Thursday, January 13, 2011
2 comments:
Please pick a handle or moniker for your comment. It's much easier to address someone by a name or pseudonym than simply "hey you". I have the option of requiring a "hard" identity, but I don't want to turn that on... yet.
With few exceptions, I will not respond or reply to anonymous comments, and I may delete them. I keep a copy of all comments; if you want the text of your comment to repost with something vaguely resembling an identity, email me.
No spam, pr0n, commercial advertising, insanity, lies, repetition or off-topic comments. Creationists, Global Warming deniers, anti-vaxers, Randians, and Libertarians are automatically presumed to be idiots; Christians and Muslims might get the benefit of the doubt, if I'm in a good mood.
See the Debate Flowchart for some basic rules.
Sourced factual corrections are always published and acknowledged.
I will respond or not respond to comments as the mood takes me. See my latest comment policy for details. I am not a pseudonomous-American: my real name is Larry.
Comments may be moderated from time to time. When I do moderate comments, anonymous comments are far more likely to be rejected.
I've already answered some typical comments.
I have jqMath enabled for the blog. If you have a dollar sign (\$) in your comment, put a \\ in front of it: \\\$, unless you want to include a formula in your comment.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sauron? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI mean, the guy made some rings to enslave everyone in the world (as the ultimate goal). He was the right-hand-man for Morgoth, who is essentially the devil.
And this isn't the actual Christian devil, where you can kind of have his back, because the Christian god is a huge ass, and rebelling against him seems like a good idea (at least ethically, if not practically). It's a whitewashed version of the mythology, where god is an awesome dude, and just wants to make some sweet music. Then, Morgoth decides to try and mess it up, just to be a dick, and because he's not getting enough recognition. And then later, he tries to ruin everything in middle earth, again, because he's Evil (at least, I don't think it's more complicated than that; I haven't read the Silmarillion).
It's simplistic, with black and white versions of morality. But it's designed that way. You have to misrepresent it to make it a more realistic story about shades of grey, and 'evil' being a misunderstood, alternate culture/race (but really, that's probably been done better than trying to interpret Lord of the Rings itself that way). I suppose you could argue that this is the kind of mythologizing that the victor actually does about real, shades-of-grey situations, though.
Sauron? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteThis is Cracked. The authors often have to squint and cherry-pick his facts to make an entertaining article. Still and all, if you don't take the Simarillion back-story into account, it's an interesting way of looking at LotR.
I suppose you could argue that this is the kind of mythologizing that the victor actually does about real, shades-of-grey situations, though.
Good point.