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JRR Tolkien reads from The Hobbit for 30 Minutes (1952)
- krupan 10mo agoThis is so good. You can tell that Andy Serkis based his gollum voice off of this.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- ParentiSoundSys 10mo agoI wonder what Tolkien would say of so much of the symbolism from his novels being used to bootstrap a horrible dystopian control grid? Would he approve or disapprove? The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder.
- usrnm 10mo ago> The way that orcs are dehumanized Orcs aren't human, though. If anything, they were deelfized
- gambiting 10mo ago>>The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder. If anything, it's their portrayal in the Rings of Power that is idiotic(trying to humanize them) - they aren't human, they don't have families or friends or internal lives and psychological doubts going through their heads - they are meant to be a force("force" like in "force of nature") of evil, not a misunderstood and exploited race of intelligent beings. For an actually interesting take on "hey what if the orcs are actually intelligent people" there is The Last Ringbearer by a Russian author, presenting LOTR from the perspective of Mordor(it's not a good book, but was an amusing read) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer I will however agree with you that it's truly insane how we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it?
- avadodin 10mo agoare we the baddies?
- ParentiSoundSys 10mo agowink wink
- klondike_klive 10mo agoThere must be some pretty industrial strength compartmentalising going on.
- Cthulhu_ 10mo agoPalantir, Anduril, Istari, and there's even a home security one called Sauron, you can't make this shit up. Back in my day, LotR names were used for cool metal bands like Gorgoroth, Amon Amarth, Cirith Ungol, Carach Angren, Burzum, etc.
- ekianjo 10mo agoThere is band called Silmarils as well
- GuinansEyebrows 10mo agothe tolkien metal world continues: One of Nine put out a killer record on Profound Lore last year. https://oneofnine.bandcamp.com/album/dawn-of-the-iron-shadow https://oneofnine.bandcamp.com/album/dawn-of-the-iron-shadow (skip the first track if you don't care for "dungeon synth"). i'm not a big fan of keyboards in metal but the rest of the instrumentation is so good i can forgive it :)
- Ntrails 10mo ago> we have a global survailence company that is used to spy on citizens and destroy democracies worldwide that is literally called Palantir. Like, no one working there is seeing it? The Palantir are not evil creations in the book iirc. They were used by the great kings to see whatever they wished. Heck, even in the book Aragorn uses the Palantir to make a critical decision turning the tide of battle.
- bananaflag 10mo agoI'll just leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_moral_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_moral_dilemma
- ParentiSoundSys 10mo agoFascinating thank you. I was only aware of the surface level concern around the orcs.
- mwcz 10mo agoThat's both a very good description of Tolkien's struggles with orcs, and a writing style that feels out of place in an encyclopedia. The Halls of Mandos are described as a halfway house.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 10mo ago> J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs [...] so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of [...] Admitting that there's a very wide diversity of beliefs under the "Roman Catholic" banner - historic Roman Catholic armies have been eager participants in well-documented battles for the past 1,500 or so years. I'd assume that Tolkien would have had a wide variety of perfectly historic Roman Catholic arguments to chose from, to justify his fictional slaughter. (If I recall, the orcs slaughtered in LoTR are pretty much all soldier or near-soldiers. Do orc women, children, or other non-combatants ever appear in the story?) In many ways, that Wikipedia article feels like a Hays Code-era whitewashing of Roman Catholicism.
- the_af 10mo agoYour criticism of Catholicism is valid, but regardless: this dilemma of Tolkien is real, and well-documented (e.g. in his letters, etc). He really did struggle with this, re: the origin of the Orcs, whether they had souls, whether it was ok to default to massacring them without second thought, etc. He never really resolved it. Most Tolkien fan communities are aware of this dilemma, it's one of those well-known things, along with "did Balrogs have wings?", "couldn't they just fly to Mount Doom and drop the ring?" and "why did Sauron need to put his power within a ring, anyway?".
- KineticLensman 10mo agoTolkien’s orc dialogue in TLOTR is actually very humanised in some ways – the orcs moan about their bosses, complain about rival teams, are concerned about completing their tasks, being punished for failure, etc, etc. When they aren’t fighting, they come across as petty functionaries in a totalitarian state.
- FridayoLeary 10mo agoIt's a fantasy novel written primarily for entertainment. It's hard enough to write dwarves and elves, orcs are a necessary plot device. If you want you can imagine them as pitiable creatures who have been deprived of free will and have no choice but to act the way they do and loath themselves for it.
- the_af 10mo ago> It's a fantasy novel written primarily for entertainment On one hand, you're right. On the other, it's unfair to Tolkien and to the scholars who study his work. He spent a lot of his life and effort towards developing this world, he deeply pondered the moral implications and theology of his world, and for all his denial of there being any analogies to the real world, you can see he considered them (he did describe modern men in the modern world as "Orc-ish", etc). All of this to say we cannot just dismiss it as "it's a fantasy novel".
