Friday, April 27, 2012

The Middle-Earth Eagle Postal Service...or not


This is a question which I’ve been asked many times, and have got bored of explaining.  It came up again a few days ago so I thought I’d write about it, so that next time someone asks, I can say the wonderful line ‘I refer you to my blog’.

The question is: “In The Lord of the Rings, why didn’t the eagles fly the ring to Mordor?”

The answers are multiple.

Firstly, as Gwaihir (King of the Eagles) himself says in Fellowship part 2 chapter 2 (The Council Of Elrond), the eagles were “sent to bear tidings not burdens”.  The eagles had been ‘devised’ by Manwe, one of the Valar (a former race living in the world of middle earth), in the First Age (LOTR taking place at the end of the Third Age).  They were spies and messengers, not transportation.
Although Gwaihir carried Gandalf a few times, that was on the level of a personal favour, and only over short distances.

On a more practical note, the whole point of taking the ring on foot was to keep the mission as secret as possible.  Had Gandalf, or anyone, attempted to take the ring on an Eagle, it would have been seen easily by Sauron and/or the Nazgul, and would have been taken out with arrows or fell beasts.

Some people have suggested that the eagles would have succumbed to the temptation of the ring and not delivered it to Mount Doom – possibly true, but as far as I can tell, we are not told enough about the eagles to know if this is correct or not.

Having said all that, it is probably significant that Tolkien doesn’t discuss the eagle possibility at any point.  Various other plans are suggested and dismissed, all with good reason.  The eagle plan is not mentioned at all.  This suggests that Tolkien probably didn’t think of it.  Yes, even Father Tolkien forgot something.  Fantasy is a very hard genre to write.

But even given this, the above reasons hopefully explain that, even if Tolkien had thought of the idea, he would easily have been able to write a logical argument as to why it would clearly not have been an option for the Fellowship.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Delirious song ranking

It's nice having the Easter holidays to do geeky things.  Yesterday, Chris Morgan and I decided to independently rank all songs by Delirious on their main 7 studio albums, and then compare our opinions.  To clarify, we were ranking songs from King of Fools, Mezzamorphis, Glo, Audio Lessonover, World Service, Mission Bell and Kingdom of Comfort.  We included songs from both UK and US versions of Audio Lessonover.  This gave us a total of 88 songs.
Here are our lists.

Rank
Ben
Chris
1
My Glorious
My Glorious
2
Investigate
Investigate
3
White ribbon day
Heaven
4
Heaven
God in Heaven
5
God is smiling
God is Smiling
6
History maker
Here I am Send Me
7
Mountain's High
Miracle Maker
8
Alien
Rain Down
9
Deeper
Promise
10
The years go by
History Maker
11
God you are my God
God's Romance
12
King or cripple
Feel it Coming on
13
Jesus blood
White Ribbon Day
14
Inside outside
Love will find a Way
15
God in heaven
Deeper
16
Revival town
God You are my God
17
Love will find a way
Mountains High
18
God's Romance
All this time
19
Take me away
Touch
20
Feel it coming on
Take me away
21
Everything
Awaken the dawn
22
Rain down
Love is the compass
23
Promise
Grace like a river
24
Wonder
Hallelujah
25
Awaken the dawn
Jesus' blood
26
Miracle maker
Hang on to You
27
Hang on to you
Wonder
28
Bliss
Show me Heaven
29
Our God reigns
Stare the Monster Down
30
Touch
Bliss
31
Here I am send me
Sanctify
32
Sanctify
Love falls down
33
With you
With You
34
Follow
King or Cripple
35
Eagle rider
Fires Burn
36
Fires Burn
Break the Silence
37
King of fools
Majesty
38
It's ok
Follow
39
Love falls down
Paint the Town Red
40
Majesty
Inside Outside
41
The mezzanine floor
Everything
42
Metamorphis
Waiting for the Summer
43
August 30th
Fire
44
Every little thing
Give what you got
45
Break the silence
King of Fools
46
A little love
Solid Rock
47
America
Revival Town
48
Mothers of the night
Now is the Time
49
Hallelujah
Our God Reigns
50
All this time
Mezzanine Floor
51
Now is the time
Alien
52
Paint the town red
Mothers of the Night
53
Stare the monster down
The Years go by
54
Show me heaven
Kingdom of Comfort
55
Solid rock
See the star
56
Waiting for the summer
Every Little Thing
57
Kingdom of comfort
August 30th
58
Give what you've got
Angel in Disguise
59
Grace like a river
Gravity
60
See the star
Take off my shoes
61
Love is the compass
My Soul Sings
62
Fire
Rollercoaster
63
Louder than the radio
Metamorphis
64
Gravity
Eagle Rider
65
Free
We give you Praise
66
All the way
Free
67
Angel in disguise
Intimate Stranger
68
My soul sings
All the Way
69
What a friend I've found
It's OK
70
Everyone knows
What a friend
71
Hands of kindness
Stronger
72
Stronger
There is an angel
73
Rollercoaster
Blindfold
74
I was blind
All God's Children
75
We give you praise
I was blind
76
Intimate stranger
What would I have done
77
Take off my shoes
A little love
78
Love is a miracle
Hands of Kindness
79
All God's children
Kiss your feet
80
What would I have Done
Louder than the Radio
81
Kiss your feet
Everyone knows
82
Beautiful Sun
America
83
There is an angel
How sweet the name
84
I'll see you
I'll See You
85
How sweet the name
Beautiful Sun
86
Blindfold
Love is a miracle
87
Bicycle gasoline
Bicycle Gasoline
88
Stealing time
Stealing time


As you can see, we agree on the top 2 and bottom 2, and coincidentally placed some other songs together.  Our biggest disagreements were with Alien, The Years go By, Inside Outside and Grace like a River.

I decided to give each song points based on position, so My Glorious scored 88 and Stealing Time scored 1.  I then averaged the scores for each album and produced the following graph.  The letters at the bottom represent the seven albums but they are small.  The order, from left to right, is King of Fools, Mezzamorphis, Glo, Audio Lessonover, World Service, Mission Bell, Kingdom of Comfort.

As expected, Glo is the clear leader, with 9 of its 11 songs appearing in the top 27.  Surprisingly, King of Fools outscored World Service - the lower and middle sections of each album scored similarly, but the best songs on King of Fools outscores the best of World Service.  Kingdom of Comfort and Mezzamorphis were neck and neck, while Mission Bell suffered from having no songs in the top 25.  The pre-race outsider, Audio Lessonover, predictably came last, though Alien did manage a top-10 place.

As a final disclaimer, it should be noted that the above album ranking based based on scores for isolated songs, which is not a particularly valid way of ranking albums!