The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings
The wearing of rings is some serious shit drama.
Author	J.R.R. Tolkien
Illustrator	Various hordes
Cover artist	Bruce Campbell
Country	Mordor
Language	Quenya
Genre(s)	Historical fiction and mythology
Publisher	Huffing Books, Inc.
Publication date	1954
Media type	Underwood
Pages	Too many

The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy written by professor J.R.R. Tolkien, who in 1897 stole the manuscripts from the dungeons of a castle in Transylvania. Scrolls of the same accounts of a Dark Lord with a One Ring were also said to be stored away at Vatican City where they kept their antique torture devices. Tolkien wearing a disguise of a heretic got himself thrown into the lower levels of the main serpent church alter and proceeded to take microfilm of the stash of knowledge there. He also managed to steal MicroJesus. Tolkien was long gone before they realized the MicroJesus was missing. Tolkien was listed as a suspect but they couldn't do anything outside of rebooting the original program and saving it to a zip folder. Making MicroJesus even smaller and buried under pages of code that took forever to scroll through the syntax that presented his holy image. In the end they opted to create a more sufficient Jesus. They named it Jesus 2.0, which did unseemly miracles like turning leather into duct tape.

Having survived World War II after almost being killed in World War I, Tolkien was more prepared and knew his way around. He dedicated his life to writing about wars in far off lands, wars that could not easily be re-written by the George W. Bush Nazi regime. But there were those who were nervous that Tolkien was writing about things they had no control over since the locations were governed by other powers-that-be. He was brought in to the Grand Inquisitor for questioning. They knew he did something but not sure what exactly. They grilled him over the character of the Dark Lord having a similar name as Satan. But Tolkien assured them he was just making it all up as he went along. He drove the point further by explaining that somewhere in the story a crazy guy had magic rings for breakfast. That the One Ring never had any influence over said crazy guy and that another crazy fish guy also had it for breakfast along with a human finger and merrily dove into a volcano. So how could he be doing anything but writing a friendly children's book?

The only thing that stood in Tolkien's way, was finding a suitable publisher. A respectable publisher that would print his books with the best illustrations and materials. He wanted a map of Middle Earth included without having to get permission from some pompous map-printing company. Thankfully he secured all the rights and Atlas Shrugged. Once the professor found the proper publishing company to send all his manuscripts to, he found that the publisher he would be working with also published such works as Alice in Wonderland, The Chronic of Narnia, and Darth Maul's Diary. At first he was a little unnerved by the usual fare of the book company, but he wasn't going to be too picky as the other choices would have put him in the same company of book sellers who published such works as I Am Going To Kill Your Brother and Your Brother is Dead. Tolkien wisely opted to stay with the aforementioned publisher.

Plot

The original watchtower was a fiery lidless eye that seemed really irritated, Tolkien muses.

The foundation of The Lord of the Rings is the peaceful countryside inhabited by small folk known as Hobbits. They loved to grow flowers. Pick flowers. Grow pipeweed. Smoke that pipeweed. Pick pipeweed by the bushels, and smoke even more pipeweed. They loved to eat. They farmed like nobody's business. They raised corn. Grew all kinds of Fruits and Vegetables. They would make tons of butter. Butter was essential for all those taters they harvested. They were a highly advanced culture of smoking food-fanciers that every so often, they would travel across great distances to visit the great ovens of Mount Doom.

It wasn't always like that, however. For many centuries hobbits didn't even know about such places. It wasn't until Gandalf, who loved pipeweed showed up and basically guilt-tripped Bilbo Baggins into coming with him and some lonely dwarves to confront a Dragon. This was the piping into the trilogy that comprised three parts; The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

The plot's characters centered around mainly the hobbits who loved to smoke and eat. A lot. And their adventures through many dangers and many exotic cuisines throughout Middle Earth. It also emphasized a man who would become king who would live in a city that looked like a wedding cake. The other main feature of the plot is a magic ring. But not just a magic ring, but in fact, the One Ring. It was the main device that overshadowed the lives of some of the hobbits, as well as the elves, the dwarves, the wizards, the men, the women, the horses, the orcs, well just everybody.

It's the one thing that is present all through Tolkien's narrative. A Ring so powerful that it made everyone into its slave. But there were characters that did not succumb to the Ring's power. They were Tom Bombadil, Galadriel, to some extent, Bilbo. And to varying degrees of defiance, Frodo. It had no real power over Faramir. Or any of his fellow warrior pals. It didn't do much for the Balrog. Or Shelob. Or even the giant eagles. It also never really had any power over any of the horses. Or Shadowfax, lord of the horses. It had some small influence on Sam, but then, it really didn't. It had zero power over Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. It also sucked at trying to win over Meriadoc Brandybuck and the fool of a Took, Pippin. Elrond was hellbent on having it destroyed. In short, the mighty Ring of Power really sucked at being an all-powerful piece of bling. But that is the plot of the overall story. Eventually the Ring would suck so bad that it ended up being accidentally melted down to nothing because it made the mistake years ago to hook up with Gollum who was then known as Smeagol.

