Bored of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was on the other night. I had one of those revelations that only come from seeing the same movie over-and-over. This time, during the scene where Legolas goes apeshit on the giant elephant, I realized what a total dick he was being. After releasing the harness and sending the saddle base tumbling off of the elephant, he had effectively won the fight. There was no reason to go any further. In the scene prior, it was firmly established that the Rider of Rhodan were outnumbered 10 to 1. Sauron’s armies were on foot, while the Riders were obviously mounted, and therefore could escape the path of an elephant far more easily. Therefore: a rampaging elephant without it’s handler was far more likely to kill a huge swath of the orcs instead of the Rhodans it had been sent to kill. Legolas didn’t see it that way. Instead, he put multiple arrows into it’s brain and slid down it’s trunk as it died. It was a dick move, especially for an elf who’s supposedly into animals and nature.

Previously, when asked why Gandalf didn’t have the giant golden eagles fly Frodo to Modor at the very beginning and be done with it, I had always said it was because of the dragons. They would have to kill the dragons before the eagles could reach the mountain. Then, as I watched it again, I saw the eagles actually show up during the last battle before the ring was destroyed and fight a dragon, blowing my theory to shit. The eagles apparently outnumbered the dragons at all time, and are more than capable of killing the shit out of them. So why didn’t they help out before? My new theory is: the eagles don’t give a shit. They’re eagles. Gandalf was saved in Part One by the eagles, but it’s not like he controls them. It was more like calling a cab than him going all Aquaman and summoning them telepathically. Getting you down off of a tower is one thing: flying past the Eye of Sauron through a flock of dragons into an active volcano is another. I think they just showed up in the end so they could look like the heroes. All the work was already done. By the same theory, the Balrog could have taken over all of Middle Earth on his own. He was a giant flaming hell demon. Gandalf pretty much shit his grey robe when he saw him. After he killed him, and vice versa, the universe was so impressed it decided to give him a promotion, and a change of pants.

Which brings me to my next point: Gandalf is basically given a promotion by the powers that be with the understanding that he fire the current white wizard. It’s the exact plot to the pilot episode of News Radio. There’s some kind of cosmic force doling out wizard colours. At any point it could have fired Sauromon and be done with it. It could logically do the same to Sauron. After all: he’s just a floating flaming eye on top of a tower with it’s life-force connected to a magic ring he managed to lose. In a flashback you see how he gets pwned just by losing a finger. He’s not exactly the most powerful being in that regard, and yet he’s still the most powerful being, with the exception of whoever is giving out these wizard robes. If this power decide that Sauron could go suck it, what’s he going to do? He’s basically just an living lighthouse.

What the fuck is up with Sauron’s tower anyway? What’s in there? Is it nice. Does Sauron actually live in there, and he’s like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz? Could you kill Sauron by knocking the tower over? It’s like the One Ring and the tower are his horicruxes. It’s like there’s alternatives that no one ever bothered to look at.

Also: if you look at Modor, you realize that there’s no way Sauron’s army was going to make it another year. The war happened when it did not simply because Frodo was planning on chucking the ring into the fires of Modor, but because if they didn’t take over some agricultural resources immediately through arms they were going to starve to death. There was no food in Modor. There’s nothing but rocks, fire, and pain. Sauron was the undisputed ruler of a inaccessibly and uninhabitable wasteland, due largely to the fact that no one else wanted it. Plus: orcs and giant spiders.