I know this is fantastic! :D

Now as far as Ted Sandyman, I've always imagined if there was a modern stereotype he'd fit, it would be the ultimate internet troll. "Nah uh, did you see it? It can't be real if you didn't see it!" "Your uncle is cracked, and you're cracked for listening!" Not so much malicious, just someone who'd be very hard to be in the company of...

But then he does become a turncoat, although I liked the previous points on Grima (and think the same applies to Ted). That is, Grima's malice was fueled for personal gain and better social standing...Glaurung and The Mouth of Sauron's malice was right down to simple satisfaction and cruel enjoyment.

Very much agreed!

PS. Rune: your PM box is full...

I know, I like it this way. (It is taken care of now)

I did huorns. And if I was able to post more I would have convinced you to pick them. :p


It's the second time I do it. Last game Nog and I played Elwing and Earendil together. This game Huorns and Fangorn. I'm curious about who me matie is this time. :D

Lommy these are the "Classic" taters to choose from:

Taniquetil
The Void
Galadriel
Elendil the Tall
Gorgoroth
The Noldor
Samwise Gamgee
The Last Alliance
Gandalf the White

And exactly like Huorn - Fangorn, it appears 2 of you are on the same wavelength this round:

Mandos
Doom of Mandos

:smokin:

"Classic" is a hard one. I guess it works if you apply it to the characters...Gandalf, Elendil, Galadriel, and Samwise.

But the Void?

I would actually see this the other way around... How could you call persons like Elendil, Galadriel, or Samwise classics? Yes they could be classics in the more superficial sense that they have become "classics" by the works of Tolkien, but which are the real classics? I mean those that are what they are through the ages?

The Void fits perfectly as so many creation myths from the Babylonians to the Vikings tell about the primordial abyss or void that was conquered by the Gods to make order and the Middle-Earth for men to live. Like what was the Ainulindalë: creating life and order from chaos by the power of the Gods.

Or to take another example: Hades was both the name of the god and the place where the spirits dwelled in ancient mythology - and it was neither evil or good but it just was. And Hades was one of the most important in the pantheon, and he has a wife dwelling there, Persephone, "the formidable, venerable majestic queen of the shades, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead" - sounds like Vairë? Aka Mandos fits perfectly into the classics as he / it is just a continuation of a more general, classic myth.


The Last Alliance? The Armageddon, the primordial fight between the Good and the Evil - and one which then historically was not the Apocalypse but only a sequence in the historical time, a changing into a different world? It is such a classical feature in the literature - and always kind of not standing to it's name - like it doesn't in the Tolkien Universe (so a classical way of interpreting it!).

Well, giving in with one character as well; Gandalf then... the resurrected, the one who comes through death to save the others? That is soo classic from Osiris, Baal, Jesus... A true classic as well.

I think you could make a case for Elendil/The Last Alliance as well.

Timeless, definitive, vintage
 

I am not too keen on:
Samwise Gamgee
Gandalf the White
and
Gorgoroth

but it seems fair points can be made about the rest.

Gandalf, Sam and Galadriel are probably classic in the same way. Of those, I would possibly think the two Gs to be a bit better. After all, they had much more time to be around to be classic. Though personally, I don't think you can call a person "classic". Unless it was Gollum. I would call HIM classic, but hardly anyone else.

For the same reason, Elendil, who is probably classic figure in Númenorean history, does not go, otherwise I like him. And the same goes for Mandos. He is just another of the Valar, not different from Manwë or Ulmo. They are classic in their own way, more than "normal" people, but if that's enough...

The Doom of Mandos is "classic" in several ways. It's most of all, a "classic requisite of a classic tale" for Middle-Earthians (like when you say, Epic of Gilgamesh or Odyssey here), but also it is "classic" in the same way it is similar to e.g. some ancient sagas from our world: all this being bound by fate is a very classic aspect of lots of these Greek and terrible Nordic sagas and all.

The Void... despite Nog's argumentation, I'm not really buying it. Taniquetil could be considered classic, certainly more than all the other places. From all the places, I would choose it.

