Seeing Tolkien's Long Defeat

If the six books of The Lord of the Rings gave three films, and the one of The Hobbit will give three too, what next? If Jackson et al. follow Lucas/Disney to push for a third trilogy, there's no lack of sources.

Most obviously "The Scouring of the Shire" was left out last time. By this rule of increasing bloat, could this one chapter be stretched over three more? It's not hard to imagine a spin-off mini-series, just one with less emphasis on the 'mini'. How about those Adventures of Tom Bombadil? He was also left out.

But why? What justifies such major removals? Is it as simple as overlong running time? After all, Jackson's LotR was three long films and special editions. Pacing is a better argument, but Tolkien left them in. And rightly so I think. To my mind the Scouring and Tom Bombadil are more or less the heart of it all.

Bombadil especially. Have a read of this overview if you haven't seen the arguments.

If so, maybe that's why both were cut, as supposedly unfit for a 21st-century audience.

What could that mean? There's plenty at this post from earlier today, on zombies too.

Tolkien once wrote: "I do not expect 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat'", and we have Galadriel verbalise the thinking in the fiction, or rather in the generally recognised fiction: "together through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat." Really?

Why all the gloom? My reading of Bombadil suggests Tolkien did see, maybe even see, past. As he wrote of Bombadil: "he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely." As his Goldberry says: "He is."

Look at the feel for landscape Tolkien has, in fine distinctions. He sees the wood for the trees, and surely saw the cycles, the flow of atoms. It may be that if we spend too much time worldbuilding, a demiurge of sorts, we see a little further than the paradigm, even if we have to use the language of that paradigm to communicate this and to understand it.

If Spinoza was a bee, what is Tolkien? And what are we? Who's your Bombadil? We get to choose, and happily Jackson has given us space to do that so far, although if he has Stephen Colbert playing him (we don't know yet), it may go from one extreme to another.

So which Bombadil are you making, know it or not, as Tolkien's long defeat rumbles on?

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New genres A-Z - from archeopunk to zombie derival

Here then are all of the entries for the A to Z Blogging Challenge 2012, 26 posts with the theme of possible new genres for fiction, maybe in gaming but also beyond it. Some are deadly serious, others may just be silly, but as so often, it depends on you - the person.

The underpinning was this debate, on themes that have been running through a lot of the posting at the Expanse, and the discussion has spun out across the months. The latest instalment could be this recent back-and-forth. Feel free to join in, anywhere and -when.

Zombies, Daleks and the triumph of death

Kent at Some King's Kent has an interesting approach to the nature of encounters with zombies. I can't help but connect this with the story Dave Morris tells at Mirabilis - Year of Wonders of meeting a Dalek at BBC Television Centre as a boy in 1964.

But what is that connection? Do you sense it too? The zombie and Dalek seem akin.

I think Kent gets at the movement link well with mention of resource management, and Dave in the suggestion of the sterile Dalek environments of the 1960s. Dave also hints at the body horror of the claustrophobic Dalek interior - "something small, vulnerable and fearful surrounded by electronics and armour" - and its world observed remotely, which ties in with the small but insurmountable distance separating us from a zombie.

In this sense, both creatures suggest an alienation from our bodies. That's something I remember played up well in a sequence from the novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch, and it could be part of what makes Davros so compelling.

Zombie and Dalek are unlike us and yet oddly similar, recognisable, even if only by eyestalk, upper-limb-like extensions and voice. There's an uncanniness in there too.

Interestingly, both can also be product of an apocalypse, nuclear in the case of the Daleks; and that powerful image of the '60s Dalek comes back - the petrified forest - and what is that if not ranks of the dead? A potentially empty future.

Linked with all of this, Beedo at Dreams if the Lich House recently posted on the idea of the familiar dead returning. That's another reminder of the triumph of death, of loss.

Isn't that the root of all the terrors our games evoke? Loss of a shot at greatness, of a squad, of a much-loved character. But also the loss of time as the years go by; christian at destination unknown had a wonderful post on this a while back, on a fleeting light. We may well play the good old games to relive the early feelings. The zombie and Dalek represent decay visibly, but also less visibly entropy, as they slowly close us down.

That icy cold sweat.

Remember Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru? Here's the line from The Wrath of Khan; very appropriately for Father's Day, it's Kirk speaking to his son, David Marcus:

I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.

In a way we gamers cheat, every time we deploy our army afresh in yet another battle or roll up a new character. How about a propluristemic rule then, a rule for many games?

The cold sweat

If your army loses the campaign or your character dies, close the ruleset, book or box, put it on the shelf and never open it again. You may hold a ceremony.

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As an aside, talk of Kent and Daleks makes me think of John at John's Toy Soldiers, who's based in the county of Kent in the UK; just today he posted on an odd sign. He also has a Doctor Who battle report featuring Daleks, based on a modified 40K.
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Mapmaking merry (5)

As promised last week, another instalment of the very occasional series on merging mapmaking and terrain-making. The reason given to the mapmakers for tuning in?

For a different kind of expression, for time away from the number crunching and paper, from pencils and dice. Indulge the artist within, get tactile - show yourself in another medium. It's a breath of fresh air, and will likely give you a different understanding of spaces and decor that will feed back into games.

And for the terrain-makers just a few of those words need switching round.

For a different kind of expression, for time away from the sculpting and scattering, from paints and LOS. Indulge the planner within, get calculating - show yourself in another medium. It's a breath of fresh air, and will likely give you a different understanding of spaces and movement that will feed back into games.