Mirkwood

For @cinefantastiquemitho and anyone else who might like this. Guided meditations set in well-known fictional worlds should be more popular!

Haven of the Sea Elves.

Journey Into the West.

Lost Valley of the Elves.

Meeting Gandalf in the Shire.

Party in the Hobbit Shire (Part I).

Party in the Hobbit Shire (Part II).

Party in the Hobbit Shire (Part III).

Return to the Valley of the Elves.

Shelter in the Hobbit Shire.

The Green Elven Wood.

The Halls of the Elven King.

The Peaceful Shire.

The Peaceful Valley.

WATER IS THE ELEMENT OF CHANGE

Waterbending is based on a style of T'ai chi ch'uan, specifically the Yang style. It is a Chinese martial art that features slow movements and elegant forms that evoke the feel of flowing water. Like tai chi, a waterbender’s main advantage is the ease with which they can control their opponent, not simply harming them. 

Both arts were influenced by ancient healing practices; people would channel their “energy paths” within themselves to areas of the body where healing was necessary. They also share a specific focus: body alignment, breath, and visualization. Finally, a waterbender can typically find that softness and breathing are more effective for their ability than hard aggression, just as a practitioner of tai chi does.

Pippin: *looks at Gandalf*

Gandalf: *mouths ‘not guilty’*

Pippin: Hot milky

I am a man of fortune, and I must seek my fortune.

The long-lost heir is not the hero, he’s a side character who deliberately uses himself as a decoy.

The real hero actually fails in his quest, his goodness and determination and willpower utterly fail in the face of evil, and the world is saved by a series seemingly unrelated good deeds.

The central conflict is not between destroying the world and preserving it. An age of the world will come to an end, and many great and beautiful things will perish, whether the heroes win or lose. The past may have been glorious, but preserving it is impossible, and returning to it is impossible, time has passed and the world has moved on. The king returns, but the elves are gone and magic fades from the very substance of Middle Earth. The goal is not to preserve the status quo, the goal is the chance to rebuild something on the ruins.

Killing the main villain seems to instantly solve the problem, eradicate all enemies and fix the world, except it doesn’t, not wholly, since the scouring of the Shire still has to happen.

Also, the hero gets no real reward, and what he gets, he cannot really enjoy. He is hurt by his ordeal, and never fully recovers.

There is a team of heroes, a classic adventuring party, except the Fellowship is together for less one sixth of the series. The Fellowship is intact from the Council of Elrond to Gandalf’s death, four chapters. The remaining eight are together until Boromir’s death, an additional six chapters. This is nothing compared to LOTR’s length of sixty-one chapters, if I count correctly.

Tolkien is not classic high fantasy. If you actually think about it, there is very little magic. The hobbits’ stealth is not magical, most elven wonders are not unambigously magical, wizards are extremely rare, and even Gandalf hardly uses magic if you compare him to the average DnD wizard. Most magic is indistinguishable from craft, there is no clear difference between a magic armor and a very good armor, between magic bread and very good bread, between magical healing and competent first-aid plus a few kind words.