Ruining Lord of the Rings with Waterparks (A Case Study)

[Slii Arhem]

So friendly friends and neighbors, a while back (or last night as the case may be) a few playgrounders and I were chatting and the topic turned to Lord of the Rings.

It only got worse from there.

So I present for your inspection, critique, and utter mortification the complete ruination of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, facilitated by water parks.

(Note, this is a parsed-down version of a chat-log, made forum-friendly and with all the non-subject related matter removed. It starts in the middle of another conversation, and is long enough that I'll need two posts to cover it, so bear with me while I get this ball rolling.)

PART 1
Or: "But what if Sauron wasn't such a bad guy after all?"

Spoiler

Show

[03:30] Lord Herman: Yeah, Aragorn bought one of those, and it broke the first time he used it.
[03:30] Lord Herman: Later he made up some story about Sauron breaking it
[03:30] Ghar: XD
[03:30] Loony: Aragorn's kind of a jerk. =I
[03:31] Lord Herman: Come to think of it, we never really hear Sauron's side of the story, do we?
[03:32] Lord Herman: Maybe he's not evil at all, but everyone's just blaming their own mistakes on him
[03:32] Destro: well, he's just a big eye, isn't he?
[03:32] Destro: hard to talk back with no mouth.
[03:32] Lord Herman: Indeed
[03:32] Ghar: *orcs try and wreck up the place* "Uh... that big evil lookign eye told us to!"
[03:32] Slii Arhem: "Blink once for yes, and twice for being the evil guy in our next few hundred years of war."
[03:33] Slii Arhem: "Hey guys! Sauron volunteered to do it!"
[03:33] Destro: seriously, Sauron had like, no lines in the books
[03:33] Slii Arhem: "Three cheers for Sauron, and then we all try to murder Sauron!"
[03:33] Destro: we just have Gandalf's assurance that he's evil
[03:33] Slii Arhem: I don't know about that
[03:33] Destro: and all those orcs
[03:33] Slii Arhem: there was the forging of the rings
[03:33] Slii Arhem: that kind of corrupted people
[03:33] Slii Arhem: a lot
[03:33] Destro: there was that
[03:33] Lord Herman: And Saruman makes up all sorts of things about Sauron
[03:34] Loony: Maybe he didn't mean to.
[03:34] Destro: but nobody can prove that was him
[03:34] Destro: or maybe it was an accident
[03:34] Slii Arhem: the rings laid dormant until his master control ring activated them and put them under his sway
[03:34] Destro: actually, I don't think he even made those ones
[03:34] Terumitsu: ...Silmarilion covers a lot of ground on thsi very topic
[03:34] Lord Herman: Maybe the rings weren't corrupted at all, but the wearers just did some crappy stuff that they then blamed on these "cursed" rings
[03:34] Destro: don't bring your logic into this, Teru
[03:34] Slii Arhem: they got turned into immortal demon lords bound to his will
[03:34] Destro: I've read Silmarillion
[03:34] Slii Arhem: that doesn't exactly happen by accident
[03:35] Destro: it's a million pages long and has twelve thousand characters
[03:35] Lord Herman: How do we know it's /his/ will, though?
[03:35] Derjuin: isnt sauron just the errand boy of some greater evil god guy
[03:35] Slii Arhem: he sends them out to find his missing jewellery
[03:35] Derjuin: M-something
[03:35] Lord Herman: Maybe they're just evil bastards themselves, and they're using the rings as an excuse?
[03:35] Destro: you have any idea how many times I had to check the appendix to see who the hell was doing things right now?
[03:35] Lord Herman: Morgoth
[03:35] Ghar: maybe they just say it's his will
[03:35] Ghar: and they want the ring themself
[03:35] Derjuin: Morgoth is it
[03:35] Slii Arhem: I'll give you that, yes
[03:36] Destro: but yeah, I don't think Sauron made those rings
[03:36] Destro: he just made the one
[03:36] Derjuin: so silmarillion is like homestuck?
[03:36] Ghar: *decides that Sauron being the victim is now canon*
[03:36] Lord Herman: No, he made them all and gave them as gifts to everyone
[03:36] Lord Herman: Which was awfully nice of him
[03:36] Destro: the elves made some
