky, fun atmosphere
to the story; one every other chapter just makes it hard to follow and
difficult to really appreciate it in any depth. (I know you were
probably speaking tongue in cheek, but I thought I'd answer seriously
in case anyone out there hadn't thought of this point.)

Steuard Jensen

David Sulger

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 2:35:54 AM7/23/01
to
Steuard Jensen wrote:

>The trouble being that _everyone_ has
>that attitude... and _everyone_ inserts
>their own weird plot shifts at the expense
>of everyone else's.

Agreed.

Not only that, but as we reach the end of the e-text we should be tying
up all the loose ends rather than creating new ones. Weird plots shifts
can be used to resolve the plot rather than further complicate it.

David Sulger

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 2:16:04 AM7/23/01
to
Steuard Jensen wrote:

>>Would it be possible (or permissible) for
>>_ONE_ person to edit the whole when it
>>is finally completed - with input and
>>assistance from all the contributors, of
>>course?

>I agree that this could conceivably
>improve the overall story immensely, but
>I don't think that it will happen, and I'm
>not even sure that it should.

I agree. Editing the etext would cause more problems than is worth it
in my opinion. One possible problem is that one or several disgruntled
writers could start demanding other protion removed, which could lead to
huge flame wars and general nastiness around here.

David Sulger

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 2:20:06 AM7/23/01
to
Aris Katsaris wrote:

>>Can someone please bring back
>>Spiegel as a separate character?

>No, please DON'T! Let's not start the
>whole "ignoring what other people wrote"
>thing again... It only leads to confusion.

I agree. The Spiegel/Gul(l)ible confusion of Book IV was one of the
biggest messes in the entire e-text. That, and the infamous Frodo
Killing By Raven I think ended up halting the project for a while, and
slowing down the whole process

Öjevind Lång

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 5:46:38 AM7/23/01
to
Steuard Jensen hath written:

>Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) in article

[snip]

>> The bit about pop culture isn't entirely consistent with what has
>> been said in previous chapters in Book IV, but we won't dwell on
>> that.
>
>In what way? This is our first view of Mordor, and Sauron is after
>all the Master of Lies. It seems that he's turned out to be a little
>less honest and good than has been seen from outside his own land.


I disagree with you on this one, Steuard. I think David should have
respected what has been established in a considerable number of previous
chapters instead of suddenly announcing that all Mordor offered was pop
culture. Personally, I am going to regard that particular comment in David's
chapter as simply the product of Sam's jaundiced, prejudiced mind and
continue to follow up on the (extensively developed) image of Mordor as the
home of university slave drivers and ponderous culture activities of the
"Read your Proust, it contains vitamins" description.

Öjevind


Steuard Jensen

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 9:22:25 AM7/23/01
to
> >Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor):
> >> The bit about pop culture isn't entirely consistent...

> Steuard Jensen hath written:
> >In what way? This is our first view of Mordor...

Quoth "Öjevind Lång" <ojevin...@swipnet.se> in article
<apS67.5965$5t1....@nntpserver.swip.net>:

> I disagree with you on this one, Steuard. I think David should have
> respected what has been established in a considerable number of
> previous chapters instead of suddenly announcing that all Mordor
> offered was pop culture.

Actually, my "In what way?" was at least in part an honest request for
a reminder of what those things were. :) I obviously remember the
university bits (well, some of them), but I'm not sure that I recall
the ponderous culture activities that you mentioned. (My apologies to
anyone whose chapters I'm blanking on!)

I was simply suggesting that all the force-fed culture in college was
a front for Sauron's true intentions (just as the mountains containing
those colleges were a front for the land of Mordor), and that the
cultural lessons of his colleges utterly failed to have a lasting
effect on their graduates. That may not be consistent, but if it's
not, I'll want to be reminded why. :)
Steuard Jensen

Morgil Blackhope

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 12:52:12 PM7/23/01
to

David Sulger kirjoitti viestissä
<21310-3B...@storefull-253.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...

>I agree. The Spiegel/Gul(l)ible confusion of Book IV was one of the
biggest messes in the entire e-text. That, and the infamous Frodo
Killing By Raven I think ended up halting the project for a while, and
slowing down the whole process

Nope. It was the two-month absence of Bill Hsu that did.

Morgil Blackhope


Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 4:40:17 PM7/23/01
to
"Morgil Blackhope" <more...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<9jhk7i$no5jf$1...@ID-81911.news.dfncis.de>...

That, and all the unnecessary extra chapters ...

The problem is that getting rid of something one doesn't like (the
Spiegel-Gulible division) by some outlandish plot device is not
precisely the sort of disrespect to previous authors to which people
are objected, although tyhey seem to be making an excepetion in this
case. To get rid of Spiegel and Gulible is, apparently, OK; to restore
them is not. According to this philosophy, I suppose we shouldn't
have brought Frodo back after all.

What I object to is the use of a principle to bludgeon other e-text
members with in certain casaes, while lauding it in others.

BTW, a lot of this could perhaps have been avoided if people had
outlined their objections to my chapter when it came out, in a upfront
way, instead of doing it indirectly under cover of praising Mr. Salo's
chapter. Who knows, maybe then I could have even modified some of the
more objectionable features.

Moreover, Mr. Salo's chapter does not really follow from mine in
certain points. E.g., that transporter thingy supposedly happened
before the attack at the end of my chapter, although you'd think my
chapter would have mentioned it if it had. Frodo has no motive for
attacking Sam when their entire group is being attacked by
narcoterrorists. Perhaps more important: Sam and Spiegel were friends
(had even had a breif amour), so why is Sam suddenly so callous
towards her plight.

I apologize to Mr. Salo for criticizing his chapter at such length,
but I am only doing it to show that there is a double standard here,
and that I object to it.

BTW, my own chapter was intended not to impose a particular narrative
but to suggest various possibilities. It is not a simple alternative
between Sauron being good and telling the whole truth on the one hand,
and his being eveil and lyiong on the other. He could be telling the
truth but evil (planning to initiate Frodo into his own evil
Weltanschauung), or good but lying (using Frodo et al. as instruments
in defending his country against the Westrons). Any number of
permutations of the above are possible, but I don't have space to
enumerate them here. (It is a little puzzling, though, that it's OK to
make Gandalf evil, but to even suggest that Sauron might be good is a
no-no; but be that as it may...)

Lastly, the time to tie up loose ends is in Book VI, not here IMO.
Tolkien has Frodo first apparently killed and then captured by the
Enemy at this point in the story. It is therefore the point of maximum
complication.

Sorry to rant, but I think people are taking the fun out of the e-t.
by trying to impose their own views of it on the rest of us.

Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 4:44:31 PM7/23/01
to
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote in message news:<lyV67.25$55....@news.uchicago.edu>...

> Actually, my "In what way?" was at least in part an honest request for
> a reminder of what those things were. :) I obviously remember the
> university bits (well, some of them), but I'm not sure that I recall
> the ponderous culture activities that you mentioned. (My apologies to
> anyone whose chapters I'm blanking on!)

Uhm ... There is quite a lot of reference to Sauron's opera mania in
Book IV -- see my post above -- and I suppose respecting previous
authors doesn't include ditching an entire Book?:-]. (Also in III.9,
though I'm not particularly proud of that chapter ...)

Aris Katsaris

unread,
Jul 23, 2001, 5:11:20 PM7/23/01
to

Count Menelvagor <Menel...@mailandnews.com> wrote in message
news:6bfb27a8.0107...@posting.google.com...

>
> To get rid of Spiegel and Gulible is, apparently, OK; to restore
> them is not. According to this philosophy, I suppose we shouldn't
> have brought Frodo back after all.

I've not even had the time to read the chapters in question in full;
but I have to make the remark that one of the above brought the
story closer to the original; while the other did not.

The problem with Spiegel and Gullible started when Prembone (I think)
decided to make Gulible female despite all the previous chapter which
had clearly marked him as male... The division was a solution to that
contradiction...

The death of Frodo on the other hand *so* contradicted the very clear
instruction: "Don't make things difficult for future writers, such as by
*killing off* Frodo" that it was really impossible *not* to try and correct
this. Though my own preference would have been if it had been
corrected by a revision to the same chapter.

Yet *another* Spiegel/Gullible division, seems to me quite
unnecessary... Frankly I'd have killed Spiegel off myself in my "Window
on the West" chapter, were it not for someone saying "please don't
kill off Spiegel- I have plans to make her Shelob's lost descendant"
or something like that... :-)

On the whole, this has been by far the most muddled Book so far.
Three chapters were added for no good IMO reason. One guy offered
his chapters, then took them back for no good IMO reason. One gal
contradicted the gender of an earlier established character for
no good IMO reason... And another guy decided to kill off one of the
protagonists for no good (once again IMO) reason...

Now I have to go and read the chapters in question... :-) I hope I've
not said anything that placed my foot in my mouth.... :-)

Aris Katsaris


David Sulger

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 2:02:11 AM7/24/01
to
Aris Katsaris wrote:

>On the whole, this has been by far the
>most muddled Book so far. Three
>chapters were added for no good IMO
>reason. One guy offered his chapters,
>then took them back for no good IMO
>reason. One gal contradicted the gender
>of an earlier established character for no
>good IMO reason... And another guy
>decided to kill off one of the protagonists
>for no good (once again IMO) reason...

I agree completely.

