Does Pratchett miss the point?
Richard Barrett
Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
the Ring's meltdown; Sauron is not the Personification of Evil without
whom evil cannot continue to exist, he's just currently the one who
has managed to become the most powerful (and he himself was originally
just Morgoth's flunky). The Ring's destruction allows evil to wane for
awhile, but Gandalf makes it clear that there will always be work to
do. Presumably, only Iluvatar can ever totally destroy evil, and He
will do so at a time of His own choosing. Until then, the fight must
go on, and there will be victories and losses. The Lord of the Rings
simply chronicles *a* victory, not THE victory.
As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
approval. Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
only be resisted and ultimately destroyed. Those who are evil can be
redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
trivialize its real significance.
Anybody have any thoughts on this?
-Richard
AC
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
That's pretty silly, but than again, this is Pratchett. I would look
elsewhere for literary criticism, thank you.
>
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
> all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
> the Ring's meltdown; Sauron is not the Personification of Evil without
> whom evil cannot continue to exist,
Well, he's an embodiment of evil, just as Morgoth was.
> he's just currently the one who
> has managed to become the most powerful (and he himself was originally
> just Morgoth's flunky). The Ring's destruction allows evil to wane for
> awhile, but Gandalf makes it clear that there will always be work to
> do. Presumably, only Iluvatar can ever totally destroy evil, and He
> will do so at a time of His own choosing. Until then, the fight must
> go on, and there will be victories and losses. The Lord of the Rings
> simply chronicles *a* victory, not THE victory.
This is the nature of evil in Tolkien's secondary creation. It is the
nature of Arda Marred, and just because folks like Pratchett who, if the
above quote is his, don't seem to have invested any time into understanding
this point.
>
> As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
> it to perpetuate itself.
A valid viewpoint, in my opinion. I think that Neville Chamberlain's
disastrous dance with a 20th century devil proves that well enough.
>Appeasement can only be interpreted as
> approval. Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
> source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
> only be resisted and ultimately destroyed.
Well, not quite. In the End, all that Morgoth and his minions have worked
for will ultimately turn to greater good. That is a central point of evil
in Tolkien's mythology; out of evil comes greater good. Perhaps Pratchett
should try reading something other than the comic book version of LotR.
> Those who are evil can be
> redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
> ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> trivialize its real significance.
I've been seeing some Tolkien-envy among some fantasy authors. They seem to
come in two groups; those who freely admit that Tolkien is among the best,
if not *the* best fantasy writer of modern times, and those who seem to go
out of their way to distance themselves from Tolkien. Though I imagine
there are a few fantasy authors out there who do not owe anything in a
literary fashion to Tolkien, he is the major reason why there is such a
large number of fantasy novels in most bookstores. There's nothing wrong
with that, just like SF needs the Larry Nivens, the Arthur C. Clarkes and
the Frank Herberts, so fantasy needs Tolkien. He isn't the be all and end
all of fantasy. Who knows, maybe tomorrow somebody will publish a fantasy
work that's head and shoulders above Tolkien. However, these attempts to
discredit, or at the very least, minimalize LotR by certain authors is
rather sad.
--
AC
Brought to you by Ed the Invisible Orange Iguana of Doom, Creator of the
Universe.
Chakaal The Indifferent
Richard Barrett <richar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
>Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
>"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
>throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
>possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
>Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
Remember, if you will, that Pratchett is a humor writer. He is *going* to
wisecrack. Also remember that in Pratchett's books people are talked out
of things not by appeasement but by misdirection, hi-jinks, obfuscation
and generally having them become confused about what it was they were
going to do in the first place.
>all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
>the Ring's meltdown; Sauron is not the Personification of Evil without
>whom evil cannot continue to exist, he's just currently the one who
>has managed to become the most powerful (and he himself was originally
>just Morgoth's flunky). The Ring's destruction allows evil to wane for
>awhile, but Gandalf makes it clear that there will always be work to
>do. Presumably, only Iluvatar can ever totally destroy evil, and He
>will do so at a time of His own choosing. Until then, the fight must
>go on, and there will be victories and losses. The Lord of the Rings
>simply chronicles *a* victory, not THE victory.
>
>As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
>presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
>it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
>approval. Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
>source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
>only be resisted and ultimately destroyed. Those who are evil can be
>redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
>ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
>trivialize its real significance.
Of course it does, but you must consider the source again. That comment
was straight Pratchett, funny and thought provoking. I would not take it
to think Pratchett considers appeasement to be a valid strategy. He'd
consider tricking the bad guy into shooting his own foot off, if he could.
Andrew Plotkin
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
I'd have to see that in context. The "jewelry" clearly refers to
Tolkien, but I don't know what "defused by talking" refers to. It's
certainly not Tolkien; it's not Pratchett as far as I can tell.
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
> all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
> the Ring's meltdown; Sauron is not the Personification of Evil without
> whom evil cannot continue to exist, he's just currently the one who
> has managed to become the most powerful
The quote doesn't say particularly "all evil". In the Ring story, the
evil *of that story* is certainly packed up by bunging jewelry into a
tar pit. Other stories precede and follow the War of the Ring, but I
presume Pratchett was referring to the trilogy, not all of
Middle-Earth.
> As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
> it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
> approval.
Yes, that sounds right for Tolkien. You fight as hard as you can,
limiting yourself to the means that are pure, and you might succeed.
Any other course is suicide.
Now, what point do you think Pratchett was making that contradicts
this? (As I said, I haven't seen the context.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
David Salo
richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Barrett) wrote:
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
Writers much better than Pratchett have made statements like this.
There are several problems with this kind of statement, however. The
most obvious one is that Frodo does *not* throw the Ring into the
Cracks of Doom; nobody does. A great deal of the story hinges on that
fact; not only does Frodo fail to "just toss the ring in", within the
context of the story nobody could have done so. Frodo had been sent on
the ultimate fool's errand, wild-goose-chase, mission impossible: he
was destined to fail. What's more, his failure is adumbrated from the
beginning, when he is unable to throw the Ring into his own fire. If
he could not do that, how could he destroy the Ring?
Why, then, did the Wise send Frodo to Mordor? It looks, in
retrospect, like the ultimate gamble; they knew perfectly well that, of
his own will, Frodo was unable to destroy the Ring. They were counting
on a miracle; hoping that, if the situation were of such a sort that
the Ring could be physically destroyed, Fate or God would handle the
rest. And so it happens that Gollum ends up in just the right place at
the right time. If there is a lesson here, it is not that you can
destroy evil be chucking a ring into a fiery pit, but that the most
impossible of obstacles can be overcome with a foundation of
perseverance and a pinnacle of faith.
David Salo
Heather Garvey
>
>"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
>throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
>possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
>presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
>it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
>approval.
Pratchett doesn't say that one should negotiate with evil.
That's your interpretation of "defused by talking". Pratchett's
characters have a habit of *learning* through talk - often, it's
just about a person growing and changing and then renouncing the
"evil". And usually, that works better than beating up someone.
I read his quote more like "Bugger these quests where
the Big Bad is defeated by transporting the Magic Whatsit and
hurling it through the Mystical Portal and WHAMMO! the world is
magically a better place! You don't effect real change in hearts
and minds by ticking items off a list - you do it by changing
people, by showing them things in a new light, by your example."
A lot of fantasy books do indeed concentrate a great deal
on magical gimcrackery being brought together at the right place
and time. Sometimes, a sacrifice is made, but more often than not,
the clouds immediately lift and the evil minions disappear like mist,
and everyone rejoices, etc, etc. And Pratchett more often writes
about the changes of heart that make a difference one person at a time.
I know that Pratchett wasn't making any deep statement
with his quote, and he certainly wasn't claiming that that's ALL
those kind of fantasies are about, but that's my opinion of the gist
of it.
--
Heather Garvey "The school has lost its funding for textbooks, so
ra...@xnet.com you've all been given wildlife survival manuals.
Today you'll be quizzed on how to skin a moose."
-- Miss Bitters, _Invader ZIM_
Jens Murer
"Richard Barrett" <richar...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:bee09f80.02071...@posting.google.com...
> As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
> it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
> approval. Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
> source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
> only be resisted and ultimately destroyed.
That's what happend in the Second Age, when the People of Numénor let Sauron
into ther Kingdom. Atalante is lost forever because they didn't see the Evil
among them.
But I can't say, if the Destruction of the Ring is NOT THE Victory. Of
course, there are Orcs and People of the southern Countries, but the Source
of Evil, 'Valar' (Morgoth) and Maias (Sauron and Saruman), are gone. I for
myself always thought of the Story as an alternate Legend, how the World we
live in was created. After the last Elf gone and Arwen Unómiel dying under
the sad Trees of Loth-Lorién, after transforming the World to a Sphere
(That's what the Valar do aus they took away Valinor fron Middle-Earth),
Hobbits and Dwarfs could be 'assimilated' by the human Race through
Centuries, only leaving Fairytales and Legends.
Additionally, the High Queen of Elves, Galadriel (Who ist NOT a Witch in a
blackblue Abyss where she makes mysterious Oracles in a black Pit, damn you!
This and your Failure in the Old Forest shall not been punished because of
Ian McKellen only!) says, that IsÃldur lost the Chance of destroying the
Evil as he kept the ring after the Battle of the last Union of Elves and
Humans.
I guess, when talking of Sauron as the major Evil it can be destroyed by the
Destruction of the Ring and the Option of just talk the Pain away was shown
in the Second Age. (Where ist Numénor again?)
Never forget: There is always one more Question. It will appear later.
Greetings
- daemon / jens
--
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
http://www.runes-haven.de
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
And when the Moon
is burning down
in the Fire of Fear
our lost Souls will meet
at the Estuaries of Sunrise
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so.
Of course its willfully. Pratchett is *trying* to trivialise it so
he can make witty comments. That's his *job*.
Saying he misses the point is like saying Monty Python missed the
point of the Arthurian legends.
--KG
Jens Murer
"David Salo" <ds...@usa.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:160720021610183163%ds...@usa.net...
> Writers much better than Pratchett have made statements like this.
> There are several problems with this kind of statement, however. The
> most obvious one is that Frodo does *not* throw the Ring into the
> Cracks of Doom; nobody does. A great deal of the story hinges on that
> fact; not only does Frodo fail to "just toss the ring in", within the
> context of the story nobody could have done so. Frodo had been sent on
> the ultimate fool's errand, wild-goose-chase, mission impossible: he
> was destined to fail. What's more, his failure is adumbrated from the
> beginning, when he is unable to throw the Ring into his own fire. If
> he could not do that, how could he destroy the Ring?
> Why, then, did the Wise send Frodo to Mordor? It looks, in
> retrospect, like the ultimate gamble; they knew perfectly well that, of
> his own will, Frodo was unable to destroy the Ring. They were counting
> on a miracle; hoping that, if the situation were of such a sort that
> the Ring could be physically destroyed, Fate or God would handle the
> rest. And so it happens that Gollum ends up in just the right place at
> the right time. If there is a lesson here, it is not that you can
> destroy evil be chucking a ring into a fiery pit, but that the most
> impossible of obstacles can be overcome with a foundation of
> perseverance and a pinnacle of faith.
