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Lord of the Rings, as Written By Everyone Else
sn0rt writes "A thread on Straight Dope asks what would happen if someone else had written the Lord of the Rings. Reader submissions include Ernest Hemingway, Douglas Adams, Mark Twain, HP Lovecraft, ee cumings, Milton, Mickey Spillane, Danielle Steele, Ayn Rand(!!), Ray Bradbury, Gilbert and Sullivan and Tom Clancy. My favourite is Dr. Suess: 'Gandalf, Gandalf! Take the ring!
I am too small to carry this thing!' 'I can not, will not hold the One. You have a slim chance, but I have none. I will not take it on a boat,
I will not take it across a moat. I cannot take it under Moria, that's one thing I can't do for ya. I would not bring it into Mordor, I would not make it to the border.'"
It would have been filled with robots, lasers and naked babes ;o)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Ayn Rand?? Frodo would have been the bad guy for stealing someone elses hard worked ring. Regardless of whether or not it was used for evil.
* If Jon Katz had written it, he'd do a global replace of "Orc" with "Jock" and "Mordor" with "High School"
* If CmdrTaco had written it, it'd be called "Lodr of the Rnigs."
* Arwen would be played by Petrified Natalie Portman.
* There'd be a scene where Sauron looks up from admiring his shiny new gold toy and says to his nine best friends "Imagine if we had a Beowulf Cluster of this!"
* There'd be the Obligatory TokenRing Joke.
* The opening credits would be replaced by FR1ST PS0Ts
* The DVD would be released in "Page-Widening Spam" format instead of "Widescreen"
Many years ago there was a summarise the LOTR in 25 words or less...I think the winner went something like:
Shortarse kills dark lord by chucking ring down volcano. Local vagrant elected king.
Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
Whatever you do, don't send Arnie over as a (republican) goodwill ambassador...
It was already written by ForgottenLore at 10-16-2002 12:08 AM
Frodo jacked in.
He felt huge, invincible, unstoppable. Some small part of him knew that was the hits of pipe-weed talking, skewing his sense of self, making his nerves scream like they were being raked over rusted chrome. Knew, and didn't care.
Over his shoulder he could feel Sam hovering, a hollow nonentity. It was eerie knowing he was back there, like having an itch in a limb long amputated. All around him the middle-matrix arced off into an impossible blue infinity, gridlines benchmarking the empty nonspace.
"There it is," came Sam's voice. "That's the ice. Good luck breakin' in there, man, that was made by a military AI. Name of ephelduath. You ain't seen nuthin' like it. They say it's two way ice. Not only will it fry your brainpan tryin' to get in, nuthin' inside can work its way out. Leastaways, not without sarumancer's say-so."
Frodo wished Sam would shut the hell up. He also wished he wasn't about to do what he came for. He wished a lot of things. He surveyed this sector of cyberspace. Before him was the ephelduath ice, shadowy and indistinct, and very very deadly. And beyond it, just visible through the whorls of lethal, greasy code, was sarumancer himself. The Dark Lord presented in the middle-matrix as a collosal data construct, angular and hideous. A mountain of vicious, evil information so dense it was hard to look at, hard to take in all at once. It played tricks on the eyes. Each nodule, each piece of it seemed to contain a perfect glittering symmetry. A simple frightening geometry. But taken altogether it became a great organic pyramidal thing, a digital volcano spewing mirrored liquid spheres of awareness out into the void. These spheres, Frodo knew, served as sarumancer's eyes. When they intersected a gridline, at random, they would latch onto it and streak off in an unchosen direction in a vain effort to apprehend, to know, to see, all of the middle-matrix at once.
Here we go. He drew out the elvish icebreaker and contemplated its image for a moment. Given to him by Galadriel herself. He activated it, his unseen fingers moving fluidly over the keys of his Ono-Sendai. Triggered, the icebreaker flared up, a searing point of magnesium brilliance. He clicked forward, towards the ice. Slowly. Click. Carefully. Click. The elvish icebreaker encountered ephelduath's handiwork, and forced it to recede. The ice's killer algorithms spiralled futiley around Frodo and Sam as they rode the icebreaker inwards...
From The Lord of the Rings by William Gibson
Except of course there is no construct for "To Be" in Klingon. The linguist who designed it was a bit of a purist. Needless to say he had to do a bit of interesting work with the dialog to translate Hamlet's speach for the Undiscovered Country. LOL
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
According to Illiad the story went like this [userfriendly.org]
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I'm imagining this book as written by a latter-years Robert A. Heinlein. You know, when he stopped writing quaint little "juvenile fiction" novels like Red Planet, Space Cadet and The Man Who Sold The Moon, and passed his "grim, gritty, post-future holocaust" novels like Stranger In A Strange Land and Starship Troopers.
No... I can imagine it as written by the dirty old sex-obsessed mathematician that wrote books like Number Of The Beast. You know the ones I'm talking about. Like a Harelquin romance novel but with mathematicians, so it was cool and all for us dorks in high school to flip through the pages in the prolonged periods of downtime that we had in our English 3 classes back in high school. Yeah, you know those interminable stretches of time when the teacher was forcing you to read Grapes Of Wrath in class when all you wanted to do was bury your nose into some Clarke or Asimov or even Niven.
So you'd sit there and turn the pages of Number Of The Beast slowly, your eyes darting up to your short, round, blonde teacher yammering away about the Joad family and their time in Needles (yeah, Steinbeck really made that fucking place seem just plain OMINOUS, really built it up to be about fifty thousand times more impressive than it really is. HEY KIDS! THEY'RE JUST FUCKING ROCKS!) between line breaks. Oh no, you're there reading a novel written by a man deep in the grip of senile dementia. One page will be discussing the six-dimensional nature of the universe, the next be describing in meticulous detail sex acts between two middle-aged paunchy scientists. Alternate universes, new positions... This book wavers between insanity and inanity.
Now... Imagine the Lord of the Rings written in that style... Of course, since women in Tolkien's universe are about as rare as dragons (and the menfolk would much rather quest after said scale-beast than spend some "quality time" with the comely lasses) there would be a marked increase of homoerotic tension in the novel, punctuated with page after page of lovingly-detailed discussion on the technology and mathematics of Sauruman's magic powers.
Couple that with some Ents and a few Orcs and a Goblin or three and we'll have the best goddamned novel ever written.
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
Somebody asked for a legalese LotR:
Ring Bearer's License Agreement
Please read the following license agreement (hereafter referred to as "AGREEMENT"). You must accept the terms (hereafter referred to as "TERMS") of this license to bear the Ruling Ring (hereafter referred to as "RING") to the Crack of Doom in the land of Mordor (hereafter referred to as "DOOM").
GRANT OF LICENSE: This license grants you the right to bear RING to DOOM. You may bear RING only to DOOM, and any other land that is required to pass through in order to reach DOOM. Once you have reached DOOM, you agree forthwith to toss RING into the Crack that are found at DOOM. Any hesitation or deviation may be interpreted as a breach of TERMS, causing immediate and irrevocable termination of AGREEMENT.
LIMITATIONS OF LICENSE: This AGREEMENT does NOT grant you permission to allow others to bear RING, except where circumstances make such a transfer desirable. Such circumstance will be interpreted as a transfer of license, and the new bearer shall be bound by the TERMS put forth in AGREEMENT. You are further discouraged from wearing RING, except in circumstances where the protection and insight provided by RING are deemed useful in reaching DOOM. Under no circumstances are you permitted to transfer RING to one Sauron (hereafter referred to as "ENEMY") or any employees or representatives of ENEMY.
TERMINATION OF LICENSE: This AGREEMENT shall be deemed terminated under the following circumstances: (1) RING is tossed into the Crack found at DOOM; (2) Your death, and the death of all your companions; (3) Major deviation from the path to DOOM; or (4) RING is transferred, voluntarily or involuntarily, to ENEMY or an employee or representative of ENEMY. In the case of (4) with voluntary transfer, the Valar in the Undying Lands would like to have a word with you.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
You are in an open shire west of a little, white house with a rounded front door. To the north stands your old pal, Gandalf.
> N
Gandalf appears glad to see you. "I am glad to see you," he says, "I hear you were given a ring. Could I see it?"
> I
You have:
Flask of ale
Bread
Contract for three movies
One ring to rule them all
> SHOW RING
I don't know which ring you mean.
> SHOW ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL
Who are you showing the ring to?
> SHOW ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL TO GANDALF
You are eaten by a grue.
http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/
I think Merry's is particularly funny. They are more from the perspective of someone who's seen the movies but not the books, but still great.
I wanted to post this over there, but their server has succumbed, so...
True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but
why will you say that I am mad? The ring had sharpened my senses--not
destroyed-- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of seeing in the
wraith world acute. I saw all things in the earth and under the
earth. I saw many things from the crack of mount doom. How, then, am
I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell
you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none.
Passion there was none. I loved the ring. It had never wronged me.
It had never given me trouble. For its gold I had no desire. I think
it was the eye! Yes, it was this! The one eye resembled that of a
vulture--a fiery red eye, with a dark shroud over it. Whenever it
fell upon me, my blood ran cold and so by degrees--very graduallyI
made up my mind to take the old ring to the crack of doom, and thus to
rid myself of the eye forever.
-- Opening section of The Telltale Ring, by Edgar Allen Poe
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
One towel to rule them all...
Dyolf Knip
TO: BAGGINSFRODO@THESHIRE.ME
FROM: SAURON@DARKLORD.ME
KIND SIR, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF.
I AM SAURON JUNIOR, RELATIVE OF THE LATE DECEASED
SAURON, LORD. YOU WILL BE AWARE OF THE RECENT
TRAGIC EVENTS OVERTAKING OUR MIDDLE EARTH, WHICH I
CAN ASSURE YOU MY FAMILY HAS NO CONNECTION WITH.
HOWEVER, MY LATE DECEASED RELATIVE LEFT A LARGE
AMOUNT OF GOLD AND JEWELRY HIDDEN IN A DRAGON'S
LAIR. THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF THIS TREASURE IS
250,000,000 OLD SMEAGOLS. I AM SEEKING WELL
WISHERS WHO WILL HELP ME TO RECOVER THIS RIGHTFUL LEGACY,
IN RETURN FOR A MODEST 10% OF ALL
GOLD RECOVERED. PLEASE DO NOT INFORM THE
WIZARD OR HIS MINIONS OF THIS TREASURE OR THE
CONSEQUENCES WILL BE TRULY DREADFUL FOR YOURS TRULY.
ALL I ASK OF YOU IS THAT I CAN USE YOUR GOLD RING
TO PASS INVISIBLY PAST THE DRAGON STILL
GUARDING THE GOLD. ONCE I HAVE RECOVERED THE
RIGHTFUL GOLD AND JEWELRY I WILL DELIVER YOU
10% OF THE AFORESAID TREASURE AND OF COURSE
RETURN YOU THE RING.
I RECEIVED YOUR ADDRESS FROM AN ELF. PLEASE
CONSIDER MY REQUEST MOST SINCERELY.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
You stand before the fires of Mt. Doom. Hot jets of glowing magma erupt on either side of you, searing your skin. The hair on your toes shrivels and disappears. Above you columns of black smoke billow into the sky.
>drop ringTo the north is a small rocky ledge above the fires. To the south is a path leading down into Mordor.
You find it hard to breathe here.
Which ring do you mean? The One Ring, or the Copper Ring of Gondor?
>onedropped
>waitTime passes...
>Take ringYour lungs begin to burn.
(One Ring) Taken.
>Drop ring in lavaWhich ring do you mean? The One Ring, or the Copper Ring of Gondor?
>oneThe lava has no good surface to put that on.
>yellAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!! Do you feel better?
>Drop one ring into firesYou begin to hack and cough from the hot searing fumes.
You are not close enough to the ledge to drop the ring into the Fires of Mt. Doom!
>LookYou stand before the fires of Mt. Doom. Hot jets of glowing magma erupt on either side of you, searing your skin. The hair on your toes shrivels and disappears. Above you columns of black smoke billow into the sky.
>NTo the north is a small rocky ledge above the fires. To the south is a path leading down into Mordor.
You double up with a choking spasm, hacking and coughing.
You creep out onto the rocky ledge. You look down into the fires. From here you can easily drop the One Ring and complete your quest. Your heart thrills with anticipation!
You fall to the ground in agony, clutching your throat. The fumes are too much and have overcome you. As you begin to black out, you think to yourself, "I'm sorry Gandolf. I failed. I failed."
******* You Have Died **********
You have earned 275 out 300 points earning you the title of Grand High Elf.
Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE, or QUIT?
>
Gondor... shit.
I'm still only in Gondor. Every time I think I'm going to wake up
in Mordor. When I was back in the Shire after my first tour it was worse.
I'd wake up and I'd be nothing.
I'm here a week now. Waiting for a quest. Getting softer. Every
minute I stay in this city I get weaker. Every minute Sauron squats in the
tower he gets stronger.
Each time I look around, the Spires of Gondor move in a little closer.
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a quest, and for my sins
they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real
choice quest and when it was over, I'd never want another. I was going to
the worst place in the world, and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away
and over hundreds of miles of trails through blasted landscape like
a main circuit cable plugged straight into Sauron. It was no accident
that I got to be the caretaker of the Dark Lord Sauron's memory, any more
than being back in Gondor was an accident.
--
Elrond: Your mission is to proceed down the Anduin River in an Elvish
row boat. Pick up Sauron's path at the Falls of Rauros. When you find
Mordor, infiltrate Sauron's borders by whatever means available and
terminate the Dark Lord's Ring of Power.
Galadriel: Terminate the Dark Lord.
Elrond: He's out there operating with any decent restraint, totally beyond
the pale of Maiar conduct. And he is still in the field commanding orcs.
Celeborn: Terminate the Dark Lord with extreme prejudice.
Galadriel: You understand Frodo that this mission does not exist, nor will
it ever exist.