I would, however, argue for Gorgoroth being classic. At least, I would not be so fast to dismiss it as some people have. It is the land of evil, the place of the classic battle (of the classic Last Alliance, but that's another thing), and the place of the classic ending of the classic tale from Lord of the Rings. So from in-Middle-Earth perspective (let's say Fourth Age perspective - or our, Seventh Age perspective? :) ), I would say it's valid.

Like I said, the Last Alliance is definitely a classic. Again, it is a classic requisite of a classic tale - like the fall of Troy in our world, let's say.

And the Noldor, who are undisputably classic requisites of a classic tale, and not of just one: they are pretty classic. There isn't probably anything more... "everyday" in all the old sagas than the Noldor.

Legate: are you seriously arguing that the dwelling of the dead (Mandos) or the primordial state of non-existence (The Void) are not classics?

Mandos even fits the classic tradition of literary mythology having many facets copied straight from the myth of Hades (like the important god running the place with his wife, the place not being good or evil but neutral etc.). Soo classic!

The Void as well - even if it doesn't have a one as well known classical piece of literary art from which to stem from - is both as widely spread throughout the world-mythologies, referred to in classical literature, and just soo awesome!

The Void is Void. I have no problem with that, but it is rather... lame. It's empty, after all.

I would not argue against Mandos as the place. However, Mandos, at least in this case, is not a dwelling. The dwelling is Halls of Mandos. Mandos is the Vala (however it should be named "Námo", but I guess that's omitment on Boro's part). But trust me, this is the person, not the dwelling.

Sad there is no "like"-button at the 'Downs. I'd definitively push it for this.

Well... I'm not sure you are in position to judge whether "Mandos" here is or is not the dwelling. That I think is Lommy's job.

And like you say: the god is Námo, not Mandos - as Mandos is the place. So there are better reasons to judge it as the place than as the god (and if someone happens to have some related taters in their hands, well it is not the bussiness of this round to talk about them - or anyone to reveal their taters before they are played and the round is over... :)).

Anyway, for that matter, back to the main discussion - I don't see why the assumption seems to be that "classic" equals "classic in real-world mythology". I think "classic in Middle-Earth mythology" is equally appropriate, if not more. That's why the Last Alliance, the Doom of Mandos, Noldor, even Gandalf or Elendil the Tall, or in my argument Gorgoroth, seem much more valid to me than any of the rest.

I guess that again is for Lommy to decide.

I can push my interpretation and you can push yours. She decides.

And continuing of doing just that:

I think that the word classic fits far better to things that are in the ME but still have all this classicality of our real-world tradition behind them, they are like "living instances" of the classical things, concepts, places, tales... maybe even persons.

To me it's harder to see what a ME-mythology classic would be with such little to go for... I mean we don't know what tales the easterlings told to their children, on what places or events the Haradian poets wrote about... which were the canonical myths of the first age men and were they given over to the second and third age generations and how can you track a trace of it in the fourth-age Gondorian song for a feast?

A ww player makes a list of it!
 

I'm not impressed by

Taniquetil, Gorgoroth - might be classic, but two of the few places in Arda I never felt any kind of fondness of. There could be an argument made for Taniquetil being "timeless" but that's a bit lame pun (Maedhros being handy was much better!)
The Void - wouldn't something like "empty" have fit this one better?
Samwise Gamgee - okay, he is the classic hero in a way, and he has become a classic character in his own right, but... Just calling Sam a classic would sound somehow derogatory, and he never was a favourite of mine anyway.
Gandalf the White - I feel that the specification that it's Gandalf THE WHITE quite effectively disqualifies all the arguments you could make. Gandalf as a whole might be timeless or classic. And as for "vintage" - despite the fact that applying the word to Gandalf does amuse me - that would be a much better description of Gandalf the Grey. ;)


I kind of like

The Noldor - theirs is a classic story, and they are, as immortal Elves, pretty timeless. Also, for me they would be a classic favourite people in Arda. But still, not as good a red tater as some.
Galadriel, Elendil the Tall, Mandos - if you've got to call a character classic, here's a few notable choices. Galadriel, my and many other people's classic favourite character. Also, on the Third Age she's one of the few classic (or timeless or vintage ;)) characters that remain from the earlier ages. Elendil, who was so epic that no one after him was given the same name even though we have a host of Berens, Túrins and Tuors in the later days? Definitely a classic (but no a classic name, har har). And Mandos is quite a classic character and timeless (although I believe it's the Halls of Mandos that are described as timeless and would thus be more appropriate). Stilln none of these are as good as tmy two favourites.