I admit, that I wasn't too pleased with China Blue going ahead and
writing Book IV when the rest of the group agreed to do it in order.
Then he pulls the chapters. I wasn't pleased with that development
either.
OTOH, the three additional chapters were pretty good. Steuard's use
of Maglor was amusing and he tried to fix the Gul(l)ible/Spiegel
confusion. Ojevind's chapter was short, but amusing, especially the
mermaid. Gimlet's chapter wasn't bad either, though there's nothing in
particular I like in that one more than the rest of the chapter.

Spiegel never really appealed to me. Even after Steuard's solution, she
felt like extra baggage.

Book IV had some good parts, but there were just a lot of problems
underneath. I'm hoping that Books V and Vi will go a little smoother.

Steuard Jensen

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 3:37:11 AM7/24/01
to
Um. I'm not exactly sure where to start with this, so I think I'm
going to quote Menelvagor all out of order, though hopefully in a way
that preserves the meaning that he intended. It should be fine. :)

Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) in article

<6bfb27a8.0107...@posting.google.com>:

> What I object to is the use of a principle to bludgeon other e-text
> members with in certain casaes, while lauding it in others.
>
> BTW, a lot of this could perhaps have been avoided if people had
> outlined their objections to my chapter when it came out, in a
> upfront way, instead of doing it indirectly under cover of praising
> Mr. Salo's chapter. Who knows, maybe then I could have even
> modified some of the more objectionable features.

First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I was _not_ objecting
to your chapter in particular, but to the general trend of increasing
complication and bending and rebending of the story that has been
common throughout Book IV. My own chapter was included in that, even
though I still think that my reasons were good. I'll probably say
more about this later, but again, targeting you or anyone else
specifically was _not_ my intent.

> The problem is that getting rid of something one doesn't like (the
> Spiegel-Gulible division) by some outlandish plot device is not
> precisely the sort of disrespect to previous authors to which people
> are objected, although tyhey seem to be making an excepetion in this
> case. To get rid of Spiegel and Gulible is, apparently, OK; to
> restore them is not. According to this philosophy, I suppose we
> shouldn't have brought Frodo back after all.

There's something to be said for that: Raven did leave us with a
Ringbearer to replace Frodo, which I think _could_ have fit within the
"no massive changes" rule, if barely. If you mean bringing Frodo back
after he was strangled at the end of IV.11, that strangulation
probably _did_ count as a "massive change", though it wasn't entirely
clear at the time if Frodo was actually supposed to be dead.

As for the Spiegel/Gulible thing, I'm not going to go over the whole
history of the characters because everyone presumably knows it. :)
Personally, I think it might have proven more interesting if Gulible
had gotten more screen time, but as things stand I don't think that
we've lost too much with them being combined (and we have the added
advantage that the overworked sexual theme in the Etext will be
somewhat suppressed in Book VI). What I'm _most_ tired of is things
flipping back and forth every other chapter. I don't think it's
usually bad in any given instance, but when it happens too often it
starts to weaken the story.

It gets almost to a point where we have several Etexts progressing
side by side: in one, Frodo is alive, in another, he's dead. Boromir
is in various versions a decent guy, a madman, or a terrorist. Each
author picks and chooses what he likes from the available menu, and
then invents a string of events to bring the story to that point. He
then takes the story in a new direction, but of course the next author
gets to decide whether or not to undo it all and how much of it to
actually develop. The chapters that result are often quite good, but
it's hard to read them together as a coherent whole.

More below...

> Moreover, Mr. Salo's chapter does not really follow from mine in
> certain points. E.g., that transporter thingy supposedly happened
> before the attack at the end of my chapter, although you'd think my
> chapter would have mentioned it if it had. Frodo has no motive for
> attacking Sam when their entire group is being attacked by
> narcoterrorists. Perhaps more important: Sam and Spiegel were friends
> (had even had a breif amour), so why is Sam suddenly so callous
> towards her plight.

I must say that I didn't notice the contradiction in the timing of the
transporter thingy (Spiegel actually speaks fairly near the end of the
chapter), and it would have been very strange if everyone hadn't
noticed right away. On the other hand, Frodo attacking Sam could have
been a result of the open discussion of Sam's revolutionary plans in
your own chapter, I think. Sam's strange behavior toward, er,
Sibilant strikes me as one of several believable reactions to the
situation, though I think you're right that greater sympathy would
have been likely (maybe Sam saw this as an escape from temptation back
to his love of Rosie?). All in all, it looks like we've got one
contradiction and one substantial stretch: not great, but not too
terribly bad.

> I apologize to Mr. Salo for criticizing his chapter at such length,
> but I am only doing it to show that there is a double standard here,
> and that I object to it.

My apologies for any double standard; I can assure you that it wasn't
something I intended, anyway. :P For the most part, I saw that
David's chapter left things in a reasonably simple state with a clear
direction to follow and opportunities for detailed development of a
few key themes (none of which had to do with sex for once), and I
said, "What a good basis for future chapters." Whether my impression
was justified or not, I felt that his contribution wasn't much less
consistent than most of the rest of Book IV, and that the "stretches"
it did have were specifically aimed at simplifying the situation, and
thus forgivable in my mind. I still think that chapters based on
David's foundation will probably end up working better than chapters
that try to incorporate the whole convoluted landscape of Book IV.

> BTW, my own chapter was intended not to impose a particular
> narrative but to suggest various possibilities. It is not a simple
> alternative between Sauron being good and telling the whole truth on
> the one hand, and his being eveil and lyiong on the other.

I think that my only problem with it was that there were _so_ many
possibilities. If the later chapters followed the pattern of Book IV
as a whole, every author would have revealed that a different one of
those possibilities was in fact true, based on new evidence in every
case.

> (It is a little puzzling, though, that it's OK to make Gandalf evil,
> but to even suggest that Sauron might be good is a no-no; but be
> that as it may...)

I'm really not sure _what_ the right thing is to do at this point.
The story suffers a terrible lack of "good guys" in general, which I
view as a weakness in a lighthearted book (that's my personal
preference, of course!). Just about every character is morally
ambiguous at best, and you can't even cheer for everyone to die
because nobody stays dead. :) From that perspective, making Sauron
good might be useful. On the other hand, I think that given what's
gone before it would be awfully difficult to make him truly
trustworthy. Additionally, my own feeling is that a direct reversal
of the good and bad sides in the story is a bit too simplistic to be
interesting, though again others could easily disagree.

More technically, making Sauron good would run us into serious
logistical difficulties: if Sauron says that destroying the Ring is a
terrible thing and the Ringbearer believes him, then the early
chapters of Book VI won't bear any resemblance to LotR at all. Sure,
that's zany, but I feel like it would cut out a lot of chances for
good parody. (And even as the Etext now stands, I think there's still
room for Sauron to be good, and for the drama of Book VI to be whether
or not Frodo manages to stop Sam and Sibilant in time.)

> Sorry to rant, but I think people are taking the fun out of the e-t.
> by trying to impose their own views of it on the rest of us.

I'm sad to admit that I've been having less fun with the Etext
already. It's partly because I've been so busy in my "real" life, I'm
sure, but I've had trouble really caring about the events in each
chapter when so often they end up having no long-term importance at
all. Even explicitly described characters' deaths don't stick... it's
frustrating.

I tried to figure out what was missing, what would help me get into it
again, and my comments in this thread have been my attempt to answer
that question. I know that what I've said hasn't been polished, and
I'm sure it's not an ideal solution, and I certainly don't want to
browbeat anyone into doing things they don't want to do. I just hoped
that I could encourage general patterns that would make the Etext a
better book for everyone. David's chapter seemed like a simple and
stable enough foundation on which to build those patterns, despite the
fact that I was disappointed by a couple of its changes. Given the
choice between rewriting _all_ of Book IV and simply supporting
David's contribution as a basis for later work, I chose the latter.

Anyway, that's it for this piece of self-justification. :) I really
hope that my comments here and throughout this thread _don't_ take the
fun out of the Etext, but rather put a bit more fun into it for me and
anyone else who's been getting bogged down. At the very least, I want
to emphasize again that I haven't intended to complain about any one
chapter here: none of these issues would make an individual chapter
less fun. It's just the concentration of many such chapters all in a
row that makes it hard for me to swallow. My apologies if I've come
across in an unpleasant way at any point at all.

Steuard Jensen

Öjevind Lång

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 6:12:43 AM7/24/01
to
Steuard Jensen hath written:

[snip]


>
>It gets almost to a point where we have several Etexts progressing
>side by side: in one, Frodo is alive, in another, he's dead. Boromir
>is in various versions a decent guy, a madman, or a terrorist. Each
>author picks and chooses what he likes from the available menu, and
>then invents a string of events to bring the story to that point. He
>then takes the story in a new direction, but of course the next author
>gets to decide whether or not to undo it all and how much of it to
>actually develop. The chapters that result are often quite good, but
>it's hard to read them together as a coherent whole.

Frankly, I think the constant plot changes have become one of the funniest
parts of the project. Like a sort of "anthology of possible deviant
chapters".

[snip]

>My apologies for any double standard; I can assure you that it wasn't
>something I intended, anyway. :P For the most part, I saw that
>David's chapter left things in a reasonably simple state with a clear
>direction to follow and opportunities for detailed development of a
>few key themes (none of which had to do with sex for once), and I
>said, "What a good basis for future chapters." Whether my impression
>was justified or not, I felt that his contribution wasn't much less
>consistent than most of the rest of Book IV, and that the "stretches"
>it did have were specifically aimed at simplifying the situation, and
>thus forgivable in my mind. I still think that chapters based on
>David's foundation will probably end up working better than chapters
>that try to incorporate the whole convoluted landscape of Book IV.