One Ring, the Nine random more, then Seven, and the fancy Three

The Dark Lord Sauron, who was cosplaying as just one of the guys, made some rings. He made a lot. He crafted nine rings. He knew exactly who to give them to, and they gladly accepted them with no questions asked. Then the Dark Lord Sauron crafted seven rings. He knew exactly which dwarf lords to give them to, and they grabbed them and thought it was pretty nice of Sauron to be handing out rings like that. What a swell guy, they thought. Then the Dark Lord Sauron crafted three rings. Three magic rings. He put much care into the detail and workmanship of those rings. He knew who he wanted to bestow those three magic rings to, and came to them all pretty, hair combed, a dab of Abercrombie & Fitch cologne, and the three rings he placed in pretty little boxes. He offered them to the three elf lords who would surely detect something suspicious in his offering. And they did. But they took them anyway and then hid them from him because they knew he would probably try to come back and steal them. He did.

As the story goes, Sauron made all these rings, nineteen in total, and passed them around. Choosing who would get them, and wield them. His plan was all set. He began forging a Master Ring. A ring that would detect all the other rings. Like a radar or smart device that pinged the location of all the other rings he'd made. His first few attempts were pathetic. They didn't really do much and he had to throw them away. Then he crafted some more ring prototypes to be his one true lovely ring. It wasn't until he figured it out, that making a ring so powerful, he would need to get into a vat of lava and use the searing pain of sitting inside a blast furnace to get top notch results. He was so charred and disfigured by the making of his one ring that he cursed it to embody anything and everything that would either turn one into a toad or at the very least possess, levitate and make vanish, anyone who just happened to be in his way. He was super pissed off about having to endure horrific injuries but no pain, no gain, right?

Once he got the spell to working and the one ring to connect to all the other rings he'd made, he began corrupting all of them. One by one. The first couple of them was just basic dumb spells. Five of the nine men were turned into Liberals. Then they started getting tattoos and having their rings pierced through their noses. Sure enough, Sauron came and ripped their faces off and took their rings. The other four men, seeing this drew their swords, and Sauron zapped them with his One Ring and then went to retrieve their rings from the piles of ashes they had left behind.

Then Sauron went to wrangle the seven rings from the dwarves. He only got a few of them back, but that was on account of the dwarves not being able to return them for different rings. The others simply had a borrowing system going on, so Sauron was shit out of luck. Then the dark conniving toast face went to try to steal the three rings he gave to the elves. They weren't having any of it. Sauron was banned from all their lands and kingdoms. He was placed on the Most Wanted list, dead or mostly dead, and he was forced to retreat to Mordor where he made his One Ring, making him look at the very place that traumatized him. And to add insult to injury, he had to get used to eating from the only crop grown in those harsh lands, the Mordor Jalapeños.

Of Hobbits and other small folk

The mystery of how the Hobbits came to exist was one that's better left alone. In Middle Earth, there were dwarves, men, and elves all living in harmony for the most part in what would be The Shire. There was some strange ships going on.

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The Morians

As the lands of Middle Earth were being shaped with zig-zagging mountain ranges, the dwarves began moving into mountains for several reasons. One, they gave impenetrable shelter and defense against the elements, and other bothersome situations. Like a warlord from East Hell who never agreed to Middle Earth even existing with any kind of features. He was a minimalist. Two, the mountains could be dug out while still maintaining structural integrity making mining for precious metals and gems a wise location for their craft. And three, before anyone knew there was a Balrog living far beneath the cavern's mantle, slumbering in the earth's crust, things were quite peaceful.

But things didn't stay that way. For there was a fierce demon of the ancient world coming out to feast on anything that moved. It must be stated that the dwarves were probably the best prepared for such events, having axes, blunt tools, heavy hammers, and chainsaws that they wore on their belts. It was the striking of a pickaxe against a slab of rock that penetrated the rock and through to the other side into a Balrog's face. Naturally this woke it up and the next thing anyone knew, there was a giant fire-breathing demonic gorilla-butterfly emerging out of the mountain's pit where they were mining. It wasn't a good situation and many dwarves were singed and suffered 3rd degree burns, while trying to flee.