>
> David Salo
That's quite interessting. Do you think, the Council perharps thought, that
Sam's Loyality to Frodo - One of the Main Parts of the Story - could turn
the Things into the right Direction? I cannot believe they do the gamble
with a Chance at 1:1M.
- dae / jens
Jens Murer
"Heather Garvey" <ra...@typhoon.xnet.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ah2241$ql$1...@flood.xnet.com...
> I read his quote more like "Bugger these quests where
> the Big Bad is defeated by transporting the Magic Whatsit and
> hurling it through the Mystical Portal and WHAMMO! the world is
> magically a better place! You don't effect real change in hearts
> and minds by ticking items off a list - you do it by changing
> people, by showing them things in a new light, by your example."
Silence conquered the Room after it defeated these Words and only the Sound
of the Rain from outside tried to resist. For wise were the Words that were
spoken and Wisdom was in them.
- dae / jens
David Johnston
>
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
> all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
> the Ring's meltdown;
It seems to me that you are misinterpreting Pratchett's statement, perhaps
willfully so, by assuming that when he says evil, he means "all evil", rather
than just a given example of evil.
David Johnston
> destroy evil be chucking a ring into a fiery pit, but that the most
> impossible of obstacles can be overcome with a foundation of
> perseverance and a pinnacle of faith.
And a great deal of dumb luck.
Terry Austin
will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
Terry Austin
Eric Jarvis
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so.
>
nope...and if you had read and understood any of his later books it would
be immediately obvious what he's talking about and why his attitude is
different to Tolkein's (and IMO much more relevant to real situations)
in Tolkein there is a struggle between good and evil...in Pratchett there
are struggles between people...I would contend that the latter is a closer
reflection of reality
in Tolkein each individual has a choice between evil actions and good
ones...in so far as there are any gray areas it is because some characters
don't choose one or the other consistently...in Pratchett characters are
usually presented with a wide range of choices and tend to choose one for
either selfish or (more rarely) altruistic reasons...doing what seems good
in the short term can have evil consequences in the long term and vice
versa
Tolkein was writing myth...it should be taken as such and no more...it's
quite good myth at times...but it isn't a political treatise in the way
that books like 1984 or Brave New World are...so making direct comparisons
with real situations is not what the author intended of the
work...everything in Tolein is deliberately two dimensional...myth is
meant to work that way...trying to impose a three dimensional
interpretation on it is not likely to lead to many sensible conclusions
Pratchett is writing parody...it refers constantly to reality...it is an
entirely different type of writing that involves a two dimensional
representation of a three dimensional situation...the subtleties are
always there...they have to be because most of the humour depends on them
being there...however, trying to correlate it to reality is liable to lead
to psychotic episodes, a desperate craving for beer and chocolate, and
Usenet addiction...or uncontrollable laughter
Pratchett's statement is fair comment...myth has its place in fantasy and
sf...but it isn't the only possibility for the genre...just as it isn't
the only literary device by which one can interpret reality...the dangers
of interpreting reality only through myth are seen almost every time
extremists mange to create a situation where people start to see other
people with the emphasis on "other" and not on "people"...that is when the
idea of a simple struggle between good and evil must be fought tooth and
nail if good is to prevail
good troll btw
--
eric
"I am a man of many parts, unfortunately most of
them are no longer in stock"
Chris Share
(tau...@hyperbooks.com) said...
>Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
>will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
>
>Terry Austin
Who'd be jealous of that? IME teaching a book in epth just takes all
the enjoyment out of it...
chris
Kevin Hackett
"Chakaal The Indifferent" <cha...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ah210g$du9$1...@panix2.panix.com...
>In article <bee09f80.02071...@posting.google.com>,
>Richard Barrett <richar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference
>>to Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>>
>>"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
>>throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
>>possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>>
>>Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so.
>>First of
>
>Remember, if you will, that Pratchett is a humor writer. He is
>*going* to wisecrack. Also remember that in Pratchett's books
>people are talked out of things not by appeasement but by
>misdirection, hi-jinks, obfuscation and generally having them
>become confused about what it was they were going to do in
>the first place.
I think you've got the point there. Three thing to remember:
1) Terry Pratchett has been quoted several times as being a Tolkien fan.
One quote I saw recently says, 'It was also my tribute to twenty-five years
of fantasy reading, which started when I was thirteen and read Lord of the
Rings in 25 hours. That damn book was a halfbrick in the path of the bicycle
of my life. I started reading fantasy books at the kind of speed you can
only manage in your early teens'
2) Just because he likes you, doesn't mean you're not fair game.
3) In several books, there has been the theme that the Heroic Gesture may
well get you in the sagas, but the Intelligent Maneuvre means everyone gets
home with minimal loss of appendages. Also, defeating evil is all well and
good, but you have to think what you put in it's place. You can have as
many victories as you want, but there is only peace when good can find a way
to stop evil wanting more. This does not necessarily require a lot of
deaths
As well as the humour (and to be fair it's more wit than slapstick), the
thing about the discworld books is that it's a fantasy world with real
people. And real people are generally not all that nice when viewed as a
population. Take Ankh-Morpork, the most often used city. It is run by the
Patrician, who is... well, not technically evil. But efficient, ruthless,
astoundingly manipulative and prone to the sort of actions (Thieves' Guild
crime quotas, the occasional necessary death) that the people really wish
didn't work so well. In High Fantasy, he'd be the one who gets a hole in
him near the end of the book. But soon there'd be uproar because crime
would increase, power struggles would ensue, and all the little systems,
vested interests and in-fighting that kept the city running like a sharpened
gyroscope would fall apart. He's not liked, but he's appreciated for
keeping life running pretty much how it was the day before. At least,
appreciated by enough people that attempts to remove him will be stomped on
even by the good guys, who are heroes but also realists
As Garfield once said, 'People don't want nice. They want consistent'
Cheers,
Kevin
You can't destroy evil, but you can give it an admin job
Terry Austin
> Konrad Gaertner <kgae...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
>> Of course its willfully. Pratchett is *trying* to trivialise it so
>> he can make witty comments. That's his *job*.
>>
>> Saying he misses the point is like saying Monty Python missed the
>> point of the Arthurian legends.
>
> from someone who'd read most of the Pratchett books without realizing
> they were supposed to be funny.
They're supposed to be funny?
>
Terry Austin
Terry Austin
> On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:24:06 -0700s, Terry Austin
> (tau...@hyperbooks.com) said...
>> Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
>> will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
>>
>> Terry Austin
>
> Who'd be jealous of that?
Well, the theory would be, Pratchett. However, subsequent
comments by people who have actually read his books
suggest to me that perhaps the original quote was somewhat
less than serious, or perhaps not entirely in context.
Makes little difference to me; I could never make it through
more than about six pages of Pratchett.
Terry Austin
Mary Messall
alt.fan.pratchett so rarely discuss anything related to Pratchett that
we like to mark [R]elevant things specially, just to prove we do it
sometimes.
Richard Barrett wrote:
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
Which, to be fair, isn't really meant to compete with LotR. They're
stories about stories, basically in answer to the question "Why *can't*
real life be more like high fantasy?"
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
Yeah, willfully so. It's humor, sort of. (Actually, "humor, sort of" is
my favorite kind of funny. The ridiculous is so much more amusing if
it's true.)
That line is a reductio ad absurdem on Noble Quests. Yeah, we all know,
Terry Pratchett especially, that there's more to it than that. It's
about the corrupting force of power even on innocence, and the
relationship between weakness and courage, and yadda yadda yadda.
But when you come right down to it, they *do* destroy the evil forces
by throwing a piece of jewelry into a volcano. And in our world,
unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. (In our world, it's much
harder to recognize evil, for starters. The names of the villains don't
all start with M or S, and they don't always appear in black cloaks or
surrounded by flame.)
But I wouldn't say that in our world, "it's not that easy," because
actually, it can be even easier. You often don't have to go on a
dangerous and exhausting quest through gorgeous scenery and impossible
odds at all. A lot of the time, talking will do it. You start talking
to someone, suddenly you don't see the evil any more. Just, y'know,
hurt, and fear, and wounded pride, and misplaced loyalty. It's amazing.
It's "beguiling," just like he said, that such a simple thing can work
like that...
<snip Sauron is evil but not Evil, which I don't think is in dispute>
> As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
> it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
> approval.
If I thought Tolkein believed this, I'd have to retire from fandom. It
strikes me as such a dangerous attitude. I have a tendency to ascribe
to Tolkein all of C.S. Lewis's views, though, because Lewis said
Tolkein converted him in the first place. Now C.S. Lewis is a person
whom I admire so much it hurts.
I highly recommend anyone who's only ever read the Narnia books to
investigate The Screwtape Letters (wonderfully Pratchettesque) and The
Great Divorce and Mere Christianity. These are explicitly Christian
books, and every time I read them, he *almost* converts me again.
Certainly he makes me want to agree... Anyway, he strikes me as one of
the most reasonable men that ever was, and I can tell you there's no
way in hell (sorry, C.S.) that he would ever agree with the idea that
talking to "evil" is the same as surrendering to it. His version of
hell was a continuously expanding suburb where no one talked at all.
Hitler and Napoleon as petty neighbors. I think he'd say the evil
starts when the talking stops.
If you couldn't ever negotiate with the bad guys, no war would ever end
except with genocide.
> Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
> source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
> only be resisted and ultimately destroyed.
I don't think Tolkein does say that. The way I understood it, Sauron is
a metaphor for forces inside ourselves. We all have the capacity to be
that. The whole point of the book, as far as I'm concerned, is the
effect of the ring upon the bearer. Frodo is a hero because he resists
temptation, not because he walks all the way to Mordor on his little
hobbit legs. The most important scenes in the book are those where
Gandalf and Galadriel refuse the ring, where Bilbo clings to it... The
most tragic is when Boromir succumbs. That's the real danger. Not that
Sauron will kill them, but that he will win them to his side as he did
Saruman. The scenes with Grima wormtongue say the same.
The point is not evil enemies, it's evil impulses...
> Those who are evil can be
> redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
> ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> trivialize its real significance.
> Anybody have any thoughts on this?
I think you've trivialized his trivialization, basically. The joke has
a point. What's more, I think Tolkein would agree. He hated being taken
literally. He denied to his death that Sauron was Hitler, and if if he
wasn't Hitler, then he sure isn't Bin Laden.
-Mary
--
{I drank at every vine. / The last was like the first. / I came upon
no wine / So wonderful as thirst.} {"Heaven bless the babe!" they said
"What queer books she must have read!"} -two by Edna St Vincent Millay
http://indagabo.orcon.net.nz/ -> my soapbox and grandstand and gallery
Ross TenEyck
>In article <bee09f80.02071...@posting.google.com>,
>richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Barrett) wrote:
>> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
>> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>>
>> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
>> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
>> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
> Writers much better than Pratchett have made statements like this.
