Grrl Power #579 – Deflection even Genji would be proud of
Sydney’s question isn’t entirely out of the blue. She’s referring to this conversation, in case you forgot. Even still, it is a pretty acute non-sequitur. She was just uncomfortable with how aggressive Max was being with Valen. She’s used to women being mostly pretty passive about it. Usually it’s the subtle torso twist away or at most a “ahem” or few snaps and an “eyes forward buddy” sort of thing. Sydney’s caught a few stares herself (she doesn’t always wear baggy t-shirts). Her move is to ignore it and feel slightly uncomfortable, unless of course it’s a guy she likes, then she very slowly starts unconsciously arching her back.
Some might accuse Maxima of snapping into “gold plated bitch” mode here (one of several nicknames she’s acquired over her career of looking like a trophy model, but in Max’s opinion, saying nothing about it until later when you’re getting drinks with the girls will never change anything.
Speaking of Gandalf, why didn’t he try unmaking the ring? I know it was basically booby trapped so that powerful beings that tried to hold it or use it would be twisted by it, but you don’t have to hold the thing to drop a flame strike on it. Yes, I know the real answer; the book would have been really short if the solution was that simple, which is the same reasons the big eagles didn’t fly them over Mt. Doom in the first place. Still, realizing that Sauron, Sauruman, and Gandalf were all on the same tier fills me with questions.
Also, apropros of nothing, why on (middle) Earth did Tolkien name two of the major bad guys Sauron and Saruman? Just call the second guy Baruman or something. Change one letter. That shit’s confusing even if you’re not dyslexic. Arwen and Eowyn sound similar which isn’t great, but at least they’re spelled differently enough that people won’t get confused when one of them shows up after 300 pages. I was reading Shogun back in high school, which as you might imagine is loaded with Japanese surnames, and when one guy reappears on page 700 who we last saw on page 70, I was like, “Shit, I have no idea who this is.” That’s why I have a Who’s Who. Books should have footnotes with stuff like “This guy is the boyfriend of the catburgler.” or whatever. Kindle books could do that easy.
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Good save.
Okay, he had his ‘reasons’, BUT TOTALLY CALLED IT!!!!!
He is into her mainly because of her golden ears but yes, I give you the win. He was leering as well after all. :)
Which let’s be fair, if Maxima was into him, she’d likely do the same thing Dave said Sydney would do, think it’s okay and make it better for him. :p
distraction level – 11 – aka demonic duck
Well, the duck has gone on strike/away quite a while ago, I don’t see Sydney going anywhere anytime soon.
Okay, so he was attracted to her. I admit my mistake and wonder at this strange world of people who can’t control their lust for enormous ears.
At least now he’s being up front about it but… wierd.
Elves like elves and currently there are not a lot of elves left in the world. Golden girl is just close enough to hit all the points that makes it ‘close enough’ instead of ugly lesser race creature.
Oh, and elfie? It’s not a save unless you get the Hael out of there!!
Sauron was not on the same tier as Gandalf.
Sauron was a god, Gandalf was an angel (on par with the Balrog).
Unless I misremember my history.
Sauron was no god, Sauron was an elevated mortal (but not to the level of a ‘god’)
After a wiki dive, they are both Maiar, which are “nearly-primordial spirits that descended into Arda to help the Valar first shape the World.”
So angels. Definitely not elevated mortals though.
this keeps annoying me, we know that sauron was a maia but we don’t know anything about gandalf or the other wizards except that “they came from the west”, and yes in the west was the land of the maiar and the also the gods/ainur themselves of who we know that they were capable of creation life (the dwarves made by the god of crafts (aulë? I think)) and of course creation itself.
in short the wizards can be almost anything.
The wizards had restrictions placed on them Sauron did not, cutting them off from their full power.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Sauron also had some of Melkor’s power as well.
Actually, the elves call Gandalf Mithrandir or Olórin, he is one of the Istari and most definetly a Maia, a servant of Manwë infact. He was chosen by Manwë as the third Istari to go to Middleearth and protested beeing chosen because he was – in his words – too weak and too scared of Sauron.