- gregw2 10mo agoDo you mean the palantir or the rings?
- gregw2 10mo agoI find Tolkein's depictions on his original jacket covers of the Rings of Power and the one ring and the "all seeing eye" that accompanies them quite evocative: https://imgur.com/CZSNpiS https://imgur.com/CZSNpiS https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring_cover.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/The_Fellowshi...
- gregw2 10mo agoAs many of you no doubt know, some people (did you know even 3 days after Hiroshima?![1]) likened Tolkein's One Ring to the power of the atomic bomb developed in the same era: a technology molded by hidden genius, capable of unspeakable power so deadly it must actually /not/ be used, but instead, must be carefully guarded by a small band until it can be destroyed. So that true peace is possible again. Tolkein of course denied this[2] .... and the timing wasn't right[3] and ... he wasn't a big fan of allegory[4], right? However, perhaps he foresaw, however unconsciously or through shadow knowledge shared by others or Bentham's Panopticon[5] or seen too by Orwell' 1985[6], the coming surveillance state. After all, in the trenches of WW1 he took his place managing signals communications in a battalion[7] and when WW2 arrived was approached to be a cryptographer, (even taking four days of preparatory courses on the subject![8] Before getting turned down[9].). Foresaw what and shared how you ask? That other, subtler, great Tool of Power to come out of WW2 -- the use of, and covert exposure of, signals encryption. Encryption exerts its power in a manner not unlike one of the key functions of the rings... Anyone bearing the One Ring or the nine, who then puts on the ring -- like using encryption -- instantly makes themselves "hidden" to the mortal fellows around you. But tragically, the prolonged use and reliance upon such power deepens and ensures ever increasing temptations and corruptions. And such ring (encryption) use -- most unintuitively and dangerously -- makes you more, not less visible to the maker of the rings. (Just as cyphertext stands out in a sea of plaintext.[10] (See Tor today[11], or in WW2 the then-novel phenomena known as radar traceback.[13] Or the then-novel-but-even-more-covert encryption traffic analysis[14].) Perhaps he saw. And knew. ... And why too the numeric gap between 1 ring, 3 for elves, 7, and the 9? Nobody knows for sure[15]. Perhaps too some linguistic colleague had whispered to the maker-of-languages (languages as obscure at that time as those of the Apache Code Talkers[16] and similarly perhaps unappreciatedly utilitarian) that... we already had "5 Eyes"[17]?? Perhaps then Tolkein knew? And passed on the word, for those willing to hear... Poor Tolkein, he became beloved by the very Morlocks[18], err, 'easily corruptible men of middle earth" he warned about. ... [1...18] Out of time! References available upon request. Or web search... Don't get me started on how this all connects to the Eye of Providence[19] or the Eye of Horus[20]! ;)
- rdtsc 10mo ago> I wonder what Tolkien would say of so much of the symbolism from his novels being used to bootstrap a horrible dystopian control grid? What is that referring to? Some new LotR adaptation or some new game? > The way that orcs are dehumanized you have to wonder. Why would they be humanized, they are not human?
- Angostura 10mo agoIs there a version minus the music?
- grumbelbart2 10mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6mcEPhhRg&list=PLMMxav_zz6kIQ8ZaRmN1YNw0Fj8hrr0Qm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6mcEPhhRg&list=PLMMxav_zz6...
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- wewewedxfgdf 10mo agoThis is the most magnificent audio version ever recorded of The Hobbit - by Nicol Williamson in the early 1970's. Zip file with mp3 in it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2aPKgVVguOKMOOqWskaliOviYr5anlL/view?usp=drive_link0 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2aPKgVVguOKMOOqWskaliOviYr... Best enjoyed on a rainy afternoon in an armchair with a cup of tea.
- wigster 10mo agonice - gandalf meets merlin. do love Nicol Williamson
- nihakue 10mo agoExcellent, but my favourite has to be the Rob Inglis recordings (of both The Hobbit and LOTR). The songs are top notch, and his voice is perfect, esp. for the tone of the Hobbit. https://archive.org/details/TheHobbitAudiobook/The+Hobbit/Chapter+01+-+An+Unexpected+Party.mp3 https://archive.org/details/TheHobbitAudiobook/The+Hobbit/Ch...
- mwcz 10mo agoMartin Shaw's recording of the Silmarillion is similarly wonderful.
- iammiles 10mo agoWhile we’re at it, Christopher Lee’s narration of Children of Húrin deserves a mention.
- grumbelbart2 10mo ago> but my favourite has to be the Rob Inglis recordings Impressive, very nice. Let's see Paul Allen's recording.
- subpixel 10mo agoThese really blew me away. I have a theory that he recorded the narration and dialogue of each character individually and then it was all edited together - it seems impossible to switch back and forth between such incredible character deliveries on the fly. Or perhaps this is just how that kind of work is done. Regardless, an amazing job.
