If you judged a book or a movie badly by the fact that the good guy wins then you would have only a few books and movies left to choose from. Did Harry Potter and his friends lose or die in his books in the end? Is Harry Potter the bad guy? In the Lord of the Rings plenty of good guys are killed including Boromir and the Steward of Gondor, Denethor. I reckon the spiders in the second Harry Potter movie were highly remeniscent of the Hobbit. There is a page on Ents in Appendix F. I find them to be more believable than some other fictional characters in stories.
Ents. The most ancient people surviving in the Third Age were the Onodrim or Enyd. Ent was the form of their name in the language of Rohan. They were known to the Eldar in ancient days, and to the Eldar indeed the Ents ascribed not their own language but the desire for speech. The language that they had made was unlike all others: slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive, indeed long-winded; formed of a multiplicity of voiwel-shades and distinctions of tone and quantity which even the lore masters of the Eldar had not attempted to represent in writing. They used it only among themselves; but they had no need to keep it secret, for no others could learn it.
Ents were, however, themselves skilled in tongues, learning them swiftly and never forgetting them. But they preferred the languages of the Eldar, and loved best the ancient High-elven tongue. The strange words and names that the Hobbits record as used by Treebeard and other Ents are this Elvish, or fragments of Elf-speech strung together in Ent-fashion.¹ Some are Quenya: as Taureli-lómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor, which may be rendered ‘Forestmanyshadowed-deepvalleyblack Deepvalleyforested Gloomyland’, and by which Treebeard meant, more or less : ‘there is a black shadow in the deep dales of the forest’. Some are Sindarin : as Fangorn ‘beard-(of)-tree’, or Fimbrethil ‘slender-beech’.
¹ Except where the Hobbits seem to have made some attempts to represent the shorter murmurs and calls made by the Ents; a-lalla-lalla-rumba-kamanda-lindor-burúme also is not Elvish, and is the only extant (probably very inaccurate) attempt to represent a fragment of actual Entish.
I agree that in almost every movie/book combination the book is better. LOTR is an amazing story. Not only is it a great story but the background that surrounds it is amazing as well. I think, however, that the movies have been better than the books. The books contain more of the story but the writing is poor. Again it is an amazing story, but it is written poorly.
Well this should get some comments.
Sal
PS LOTR is much better than Harry Potter, as far as storylines go.
How can you say that? That was some of the best writing I had ever read! (And I’ve read quite a few books.) He just used old words frequently. I thought it was kind of cool to see what they meant. (Great for confusing people at school, those words. ) I guess everyone doesn’t like LOTR as much as me though. Oh well.
In Harry Potter, the most evil wizard in the world has come back to life! The good guys have lost/died plenty of times, as have the bad guys. Harry’s Parents, Neville’s parents, Cedric, Hagrid’s mother, etc.
Monkey Juggler, claiming that Lord of the Rings is poorly written suggests to me that your reading ability is impaired or biased towards a particular style. Many critics will agree that Lord of the Rings is exceptionally well written.
James Potter, although I have never read any Harry Potter books to be able to compare them, the points which you have used seem to come straight from other books. The idea that Harry Potters parents died is a cliche which is repeated in many stories. The Witches by Roald Dahl is one that comes to mind. A hero who’s parents have died gives you the idea that they are strong and independent since they have dealt with their loss. You said that walking trees is something that is not realistic. And yet you are happy to believe that a grumpy willow tree catches Harry Potter’s Magic flying car. Also you believe in Flying Broomsticks and Familiars? I think both LOTR and Harry Potter can be believed if you use your imagination and forget about reality. I also think that Harry Potter was largely inspired by Lord of the Rings along with countless other Books and fantasy games including Dungeons and Dragons.
You probably saw the 2nd Harry Potter movie, didn’t you? Because it’s not a ‘grumpy willow tree.’ The book states that it is a type of tree known as a Whomping Willow, whereas the Lord of the Rings doesn’t state any reason that I could figure out as to why there were trees walking around the forest.