My favourites

The Last Alliance - the classic tale indeed, and what a classic tale it is in the time of the Lord of the Rings, it is the epic story that is told and referred to, the story in which the whole story of the Ring is rooted, something which was classic in its own time because in the good old times the Elves and the Men used to be allies. I like this one a lot.
Doom of Mandos - an even more classic tale (hey come on how much more classic can you get than the tale of original sin?). However, I think the Doom of Mandos ended up being a little less definitive and timeless than it was supposed to be. ;) In any case I like this one, and as a story I personally prefer it to the military and pompous Last Alliance.


Hard times. Wavering between the two... (but will consider arguments for others too, but they'd better be pretty darn good). Won't be making my choice until in a few hours so feel free to argue!



edit: xed with two people who almost remind me of Monty Python!

I thought all the time it's the vala, but I guess it could be either. Even the normal Apples to Apples cards have stuff with several meanings in them, so I see no need to argue about meanings here! :p Anyway, it doesn't make a difference really, because there are still better taters around.

I think both ways of looking at it are equally appropriate, just as is looking at it from the perpective of what is classic to me personally. Funny, I don't think there'd be such an argument over the definition of the word if the green tater was, say... "funny." ;)

We actually might have arranged it... if we would hope to thusly aid our own candidate to come nearer picking by the judge. Something we clearly fell short this time. :)

Sure. What do you think we are doing all the time? I think that goes without saying :smokin:

Sure. But then again, we of course have some vague idea of what is "classic" in the "West-Middleearthian" concept (all the tales we know from the books). And when you say that we do not know what the Easterlings were telling their kids, this could be countered with saying that our real-world concept of "classic" (as we present ones are more or less coming from the cultural context stemming from the European civilisation) is born with the same flaw. I believe you would agree if I say that we consider classic the concepts present in especially Greek and Roman mythology, with a bit of Near-Eastern flavor especially due to the influence of Christianity etc., then various other native European (Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic...) mythology concepts. But we probably don't find the concepts found in, say, Native American or African mythology to be "classic", unless they happen to be close to "ours".

So much for the meta-discussion :)

As for Lommy's musings, if I were to choose one of even the "lesser ones", I still consider Noldor pretty nice. Out of the two big ones, I would probably prefer the Doom of Mandos to the Last Alliance, simply because it has all the big tragic elements with fate and doom - and maybe a hint of timelessness can be seen in the original power of the curse. Or maybe it is because about the Last Alliance, we do not know as much, in fact, as about this one.

I actually do agree with you. But I had to try and present a different interpretation to help my tater succeed... which was clearly doomed to fail as Lommy didn't think my tater to be a good pick in anycase, whichever the major interpretation. :)

That said, I actually agree with you and Lommy that the Doom of Mandos is a better suiting candidate for the classic - while also agreeing the Last Alliance to be a good one as well.

I'll go with the

++Doom of Mandos

simply because I like it more as a(n elemnt of a) story, and because that way I can nod at those who played Mandos, the Noldor and Galadriel, all of which were suggestions I liked.

So who's the classic one?

Legate. :)

Have to do this early again, but as always until 8pm EST (Midnight GMT) tomorrow to send me your choice.