>There are several problems with this kind of statement, however. The
>most obvious one is that Frodo does *not* throw the Ring into the
>Cracks of Doom; nobody does. A great deal of the story hinges on that
>fact; not only does Frodo fail to "just toss the ring in", within the
>context of the story nobody could have done so. Frodo had been sent on
>the ultimate fool's errand, wild-goose-chase, mission impossible: he
>was destined to fail. What's more, his failure is adumbrated from the
>beginning, when he is unable to throw the Ring into his own fire. If
>he could not do that, how could he destroy the Ring?
It's not entirely analagous; at that time, Frodo has no idea what
the Ring was, nor any compelling reason why he would *want* to
toss it in the fire (other than Gandalf demanding rather abruptly
that he do so.)
In taking the Ring to Orodruin, he knew perfectly well that it was
a matter of desperate importance; that the fate of everyone he knew
and everything he held dear depended on the Ring being destroyed.
That's a little more motivation.
Plus, of course, the Council never intended that Frodo end up there
alone. They expected at least Gandalf and Aragorn there with him,
either of whom -- not having actually carried the thing and let it
sink its hooks into them -- could probably muster the will to do
the deed.
Or perhaps not, of course. It was a horrible gamble from the get-go,
and everyone knew that; there was every likelihood that they were
accomplishing nothing more than sending the Ring to Sauron wrapped
in a pretty red bow. But they really had no other choice: if they
didn't try to destroy the Ring, then Sauron would conquer them sooner
or later, and would get the Ring, sooner or later. If they did try
to destroy it and Sauron caught them on the way... well, that just
brings about the end sooner, rather than later.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Rocky Frisco
>
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
Quoted where and when? Doesn't sound like TP to me.
> "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
Sounds like a paraphrase at best.
> Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so. First of
> all, I think Tolkien makes it clear that evil is *not* destroyed with
> the Ring's meltdown; Sauron is not the Personification of Evil without
> whom evil cannot continue to exist, he's just currently the one who
> has managed to become the most powerful (and he himself was originally
> just Morgoth's flunky). The Ring's destruction allows evil to wane for
> awhile, but Gandalf makes it clear that there will always be work to
> do. Presumably, only Iluvatar can ever totally destroy evil, and He
> will do so at a time of His own choosing. Until then, the fight must
> go on, and there will be victories and losses. The Lord of the Rings
> simply chronicles *a* victory, not THE victory.
You are hoisting up false targets to shoot at; what is your
motivation here?
> As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
> it to perpetuate itself. Appeasement can only be interpreted as
> approval. Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
> source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
> only be resisted and ultimately destroyed. Those who are evil can be
> redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
> ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> trivialize its real significance.
Now, how the hell can a "ring" have any "significance" to be
possibly trivialized, when it exists only as an idea in some human
minds due to the influence on them of little scratchy marks on
paper.
> Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Yes.
1) Evil is only something out of place or being used incorrectly.
2) I would bet the motivation for your message was to get the shot
of endorphins/hormones you allow yourself when you fantasize that
you have shown yourself superior in some way to a famous author.
3) You will regret this habit when you die and know all things, too
late, as usual.
-Rock http://www.rocky-frisco.com
--
Red Dirt Rangers (Rocky on piano): http://www.reddirtrangers.com
JJ Cale Live (w/Rocky): http://www.rocky-frisco.com/calelive.htm
The Luggage Fan Club: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luggage-fans
Michael S. Schiffer
news:ah22o7$qu3$06$1...@news.t-online.com:
>...
> That's quite interessting. Do you think, the Council perharps
> thought, that Sam's Loyality to Frodo - One of the Main Parts of
> the Story - could turn the Things into the right Direction?
I'm not sure anyone except maybe Gandalf, or maybe Aragorn, had much
of a sense of that. Sending Sam was an afterthought to Elrond,
determined after Frodo had volunteered for the quest.
>I cannot believe they do the gamble with a Chance at 1:1M.
They appeared to think that no other course gave them even that much
of a chance. But no one really thought that Frodo had a great
likelihood of succeeding-- just that he had the best odds of anyone
available. (And he was, after all, the *only* volunteer, though we
may guess that if he hadn't spoken then someone would have come
forward.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Michael S. Schiffer
news:3D3483...@telusplanet.net:
> David Salo wrote:
Distinguishing luck from Providence in Tolkien's world isn't a simple
matter. (Something Gandalf as much as says in a couple of places.)
Rocky Frisco
>
> In article <bee09f80.02071...@posting.google.com>,
> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Barrett) wrote:
>
> > Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> > Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
> >
> > "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> > throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> > possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Writers much better than Pratchett have made statements like this.
Talk about your crossposting trolls!
You are a fecocerebral phallocephalic and I claim my nine pence.
> There are several problems with this kind of statement, however. The
> most obvious one is that Frodo does *not* throw the Ring into the
> Cracks of Doom; nobody does. A great deal of the story hinges on that
> fact; not only does Frodo fail to "just toss the ring in", within the
> context of the story nobody could have done so. Frodo had been sent on
> the ultimate fool's errand, wild-goose-chase, mission impossible: he
> was destined to fail. What's more, his failure is adumbrated from the
> beginning, when he is unable to throw the Ring into his own fire. If
> he could not do that, how could he destroy the Ring?
> Why, then, did the Wise send Frodo to Mordor? It looks, in
> retrospect, like the ultimate gamble; they knew perfectly well that, of
> his own will, Frodo was unable to destroy the Ring. They were counting
> on a miracle; hoping that, if the situation were of such a sort that
> the Ring could be physically destroyed, Fate or God would handle the
> rest. And so it happens that Gollum ends up in just the right place at
> the right time. If there is a lesson here, it is not that you can
> destroy evil be chucking a ring into a fiery pit, but that the most
> impossible of obstacles can be overcome with a foundation of
> perseverance and a pinnacle of faith.
No, grasshopper, it happened that way because JRRT wrote it that
way.
It's FICTION, dammit.
Talk about your sad, obsessed anoraks wanting to be the Pope of
Ringology.
Pfffooooeeeiieee! (spit)
Rocky Frisco
Here it is!
QUESTION:
Why are you pissing about, philosophizing, trying to come to
conclusions about a story in a book that was written and sold as
fiction, when there are books that claim to be and are sold as
non-fiction?
The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
that way.
Why not philosophically piss about with something that at least
claims to be significant, like Darwin or The Bible or the telephone
directory?
Sherilyn
Rocky Frisco <ro...@rocky-frisco.com> writes:
> Richard Barrett wrote:
> >
> > Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> > Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> Quoted where and when? Doesn't sound like TP to me.
>
> > "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> > throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> > possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Sounds like a paraphrase at best.
Apparently he said this in his Carnegie Medal acceptance speech at the
British Library. The Scotsman also quoted him as saying:
"The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of
fairies, and more truly fantastic."
[...]
--
Sherilyn http://www.greedycorporate.com/minority-report/
Free reliable text-only posting news accounts: http://news.cis.dfn.de/
Rocky Frisco
I was right; it's just a crossposting troll invasion from
rec.arts.sf.written and alt.fan.tolkien.
Sherilyn
Rocky Frisco <ro...@rocky-frisco.com> writes:
> Jens Murer wrote:
[...]
> > I guess, when talking of Sauron as the major Evil it can be destroyed by the
> > Destruction of the Ring and the Option of just talk the Pain away was shown
> > in the Second Age. (Where ist Numénor again?)
> >
> > Never forget: There is always one more Question. It will appear later.
>
> Here it is!
>
> QUESTION:
>
> Why are you pissing about, philosophizing, trying to come to
> conclusions about a story in a book that was written and sold as
> fiction, when there are books that claim to be and are sold as
> non-fiction?
>
> The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
> he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
> final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
> something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
> that way.
You are me & ICMFP.
Rocky Frisco
> Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
> will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
> Terry Austin
First of all, porridge for brains, the word you want is not jealous;
it's "envious." Second, what have you ever done that will last, or
that is loved and enjoyed and respected now? Your accomplishments
would have to go to University for eight years and spend another
six in psychoanalysis and Tai Chi class before they would be
qualified to lick Terry Pratchett's month-old footprints. So there.
> > Who'd be jealous of that?
>
> Well, the theory would be, Pratchett. However, subsequent
> comments by people who have actually read his books
> suggest to me that perhaps the original quote was somewhat
> less than serious, or perhaps not entirely in context.
Wow. Do you suppose?
> Makes little difference to me; I could never make it through
> more than about six pages of Pratchett.
Too bad! Back to Pooh and Piglet, eh?
Speaker-to-Customers
> Terry Austin wrote:
(Snip all)
Rocky, please stop responding to this. Terry Austin is perhaps the most
notorious troll on Usenet; the only way to deal with him is to ignore him,
which is why I am only posting this to afp as I doubt if he reads this
group.
Paul Speaker-to-Customers
Jeff Scarbrough
TenEyck) wrote:
>Plus, of course, the Council never intended that Frodo end up there
>alone. They expected at least Gandalf and Aragorn there with him,
>either of whom -- not having actually carried the thing and let it
>sink its hooks into them -- could probably muster the will to do
>the deed.
Thus the reason for choosing someone of a "simpler" mind...Frodo was
expendable as a Host for the Ring, while his companions would do the
dirty work when the time came, without the direct influence
/experience of wearing the Ring... just a quick shove when the time
was right.
Though, as with most Quests, it didn't work out that way....
Jeff Sc.
Athens Ga.
how...@brazee.net
On 16-Jul-2002, David Salo <ds...@usa.net> wrote:
> > "Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> > throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> > possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
> Writers much better than Pratchett have made statements like this.
> There are several problems with this kind of statement, however. The
> most obvious one is that Frodo does *not* throw the Ring into the
> Cracks of Doom; nobody does.
So? How does what actually happened change the validity of this humorous
statement? That idea is just as valid (or invalid) with what happened.
Sure your point that a miracle was needed for this to happen - but it
happened anyway, and evil was destroyed (in the context of the novel).
Robert Penner
news:160720021610183163%ds...@usa.net...
> Why, then, did the Wise send Frodo to Mordor? It looks, in
> retrospect, like the ultimate gamble; they knew perfectly well that, of
> his own will, Frodo was unable to destroy the Ring. They were counting
> on a miracle; hoping that, if the situation were of such a sort that
> the Ring could be physically destroyed, Fate or God would handle the
> rest. And so it happens that Gollum ends up in just the right place at
> the right time. If there is a lesson here, it is not that you can
> destroy evil be chucking a ring into a fiery pit, but that the most
> impossible of obstacles can be overcome with a foundation of
> perseverance and a pinnacle of faith.
Excellent point. It reminds me of Kierkegaard and his take on Abraham
sacrificing Isaac. Abraham believed both that God had promised to make him
(Abraham) a great nation through his offspring, AND that God had told him to
kill his son. Abraham went to his own "Mount Doom," believing that God would
resolve the situation somehow, by raising Isaac from the dead if necessary.
Kierkegaard (and various New Testament authors) held up Abraham as an
example of ultimate faith.