[03:36] Slii Arhem: For a non-evil guy though, dude sure did surround himself with a load of spikes and fire and black rock and sooty skies and bleching clouds of acrid dust and lava and giant spiders and legions of doom
[03:37] Slii Arhem: just saying
[03:37] Lord Herman: They did make some other stuff themselves, but those rings were all gifts from Sauron
[03:37] Derjuin: and mind control
[03:37] Ghar: that's just stereotyping, slii
[03:37] Slii Arhem: hey, I'm not implying anything
[03:37] Ghar: you sure are
[03:37] Destro: I sort of want to look this up now
[03:37] Slii Arhem: just saying, he had an odd taste in decor
[03:37] Derjuin: he could very well be lawful good
[03:37] Ghar: feel bad, slii. Feel bad
[03:37] Derjuin: and just be emo
[03:37] Destro: I'm pretty sure Sauron only made the One Ring himself
[03:37] Slii Arhem: I'm not going to feel bad for pointing out the obvious
[03:38] Destro: I forget who gave the rings to men
[03:38] Destro: what the hell did all the other rings even DO?
[03:38] Ghar: You claim to not be implying anything, but I see right through you!
[03:38] Ghar: Stop picking on sauron!
[03:38] Slii Arhem: his home decorating scheme was off if he was a good guy. you can't deny that
[03:38] Ghar: good guys can like black, spikes, and lava too
[03:38] Derjuin: hey, slii
[03:39] Derjuin: just because his feng shui skill is higher than everyone else's is no reason to pick on him
[03:39] Slii Arhem: yes Derj?
[03:39] Derjuin: i mean
[03:39] Derjuin: could you FEEL the vibes going through his place?
[03:39] Derjuin: it was like
[03:39] Derjuin: perfectly tuned
[03:39] Destro: Gandalf's ring did fire stuff, and Elrond's ring did water stuff, and Galadriel's ring let her go all freaky-diki and see the future and whatnot. Stars or something.
[03:39] Slii Arhem: an omnipresent aura of oppression that drove you to your knees with every step?
[03:39] Slii Arhem: yeah, perfectly tuned that
[03:39] Derjuin: i thought gandalf was like an angel or something
[03:40] Slii Arhem: an angel wizard
[03:40] Derjuin: no that's slenderman slii
[03:40] Lord Herman: Some sort of demigod, at any rate
[03:40] Destro: but nobody ever mentions what the ringwraith's rings did. Aside from turning them into wraiths over time.
[03:40] Destro: and forget the Dwarf rings
[03:40] Derjuin: who are even the dwarfs??
[03:40] Derjuin: YOU HAVE MY MAXE
[03:40] Destro: the dwarf rings get mentioned like, twice
[03:40] Lord Herman: I think those rings tried to turn them into greedy, self-centred bastards
[03:40] Derjuin: dwarves have fingers?
[03:40] Lord Herman: But no one noticed any difference
[03:40] Slii Arhem: AND MY FLWORD
[03:41] Destro: Maybe the Dwarf Rings made their beards grow longer
[03:41] Slii Arhem: maybe they used the rings as beard accessories
[03:41] Slii Arhem: and never found out what they did
[03:42] Destro: I bet they used the rings as beard accessories
[03:42] Destro: and it made their beards grow longer
[03:42] Destro: and then they lost the rings in the tangle of longer beards
[03:42] Lord Herman: If they'd actually worn them, they'd have grown taller themselves?
[03:42] Destro: and that's why they don't have them anymore
[03:42] Destro: they never actually lost them
[03:42] Destro: they just can't find them amidst all the beards
[03:43] Slii Arhem: when one dwarf king dies, it takes three generations to cut back his beard enough to find the ring to pass it on to his surviving kin
[03:43] Lord Herman: Oh, I remember how the ring-making thing went
[03:43] Destro: and cutting back a dwarf's beard is undwarfy, or something
[03:43] Lord Herman: Sauron had some elven smiths over who helped him make the rings
[03:44] Destro: so they have to go digging for it
[03:44] Lord Herman: Then he handed them out to everyone
[03:44] Slii Arhem: so Sauron commissioned the rings
[03:44] Destro: see, I thought it was the other way around. Sauron played nice for a bit and got to help the Elven Smiths
[03:44] Lord Herman: And he made the one ring when the elves weren't looking
[03:44] Destro: and then he made the One Ring and they got all pissy at him and tossed him out
