@Jungibaaz sir have a look
This could be a good topic which some of us can debate upon this thread
@GR!FF!N @Spectre
A Turkish court appointed five ‘Lord of the Rings’ experts to figure out whether this Gollum meme is offensive - The Washington Post
Turkish doctor Bilgin Çiftçi lost his job. He’s been put on trial. And whether he goes to prison hinges on one thing:
Is Gollum a good guy?
According to the Turkish news agency
DHA,
Çiftçi was expelled from the Public Health Institution of Turkey in October after sharing a meme comparing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the creepy creature from “The Lord of the Rings.”
Bu fotoğrafları paylaştığı için memuriyetten atılan Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi yalnız değildir! İlle bir işlem yapmak istiyorsanı…
Posted by
Ateist Forum on
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Insulting the head of state is a crime punishable with jail time in Turkey, and Çiftçi was promptly put on trial after the meme was spotted in his Facebook feed.
But when he appeared in court,
Çiftçi insisted that he hadn’t insulted anyone at all. For all his slimy skin and questionable syntactic habits, many say Gollum is not a villain. He may even be a hero. After all, it was he who freed Middle Earth from the tyranny of the ring by biting it off of Frodo’s finger and (albeit inadvertently) plunging with it into the lava roiling inside Mount Doom (spoiler!).
When Çiftçi’s lawyer Hicran Danışman challenged the chief judge for his reading of the complicated character, the judge admitted he’d only seen parts of the movies, according to the Istanbul newspaper
Today’s Zaman.
With that,
the judge called for an expert panel to determine whether Çiftçi’s defense is valid. The group will comprise two academics, two behavioral scientists or psychologists and an expert on cinema and television productions, according to Today’s Zaman. It has two and a half months to review to the evidence before the court reconvenes in February.
Speaking to DHA Tuesday,
Danışman said the trial has turned into “a case of saving the pride of Gollum.”
But the outcome of the expert examination will have less of an impact on Gollum — who, in addition to being already dead, is just a figment of J. R. R. Tolkien’s imagination — than on Çiftçi, who faces up to two years in prison if convicted,
Today’s Zaman reported.
The Turkish penal code states that anybody who insults the president of the republic can face a prison term of up to four years — more if the statement is made publicly or by a journalist. And Erdogan’s time in office has coincided with an increase in the number of investigations for insults.
Between Erdogan’s election to the presidency in August 2014 and March of this year, 236 people were investigated for “insulting the head of state,” the
BBC reported; 105 of them were formally indicted.
The president and his government “don’t have a sense of humor,” cartoonist Selcuk Erdem, whose magazine has been prosecuted for insulting Erdogan, told the
BBC. “They don’t want — or like — freedom of speech or criticism.”
For his part, Erdogan has also
referred to the writing of a New York Times journalist as “shameless, immoral, treason.” Is that better or worse than being compared to Gollum?
This is the meme from what I found online:-
My goodness, that is strange.
Though my feeling is that Gollum was indeed a villain, but also the greatest victim, sometimes of his own villainy.
He wasn't so much as a villain in the normal sense, he was more a slave and victim in the first sense.
One ought to pity Smeagol and what he became:
Here's one of my favourite quotes regarding him:
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Quote by J.R.R. Tolkien: “Many that live deserve death. And some that die...”
Only LOTR trilogy, after watching the films. When i completed the reading, i realized that our Umru-ayaar , Tarzan, Imran series etc cant hold a candle to these western novels.
Before Tolkien and his kind of authors, the tales here were no different either, some elaborate historical tales and mythology. But more the usual, 'once upon a time' and 'happily ever after' kind. Tolkien built languages, cultures, histories and an elaborate and believable mythology.
It became so elaborate, that he often had to go back to correct things, or make room in previous publishings for changes made in new works.
Also, I've just finished reading the Adventures of Tom Bobmadil, it is a book of poems, of various sorts, of which a handful are Bombadil related. There is no story as such, only poems and commentary.
There is separate book about Tom Bombadil? in LOTR novel, that Tom Bombadil part was the most boring one.
Speak for yourself.