The problem is that several other writers have *also* stretched things in
order to "clean up" the plot so it would go in a desired direction. Then
others changed things again according to *their* desires. It is hard to see
why this is more (or less) excusable for David to do than for anyone else.

Öjevind


Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 6:09:18 PM7/24/01
to
"Aris Katsaris" <kats...@otenet.gr> wrote in message

> I've not even had the time to read the chapters in question in full;

Well, get cracking!!:-]

> but I have to make the remark that one of the above brought the
> story closer to the original; while the other did not.

> Yet *another* Spiegel/Gullible division, seems to me quite


> unnecessary... Frankly I'd have killed Spiegel off myself in my "Window
> on the West" chapter, were it not for someone saying "please don't
> kill off Spiegel- I have plans to make her Shelob's lost descendant"
> or something like that... :-)

I wouldn't have killed off Frodo myself in Raven's place (good as his
chapter was in other respects); but I think it less drastic to add
people than to get rid of them. Like it or not, Spiegel *is* now an
established character in the e-text.

Catually, if I had to get rid of one of them at this stage, I think it
would Gulible. He's much the less interesting of the two. What has
happened instead is that Gulible has essentially absorbed Spiegel.


I hope I've
> not said anything that placed my foot in my mouth.... :-)

If you have, you would seem to be in good company:-].

Maybe we should all just calm down; fater lal, eople are going to
write whatever they're going to write nayways, so maybe there's not
much point in arguing about it:-].

Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 6:53:27 PM7/24/01
to
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote in message news:<HA977.57$55....@news.uchicago.edu>...

> First and foremost, I want to make it clear that I was _not_ objecting
> to your chapter in particular, but to the general trend of increasing
> complication and bending and rebending of the story that has been
> common throughout Book IV. My own chapter was included in that, even
> though I still think that my reasons were good. I'll probably say
> more about this later, but again, targeting you or anyone else
> specifically was _not_ my intent.

Then I may be in the somewhat odd position of defending your chapter
against you:-]. Catually, the only real problem with your cahpter IMO
was its basic presupposition (we didn't really need to bring Maglor
into it, and I rather agree with Aris about the extra chapters. But I
enjoyed the complications (the Spiegel vs. gulible thing), and the bit
about Maglor's snorkelling expedition inspired Frodo's later attack of
ichthyoeroticism. (Also reining in the "subtext" thing that Prembone
had carried about as far as I wanted it, at least:-].)

>
> > The problem is that getting rid of something one doesn't like (the
> > Spiegel-Gulible division) by some outlandish plot device is not
> > precisely the sort of disrespect to previous authors to which people
> > are objected, although tyhey seem to be making an excepetion in this
> > case. To get rid of Spiegel and Gulible is, apparently, OK; to
> > restore them is not. According to this philosophy, I suppose we
> > shouldn't have brought Frodo back after all.
>
> There's something to be said for that: Raven did leave us with a
> Ringbearer to replace Frodo, which I think _could_ have fit within the
> "no massive changes" rule, if barely. If you mean bringing Frodo back
> after he was strangled at the end of IV.11, that strangulation
> probably _did_ count as a "massive change", though it wasn't entirely
> clear at the time if Frodo was actually supposed to be dead.
>

Weel, I was pretty sure Tamf didn't intend Frodo to be dead; I think
she meant for me to devise some new rdiculous way of bringing Frodo
bax. Since the damage of killing frodo and bringing him back had
already been done, might as well milk it a bit for laughs, sort of
thing. I found it very funny myself, though I don't necessarily
recommend getting carried away, and *I* certainly won't be killing him
off.

> Personally, I think it might have proven more interesting if Gulible
> had gotten more screen time,

There I agree. I tried to develop him a bit, but more could have been
done.

but as things stand I don't think that
> we've lost too much with them being combined (and we have the added
> advantage that the overworked sexual theme in the Etext will be
> somewhat suppressed in Book VI).

There I don't agree, I'm afraid. The problem could have been handled
more conveniently and less drastically by simply killing Gulible off
in the crossfire:-].


What I'm _most_ tired of is things
> flipping back and forth every other chapter. I don't think it's
> usually bad in any given instance, but when it happens too often it
> starts to weaken the story.

I guess that's a matter of taste. I agree that *too* much
inconsistency is bad; but that one reason why I don't want the entire
Book IV to be scrapped. The Book happened:-].

>
> It gets almost to a point where we have several Etexts progressing
> side by side: in one, Frodo is alive, in another, he's dead. Boromir
> is in various versions a decent guy, a madman, or a terrorist.

Well, my idea was that he was motivated by hatred of Sauron (the
narcos are opposed to Sauron), and desire for revenge against Frodo.
*He* at least is convinced that Sauron is evil (II.10, IV.2).

Each
> author picks and chooses what he likes from the available menu, and
> then invents a string of events to bring the story to that point. He
> then takes the story in a new direction, but of course the next author
> gets to decide whether or not to undo it all and how much of it to
> actually develop. The chapters that result are often quite good, but
> it's hard to read them together as a coherent whole.
>

I think that's a basic structural flaw (if flaw it be) of the e-t.,
and there's no way of getting around it IMO, and I'm not sure it's
desirable to do so. It's supposed to be fun, fater lal:-].

>On the other hand, Frodo attacking Sam could have
> been a result of the open discussion of Sam's revolutionary plans in
> your own chapter, I think.

I think the timing is rather off, given the fact that a bunch of
narco-terrorists were attacking the company at just that moment:-].
I'm afraid a later author may have to explain this one away, saying
that the Ring or the Phial or wahtever was affecting Frodo:-].

> My apologies for any double standard; I can assure you that it wasn't
> something I intended, anyway. :P

Well, I may have overreacted and been a bit strident ...

I still think that chapters based on
> David's foundation will probably end up working better than chapters
> that try to incorporate the whole convoluted landscape of Book IV.
>

I'm afraid I don't agree, and that I find Mr. salo's Mordorian
landscape rather colorless (sorry!:-]). I tried in my own chapter to
provide a landscape that might be "evil" but at least would have a
certain flair; I don't know if I succeeded:-].

> I think that my only problem with it was that there were _so_ many
> possibilities. If the later chapters followed the pattern of Book IV
> as a whole, every author would have revealed that a different one of
> those possibilities was in fact true, based on new evidence in every
> case.

But that's where the FUN comes in, no?

> I'm really not sure _what_ the right thing is to do at this point.

<snip very interesting ideas about Sauron>

Weel, perhaps the solution is to make him morally ambiguous, so that
we're never really sure whether he's good or not. But if he *is*
evil, I hope we can at least make him interesting, and not some
colorless generic nasty:-].


> (And even as the Etext now stands, I think there's still
> room for Sauron to be good, and for the drama of Book VI to be whether
> or not Frodo manages to stop Sam and Sibilant in time.)
>

That catually sounds promising to me:-]. And then we get the fun of
defeating Gandalf. As O. Sharp said a while back, Book VI will
probably be a *lot* more excitign than the original!:-]

>Even explicitly described characters' deaths don't stick... it's
> frustrating.
>

Well, maybe in future people who are *definitely* dead should stay
dead ... For example, I have no plans to bring Boromir back ...



Given the
> choice between rewriting _all_ of Book IV and simply supporting
> David's contribution as a basis for later work, I chose the latter.

I don't see that that choice exists. You may not *like* Book IV, but
it's there:-]; personally, I've found it very enjoyable on the whole
... Anyway, *I*'m certainly not going to ignore Book IV when *I*
write;-].

> My apologies if I've come
> across in an unpleasant way at any point at all.

Weel, I may have been a leeeetle strident myself. Maybe it's time for
me to take a sedative ...:-]

David Salo

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 8:57:02 PM7/24/01
to
I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
acceptable to the other writers.