This is my 2 cents why Gandalf is not as powerful as Sauron and really the only reason we should need. If Gandalf himself says that he is less powerfull, we ought to belive him.
Oh no! I’m wrong, how could that happen?
The One Ring is NOT susceptible to dragon fire.
The Lord of the Rings, “The Shadow of the Past”, p. 61 (Houghton Mifflin, 50th Anniversary Edition, Boston & New York, 2004)
wizards are just ugly unicorns!!!
(mwa ha ha ha ha)
Sauron was a Maia, i.e.: a full-fledged god─but not in the top 15 (that was the Valar).
Gandalf and Saruman on the other hand were Maiar, i.e.: full-fledged gods─but not in the top 15.
Whereas the Balrog was a Maia, i.e.: a full-fledged god─but not in the top 15.
It’s just that simple.
As for tiers, Sauron was one of the most individually powerful Maiar─if not the most powerful Maia (IIRC it was either him or Eönwë, Manwë’s herald). In fact, Sauron at the peak of his power was stronger than Melkor had been around the time of the War of Wrath, when he had hit rock-bottom. Nowhere near Melkor’s true power, sure, but Melkor had hit very low by then.
My bad, both Sauron and Gandalf are Maiar, which are angels. Just Sauron is in this example Satan, the most powerful one.
“The Maiar were nearly-primordial spirits that descended into Arda to help the Valar first shape the World.”
Um, no, Melkor of the Valar became Satan/Morgoth. Sauron was Melkor/Morgoth’s lieutenant.
He’s listed as a member of the Maiar though:
https://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Maiar
The Valar are the Archangels. Maiar are lesser angels.
Gandalf’s job was not to stop Sauron but the help the mortal races stop Sauron. Hence, Gandalf mostly hides his power, where Sauron flaunts his power — to better cow mortals.
That said, Ainur is an umbrella term for everything below the very highest tier (Valar), and Sauron has a pretty impressive resume.
“I know it well, dear friend,” said Aragorn; “but I would still have your counsel.”
“Not for long now,” said Gandalf. “The Third Age was my age. I was the Enemy of Sauron; and my work is finished. I shall go soon. The burden must lie now upon you and your kindred.”
Remember, Aragorn was not human either
Aragorn was human!
He was what some might call a ‘High Man’, a descendant of the High Princes of Numenor, the ‘chosen men’ allowed to live within sight of the Gladden Fields, but not to go there. They were wise, and somewhat long-lived, but still quite human.
Sauron was a Maiar who was seduce by Melkors song in the creation of Middle Earth. See the silmilliron. When Melkor fled to middle earth Sauron, and others followed him. Sauron became his chief lieutenant in Middle Earth. After the fall of Melkor, when the other Valar came can got him in response to a request from the elves. Sauron hid himself and was missed in the clean-up.
Sauron then began his own plan to take over Middle earth. The wizards, 5 of them, were sent to Middle Earth to help fight Sauron. Sauraman’s original name was Cuinar as a Maiar. Men gave him the name of Sauarman. Gandlaf was Olin and know for his wisdom, he chose his name. Radgast’s name was never given, The other two went to the far east and were never heard about again.
All of the Maiar were to limit their power and only help and guide. They all held to that rule. Sauraman is the only one to seek earthly power.
Hopefully this helps clean up a few questions. All of this can be found in LOTR appendixes and in the Silmarillion.
IIRC Ainur is the race whereas Valar / Maiar is more akin to rank. The Valar where in charge, the Maiar served them, and then there is Melkor whom is no longer counted between them.
Actually, he isn’t just hiding his power. Olorin, aka gandalf, mithrandir, etc, as well as as all the other Istari were actually down powered quite heavily before they left Valinor,. They were limited, because their mission was to advise and inspire the elves and men into the defeat of sauron and the shadows of melkor’s evil, rather than to fight that war for them. So they restricted the Maiar chosen to be the Istari to mystical power not much greater than the strongest of the elves, removed their ability to change form, etc. Though their knowledge of magical craft and lore made them very adept at using what power they still had.
