A blogathon is never late. It arrives precisely when it means to…
The Tolkien Blog Party is back! This is always a fun event, but it got off to a bumpy start for me. I was going to talk about why Tom Bombadil being left out of the Peter Jackson trilogy was actually a good thing, but when I started Googling articles about the controversy, I found at least a dozen of them all saying what I had planned on saying (ScreenRant alone has six articles about it from six different authors. Guess no one compares notes over there, but oh well.).
Of course that took the shine off my idea, but it’s no biggie because Rachel’s tag questions are a fine substitute. Here we go…
1. Rohan or Gondor? Gondor. Rohan is not without its charms, but climbing hills burns more calories.
2. Rivendell or Lothlorien? Rivendell, absolutely. Nothing against Lothlorien, but I think Rivendell is prettier.
3. Erebor or Moria? Neither.–they both feel claustrophobic in my opinion, even if the craftsmanship is top-notch.
4. Bilbo or Frodo? Bilbo, because it was more of a challenge to get him out the door, whereas Frodo didn’t need much convincing, and once Bilbo got into things he was very resourceful. Anyway, Frodo wouldn’t have gone on his quest if Bilbo hadn’t gone on his.
5. Merry or Pippin? Again, both–Merry and Pippin are like Mutt and Jeff so it’s hard to separate them. On the other hand, they had to separate to become more than the goofballs they were, so they’ve each got a nice satisfying story arc.
6. Galadriel or Elrond? Argh, this is a hard one–they are related by marriage, after all. I guess I would say Elrond because he had the good sense to keep as far away from the Ring as possible, whereas Galadriel had to test herself. I mean, she had no choice, but as the saying goes, “He that sticketh head in lion’s mouth gets breathing interfered with.”
7. Eomer or Faramir? That depends. If we’re talking about the novels, I like both. If we’re talking about the movies, I would have to say Eomer because he’s a total bad, er, something or other. Meanwhile, Faramir is more or less the innocent bystander who almost gets burned alive by his power-mad father and then ends up with Eowyn.
8. Fili or Kili? That depends if we’re talking about the novel or the movies. In the novel, I don’t play favorites. In the movies, it’s Kili all the way, although Fili’s nice, too.
9. Bard or Beorn? Bard. I remember the first time I read The Hobbit that he seemed to come out of nowhere, and now I call him Bard of the Blind Side.
10. Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the White? I like Gandalf either way, but I have to learn a little further towards Gandalf the White because it’s fun seeing Saruman get dethroned.
All right, there we have it. Looking forward to next year…
For more of the Tolkien Blog Party, please visit The Edge of the Precipice. Thanks so much for hosting, Rachel–this blogathon is always fun! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you Friday for the Everything Is Copy Blogathon…
The LOTR Trilogy is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon. Tolkien’s original books can be purchased here, also from Amazon.
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Taking Up Room 
There are moments in the book where you suddenly see Tolkien’s pantser-ish writing tendencies, that he just made everything up as he went along and then edited madly later to make everything work smoothly. And Bard the Bowman is absolutely one of those. Just randomly shows up, doesn’t even get a name for like two chapters, until Tolkien must have decided he was more than just a Grim-Faced Man and might be kind of important, so he’d better have a name. It cracks me up every time 😀
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