THE VERY LONG NIGHT OF SAMWISE GAMGEE

Sam awakened to find himself in bonds, gagged and tied to a tree. Not
far away was Boromir(TM), sharpening his sword and looking around. Sam
struggled against the gag, making unpardonable noises.
"Awake, sirrah?" boomed Boromir. "ŒTis a fair game hast played me.
Wilt not try to bite me upon the shank like thy now-unconscious companion,
wiltow?" He pointed toward a similarly trussed Frodo.
Sam shook his head. Boromir(TM) approached and removed the gag,
allowing Sam to unleash a torrent of proletarian vituperation.
"Monarchist scum! Untie me, or you'll live to see Gondor a Socialist
Republic, and yourself lined up against the Wall with your deluded allies
for your just retribution!" He continued in that vein for quite a while.
Boromir(TM) laughed, but a little nervously, and continued to pace and look
through the trees. They were, Sam guessed, in a glade of Ethelien, with
its usual appurtenances of pond and babbling brook, somewhere to the east
of Disgiliath. At least, that was where he thought he had been when Sauron
and Shelob had taken them Mordor-wards; the memory was somewhat confused.
"Enough, halfling!" Boromir(TM) said after some time. "I'll not
debate thy strange and decidedly post-medieval political views with thee.
Know then, that thou hast been most foully deluded and cozened by the base
lies of Sauron."
"Liar!" Sam flung back. "I know for a fact that you're a
narcoterrorist and an accomplice of Gandalf the Gruesome. And I'm
Lenindil, the Heir of Isildur!"
"Sam, Sam!" Boromir(TM) laughed. "Listen to thyself! Wert thou not
the champion of freedom from tyranny and exploitation by the aristocrats?
And here art thou claiming meaningless, archaic titles and even glorying in
them? And associating me with _Gandalf_? What next? Know that I have no
interest other than that of Gondor(TM) and assorted franchises. Think
about it, Sam. Think about it."
Sam thought about it. He thought of Sauron's promises of power. He
thought of the Red Flag. He thought of Annúminas. He recalled that
Annúminas was a draughty ruin. He thought of the warm embraces of
Revolutionary Rosie. "Kinko... Pinko... Pinko... Kinko..." he mumbled.
"But what about the opera? Surely a cultured intellectual like Sauron
couldn't be up to no good..."
Boromir(TM) laughed scornfully. "Opera? Let me ask you, my good Sam,
hast ever heard of Mario Lanza?" Sam shook his head. "Well, then, let me
assure thee that opera may be Neanderthally lowbrow. And what has a
card-carrying member of the Hobbit Labour Party got to do with
intellectuals anyway?"
Sam shook his head. The lies of Sauron now seemed dull, false, and
unbelievable. He could not understand how he had ever been gulled. "Very
well," he said slowly. "I still think yer a right stinkin' monarchist
snob. But I'll overlook that for now. What about Master, er, Mr. Frodo?"
"Hath babbled for hours about his 'Nurnenshire Estate', 'Moneybags
Hall' and all that, until one of my Rangers -- NOT narcoterrorists, by any
means -- swatted him on the occiput with his hilts. He's yet more deluded
than thee. But I'll release him, if you'll take him under your care."
"All right. I'll be responsible for him."
"The third of your troop hath escaped us. We broke the Orkish guard
that escorted you out of Disgiliath; but in the mêlée your gangrel friend
departed."
"Er, which gangrel friend?"
"I saw but the one. If there was another, it is doubtless still with
the Orks."
"What about Sauron and Shelob? Did they get away?" Sam asked.
"Sauron and Shelob? Art mad, my friend? Sauron abideth in the Dark
Tower in Mordor, hatching his evil plans. Shelob I know not, but we slew
nought but Orks."
"But I saw..." Sam began. But as he tried to put words to his memory,
it became muddled and fragmented.
"You were deceived by the phantoms of Sauron, no doubt, that emerge
from the spiral depths of Minas Epcot and wend their way up and down
Ethelien. Nay, Sauron will not emerge from the Dark Tower until all is
lost, and the Tower of Commerce is fallen. But we must away. The Orks
have only been driven off. The longer we wait, the sooner they will be
upon us. We shall go down from the Crossroads to below Disgiliath, into a
ferry I have waiting there, and across the Anduin to Minas Tirith(TM),
where thou and thy Master shall be safe. Arouse him! For we must go."
Boromir released Sam's bonds, and Sam went over to Frodo. He had a
bad bruise on the back of his head, and was breathing heavily. "Mr. Frodo,
Sir!" he called. "Wake up, its your Sam, your own dear Sam, your dear,
dear beloved true-hearted faithful Sam."
Frodo woke with a scream. "Argh! My Estates! My Estates!" he cried,
and then collapsed back, sobbing. "Don't let them take my Estates away,
Sam!" As Sam freed his legs, he jumped up and tried to run, but
Boromir(TM)'s Rangers blocked the way. Sam grabbed Frodo's arm. "We're
stuck here, Mr. Frodo, and that's a fact. We might as well go with these
gentlemen."
Frodo struck Sam's arm away. "No! They want my money, they do! My
Estates! My rightfully inherited Estates! My precious Estates! They
can't have them, no indeed, no precious!" He was panting hard at this
point, and sweating; his eyes, swollen and reddened, bulged from his
sockets.
Boromir growled. "Thy 'Estates', as thou callest them," he said, "Are
nought but the merest paper. There is no 'Nurnenshire'! 'Tis but a vast,
desolate wasteland! As thou wouldst have found, had I not freed thee from
the clutches of the Mordor-Orks. But thou art freed now, and soon shall be
safe within the walls of Minas Tirith(TM).
Frodo shivered and looked around him with the gaze of a hunted,
cornered animal. "Lies, all lies," he panted. "I have Sauron's word on
it. I have the Deed! Everything comes down to Contracts, and mine is
signed and sealed! It's my Estate, mine I tell you!" His voice had become
a high-pitched whine.
Sam stepped up to him. "Oh, Mr. Frodo," he said plaintively, "you can
always come back for your Estate later. Now just follow these nice men..."
Frodo spat at him. "You. You're in league with them! Just as I
always suspected. Trying to get my money, aren't you. Nice Sam, good Sam,
clever Sam. Always does what he's told, eh? And why is Mr. Sam so
devoted? Because he wants to pick Squire's pockets, that's why! Dog!
Thief! Gamgee!"
He burst upon Sam with both fists, punching and scratching, when the
heavy hand of a Ranger came down upon his shoulder and hauled him back.
Frodo's teeth sank deep into that hand, and were only released when a
mailed glove came down upon his head.
"Seest how he is, Sam," said Boromir(TM). "Here, I think thou hadst
better take this; thou shalt be the safer guardian." He removed the Ring
from Frodo's neck and passed it to Sam. But Sam was deep in tears. Frodo
had rejected him! His own, dear, sweet master Frodo had decided that money
-- real or imaginary, it mattered not -- meant more to him than dear Sam.
Dear faithful Sam. The ground was soon damp with his sobs.
"We'd best be onward, Lord," quoth a Ranger. "Orks are a prowling.
And where an Ork prowls, there hoot all the owls."
"Aye," said Boromir(TM). "And it's an ill wind that blows no one any
good."
With that the Orks came crashing through the trees, armed to the teeth
with Lugers, Mausers, and all manner of automatic weaponry. They aimed
their fire at the tall people (whom they could see), giving Sam a chance to
hide in a fernbrake and cover the unconscious Frodo over with some
branches. So Sam saw the whole massacre: Rangers falling or flying, while
Boromir(TM) fought on with his hopelessly anachronistic sword and shield,
until at last he fell with thirty bullets in the chest, and fell back into
the pond, which at once turned a gruesome red. So passed Boromir(TM), best
of the house of the Stewards to fail to rule in Gondor.

Sam stayed hidden until the Orks had gone. The sun set and the moon
rose. Frodo woke, but Sam powered him to the ground and kept his hand
firmly over his mouth. A sound came from out toward the battlefield.
"Head bone connects to de neck bone, yess, neck bone connects to juicy
backbone, yes, backbone connects to scrumptious hip bone, yess, hip bone
connects to meaty thigh bone, yum!"
"Gullible!" Sam called softly. "Is that you?"
"Sss..." came the sibilant answer. "Is that silly hobbits? Still
chasing after imaginary Estatess?"
"No, we're over it," Sam replied. "Or I am, anyway. I don't know
about Mr. Frodo. What happened to you?"
"We escapes, we does. Runs away on fast feet with scampers and pampers!"
"Where's Spiegel?"
"Losst, lost, _saddam_. But what does we care? She betrays us with
Gorbush, precious."
Sam shrugged. He had always been dubious about _two_ people going
around saying _saddam_ all the time, and although one was bad enough, he
supposed he could live. "Well," he said, "we'd better figure out a plan
from here. We were going to take the Ring to Mt. Viagra, I think..."
"NO!" The choking scream came from Frodo. "You can't! You'll sell
us all out to Gandalf!"
"Ss, stupid hobbit," said Gullible. "He is wrong to want the
Wogah-ring; steals precious bodily fluids, it does. It should be
desstroyed!"
"That's two against one, Frodo," Sam replied cheerfully, surprised to
find Gullible on his side in the debate. "So, are you with us, or do we
need to hogtie you with this excellent elven rope that I managed to bring
100 ells of? I thought I might need it, I did, or I'd be nowt but a
ninnyhammer, as my Gaffer used to say. And that's a fact."
Frodo looked at Sam and Gullible hungrily. A pale light gleamed in
his eyes. "To Mordor?" he whispered. "You're going to Mordor? I can
take you there. I know the way." A thin smile played upon his features.

So the three hobbits set forth on the last leg of their journey to
Mordor. Before them lay the great mountains of Ethel Duwap, and ahead of
them the road led to the Enemy's citadel of Minas Goofy. Minas Ethel long
ago, the former Tower of the Moonies had once seen mass marriages beyond
count. But long since the Enemy had occupied it, and the Leech-king's
hopelessly amateur tenor had rung throughout the long valley, filling it
with the sound of music. On the topmost tower of Minas Goofy a
long-snouted, buck-toothed head topped with a shapeless cap still revolved,
leering into the night. Sam and Gullible stood aghast at the site, but
Frodo, apparently unmoved, pulled them forward. They came to the bridge
that led into the valley toward the yawning gate of Minas Goofy; and Sam
fell reeling to his knees, as the sickly sweet scent of cotton candy that
rose from the fields about almost overwhelmed him. "Not that way!" Frodo
hissed, and Sam shook off the horror and tottered after him. They attained
a path that climbed up the side of the valley into the slopes of Ethel
Duwap. But as they passed, a weariness as of a thousand exploited workers
overcame Sam and Gulible, and they felt the need to rest.
"Not rest here!" said Frodo. "Eyes can see us. Must go on, and on,
money awaits us, riches and power!"
"All right," said Sam quietly, "I'll try, Master."

