The Walking Dead

[Sean Renaud]

Oh I agree that there is no particularly good explanation for why these bodies seem to have caught fire. SHC is just the stupidest of the explanations we have available.

Writers are people. That aside the plot has to wait for us to get there before it can move. That's just how stories function and most stories have various degress of "why the hell didn't so and so do this that or the other a long time ago or why didn't this random thing randomly happen sooner" and the answer is the plot. It's again the same thing that allows Daryl to use walker heads as blunt weapons and not die. Oh and be surrounded beyond all hope of rescue and survive it.

Zombies ARE magic. But we are currently pretending they are science of some sort. Besides maybe her sword does glow just not for zombies! If I recall properly Glamdrig only glows for orcs (which Tolkien was notoriously unclear on what an orc is. He seems to use Orc, Goblin and occasionally Oruk-hai (however it's spelled) somewhat interchangibly. Especially orc and goblin. The Oruks were cross bred with humans and should have been distinct but. . .Tolkien kinda did what he wanted and I guess that's the advantage of being one of the originators of the modern fantasy. Nobody was around to tell you that's not how it works.

 

[Recidiva]

Oh I agree that there is no particularly good explanation for why these bodies seem to have caught fire. SHC is just the stupidest of the explanations we have available.

Writers are people. That aside the plot has to wait for us to get there before it can move. That's just how stories function and most stories have various degress of "why the hell didn't so and so do this that or the other a long time ago or why didn't this random thing randomly happen sooner" and the answer is the plot. It's again the same thing that allows Daryl to use walker heads as blunt weapons and not die. Oh and be surrounded beyond all hope of rescue and survive it.

Zombies ARE magic. But we are currently pretending they are science of some sort. Besides maybe her sword does glow just not for zombies! If I recall properly Glamdrig only glows for orcs (which Tolkien was notoriously unclear on what an orc is. He seems to use Orc, Goblin and occasionally Oruk-hai (however it's spelled) somewhat interchangibly. Especially orc and goblin. The Oruks were cross bred with humans and should have been distinct but. . .Tolkien kinda did what he wanted and I guess that's the advantage of being one of the originators of the modern fantasy. Nobody was around to tell you that's not how it works.

Yes, you'd think that closing your palm around a zombie jaw and applying pressure would...be bad.

He was not unclear on what an orc was. Yrch were the corrupted forms of elves. Melkor is a bad guy. SOMEONE has not read the Silmarillion.

Oruks were not cross bred with humans. What the hell? It was just ... dark Saruman magic crap.

"A Wizard Did It"

 

[Sean Renaud]

Bad is an understatement. But man plot armor. That shit is awesome. I'm telling you Daryl tears can cure zombification. We just won't find out until season 9 when his daughter gets bit. The next six seasons will be about trying to get Daryl to cry again so we can save the human race!

I couldn't get through the Samarillion. I tried several times. But people who have and have read all the other notes as well agree that Tolkien used orc and goblin interchangibly at least a few times. But yes a wizard did it. . .through selective breeding. Most likely with humans.

 

[Recidiva]

Bad is an understatement. But man plot armor. That shit is awesome. I'm telling you Daryl tears can cure zombification. We just won't find out until season 9 when his daughter gets bit. The next six seasons will be about trying to get Daryl to cry again so we can save the human race!

I couldn't get through the Samarillion. I tried several times. But people who have and have read all the other notes as well agree that Tolkien used orc and goblin interchangibly at least a few times. But yes a wizard did it. . .through selective breeding. Most likely with humans.

Daryl's like a phoenix!

Son I am disappoint. No. People who are me also know that goblins are the corrupted forms of dwarves. Stop listening to other people.

They are not interchangeable, they are the corrupted forms of Iluvatar's song because Melkor.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Daryl's like a phoenix!

Son I am disappoint. No. People who are me also know that goblins are the corrupted forms of dwarves. Stop listening to other people.

They are not interchangeable, they are the corrupted forms of Iluvatar's song because Melkor.

Daryl is better than a phoneix . They tell stories of Daryl.

