Getting Frodo safely to Rivendale

I just have a quick comment. I have watched the movies but never read the books. In the movies, they made Liv Tyler's part out to be pretty significant. The first appearance she made was when Frodo was stabbed by the knife of the enemy. In the book, however, it was days after he was stabbed before they were saught after to be saved, and it was by no female. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if her character plays a significant role in the book or if it was all just made up for the sake of a "good" movie plot? Also, why all the inconsistencies with the book to the movie? Wouldn't you think if you were making a movie based on a book it would be a little more accurate? Any thoughts?

Strider

I know this was a few chapters back... but I seriously love the way Tolkien made Strider appear to be an enemy at the inn in Bree when he's actually a good guy. In literature, dark colors almost always seem to represent evil and Strider dresses in dark green. As he sat and "watched the hobbits," "he wore a hood that overshadowed his face; but the gleam of his eyes could be seen." Yikes! Furthermore, the way he had earlier followed the hobbits over the gate entering Bree and later secretly followed the hobbits to their room at night. What a creep! My hair stood on end, but he turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to them. So far, that has been the best part of the story. Anyone agree?

Beowulf the movie

The new movie has an interesting twist to Beowulf. Grendel is the son of Hrothgar and a super hot demon played by Angelina Jolie. Although certainly entertaining, I don't know if I liked this idea. I thought that the movie took a lot of liberties to change the storyline, but then again so did the Lord of the Ring Movies. What do you think and what did you think of the movie? I thought that they could have done more with it. Overall, I was left disappointed. I think that I may even prefer the movie, the 13th Warrior based off of Eaters of the Dead.

Link

Pamela Gay from the Physics Dept. here at SIUE (who happens to be a LotR fan, and is quite knowledgeable concerning the astronomy of Middle-Earth) sent me a link to a podcast about Wagner's 'Ring' cycle, which comments on LotR. Enjoy!

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/01/01

Similarities between LOTR and Beowulf

I've noticed a few things that are very similar that we have touched on in the Lord of the Rings.

There's a lot of talk about ring givers. That being people who give freely of their riches. This matches with the hobbits giving of gifts and of the sayings of the high one. also the term "ring-giver" makes me think there is something more significant about rings in this culture that I'm not seeing. This might add something more significant to the value of the One Ring.

Also the long lineage and the historical value of each person in that lineage makes Beowulf a lot longer than it would be if it just concentrated on him. Definitely reminds me of that Monty Python skit. It also reminds me of the hobbit lineage that just seems to keep going in LOTR.

Heroes?

Why does Tolkien hide the true abilities of the two main heroes we have seen so far in the book? With Strider/Aragorn it seems as if he has this humble outward appearance and he is weary from travel as a ranger, but in reality he is a king. Same with Gandalf, I think it was Strider who says the wizard is more clever than he appears.
-Matt Stapay

Grendel

After reading the lengthy and very hard to understand text of Beowulf, Grendel descriptions from the reading of beowulf sound a lot like the predessors of modern monsters or creatures. The vague descriptions of Grendel give forms to many types of monsters in our literary world: From Wolves to Vampires to Orcs. From The description of too repulsive, a picture of an ogre like shrek pops into your head, yet shrek for entertainment purposes is pretty round and jolly. When the text decribing his thirst for blood, they basically infer a vampire type creature. But when he totally dismembers and devours the men limb for limb a werewolf type creatures comes up. Too Boot he also has an incantation or spell which leaves him immune to all types of weaponry such as swords, dagggers, arrows, spears, pikes, and everything molded from steel. From his ignorance of thinking he was invincible, he played into beowulf's ploy of fighting hand to hand. If he were to be carrying Sword of some sort, i wouldn't think beowulf would gladly fight him unarmored.