But it was too late. All of a sudden the rocks trembled, and with the
blast of ten thousand sousaphones, floodlights illuminated the whole
valley. And out of Minas Morgul they came: the Army of Sauron, terrible
upon the march.
All that host was clad in scarlet and cream, and there were drummers,
sousaphonists and saxophonists, baton twirlers, flag wavers, trumpeters,
and Those who Marched in Step. Rank upon rank they came forth, and the
Leech-king, brandishing a mighty baton, was at their head. Frodo smiled,
recalling that day long since, when the deed to Moneybags Hall had been
handed to him.
And Sam, beholding the red flags waving, thought that perhaps the
Revolution had come. His hand, as if obeying historical necessity, crept
toward the Ring around his neck. Then his own will stirred, and his hand
sought and found another thing hidden near his breast: the Little Red Book
that had been his constant companion on his adventures. He sighed and bent
his head.
'The storm has burst at last,' he thought. 'Now the Sauronites are
going to Disgiliath, to fight the Imperialists. Damn the Party for voting
for war credits! A pox on both their houses.' But deeper down he
remembered an ancient anti-fascism.
Then he heard Gullible's voice. "Wake up, Ssam! They're gone." And
indeed the sound of sousaphones was fading down the road, and the
floodlights had been turned out. Sam arose and, turning from the city of
Goofy, prepared to take the upward road. Frodo, it seemed, had gone on
ahead, and now came back. "Silly hobbits!" he said. "Must go on, on and
on, seek wealth and fame and fortune!"
So they proceeded, step by step. A long stair lead them high up into
the alpine meadows of Ethel Duwap, where the edelweiss grew and alphorns
sounded amidst the snowy peaks. Up and up they climbed, until at last, in
the dead of night, they could see the horns of the chalet of Minas Yodel.
A yellow light burned in the window of the chalet.
"Sss! Tricksy hobbit!" hissed Gullible. "Frodo cheats us, he does!
This way is guarded!"
Frodo shrugged. "Could be," he said. "Maybe it's least guarded. Who
cares?"
"A long way yet," said Sam mournfully. "I could use a good rest and
sleep."

They rested upon an flowered alpine carpet and built a fire and
toasted marshmallows. The stars shone bright in the sky above them, as Sam
and Gullible sang old campfire songs that they found they both knew. After
the third chorus of "Up in the Air, Junior Nazgûl", Sam said to Gullible,
"You know, you're not such a bad sort after all. I'll make sure to put in
a good word for you when Mr. Frodo finally writes this story."
"And who will read this story, eh precious?" Gullible snickered.


"I don't know. People will buy anything these days, as my Gaffer used

to say, bless his apophthegmatic soul. If nothing else, Minas Tirith(TM)
could make it into a movie. I'm the hero of course, and you're the cute
talking animal with big eyes, but we'll need a villain. Now where's Master
Frodo got to?"
They looked around. Frodo was nowhere to be seen. Sam sighed. "I
should keep a closer eye on him. But he's got strange fancies these days.
Still, we must humor him."
"Ss, no use worrying about him, no precious," said Gullible. "Worry
about us, yes!" Sam found Gullible's gaze slightly unnerving, but also
endearing; he assumed that Gullible had moved into Stage #3 of the Five
Stages of Sidekicking, i.e. Hero Worship. "He's gone after his Estates,
yes, that's his whole plan: the Estates for poor Frodo."
"You're a cynic, Gullible", Sam laughed. "Let's hope for the best and
prepare for the worst. For all's well that ends better!"

When Frodo returned, he saw Sam and Gullible sleeping, Sam's head in
Gullible's lap, Gullible's eyes closed and his hand caressing Sam's hair.
Frodo's shriek woke them both.
"Cheat!" he cried out. "Wicked Sam cheats on us! Whatever happened
to Faithful Sam! And now I see you sleeping with -- yes, I said _sleeping
with_ this wretch, this Gullible! Nice Sam! Loving Sam! Precious Sam!
Oooh! I could just kill you!"
"Sorry," Sam said a bit remorsefully. "But I wasn't sleeping with
Gullible, just resting, and he's taken rather a shine to me, so..."
"Don't even start," Frodo said angrily. "I know the whole story. So
it's _my_ fault, is it? Everything's always _my_ fault. Always blame poor
Frodo. Very nice Sam, very nice."
"So where've you been, Frodo?"
"Cheating on you, just like you've been cheating on me."
"Oh well," replied Sam. "I suppose it's not far from the truth.
Well, let's go on. Come on, Gullible."
"Yes, let's," Frodo said sniffily. "You and Gullible. Cheats. But
you can't get there without me. No time for rest. Come along."
The hobbits climbed the slope, marching as straight as they could
toward the comforting-looking lights of the chalet. An easy slope led up
before them, covered with soft green turf. Gullible breathed in the sweet
alpine air. "Last one there's a rotten egg!" he cried and set off. Sam
was hot on his heels. Only a little higher now. The cleft, Cirith Yodel,
was before them, a dim notch in the alpine ridge, and the chalet darkling
against the sky. A short race, a sprinter's course, and they would be
there!
But Sam was still digesting the marshmallows (of which he had eaten
most), and Gullible's legs were too fast for him. As he slowed, panting,
he felt a clammy hand over his mouth. Taken off guard he toppled back into
Frodo's arms.
"Got him!" Frodo said. "The so-called faithful Sam! Don't think I
haven't searched your pockets at night. 'Death to the Aristocrats'! 'Long
live the Revolution!' We'll see about revolution when I'm esconced in
Moneybags Hall. Did you think you had me fooled? You're nothing but a
sanctimonious liberal-leftist petty bourgeois armchair revolutionary. But
I've got you at last, you nasty filthy cheat!"
"Armchair revolutionary." Those words -- obnoxious to true leftists
the world over -- burned a fire in Sam's brain that overcame his remembered
love for Frodo. Filled with righteous outrage, he fought back mercilessly.
A heel came up in Frodo's groin, and an elbow in his gut. Frodo retched
and staggered back. Sam was on him, punching and stomping. "Had enough,
pig?" he asked after he relented long enough for Frodo to catch his breath.
But that was a mistake.
"Hey-yo-ee-oh! Yo-ee-oh!" A deafening yodel burst from Frodo's lips.
And out of the sky, rending the air like a butter-knife, came a Nazdaq
flying upon some strange Fierce Beast. Frodo leaped up and grasped a claw,
and the Nazdaq swooped away with him, leaving only a call that echoed down
the mountainside. "So long, suckaz!" So far Frodo's plot had succeeded.

Sam raised his head from the ground, weeping with anger. Gullible was
nowhere in sight. The love for Frodo that had filled him had turned to
hatred. Now, at last, there was a real purpose for his lonely journey
into the land of Mordor. Vengeance. If once he could go, his anger would
bear him down all the roads of the world, pursuing, until he had him at
last: Frodo. Then Frodo would die in a corner. Yes, Sam mused to himself.
This was what he had set out to do. It might not bring about the
Revolution, but it would be uniquely satisfying.

Gullible came creeping back down the slope and found Sam there. "Ssam
dear," he said, "you'd better look at this." Sam followed wearily. They
came to the top of the ridge, where the chalet stood.
But there was only one wooden wall. The chalet was a false front, the
inviting yellow light seen from a distance just a single candle burning
behind an empty window. And before them the alpine meadows ended. On the
far side of the Ethel Duwap, the delightful music-filled glades dropped
into sheer, slaty precipices. Far below Sam could see the vast parking
lots of the Mall of Gorgoroth and Lithlad Station; their asphalt surfaces
stretched to the horizon. In the gloom, no trace of the Dark Tower or
Mount Viagra could be seen. Sam clenched his hands into fists and glared
into the distance. Somewhere out there was Frodo: alive, and taken in by
the Enemy.

O. Sharp

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 9:02:56 PM7/24/01
to
Sooo many interesting articles to quote and comment upon, if I chose
to do so! :) I think I'll just pick out this one from Aris Katsaris
<kats...@otenet.gr>, and quote a single paragraph, to reply to:

> On the whole, this has been by far the most muddled Book so far.
> Three chapters were added for no good IMO reason. One guy offered
> his chapters, then took them back for no good IMO reason. One gal
> contradicted the gender of an earlier established character for
> no good IMO reason... And another guy decided to kill off one of the
> protagonists for no good (once again IMO) reason...

Oddly enough, most of these were related to one another. One contributor,
for reasons I won't get into, jumped ahead to the virgin territory
of Book IV and wrote five particularly wild chapters. The Cabal(tm),
in trying to decide what to do to preserve some of those chapters
whilst also keeping enough chapters open for other contributors, kept
three of those finished chapters and devised three _new_ chapters to
keep opportunities open for everyone else. (It seemed a good idea at
the time. In any event, the story of Maglor has more than made it
worthwhile. <g>) We assigned the other Book IV contributors the
chapters that remained... and then, when one of those contributors
decided to kill off Frodo, two (yes, two) other Book IV contributors
made the decision to withdraw from the project. Sadly, one of them was
the one who had already written the three chapters we had worked
so hard to keep in - and the three "newly-added" chapters were already
assigned by then, one of them already written.

So we took the punch on the chin and kept going, rather than
reassigning and rewriting everything.