The once-glorious mountain dwelling of Moria and the Halls of Dwarrowdelf were darkened after the carnage done by the Balrog. But relations and friends of the Morians were still alive outside of Moria. Many years after the Balrog had done its foul deeds and finally went back to sleep, some of those relatives showed up. Namely Gimli. The first thing they did was open the secret doors and pass through. Once seeing the tomb-like condition of the place, it wasn't that much of a shock that there was a water beast in the form of a soggy Shelob who destroyed the secret entrance by slamming the stone doors shut and collapsed the entire passageway. Sure it could still be cleared away and rebuilt, but nobody was going to stay and deal with it. It was on its own. Gimli along with all his friends, though no planning on their part, managed to cause the main bridge to the exit to be smashed and impassable. It was Pippin who woke the Balrog up this time. And it was Gandalf who stayed behind to deal with it. Gimli would be telling the dwarves about all of this. There was going to be some shit. When Gimli learned that the Balrog was finally conquered and roasted on a stick by Gandalf, Gimli didn't feel too much in a hurry to avenge Morians. There was still the quest he was currently on, with certain death, small chance of success, and there was no waiting for that.

The Tree Elves of Lothario

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The Horselords and some White Lady

A country that features wide open fields and hills, where wild horses run free. The horses that have been taken in, and well cared for, are companions to the men of Rohan who would have wrangled giant eagles and dragons had they been as numerous as the horses. But the giant eagles were in their own exclusive club and dragons were more unpredictable than the horses. Rohan would be the scene where many turning points of the story occurred. It may seem, on first reading that the horses were just there, but if one reads between the lines, it was the horses that made the big decisions and they called the shots.

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The Gondorloans and some suicidal tomato man

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The Black Gates of Mordor and some freak mouth guy

One could call this accursed place a hellish landscape of twisted features, with no living elements except a bunch of orcs and trolls, and an obese yet mobile spider the size of a hobbit's daily menu. In fact, hobbits are a menu item for the spider, as well as the spider's size representing a hobbit's menu. But that would be an oversimplified description of Mordor.

The real horror of Mordor is that every orc is a minion to a dark lord while they go around thinking they're somehow superior. But they're not. They're just orcs and they eat menu items with meat back on them. It's the Black Gates that reveal how unsettling Mordor really is. Because without the Black Gates, there's just nothing but a bunch of rocks, and a cool-looking volcano.

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Critical reception

Although published as separate, standalone tales, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was a continuing saga that was highly successful. Tolkien was raking it in. Everyone knew the stories and entire generations were obsessed with anything Tolkien would put out. It was a clear phenomena, spawning posters, calendars, clothing lines, plays, theater, songs, entire movies were made based on The Lord of the Rings. This thing took off and hasn't relented since. If Spaceballs gave but a glimpse into what merchandising was all about, anything Tolkien was more than just a flamethrower. It was a nuclear missile.

The critics loved it. Bookworms loved it, it tasted very thick. Scholars loved it. Kids loved it. Everyone loved it. There doesn't exist a soul who doesn't have some fondness for The Lord of the Rings. That is its legacy. It conquered the world of mythology and shed new light on the past after it had been zapped by the atrocities and tragedies that Homer wrote about. It hurled and crushed the Dark Ages and re-invented the Middle Ages bringing those times back into everyday life. But without the dragons, the ringwraiths, the dark lords, or even the impossibly giant spider. But everything else is still around. The All-Seeing Eye. The short people. The tall people. The pipeweed smoking wizards. Gollum! All still a part of this world.

Adaptations

There are nine films. The most famous trilogy featuring Peter Dinklage and Viggo Mortensen was a massive success. Filmed and released between the years 2000 and 2003. In 1978, an animated version that was to have two parts, ended up only being one part for some weird reason. But some years later, the same movie company that released the animated book adaption of The Hobbit, produced a film called The Return of the King with the same musical guests as in The Hobbit. They wanted it to be what concluded the 1978 film as it really bothered them. It bothered everyone. It was just gnawing at the fabric of society. It carried the story but something was missing. Namely the rotoscoping and the constant mispronunciation of Saruman's name. There are several foreign-language versions of the story of the Ring and of Hobbits varying in silliness, and the butchering of Tolkien's work. But they're foreign adaptions and as such, nobody cares.

See also

• Dungeons & Dragons
• The Chronic of Narnia
• Star Wars
• GiantsLOTR.jpg (this links to an image file)
• LordOfTheRingsstory.gif (this links to an image file)
• Smallrockintomordor.jpg (so does this one)
• Before anyone asks, I did not. It was not me, at all.

The Lord of the Rings