Tally

Menel - 2 (Absurd, Handy)
Rune - 1 (Energetic)
Lottie - 1 (Malicious)
Legate - 1 (Classic)

---

ROUND 6

Green tater: Famous (well-known, important, distinguished)
Judge: Lottie

I remembered this morning again was spent with hooliganising teenagers, and now I have a wedding event to attend. So I will open the next round up when I get back (probably sometime around midnight EST)

Haha! Now I understand why Legate was so keen to downplay Mandos being the place! :D

Well won! *bows*

:) Thank'ee, Nog. I'm happy about this achievement, because during the first rounds I was having the feeling that my cards can't really have much of a success. The green taters were just horrible for my selection of cards.

On a different note, with all those double-postings (Fangorn and Huorns, Mandos and Doom of Mandos), I wonder what nice pair are we going to get for the upcoming round...

I am a bit sad I missed out on the last round, but unfortunately I could not find time to get online for more than half a minute at the time this weekend.

As far as the next round goes, long crazy weekend again. Give me an hour or so to get everything situated and next round will be up.

ROUND 6

Lottie, here's your selection of famous:

Gwaihir
Tol-in-Gaurhoth
Mordor
Feanor
Bard
Great Goblin
Shadowfax
Two Trees of Valinor
The Prancing Pony
Turin
Glorfindel
Elrond

*Edit: 8pm monday will be the start of round 7.

I would go for Tol-in-Gaurhoth, as the most famous thing on the Downs. I do remember one thing, though:

It's so fun to treat it as a werewolf game, though.


As for the others, which are also good but not as funny:

Gwaihir - he's the lord of the Great Eagles, man!
Mordor - come on, even Bree-folk have heard of it.
Feanor - oh, you mean the guy who carved those shiny things that started the great mess that ended up making the legendarium a score of books longer than it could have been?
Bard - you get some credit for killing a dragon, of course.
Great Goblin - he's Great. Need I say more?
Shadowfax - well, I can't say he's exactly famous, but he would be if ME was a horse racing show.
Two Trees of Valinor - well... they're known and important certainly, but they just don't sound well with famous.
The Prancing Pony - haha, this one's actually quite good. The famous inn!
Turin - infamous, more like it. But I love the pun, and really, he was quite famous,first as just Turin, then as Gorthol, then as Mormegil... it's a pity that the fame went to his head...
Glorfindel - famous? Great, yes. But famous?

Adding Elrond to the list.

Gwaihir - Oh, that eagle guy? Meh. He'd've been more famous if he'd flown to Mordor and dropped in the Ring and saved Frodo the trouble of walking there. :P
Tol-in-Gaurhoth - ...nicely done, sir.
Mordor - You mean that place that's not Angband?
Feanor - Fairly good.
Bard - Decent, but not, I'd say, quite up to the level of Feanor, the other submission in the 'famous *people* category.
Great Goblin - He himself is not so very famous outside of his caves, I'd say.
Shadowfax - Not famous necessarily, though he ought to be.
Two Trees of Valinor - Again, glorious, but not necessarily famous.
The Prancing Pony - There are more famous pubs, but I do like the idea behind the submission.
Turin - Again, decent, but eclipsed by Feanor.
Glorfindel - He wasn't even famous enough to make it into the movie. ;)
Elrond - Yeeeeeeeeees....but not so much as Feanor.

So, for me, it's between the funny, Downsian play (Tol-in-Gaurhoth), the real, famous person play (Feanor) and the funny Tolkieny play (The Prancing Pony). I'd be open to people making arguments for why the other four characters who rival Feanor should be chosen instead of him, with more likelihood of success going to Turin or Elrond.

Gwaihir - I side with Lottie saying that had he dropped the Ring to Mount Doom, he'd have been famous, but tough luck :D
Tol-in-Gaurhoth - I would have saved this as a game-pun from more appropriate tater, personally. There would certainly be more fitting taters for it.
Mordor - certainly not disagreeing.
Feanor - nor with this, though "infamous" might be even better.
Bard - I think he's so sadly neglected, poor second to Aragorn when talking of returned kings. I would give him the credit.
Great Goblin - this actually made me laugh, a "great" goblin indeed :D One cannot doubt it from the title!
Shadowfax - meh, just a horse
Two Trees of Valinor - certainly. Just like Mordor or Feanor or Elrond. The problem is, maybe there are too many of those "simply famous".
The Prancing Pony - I really really like this idea. Again, in the "realistic" scale, it wasn't THAT famous (in Middle-Earth, very small percentage of people knew it - certainly less than Feanor or Two Trees), but in its area, it definitely was...
Turin - also more "infamous" than famous, I would say. I would pick Bard over him, only to give him the credit.
Glorfindel - certainly not. Sorry, but if you get kicked out on behalf of some Arwen... nowadays, his horse is possibly more famous than him! And that's a poor score.
Elrond - sure, but see above.