You mean stop reading the books. I've read the four core books and bits of the Samarillion and unfinished tales. A quick search through google will completely confirm that gobln and orc are used interchangibly throughout the novels. As for the Uruk-hai it's questionable simply because the reference is in the Unfinished tales which are of questionable cannon and refer to three groups that may or may not overlap.

 

[Recidiva]

Daryl is better than a phoneix . They tell stories of Daryl.

You mean stop reading the books. I've read the four core books and bits of the Samarillion and unfinished tales. A quick search through google will completely confirm that gobln and orc are used interchangibly throughout the novels. As for the Uruk-hai it's questionable simply because the reference is in the Unfinished tales which are of questionable cannon and refer to three groups that may or may not overlap.

"Some of those stories are bullshit, but he looked cool the whole time."

A quick search of Google will also confirm that vaccines cause autism.

 

[Sean Renaud]

When I ship your flank to the moon I want you to know it was totally because of that comment.

 

[Recidiva]

When I ship your flank to the moon I want you to know it was totally because of that comment.

I'm just glad you care. Or my flank does.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Don't try being sweet it won't. . .fine I'll be nice.

Peace offering?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/69/dd/20/69dd2072d8bf680d6bc7f10914ccbf24.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pFsJQK7.jpg
​

 

[Recidiva]

I just can't quit you.

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/funny-walking-dead-memes-9.jpg?quality=100&strip=info&w=500

 

[about_average]

I think where they've really screwed the timeline is with the baby. Yeah, it's probably a year or so old, but Carl is definitely a lot older than that and it really screws the story having that difference in aging.

Oruks were not cross bred with humans. What the hell? It was just ... dark Saruman magic crap.

Gandalf says at the council of Elrond that the Uruk-hai are the result of Sauron and Saruman breeding Orcs with men. Treebeard mentions the same in regard to Saurman.
The "Saruman magic" you refer to is coming out of the mud, that was just Jackson fucking with another part of the story.

 

[about_average]

100F for 15mins will kill a human

 

[Aquagal]

Carol is a badass in a burqa!

 

[Sean Renaud]

I think where they've really screwed the timeline is with the baby. Yeah, it's probably a year or so old, but Carl is definitely a lot older than that and it really screws the story having that difference in aging.


Gandalf says at the council of Elrond that the Uruk-hai are the result of Sauron and Saruman breeding Orcs with men. Treebeard mentions the same in regard to Saurman.
The "Saruman magic" you refer to is coming out of the mud, that was just Jackson fucking with another part of the story.

I knew I didn't make that up! My copies melted in Iraq (well more accurately the glue binding the pages to the cover did but. . .yeah they were a casualty of war. Even if they hadn't been it takes a special kind of monster not to leave your reading material behind when you leave.)

I've been calling them out on the timeline for a while. And I don't REALLY think the baby is a fully year old. I wish there were some reliable time markers or hell them MENTIONING winter again. We know from Andrea and Michonne's conversations that there was a winter (and thus three four months) between season 2 and season 3. Baby is born at the S3 Midpoint Climax. So all it would take would be for them to say "Well Winter sucked, lets get back to it!"

In the comics zombies don't like the cold. So Alaska is probably pretty much intact.

 

[Recidiva]

Gandalf says at the council of Elrond that the Uruk-hai are the result of Sauron and Saruman breeding Orcs with men. Treebeard mentions the same in regard to Saurman.
The "Saruman magic" you refer to is coming out of the mud, that was just Jackson fucking with another part of the story.

So...the magic was lots of alcohol and/or restraints?

No, no, no. Jackson is not canon. I see that there's speculation, but I don't think either Treebeard or Gandalf know, and Saruman ain't sayin'. I don't see a problem though, if it adds in being able to run in daylight. Don't see how that would make them stronger though, should weaken them. They're corrupted elves, and it seems just more elf? Oh well.

 

[about_average]

I've been calling them out on the timeline for a while. And I don't REALLY think the baby is a fully year old. I wish there were some reliable time markers or hell them MENTIONING winter again.

I think Carl's aging is a very good time marker. I just don't understand them ignoring it.
At the rate they are going when Carl is 25 the baby will still only be 5 years old.