Robert Penner
how...@brazee.net
On 16-Jul-2002, "Jens Murer" <dae...@stadtwache.net> wrote:
> That's quite interessting. Do you think, the Council perharps thought,
> that
> Sam's Loyality to Frodo - One of the Main Parts of the Story - could turn
> the Things into the right Direction? I cannot believe they do the gamble
> with a Chance at 1:1M.
Most myths of this level have oracle type prescience. We miss a lot of
what Gandalf does & learns in the background.
Donald Shepherd
(dae...@stadtwache.net) says...
> I cannot believe they do the gamble
> with a Chance at 1:1M.
But million to one chances always come off...
--
*Dlanod*, *the* *Sparkly* *Nazgul*
Pimp of Morgoth, Worshipper of Arwen Lune, Rider of Ducks
Unfortunately Not Stuck with Menny.
"If Tolkien had meant for us to have a sense of humor, he would have
told us so." - Mark Reichart
how...@brazee.net
On 16-Jul-2002, "Robert Penner" <rpenner4...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Excellent point. It reminds me of Kierkegaard and his take on Abraham
> sacrificing Isaac. Abraham believed both that God had promised to make him
> (Abraham) a great nation through his offspring, AND that God had told him
> to
> kill his son. Abraham went to his own "Mount Doom," believing that God
> would
> resolve the situation somehow, by raising Isaac from the dead if
> necessary.
> Kierkegaard (and various New Testament authors) held up Abraham as an
> example of ultimate faith.
Of course it is interesting to hypothesize why an all-knowing God would want
to "test" Abraham. Tests have multiple purposes. There are several SF
stories with such tests - including maybe >>Placement Test <<
Rocky Frisco
Aww, you're no fun. poo.
Why is is people will pay five to ten bucks/quid/etc. to watch
images scream curses and kill and die and bleed all over the special
effects, but when a would-be word-smith crosses verbal swords with
an invading wanker, everybody says stop?
This is where I always get in trouble in afp.
If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
author? Answah me dat.
Glenn Andrews
Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> says...
> In article <ah22o7$qu3$06$1...@news.t-online.com>, Jens Murer
> (dae...@stadtwache.net) says...
> > I cannot believe they do the gamble
> > with a Chance at 1:1M.
>
> But million to one chances always come off...
>
Regards,
Glenn
--
"Kill the man and the ship will keep coming at you.
Kill the ship and its missile will keep coming at you.
Kill the missile, and watch for the shadow.
When a viper bites, it clings." The Dark Wheel, Robert Holdstock
andrew...@stealthmunchkin.fsnet.co.uk
> he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
> final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
> something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
> that way.
Watch out - you'll be saying next that the Discworld isn't real... ask
Sherilyn what happens when you do that ;)
--
http://www.stealthmunchkin.com
The new album Tequila Car Crash coming soon
andrew...@stealthmunchkin.fsnet.co.uk
> will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
Tolkien's never been taught in any literature class I've been in either...
Harsh Sukthankar
frisco.com) did quoth:
> Speaker-to-Customers wrote:
> >
> > Rocky Frisco wrote:
> > > Terry Austin wrote:
> >
> > (Snip all)
> >
> > Rocky, please stop responding to this. Terry Austin is perhaps the most
> > notorious troll on Usenet; the only way to deal with him is to ignore him,
> > which is why I am only posting this to afp as I doubt if he reads this
> > group.
<snip>
> If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
> Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
> going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
> should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
> execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
> author? Answah me dat.
>
> -Rock http://www.rocky-frisco.com
Because responding to someone who probably has no strong opinions on the
subject and is only looking for someone to provide the type of comments
you made is pointless, at best, and raises your blood pressure, at worst.
--
HS
Dan Clore
>
> > Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
> > will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
>
> Tolkien's never been taught in any literature class I've been in either...
Some universities offer courses on Tolkien.
--
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
Including all my fiction through 2001, and more.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord We˙rdgliffe:
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News for Anarchists & Activists:
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I've watched the dogs of war enjoying their feast
I've seen the western world go down in the east
The food of love became the greed of our time
But now we're living on the profits of crime
--Black Sabbath, "Hole in the Sky"
Dan Clore
>
> Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
> Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
> throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
I think that misses the point. The evil presented by the
ring is its use to gain power over others, and far more
important in the story (as far as any moral statement that
it is making, anyway) than the battle between good and evil
characters is the temptation the ring presents to the good
characters.
--
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
Including all my fiction through 2001, and more.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
Eric Jarvis
> Hope you don't mind the extra letter in the title--we at
> alt.fan.pratchett so rarely discuss anything related to Pratchett that
> we like to mark [R]elevant things specially, just to prove we do it
> sometimes.
>
> Richard Barrett wrote:
> >
> > Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its
> > source; it can't be hidden, it can't be harnessed for good; it can
> > only be resisted and ultimately destroyed.
>
> I don't think Tolkein does say that. The way I understood it, Sauron is
> a metaphor for forces inside ourselves. We all have the capacity to be
> that. The whole point of the book, as far as I'm concerned, is the
> effect of the ring upon the bearer. Frodo is a hero because he resists
> temptation, not because he walks all the way to Mordor on his little
> hobbit legs. The most important scenes in the book are those where
> Gandalf and Galadriel refuse the ring, where Bilbo clings to it... The
> most tragic is when Boromir succumbs. That's the real danger. Not that
> Sauron will kill them, but that he will win them to his side as he did
> Saruman. The scenes with Grima wormtongue say the same.
>
> The point is not evil enemies, it's evil impulses...
>
as far as I'm concerned (and from what I've heard and read of Tolkein's
opinions on the matter, as far as Tolkein was concerned) as right as right
can be...the whole point of Lord of the Rings is a succession of choices
between right and wrong
>
> > Those who are evil can be
> > redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
> > ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> > trivialize its real significance.
> > Anybody have any thoughts on this?
>
> I think you've trivialized his trivialization, basically. The joke has
> a point. What's more, I think Tolkein would agree. He hated being taken
> literally. He denied to his death that Sauron was Hitler, and if if he
> wasn't Hitler, then he sure isn't Bin Laden.
>
that's the danger that makes me feel it is important that anyone who reads
and gets inspiration from Lord of the Rings should also read and try to
understand what Terry Pratchett writes too...when you make good and evil a
choice between them and us then evil has won...Tolkein didn't take that
idea on directly...Pratchett does
--
eric - afprelationships in headers
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Donald Shepherd
(vetit...@attbi.com) says...
> In article <MPG.179f69824...@news.cairns.net.au>,
> Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> says...
> > In article <ah22o7$qu3$06$1...@news.t-online.com>, Jens Murer
> > (dae...@stadtwache.net) says...
> > > I cannot believe they do the gamble
> > > with a Chance at 1:1M.
> >
> > But million to one chances always come off...
> >
> Only Nine times out of Ten....
[I]?
--
Donald Shepherd
<donald_...@hotmail.com>
The closest I came to perfection was when I wrote my Resume.
Ross TenEyck
>"Jens Murer" <dae...@stadtwache.net> writes:
>> I cannot believe they do the gamble with a Chance at 1:1M.
>But everyone knows one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.
It's even a rational decision if your only options are "one in
a million" versus "zero."
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
David Johnston
> that's the danger that makes me feel it is important that anyone who reads
> and gets inspiration from Lord of the Rings should also read and try to
> understand what Terry Pratchett writes too...when you make good and evil a
> choice between them and us then evil has won...
OK. I'm stumped. What did that sentence mean?
Glenn Andrews
> In article <MPG.179e7bd75...@netnews.attbi.com>, Glenn Andrews
> (vetit...@attbi.com) says...
> > In article <MPG.179f69824...@news.cairns.net.au>,
> > Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> says...
> > > In article <ah22o7$qu3$06$1...@news.t-online.com>, Jens Murer
> > > (dae...@stadtwache.net) says...
> > > > I cannot believe they do the gamble
> > > > with a Chance at 1:1M.
> > >
> > > But million to one chances always come off...
> > >
> > Only Nine times out of Ten....
>
> [I]?
>
I considered [R] but the subject is [I] and the line isn't worth
having an [R] thread that will go [I] immediately with people
forgetting to change the tag.
Hmm.. Should the reasoning behind that be considered [M]?
<grin>
Tony Hursh
>
> > Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
> > will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
>
> Tolkien's never been taught in any literature class I've been in either...
There was a freshman lit course on Tolkien at the University of Illinois
last spring. See http://www.news.uiuc.edu/gentips/02/02rings.html,
keeping
ind mind that kindly old Professor T. would undoubtedly have thrown a
clot
at the use of the word "elfin" in this news story. The course syllabus
can be seen at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/siewers/119/syllabus.htm
--
Tony Hursh, a...@acm.org
The Blinking 12:00 http://blinking12.blogspot.com
Amarantha
<MPG.179fa5fc2...@news.cairns.net.au>:
>[I]?
This is all being crossposted between our group and the pratchett one; they
use indicators like the one above to warn whether the post is on or off
topic and other such things.
K
--
"Why do people keep insisting that I join the 21st Century? I *LIVE* in the
21st Century! I just don't want to be bothered by the shitheads on the
internet!"
-- Harlan Ellison
Donald Shepherd
> In article <MPG.179fa5fc2...@news.cairns.net.au>,
> Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> says...
> > In article <MPG.179e7bd75...@netnews.attbi.com>, Glenn Andrews
> > (vetit...@attbi.com) says...
> > > In article <MPG.179f69824...@news.cairns.net.au>,
> > > Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> says...
> > > > In article <ah22o7$qu3$06$1...@news.t-online.com>, Jens Murer
> > > > (dae...@stadtwache.net) says...
> > > > > I cannot believe they do the gamble
> > > > > with a Chance at 1:1M.
> > > >
> > > > But million to one chances always come off...
> > > >
> > > Only Nine times out of Ten....
> >
> > [I]?
> >
> Pretty much.
>
> I considered [R] but the subject is [I] and the line isn't worth
> having an [R] thread that will go [I] immediately with people
> forgetting to change the tag.
>
> Hmm.. Should the reasoning behind that be considered [M]?
>
> <grin>
Actually, I was wondering what it referred to, being a denizen of AFT,
not AFP. I have heard about "your" tagging systems, but never seen it
in action. They do seem to breed rapidly, don't they?
Jens Murer
<andrew...@stealthmunchkin.fsnet.co.uk> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ah2os2$ne5$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
> > he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
> > final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
> > something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
> > that way.
>
> Watch out - you'll be saying next that the Discworld isn't real... ask
> Sherilyn what happens when you do that ;)
>
Hahaha...
oh....
NOT real?
....
*gg*
Jens Murer
> news:bee09f80.02071...@posting.google.com...
The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
that way.
He's so rude. :o(((
In Tolkien's World, NOTHING is just, because he wrote it. This was over
after the First Word, all after the 'EÃ ' was a consequence. That's the
Beauty of Middle-Earth: Everything CAN be explained from the early and
earliest Days of the World (Except of Tom Bombadil, that's a Riddle ;)
But to not let the question be forgotten:
How powerful do you think was the Ring of Saruman?
