One for Sorrow

The concept, I mean. According to Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth there are these stages the hero passes through as part of that big uber-story where the hero has a thousand faces (and one of them is Luke Skywalker).

I was thinking about this concept this week because I finally saw The Hobbit and really enjoyed it. I've been resenting the fact that they took this small book and blew it up to be possibly even longer than LOTR. I just hate the whole "we're splitting this one book into more than one movie" trend and have since DH. So I wasn't in a rush to see this, but I went with a group of fellow pervy hobbit fanciers, and it turned out to actually draw me in more than I expected. Some of the ways PJ found to add more weight--both in terms of the plot and the emotions--I thought worked pretty well. One moment I really liked was Bilbo's refusal/acceptance of the call.

( More on that within... )

I'm not dead--but my computer almost is. At this point opening Internet Explorer takes something like 30 minutes. Sometimes things just disappear too--oh, you've just written 8 pages of something in word? Zap! Where did word go? Ha ha! It's gone!

So I apologize to the many posts I've managed to read in the past week and not comment on. (And to my icons that no longer get used because that adds another 15 minutes to a post!)

I was just reading this post on whether fanfic authors should try to conform to the "morality" of original authors. That kind of question always interests me because on one hand it's usually a yes/no answer, but really it gets into that whole central tangle of issues about fanfic. ( Really, how would you even begin to recreate somebody else's morals? )

This weekend my keyboard started going incredibly wonky. Lowercase f becomes f+return. Lowercase g appears not where you type if but in the middle of random words pages away. V adds enter, Enter adds a v and a hyphen. Uppercase R highlights whole sections which are then deleted if you hit another key. Uppercase N just deletes the whole document. And m causes the cursor to run off down the document one letter at a time and make you chase it.

Needless to say, I am awaiting a new keyboard and hope this will stop.

I was having a thought about Numb3rs this week that sort of applies to fandom in general. This past week Alan, father of Charlie the Math Genius, is getting on his case about doing grown-up things like taking care of household repairs. This turns out to be a cover that he's worried Charlie isn't going to get married and have children and might instead turn out "like Larry," his weird physicist friend. Turns out Charlie has had the same fears. Not only did I find that a pretty disappointing thing to learn they think about their friend, I thought it was a profound misunderstanding of who Larry is. ( What about Larry? )

( Watching ROTK:EE-spoilers within )

I don't know how I feel about it vs. the TE. I'll have to watch it straight through to see how I feel about the flow etc. Right now my main feeling is there were some things I liked and some I didn't--kinda like the other EEs and TEs.

Happy birthday closet_geek!!!
Happily, she seems to have gotten at least one Very Thoughtful Present so far.

Ugh. What a day. The last of that hurricane flooded ALL the subways so none were running. There's something kind of weird about wandering around at 10:30 AM with everybody else who would be at work but we don't know how to get there. I took a bus eventually that got me there around noon. I could have got there quicker walking, but I had no intention of doing that. One weird thing is when I got home I had a card from the post office saying I got a package. In the "sender's name" place it said AUSTRALIA. Australia sent me a package? I'm completely mystified. Must go pick it up tomorrow.

I went over to TORC after that. My patience for rabid purists is getting really thin, which is sad because I was always all into being able to explain things rationally and talk to people with different ideas. But some people just get on your nerves. It made me think about things that really bother us in arguments. Like for me, I realize one thing that always drives me nuts is when people state things as facts when they're opinions, in such a way that you're supposed to just let them pass. For instance, this one poster always says things like, "There was no reason to move Shelob to ROTK and it's that change that destroys everything."