Though maybe it's time to kill him off for being so stupid, like in last night's episode.

 

[Sean Renaud]

So...the magic was lots of alcohol and/or restraints?

No, no, no. Jackson is not canon. I see that there's speculation, but I don't think either Treebeard or Gandalf know, and Saruman ain't sayin'. I don't see a problem though, if it adds in being able to run in daylight. Don't see how that would make them stronger though, should weaken them. They're corrupted elves, and it seems just more elf? Oh well.

Again this is where Tolkien gets a bit unreliable. And Jackson does a decent job most of the time (and frankly the movies>books anyway) but breeding with humans (or whatever the process is exactly. IT is a wizard's doing. He could very well have taken ten orcs and ten men and smooshed them around.) is that they could travel during the day without pain, they were taller (orcs are naturally shortish) and they were more intelligent and thus more capable of being organized and controlled.

I think Carl's aging is a very good time marker. I just don't understand them ignoring it.
At the rate they are going when Carl is 25 the baby will still only be 5 years old.

Though maybe it's time to kill him off for being so stupid, like in last night's episode.

Carl's age isn't a good time marker at all because the series is not one year to a year of ours. Once again we know for a fact that the mid point of season 3 (Lori's Death) is pretty much exactly 9 months from the start of the series since the baby is implied to be Shanes and outright stated that Lori didn't know for sure who's it was. I was rewatching just the season premiers and pieced together some more. The gap between S3 and S4 is difficult to pin down but seems to be just a matter of days as they are still reeling from the Governors attack. S4 ends with them captured by the Termites and S5 starts with their escape. Seeing how nobody seems to have gotten ate we're talking days not weeks. S5 ends with Reggie and. . . the doctor's death. S6 starts and they haven't put the bodies in the ground. Again we're talking days.

Carl isn't a good time marker, he's actually the thing that jarringly breaks the illusion. Which got the girl killed in S2 and on Lost got. . . I believe his name was Walt, littl eblack boy? Booted off the island. Because they were supposedly only there for three months.

The easy solution mind you (especially if you're willing to do a few flashbacks like they did to show Morgan coming intot he group) is simply to start an episode with "Five years later" replace the baby with a small girl (and either kill her, sync story time to real time or accept you'll need to do this dance again someday) and call it.

 

[Recidiva]

Again this is where Tolkien gets a bit unreliable. And Jackson does a decent job most of the time (and frankly the movies>books anyway) but breeding with humans (or whatever the process is exactly. IT is a wizard's doing. He could very well have taken ten orcs and ten men and smooshed them around.) is that they could travel during the day without pain, they were taller (orcs are naturally shortish) and they were more intelligent and thus more capable of being organized and controlled.

Tolkien wasn't really "unreliable" - he genuinely didn't think anybody would give a damn about the details like this and likely didn't expect people to be arguing about it online 42 years after his death, and he'd probably tell us to relax and have a smoke.

Bad idea, Tolkien, we like arguing and I don't smoke!

I will grant to Jackson that he is a visual genius and I have been a huge fan since "The Frighteners"

However, he fucked up the story unforgivably.

By the time The Hobbit came around unforgivable had turned into "What the fuck, Tolkien is spinning in his grave and for once I'm glad he's dead so he doesn't have to see this shit storm."

You can have whatever you want on this subject and maybe Ghan-Buri-Ghan created the Uruk Hai out of used Solo cups from a frat party.

I get all the other crap he did wrong, which was a fucking lot.

He turned the Hobbits into idiots instead of competent and intuitive friends who were looking out for their chosen family out of love, not out of "Fuck, that shit chased us off the road but good."

I got cave troll and no Tom Bombadil.

Remember fucking Glorfindel! No? Because he wasn't there.

He disrespected Faramir and that alone...I mean really...