Most of Gandalf’s power actually came from his being the bearer of Narya, the ring of fire, one of the three great rings of the elves. Cirdan the shipwright had been its keeper, and when the Istari arrived at Cirdan’s domain in the grey havens, he saw Gandalf as one who would put the ring to good use, and gifted it to Gandalf to keep. This is why Gandalf’s showier magic is largely fire and light based.
Gandalf actually regained some of his lost power after he died in Moria, his Fea returning to Valinor for a brief time before he was sent back to finish his mission. The power up was to allow him to deal with Saruman, since otherwise the two would have been closely matched. It is likely that reborn Gandalf might have been able to face sauron in the dark lord’s reduced state, but it would have been futile, since as long as the ring existed, Sauron could reform and begin regaining both personal strength and gathering new follows. Basically, as long as the ring existed Sauron was immortal, and ‘death’ would just be a speedbump for his goal of conquest.
If sauron hadn’t tied part of himself to the ring, then he’d be equal to Gandalf
In fact one could say that by destroying the ring, the other half tried and failed to find the long since turned to dust body it needed to return to. resulting in Sauron’s total collapse
So, I guess in addition to its other powers the ring was also a horcrux.
Basically, yes. Sauron had poured part of his power/soul/essence into it. It’s the reason he could not be killed as long as the Ring was intact.
As I recall, this was handled in MERP/Rolemaster by defining Sauron’s level as being 240 normally. He had dumped 120 levels into the Ring to amplify them, so when he was wearing it he was level 360 — but when he didn’t have the Ring he was ‘only’ level 120.
…Damn, where are my old books?
Can I get a frame of reference for how big that number is?
50th level would have been high for a player-character. The folks from the books didn’t get much past 70th or 80th… I think? It’s been a while and my books are in storage and I need to move them, yes.
I understand Sydney jumping on a random topic they discussed some time ago, but the part I don’t believe is Maxima instantly remembering exactly what the conversation was about and picking it up as if no time passed.
Unless that’s just a women superpower. They do randomly change topics a lot.
It was only about an hour ago…
That is a good point. For us it’s weeks.
Just as well DaveB provided a link to remind us then :P
Or, you know, Max anticipating such a response from Sydney
Possibly to the point she’s thinking “t-h-a-n-k y-o-u” for the chance to get away from talking to the naive guy without him knowing she’s taking the blunt approach to ignoring him.
But eh.. I’m not the creator of this comic lol
the mouthed thank you spelled out was from the elf
I said “thinking” she doesn’t have to have a speech bubble to think it
That’s Valen mouthing “thank you” to Sydney for distracting Maxima and taking the heat off him. Also, Sydney’s just gotten permission to “make herself useful”, so if she starts using the orbs and things go silly, then she was just obeying legal orders from a superior officer. :-)
Oh I’d just like to mention that as a person who enjoyed (and enjoys re-watching) Babylon 5, the fact that I’ve yet to make a “In Valen’s name” pun is a testament to my willpower (and the fact I can’t find a way to make a B5 Valen joke work in context. But mostly willpower). :-)
“Entil’Zha veni!”
Yellow orb only to scan for stuff. Lighthook & (especially) the PPO do not get touched.
Doesn’t mean she isn’t thinking it which was my point
Max could have told Valen that he’s “not the one” or maybe “not yet the one”.
IF you are the Jonathon Hawke that responded to my playtests When2Meets please get back to me (email, FB, Discord, whatever works), you are extremely difficult to find on the internet.
Given that she starts with “I knew you were going to take issue with that”, and has been exposed to Sydney’s nonsequiturs for a while now… Yeah, definitely.
(Also: “which is the same reasons the big eagles didn’t fly them over Mt. Doom in the first place” At one point pretty early, Sauron is mentioned to be able to control the weather in Mordor and summon storms at will. The eagles would have been seen, and if the ring wraiths wouldn’t have brought them down, the weather would.
“This is your eagle speaking, due to weather conditions over Barad Dur, we are diverting our flight to Osgiliath.”
