So Did We Really Need Gollum?
So all throughout Lord of the Rings, we’re told how “pity stayed Bilbo’s hand” and how it’s a good thing that Bilbo couldn’t choose who lived and who died. And sure enough, as Frodo gets to Mount Doom, he falters, and it is poor tormented Gollum who actually saves the day. So yay for morality!
The question is: what would have happened if Bilbo had shanked Gollum?
Because remember, the whole reason why Sauron and the Ringwraiths knew where the Ring was? Because they captured Gollum and tortured him until he gave up Bilbo’s name. So if Bilbo had just stabbed Gollum and left him for dead, Sauron would be clueless as to where The One Ring was.
…but Gandalf would know. Because the chain of events that starts Gandalf’s investigation of The Ring has a fixed point: Bilbo’s 111th birthday. Bilbo decides to leave the Shire then, on that day, using the Ring in full view of Gandalf, then having a junkie freakout that make Gandalf go, “Maybe I should check up on the history of this ring.”
With Gollum dead, the heroes actually have a head start on Sauron. Which means they don’t have to travel quietly and isolated to avoid the Ringwraiths, they don’t get Frodo stabbed, they don’t have to make a detour to the elves to save poor stabbed Frodo.
“But Gollum saves the ring at the end!” you cry. “Without him, when Frodo’s will weakens…” Except that if they can get to Mount Doom fast enough, they don’t need to worry about that. In the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo’s ring addiction is so paltry that he actually tries to give the ring away twice, once to Gandalf and once to Galadriel. Clearly, at any point in the Fellowship, Frodo would have zero issues chucking the Ring into the lava.
So technically speaking, if we can speed up Frodo’s trip to Mount Doom sufficiently, we have zero need for Gollum. The question is, how quickly does that need to be?
Plus, at least in the films, Gollum is actually an enabler, telling Frodo how his world view is justified, how everyone does want to take the Ring from him, causing schisms between Sam and Frodo. In a very real way, Gollum actually accelerates Frodo’s addiction, probably worsening it.
Without Gollum, there’s a good chance that Gandalf and Aragon just escort Frodo quickly to Mount Doom, without all the side trips and arguments and spider-related shenanigans, in time for Frodo to chuck the Ring in while he’s still got the guts to do it.
So I ask you Tolkien nerds: assuming that Gollum is out of the picture, and that our heroes have a head start on the evil armies of Sauron and can work without interference (at least in the early game), then can we get Frodo to Mount Doom in time to not need a villain to interfere? (Assuming that, once again, the eagles are dicks who don’t air-freight the ring to Mount Doom because, hey, we’re frickin’ dicks.)
Because seriously, I think we could get Frodo there a lot quicker. Maybe even in time.
What do you think happens if Gollum gets the shank?
The Hobbit: The Mostly Spoiler-Free Review
The entire time I was watching the Hobbit, I thought, “If the Star Wars Prequels had been done like this, there would have been a lot less complaining.”
This is not to say that The Hobbit is as good as Lord of the Rings – it isn’t, merely because despite Peter Jackson’s attempts to infuse The Hobbit with LotR’s gravitas, it’s a smaller and fluffier tale. But it knows how to get fanservice right. There’s so many delightful moments in this for those who loved the movies that it feels like going back home again. And maybe it’s a little long, and a little silly at times, but there’s pleasure in revisiting that comfy, comfy hobbit-hole.
Beyond that, I’m too tired to string together bits into an essay, so let’s just bullet-point.
Martin Freeman is wonderful as Bilbo, mainly because he refuses to be shackled by Ian Holm’s performance. Martin Freeman’s Bilbo is the quintessence of befuddled, polite Brit – trying to be nice, yearning for something greater, but not quite honest enough to tell people how he’s really feeling unless he’s backed against the wall. It’s a delightful performance, filled with great body language and perfect comedic timing….