[03:44] Lord Herman: They were all made sort of at the same time, though
[03:45] Lord Herman: So everyone accepted their gifts, and only later found out Sauron had made another one
[03:45] Lord Herman: Then they got kind of upset
[03:45] Destro: I wonder if he always wore that spiky helmet
[03:45] Happy: http://xkcd.com/712/
[03:45] Happy: obligatory xkcd
[03:45] Lord Herman: That was just the fashion of the time
[03:45] Lord Herman: Everyone wore those
[03:46] Happy: hell on pillowcases though
[03:46] Lord Herman: But maybe he stood too close to the fires of Mount Doom, and his armour melted together so he couldn't take it off anymore
[03:46] Destro: who the hell named that mountain anyways
[03:46] Slii Arhem: that's what the first war was about
[03:46] Destro: I mean, Mount Doom
[03:46] Lord Herman: So he was stuck wearing late 2nd era fashion... FOREVER!
[03:47] Slii Arhem: And for that, the armies of man and elf united against him
[03:47] Destro: Mordor was fairly nice before Sauron hired that shady interior decorator on Morgoth's recommendation
[03:47] Destro: so why Mount Doom?
[03:47] Lord Herman: I guess it's also Morgoth's influence
[03:47] Lord Herman: I mean, the name says it all
[03:48] Slii Arhem: maybe it's a phonetic mispelling?
[03:48] Destro: put that on a travel brochure, nobody would go there
[03:48] Slii Arhem: Mount Duum
[03:48] Slii Arhem: or Dume
[03:48] Happy: "Really, all these crops? They have /got/ to go. Slag and poison water is what you want."
[03:48] Loony: Maybe the guy who named Mount Doom is also the guy who named all the places in the Gauntlet game.
[03:48] Loony: And after he left they were stuck with it.
[03:48] Destro: "hey, where are we going on vacation?"
'Well, kids, I thought we'd go to Mount fudging Doom'
[03:49] Slii Arhem: Let's just rename it Mount Squishypuppy
[03:49] Slii Arhem: that'll brighten it up
[03:49] Happy: "Does it have a waterslide?"
[03:49] Lord Herman: Sauron wanted to call it that
[03:49] Destro: 'It's got a rockin' waterslide.'
[03:49] Lord Herman: But Morgoth went around telling everyone it was called Mount Doom
[03:49] Happy: He squished /so/ many puppies there
[03:49] Slii Arhem: *warning, waterslide may actually be a hundred yard drop into lava
[03:50] Lord Herman: Morgoth was probably completely harmless too
[03:50] Happy: *warning, puppy corpses may carry magic plague*
[03:50] Destro: that would be hilarious, actually. If, on the other side of Mount Doom, there was a kickass waterpark
[03:50] Lord Herman: He just tried to seem like this dramatic doomy villain
[03:50] Lord Herman: But no one took him seriously
[03:50] Destro: and Frodo just picked the side with the lava and pain and death and whatnot
[03:51] Loony: To be fair, Dest, Frodo had an /awful/ tour guide.
[03:51] Slii Arhem: THIS IS WHY GONDOR FIGHTS! BEYOND THOSE BLACKENED HILLS LIES THE MOST AMAZING WATER RIDING EXTRAVAGANZA MANKIND HAS EVER SEEN! sERIOUSLY GUYS, I'VE NEVER BEEN, BUT I KNOW A GUY, AND HE SAID IT'S LIKE... WOAH!
[03:52] Lord Herman: Is that why they didn't go through the black gates?
[03:52] Lord Herman: They didn't want to pay for the ticket?
[03:52] Destro: and then Frodo destroyed the ring, Sauron's tower blew up, and it took the waterpark with it.
[03:52] Destro: Aragorn was pissed
[03:52] Ghar: XD
[03:52] Slii Arhem: instead they sent one little guy through the service entrance to try and sneak them in
[03:53] Lord Herman: Or maybe you have to be this tall to ride
[03:53] Slii Arhem: and then what Des said happened
[03:53] Lord Herman: Which was a problem for the hobbitses
[03:53] Happy: so he sent Faramir to Osgiliath to try to build the waterpark there.
[03:53] Destro: everyone said it wasn't as good
[03:53] Happy: Also because he needed to get his mistress out of town once Arwen showed up
[03:54] Lord Herman: Faramir was Aragorn's mistress? o.o
[03:54] Slii Arhem: One of them
[03:54] Loony: Aragorn was a playa.
[03:54] Slii Arhem: lots of duties come with the stewardship of Gondor
[03:55] Slii Arhem: why do you think the former steward burned himself alive instead of submitting to Aragorn?