Oglaf has an explanation for this:
https://oglaf.com/ornithology/
Warning: NSFW language (and the rest of the comic’s pretty NSFW as well, damn funny, but NSFW)
I think that’s the best explanation I’ve heard of yet…
It’s not a woman superpower, it’s a nerd superpower. We can keep an argument going in the back of our minds for weeks. :)
Oh, it’s DEFINITELY a woman power. My ex-wife would resume conversations from WEEKS before and fully expect people to keep up with the gear-change in her brain. And get pissed if I didn’t.
The fact it’s also a nerd power doesn’t detract from that.
That isn’t a case of the nerd power, that’s a case of someone who hasn’t learned that others aren’t thinking the same thing they are. It’s very poor mental hygiene and is considered quite immature as we are supposed to have internalized this concept by the time we are in our teens. Failure with this concept directly or indirectly leads to many other social failings, not least of which it sounds like includes your previous marriage.
Sydney, you are now an Honorary Bro ;)
Honorary elf bro!
I pronounce her Elf-friend and Blessed! ^__^
brolf? brelf?
Fairly sure have read a fantasy book with footnotes on most pages, have no idea what book as stopped reading most books some twenty years ago (okay, still read things, obviously, but got to the stage was getting more angry with what was happening in books and not being able to do anything)
Terry Pratchett did that a lot in the Discworld series. Mostly humorous though (and some footnotes had footnotes, to boot).
“Memory, Sorrow and Thorn” series by Tad Williams has a list of characters (by race), places, items and even pronunciations in the back of each book.
The Bartimaeus Trilogy and it’s prequel use a lot of footnotes to approximate the non-human narrator’s ability to think multiple things in parallel.
Wait, the trilogy has a prequel? I need to find it!
The Omnibus version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide series (includes all but the last book, Mostly Harmless) is written with footnotes a lot. Probably because the series is mostly about the book, not the people…
;)
What… what is up with Maxi’s chin in panel five? Did Sydney finally cause the perfect golden surface to be less than perfect? o_O
It does look like wrinkles, or even a bad chin beard.
Presumably it’s not the second one
Considering there are two succubi off-screen, is it probable that her chin is the projection surface for a double-slit experiment?
groooan…
Was thinking that as well
So does that mean that there is one succubus vamping while another is voyeur, or that both succubi are simultaneously vamping AND voyeur?
I think it’s just her tightening her mouth.
Looks like a reflection of her fingers to me.
That could work as well, better than a temporary moko (which is anything butt temporary: the fuckers literally carve the designs into the flesh!)
Speaking about flying on eagles:
Putting the One Ring that corrupts and twists you the more powerful and proud you are within arms reach of incredibly powerful incredibly proud creatures for couple of days is probably a really bad idea.
Yeah, there’s a reason Gandalf gave it to a puny hobbit.
I had the same problem reading Tolstoy. If I put down the book to do something else, or was interrupted, when I went back to it I’d lose track of who was who.
just try not to think of what Frodo’s uncle’s name would have been if all the B’s had been D’s.
I thought it
When I read “3body problem” the footnotes where invaluable.
But mostly because it was written in Chinese, for a Chinese audience, about Chinese people.(for the most part)
Okay, but why save the grey elfie? Is halo trying for metaphorical brownie points with the mythical entity, or does being uncomfortable watching someone being called out on their leering make her side with the leerer?
I’m thinking she is shipping the elf and Maxima. Also Maxima might have gone a little too far in calling Valen out in his interests.
Nah, I think in this case the elf needed a call out. He must be pretty awkward around women to faux pas this badly (or maybe elf women are just idgaf about that kind of behavior?)
I didn’t say he didn’t need to be called out, but (at least to me) it looked like Maxima was about to say that liking her ears was weird and that is where it went too far. No need to ridicule his particular kink.
Hundreds of years old, and STILL can’t talk to women. His species is doomed to extinction.
Well, there’s women and then there is one golden woman with supermodel looks and power on a level rivaling the gods… Talking to someone who’s your equal in power, influence and economic status is one thing. Talking to someone whose skin is a golden mirror, and who probably could put you in orbit without breaking a sweat is another. If you are really feeling an attraction it gets even harder, and I’m not sorry for that pun. Being scaroused is a thing…
Since you mentioned it, I want to say that I really appreciate you who’s who. It’s a great feature.
