Why does everyone always have the worst opinion of my motives? :(

Somewhere up there the Capitalist Exploiter said something about it being good to be polite and helpful. That is part of it. The other part of it is that Beorn does have to go sooner or later. We may as well help each other if we are able to and our interests run together for a bit. :cool:

My offer now merely replaces "Balin" with "Dori"...

No, there's nothing bad in being polite and helpful, but if you aren't really interested in getting rid of Beorn, I don't see much point in your offer. However, if you say that you actually want to get him voted off, then I say it's a whole different thing. Apologies for questioning your motives, Sir.

I have more Beorn-voting credentials. I voted for him several times even before the charming arachnid arrived on the scene...

EDIT: Here be the proof

Two votes for Beorn, and there's another somewhere...enough vitriol to buy a vote for Dori?

A fair question, m'lady. However, if I gave my word I'd do my best to get rid of him whether I "wanted" him to go or not. I've already made the offer, so my part of the deal is already done. If you accept, that will be that.

However, as for "wanting" him to go...I don't want him to win the competition. That is as much motive as I have ever had for voting against anybody. So, looked at from that perspective, I want him to lose just as much as I've wanted anybody else I've voted for to leave.

You are gracious as always, m'lady.

And...I'm sure you have noted, the Capitalist Exploiter is not exactly dependable in his thinking or his voting, which rather resembling a weather vane furiously spinning about with each new gust of wind. I'm much more consistent.

That analogy is admittedly fairly apposite. But I prefer to think of it as a rapier whirling around, barraging, parrying, lunging, feinting and eventually hitting the heart...in this case, of Beorn...

I'm like Strider. I look more treacherous than I ultimately act. Sometimes.

When you were actually aiming for somebody else entirely, oh ye of the "beast of burden" comment. ;)

Oh, I'm still lunging at Dori. I'm just following it through with a slash at Dr Dolittle..

*gasp* The Capitalist Exploiter hates beloved cultural figures too?!

Is there no bottom to his malice? :D

I agree that there are still too many Dwarves, but I'd rather get rid of dead Dwarves than live ones.

++THRAIN

Even when alive, he was a gibbering wreck. And now that he's dead, he's starting to smell. :D

A caveat - I will be prepared to vote for Thranduil today if I am assured of support in my campaign against Thrain tomorrow.

Thrain is possibly the coolest Dwarf ever to have drawn breath. Fine, he had a tragic and unsuccessful career. Since when has that stopped people from being heroes?

Born into privilege, Thrain had to tough it out, penniless, in the wild. Unlike his father, he didn't throw his life away in a blood-feud, however. He kept adventuring on, passing down lore, keeping the artefacts of his line safe for as long as he could. Though he lost his Ring eventually, he saved the map for Gandalf and his son-which means he must have at least partially withstood Sauron's torture.

He ended in madness. So? So did Jeanne de Montfort, Henry VI and Nietzche. Thrain was a true Dwarven Hero, perhaps unequalled until the career of Gimli.

That's a matter of opinion, Anguirel. But even if you are right, it does not contradict anyhting that I said in my case against him ...

Bascially, he's dead and therefore starting to smell. That's good enough for me to want to kick him off. :p :D

Oooh! Et tu, SpM?

Anguirel, we seem to share same views of Beorn and that makes me glad. I had somehow missed your earlier case against him. You spoke wisely back then and you've proved that you are ready to vote for him even without pacts.

Therefore: Kuruharan, you got yourself a deal.

--BEORN

++ELVENKING

Let tomorrow be the day when we go against Beorn together.

But...but...but...but...base treachery...splutter...

That's the last time I ever suck up to spiders!

Back to Thrain-clear proof of his superiority is that he is the one recorded Dwarf King with the familial touch necessary to bring up a daughter to adulthood...

Without Thrain, there would be no Dis.

Dis should be a contestant, incidentally. What sexism!