[03:55] Slii Arhem: the constant 24 hour footrubs would be agonizing on his old hands
[03:56] Destro: that was cause Sauron's magic ball thing told him Aragorn had really gnarly feet from all that striding about
[03:56] Lord Herman: Did Denethor actually burn himself, or was it an 'unfortunate accident' arranged by Faramir?
[03:56] Slii Arhem: Faramir was unconscious
[03:56] Lord Herman: Or so he says
[03:56] Slii Arhem: and would have been burned alive with Denethor if Gandalf hadn't done something
[03:57] Happy: "Hehe... Imma totally fake my own near death just to get dad to immolate us both. This is the /best/ plan!"
[03:57] Destro: Sauron's magic ball thing told Denethor a lot of stuff
[03:57] Lord Herman: Things like "Ask again later"
[03:57] Destro: it probably told him that since hot air rises, if he set himself on fire he'd be able to fly
[03:58] Destro: or maybe it just let him download back issues of the Fantastic Four on Sauron's broadband
[03:58] Destro: that's totally why he jumped off the cliff in the movie
[03:58] Lord Herman: Was it actually Sauron who talked to them through the Palantirs, though?
[03:58] Lord Herman: Maybe it was just an ork wearing a Sauron mask
[03:58] Slii Arhem: orks pull the best pranks
[03:58] Destro: I don't think Palantirs get video chat
[03:59] Ghar: I bet they have tonnes of those helmets in clearance racks everywhere
[03:59] Destro: pretty sure it's voice only
[03:59] Slii Arhem: oooh
[03:59] Destro: unless you upgrade to premium
[03:59] Slii Arhem: it was totally the Mouth of Sauron
[03:59] Slii Arhem: he was behind the whole thing!
[03:59] Destro: Denethor was cheap, he would never go for that
[03:59] Destro: Saruman sprung for it, though
[04:00] Lord Herman: Well yeah, Saruman could afford it, of course
[04:00] Destro: that's why Merry was able to call Sauron on it. Only that was like, the middle of the night in Mordor, because of timezones
[04:00] Lord Herman: He used to be a world-class assassin, after all
[04:00] Destro: or was it Pippin?
[04:00] Destro: Pippin
[04:00] Destro: anyways
[04:00] Lord Herman: Although I do seem to remember James Bond killing him at some point
[04:00] Destro: so Pippin calls Sauron in the middle of the night
[04:01] Ghar: XD
[04:01] Destro: and Sauron, naturally, is sort of angry about what amounts to a prank call from an idiot hobbit without any legitimate reason for wanting to talk to him
[04:01] Destro: which woke him up
[04:02] Lord Herman: "Hello, Sauron speaking." "Can I speak to I. C. Wiener?"
[04:02] Slii Arhem: you do not want to talk to him in the morning before he's got his five thousand gallons of visene in
[04:02] Destro: and then Gandalf had to shut the call down because the Palantir's network didn't offer unlimited data, and Pippin was wasting their quota on video calls
[04:04] Destro: cause it turns out Saruman was charging the bill to Gandalf's account
[04:04] Destro: Saruman is a bit of a **** like that
[04:04] Lord Herman: Indeed
[04:04] Slii Arhem: in his defense, he thought Gandalf was dead
[04:05] Destro: well, he did try to kill him
[04:05] Destro: like, three times
[04:05] Slii Arhem: wasn't very thorough about it
[04:05] Lord Herman: Maybe someone had hired him? He used to be an assassin, after all.
[04:05] Destro: maybe it was Morgoth
[04:05] Lord Herman: Only he'd lost his golden gun, so he had to use magic.
[04:06] Slii Arhem: but once a guy is assumed dead, you start putting expensive loans in their names until the authorities catch on
[04:06] Destro: I am never going to be able to take LOTR seriously ever again...
[04:06] Slii Arhem: that's just common sense
[04:07] Lord Herman: I do wonder why Gandalf never seemed to use his powers of magnetism
[04:07] Destro: or setting pinecones on fire
[04:07] Happy: because all the swords would come flying at him
[04:07] Destro: he should have kept a whole load of pinecones on hand at all times
[04:07] Happy: ALL the swords
[04:07] Happy: stabbity stabbity stabbity
[04:07] Destro: that would be great
[04:08] Destro: Gandalf on the walls of Minas Tirith, tossing flaming pinecones at the orcs