RE LotR:
Gandalf was a Maia, but not as powerful as Sauron, who was hand-picked for his power and skill at making things. That kind of talent is a Thing in Middle-Earth, as witness Feanor. Gandalf was a Maia of Manwe, which made him really wise and so on, but Sauron was a very powerful Maia of Aule, which meant that in any contest of “making stuff that is really good at its job, including not being destroyed”, Sauron would win that contest hands-down.
Note that it wasn’t HEAT that destroyed the One Ring; it was being returned to the fire in which it was made. It was a MAGICAL connection, a condition that had to be fulfilled in order to destroy it. You can make fire hotter than lava, even using only medieval technology. For those stuck in Middle-Earth, that really was the ONLY option for disposing of the Ring.
Within that UNIVERSE, yes, there were other ways it could be destroyed; if any of the really powerful Vala decided to get involved, they could probably destroy it. Certainly Aule could; anything one of his former apprentices could cook up, he could unmake. But the Vala weren’t getting involved.
Sudden weird mental image of goku trying to take it out
Destroy it that is. not the equally hilarious image of him trying to find it in the lava because he accidentally gave That to Chi Chi as their engagement ring
and now imagining Chi Chi roasting him in the lava with him stuffed in a marshmallow
I was going to argue, but apparently you are correct:
“It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself. There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there”
Insofar as the names, that’s a consequence of Tolkien’s REAL motive: making languages. He made the languages as his major focus and threw a story around them. Thus, some names, even important ones, ended up similar because of which words he was deriving the names from.
On why Gandalf or Saruman couldn’t destroy the Ring: they lacked the knowledge and abilities to do so. Mount Doom wasn’t the only way, but it would have otherwise required particular skillsets, abilities and power to perform. Gandalf and Saruman may have been the same type of being as Sauron(though less powerful), but that doesn’t mean they had the same abilities as he did, and there was no one alive with the required knowledge. In fact, that’s part of why Saruman worked with Sauron at all: in hopes of getting the information to forge his own Ring.
In D&D terms, they had the same racial template, but lacked the proper classes, skills and feats.
Scouts, one thief thanks to the ring, and one knight aka Aragorn. They’d have had a wizard but he left the party for awhile. no healer
Well. Aragorn wasn’t just the ranger; he’s why we have rangers in roleplaying games. Gimli and Boromir were definitely fighters; Legolas was a fighter with the archer special kit. They absolutely needed a cleric, I’ll agree.
Aragorn was their healer, he just was more of a potions and herbs type.
I’m kinda ashamed to admit I was half way trough two towers before I figured out that the guy getting beat up by ents wasn’t the big bad.
Then you were half asleep while reading it. There’s quite a bit of text describing how Saruman did hattle with / was seduced by Sauron thru the use of the palantir, with foreshadowing by the story of the fall of the son of Ecthelion the same way. And the whole hobbit-sneaking-peek-at-the-seeing-stone thing.
New word: Hattle, noun: warfare between graybeards wearing funny hats.
Stores new word in memory for future use.
Thank you.
^_^
Hattle: Alternative meaning – dispute between Jagers in regards to headwear.
Note: to the uninitiated this disagreement, depending on the severity, could be mistaken for a Brawl, Fisticuffs, Demolition or War.
or even, most likely, a minor kerfuffle
Or in rare circumstances buying a sammich…
“Vy is dere mustard on you hat?”
“Long story.”
It is really hard to not be half asleep reading that book
I also mixed up the names the first time I watched the story.
“Watched” damn, you missed out on at least 80% of the names if you only watched instead of read. First of all, everyone of any age or significance has names in several languages. Just one example: Greyhame, Stormcrow, Mithrandir, Gandalf the Grey and the White – and that’s just a quick recall of one guy’s handles, haven’t read them in ahem, well more than 10 years.
Names fogging is a real problem with that series.