I'll certainly leave Thrain alone, in honour of his gallant son Thorin whose departure I still mourn.
I agree there are too many dwarves, but why pick on the two bravest and best, Dori and Balin? Why not cull the porker, whose selfish dietary needs are becoming a major liability on the island? Yes, there were the dreams, so whimsically diverting at first, but they have long since become beyond tedious.
And do we need *both* Fili and Kili?
And, I repeat again, WHY are there still two trolls on this island?

I'm a pragmatist. Dori already had quite a few votes. And, I sincerely hope, people will have enough taste to garner him some more. He's hardly a catastrophic loss. He's nice and friendly and bluff and grumbles a bit and carries things. Like a slightly arthritic but essentially decent mule.

Surely the loss of such a character is a worthy sacrifice in the cause of stopping Dwarf hegemony?

I'm with SPM on this one... Off with the Elves!

(You DO recall, do you not, that I arbitrarily appointed Thrain to the Feanorian Noldor?)

Furthermore, Thrain is known to be greedy (wants more gold), petty (starts wars over family deaths), stubborn in the extreme (refuses to admit that Erebor is, quite simply, gone), overly pround (most of the above reasons...), and a blithering idiot (see the "Dungeons of Dol Guldur for more info)...

Furthermore, Anguirel likes him.

++ Thrain, son of Thror

I knew I could rely on m'lady's fundamental good sense!

Serves you right.

If you'd like to accomplish something useful (read annoy Formendacil, who seems to have it in for you) why don't you come over to our side. We'll kick off the Elvenking today, Beorn tomorrow (who you've apparently wanted off for sometime), and maybe a troll the day after. You'd be at least helping prevent Formendacil (who is entirely too devoted to making things generally irritating) from getting what he wants.

Lalaith, I'm sure there is a way that Your Ladyship and myself could engage in a little friendly horse swapping to ensure that Beorn is shipped out tomorrow and then perhaps a troll or two could be tossed "soon-ish".

I await your replies with the greatest of anticipation.

Awww, shame. The sucking up was so nice! But you see, my dear Anguirel, that if you are going to vote for Beorn anyway, I really don't have to "buy" your vote. Of course, if you have now lost all your faith in spiders, it might affect your voting, but I hope that's not the case. Well, maybe I try to appease you later, okay? :p

My apologies to the lady for intruding on a private conversation, but I must interject that since being irrational and irritating is, in fact, my general plan, it's not impossible that my vote could even be on your side of the fence, should the people on the other side be worth irritating.

I'm just as willing to irritate SPM as I am Anguirel, should the circumstances be right.

++Dori

I will not tell you why ! :p

This cat has had its tail trodden on and will walk by itself for a while...not that I'm ruling out a future alliance, dancing spawn.

Well struck, Rune.

And Formendacil-keep at your quest...

Your Excellency is most interesting. Indeed, I suspect you and I will be able to transact some business at some point along the way. Alas, unless you would vote for the Elvenking or Beorn over today and tomorrow, I’m afraid we might have to put it off for another time. However The Saucepan Man, if I recall correctly, has a certain attachment to some trolls that I might have some pressing business with in a little while. Perhaps we can talk then.

Although, not voting for dwarves and instead voting for a genuine elf (such as the Elvenking) might cause The Saucepan Man to have apoplexy…

Hypocrite!! You false socialist you!!! How dare you vote for the Darling and Candidate of the Proletariat!!!! Your own avatar will disown you for this!!!!!

Hypocrite! of course I am a hypocrite, that comes with beeing a socialist. :p

You claim Dori to be proletarian, but why? A Dwarf of the House of Durin, who accompanied King Thorin II Oakenshield on the Quest of Erebor (So that they alone could get welthy).

He is of royal blood and clearly a royalist, he needs to bee removed.

You might see Elves as beeing more royal/Bourgeois, but that is not the case both races is ruled by the same methods and the dwarves are more greedy.

