Tuesday, June 18, 2013

There's no OSHA in middle-earth

I just realized something. Of the rings of power in Tolkien's mythos, the elves had three: the rings of air, water and fire. These were handed out to three leaders of elvish enclaves in middle-earth. Two make sense. I can buy that Rivendell was up in the mountains and had an airy atmosphere; Lothlorien's surrounded by rivers and Galadriel's got the whole water-divination thing going on.

But the third ring, Narya? Before handing it over to Mithrandir to aid in the coming struggles, the ring of fire was in the possession of a character which only appears for a couple of lines at the very end of  The Return of the King, Cirdan.
That's right, Cirdan the shipwright. The lord of Mithlond, the Grey Havens, from whence all elves who want to return to Valinor would need to sail out. The biggest repository of dead wood in the world.

How many thousands of years do those pointy-eared knuckleheads need to live before they learn not to put themselves in the dictionary under the definition of 'safety hazard'?

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