 

[Sean Renaud]

Obviiuosly he didn't predict that people would be arguing about it decades after his death. However the man was incredibly thorough in ways that 99.99% of authors would never cover. The Samarillion (which I admit I couldn't finish) is a nearly unreadable mess on par with the Bible and basically could be summed up as "here's how this world happened, lots of singing and oh yeah. That Sauran guy you're so worried about? He's a straight bitch compared to other things." He also created an entire language, has extensive footnotes on the lineages of the major characters, the weapons and the realms. Frankly that's what makes the Orc/Goblin/Manorc/Uruk-hai thing so fucking curious is that this wasn't a man prone to making oversights.

I also think if mail/email and fandoms had been like they are today he'd just clarify. The question is whether he had an idea in his head all along, if he'd go with what a majority of the fans had settled on independently of him or if he'd just go with something entirely different just to spite us. I honestly don't know enough about his personality to hazard a guess there. But those fuckers who write Supernatural do shit just to spite us at this point.

I'll take the movies over the books easily. As long as those movies are they are better paced than the books which just kind of end. (Granted that because they are really one enormous book separated into three books of two "stories" each but still. They have less unnecessary crap.

As for the Hobbit movies they are kinda hit and miss. IT's obvious from the uncompleted tales that once Tolkien got to the end he realized that a lot of these major players should have been out and about earlier and kinda started filling it in which is where Jackson got most of that stuff.

I'll grant you the Hobbits got the shit end of the stick. Someone had to. . .it should have been the dwarf. I hate stunties. You know what you throw a drowning dwarf? His wife and kids!

Oh dear god Tom Bombadil and Goldieslut. Them getting cut is one of those things that makes the movies better. That was goofball Disney shit. If I wanted that I'd go watch My Little Pony presents the Wizard of Oz. . .which would probably be entertaining as fuck but still.

Cave trolls are SWEEET. Even if they don't seem to make sense and the movies never really explain what separated them from the other trolls . . . meh I'll complain about it being stupid and enjoy it anyway.

As for Faramir we needed a level one threat. And there simply wasn't one in the book. Hell that entire battle where Faramir dies doesn't even happen until the opening of book 2. Book one effectively ends with "Well I ran outo f pages, see you next time!"

No, I don't remember Globnog at all.

 

[Recidiva]

Obviiuosly he didn't predict that people would be arguing about it decades after his death. However the man was incredibly thorough in ways that 99.99% of authors would never cover. The Samarillion (which I admit I couldn't finish) is a nearly unreadable mess on par with the Bible and basically could be summed up as "here's how this world happened, lots of singing and oh yeah. That Sauran guy you're so worried about? He's a straight bitch compared to other things." He also created an entire language, has extensive footnotes on the lineages of the major characters, the weapons and the realms. Frankly that's what makes the Orc/Goblin/Manorc/Uruk-hai thing so fucking curious is that this wasn't a man prone to making oversights.

I also think if mail/email and fandoms had been like they are today he'd just clarify. The question is whether he had an idea in his head all along, if he'd go with what a majority of the fans had settled on independently of him or if he'd just go with something entirely different just to spite us. I honestly don't know enough about his personality to hazard a guess there. But those fuckers who write Supernatural do shit just to spite us at this point.

I'll take the movies over the books easily. As long as those movies are they are better paced than the books which just kind of end. (Granted that because they are really one enormous book separated into three books of two "stories" each but still. They have less unnecessary crap.

As for the Hobbit movies they are kinda hit and miss. IT's obvious from the uncompleted tales that once Tolkien got to the end he realized that a lot of these major players should have been out and about earlier and kinda started filling it in which is where Jackson got most of that stuff.

I'll grant you the Hobbits got the shit end of the stick. Someone had to. . .it should have been the dwarf. I hate stunties. You know what you throw a drowning dwarf? His wife and kids!

Oh dear god Tom Bombadil and Goldieslut. Them getting cut is one of those things that makes the movies better. That was goofball Disney shit. If I wanted that I'd go watch My Little Pony presents the Wizard of Oz. . .which would probably be entertaining as fuck but still.

Cave trolls are SWEEET. Even if they don't seem to make sense and the movies never really explain what separated them from the other trolls . . . meh I'll complain about it being stupid and enjoy it anyway.