Adn you’re right, both LOTR and HP can be believable if you use imagination. I just find that Harry Potter is more believable(to me, anyway), so I like it better.
Great wizard picture, by the way.
>…the Lord of the Rings doesn’t state any reason that I >could figure out as to why there were trees walking around >the forest.
Are you totally daft??? It says all kinds of things aobut the Ents if you care to read the appendices, like any motivated person would do. I guess you weren’t looking all that hard for info about Ents. The story itself says quite a bit about them too if you care to notice it. But no, give up the search before it has begun and bow to your laziness. LOTR is also a great learning series. It has fundamental themes in it, like friendship and wisdom, as well as countless others that I don’t have time to list. You should read the book. Not “read the book again”, but “read the book”. It seems as though you got absolutely nothing out of it the first time around, so another try might help. Heck, you might even like it.
No, I probably didn’t read it well enough, and I’m going to this summer. The first time I was on a deadline for a book report, so I didn’t stop to look at the details.
By the way, we were simply debating about the HP vs LOTR battle, and then you posted a bunch of insults to me(even though it’s obvious that I’m the only HP fanatic here). So try not to do that again. okay?
Look i thoroughly enjoyed both Harry Potter books and LOTR, on the other hand the Harry potter movies sucked hairy chin balls, and LOTR kicked arse. so by average LOTR wins.
What i want to know is why you have been wasting so much time on this stupid argument that no-one will win when you could be unicycling!!!
Mark
The LOTR books are damned amazing!
The HP books are pretty good!
The LOTR films are incredible!!!
The HP are too cheesy and don’t live up to the quality of the books.
Rowan,
I love the person attacks, keep them coming. I assure you my reading ability is not impaired. It may be true, however, that I am biased towards a certain style (Aren’t we all.). I agree that LOTR is one of the “…the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century.” (Sunday Telegraph). That does not suggest that the writing style is particularly wonderful. It does praise the story and all of its details. In my post above, I agreed with this statement.
Unisteve,
The vocabulary doesn’t bother me. I did not find the stories difficult or challenging to read because of them. Perhaps I should state my reasoning behind finding them poorly written. I find that LOTR drags on at times. It is not the story that causes this to happen and it is not the detail. It is the style of writing. I think that there are many other books out there to read that would give a better experience than LOTR. The movie is exceptional and can easily replace the experience of reading the book.
well played sal. enjoyed the humor and dignity. i give you ''props". i wish we could all keep our cool like that. anyway, i’m a lotr fan and i must say it does seem to drag on(the first 9 chapters of book 1?) and can be abridged without losing much(like in the movie). but, this dragging on effect only lends to the very real nature of the books; it almost seems like history.
or maybe i just prefer fictional history to real history. i mean, does anyone care about some guys who left some island for some land across a pond, to find gold and kill natives?
i’d rather read about elves killing orcs, but that’s just me.
no comment on whether harry potter is better than lord of the rings.
I agree with you on that point. I still love the story and the style and stuff like that, but I agree that it drags on. I have not read many other long books to be able to compare, but I find that when they are in the House of Elrond just hanging around it is hard to stay interested. It made me want to get through it as fast as I could to get to the next exciting part. Several people have mentioned the quality of the music in the movie. I think the music is ok but it sends me to sleep. I prefer faster heavier music (which probably does not suit the style of the film). I have seen the first two movies over and over and I think I only ever watched the whole thing on each first viewing, and on consecutive viewings I fell asleep somewhere in the middle. That does not mean I don’t like the Lord of the Rings. Maybe its my ever-changing sleep pattern or something I was smoking before the movie that helped send me off to sleep.
The LOTR books are damned amazing!
The HP books are pretty good!
The LOTR films are incredible!!!
The HP are too cheesy and don’t live up to the quality of the books.