[Slii Arhem]

And now for the sequel. With no further introduction needed, I present:

Part 2
Or: Nazgul suck at poker, and therefore waterparks.

Spoiler

Show

[04:08] Lord Herman: This whole siege thing was a big misunderstanding as well
[04:09] Destro: doing target practice for when the Nazgul show up
[04:09] Lord Herman: It was actually a rather disorderly queue
[04:09] Lord Herman: The orcs had heard there was free ice cream in Minas Tirith
[04:09] Slii Arhem: That's a pretty big stretch
[04:09] Destro: Gandalf and the Nazgul go way back, you see
[04:09] Happy: I thought they came for the base jumping ride
[04:09] Slii Arhem: everyone knows Minas Tirith is famous for its rock candy and geological museum
[04:09] Destro: they play poker, but the Nazgul have terrible poker faces
[04:10] Happy: (*fire upgrade optional)
[04:10] Lord Herman: Wasn't that closed down just before the orcs arrived?
[04:10] Lord Herman: Some guy fell to his death or something?
[04:10] Destro: so they all owe Gandalf a ton of money
[04:10] Slii Arhem: it was an orc
[04:10] Slii Arhem: I'm pretty sure the rest of them were his extended family
[04:10] Slii Arhem: holding a memorial service
[04:10] Happy: they thought it was a publicity stunt
[04:12] Destro: and Sauron doesn't pay very much. He's got so many employees, right? So he can't afford to pay them all more than a basic living wage, but since he owns a ton of prime real estate, he gives them all free accomodations
[04:12] Destro: and use of the waterpark
[04:12] Lord Herman: *mental image of nazgul going down water slide*
[04:13] Slii Arhem: even considering the rather poor state of his worker's quarters, the water park is a massive perk on its own
[04:13] Destro: it got voted the best water park in middle earth by an independant panel of experts
[04:13] Slii Arhem: none of which were later found to be corrupted by magical rings
[04:13] Destro: it did lose a few points for accessibility
[04:14] Slii Arhem: well, you can understand Sauron's move there when you see how much money he makes on the exclusive parking
[04:14] Lord Herman: The Hobbit panelist gave a poor score because he was too short to go on the slide
[04:14] Destro: but the closest second was Mirkwoods water park, and that one has huge lineups
[04:14] Destro: all the spiders, you know. Massive families
[04:15] Slii Arhem: not to mention the questionable safety of the canoe-flume ride
[04:15] Slii Arhem: or was that the barrel river rapids ride?
[04:15] Destro: it was the barrel one
[04:15] Lord Herman: Mirkwood had the barrels, yes
[04:15] Destro: and the dwarves complained it put them off apples
[04:15] Slii Arhem: right, it was shut down for health reasons
[04:16] Lord Herman: The canoes were part of Lothlorien's water park
[04:16] Destro: because the elves were being cheap and using recycled barrels
[04:16] Lord Herman: In fact, they were the only ride
[04:16] Slii Arhem: that park flopped fairly quickly
[04:16] Lord Herman: "Longest canoe ride in Middle-Earth!"
[04:16] Slii Arhem: "a free canoe with every ticket" is not a stable business model
[04:16] Lord Herman: I think the deadly waterfall in the middle did them in
[04:17] Destro: no, it was those huge statues
[04:17] Destro: they looked really nice, but the pricetag on having them built was enormous
[04:17] Slii Arhem: The deadly waterfall may have been a factor
[04:17] Slii Arhem: let's not discount it
[04:17] Destro: well, ok, maybe the waterfall was a contributing factor
[04:17] Destro: but mostly it was the really expensive statues
[04:17] Terumitsu: Are you sure that the waterfall was deadly?
[04:17] Terumitsu: I mean
[04:18] Slii Arhem: I agree that they could have afforded a lot more in the way of canoe safety without the statues
