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A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

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Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#41

Post by baddox »

foobarian wrote: post #30
sevensor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath. If you want to see what happens when…

On the other hand there is X files. There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

Slow zombies probably don’t pose a huge “where does the energy come from” problem.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#42

Post by valesco »

conception wrote: post #33
1123581321 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Christianity, Jesus is God. There is a concept called Trinity which you can read about. Some Christians won’t make images of Jesus and some will. Santa Claus is a folk tale version of a Christian who lived about 1500 years ago. I suppose you could argue that letting children “believe in Santa Claus” violates the first commandment. Not sure about the second.

While this is true, it's a point of view taken up well after Christianity was established as a way to get around the various conflicts on who Jesus was and how the three different "beings" in the Bible interrelate. Even one of the first teachers of the "They are just all the same thing." was excommunicated by the Church. It took a few hundred years for things to settle into what we have today - which I feel like shou…

To the contrary, this view was held by the first apostles, who condemned this heresy as soon as in the first century.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#43

Post by foobarian »

krapp wrote: post #35
foobarian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand there is X files. There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

>It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap. Zombies, like vampires in the pre-industrial age, are meant to represent the horrors that lurk beyond the limits of human understanding and control. Although I'm sure some author has attempted to "harden" zombies…

Speaking of monsters from the Id, Forbidden Planet was another excellent piece of SciFi with a consistent logical framework.

(Also: Leslie Nielsen's first starring role).

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#44

Post by LoSboccacc »

sevensor wrote: post #21
teilo wrote: post #8

I realize this article is a tongue-in-cheek fan theory. However, it does make me wonder what Tarantino was up to with Pulp Fiction. The Ezekiel "quote" always bugged me because even without looking it up, anyone who spent any amount of time in the Old Testament, could tell that it was fabricated. "Finder of lost children" is not an OT motif in general, and certainly not in Ezekiel. Obviously, Tarantino knew people wo…

I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath. If you want to see what happens when…

> try to explain everything

Midichlorians

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#45

Post by logfromblammo »

tootie wrote: post #9
stared wrote: post #6

As a note on Santa Claus being something different than we think: "Is Santa Claus a god?" ( http://nautil.us/blog/is-santa-claus-a-god ). tl;dr: Omniscience (of child's deeds), rewarding the good (with gifts) and punishing the bad (with coal).

I always wondered how Christians were able to square the existence of Santa with the 2nd commandment. Then again, how they can reconcile Jesus with the 2nd commandment is bit dodgy to me too so what do I know.

I never wondered this, because religions accumulate all kinds of internal inconsistencies as they age, and many of them weren't even all that consistent to begin with.

Humans are perfectly capable of holding two mutually incompatible ideas in our heads at the same time. That's how we would determine the winner of a contest between Batman and Ozymandias, or between Godzilla and Voltron, or between James Bond and Jack Ryan, or between Hit Girl and Nikita.

The most psychically significant incarnation of Santa is from the Childlike Wonder Mythosphere, and Jesus is from the Abrahamic Monotheist's Age of Legends. In order for them to even meet, they would have to pierce the boundary between worlds, and perhaps exist together in some mutually neutral dimension. But when they cross over, they have to adopt forms and behaviors compatible with that dimension, which is why they look like paper cutouts in South Park and have no bendable knees in LEGO Universe.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#46

Post by yters »

User23 wrote: post #20
williamdclt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any adult Christian thinks that Santa is actually real, so there's nothing to reconciliate

Saint Nicholas was very real however, and had a mean right hook for heretics.

Didn't he drop bags of money down the chimneys of poor people? According to Catholic theology, Saint Nicholas as a saint can also bestow gifts via prayer, i.e. "prayers of a righteous man availeth much." So one could argue the essentials of Santa Claus are true in Saint Nicholas, and parents are not lying when they tell their kid that Santa Claus exists.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#47

Post by logfromblammo »

gumby wrote: post #26
tootie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered how Christians were able to square the existence of Santa with the 2nd commandment. Then again, how they can reconcile Jesus with the 2nd commandment is bit dodgy to me too so what do I know.

> I always wondered how Christians were able to square the existence of Santa with the 2nd commandment. More concerning is their failure to square the existence of Santa with the 2nd amendment .

Santa has damage reduction 25/+5 chaotic. He's been shot plenty of times by startled homeowners, but none of them have ever previously taken the steps of coalescing solid bullets from Limbo protoplasm and enchanting them to +5.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#48

Post by gaius »

foobarian wrote: post #30
sevensor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath. If you want to see what happens when…

On the other hand there is X files. There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy

You will enjoy the book "The Girl With All The Gifts"

Spoilers in link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_All_the_Gifts

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#49

Post by qznc »

foobarian wrote: post #30
sevensor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath. If you want to see what happens when…

On the other hand there is X files. There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

People who love this genre hang out at https://www.reddit.com/r/rational They call it "rational fiction".

There is quite some overlap with fan fiction, because people like to "fix" non-rational fiction. Eliezer Yudkowsky and his take on Harry Potter is the prime example. I can also recommend Alexander Wales who also made original fiction.

Probably the oldest related work is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.

Another name mentioned often in this genre is Brandon Sanderson and especially his Mistborn series, but I have not read it personally.

Re: A History of the Silmarils in the Fifth Age

#50

Post by QAPereo »

foobarian wrote: post #30
sevensor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tarantino put mysteries into Pulp Fiction for the same reason Scott wrote this post -- the mind likes to make connections where there are none. Scott did this quite deliberately, to entertain us both on the meta-level and on the level. I suspect Tarantino added inexplicable elements so that we as the audience would be entertained by speculation. There's nothing underneath. If you want to see what happens when…

On the other hand there is X files. There really needs to be an "engineer plot" genre where plot stays consistent to a small set of made up axioms. "The Strain" made an attempt. It boggles the mind why not in a single one of the zombie stories out there nobody bothered to wonder where the zombies get the energy? The way most of them work it's like cold fusion landing in one's lap.

Zombies which don’t rapidly decay and fail make no rational sense, but that kind of zombie also makes for a lousy zombie tale. Zombies represent anxieties about life, death, disease, being eaten alive, etc.
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