…but that would all be for naught if Martin’s Bilbo didn’t have a heroic side to him, too. We know, because the movies tell us he will, that Bilbo stayed his hand for Gollum out of pity. We know, because of narrative need to show Bilbo’s character development, that this must be A Moment in the movie. And when the time comes for Bilbo to put on his Big Damn Hero pants, it’s all the more effective because no, he isn’t a hero, he’s a small man determined to do right.
The Dwarves were largely a mass of indeterminate beards, but I plucked a few personalities out of the bunch: Thorin, this movie’s Aragorn, the old smart infodump dwarf, the stupid young one, the two fighting ones. This isn’t really a detraction, though, as the dwarves are supposed to be a chaos, and so they are. Much is made in the film of people counting them to ensure they haven’t missed one, and that’s a nice subtle cue to the reader that no, we don’t really know them all either.
The movie zipped along quite nicely. I was expecting ass-creep, got very little. People who complain about the pacing may have a point, but I suspect for them there’s no joy in seeing all the tiny parallels and fleshing-outs of LotR’s world. I kept going, “Oh! Now I know where that came from!” As I said: fan-service.
Peter Jackson has a sense of spectacle. This film is gorgeous eye-candy, and that also speeds things along.
Hey, remember when Legolas stabbed an orc with one arrow, then shot another orc with the same arrow, and that was badass? And then Legolas did the flippy-thing on the horse in Two Towers, and that was badass? And then Peter Jackson went batshit crazy and had Legolas take down an Oliphaunt in a movie that should have been badass, but instead defied physics to the point where instead of shouting in triumph, you instead suppressed a Flintstone-like urge to yell “YABBA DABBA DOO!”? Well, sadly, a large portion of the last third of the film consists of a CGI spectacle where physics fail to matter, like the elephany battle squared, and you have a bunch of dwarves jumping and fighting in ways that would clearly not work in the real world, and as such it feels more like a videogame than anything you actually care about. It’s exciting, but there’s zero tension because, like Indiana Jones, you’re excruciatingly aware that these are guys fighting imaginary constructs on videogame platforms. And that’s a very sad loss, because this should be a great battle sequence and instead it’s just more eye candy.
The Gollum scene is delightful, as is Gollum. My love for Andy Serkis swellss. Unfortunately, the other CGI creations that get full-sequence aren’t nearly as compelling; in particular, a legendary Orc badass looks very plasticine in closeups, with waxy scars, and I kept going, “Uh, yeah, that’s fake.”
The soundtrack is wonderfully interlaced; the Dwarf mourning song feels very organically placed into the film, and the way the movie interlaces threads of old LotR themes with new ones is quite delightful; little tidbits of hobbitness whenever Bilbo’s feeling homesick, snippets of The Ring theme showing up here and there until, like the Aston Martin in Skyfall, the arrival of the One Ring lets it blaze forth…. It’s delightfully done.
Given how quickly X show up when Y requests their presence, do not tell me how the X couldn’t have dispatched the ring right quick in LotR if they’d wanted to. These guys are delivery service.
The additions to the film are, as I feared, more Jackson than Tolkien. There’s a lot of sequences where we get to see Big Spectacle and maybe don’t need to, but Jackson wanted an exciting chase sequence here, and so he sifted through the Silmarillion until he found a sentence somewhere that justified it. And there’s a big ol’ meeting where people stand around and go, “SAURON’S DEFEATED, WE TOTALLY DON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT HIM,” and Gandalf is like, “No, hey, Sauron is totes coming three films from now,” and they’re all like, “Well, let’s discuss this some more.” Which is not entirely successful at grafting the events of The Hobbit to Lord of the Rings, mainly because it’s a very long and talky scene, but on the other hand it’s kind of like watching the remaining members of Nirvana reunite in that yeah, maybe it’s not that great but you’re just happy to see ’em all standing around again.
Is that Doctor Who as Radagast the Brown? Holy fuck, I’m glad the man still has a career! Go you.
First, Do No Harm?
You know what I hardly see anyone ever talking about in polyamory? What responsibilities we have, if any, to our lovers’ other partners.
