September 30, 2003

Re: Frodo_lives, Killa, Wormtongue's Vial
Bob Praz

Welcome back Frodo_Lives. I'm sorry you don't like the Tom Bombadil chapters, they happen to be some of my favourite, but I can understand how others would find it boring (and I agree with PJ's decision to cut it out, along with the Scouring of the Shire). Anyhow, no one knows FOR SURE who Tom Bombadil is, but in all the debates over it the only possibility that seems to work is that of him being a Maia. However Tolkien deliberately ommitted the definition of his nature, as, like the professor said himself, all fantasy stories need their enigmas. Bombadil is an interesting and peculiar character exactly because we really don't know what he is. I guess all the same stuff can be said for Goldberry. As for the Barrow-wights, they are evil spirits from the realm of Angmar, who entered the barrows in the days of the great plague and the fall of Cardolan. I hope this answers some of your questions.

Killa, from what I've heard a while ago New Line DID publicly admit that a bad batch of TTT DVDs were released. It was posted some weeks ago on warofthering.net, but I can't find the news archive so I don't remember what they said they would do about it. I think there was a deal that you could replace your DVD at whateve store you bought it, but I don't know what the conditions were. Anyhow, hope you'll be able to obtain a good version of the DVD. (I'm lucky my DVD is fine, but I guess my city didn't get any DVDs fromthat particular batch)

About Wormtongue's vial that Lilly posted about some time ago, I've read an article on TORn (theonering.net) recently where Dan Hennah (art director on LOTR) said that the vial contained the poison that Grima uses to kill Theodred. He wasn't too clear about whether this will be on the extended DVD, but I sure hope it will (I've always thought that Wormtongue kills Theodred in the movie, just because of the way he comes up and says: "oh...he must have died...sometime in the night.")

Finally, ELROND BRINGS NARSIL TO ARAGORN! By the time this is posted, I'm sure you'll probably already know, having seen the ROTK trailer, but finally we know who brings Anduril! I am still worried about how Elrond will play in ROTK, however, but we'll have to wait and see (as always, "sigh").

P.S.: Haven't posted in a while, so naturally this article is very long. oh, man...