Valar Guild

You have just entered room "valarguildmeetingplace."
Eonwe Valar has entered the room.
Eonwe Valar: Heya
Iryenth has entered the room.
Eonwe Valar: Heya Gilraen.
Iryenth: Hihi
ArPharazonV: Aiya
Eonwe Valar: Looks like 2 minutes to meeting time.
Eonwe Valar: I'll give it a couple more minutes, then begin.
ArPharazonV: :-)
VardaValar1 has entered the room.
Eonwe Valar: Heya Varda.
VardaValar1: Aiya Phar, Gilraen, and Eonwe. :-)
Iryenth: Aiya
ArPharazonV: Aiya!
Eonwe Valar: Giving a little bit longer to stragglers, then I'll begin the meeting.
VardaValar1: Okie dokie.
Eonwe Valar: OK, let's begin.
VardaValar1: Indis is coming.
top

Eonwe Valar: Elen sila lumenn omentielvo!
karakedi25 has entered the room.
Eonwe Valar: Membership:
karakedi25: Aiya!
Eonwe Valar: Heya Indis :}
VardaValar1: Aiya Indis :-)
Eonwe Valar: You're all here :}
Eonwe Valar: Any other membership news?
VardaValar1: Indis is traveling. Glad to see you're able to be at the meeting!
karakedi25: I'm in California, on Pacific Time, so 3 hours behind game time.
karakedi25: staying with people who also play lotro, but only occasionally.
Eonwe Valar: Cool :}
karakedi25: I'm hoping to lure them into more frequent play ;-)
Eonwe Valar: :}
VardaValar1: If anybody can, it's you. : )
top

Eonwe Valar: Web:
Eonwe Valar: Nothing to announce on my end yet :}
Eonwe Valar: Any Web News from you, Varda?
karakedi25: I hope so. Both are nice people, but the husband plays WoW because he has friends there, so I'm more hopeful about my friend (wife)
Iryenth has left the room.
VardaValar1: Not much visible, but some is. Currently in the Stories section working on formatting and editing in the Mellon Chronicles section.
VardaValar1: Even as we speak, whilst Eonwe is chairing. : )
Eonwe Valar: :}
top

Eonwe Valar: Then on to Gaming:
Eonwe Valar: WoW:
Eonwe Valar: Lothar: Bilbo and I popped into Zul Gurub for a bit Friday night, but he had to go shortly after, so we didn't do much more than a couple of bosses.
Iryenth has entered the room.
VardaValar1: Friday, my mage leveled in Lothar by finishing a chain quest.
VardaValar1: Elwing was on at the time too. And Bilbo.
VardaValar1: Eonwe has been faithfully coming to LotRO for the Monday LotRO night, so I returned the favor for WoW Lothar Fridays.
Eonwe Valar: :}
Eonwe Valar: Uldaman: I popped in for a bit.
Eonwe Valar: LotRO:
Eonwe Valar: Anniversary celebration going on until Monday.
VardaValar1: Ending that soon? eep
karakedi25: Increasingly active kinship--lots of people on a lot of the time.
VardaValar1: The after-supper crowd is usually pretty good. Off work etc.
karakedi25: No the welcome back weekend ends on Monday, but the celebration goes on into June
ArPharazonV: wow, long event then
Eonwe Valar: Pardon, thanks.
karakedi25: 'and I think the extension of the spring festival ends soon too, so get your green leaves soon
Eonwe Valar: I couldn't dig up info on the Anniversary itself from the LotRO news, surprisingly hard to find.
karakedi25: lots of tokens dropping from mobs, and constant lotteries for more of them
VardaValar1: Third Anniversary of LotRO, plus Welcome Back weekend, plus Spring Festival extension gets a lot of stuff going at once. Lotteries are going heavily during the Anniversary and we're getting quite a few wins.
karakedi25: they can be bartered for some nice things