’cause I know if I wrote an essay on “Here’s how poly people abuse their lovers,” I’d get a zillion fist-pumps and a hundred inbound links and a hundred comments going, “SO TRUE! Polyamory is all about being good to the one you love.”
But if I wrote an essay about “Here’s how poly people abuse their lovers’ partners,” I suspect I’d get a faceful of awkward silence, followed by a round of defensive, “Well, it’s not my problem. I don’t need to worry what happens over there.”
Yet that shit happens. You and I both know there are so-called “poly people” who start dating with the idea of chipping away at all the other lovers, edging them out like this was some sort of battle in the arena. You and I both know that there are folks who don’t ask, “Hey, is this cool with your other partners?” when they’re both caught up in NRE and spiralling out of control. You and I both know that for every case of polydickery, there’s another eager poly person going, “Well, every time I kiss him it’s like tin foil on her teeth, but I don’t care if she’s hurting as long as I’m satiated!”
You’ve got a lot of folks who are basically saying, “Well, if those other people get hurt, that’s awesome, as long as I get what I want.”
And I dunno. I treat poly like I’m going camping in the woods; leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures. (Lots and lots of pictures.) When I’m operating in someone else’s ecosystem, I try to be respectful of not just them, but the people they supposedly love. And if I sense they’re acting in a way that might potentially hurt those people, I take a full stop and go, “Wait, is this okay?”
Which leads to some really awkward and painful fucking conversations. It’s killed some chances at sex, because some folks get really upset when you double-check their motivations. But my whole goal is to leave this relationship as I left it; when I walk away, I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that even if things are dysfunctional, at least I didn’t function it more.
…which is not to say that I’m a slave to the poly web. If I think my lover’s dating someone who’s doing something bad or irrational, I’ll discuss that with them, encourage them to bring those awful habits up for discussion. In doing so, I make some more room for myself. But I always try to treat the guy (or girl) on the other side of me with respect, so at least if I’m pushing an agreement they know why.
Yet that’s also an aspect of privilege. I’ve got my primary, and I’m always going home to snuggle up in a warm bed with someone I love. If I was in the all-secondary, all-the-time club, would I be so magnanimous? There’s a good chance I wouldn’t. It’d be harder to walk away when the alternative is masturbation in an empty apartment.
I think the reason why the polyamorous really hate having these discussions is because getting to the partners on the other side is fuckin’ hard, yo. You’re not dating them. In many cases, you may not like them enough to want to sit down for long couch sessions to determine what they want. In some cases you may see them as actively toxic. You’re seeking out the company of people you don’t want to have conversations you hate to have that may lead to a breakup.
As noted, my insistence on “…and is this okay with the collective?” has torpedoed a couple of relationships. It’s caused some intense fights I would have preferred to avoid, leading to premature shakeouts. It’d be a lot easier just to shrug my shoulders and go, “Fuck it, that’s their issue” – and maybe that’s the correct thing to do. You can’t save everyone from their own desires, and if they’ve got a problem, then they should have the guts to walk away.
And you get more sex and love. For you.
Still, personally? I can’t counsel a polyamory where you’re okay with protecting your lovers, and okay with watching the people your lover supposedly cares about get brutalized. To me, that has the unpleasant stink of psychopathy about it, in that those “in the circle” are deserving of protection and those “outside” can eat a dick.
Plus, there’s also the aspect that I’m going to be an occasional inconvenience; that’s just how it is. If my lover is callously disregarding her other partners’ feelings when I’m the new hotness in town, how can I trust that she won’t do the same to me when the new star rises in the east?
I dunno. If my partner is dating people I can’t fucking stand on any level, perhaps that’s a valid approach; shes got me. Dating all people like me might be too redundant, and so she finds people with wildly varying personalities to fulfill all the various needs in her life. But if they’re so opposed that I can’t sit down with them for an evening and have pleasant conversation, that’s a dealbreaker for me. I don’t want to have to tiptoe that much.
Thing is, if people weigh in, I’m sure they’ll weigh in as though there are clear and easy moral answers to this. There aren’t. Which maybe is why you don’t see a lot of ramblings like this hitting Kinky and Popular on FetLife; it’s really easy to thunder, “DON’T FUCK OVER PEOPLE YOU LOVE!” Because if you did that, you were 100% wrong.
Yet it’s a lot less morally satisfying to say, “Don’t fuck over people you don’t really care about.” Because you probably have, on some level. And knowing how to avoid that is tough, yo. Tough.
Spending My Time Wisely
Where was I at 12:12:12 today?
Curled up in my wife’s arms. Just the way we’d been on December 31st, 1999, 11:59:59, watching the numbers change. No cell phone, no Internet, just ensured that we were together for this transition, as we’ll be together for all transitions.
It’s a tiny, foolish thing. But our lives are knitted together by tiny, foolish things. We embrace them, just as we embrace each other when the last-of-a-lifetime event slips by so noisily.
Love you, sweetie. More than meatballs.
In Other News, I Kind Of Adore This Breakup Song
I don’t know why I adore this as much as I do. The song is pretty simple, and the singing isn’t particularly great… but I think that’s part of what makes it for me. This painfully honest and simple breakup, as chronicled via harmonica, wind instrument, and a dance that I think we all should do from time to time.
How Borderlands 2 Lied To Me
So I’ve been playing a fair amount of Borderlands 2, and last night I finally thumped my head against the glass ceiling; level 50, babies. As high as one can go.
It’s been fun, because Borderlands 2 is not, shall we say, a challenging game. There’s some mild elements of dexterity involved, but basically it’s an auto-gunner; the game actually has an option to aim your gun for you, homing in on the closest enemy if you get within range. (Which I use, because the X-Box controller sucks for fine reticule targeting. I miss my mouse.) There’s no penalty for dying except they scrape a bit of cash off your account. It’s nothing like, say, the moderate complexity of Half-Life.
Mostly, Borderlands 2 is about optimizing your build.
It’s a spreadsheet game. How good a gun can you get? (As some wag noted, in Borderlands 2, you aren’t a character, you are your gun.) What skill tree can you max out to support this fabulous gun? Can you team up with a friend to get better weapon drops? And from there, it’s all about maximizing damage per second and taking advantages of cooldown times. Occasionally you have to find cover, but if you feel like it you can just walk in guns a-blazing until someone drops you, then respawn and go back.
And that’s oddly relaxing, because I don’t have to work really hard to get ahead in this game, I just have to go here and shoot something and go there and fetch something, and it’s enough activity to keep the game-brain ticking without actually frustrating me. I can just get into the groove for a few hours.
It wasn’t until the expansions came out, bringing with them special multiplayer-only “raid bosses,” that I realized what Borderlands 2 had done to me:
This was a MMORPG.
A single-player MMORPG.
Once I realized that, it all became clear: the obsession with equipment, the hunt for better drops, even the dudes hanging around with exclamation points over their head. I’d never played a MMORPG because, well, a game with no end point is a one-way ticket to unemployment for addicted old me. But here I was, several months of my life into this game, and they’d snuck a MMORPG in under the radar.
And just as predicted, it sucked out several months of my life. These things are predicated on the Diablo model of advancement; I know Yahtzee hates the “drop and stop” method of playing, but it’s a way of constantly littering your path with just enough rewards to keep you hungry. It may be another two hours until you level up, but is that gun better? What about that shield? Hey, it’s orange, it must be great! And so you keep yanking that slot machine trigger, firing at things in the hopes of getting the massively great gun.
As it is, I’ll probably quit until they raise the level cap. The Pirate expansion was quite good, but the Torgue expansion is drier, and as it is the Siren build I have stops dead one level before I get Blight Phoenix, the one skill I was working towards. So unless they make it level 60, and let me have my gouts of acid, flame, and slag, then I’m not interested.
But I find it fascinating, the way that they basically ripped off much of what made World of Warcraft work and just quietly turned it into a first-person shooter. Well done, Borderlands. Well done.