Nope. Still don’t believe the elf was checking out her cleavage, even if that is what he admitted to. I think that he cleverly admitted such so as to keep Max from questioning his true motives. Maybe she has a nipple-Ring, unbeknownst (cool word score!) to her, that actually HAS elven writing on it that will only show up when tossed into a fire. Even elves were drawn to the power of the Ring after all. Actually, any chick with a “One Ring” nipple-ring automatically qualifies as a hot nerd chick, IMHO. Now, if she was made up to look like Galadriel and had one of the Three Rings of Power as a nipple-ring, that would bump her up a couple of notches more. Of course, she could have two of the Rings of Power as nipple-rings and then have them chained to a belly button One-Ring to really get her geek on. Oooooh! What if she had tattoos of the nine human kings with ring piercings on the hand of each…
(This run-away-freight-train of thought was brought to you by Halo Distractions, Inc)
Oh the one ring has been used as piercing jewelry, but most definitely not by Galadriel…
Allow me to be the umpteenth person to say this. But Ainur is the plural, the singular is Ainu.
Also my reaction is just the same as Sydney’s. Yay!!!
Wait, aren’t the Ainu the red-haired people of Northern Japan? o_O
Yes, yes they are
Mt. Doom was a place where rules could be bentnits wht sauron made the ring there in the first place
I always thought that Gandalf unmaking the ring with his lightning bolt-plasma cutter would be like trying to defuse an unexploded bunkerbuster with a sledgehammer. or like this
“That’s why I have a Who’s Who.”
No, that is only there because your Cast Page is still not working. ;) Can’t you just redirect the Cast Page link to the Wiki’s cast page and keep that one up-to-date for the time being instead? Please?
No, he has had the Who’s Who from the very beginning
Also maybe the eagles weren’t able to enter Mordor while the Ring was still in existence? Because it gave Sauron power?
Max, you just got nerd-sniped.
More info: https://xkcd.com/356/
When I read it I thought you wrote “Nerd-Shipped” and didn’t realize it until I read the link. But now I’ve already thought of Maxima x Sydney and there’s no going back.
“Go make yourself useful!”
Sydney’s true motivations for rescuing the elf become clear: she now has permission to rob the Reliquary.
Okay, more seriously to experiment with her powers near dangerous artifacts and monsters in a dangerous locale. Not much better…
Lol at Sydney’s face in panel 6
to be o100% correct Gandalf and Sauron were both Maiar, Ainur could TECHNICALLY be correct where Sauron is concerned, although there is nothing holy about the evils Sauron commuted in the name of his master or after his masters fall :P
(Ainur means Holy One)
Holy is not always good, technically there is no such thing as ‘UnHoly’
DaveB, you must have realized when working on this page that you were restarting every LotR argument of the last 60 years or so. Hope you’re happy.
I wonder what the actual elves think of Tolkien’s work…
“Way too much singing.”
They would and most likely go into days long debates on the relative merits and parallels with other depictions of the various elven groups from the old and new mythologies – White, Dark, Black etc etc
I think of them as Fey Nerds.
They asked Tolkien to write it so that people wouldn’t freak out if ever they happened to see someone with pointy ears.
Re: confusing names – David Eddings might be the most extreme example, what with characters anmed Belgarion and Belgarath, Polgara and Poledra…
Are you kidding? I read that series first time in 1983 at the age of 14 and never once confused the names.
Come to think of it, I never confused Sauron and Saruman, and I first read LotR (well, the first two books… my local library didn’t have Return of the King) at 12.
For one thing, Sauron is two syllables and Saruman is three
First, Sauron is far above Gandalf.
Second, the One Ring is specifically only able to be unmade at the place and in the fires of its creation.
Third, Sauron would see the Eagles coming. Half of the reason they got away with their plan is that he thought they were taking the Ring to Gondor. Between the wing-mounted Nazgul, ballista/ranged weaponry, and magic (like Saruman was shown capable of, but even more so) would have prevented them from getting too close and would have given the game away.
The Eagles were only able to swoop in after the Ring was destroyed, Sauron’s power broken, the Nazgul dealt with, and Sauron’s army scattered. That, and they’d likely fall to the Ring’s power, especially since it grows stronger closer to home.
The Ring was forged when Magic was strong. Magic is fading, only the Great Rings allow the Elves to claw onto some measure of their fading power. Gandalf and everyone is affected by this, it’s just that he was always pretty powerful and he has a Great Ring himself. Even then, it’s beneath the One Ring. Saruman crafted his a ring of his own to better focus/maintain his power.
Half the theme was the time of magic is passing, and that destroying the One Ring would undo the power of the Great Rings, leaving the Elves’ power without shelter from the fading. Hence their despair and conflicted feelings towards destroying the Ring, and the bittersweet victory.
Re: the One Ring is specifically only able to be unmade at the place and in the fires of its creation.
Not true, Gandalf specifically states that there are no more of the great dragons of old around, who could have destroyed the ring.
This is not due to the heat of dragonfire though, but to it’s magical properties. The old dragons were on equal powerlevels as Sauron and should be able to unmake everything he created.
Oh no! I’m wrong, how could that happen?
The One Ring is NOT susceptible to dragon fire.
The Lord of the Rings, “The Shadow of the Past”, p. 61 (Houghton Mifflin, 50th Anniversary Edition, Boston & New York, 2004)
Gandalf had rules given to him by Gods. That he doesn’t break them for anything is what makes him a good guy. The Eagles don’t play into it for the same reason that you don’t call the cops to go fetch you some coffee. And this was just another in a line of superfluous “bad man” moments wasting some narrative time. But then again, this isn’t called “Equality Power”. You get whats on the tin.
Yeah, the Eagles were direct ‘servants’ (for lack of better word) of the gods, not carrier pigeons you could just summon on a whim, in short, they were Higher Beings, not simply giant birdies
If i might point something out. The fact that Valen hit on Max in that particular situation makes a decent amount of sense. Consider if you will he waits to try. Valen sends her a text, email or shows up to somewhere to talk/court her chances are that he would simply be shot down (if only because he is apart of her work) so in actuality this is really one of the only places/chances he could make a good impression. (which he botched) Another thing to note is the fact that these situations ie. dead bodies nearby, are probably going to become a fairly common occurrence in the teams line of work so shooting the shit/courting/becoming friendlier in this situation isn’t farfetched considering cops do it on their job.
You still don’t try and hit on someone while standing in a puddle of blood, unless you are both vampire’s or similar and participated in the puddle-creation
He wasn’t ‘being friendly’, he was ‘checking out her rack’
All I can say is:
I applaud Sydney’s wisdom and maturity in doing what she did.
There is still no way to look down that shirt
Ignoring the fact it’s still a toight shirt, toight like a drum, if they were in an air-conditioned room you would see her Mount Dooms (or would that be your Mount Doom for pointing them out?)
“Go make yourself useful…”
Which cheap threat should Maxima use on Sydney?
A. ” before I put you on permanent KP duty!”
B. “or I’ll have you scrubbing latrines!”
C. “File a gig against you and THEN court martial you!”
BTW Dave, his name is Curumo, Curumo means “skillful one” in Quenya, Saruman is the translation of Curumo into the language of Men, it means “Man of Skill”
Sauron’s name was Mairon “the Admirable” before he fell, then became known as Sauron “the Abhorred”
And he was such a nice boy, I knew their family back in the old neighborhhod where the houses were very close to one another. The front yards were very small, and the Wilkerson boy, Nyctimus, was always playing with matches, but only in the barbecue pit so his dad thought it was so cute. The back yards were deep, but narrow – only a bit wider than the homes themselves, with tall walls between. All of this to say, the only place for the neighborhood kids to play together was on old sand hill, that’s what we called it then – now it’s called Orodruin, it was sunny on top, it got so hot up there. It was a relatively quiet street, so that’s not really a problem. But I’m constantly telling the kids to “stop running through the neighbor’s yard”…
:D
Panel 6
Full on “Edna Mode” face of vicious glee.
So elvish courting involves being a creep? No wonder they’re always being depicted as a dying race.
To be fair often human courting does too.