Eonwe Valar: Any other gaming done this week that doesn't involve LotRo or WoW?
ArPharazonV: hmm, not for me, but for WoW I'd like to share a screenshot from Cataclysm that you might be interested in
ArPharazonV: http://wow.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=9845&cat=622
ArPharazonV: gotta love that water!
Eonwe Valar: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/ssotd/#latest That water? :}
ArPharazonV: the one next to it :-)
VardaValar1: That water Phar mentions has a strong LotRO look including the trees around it.
ArPharazonV: It looks very nice. If more of Cataclysm is that way (the water is supposed to be, anyway) I'm going to enjoy this a lot. Loses the WoW-typical cartoonish style though.
VardaValar1: Aye, that's the same picture.
VardaValar1: Aye,much more like LotRO.
VardaValar1: Are they feeling some burn? : )
Eonwe Valar: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/ssotd/#1309 That link should work like I intended to last to :}
ArPharazonV: yeah, it does ;-)
VardaValar1: Aye, nice!
ArPharazonV: They're really taking Cataclysm as an opportunity to revamp everything in geography and graphics. Make it accessible for flying mounts.
ArPharazonV: I know some people see it as an easy way out of making new content, but if they see this stuff they should realize that it's by no means an easy job.
Eonwe Valar: Blizzard's always tried to get their games on the most systems possible. As the average quality of gaming computers increases, so can their graphics and still present their style.
Eonwe Valar: And aye, Phar.
VardaValar1: I'm not sure if they're keeping their style there, but it's interesting to see the change.
ArPharazonV: Oh! Also! Children's Week started last night in WoW. Make sure to do your quests and go home with a few new pets, and feeling good about having helped an orphan or 2 see the world ;-)
VardaValar1: Thanks! That's always fun.
Eonwe Valar: D'oh, that's right, I meant to mention Children's Week. Thanks Phar :}
Eonwe Valar: OK, if there's no other gaming news, we can move to Tolkien :}
top

Eonwe Valar: Ok, then on to Tolkien:
Eonwe Valar: Whisper me Tolkien topics while I give this news :}
Eonwe Valar: Merry tells us Peter Jackson has been knighted :}
Eonwe Valar: From our News Page, just for you :} : Peter Jackson knighted. This article was brought to the guild's attention by Meriadoc-(V). As he points out, this brings the Lord of the Rings movies up to four real knigts: Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Ian Holm, Sir Christopher Lee, and Sir Peter Jackson. A quick Google search confirms the news with a very great many posts. :-) The title is Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Eonwe Valar: Video interview after being knighted.
Eonwe Valar: Also:
Eonwe Valar: The Hobbit. According to Peter Jackson, the two movies for The Hobbit are now scripted, but not expected to come out until 2013. The only three actors expected to be returning are Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), and maybe Galadriel (Cate Blanchett).
Eonwe Valar: OK, so no one has whispered me a Tolkien topic. Time to spin the Wheel of Destiny? :}
ArPharazonV: Wheel of destiny, turn turn turn, tell us the lesson that we should learn!
VardaValar1: Pardon
VardaValar1: If we're in Tolkien, a quick mention.
Eonwe Valar: We are, so go ahead :}

VardaValar1: In LotRO, Indis and I were invited on a Helegrod raid by Scions of Arda, our second time with them. What made it special
VardaValar1: was that during the break spots, they ask trivia.
VardaValar1: One "easy", then one hard.
VardaValar1: Everyone who wants to try types me.
VardaValar1: First to type gets to try to answer.
VardaValar1: Indis put us all in the dust and won the Grand Prize, which will be LotROmailed.
karakedi25: Actually together Varda and I swept the field.
VardaValar1: Last run we were dead even and they had to split it. This time she was first and I was second, but others also managed to get in there, so more will be getting prizes than last time.
VardaValar1: Some others did manage.
VardaValar1: The question about how many days were they inside Moria before Frodo spotted Gollum, for instance.
karakedi25: But it was another Valar victory--the questions were all Tolkien topics
VardaValar1: It is something we've done in the past in Diablo days, and can incorporate into our own runs that we're doing more of in the future.
karakedi25: I like it--Eonwe already throws a few in at random when he's logged in. They're fun.
VardaValar1: My main problem is that most of the stuff I make is given away as soon as made. We can stash some goodies back: critted Hope Tokens, food, etc.
VardaValar1: Aye. : )
VardaValar1: With high level runs, we can also give away level 65 stuff, since we know what the level is ahead of time, more or less.
VardaValar1: That's all I had on that subject. *must craft*
Eonwe Valar: :}
Eonwe Valar: I'm glad you all had fun :}
Eonwe Valar: And gogo Valar Guild :}

