Gandalf

The five armies are goblins, eagles, dwarves, elves, and men. Beorne doesn't count as an army, although it might take one to kill him. Sand worms don't count either because they are from Dune.

Note that Beorne is rescuing Thorin.

by Matthew Stewart

So, Frodo puts on the ring while at Amon Hen and within moments, Sauron starts looking toward him. If not for Gandalf's interference, he'd have been seen.

But, mere seconds later, Frodo puts the ring right back on again and heads to the boats and is apparently not seen.

Much later, Sam puts on the ring in Mordor to chase after Frodo, but he's not seen by Sauron. Then, at the last moment, when Frodo puts on the ring in Mt Doom, Sauron is instantly aware.

Putting on the ring in the Shire appears to never alert Sauron, but does alert the black riders when they're close.

I have no doubt that there are rules being applied here. Tolkien never does anything randomly. So, what are the rules? Is there something magical about Amon Hen that made it especially dangerous? Is it simply being on top of a hill so that there's a clear line of sight between Barad-dûr and wherever the ring is?

This is a miniature scene of Boromir's last stand at Amon Hen when he was defending Merry and Pippin from the Uruk Hai and orcs.

I was hoping that this was a kit or something, because I'd love to paint this. But, it appears to be a custom project someone did using games workshop miniatures.

from this forum

I'm sure I read somewhere that there was a prophecy that Isengard would stand until the forest moved against it, or something to that effect. However, I cannot figure out where I got that from.

I thought it was actually the reason why he intentionally destroyed the forest. He was trying to prevent the prophecy while actually causing it.

Yet, I cannot find any proof of this. Did I just imagine this?

The image came from here.

The image is by Luca Bonatti.

I think the mystery of the entwives is such a poignant thing. The idea that every ent's death means the entire species is one step closer to oblivion. The idea that the ents are just lonely all the time because they're missing their loved ones.

It is pretty funny the way Treebeard just says they lost them and cannot find them. One theory is that the moving elm tree that Sam heard about in The Shire could have been an entwife. But, it seems more likely to me that it's an Ent that was looking for the entwives. Who knows, there's always hope.

One great thing about Tolkien is that he just doesn't answer questions like this. I think he always talked about them like he had theories about them, but he didn't really know. So, there's no "word of god" about what happened to them.

The poem goes:

One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all. And in the darkness bind them.

In what way does the one ring find anything? Do we have some reference, besides this poem, that Sauron could use the ring to know where all other ring wearers were?

The other 3 lines seem true. The one ring was about control and certainly had the ability to rule and control other ring wearers. But, not sure about finding them.

Fiction works often contain amazing feats of engineering, but how often do we meet the actual engineers? Like, in G.I.Joe, Destro is a totally evil guy, but he sure is an amazing engineer.

In the Discworld books, I always wished Terry Pratchett had made a book about Bloody Stupid Johnson. I want to meet the man behind the inventions!

On an unrelated note, these statues remind me of the giant creatures in the Shadow of the Collossus game. Particularly the last boss.

I started with tineye and eventually figured out where this was from. A print of this picture is available at the Courtney Meyers Art site for $85. I'm tempted, but I'm actually trying to learn to paint, so I'd kind of rather do the painting myself.

The woman in the picture is actually the artist. I initially assumed she was a model who helped sell the pictures, but she's on the About page of the site, so that's actually her, which I think is nice. Art isn't just pictures. It's an experience, so knowing the person who painted a thing kind of adds to the overall enjoyment of the art.

This is really nice though. The grass looks so detailed, with every blade individually drawn.

This one is by Andrew Read

I'm currently trying to learn to paint, but I'm still just following youtube tutorials for now. I've done 20 so far. I'd really like to level up and start painting Tolkien related stuff like this though. I love this picture.

I was trying to find as many book covers as possible for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books and OMG the French covers of The Hobbit are the most ridiculous.

I was tempted to mark this post NSFW.

One of the great things about The Lord of the Rings is that the actual Lord of the Ring has, like, two lines in the entire series. He's talked about quite a lot, but he literally only speaks that one time when Pippin grabs the Palantir.

He's even mentioned in The Hobbit as the necromancer. And for anyone who thinks that's a retcon, there are earlier sources where we find that the name of the necromancer was always Sauron, even prior to the LOTR being written.

[SPOILER ALERT FOR Rings of Power]

To anyone who has watched Rings of Power and read The Silmarillion, how accurate was that portrayal? He is actually portrayed as a rather nice guy, although as I write this I recall something about how Sauron was very charasmatic before some event that ruined his ability to transform and appear nice. Cannot recall what that was. Maybe the downfall of Morgoth or something?

I'm not affiliated with them at all but this appears to have come from morgenland-arts-crafts.

Sadly, I can't see anyplace on the site to get one anyway.