The annoying thing is this person will say this over and over, no matter how many times people (me) have explained how putting Shelob in TTT really is going to be difficult. It's not just a case of getting rid of Osgiliath (while of course putting back in Faramir's longer interrogation scene) and coming out even. Of course it *might* work--anything might work. But it drives me crazy when people throw out these premises--not even the argument they're making, but just things they're going to slip in along the way. Granted this is usually accompanied by snide remarks about people who don't agree, but I think what gets me is people slipping in false things as if they've been proven. I'm not sure why...maybe it's because I know how easily things become excepted facts just because they were said. The snide remarks are usually part of that anyway--"Of course Revisionists don't mind Shelob being moved because they [insert stupid reason that makes Revisionists look bad]."

Does anybody else have specific things people do that really get on your nerves in discussions/arguments/debates?

I was having an annoying conversation today on TORC about Movie!Frodo. It really amazes me how casually judgmental and cold-hearted people can be. And yes, I know he's a fictional character, but the points being made are about wider principles in general.

( Movie Frodo... )

The last time I saw ROTK I found myself really wondering about Smeagol and Deagol. This was at the Lincoln Center thing, and when they started taking questions I almost wanted to ask Andy Serkis what he and the other actor worked out for that day. Like, what would Gollum's birthday have been like if he hadn't gotten the ring, etc.

Today I was in a store flipping through the book on "How We Did Gollum" or whatever it's called, and there's this great section where Andy talks about exactly that, what Smeagol was like.

( Smeagol the Stoor. )

Also, there was an article in the New Yorker last week about trauma counseling and it spoke about how people just really like to believe that "one good cry" cures things like PTSD.

( Kind of like a lot of post-Quest Frodo fics! )

I feel like last weekend lasted a lifetime...kind of like in the Narnia books when the kids reign for years then find themselves back at their Uncle's house. A whole weekend in Middle Earth--hurray! It was more fun than I'd ever thought it'd be.

( Here I talk about the Trilogy watching experience )

( The Q&A with Peter Jackson )

Then, the bad part. Well, it's my own fault. Never go to TORC's Movies forum if you want to avoid annoyance. There was this thread about Sean Astin not liking the take PJ used for his "I can't carry you" line which inspired a number of people to paint SA as a jerk. In response some random people decided to defend him by praising his honesty over the slick Hollywood-player fake that is Elijah Wood.

Anyway, this got me thinking about Elijah Wood (after I told them to SHUT UP! of course). I usually try really really hard to remind myself that the image of any actor I might have is not the actor himself, so I always feel hypocritical about expounding on the character of one as I see it. But I still do it, just like we all do. Even when I don't care about an actor I have a persona for him, thanks to the press. This criticism of Elijah made me think about what I associate with his persona and also what I think the negative description of him says about modern values. Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous but it interested me!

( Here I hold forth on it--and child acting besides... )

p.s. From today's post:

"Check out this item from the Post: FRODO is now the Lord of the G-strings. Elijah Wood and his "Rings" co-star, Billy Boyd, hit East 60th Street mammary mecca Scores at 2 a.m. Tuesday with two horny hobbits and, says our witness, "They didn't leave until the lights went on." Wood and company tossed back Heinekens and were surrounded by about a dozen topless dancers. When one exceptionally cute waitress named Nicole grabbed Wood's eye, he invited her to sit down with him, saying, "You're really pretty." He finally rolled out at 4:30."

Well, he is pretty.

Last night I was watching the FOTR:EE, which is even better after seeing ROTK. I also turned on the actor's commentary. It's fun to hear Orlando gushing about scenes he's "thinking about that are in the third film..." and the hobbits hinting that we'll "see more of Minas Tirith later," now that I know exactly what they're talking about. Also, Orlando is such a dork I love him. I also love hearing Elijah refer to him as "Orli."

Sean Astin's insecurities are another constant source of amusement. There's an ugly stepsister quality to the way he jokes about Orlando Bloom that cracks me up.

( Then I thought about Frodo and Galadriel, or as Sam would call her, the grabby elf lady. )

Well, I've decided to inflict my huge ramblings about ROTK just in general upon this journal as well. I'll probably continue picking at it in bits and pieces, but this is just a mad ramble in response to everything.

( Spoilers, of course. )