"Basically, he's dead and therefore starting to smell. That's good enough for me to want to kick him off."

SpM has a point. Given the shortage of
embalming fluid on the island:

- - Dori
+ + Thrain

He was only very distantly of royal blood and was only being exploited for his labor. (Somebody needs to go back and check the genealogies). Some individuals here (naming no names) have even called him a “mule” and a “beast of burden.” If he was a royalist (and I have a certain tract in my possession written by a dwarf in that party regarding a scheme for the redistribution of wealth after the death of the dragon) it was only because he was forced to be so.

You’re wrong about that. The dwarves are actually more egalitarian “inside the family” than the elves. All the dwarves were rich. Clearly they had some early form of wealth redistribution active in their society. Have you ever heard of an elf other than the sovereign being rich? I thought not.

As for dwarves not distributing outside the race…well, the progress of thought can only advance so far during a certain epoch. This happened a long time ago. You can’t hold that against them.

Besides, why on earth would you side with somebody who called a worker a “mule” and a “beast of burden.” That alone is highly questionable.

Have you ever heard of one being poor? Have you heard of Dwarves refusing to do as their liege commands ?

The fact is that Elves care for alot of things other than mammon.

No mather what you say the fact is that I dont like Dori !

Why, yes, as a matter of fact. Nellas, who was a witness for Turin before Thingol, did not give the appearance of being well off, to cite one example (which I believe is all that is required).

*Tsk!* :rolleyes:

Well.....since none of us are too fond of Dwarves here, that makes the Elvenking a bit of an ally, eh? :D
And as for WHICH dwarf, SPM really brought out the point that caught my eye: Vote Dead Dwarves Before Live Ones!!!

++Thrain
________
Srx600

Oh well, I do like Thrain but at least it looks like not one but two Dwarves might be lynched...

I think that you might find that difficult in this game. With a few exceptions, I remain equally attached to all of the remaining contestants. My main concern is to maintain variety. Hence my current drive to cut down on the ratio of Dwarves to others.

The voting currently stands as follows:

Elrond – 2
Belladonna Took – 1
The Elvenking – 4
Dori – 5
Thrain – 5

So, unless things change radically, the only real contenders for today are Thranduil, Dori and Thrain.

I have no objection to saying goodbye to Thranduil. It is a poor host who magically moves his party in order to avoid having to cater for a group of travellers lost in his lands and nearing starvation. Then, he locks them up simply for being in his realm. And finally, to add insult to injury, he mobilises his army and rides out with it with the sole purpose of taking by force the booty which rightfully belongs to said travellers. Rude, inhospitable, overbearing dictatorial and greedy. Hardly characteristics that we should be looking for in the winner of this competition. No, he must go at some point in the near future.

Then we have two Dwarves. I would point out that the current competitor roster comprises the following:

7 Dwarves
1 Warg
1 Dragon
2 Trolls
1 Werebear
2 Elves
1 Eagle
1 Raven
2 Hobbits

It seems to me that it remains our duty, as loyal fans of this show, to continue thinning out the Dwarves over the coming days. It would hardly be fair if the final were to comprise solely Dwarves. The viewers want variety and that is what we should give them. Kuruharan seems quite content to rail against the agendas (hidden or otherwise) of others here, while it is quite clear that his own agenda is to work towards a final comprising only contestants of his own kind. Well, I am afraid, my dear Dwarf, that you will have to accept the inevitable. Some more Dwarves are gonna have to go before the end if this contest is not to become a farce. I would like to do so in a fair manner, which retains those worthy of being in the final while dispensing with the dross.

I would prefer to keep Dori, being that he was one of the few Dwarves in Thorin’s company who bothered to actually try and look after their esteemed burglar (without whom they would probably all have been either burned to a crisp or massacred by the combined armies of Bard and the Elvenking). Balin I like too, for the friendliness that he showed towards the little fellow. And Gloin, despite insulting Bilbo, is after all Gimli’s father and therefore deserves respect. He is also the firestarter, twisted firestarter. :smokin:

Fili and Kili bravely gave their lives in defence of their Lord and therefore deserve respect too, although there is little to distinguish between them so I would advocate retaining one of them for the time being and letting the other go. I don’t really mind which. And I am reluctant to pick on Bombur just because he is fat. And his laziness combined with the demands he puts on the weekly food budget give rise to tensions and disputes, and therefore encourage good viewing figures.

That leaves Thrain who is, to my mind, the least interesting of the remaining Dwarves. However noble he may have been (which is largely a matter of speculation), I have difficulty working up any enthusiasm for him. He allowed himself to be captured by the Necromancer and driven mad in his dungeons over the loss of Erebor, a circumstance which he was unable to rectify himself, and that hardly speaks in his favour. And it remains an inescapable fact that he is dead and therefore uninteresting from the viewers’ perspective and malodorous from the perspective of his fellow contestants.

So my choice for today remains Thrain. I will have to give thought to which of the other Dwarves I would be willing to see go at this stage, although I do have some affection for all of them. Frankly speaking (and assuming Thrain goes) it gets quite difficult for me from here on in.

So you think Dwarves should be reduced, but exempt all but one from being reduced on various grounds. Other Dwarves than Thrain are, as you yourself say, going to have to go.

And on Thranduil's character-objectionable, yes, but certainly not uninteresting. His real fault in your eyes is that you don't happen to like the cut of his jib.

If he was a similarly morally ambiguous type whom you did like-say, the Master, who I liked also-you would defend him on the grounds that he is interesting to viewers.

Similarly, with characters who have perfectly spotless records but who you find unappealing (eg Aragorn, Faramir), you attack them by accusing them of being uninteresting to the viewers.

Clearly this unvarying, sophistrical method of condemning and defending is-despite whatever higher reasons invoked-ultimately subjective.

That said, Thranduil should stay because his regal gallivanting, despotism and feasting are interesting to the viewers. So there.

The whole buisness about voting off dead dwarves before the living ones is nonsence. We must either see all the dwarves (and other beeings) as living or dead.

It would not make sence to make a surviver show with dead people!

If Thrain is dead then why Is the trolls William and Tom not? We are told how they die in the Hobbit. Allso did we not assume that Aragorn was living in LOTR Surviver, but his death is allso told to us.

The only way that SPM and other fanatics can make a case against this is if all that we are told is somthing that is foreseen and has not yet taken place, but it is not so this is "history" and therefor everybody (exept the elves) is dead! get it? THEY ARE DEAD! ! !

And since it would be silly to have alot of dead people lying on an island and voting each other off it. (how would they do that) Then lets take it for grantet that they are all alive. How they are brought back to life I care not about, use a time warp or what ever you fancy.

Hear hear!

This thing about people being dead and smelling, started as a quip of Formendacil's I believe, is really no longer funny or clever. I mean, it never was that funny or clever, but now it's about as funny and clever as Old Tom Bombadillo.

The Votes in From Florida!!! [Literally]
 

Actually I was thinking along Rune's idea the whole time: What year is the Survivor taking place? Otherwise dead is irrelevant. I was just to slow and lazy to post it. :p

Therefore, seeing as that idea is not alone,

--Thrain, ++Thrain

That makes no sense you say. I Still vote for Thrain, but on different reasoning. :D
________
Honda Rafaga history

My dear Kuru, with regard to your proposal, I am open to all kinds of suggestions but none which would involve the demise of Beorn.
If you've got any better offers I'll be delighted to consider them.

My offer (assuming Dori is among those who are evicted today) is to continue the fine, traditional Elf sport, Dwarf-hunting.

I'd like to target Balin but I'm willing to compromise to Gloin, Bombur, Fil or Kili...

Ok, Ang, here's an idea, you stay away from Balin and Beorn, and I'll back you on one of the other dwarves.

PS - I never had you down as a troll-lover...