- dae / jens
--
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
http://www.runes-haven.de
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
And when the Moon
is burning down
in the Fire of Fear
our lost Souls will meet
at the Estuaries of Sunrise
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Sherilyn
"Jens Murer" <dae...@stadtwache.net> writes:
[...]
>
> In Tolkien's World, NOTHING is just, because he wrote it.
This is where you are mistaken. He made it up and wrote it down.
[...]
--
Sherilyn http://www.greedycorporate.com/minority-report/
Free reliable text-only posting news accounts: http://news.cis.dfn.de/
Leo Breebaart
Rocky Frisco <ro...@rocky-frisco.com> writes:
> If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
> Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
> going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
> should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
> execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
> author? Answah me dat.
Because when I'm in a fancy restaurant, a poopkopf may be the last thing
I'm interested in encountering, but the second to last thing I'm
interested in is a food fight, even if it's people against poopkopfs.
It spoils the atmosphere, it frightens the children, and if you're doing
it to a known troll it's guaranteed to be utterly useless as well,
because you're giving him *exactly* what he wants, i.e. cross-newsgroup
disruption of normal conversations. Ignoring him, on the other hand, is
precisely what the troll *doesn't* want -- it really is that simple.
I think your reaction, no matter how entertainingly violent, just makes
you a puppet on his string, playing the game entirely his way. Hey, if
that's what you want, fine -- but don't get on my case for "sitting
sedately by" and just trying to finish my dinner in peace and quiet,
okay?
--
Leo Breebaart <l...@lspace.org>
Donald Shepherd
(amar...@NOSPAMtoday.com.au) says...
> Donald Shepherd <donald_...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> <MPG.179fa5fc2...@news.cairns.net.au>:
>
> >[I]?
>
> This is all being crossposted between our group and the pratchett one; they
> use indicators like the one above to warn whether the post is on or off
> topic and other such things.
I figured that much out, thanks. :)
I was actually wondering what it meant.
David Johnston
>
> richar...@hotmail.com (Richard Barrett) wrote:
>
> >Pratchett's whittling of the the
> >ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> >trivialize its real significance.
>
Untrue. It's real significance is that it is a plot device in a classic
story.
Serg
> Richard Barrett <richar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
> >throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
> >possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
> >
> on magical gimcrackery being brought together at the right place
> and time. Sometimes, a sacrifice is made, but more often than not,
> the clouds immediately lift and the evil minions disappear like mist,
> and everyone rejoices, etc, etc. And Pratchett more often writes
> about the changes of heart that make a difference one person at a time.
>
In real life bringing certain item to certain place (LGM on someone
head for example) usually have better effect toward "evil minions
disappear like mist" then talking some person out of evil ;P
Topi Saavalainen
wrote:
>[followups to afp]
>Rocky Frisco <ro...@rocky-frisco.com> writes:
>> Why are you pissing about, philosophizing, trying to come to
>> conclusions about a story in a book that was written and sold as
>> fiction, when there are books that claim to be and are sold as
>> non-fiction?
>>
>> The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
>> he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
>> final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
>> something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
>> that way.
>
>You are me & ICMFP.
It is a hobby. Some people enjoy taking apart Tolkien or Pratchett or
Star Wars and figuring out how they work, just like other people enjoy
taking apart computer programs or cars or cardboard boxes.
My brother once bought this old Suzuki motorcycle and spent years
rebuilding it with the original parts to make it classify as a museum
vehicle. Okay, you get lower taxes that way, but I'm sure he spent
more money accomplishing it than he'll ever save. Useful? Hardly.
Practical? Not really. He just enjoyed doing it. That's what hobbies
are like.
Topi.
Topi Saavalainen
'Good&evil' is not 'us&them'. IOW, it's dangerous to equate some
people or nations with 'evil' merely because they are "not us". OTOH,
it's dangerous to equate yourself or your own community with 'good and
right' because it implies that others are 'evil and wrong'.
Topi.
Arwen Lune
Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:59:55 +1000. This is what it read:
> > >[I]?
> I was actually wondering what it meant.
[I] Irrelevant to Pratchett (& his works)
[R] Relevant to Pratchett (& his works)
[F] Fandom. Meets, conventions, etc
[M] Meta. AFP navel-gazing.
[G] Games
Quite simple really.
Cheerfully,
Arwen - inhabitant of both groups.
--
"a few loose random squiggles are drawn, and suddenly a
complete personality appears, demanding attention and a name."
-- Brian Froud
Eric Jarvis
I couldn't have put it better myself...as was obviously demonstrated :)
I owe you another drink, Topi
--
eric
"If you can't stand the heat
open the kitchen window"
David Salo
Saavalainen) wrote:
> 'Good&evil' is not 'us&them'. IOW, it's dangerous to equate some
> people or nations with 'evil' merely because they are "not us". OTOH,
> it's dangerous to equate yourself or your own community with 'good and
> right' because it implies that others are 'evil and wrong'.
Only if you have serious difficulties with logic. Is one to be
prevented from saying "apples are tasty" because someone might think
that it implies oranges are not?
DS
Eric Jarvis
which misses the point
a nearer equivalent would be "it is apples that are tasty"...a much less
justifiable statement
but it is also not equating like with like...the point is we are
"us"...there is no choice in the matter...unlike choosing between apples
and oranges
if one then posits that the only meaningful struggle is between good and
evil, then every time there is conflict involving "us" it becomes a
choice between treating the opponent as "evil", accepting oneself as one
the side of "evil", or ceasing to be "one of us"...few people choose the
latter...which is how such absolutes can be used by demagogues to make
large numbers of people do things they would find repellent if they made
a moral decision of their own
Tolkein covers this in Lord of the Rings...individuals have to face
moral decisions and face the consequences of their choices...but it is
myth, not reality...the overall narrative has to operate on an epic
scale and in two dimensions...so at the heart of the book is something
that if applied to the real world is an absurd over simplification
--
eric
"it would be so much easier to have decisive
opinions about politics if it didn't involve people"
Donald Shepherd
(ar...@meanandevil.co.uk) says...
> Via mysterious ways, a message from Donald Shepherd reached me on
> Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:59:55 +1000. This is what it read:
>
> > > >[I]?
> > I was actually wondering what it meant.
>
> [I] Irrelevant to Pratchett (& his works)
> [R] Relevant to Pratchett (& his works)
> [F] Fandom. Meets, conventions, etc
> [M] Meta. AFP navel-gazing.
> [G] Games
>
> Quite simple really.
>
> Cheerfully,
> Arwen - inhabitant of both groups.
Ah, your worshipfulness enlightens me yet again.
--
*Dlanod*, *the* *Sparkly* *Nazgul*
Pimp of Morgoth, Worshipper of Arwen Lune, Rider of Ducks
HA! Take that, Henriette! :)
Donald Shepherd
(ds...@usa.net) says...
Or if you were basing your world around the belief that "'Good&evil' is
'us&them'".
how...@brazee.net
On 17-Jul-2002, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
> >> I cannot believe they do the gamble with a Chance at 1:1M.
>
> >But everyone knows one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.
>
> It's even a rational decision if your only options are "one in
> a million" versus "zero."
Sometimes. Other times it is better not to play that game, or to make your
own rules.
Richard Bos
> The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
> he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
> final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
> something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
> that way.
This doesn't preclude there being a message in the books. It must be a
message JRRT put there, or a message people read into it regardless of
JRRT's express denial, but there can be a message in fiction.
> Why not philosophically piss about with something that at least
> claims to be significant, like Darwin or The Bible or the telephone
> directory?
Because there are people who take the message in the books seriously,
and hence the message in JRRT's fiction is _made_ significant, whether
it should be or not.
Richard
Richard Bos
> Speaker-to-Customers wrote:
> >
> > Rocky Frisco wrote:
> > > Terry Austin wrote:
> >
> > Rocky, please stop responding to this. Terry Austin is perhaps the most
> > notorious troll on Usenet; the only way to deal with him is to ignore him,
> > which is why I am only posting this to afp as I doubt if he reads this
> > group.
>
> Aww, you're no fun. poo.
>
> Why is is people will pay five to ten bucks/quid/etc. to watch
> images scream curses and kill and die and bleed all over the special
> effects, but when a would-be word-smith crosses verbal swords with
> an invading wanker, everybody says stop?
Because Tom and Jerry was made with some skill, and some of the blows
actually land. Watching someone hack away at a piece of silicate to dumb
to feel the hurt isn't that great an amusement, and it does tend to
disrupt a group somewhat.
Richard
5c0rp
<snip>
To be honest, you have to feel sorry for someone like Austin, a man born
with the social graces of a particularly retarded Mountain Gorilla and all
the inherent charm of syphilis.
If he were to be dropped by his ISP, the average 'niceness' of usenet would
go up by at least 10 per cent or so.
Best bet is to leave him whilst he is cross posting, if he brings it upon
himself to post just in here <g>, can I have first dibs please?
Ten bob
Robert Carnegie
I think Eric is saying that Tolkien's world's Right and Wrong
are of the Our Army and Their Army sort, but Pratchett's Right
and Wrong are more subtle. I think this is unfair to Tolkien,
but - whilst being not fully up-to-date - I don't recall one
Just War in Pratchett after _The Carpet People_, age eighteen.
"Evil has won" is hyperbole. I don't think there's any /one/
such thing as Evil anyway - it's more complicated - so I'd prefer
"Good has lost", although that isn't necessarily a much better
description. But to declare that your enemy is evil beyond
possible redemption is, I'd say, to take a step towards evil
yourself. This isn't to say that your enemy's redemption is
something that /you/ should put much effort into working towards.
It may very well be acceptable just to kill him. But be sure
that you know why you're doing it.
I think that virtue both in Pratchett's worlds and in Tolkien's
consists of refraining from actions that have a foreseeable
effect for the worse on other people's free lives - overall.
It is permissible to go out and have a negative effect on
someone's life if that someone is going about ruining other
lives, especially on purpose.
In both Discworld and Middle-Earth, too, I'd say there is a
resistance to "Progress", a perception that it is a Bad Thing.
Tolkien's view of "Progress" was formed by his life experiences;
Pratchett implies that /he/ was given the task of telling the
British public why nuclear power was still a good idea after
that business at Three Mile Island, and he spent most of one
Discworld novel explaining what he doesn't like about the Gonne.
Consequently, the public good in both canons tends to consist
of things going on as they always have done, or going back to
how they used to be; new change is likely to be for the worse.
Exceptions in Pratchett include sexual freedom - e.g., dwarfs
such as Ms. Cheery Littlebottom - and (as also in Tolkien)
multiculturalism being better than racial prejudice; Tolkien's
Elves and Men, and Elves and Dwarves; Pratchett's industrious
trolls and reformed vampires...
But the ultimate departure of the High Elves from the world,
and the introduction of fiddly Personal Organisers, are, on the
whole, bad things ;-)
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Consequently, the public good in both canons tends to consist
> of things going on as they always have done, or going back to
> how they used to be; new change is likely to be for the worse.