- alex1138 10mo agoOf course he didn't live to see the Peter Jackson movies but I think I've heard his son didn't like them
- ekianjo 10mo agoThe Hobbit movies had nothing to do with the books.
- alex1138 10mo agoSorry, I meant LOTR
- ekianjo 10mo agoEven the LOTR adaptation is questionable. Gandalf kicking Pippin (the exact opposite of what happens in the book), the lack of the scouring of the Shire, and super-Legolas right out of a Marvel movie...
- christophilus 10mo agoLegolas was kind of super in the books, though. I think Faramir was the worst character assassination in the movies.
- teddyh 10mo agoAlso Gimli.
- KineticLensman 10mo agoAlso Pippin and Merry, who are basically annoying teenagers in the films, even if they do some useful things.
- deeg 10mo agoI have a lot of criticism for some of the plot changes that jackson made but I'll credit him for this: his films are the first dramatic sword & sorcery type movies that got the tone right and aren't cringe worthy. The previous attempts at LOTR are awful.
- haunter 10mo agoMy favorite recent LotR media: There is a Lord of the Rings MMO (like World of Warcraft) and a guy made a video recording a walk from the Shire to Mordor. Like you can just walk from the Shire to Mordor in the game. And it's almost 10 hours long in real world time to do that! But on top of that the whole journey is narrated by the Lord of the Rings audio book, with the relevant parts of the journey. https://youtu.be/LYipECdYpXc https://youtu.be/LYipECdYpXc Incredibly relaxing
- dtgriscom 10mo agoA nice, relaxing trip to Mordor.
- vhtr 10mo agoOh man, something to watch and listen to in the evenings to come, thank you! I don't have experience with the LotR Online outside of small clips here and there, but for the past 5 years or so I have been enjoying a bit more retro LotR "mmorpg", a free-to-play MUD that has been in development since 1991 or something: https://mume.org/ https://mume.org/ In MUME (Multi-Users in Middle Earth) getting from Bree to Mordor by walking won't take you 10 hours, but maybe 10 minutes at most. However, the trip and the destination will be full of dangers, whether it's from pve or pvp side of things. As a side note, MUME is being developed by volunteers, and I believe the game itself is still ran on some Swiss University servers, where it all began, heh.
- vitorfblima 10mo agoBack in the day I used to log in to a MUSH called Elendor (telnet). It was simply magical and I have many good memories venturing through middle-earth and meeting fellow chars.
- vhtr 10mo agoIt is crazy to me how captivating and immersive text-based games can be. I've been exploring them for fun in recent years, the roots of modern mmorpgs. Fun to come across stuff you still have in modern games. :)
- mexicocitinluez 10mo agoPeople who don't like "On The Road" should listen to Jack read it in his own voice.
- hackerforkie 10mo ago[dead]
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- seawsurf 10mo agoIt is amazing how Lord of the Rings persists in the world. Christopher Lee reading the Children of Hurin is also fantastic.
- nelblu 10mo agotangential comment, but if anyone is interested in one of the best (imo "legendary") audio books on LOTR look no further than Phil Dragash : https://archive.org/details/tlotrunabridged https://archive.org/details/tlotrunabridged.
- elcritch 10mo agoOkay who’s going to clone this using AI and have it read the entire book? Anyone?!
- willdotphipps 10mo agoI drink in his old local. A bit weird in there I would imagine if you're an American. Although I am a bit American and it is a bit weird in there.
- linksnapzz 10mo agoWhat, the bird & baby?
- harywilke 10mo agoRanged Touch's Shelved By Genre podcast is doing an entire year on The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings. https://rangedtouch.com/2026/01/02/the-hobbit-part-1/ https://rangedtouch.com/2026/01/02/the-hobbit-part-1/
- russellbeattie 10mo agoI listen to a lot of Audiobooks and some authors are really, really not suited to read their own works of fiction. Some are definitive, however. If you haven't heard Douglas Adams read all his books [1], you're definitely missing out. They're harder to track down, and not the best quality as most are copied from old tape cassettes, but I love listening to the genius at work. Yahtzee Croshaw reading his books is fantastic [2]. As is Patrick Rothfuss reading The Slow Regard of Silent Things [3]. A more recent author I listened to was Adrian Tchaikovsky reading Service Model [4]. He was so good, I checked to see if he had theater training! Really great. 1. https://youtu.be/F_tcznHREXE https://youtu.be/F_tcznHREXE 2. https://www.youtube.com/live/NNpQROC7dWA https://www.youtube.com/live/NNpQROC7dWA 3. https://youtu.be/wm6T7uUr_C8 https://youtu.be/wm6T7uUr_C8 4. https://youtu.be/Myl1ChiFGTw https://youtu.be/Myl1ChiFGTw
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