As for Faramir we needed a level one threat. And there simply wasn't one in the book. Hell that entire battle where Faramir dies doesn't even happen until the opening of book 2. Book one effectively ends with "Well I ran outo f pages, see you next time!"

No, I don't remember Globnog at all.

He started out because he loved languages, wanted to tie them together with an epic feel like the Kalavela. The Silmarillion is brilliant and I adore the story of Luthien and Beren over any of the others, and yes, Sam, you are my favorite, and Faramir after you, but Luthien and Beren are a better story. He told The Hobbit as a story for his son.

He didn't start out intending to write for an audience, he wrote for himself, what he enjoyed, and he shared it with his family. He is not a commercial author, he did it for the love. If you don't love, fine, but other people love.

Choosing something so personal, so specific and so built of love and not for profit, then taking it, changing it and selling it for profit...you see where I'm going here? It's crass.

Jackson did NOT get what he put in from Tolkien source material. He just made shit up for "dramatic tension" when what he did was remove what made the story poignant and wise and he turned it into slapstick.

No you didn't need a level 1 threat. You needed different approaches to the same threat and the only one Jackson could think of was "AAAAH! MAKE THEM ALL STUPID! STUPID IS WHAT WE NEED!"

Sean you ignorant slut.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I don't think most good authors write for anything but love. Sure some write simply for money (looking at you Twlight), some eventually fall in love with the cash (looking at you Stephen King and Micheal Crichton) but most write out of love. Especially the epic shit tons of fanfic out there. So I'm not certain that the fact he wasn't writing for an audiance means a damn thing. I write plenty "for me" that very rarely do other people see even if they do read the stories they are part of.

Besides that just goes back to my point of the man was thorough. Freakishly so. When I find a plot hole in Star Wars I just assume Lucas didn't give a fuck. (Unless it's on the philosophy of Jedi. That he seemed to care)

Wait, you think the Jackson's stuff is slapstick? Unless Game of Thrones is the measuring stick he was as dark and gritty as you could possibly get away with given the material. I like 90% of his changes and think they improved what was a kinda kiddy tale.

I don't see how you could end the movie the way the book did. No movie ever ends on "and they were walking. . . ."

 

[Oh_That_Guy]

I don't think most good authors write for anything but love. Sure some write simply for money (looking at you Twlight), some eventually fall in love with the cash (looking at you Stephen King and Micheal Crichton) but most write out of love. Especially the epic shit tons of fanfic out there. So I'm not certain that the fact he wasn't writing for an audiance means a damn thing. I write plenty "for me" that very rarely do other people see even if they do read the stories they are part of.

Besides that just goes back to my point of the man was thorough. Freakishly so. When I find a plot hole in Star Wars I just assume Lucas didn't give a fuck. (Unless it's on the philosophy of Jedi. That he seemed to care)

Wait, you think the Jackson's stuff is slapstick? Unless Game of Thrones is the measuring stick he was as dark and gritty as you could possibly get away with given the material. I like 90% of his changes and think they improved what was a kinda kiddy tale.

I don't see how you could end the movie the way the book did. No movie ever ends on "and they were walking. . . ."

Crichton and King absolutely cashed in later into their careers but I think King still does it for love because when he discusses writing and his work ethic regarding it, he is very much dedicated to the craft. The man writes a lot of stuff longhand. That's love.
Still, he obviously does love the money. Just like Crichton did, he now writes things that look more like screenplays than novels. Good stories still but the writing has lapsed.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I think King is an interesting case. He wrote under different psuedonyms just to prove that people liked his writing not his name. The man loves it, that doesn't mean he doesn't push out crap for paychecks on occasion. I can't believe he still writes longhand but a few of my friends do thaat too and I'm always driven mad. I think so much faster than I can write that I can't write. I mean I can but by the time I get to the end of the sentence I've kinda forgotten what comes next and I'm already three paragraphs down the fucking line and it's a goddamn mess.

Though I'm a freak like that I actually write best when I'm around other people and kinda casually typing and talking at the same time.

My point at the moment was that Reci seemed to be chalking up Tolkien's goofs on him writing for love and not really thinking about what others would think. And at least personally that's not how writing works. And again the man was freakishly precise. I think any goofs of his are either honest to god mistakes or something he failed to detail well.