Bombadil was brilliant and an enigma. Here was a guy who is all manner of the words was strange, and ridiculous, singing nonsense most of the time. Yet, he defied everything constructed in the story so far and all that followed.
The guy took, the ring, put it on his finger (and nothing happened), tossed it in the air, and handed it back to Frodo.
Even today fans go to exhausting lengths to discuss him. Whatever your feelings on Bombadil, his inclusion in LOTR was genius.
Also, I had hoped that reading the adventures of tom bombadil, may give me some more info on him, develop my understanding. I am now less informed, more intrigued and more confused than before reading it.
I would say he was a man of his time. Evil vs Good from my understanding is the very underlying theme in the whole trilogy. Essentially things were "good" in the past, then many men became corrupt and evil came forth, but good fought back and won. Of course this was by no means "the end" and evil probably came back again in the fourth age but the theme is still there. I am not calling Tolkien a racist (even though I used to think this in the past very strongly) as much as I am calling him a man of his time. It is quite clear that he lived and wrote in a white dominated world, given that there are few if any dark skinned individuals on the "good side" (with the exception of the Druedain and even they are mysterious). On the contrary the good side is dominated by white people whose kingdoms and languages take clear inspiration from Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, in contrast to the evil men of Harad and the Easterlings, whose appearance and attire suggests Middle Eastern and Central Asian/Steppe inspiration, yet in the time that Tolkien lived in, the east was largely unknown and the people living there mysterious for the people in the real world West (which one can suppose was the target audience in Tolkein's mind when he was writing the trilogy).
I think if Tolkein lived in the modern multicultural multiracial west, then his characters would have more resembled the characters of Martin's in ASOIF (Game of Thrones), that is an array of white, black, brown characters, with some good and some evil on both sides. But Tolkein lived in a time when he was surrounded by white people, with the average westerner knowing very little about the East and its mysterious people. His characters are hence a reflection of this.
Like I said, entire essays could be written on the subject. But on the parts in bold, I would say that evil vs good is a central theme, also death is a huge theme. However, the idea that things were good in the past is incorrect. Before the Third Age, where LOTR and The Hobbit are set, things were arguably worse.
In the second age, Sauron gained dominion over all Middle Earth, he destroyed Numenor, single handedly. And in the first age, Melkor, the dark lord made Sauron's dominion look like a tea party, he gained dominion over all Beleriand. And before that he destroyed the two trees. And before Elves or Men walked the earth, he alone fought the powers of the world (the Valar), and his wars marred and damaged Arda. So the assumption that there was good before I think is incorrect, though, there is some validity in saying that the early Third Age was relatively better than those other periods.
I think there is no denying that his work was a product of his time, even in The Silmarillion, the Easterlings were the only named evil men, and his lack of non-white heroes is also telling of the time. But also, his focus on the specific culture of Rohan for example, wasn't because of choosing West over East or any ethnic factor. It was because Tolkien loved Norse mythology, and he modelled the Rohirrim around that, he was also inspired in part by stories like Beowulf.
Also, I don't think the whole East vs West of our world is applicable to that world, that world is entirely different, and some of the assumptions can't carry well.
can some one tell me why Elves have long and stretched ears ?
and second i have seen LOTR all three parts , Hobbit Series all three parts , why there is no Black Character ?
does this whole Sc-fi is for white people ?
There's no mention of black people in the tales, though, it would be a good guess that they may exist away South towards Harad. But the tale does not concern that land. Also, plenty of 'tribes of men' are described, very vaguely. But the main ones the story follows are the 3 houses of men in Beleriand, whom are mostly caucasian as far as I can tell, it also then follows, the Numenoreans, their colonies and eventually the Rohirrim too, who are descendants of those 3 houses.
@Jungibaaz : You left the 1970s-vintage Rankin-Bass animated flicks out of your list: The Hobbit and The Return of the King.
In one respect only were these superior to the recent movies: they contained some of the songs the movies excluded - indeed, they were quite musical (and I would argue that when the movies did include the songs, the animated versions were better.) I don't believe this was accidental and I "consider it a sad loss" - as Sam Gamgee would say.
I did see these versions after I watched Peter Jackson's epic. Saruman of many colours was amusing.