...Is it odd? Certainly. Did we on the Cabal(tm) make the right
choices? Maybe or maybe not, _you_ choose; but we did what we thought
would be fair as each situation surfaced, and I for one would have
done it the same way if like some horrible nightmare the situations
were to repeat themselves. :)

I sincerely hope, however, that the situation will _not_ repeat
itself. :) :) :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
o...@drizzle.com ...Oh, and to put one other topic to rest:
"The sanitized commercialism of Gondor(tm) gave way
to the hideous neon glitz and media bombardment of the
Enemy. Frodo's eyes unwillingly crossed the plain,
passing billboards innumerable and countless one-hour
motels. Gas wars were being fought. Commercialism was
rampant. Film crews were busy with remakes of "Flipper"
and "Mr. Ed". Orcs lit bonfires upon the plain and
toasted marshmallows by having slaves hold them into the
fires for them with their bare hands. In the center of the
hideous arid plain he saw the deadly sputtering fire of
Mount Viagra, which no man would admit to seeing. Its
purple flames raged up unexpectedly, then crashed down to
silence with a dozen undocumented side-effects.
"And then Frodo saw it: a tower great and terrible,
with buttresses of knife-edged iron, walls of impenetrable
stone, doors of heavy adamant all marked "ENTRANCE ONLY";
battlement upon battlement, chamber upon chamber, window
office upon window office, tall, black, immeasurably
strong, laughing at flattery, filled with self-confidence,
cracking its gum, telling bad jokes, and ringed with a
thousand heavily-sharpened dinner forks: the Barad-dur,
Fortress of Sauron the Terrible."
-Frodo's first view of Mordor, from II:10. If
anybody wants to complain about how their
description of Mordor got changed by some
unscrupulous contributor later on, they can
bloody well take a number and get in line. :)

Steuard Jensen

unread,
Jul 24, 2001, 9:47:37 PM7/24/01
to
I think I've said just about everything in this thread that I want to
already, and as I feel like I'm digging myself deeper into a hole with
every post (well, sort of), I'll try to stop here (unless anyone has
specific issues that they want to discuss). I'll also take this
opportunity to express virtually complete agreement with everything
O. Sharp said in his recent post to this thread: I think we
administrative people did the best we could. :) Anyway, some
concluding comments:

Quoth "Öjevind Lång" <ojevin...@swipnet.se> in article

<CTb77.6077$5t1....@nntpserver.swip.net>:
> Steuard Jensen hath written:

> >It gets almost to a point where we have several Etexts progressing

> >side by side... The chapters that result are often quite good, but


> >it's hard to read them together as a coherent whole.

> Frankly, I think the constant plot changes have become one of the
> funniest parts of the project. Like a sort of "anthology of possible
> deviant chapters".

I can't object to that. :) As I've thought more about my comments
thus far (complaints? whining?), I've begun to suspect more and more
that my recent busy schedule has led to much of my recent frustration
with the increasing complexity of the Etext (the occasional delays
didn't help either, though as I'm currently causing one I shouldn't
say too much along those lines). I haven't had the time to really sit
back and appreciate the chapters as I read them, I think.

I still think that I'd appreciate greater continuity between chapters,
but that's a personal preference. I hope that I haven't come across
as trying to _force_ the story to behave in exactly the way that I
myself want it to! I'd love to see the Etext conform to my own whims
throughout, and I'm happy sharing some idea of what those whims are,
but the project as a whole will have a broader appeal if the style
isn't entirely taylored to one person's desires. :) In other words,
it's almost certainly best if everyone writes the sort of chapter that
_they_ enjoy. (Making it one that conforms to _my_ whims as well is
optional.) :)

> >I still think that chapters based on David's foundation will
> >probably end up working better than chapters that try to
> >incorporate the whole convoluted landscape of Book IV.

> The problem is that several other writers have *also* stretched
> things in order to "clean up" the plot so it would go in a desired

> direction... It is hard to see why this is more (or less) excusable


> for David to do than for anyone else.

I'll just clarify this point, and then I'll call it quits in this
discussion (at least for now). I wasn't claiming that it's better for
David than for anyone else to force the story in a specific direction.
I supported David's chapter for two reasons: 1) it left things fairly
simple, and 2) it came last. That's all. (No, David did not send me
cash in the mail. :) ) I think that the situation it left was ripe
for lots of good parody... but now I note that he's rewritten it
completely, so, um, I'll go read the new version. :)

Steuard Jensen

David Sulger

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 1:44:52 AM7/25/01
to
O. Sharp wrote:

>Did we on the Cabal(tm) make the right
>choices? Maybe or maybe not, _you_
>choose; but we did what we thought
>would be fair as each situation surfaced

I agree. I wasn't too happy about the events that shaped the planning
of Book IV, I admit, but I accepted it because I felt it was fair.
There've been a lot of developments which I personally didn't like, but
I kept my chapters in because I want to participate. I'm willing to
sacrifice some ego that end.

Besides, I sort of wrenched things the way I wanted to in my last
chapter (while trying to stay faithful to previous chapters), and I see
more opportunities for wrenching in my next chapter.

Karim Arain

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 3:47:14 AM7/25/01
to
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 00:57:02 GMT, ds...@usa.net (David Salo) wrote:

>I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
>chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
>completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
>previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
>acceptable to the other writers.

[SNIP nice chapter]

Hmm, yes, the new version of your chapter is quite nice. But IMHO the
old version is MUCH better: it is funnier, has more ludicrous plot
twists and ties in quite a lot of loose ends (for that alone it is
IMHO one of the best chapters of the whole etext) and well, there
isn't really anything in it that can't be reversed by later authors
(well apart from the end of Boromir, which I incidentally found to be
one of the funniest parts of the whole chapter). Also, from commentary
the two main points that ticked people off were the merging of Gulible
and Spiegel (which can be reversed and has the potential for quite
funny scenes in future chapters - split personality anyone?) and the
"deculturing" in Mordor. Well, the latter is even stronger in the new
version but could have been reversed quite easily in the old one
("Then Sam took another step and his vision blurred. Gone were flat
Asphalt Wastelands, gone the greasy diners and third-rate drive-ins.
Instead he beheld a fairy land: lush meadows seeded with imposing
opera houses, grand theatres and breath-taking amphitheaters." with
the explanation somewhere that the "Asphalt Wasteland"-part was
something Sam saw by "other vision" as what Mordor would become if
Minas Tirith(TM) took over).

So, if there's a vote I vote for the old version.

Ciao. Karim

--
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you.

Öjevind Lång

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 9:38:01 AM7/25/01
to
David Salo hath written:

> I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
>chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
>completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
>previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
>acceptable to the other writers.

I think it is very, very good, definitely better than the first version you
posted.

>THE VERY LONG NIGHT OF SAMWISE GAMGEE
>
> Sam awakened to find himself in bonds, gagged and tied to a tree. Not
>far away was Boromir(TM), sharpening his sword and looking around. Sam
>struggled against the gag, making unpardonable noises.

Was BoromirTM sharpening his sword on a rock? ;-)

[snip]

> Boromir(TM) laughed scornfully. "Opera? Let me ask you, my good Sam,
>hast ever heard of Mario Lanza?" Sam shook his head. "Well, then, let me
>assure thee that opera may be Neanderthally lowbrow.

Good point, that.

[snip]

> So the three hobbits set forth on the last leg of their journey to
>Mordor. Before them lay the great mountains of Ethel Duwap, and ahead of
>them the road led to the Enemy's citadel of Minas Goofy. Minas Ethel long
>ago, the former Tower of the Moonies had once seen mass marriages beyond
>count. But long since the Enemy had occupied it, and the Leech-king's
>hopelessly amateur tenor had rung throughout the long valley, filling it
>with the sound of music. On the topmost tower of Minas Goofy a
>long-snouted, buck-toothed head topped with a shapeless cap still revolved,
>leering into the night.


YIKES! The horror! The horror!

[snip]

> But it was too late. All of a sudden the rocks trembled, and with the
>blast of ten thousand sousaphones, floodlights illuminated the whole
>valley. And out of Minas Morgul they came: the Army of Sauron, terrible
>upon the march.
> All that host was clad in scarlet and cream, and there were drummers,
>sousaphonists and saxophonists, baton twirlers, flag wavers, trumpeters,
>and Those who Marched in Step. Rank upon rank they came forth, and the
>Leech-king, brandishing a mighty baton, was at their head. Frodo smiled,
>recalling that day long since, when the deed to Moneybags Hall had been
>handed to him.

LOLOL

[snip]

> When Frodo returned, he saw Sam and Gullible sleeping, Sam's head in
>Gullible's lap, Gullible's eyes closed and his hand caressing Sam's hair.
>Frodo's shriek woke them both.
> "Cheat!" he cried out. "Wicked Sam cheats on us! Whatever happened
>to Faithful Sam! And now I see you sleeping with -- yes, I said _sleeping
>with_ this wretch, this Gullible! Nice Sam! Loving Sam! Precious Sam!
>Oooh! I could just kill you!"
> "Sorry," Sam said a bit remorsefully. "But I wasn't sleeping with
>Gullible, just resting, and he's taken rather a shine to me, so..."
> "Don't even start," Frodo said angrily. "I know the whole story. So
>it's _my_ fault, is it? Everything's always _my_ fault. Always blame poor
>Frodo. Very nice Sam, very nice."
> "So where've you been, Frodo?"
> "Cheating on you, just like you've been cheating on me."

I think this rates as one of the best parodies of a passage in the original
text.

[snip]

> But there was only one wooden wall. The chalet was a false front, the
>inviting yellow light seen from a distance just a single candle burning
>behind an empty window. And before them the alpine meadows ended. On the
>far side of the Ethel Duwap, the delightful music-filled glades dropped
>into sheer, slaty precipices. Far below Sam could see the vast parking
>lots of the Mall of Gorgoroth and Lithlad Station; their asphalt surfaces
>stretched to the horizon. In the gloom, no trace of the Dark Tower or
>Mount Viagra could be seen. Sam clenched his hands into fists and glared
>into the distance. Somewhere out there was Frodo: alive, and taken in by
>the Enemy.