If I were to argue for any of these, I would support Bard the Sadly Neglected, Goblin the Great or Prancing Pony. However, thinking of it, if we wanted to be punctual, probably the most famous by the Third Age was Mordor. I mean: most of the people in Middle-Earth had at least heard about it, while even though e.g. Feanor is certainly famous, the Hobbits (!) had probably no idea who he was. Of course, in the First Age, everyone would know him. But yeah, that idea about Mordor... because imagine: everyone, even Hobbits, or even Easterlings and Southrons would know him, whereas they would not (possibly) know about e.g. the Two Trees etc. So actually, maybe Mordor is the best.

The ones I like is:

Elrond - Quite famous, at least the people of Gondor have heard of him. But since they are a quite informed people, that know their history, this is perhaps not so exceptional?
Turin - I like this one, because Turin became famous on several occasions, under different names. For this he is perhaps my favorite.
Feanor -His skill was certainly renowned, and his actions shaped the history of Middle-earth. It just seem that posterity had more focus on people like Turin and Beren (I know he is not on the list)
Mordor - I thought Galadriel55 made an excellent point about including Mordor: Even the bree-folk has heard of it. I think it speaks volumes that this place was known, not just to people in its vicinity, or to elf-friends such as Frodo, but also a name known to the uninformed people of the north... also we know that the people of Harad had heard of it.
and
Tol-in-Gaurhoth: I must be the only one who does not find this entry funny... Anyways I have included it on my list because I think that the fortress in it self is deserving as a contender. It might not have been Angband, but it had werewolves and freaking vampires!!! Places like that are bound to become legendary.

I'd have to say the best choices are Tol-in-Gaurhoth (inside joke), Mordor (everyone knows it, everyone fears it), and Feanor (source of many legends).

First of all it is pretty clear that any thing that has been famous for only one age is prone to be a lot less famous than one that has inspired two or three ages of living beings with their fame.

Secondly, being known or "famous" in the Middle Earth ("The Outer Lands" as they are properly called) is peanuts when comparing to being famous and renowned not only in the ME but also in Valinor.


Combining the two points basically means Fëanor and The Two Trees of Valinor are the only decent contenders...

What Nogrod is saying is obviously flawed, but I have no doubt that it serves his own purposes.

Is Handel more famous than Bieber just because he lived centuries earlier? Obviously you cannot make such ridiculous and simplistic rules, well you can, but it is stupid.

Then he starts separating the Tolkien's creations into different classes, apparently your opinion matters less if you are from the wrong side of the track... very nice Nogrod.

Combining the two silly points he makes, leaves you with only two contenders of which only one is deserving of such a status.

C'mon Rune, even Legate agrees with me on this!:)

Any idea why he chose Fëanor and the Two Trees of Valinor as examples there while talking about the Prancing Pony? Well because they are "realistically" THAT famous indeed.

Actually they are the ones that spring to mind immediately when you try to think who or what is famous for real...

:smokin:

I see no indication that the Two Trees of Valinor was widely known outside elven-circles in the third age.

I know that this is a somewhat hollow statement, since this sort of scrutiny can be applied to everybody on the list.

It all depends on how one choses to read the word "famous".... I would never call the sun famous, but I am fairly sure that most people that walk this earth, know of it. The trees would have been known to many in their time, but I guess not to all, some would only be familiar with their light. After they died, I doubt they were well known to any other than the Eldar.

True, of course. But I have also said:

:smokin: