October 4, 2003

Ho, Boy, Do I Have a Lot to Respond To!
Jarrickon Half-elven

First, foremost, and altogether before anything else, I must hearken to Lilly's lamentation of a while ago and say this: Please, people, spell my name correctly!! I came onto the forum today (it wasn't working yesterday) and there were at least three different malevolent misspellings at work. Please. I am Jarrickon Falconn, the Half-elven. I don't mind if you call me Jarrickon, or Mr. Falconn, or even "Yo, Half-Elf!", but I beg you, don't call me Jarrickson (Son of Jarrick) ever again.

Secondly, I hereby withdraw from the religion debate. I have stated all my intent, I know full well what I believe (and that is not changing), and frankly, I tire of the bickering. I will go to Heaven when I die; hopefully and probably most of you will too, and therefore I am done. I would debate matters without ceasing gladly if I were to meet any of you in person, however there is only so much I can relate to you in writing. Therefore, I officially end the argument, on my part at least, and I dearly hope all of you will too.

Now, to move on to what we all knew was inevitable: the superbly magnificent trailer for the Return of the King!!! ~*~Read no further if you detest spoilers.~*~ From the first shot of a great shaft of blue light issuing from Minas Morgul to the last scene of a hopeless Samwise screaming in protest of Frodo claiming the Ring, this trailer was simply awesome. Shelob was satisfactorily terrifying (take it from a profound arachniphobe), and of equally satisfying proportions. In the book, she is described as being, 'huger than any hunting beast.' This means she a noticeable degree larger than an Arctic polar bear or Siberian tiger. In the brief glimpse we have of her in the trailer she is a considerable distance from Frodo and the camera, and all we can see is several legs and her hideous head (her abdomen, which is bound to be much huger than her head, is completely out of picture). The Galadriel shot with webbed Frodo I believe to be a representation of this excerpt from Shelob’s Lair:

Then the light became colour: green, gold, silver, white. Far off, as in a little picture drawn by elven fingers, he saw the Lay Galadriel standing on the grass in Lórien, and gifts were in her hands. "And you, Ring-bearer," he heard her say, remote but clear, "for you I have prepared this."

Master McNabb, I came to the conclusion that Iarwain Ben-adar and his wife Goldberry were Maiar through logical deduction. He could not be Eru Ilúvatar, for when it was suggested at the Council of Elrond that the Ring be given to Bombadil to guard, the motion failed for it was said that he would lose it, or forget about it. The Lord of Eä would not be so foolish as to do that, and I believe He would have more of a care for the world at large than Tom seems to have. Bombadil also cannot be Elf, Man, Dwarf, or Perian because he was neither seduced nor allured by the Ring to even the smallest degree. It had absolutely no hold over him. He cannot be an Orc, Ent, or Troll because of description discrepancies alone. As for a spirit of nature, Tolkien’s faith was not an animistic one, and therefore I doubt he would have written of nature having spirits of its own. The closest thing we have to that, and the only known species left is that of the Ainur, in which we have the two sects, the Maiar and the Valar. I do not opt for the Valar, for in the Silmarillion their personalities seem to be quite removed from Bombadil’s. The only Vala that even comes remotely close is Yavanna, creator of the Two Trees, yet she, quite unlike Ben-adar, is female. Thus our likeliest choice, without saying that Tom and Goldberry are the lone members of an unnamed race, is that they are Maiar.

Niphredil, I believe that only the Troll’s massive war hammer was illuminated by the shaft of sunlight that shone on Balin’s Tomb. Even if a bit of light did splay on his hands though, I doubt such a small amount of light, so far removed from the sun, would be enough to permanently fossilize him.

So you’ve at last reached the end. Well, I warned you I had a lot to say!

Namárië!

PS: I apologize, Pip, for calling you ‘Tookish.’ It was never my intent to either sound nor be condescending.