As I've been researching the Uruk-Hai the last few days it seems that one theory is simply that it's a language thing. The word Orc is an Elvish borrow word from Oruch (I forget from whom.) and the term goblin from from Rohan. And then it starts getting complicated but the point is without reading the stories again to see who's perspective a given scene is supposed to be from it could be as simple as the difference between a cougar and a mountain lion.

 

[Recidiva]

I don't think most good authors write for anything but love. Sure some write simply for money (looking at you Twlight), some eventually fall in love with the cash (looking at you Stephen King and Micheal Crichton) but most write out of love. Especially the epic shit tons of fanfic out there. So I'm not certain that the fact he wasn't writing for an audiance means a damn thing. I write plenty "for me" that very rarely do other people see even if they do read the stories they are part of.

Besides that just goes back to my point of the man was thorough. Freakishly so. When I find a plot hole in Star Wars I just assume Lucas didn't give a fuck. (Unless it's on the philosophy of Jedi. That he seemed to care)

Wait, you think the Jackson's stuff is slapstick? Unless Game of Thrones is the measuring stick he was as dark and gritty as you could possibly get away with given the material. I like 90% of his changes and think they improved what was a kinda kiddy tale.

I don't see how you could end the movie the way the book did. No movie ever ends on "and they were walking. . . ."

I don't know what definition of "love" you are using. Some people love to write, but a lot, a lot, many, professional authors can't sell what they love and they write what will sell.

The epic shit ton of fan fic is for fun and love. But they're not getting paid.

Han shot first, is all I know, and yes, he was clueless, mostly. Especially on the subject of Jedi, which makes no sense. "Light is light, except when we are judgey and it would look cool to whip around a room and slice shit up."

Comparatively yes, it is slapstick from the source. Radaghast on a bunny sleigh with bird poop on his hat is described otherwise...how? Do not say fucking awesome, do not say fucking awesome.

You don't even know most of the changes, admit it.

Because the road goes ever on and on, fucker.

 

[Recidiva]

I think King is an interesting case. He wrote under different psuedonyms just to prove that people liked his writing not his name. The man loves it, that doesn't mean he doesn't push out crap for paychecks on occasion. I can't believe he still writes longhand but a few of my friends do thaat too and I'm always driven mad. I think so much faster than I can write that I can't write. I mean I can but by the time I get to the end of the sentence I've kinda forgotten what comes next and I'm already three paragraphs down the fucking line and it's a goddamn mess.

Though I'm a freak like that I actually write best when I'm around other people and kinda casually typing and talking at the same time.

My point at the moment was that Reci seemed to be chalking up Tolkien's goofs on him writing for love and not really thinking about what others would think. And at least personally that's not how writing works. And again the man was freakishly precise. I think any goofs of his are either honest to god mistakes or something he failed to detail well.

As I've been researching the Uruk-Hai the last few days it seems that one theory is simply that it's a language thing. The word Orc is an Elvish borrow word from Oruch (I forget from whom.) and the term goblin from from Rohan. And then it starts getting complicated but the point is without reading the stories again to see who's perspective a given scene is supposed to be from it could be as simple as the difference between a cougar and a mountain lion.

Read "On Writing" from King and you get a lot more of what he's about. One of my other faves, Heinlein, talks about how he'd give up writing if they didn't throw so much money at him.

In particular King wanted to have a phase where he stopped writing scary stuff...and that didn't work out for him. A pseudonym doesn't mean all that much because fame isn't necessarily based on talent but a lot of marketing. See where that happened to J.K. Rowling and nobody really cared. These are authors that both got a LOT of "no" up front and just continued to submit the work. They didn't start over, and their pseudonym didn't get as famous, and "The Dark Half" is still my favorite book about pseudonyms.

I'm not chalking goofs to anything. I'm saying he's a meticulous and thoughtful writer and he had years and years to lovingly construct his work. I don't see goofs. That the Uruk Hai exist is fine. People also have clothes and he didn't tell me if it was a cotton hemp blend either.