> Exceptions in Pratchett include sexual freedom - e.g., dwarfs
> such as Ms. Cheery Littlebottom - and (as also in Tolkien)
> multiculturalism being better than racial prejudice; Tolkien's
> Elves and Men, and Elves and Dwarves; Pratchett's industrious
> trolls and reformed vampires...
Oh, I'd say the clacks and the print are also seen as good things. So is
the new Reformed Omnianism, too.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Andrew Plotkin
> Via mysterious ways, a message from Donald Shepherd reached me on
> Wed, 17 Jul 2002 18:59:55 +1000. This is what it read:
>> > >[I]?
>> I was actually wondering what it meant.
> [I] Irrelevant to Pratchett (& his works)
This thread is teetering on the edge of ballooning out of control,
with replies that are irrelevant two-thirds of the time to each of the
three newsgroups. (It is a notoriously bad idea to crosspost one
newsgroup's in-jokes to another group -- what's enjoyable and
traditional within a community tends to be irritating outside it.)
I'd ask that you chop down the Newsgroups line to a single group if
you're going off on a tangent about Pratchett, or Tolkien, or the
state of fantasy today. Keep the crossposting for genuine comparisons.
Thanks.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Eric Jarvis
> David Johnston <rgo...@telusplanet.net> wrote in message
> news:<3D3501...@telusplanet.net>...
> > Eric Jarvis wrote:
> >
> > > that's the danger that makes me feel it is important that anyone who reads
> > > and gets inspiration from Lord of the Rings should also read and try to
> > > understand what Terry Pratchett writes too...when you make good and evil a
> > > choice between them and us then evil has won...
> >
> > OK. I'm stumped. What did that sentence mean?
>
> I think Eric is saying that Tolkien's world's Right and Wrong
> are of the Our Army and Their Army sort, but Pratchett's Right
> and Wrong are more subtle. I think this is unfair to Tolkien,
> but - whilst being not fully up-to-date - I don't recall one
> Just War in Pratchett after _The Carpet People_, age eighteen.
>
you think wrong
I'm saying that Tolkein describes good and evil as ever present
absolutes...Pratchett describes good and evil as rarely encountered
extremes
but more importantly Tolkein describes a struggle between good and
evil...this is a wonderful idea in myth...but it is of NO value when
dealing with any real events...there are no Orcs in this
world...everyone signs up to fight on the side of good...EVERYONE...yet
there is conflict in the real world
with parody there is no need to have heroic/villainous ideals, so
Pratchett can take similar themes and add in real human style
motivation...that makes it something you can compare to reality and draw
meaningful conclusions
that doesn't make one better or worse...myth is important to keep us
fired up and passionate...you can't feel that way about parody...but
parody is essential if we are to avoid getting lost in unrealistic
ideals and turning the myths sour
>
> "Evil has won" is hyperbole. I don't think there's any /one/
> such thing as Evil anyway - it's more complicated - so I'd prefer
> "Good has lost", although that isn't necessarily a much better
> description. But to declare that your enemy is evil beyond
> possible redemption is, I'd say, to take a step towards evil
> yourself. This isn't to say that your enemy's redemption is
> something that /you/ should put much effort into working towards.
> It may very well be acceptable just to kill him. But be sure
> that you know why you're doing it.
>
> snip
it's drawn from an idea that appears in various Discworld novels...the
one true evil is to treat people as things...in that sense of the word
"evil", then if you see "us" as "good" and "them" as "evil", then you
are seeing them as a label not any longer as people...and, by that
particular definition, you are being evil
--
eric
"live fast, die only if strictly necessary"
Liz Broadwell
>Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>> Consequently, the public good in both canons tends to consist
>> of things going on as they always have done, or going back to
>> how they used to be; new change is likely to be for the worse.
>> Exceptions in Pratchett include sexual freedom - e.g., dwarfs
>> such as Ms. Cheery Littlebottom - and (as also in Tolkien)
>> multiculturalism being better than racial prejudice; Tolkien's
>> Elves and Men, and Elves and Dwarves; Pratchett's industrious
>> trolls and reformed vampires...
>
>Oh, I'd say the clacks and the print are also seen as good things. So is
>the new Reformed Omnianism, too.
Um. I think Pratchett's view of Reformed Omnianism is mixed. On the
one hand, they aren't burning people any more. On the other hand, the
process of reform seems to have leached away Omnianism's potentially
legitimate power. (While reading _Carpe Jugulum_, I was reminded of
Dorothy Sayers's contention, via Peter Wimsey, that the first thing a
principle does is kill somebody.) The common thread, I suspect, is
that both Omnian fundamentalism and Omnian reformed weeniness get hung
up on the system and lose track of the positive values it's supposed to
further.
Peace,
Liz
--
Elizabeth Broadwell (ebroadwe at | "There were no *really* strange por-
dept dot english dot upenn dot edu) | tents at my birth, apart from a brass
of the Department of English | band playing outside the window. Ad-
and Van Pelt-Dietrich Library | mittedly they were playing backwards
at the University of Pennsylvania | and there were seven ravens circling
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | above the band. But apart from that,
| nothing." -- Garth Nix
Andrew Gray
>> Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
>> will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
>
>Tolkien's never been taught in any literature class I've been in either...
We got taught the Hobbit about, um, eight years ago if memory serves. The
gentleman teaching it to us was not in any way enamoured of this fact...
- Andrew.
--
shim...@bigfoot.com ; andre...@dur.ac.uk
Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if
not utterly impossible. - Simon Newcomb, 1902.
Robert Carnegie
> This ["shit happens all the time", I think AC means - Robert C.]
> is the nature of evil in Tolkien's secondary creation. It is the
> nature of Arda Marred, and just because folks like Pratchett who,
> if the above quote is his, don't seem to have invested any
> time into understanding this point [", it doesn't make the
> point invalid", I presume - RC].
I will guess that Pratchett does understand Tolkien, but doesn't
entirely agree with him. Arda is Tolkien's world, it isn't the
real world. One almost supposes that the game table is rigged.
> > As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
> > presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to
> > allow it to perpetuate itself.
>
> A valid viewpoint, in my opinion. I think that Neville Chamberlain's
> disastrous dance with a 20th century devil proves that well enough.
This is 2002; it isn't about Nazism, it isn't about Communism,
this year's "major world evil" is Islam. Don't you read newspapers?
Disarmament could have worked better if its British advocates
had /successfully/ communicated with the Fascist peoples - found
common ground - or if Britain had had better armaments in the
first place. Or if the Great War hadn't imposed a settlement
which practically guaranteed another war down the line - oh, well.
Not being in the position of conspiciously running an Empire of
racial oppression would have strengthened Britain's hand, too.
A refusal to negotiate with a community whose aspirations are
incompatible with your own aspirations is /not/ always the
correct choice. How many times would the whole world have
been blown up by atom bombs if the U.S. and Soviet and Chinese
governments never communicated?
> Well, not quite. In the End, all that Morgoth and his minions have worked
> for will ultimately turn to greater good. That is a central point of evil
> in Tolkien's mythology; out of evil comes greater good.
Untrue, I think. Everyone could have stayed dancing harmoniously
by the light of the Trees in the Western Lands. Morgoth invented,
amongst other things, sunburn. Granted that Tolkien's imagination
lies straight within the bounds of Roman Catholic doctrine as he
understood it, sin does _not_ make the world a better place.
> > Those who are evil can be
> > redeemed, but only if they so choose. Pratchett's whittling of the the
> > ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry" appears to deliberately
> > trivialize its real significance.
As someone pointed out, it's a plot device; do the thing with the
thing and the bad guy loses, if you don't succeed in doing the thing
then the bad guy wins. Purely in terms of its potential for
destruction, as revealed at the end, it's an Ultimate Nullifier,
dangerous to use but highly effective.
Pratchett's use of the word "beguiling" is very interesting.
To a casual reader of fiction or to the man in the street
contemplating political reality, I'd have said that the
Plot Device that neutralises your enemy at a stroke is
/very/ attractive. I think this was /mocked/ (in Britain?) as -
Whatever happens,
We have got
The Atom Bomb
And they have not.
When Harry Potter catches the Golden Snitch then the game is won,
regardless of what all the other players are doing on (above)
the pitch. rec.arts.sf.written has already, and recently,
discussed whether this is fair or not.
Is Pratchett, then, saying that to a /writer/ it is more attractive,
more agreeably challenging, to write about solving problems the hard
way: not by using a Magical McGuffin, but by understanding the whole
world and all of the people in it that you have do deal with?
And by choosing your fights more carefully.
(Not that it was /all/ about the Magic McGuffin for Tolkien, either.
There's a lot of politics among the "good guys" in Middle-Earth;
a lot of people have to do the right thing before throwing /all/
the rings into the big barbecue can possibly change the outcome
like that was supposed to do. Suppose the Ring, Sauron and Mordor
do the big firework thing, then Saruman steps right up into the
breach, trashes Rohan, confronts a weakened Gondor, consolidates
his hold on Bree and the Shire...
And what are the moral lessons of _Smith of Wootton Major_?
Of _Farmer Giles of Ham_? Of _The Homecoming of Beerbreath_
[yeah, I /could/ look it up]?)
Is Pratchett educating children by writing for them - teaching his
readers to look for the harder, but more robust, solution, instead
of all-out violence? I suppose the real-life analogue of the
Magical McGuffin that quickly solves your problem is the hidden
knife or gun taken to school, or the package of anthrax spores.
Not good things.
The Patrician of Ankh, for his own reasons, contrives not to go to
war in _Jingo_. The heroes of _Truckers_ get a graphic illustration
of the disadvantage of traditional received wisdom compared to the
truth about the world you live in that you can find out for yourself,
when the spiritual leader of the store gnome tribes declares that
the outsiders don't really exist, _to their faces_.
David Chapman
> If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
> Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
> going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
> should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
> execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
> author? Answah me dat.
Because you're not the only people at the table, and do you
really want to splatter everyone else with mustard too?
--
"Pack it in, you're acting like kids."
"Well, he started it!"
Andrew Maizels
Eric Jarvis wrote:
> you think wrong
>
> I'm saying that Tolkein describes good and evil as ever present
AARGH!
> absolutes...Pratchett describes good and evil as rarely encountered
> extremes
>
> but more importantly Tolkein describes a struggle between good and
AARGH!
Andrew.
--
Google fthagn! Google fthagn! Ia Google! Ia! Ia!
David Salo
rja.ca...@excite.com (Robert Carnegie) wrote:
> Disarmament could have worked better if its British advocates
> had /successfully/ communicated with the Fascist peoples
There never were any Fascist *peoples*. Dictators, yes. Parties,
yes. States controlled by those parties, yes. Nations who were
essentially fascist or for whom fascism was part of the native culture,
no.
>- found
> common ground - or if Britain had had better armaments in the
> first place. Or if the Great War hadn't imposed a settlement
> which practically guaranteed another war down the line - oh, well.
> Not being in the position of conspiciously running an Empire of
> racial oppression would have strengthened Britain's hand, too.