Eonwe Valar: OK, so Wheel of Destiny? :}
VardaValar1: Destiny itself is a good theme.
VardaValar1: Do we hold it to just LotR or branch out across the H and Sil?
VardaValar1: Or spin the Wheel? : )
ArPharazonV: *grin*
ArPharazonV: that Wheel is looking awfully tempting
Eonwe Valar: If we have interest in this topic, we can discuss Destiny :}
VardaValar1: O spin it, Eonwe. : )
Eonwe Valar: ok :}
Eonwe Valar: *Brings forth the Wheel of Destiny*
Eonwe Valar: *Spins the Wheel of Destiny*
Eonwe Valar: Wheel of Destiny, turn turn turn, tell us the Tolkien that we should learn :}
Eonwe Valar: *The Wheel of Destiny stops at...*

Eonwe Valar: Badguys in Tolkien: Redeemable or not?
ArPharazonV: Some. The main bad guys have gone too far down to be redeemable, even if they started good.
ArPharazonV: Thinking Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman there. The harder they fall, and all that.
Eonwe Valar: They all had their shot at redemption though, and refused it.
ArPharazonV: Quite true. Most of the bad guys have (well, did anyone ask the balrog?)
ArPharazonV: Boromir chose his redemption at Amon Hen even though it killed him.
ArPharazonV: Wormtongue and Gollum came close to redemption and ultimately declined.
Eonwe Valar: The Balrog fled. Assuming he'd been captured, he would've had the opportunity in some form.
Eonwe Valar: Boromir isn't a badguy though :}
ArPharazonV: In a way. For a moment. But he redeemed himself immediately.
ArPharazonV: if I recall the history of the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien originally intended him to become a recurring bad guy working with Saruman.
ArPharazonV: I think some (or most?) bad guys are redeemable, but I don't recall any bad guys offhand that actually did so, if they'd stayed bad guy for very long. [note: Osse}
Eonwe Valar: What about other servants of the Enemy? Orcs, trolls?
VardaValar1: Sauron was offered a chance but couldn't bring himself to take it.
VardaValar1: The ones that were built corrupted like Orcs seemed to be built unredeemable.
karakedi25: and yet they were sentient...
VardaValar1: Some trolls were more natural. Ones actually in the service of Sauron had been corrupted so badly that as far as we could see, they were unredeemable. Just kill them.
ArPharazonV: Trolls were built corrupted as well, in mockery of Ents, I believe. Though thinking back to the 3 trolls, they didn't seem evil as such, but mostly trying to survive while not really having any respect for those that got in their way.
karakedi25: I wonder if there was some kind of after-death opportunity
ArPharazonV: Aye, what Varda said.
ArPharazonV: More natural.
VardaValar1: When orcs thought about leaving Sauron's employ, they talked about becoming bandits, not shop-keepers.
Eonwe Valar: An orcish shopkeep would be a sight to see.
VardaValar1: Saruman's and Sauron's being blown away after death and just perhaps a faint spirit of malice sounds like they might have to wait til the End of Arda.
VardaValar1: heheheh
ArPharazonV: That reminds me of a section in the Sellamillion, the Silmarillion parody.
VardaValar1: After this Arda ends, all will have learned from the experience and be able to take their proper places in the Song and the new Arda. Yet, it seemed as if some might be left out of that, memory is not certain here. Like an 8-ball. : )
ArPharazonV: About an Orc who was mentioned to disobey his superior officer, ran off, and ended up setting up a... gopher-farm or something, I believe, in a remote area.
VardaValar1: Gopher-farm, heh. Not exactly a good thing either. : )
ArPharazonV: probably not a gopher, but something like that
VardaValar1: Amusing. : )
ArPharazonV: yeah, it's a fun book
VardaValar1: Phar made a good point. It was the distance down the road as an evil creature that seemed to render some unredeemable, and they caused more evil that was totally corrupt.
ArPharazonV: Gollum was wretched for 500 years, but came close to redemption. To be fair, he hadn't done much evil during most of the time.
VardaValar1: Grabbing orcs to eat as a side dish to fish?
VardaValar1: He had been so bad at home that they threw him out. Blackmailing with information learned while he was invisible.
VardaValar1: He wasn't all that nice before he picked up the Ring, giving it something to work with.
ArPharazonV: Aye. I said most of the time. Most of the time he retreated into a cave and only grabbed orcs to eat. Granted, eating people isn't nice, but Orcs aren't very nice either. Kinda becoming gray area.
VardaValar1: Yet as a Hobbit, he still had resistance.
VardaValar1: Blackmail as a way to become powerful among his riverfolk?
VardaValar1: The movie seemed to make Gollum a bit better than the book did. And made him the hero, in a fashion.
ArPharazonV: how so?
ArPharazonV: at some points I almost saw him as more evil in the movie. But then again, I haven't read that part of the books in a while.
VardaValar1: More evil? You have a point, where he actually managed to come between Frodo and Sam in the movie.
ArPharazonV: Yes, that jumped to mind.
VardaValar1: Frodo was sure nerfed in the movie, heh.
ArPharazonV: to be fair, I find it hard to come up with additional examples.
VardaValar1: Most of the rest were in the book too, aye.
ArPharazonV: Indeed.
VardaValar1: Where it went completely wrong, maybe trying not to be gross, was that Gollum was holding the Ring, not Frodo's finger with the Ring on it, and they didn't show Frodo setting conditions that the Ring enforced.
VardaValar1: I wish the book had made that more clear. If there had been a voice-over of Frodo's words while Gollum fell, that would have been a perfect improvement by the movie.
VardaValar1: But I've said this before. :-) Back to other monsters?
VardaValar1: What monsters of Middle-earth can we think of?
ArPharazonV: Dragons. Again bred to evil.
VardaValar1: We've mentioned Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman, Boromir (temp baddie), Grima, Gollum, the Balrog of Moria, orcs, trolls.
ArPharazonV: Again no redemption seen so far, in fact, they seem to be among the most cunning and purposeful evildoers in Middle-Earth.
karakedi25: does bred to evil entail no path to redemption?
VardaValar1: Dragons, aye. Even mechanical at first. Glaurung in his earliest incarnation was Sauron.
VardaValar1: They started out corrupted. This is Middle-earth. It's like they built pre-programming into them. Sounds like Sauron.
ArPharazonV: We haven't seen it. Nurture vs Nature. They have no past of being good, no good memories or childhood values to fall back to.
ArPharazonV: I wonder if being bred to evil even allows for the understanding of concepts like compassion.
VardaValar1: I think Phar has it. The very concept of good was not presented in their formative time.
VardaValar1: And their physical make-up was pre-programmed to evil.
ArPharazonV: Redemption implies falling back to a state of "good". Dragons and Orcs etc had no state of good to fall back to.
VardaValar1: It's like all the Rings were dangerous because all were built to be linked to the One Ring.
VardaValar1: Well said.
Eonwe Valar: Sauron could not percieve the thoughts or motives of the Free Peoples. He measured everything according to what he would do in their place. Thus, destroying the Ring never occurred to him.
Eonwe Valar: Point being: No, I don't think evil could even comprehend a thing like "compassion."
VardaValar1: Sauron had been too long on the road and had finally lost his understanding.

VardaValar1: Sauron's logic was very good. In modern times, as JRRT said, the free folk would have done Boromir's suggestion.
VardaValar1: They would no longer have been free, after doing that, either.
ArPharazonV: This implies that modern people are more evil? Have less good to fall back to? Less good rolemodels like Elves?
VardaValar1: A bit of intervention helped there. And thus we had a story.
VardaValar1: Interesting question.
VardaValar1: In Middle-earth, humans could be found on any side of a war. This points out their great freedom of choice.
ArPharazonV: I wonder if modern people would actually have done Boromir's suggestion. If they were raised in war with a great evil like Sauron, as the Free Folk were in that time, they might have a better understanding of the consequences of such evil and corruption, and be more wary of it than we would be.
VardaValar1: They could move outside the Song, independently.
VardaValar1: It might depend on who was in the position of leadership, in our times. And their advisors.
ArPharazonV: In other words, if modern people lived in a situation with Sauron and the Ring, they might not act all that differently.

Eonwe Valar: Without getting into too deep a comparison, I'd say look at the different morailities protrayed in LotR and the Wheel of Time series.
ArPharazonV: Can't participate there, I haven't read WoT :-)
Eonwe Valar: I'm about to give the gist of it :}
ArPharazonV: ah ;-)
VardaValar1: Me either. Thanks, Eonwe. : )
Eonwe Valar: I'm pointing it out as illustration, not discussion :}
Eonwe Valar: In LotR, the primary moral imperitive is Free Will. A Being is given their Being by Eru.No other Being under Eru has authority to act in a way to subjugate that Being in a way said Being does not permit, and no other Being under Eru has the power to given Being. (Attempting to put this into words quickly, so bear with me if I'm not perfectly clear).
Eonwe Valar: The situation with Aulė and the Dwarves is a prime example: all he could do was give his own Being to the Dwarves, and thus they would only reflect Aulė back to him.
Eonwe Valar: We can also see from other works of craft that a person puts something of themselves/their skill in their creations.
ArPharazonV: (Sauron and the Ring >.>)
Eonwe Valar: Thus we can draw from that that works of craft come from one's Being, a product of one's skill and will, and thus (assuming "good" product/motive) to deny one the ability to determine what is done with the product of one's labour (through stealing/destroying) is evil.
Eonwe Valar: Unlawfully denying one the full use of their Being (slavery or murder) is evil.
VardaValar1: Crafting comes from one's being. That's core, aye.
Eonwe Valar: These are basic examples. I think you get the general point from these.
Eonwe Valar: The Valar know Eru, the Elves have a vague memory that they came from somewhere outside of Arda (if you read BoLT).
Eonwe Valar: They understand these concepts, and thus they attempt to follow them. All free peoples understand them after their fashion.
VardaValar1: The Elves were taught early on about Eru, aye.
VardaValar1: The Dunedain learned from the Elves.
Eonwe Valar: Aye.
VardaValar1: Even the lesser Men learned a little from Elves in the East that didn't go to Beleriand.
Eonwe Valar: Now, for Wheel of Time.
Eonwe Valar: The worldview is more Deist, in that there is a creator, but he doesn't seem to intervene at all in the affairs of man.
Eonwe Valar: The universe/multiverse (certainly multi-layer/perhaps mult-dimension) was set up at some point in the past, but apparently since then it's been spinning along on its own.
Eonwe Valar: The primary evil is perhaps coeval with the Creator (I forget exactly on this, though I recall he's described as "antithesis to the Creator"), though the Creator evidently proved the stronger when he sealed the Dark One away.
Eonwe Valar: The primary morality presented in Wheel of Time is this: "Do what you want, and pay for it."
Eonwe Valar: This *may* sound good superficially: A person can do whatever they want, so long as they're willing to accept the consequences.
Eonwe Valar: The problem is, it does not account for another person's perhaps freedoms. You can use someone however you want, manipulate them, whatever, so long as *theoretically* in some possible future, you're willing to accept potential consequences that may never come.
Eonwe Valar: *minus the "perhaps" between "person's" and "freedoms"
ArPharazonV: that does not bode well for the original victim, true
VardaValar1: Aye.
ArPharazonV: Anyway, I must be going.
ArPharazonV: Getting up early tomorrow again.
karakedi25: That's the Lord of the Flies, or games that permit ganking
VardaValar1: Thanks for being here, Phar. Sleep fast. : )
ArPharazonV: I'll leave you two to discuss this.
ArPharazonV: or... you 4 ;-)
karakedi25: night, Phar
VardaValar1: :-)
ArPharazonV: nnight!
ArPharazonV: saving and sending
VardaValar1: Thank you.