A marrow-freezing description of the Dark Land!
Excellent chapter.

Öjevind


Laurie Forbes

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 1:06:49 PM7/25/01
to

"David Salo" <ds...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net...

> I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
> chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
> completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
> previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
> acceptable to the other writers.


LOL! You poor thing. Both chapters are very good (as you know), and I
certainly don't want to be the one to break the current tie between opinions
as to which is better. What I propose instead is that Karim and Öjevind mud
wrestle --- hey, Jell-O wrestle! Lime! Or maybe grape... or .. what's
that kind called that I made for.... WILD BERRY!!

<regains composure> This will be the only fair way to determine the
comparative literary merit of these chapters.


Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 4:37:38 PM7/25/01
to
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote in message news:<Zyp77.114$55....@news.uchicago.edu>...

> I think I've said just about everything in this thread that I want to
> already, and as I feel like I'm digging myself deeper into a hole with
> every post (well, sort of),

I know the feeling:-].

I will very shortly be posting a plot summary, so far as is
possible:-], of Book IV, in the hopes that it may aid anyone who's
bogged down by the thing ...:-]

Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 5:09:40 PM7/25/01
to
ds...@usa.net (David Salo) wrote in message news:<dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net>...

> I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
> chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
> completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
> previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
> acceptable to the other writers.
>

I agree with Öjevind that this chapter is much better, much funnier
than the other one. And I don't agree (at least on a superficial
reading) that there's nothing "reversible" about this one (even
assuming that people write chapters to have them reversed!)


> THE VERY LONG NIGHT OF SAMWISE GAMGEE
>
> Sam awakened to find himself in bonds, gagged and tied to a tree. Not
> far away was Boromir(TM), sharpening his sword and looking around. Sam
> struggled against the gag, making unpardonable noises.

> "Awake, sirrah?" boomed Boromir. "&#338;Tis a fair game hast played me.

> Wilt not try to bite me upon the shank like thy now-unconscious companion,
> wiltow?" He pointed toward a similarly trussed Frodo.

A good dramatic beginning.

> "Enough, halfling!" Boromir(TM) said after some time. "I'll not
> debate thy strange and decidedly post-medieval political views with thee.

LOL.

"Kinko... Pinko... Pinko... Kinko..." he mumbled.

Ditto.

> "But what about the opera? Surely a cultured intellectual like Sauron
> couldn't be up to no good..."
> Boromir(TM) laughed scornfully. "Opera? Let me ask you, my good Sam,
> hast ever heard of Mario Lanza?" Sam shook his head. "Well, then, let me
> assure thee that opera may be Neanderthally lowbrow. And what has a
> card-carrying member of the Hobbit Labour Party got to do with
> intellectuals anyway?"

Both true. Opera can be quite lowbrow (not that Mario Lanza was
really an oopera sniger, but nermind that ...); and intellectuals can
be eViol (especially deconstructionists ...)

> "Sauron and Shelob? Art mad, my friend? Sauron abideth in the Dark
> Tower in Mordor, hatching his evil plans. Shelob I know not, but we slew
> nought but Orks."
> "But I saw..." Sam began. But as he tried to put words to his memory,
> it became muddled and fragmented.
> "You were deceived by the phantoms of Sauron, no doubt, that emerge
> from the spiral depths of Minas Epcot and wend their way up and down
> Ethelien. Nay, Sauron will not emerge from the Dark Tower until all is
> lost, and the Tower of Commerce is fallen.

We shall see ...


> Frodo spat at him. "You. You're in league with them! Just as I
> always suspected. Trying to get my money, aren't you. Nice Sam, good Sam,
> clever Sam. Always does what he's told, eh? And why is Mr. Sam so
> devoted? Because he wants to pick Squire's pockets, that's why! Dog!
> Thief! Gamgee!"

Pretty amusing ...

His own, dear, sweet master Frodo had decided that money
> -- real or imaginary, it mattered not -- meant more to him than dear Sam.
> Dear faithful Sam. The ground was soon damp with his sobs.

Sam's in love with Frodo again? (Oooog ...) And Revolutionary Rosie?
Must be an effecto fthe Ring, methinks ...

> "Where's Spiegel?"
> "Losst, lost, _saddam_. But what does we care? She betrays us with
> Gorbush, precious."
> Sam shrugged. He had always been dubious about _two_ people going
> around saying _saddam_ all the time, and although one was bad enough, he
> supposed he could live.

LOL ...

"Well," he said, "we'd better figure out a plan
> from here. We were going to take the Ring to Mt. Viagra, I think..."
> "NO!" The choking scream came from Frodo. "You can't! You'll sell
> us all out to Gandalf!"

Not forgetting that Aruman had also warned against putting the Ring
into Mt. Viagra (III.10) ...

> Frodo looked at Sam and Gullible hungrily. A pale light gleamed in
> his eyes. "To Mordor?" he whispered. "You're going to Mordor? I can
> take you there. I know the way." A thin smile played upon his features.

> "Hey-yo-ee-oh! Yo-ee-oh!" A deafening yodel burst from Frodo's lips.

> And out of the sky, rending the air like a butter-knife, came a Nazdaq
> flying upon some strange Fierce Beast. Frodo leaped up and grasped a claw,
> and the Nazdaq swooped away with him, leaving only a call that echoed down
> the mountainside. "So long, suckaz!" So far Frodo's plot had succeeded.

Great conclusion!

Steuard Jensen

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 5:35:28 PM7/25/01
to
Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) in article
<6bfb27a8.01072...@posting.google.com>:
> I will very shortly be posting a plot summary, so far as is
> possible:-], of Book IV, in the hopes that it may aid anyone who's
> bogged down by the thing ...:-]

What a good idea. I wonder if that sort of thing would be helpful for
other Books as well. Any volunteers? :)
Steuard Jensen

David Salo

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 6:30:30 PM7/25/01
to
In article <AYG77.36$N4....@news.uchicago.edu>,
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote:

> What a good idea. I wonder if that sort of thing would be helpful for
> other Books as well. Any volunteers? :)

By coincidence, I was just trying to see what I could do with an e-text
version of the Synopsis at the beginning of The Two Towers...

DS

Morgil Blackhope

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 6:43:07 PM7/25/01
to

Steuard Jensen kirjoitti viestissä ...

Well, *I* suggested the same thing after the Book II, but everyone said
it would just give people an excuse not to read the texts... :)

Morgil


David Sulger

unread,
Jul 25, 2001, 10:52:47 PM7/25/01
to
Steuard Jensen wrote:

>I wonder if that sort of thing would be
>helpful for other Books as well. Any
>volunteers?

I was thinking of putting together a list of the major plot twists way
back when I did my last chapter, but didn't for two reasons. One, I'm
too lazy to make all that effort, and two, I already had way too many
unfinished personal projects to start in on another.

Karim Arain

unread,
Jul 26, 2001, 4:44:41 AM7/26/01
to
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:06:49 GMT, "Laurie Forbes"
<rfor...@maine.rr.com> wrote:

>
>"David Salo" <ds...@usa.net> wrote in message
>news:dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net...
>> I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
>> chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
>> completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about the
>> previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
>> acceptable to the other writers.
>
>
>LOL! You poor thing. Both chapters are very good (as you know), and I
>certainly don't want to be the one to break the current tie between opinions
>as to which is better. What I propose instead is that Karim and Öjevind mud
>wrestle --- hey, Jell-O wrestle! Lime! Or maybe grape... or .. what's
>that kind called that I made for.... WILD BERRY!!

I don't mud wrestle (or Jell-O-wrestle or whatever)! I categorically
deny ever having mud wrestled (these pictures are clearly cheap
fakes)! And I certainly don't intend to start mud wrestling now...
Well, yes, I play cricket. And yes in German "summer" trying to field
a ball can be quite muddy. But I don't mud wrestle (did I already
mention that?).

As for the "tie" in opinions: I seem to be the only one who liked the
original version of the chapter better (mostly because I like the idea
of a "cultured" Sauron"), so there's not much of a contest, is there?

And, no, I don't mud wrestle (hmm, I seem to already have mentioned
that, but just to be on the safe side: I don't mud wrestle. So, that
ought to do it).

Tamfiiris C. M. Gloruloke

unread,
Jul 26, 2001, 9:32:32 AM7/26/01
to
on Thu, 26 Jul 2001 08:44:41 GMT, Karim Arain writed:

>And, no, I don't mud wrestle (hmm, I seem to already have mentioned
>that, but just to be on the safe side: I don't mud wrestle. So, that
>ought to do it).

so i'm setting you up for the mud wrestling final on sunday, is that
okay? it'll be against Jabba the Hutt. have fun!

--
Tamf Moo

Laurie Forbes

unread,
Jul 26, 2001, 1:32:33 PM7/26/01
to

"Karim Arain" <ara...@FSUNI.rz.uni-passau.de> wrote in message
news:3b5fd65f...@nntpserver.rz.uni-passau.de...

> On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:06:49 GMT, "Laurie Forbes"
> <rfor...@maine.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"David Salo" <ds...@usa.net> wrote in message
> >news:dsalo-ya02408000...@news.terracom.net...
> >> I apparently ticked off a lot of people with my version of the last
> >> chapter of Book IV. I have therefore entirely rewritten it with a
> >> completely different plot; retaining a few things that I liked about
the
> >> previous version, but changing everything else. I hope it's more
> >> acceptable to the other writers.

[Snip]

> As for the "tie" in opinions: I seem to be the only one who liked the
> original version of the chapter better (mostly because I like the idea
> of a "cultured" Sauron"), so there's not much of a contest, is there?

OK, OK -- I like it best, too. Now get in that Ring!!


> And, no, I don't mud wrestle (hmm, I seem to already have mentioned
> that, but just to be on the safe side: I don't mud wrestle. So, that
> ought to do it).

That's your story and you're sticking to it, eh? I'm not buying it. Get in
there and slither for our hono(u)r!!


Count Menelvagor

unread,
Jul 26, 2001, 4:10:16 PM7/26/01
to
ara...@FSUNI.rz.uni-passau.de (Karim Arain) wrote in message news:<3b5fd65f...@nntpserver.rz.uni-passau.de>...

> As for the "tie" in opinions: I seem to be the only one who liked the
> original version of the chapter better (mostly because I like the idea
> of a "cultured" Sauron"), so there's not much of a contest, is there?

Weelp, I like the "cultured" Sauron too (obviously:-]), but I don't
think anything in the latest chapter definitely contradicts that. The
only thing I can think of when Boromir says that opera can be
Neanderthally lowbrow; but he doesn't say Sauron *is* lowbrow, and
indeed adds immediately afterwards that he doesn't see whay Sam, the
labor guy, would want to hang out with intellectuals nazwaz. Besides,
that's just Boromir talking (the same guy who earlier issued dire
warnings about Sauron setting up a conservatory in Michel Delving),
and what does *he* know?:-]

Karim Arain

unread,
Jul 30, 2001, 7:54:56 AM7/30/01
to

Final? Shouldn't the honour belong to Gandalf? After all, he was the
finest mud wrestler of Middle-Earth. He wrestled the slimy Balrog for
days! And won!

And no, I'm not mud-wrestling. Or do I look like Gandalf? Thought
not...

Ciao. Karim

P.S.: Who would win a mud wrestling contest: Gandalf or Jabba the
Hutt? And is that Gandalf the White or Gandalf the Grey? Was Gandalf
the White in fact better in mud wrestling than Gandalf the Grey? And
Jabba, is that pre-strangling (by Leia) or post?

Karim Arain

unread,
Jul 30, 2001, 7:59:08 AM7/30/01
to
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001 17:32:33 GMT, "Laurie Forbes"
<rfor...@maine.rr.com> wrote:

>
>"Karim Arain" <ara...@FSUNI.rz.uni-passau.de> wrote in message
>news:3b5fd65f...@nntpserver.rz.uni-passau.de...

>[Snip]
>
>> As for the "tie" in opinions: I seem to be the only one who liked the
>> original version of the chapter better (mostly because I like the idea
>> of a "cultured" Sauron"), so there's not much of a contest, is there?
>
>OK, OK -- I like it best, too. Now get in that Ring!!

Oh, sorry, can't do that. That would look like I bribed you into
agreeing with me, now wouldn't it. Wouldn't look to good on my records
now, would it?

>> And, no, I don't mud wrestle (hmm, I seem to already have mentioned
>> that, but just to be on the safe side: I don't mud wrestle. So, that
>> ought to do it).
>
>That's your story and you're sticking to it, eh? I'm not buying it. Get in
>there and slither for our hono(u)r!!

For you honour? Against Jabba the Hutt (as Tamf suggested)? Eh,
wouldn't somebody else be better suited to fight in your honour? Like
Gandalf? Or maybe even the Balrog (with or without shadowy winglike
apendages that may or may not have been wings and may or may not have
enabled it to fly which it may or may not have been unable to do in
the narrow chasm which may ... oh forget it)? Oh, and I don't mud


wrestle (did I already mention that?).

Ciao Karim

Karim Arain

unread,
Jul 30, 2001, 8:01:49 AM7/30/01
to
On 26 Jul 2001 13:10:16 -0700, Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count
Menelvagor) wrote:

Well, the view Sam got of Mordor and the mention of pop culture there
don't point to a "cultured" Sauron, do they? Unless of course, he's
into kind of postmodern (or more aptly post-apocalyptic) kind of
culture.

Count Menelvagor

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Jul 30, 2001, 3:37:40 PM7/30/01
to
ara...@FSUNI.rz.uni-passau.de (Karim Arain) wrote in message news:<3b654c16...@nntpserver.rz.uni-passau.de>...

> Well, the view Sam got of Mordor and the mention of pop culture there
> don't point to a "cultured" Sauron, do they? Unless of course, he's
> into kind of postmodern (or more aptly post-apocalyptic) kind of
> culture.

I'm not sure there IS a reference to pop culture in the latest
chapter, apart from Boromir's piece (for which, see above).

As for the view, it's only of /part/ of Mordor. Mordor's a big
country. (And catually, the first view of Mordor is in IV.3, and
that's of the campus of the University of Northern Mordor.)

Trust me: the cultured Sauron is not dead. My mastodontically long
chapter cannot be expunged from record so easily. :-]:-]

Karim Arain

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Jul 31, 2001, 8:10:17 AM7/31/01
to
On 30 Jul 2001 12:37:40 -0700, Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count
Menelvagor) wrote:

[SNIP]

>Trust me: the cultured Sauron is not dead. My mastodontically long
>chapter cannot be expunged from record so easily. :-]:-]

Thank Eru!

Count Menelvagor

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Jul 31, 2001, 6:22:19 PM7/31/01
to
ara...@FSUNI.rz.uni-passau.de (Karim Arain) wrote in message news:<3b66a014...@nntpserver.rz.uni-passau.de>...

> On 30 Jul 2001 12:37:40 -0700, Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count
> Menelvagor) wrote:
>
> [SNIP]
>
> >Trust me: the cultured Sauron is not dead. My mastodontically long
> >chapter cannot be expunged from record so easily. :-]:-]
>
> Thank Eru!

My snetimnets xecahtly ...

Steuard Jensen

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Jul 31, 2001, 10:50:07 PM7/31/01
to
Quoth Menel...@mailandnews.com (Count Menelvagor) in article
<6bfb27a8.01073...@posting.google.com>:
> As for the view, it's only of /part/ of Mordor. Mordor's a big
> country. (And catually, the first view of Mordor is in IV.3, and
> that's of the campus of the University of Northern Mordor.)

As O. pointed out earlier, the _first_ view of Mordor was in II.10,
when Frodo saw Mt. Viagra, Barad-dur, and the surrounding area
through a coin operated telescope. It's clearly a very large country,
with many faces... some pleasant (even cultured), and some sordid and
awful. We're sure to meet at least a few of them in Book VI. :)

Steuard Jensen

Count Menelvagor

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Aug 1, 2001, 4:42:44 PM8/1/01
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sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) wrote in message news:<z7K97.115$N4.1...@news.uchicago.edu>...

Ah, yes, the famous Gondor(tm) telescope thingy ... The one that shows
Barad-dur telling bad jokes, etc. ... Weeell, Book VI promises to be
eeenterestink, to say the least ... :-]

Ottoyuhr

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Aug 5, 2001, 7:41:03 PM8/5/01
to
Count Menelvagor wrote:

>Steuard Jensen wrote:

<snip>

>> There's something to be said for that: Raven did leave us with a
>> Ringbearer to replace Frodo, which I think _could_ have fit within the
>> "no massive changes" rule, if barely. If you mean bringing Frodo back
>> after he was strangled at the end of IV.11, that strangulation
>> probably _did_ count as a "massive change", though it wasn't entirely
>> clear at the time if Frodo was actually supposed to be dead.
>
>Weel, I was pretty sure Tamf didn't intend Frodo to be dead; I think
>she meant for me to devise some new rdiculous way of bringing Frodo
>bax. Since the damage of killing frodo and bringing him back had
>already been done, might as well milk it a bit for laughs, sort of
>thing. I found it very funny myself, though I don't necessarily
>recommend getting carried away, and *I* certainly won't be killing him
>off.

"Oh, no! We killed Kenny!"

I have never watched "South Park" myself (I have better things to
do with my time), but stealing the "Kenny gag" might be funny, IMHO.
How about killing Frodo at least once in every chapter of Book VI,
at least until the Ring is destroyed (or not; who knows how that one
will end?), and bringing him back to life, every time in an even less
credible manner? I liked the "strawberry lembas" explanation for
why he didn't die in the swamp.

Count Menelvagor

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Aug 6, 2001, 5:11:24 PM8/6/01
to
otto...@cs.com (Ottoyuhr) wrote in message news:<20010805194103...@ng-fb1.news.cs.com>...

> "Oh, no! We killed Kenny!"
>
> I have never watched "South Park" myself (I have better things to
> do with my time), but stealing the "Kenny gag" might be funny, IMHO.

I haven't either, being appallingly ignorant when it comes to TV these
days ... :-]

> How about killing Frodo at least once in every chapter of Book VI,
> at least until the Ring is destroyed (or not; who knows how that one
> will end?), and bringing him back to life, every time in an even less
> credible manner? I liked the "strawberry lembas" explanation for
> why he didn't die in the swamp.

That might be amusing ... ("Spiegel, use your tilde power" sort of
thing ...)
:-] I have no particular plans to kill him off, my elf ... but I
guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it:-]. Still waiting to
find out what chapters we get ...

William H. Hsu

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Sep 7, 2001, 11:50:22 PM9/7/01
to
sbje...@midway.uchicago.edu (Steuard Jensen) writes:

> Steuard Jensen

And gald was I to have had a teuncy hand in bringing boze to the
phosphored screen!

--
Banazir
cultured faces are appearing in my petri dish

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