With whom? It's not like anyone was taking a poll to see whether
they approved of the Axis or the Allies more. World War II wasn't a
popularity contest, and neither began nor ended because one of the
parties was well or ill thought of.
> A refusal to negotiate with a community whose aspirations are
> incompatible with your own aspirations is /not/ always the
> correct choice.
As others will no doubt point out, World War II did *not* begin
through lack of Allied willingness to negotiate with Fascists (which
was great, indeed excessive); and as I am going to insist upon pointing
out, the "aspiration" to control the world, reduce its population to
slavery, and exterminate a large proportion of that population based on
its 'racial' or religious heritage, is simply not something with which
you can - or should negotiate. It is an 'aspiration' which is
fundamentally *wrong* and cannot be compromised with.
> Pratchett's use of the word "beguiling" is very interesting.
> To a casual reader of fiction or to the man in the street
> contemplating political reality, I'd have said that the
> Plot Device that neutralises your enemy at a stroke is
> /very/ attractive. I think this was /mocked/ (in Britain?) as -
>
> Whatever happens,
> We have got
> The Atom Bomb
> And they have not.
No. Actually, this quatrain is much earlier (1898; Hilaire
Belloc, _The Modern Traveller_) and refers, not to atomic weaponry but
to the earliest machine gun ("the Maxim Gun" not "the Atom Bomb").
> And what are the moral lessons of _Smith of Wootton Major_?
> Of _Farmer Giles of Ham_? Of _The Homecoming of Beerbreath_
> [yeah, I /could/ look it up]?)
Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's son. For which correct spelling you need
not a knowledge of Tolkien, but of the history of your own language.
The moral lesson is quite clear (and Tolkien writes about this in
depth): that a high-minded devotion to "honour" can easily turn into an
arrogant craving for glory, even a needless death-wish that costs, not
only one's own lives, but those of one's followers. A moral that even
you might find palatable.
> Is Pratchett educating children by writing for them - teaching his
> readers to look for the harder, but more robust, solution, instead
> of all-out violence? I suppose the real-life analogue of the
> Magical McGuffin that quickly solves your problem is the hidden
> knife or gun taken to school, or the package of anthrax spores.
> Not good things.
This is an illegitimate and unwarranted deduction. I would very
much doubt that anyone who had actually *read* Tolkien would suppose
that his stories involve a "Magical McGuffin that quickly solves your
problem". In Tolkien's world, magical items (which are, after all,
only analogues of any powerful instrument or machine) are dangerous and
capable of misuse; the task for "the Wise" is to *avoid* the temptation
of using the "Magical McGuffin", and get rid of it. There is a moral
lesson there, if you have your eyes open to see it.
DS
David Salo
Jarvis <er...@last.dircon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <170720020521012321%ds...@usa.net>, ds...@usa.net wrote:
> > In article <3d353d3a...@news.cis.dfn.de>, tsaa...@urova.fi (Topi
> > Saavalainen) wrote:
> >
> > > 'Good&evil' is not 'us&them'. IOW, it's dangerous to equate some
> > > people or nations with 'evil' merely because they are "not us". OTOH,
> > > it's dangerous to equate yourself or your own community with 'good and
> > > right' because it implies that others are 'evil and wrong'.
> >
> > Only if you have serious difficulties with logic. Is one to be
> > prevented from saying "apples are tasty" because someone might think
> > that it implies oranges are not?
> >
>
> which misses the point
Er, no. You claimed that saying "I am good/my community is good"
implies "others are wrong". Your use of _implies_ indicates that you
are attempting to make a logical statement, but your statement is
formally fallacious: a statement that "A has quality X" in no way
_implies_ that not-A *lacks* quality X, much less that not-A possess a
quality *opposed* to X. not-A could have quality X; it could have any
of a vast number of qualities that are not-X. I could draw it for you
in pictures, but since this is Usenet I'm afraid you'll have to work it
out on your fingers.
> a nearer equivalent would be "it is apples that are tasty"...a much less
> justifiable statement
No, that would not be an equivalent. If by the above you mean
"only apples are tasty", then this would correspond to "Only I am good"
or "Only my community is good" (i.e. all not-I is not-good). Which
still does not yield the implication you desire, since "not-good" and
"evil" are not synonyms.
> but it is also not equating like with like...the point is we are
> "us"...there is no choice in the matter...unlike choosing between apples
> and oranges
Of course there are moral choices. You can choose whether or not
to join the Taliban, for instance. You have the right to decide what
groups you will belong to and what groups you will resist.
> if one then posits that the only meaningful struggle is between good and
> evil, then every time there is conflict involving "us" it becomes a
> choice between treating the opponent as "evil", accepting oneself as one
> the side of "evil", or ceasing to be "one of us"
This makes no sense. If "the only meaningful struggle is between
good and evil" (and that falls out from your preceding statements in
precisely no way), then it does not follow that *all* struggles are
between good and evil; it only follows that those struggles which are
*not* between good and evil are meaningless (like a dispute over
ice-cream flavors).
...few people choose the
> latter...which is how such absolutes can be used by demagogues to make
> large numbers of people do things they would find repellent if they made
> a moral decision of their own
Demagoguery only works on people whose moral sensibilities are
already compromised by *not* having a solid sense of right and wrong,
because they fail to see that certain actions (or inactions) are wrong
no matter who does them. And demagoguery is not necessarily
jingoistic; it could, just as well, be defeatist: "How horrible,
fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and
trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country
between people of whom we know nothing." One hears that quite a lot
too.
> Tolkein covers this in Lord of the Rings...individuals have to face
> moral decisions and face the consequences of their choices...but it is
> myth, not reality...the overall narrative has to operate on an epic
> scale and in two dimensions...so at the heart of the book is something
> that if applied to the real world is an absurd over simplification
I'm not sure what part of a story about a war with a power-mad
tyrant who plans to kill and/or enslave all his neighbors is
"unrealistic".
DS
Rocky Frisco
>
> > The words in the Tolkien trilogy are there because and only because
> > he wrote the stories that way, out of his own mind. This is the
> > final answer. Not because Frodo did something or Bilbo knew
> > something or Galadriel smelled something, but because JRRT wrote it
> > that way.
>
> Sherilyn what happens when you do that ;)
Of course it's real; where did you think Our Globe came from?
The main difference is that if I want to know why Rincewind tried to
avoid The Luggage in the early days, I don't have to ponder for
weeks about the meaning of cowardice or the nature of sapient
pearwood; I can just ask Terry. ;)
-Rock http://www.rocky-frisco.com
--
Red Dirt Rangers (Rocky on piano): http://www.reddirtrangers.com
JJ Cale Live (w/Rocky): http://www.rocky-frisco.com/calelive.htm
The Luggage Fan Club: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luggage-fans
Rocky Frisco
I wonder how long this can go on before True Believers begin to kill
and persecute Unbelievers in the name of Holy Frodo.
AC
> ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>
>>Or perhaps not, of course. It was a horrible gamble from the get-go,
>>and everyone knew that; there was every likelihood that they were
>>accomplishing nothing more than sending the Ring to Sauron wrapped
>>in a pretty red bow. But they really had no other choice: if they
>>didn't try to destroy the Ring, then Sauron would conquer them sooner
>>or later, and would get the Ring, sooner or later. If they did try
>>to destroy it and Sauron caught them on the way... well, that just
>>brings about the end sooner, rather than later.
>
> That wasn't the only stupid choice they made. They compounded it by
> deciding to take the entire army to the front of the Black Gates where
> it could be destroyed -- just as a diversion.
They had no hope of defeating Sauron.
>
> Last time I read the books, I was struck by a line that says all of
> Saurons minions are fed by food grown in the south. Now, if Eric
> Flint or David Drake were writing LotR, guess where that army would be
> heading?
Well, I don't know about the "South" (as in Harad and those regions). Lake
Nurnen, deep within the borders of Mordor, was an agricultural area.
However, how do you suggest the army that Gondor and Rohan assembled get
*into* Mordor, if they couldn't even get past the Black Gate?
--
AC
Brought to you by Ed the Invisible Orange Iguana of Doom, Creator of the
Universe.
Rocky Frisco
>
> In <3D34D9F8...@rocky-frisco.com> , Rocky Frisco (rock@rocky-
> frisco.com) did quoth:
> > Speaker-to-Customers wrote:
> > >
> > > Rocky Frisco wrote:
> > > > Terry Austin wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Rocky, please stop responding to this. Terry Austin is perhaps the most
> > > notorious troll on Usenet; the only way to deal with him is to ignore him,
> > > which is why I am only posting this to afp as I doubt if he reads this
> > > group.
>
>
> > If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
> > Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
> > going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
> > should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
> > execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
> > author? Answah me dat.
> >
>
> Because responding to someone who probably has no strong opinions on the
> subject and is only looking for someone to provide the type of comments
> you made is pointless, at best,
That makes it a Zen thang?
and raises your blood pressure, at worst.
Not mine, it don't.
I'm a wizard meself; I accompany the newsgroup messages with spells.
Arwen Lune
Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:57:05 +0000 (UTC). This is what it read:
> Keep the crossposting for genuine comparisons.
you crosspost to alt.fan.tolkien *and* alt.fan.pratchett, and
*then* hope for on-topic discussion?
Errmm...
Right. Okay.
I can see how that could... errr.. work.
Cheerfully,
Arwen Lune
--
** T ** ** !! **
** E ** ** E **
** U ** ** C **
** N **
Rocky Frisco
>
> Rocky Frisco <ro...@rocky-frisco.com> writes:
>
> > If I'm in a fancy restaurant and some poopkopf announces that Eric
> > Clapton is a fumble-fingered amateur or Dave Barry can't spell, he's
> > going to be soon wearing catsup or mustard at best. Why the hell
> > should I sit sedately by and pretend to ignore this no-life
> > execrable social outcast while he snidely maligns my favorite
> > author? Answah me dat.
>
> I'm interested in encountering, but the second to last thing I'm
> interested in is a food fight, even if it's people against poopkopfs.
See, that's where we're different.
> It spoils the atmosphere, it frightens the children, and if you're doing
> it to a known troll it's guaranteed to be utterly useless as well,
> because you're giving him *exactly* what he wants, i.e. cross-newsgroup
> disruption of normal conversations. Ignoring him, on the other hand, is
> precisely what the troll *doesn't* want -- it really is that simple.
"Normal conversation?" in afp??
> I think your reaction, no matter how entertainingly violent, just makes
> you a puppet on his string, playing the game entirely his way. Hey, if
> that's what you want, fine -- but don't get on my case for "sitting
> sedately by" and just trying to finish my dinner in peace and quiet,
> okay?
Admirable, but by now you're covered with food, right?
Speaker-to-Customers
> This thread is teetering on the edge of ballooning out of control,
> with replies that are irrelevant two-thirds of the time to each of the
> three newsgroups. (It is a notoriously bad idea to crosspost one
> newsgroup's in-jokes to another group -- what's enjoyable and
> traditional within a community tends to be irritating outside it.)
>
> I'd ask that you chop down the Newsgroups line to a single group if
> you're going off on a tangent about Pratchett, or Tolkien, or the
> state of fantasy today. Keep the crossposting for genuine comparisons.
And I ask that everyone stop crossposting altogether. I am crossposting
this request myself, for which I apologise; but I have to do so to get my
message across.
Nothing will be achieved from this crossposted discussion except that the
members of the 3 groups will become angrier and angrier with each other.
Crossposting is bad.
Paul Speaker-to-Customers
Jette Goldie
"Terry Austin" <tau...@hyperbooks.com> wrote
> Well, the theory would be, Pratchett. However, subsequent
> comments by people who have actually read his books
> suggest to me that perhaps the original quote was somewhat
> less than serious, or perhaps not entirely in context.
>
> Makes little difference to me; I could never make it through
> more than about six pages of Pratchett.
I'm not a big fan of his Discworld books (which Terry
knows <g>) but I loved Carpet People and Strata.
Do try reading Strata, if you can find a copy - quite
quite different.
--
Jette
(aka Vinyaduriel)
"Work for Peace and remain fiercely loving" - Jim Byrnes
je...@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://bosslady.tripod.com/fanfic.html
Jette Goldie
"Terry Austin" <tau...@hyperbooks.com> wrote
> Maybe he's just jealous cuz he knows nothing he'll ever write
> will be taught in literature classes 50 years from now.
I think PTerry is quite compensated for this in his
own mind by the fact that he's made more money
in his short (so far) career than Tolkein ever did
in his lifetime. ;-)
Jette Goldie
"Kevin Hackett" <robo...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote
>
> 2) Just because he likes you, doesn't mean you're not fair game.
Darn straight <g>
Aris Katsaris
"Robert Carnegie" <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:f3f18bc0.02071...@posting.google.com...
>
> I think this is unfair to Tolkien,
> but - whilst being not fully up-to-date - I don't recall one
> Just War in Pratchett after _The Carpet People_, age eighteen.
The battle against the Elves in "Lords and Ladies"?
Aris Katsaris
Ross TenEyck
>ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>>Or perhaps not, of course. It was a horrible gamble from the get-go,
>>and everyone knew that; there was every likelihood that they were
>>accomplishing nothing more than sending the Ring to Sauron wrapped
>>in a pretty red bow. But they really had no other choice: if they
>>didn't try to destroy the Ring, then Sauron would conquer them sooner
>>or later, and would get the Ring, sooner or later. If they did try
>>to destroy it and Sauron caught them on the way... well, that just
>>brings about the end sooner, rather than later.
>That wasn't the only stupid choice they made. They compounded it by
>deciding to take the entire army to the front of the Black Gates where
>it could be destroyed -- just as a diversion.
Same reasoning -- there is a very slim chance of success if they
do that, and absolutely none if they don't.
They had managed, just barely, and at enormous cost, to beat a
minute portion of Sauron's army. There was no real chance they
could do it again, or that they could take the war to Sauron in
any effective manner -- even by trying to disrupt his supply lines.
On a military level, they were completely, absolutely, overwhelmingly
outmatched. The *best* they could hope for in an outright war was
to cover the lines of retreat to the Havens long enough that most
of the Elves could escape over the sea -- and that would leave the
Men, Dwarves, and Hobbits holding the sack.
It was, again, a huge gamble; almost certain to result in their
gory deaths. But one in a million is better than zero, and zero
was that they were facing otherwise.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Ross TenEyck
>On 17-Jul-2002, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>> >> I cannot believe they do the gamble with a Chance at 1:1M.
>> >But everyone knows one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten.
>> It's even a rational decision if your only options are "one in
>> a million" versus "zero."
>Sometimes. Other times it is better not to play that game, or to make your
>own rules.
Then those wouldn't be "your only options," would they?
Jens Murer
"Speaker-to-Customers" <gre...@manx.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ah48re$psp6v$1@ID-> Nothing will be achieved from this crossposted
discussion except that the
> members of the 3 groups will become angrier and angrier with each other.
I don't see that coming. My Pratchetts are standing on the same shelf as my
Tolkien and it has not begann to burn yet... okay... there's a small
Adams-Buffer ;o)
*sending rays of love and compromiss throughout the groups*
- dae / jens
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <f3f18bc0.02071...@posting.google.com>,
> rja.ca...@excite.com (Robert Carnegie) wrote:
>
> > Disarmament could have worked better if its British advocates
> > had /successfully/ communicated with the Fascist peoples
>
> There never were any Fascist *peoples*. Dictators, yes. Parties,
> yes. States controlled by those parties, yes. Nations who were
> essentially fascist or for whom fascism was part of the native culture,
> no.
Let me disabuse of this notion. Italy during the Thirties certainly did
have a majority enthusiastically supporting fascism. Regardless of what
they cared to let the world believe afterwards, if Mussolini had ran for
election during the thirties it'd been a landslide.
I'm tempted to say that the relative majority that supports the current
governament is, if not fascist, at least not alarmed by the concept _at
all_.
Karl M. Syring
<snip>
> Nothing will be achieved from this crossposted discussion except that
the
> members of the 3 groups will become angrier and angrier with each
other.
>
> Crossposting is bad.
>
> Paul Speaker-to-Customers
They only will get angry if you change your name to
"Speaker-to-Animals".
Karl M. Syring
Robert Carnegie
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> > The public good in both canons tends to consist
> > of things going on as they always have done, or going back to
> > how they used to be; new change is likely to be for the worse.
> > Exceptions in Pratchett include sexual freedom - e.g., dwarfs
> > such as Ms. Cheery Littlebottom - and (as also in Tolkien)
>
> Oh, I'd say the clacks and the print are also seen as good things. So is
> the new Reformed Omnianism, too.
Well...where I'm up to in the Pratchett canon: most every birthday
and Christmas my sister buys me the next one; Pterry's output edges
above two a year, I think; so the last that I read is _The Truth_
and _Thief of Time_ is waiting on my lounge table.
So - Reformed Omnianism is better than Hellfire Omnianism as seen
from the outside, and it allows Pterry to have proper comic priests
in the English style - it's _Carpe Jugulum_ that has a good-heavens
/curate/ in it, isn't it? - bringing him right up to speed with
P. G. Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde, also Chesterton ;-)
In _The Truth_ the hero thinks that print is a good thing but neither
the Patrician nor the Watch are entirely sure, and it was an odd
experience to see the Watch as antagonists and to watch them working
out their /modus vivendi/ with the journalists from scratch, ending
up with the sort of semi-trust that the two lines of work have between
them on our Roundworld.
The clacks bring foreign news /and/ foreign trade, and foreign politics
too; globalisation (okay, on Discworld not /global/-isation ;-)
This may not be entirely a good thing. What's a fair price for
Ankh-Morpork to pay for the produce of the dwarf-run mines in
Uberwald?
X Kyle M Thompson
> But when you come right down to it, they *do* destroy the evil forces
> by throwing a piece of jewelry into a volcano. And in our world,
> unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. (In our world, it's much
> harder to recognize evil, for starters. The names of the villains
> don't all start with M or S, and they don't always appear in black
> cloaks or surrounded by flame.)
evil starts with M & S? there goes 95% of my wardrobe, and all my pants,
then.
gra...@affordable-leather.co.ukdeletethis
On 16 Jul 2002 13:32:34 -0700, richar...@hotmail.com (Richard
Barrett) wrote:
Hmm, this has been cross posted to the groups rec.arts.sf.written,
alt.fan.pratchett and alt.fan.tolkien.
Now it could be considered to be just a troll attempting to start an
inter-group flamewar, but let's give the writer the benefit of the
doubt for the moment....
(Subject Tag added for afp readers)
>Terry Pratchett was recently quoted as saying, clearly in reference to
>Lord of the Rings and comparing it to his own work:
>
>"Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by
>throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the
>possibility that evil can be defused by talking."
>
>Seems to me Pratchett misses the point, perhaps willfully so.
No kidding!
Pratchett is a *satirist*. He uses irony to point out the fallacies
and foolishnesses of our world.
Tolkien wrote a piece of fictional myth because he felt that England
*should* have such a thing, but had been denied it due to history not
working that way for us.
Heroic fantasy and myth are all very well, and, yes, I've enjoyed
reading JRRT's works, but trying to solve a world's problem by
chucking a ring into a volcano is not really a particularly
appropriate or useful paradigm for the Real World (tm).
He is making the point that whilst it's great to dream of wonderful
victories where everyone "lives happily ever after", in actuality
actions have consequences and events move on.
The Soviet Union collapses? Great! What happens next?
The Berlin Wall comes down? Fantastic! Now how are we going to clean
up the mess and who pays for it?
And don't even *start* thinking about Israel and Palestine...!
>As far as evil being "defused by talking" goes - I think Tolkien
>presents a point of view that says to negotiate with evil is to allow
>it to perpetuate itself.
However the "good" and "evil" of Tolkien's world are very black and
white creations and he makes damn sure you know it.
Pratchett's creations, however point out that there is no "absolute
good" (nor "absolute evil"), but just different views.
It's all very well for our leaders to make grand pronouncements about
"The Evil Empire" as Ronnie Raygun did or even "The Axis of Evil" as
George Dubya has done, but what they are actually saying is that "our
way is right, their way is wrong and if you don't like that, we'll
blow the crap out of you".
That, to me, is more "evil" than "these people see the world
differently and we should respect that".
>Appeasement can only be interpreted as approval.
Now who is "wilfully" missing the point?
*Where* did Terry Pratchett talk about "appeasement"? Answer: He
didn't and for you to include that seems more than slightly
disingenous and appears to be there only to try to justify your claim.
He also didn't say that we should tolerate abuses of human rights
(although how many of *our* rights have been abused recently under the
alleged guise of "protecting" us?!), but you can't solve problems
simply through "superior fire power", at some time you have to sit
down around a table and start *talking* to people.
>Tolkien seems to say that evil must be dealt with at its source;
And in Tolkien's world, that works. However Tolkien's world is
*fiction* and when you write a story you can make *anything* work. The
same is true of Discworld, but the trick is to make that solution
applicable to *this* world and that is what Pratchett does.
Consider Jingo. The Patrician of Ankh Morpork, faced with a bloody war
(being started by those who have ideas of "glory" and "victory") finds
a way of avoiding it,, yet, by understanding what makes people tick,
actually "wins the peace".
Or even The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the book that's
just won Pratchett the Carnegie Medal, which was universally praised
by the judges and prompted Karen Usher, Chair of the judging panel to
say "Our decision was unanimous, Terry Pratchett uses his trademark
wit and humour to question our society's attitudes and behaviour in a
way that is totally accessible for children of 10 years and over."
Tolkien's story is a good morality play, but Pratchett's works let you
make up your own mind.
>Pratchett's whittling of the the ring down to a "piece of expensive jewelry"
>appears to deliberately trivialize its real significance.
The Ring is simply what Hitchcock called a McGuffin. It is a plot
device that causes things to happen and lets the author make the story
work the way they want to.
Trying to make a big deal out of it, IMO, wilfully misses the point.
Cheers,
Graham.