June 27, 2002

Balance of Power
Glorfindel

Hey Annatar

Re the Istari matching Sauron.

In any good fantasy even in some mediocre fantasty power is always with the bad guys.

Your typical lower level stuff has some Conan type able to hack through any number of bad guys, flexing mighty "thews" whatever they are.

In the good stuff our heroes are always up against it. Be a much shorter book if the 5 Istari had have beaten up on Sauron and won the day.

That's one thing that I think the movie did very well, showed the value of loyalty, bravery, friendship and mercy, in the face of overwhelming power. Contrasts nicely to the real world where there are no unusable weapons and the guys with the biggest guns seem to win.