[04:18] Destro: they sent one guy over it, but he was already dead
[04:18] Destro: it was a poor test
[04:18] Terumitsu: Just because the people didn't remember who they were might technically mean they were simply 'missing and presumed dead'
[04:18] Destro: and his canoe reportedly survived, so it can't have been that deadly
[04:18] Terumitsu: Enchanted water and all
[04:18] Slii Arhem: Well, it at least proved that it wouldn't bring him back to life
[04:18] Lord Herman: And they blamed all subsequent deaths on orc archers on the banks
[04:19] Destro: those orcs
[04:19] Lord Herman: Which they said were hired by their competitor, Saruman
[04:19] Destro: they have a terrible sense of humour
[04:19] Slii Arhem: Saruman's park, geeze, don't get me started
[04:19] Destro: didn't Saruman have a Nazgul advising him?
[04:19] Slii Arhem: one ride, of course, and all it turned out to be was a big steamy hot-tub around a pole with trees in it
[04:20] Lord Herman: Saruman's water slide didn't really work as advertised
[04:20] Slii Arhem: I mean, what are you going to do there?
[04:20] Slii Arhem: Splash around in knee-deep water, that's what
[04:20] Destro: well, no, see, the Ents crashed it.
[04:20] Destro: they heard it was great, so they wanted to go first
[04:20] Slii Arhem: I thought the Ents were a publicity stunt?
[04:20] Destro: but the rides weren't built to support supposedly extinct sentient trees
[04:20] Destro: all that flimsy wood, y'know
[04:21] Destro: Saruman didn't put much into the construction. He spent it all hiring his workforce
[04:21] Slii Arhem: Saruman's the only one who has to put "You must be this short to ride" signs up
[04:21] Destro: you saw all the big wheels and things, right?
[04:21] Destro: it was actually pretty decent, before the ents flooded it
[04:22] Happy: The best water park though was the one at Moria
[04:22] Destro: after that he rebranded it as a hot tub
[04:22] Slii Arhem: ah Moria
[04:22] Happy: scary as hell
[04:22] Destro: cause it would take too long to drain
[04:22] Slii Arhem: you'd never forget it though
[04:22] Destro: oh man, Moria
[04:22] Happy: that tentacle monster...
[04:22] Lord Herman: The Dwarves kinda messed that one up when they tried to expand the pool area
[04:22] Destro: the Moria Water park threw /the best/ halloween parties
[04:22] Lord Herman: They dug too greedily and too deep
[04:22] Slii Arhem: doesn't beat Mount Doom, but it's a close second
[04:22] Terumitsu: Didn't they have a slide that took an entire day to ride through?
[04:23] Slii Arhem: Almost a day and a half on a good day Teru
[04:23] Destro: I mean, you though Mount Doom's halloween parties were awesome
[04:23] Destro: but Moria's were loads better
[04:23] Destro: it's all the tunnels
[04:23] Slii Arhem: Actually, you'd be surprised how lackluster Mordor's parties were
[04:24] Slii Arhem: Everyone dresses up like Sauron
[04:24] Destro: sometimes they were Nazgul
[04:24] Happy: dunno, there were the four guys who dressed up as a spider once
[04:25] Destro: one guy came as Gandalf, but the Nazgul threw a fit because they thought it actually was Gandalf, trying to pull collection on them
[04:25] Slii Arhem: but yeah, without the rampant expansion of the pool area and the mine cart rides, Moria would have remained the most accessible, highest quality water park in Middle Earth
[04:26] Slii Arhem: I mean, Smaug tried something there with his own mountain, but that didn't amount to much
[04:26] Destro: the halloween parties got better every year
[04:26] Terumitsu: Didn't they boast the only pool in existance where you could reach crush depth?
[04:26] Destro: Smaug threw terrible parties
[04:26] Destro: it was never going to work
[04:26] Slii Arhem: you went, you told a few riddles, and looked at his gold
[04:26] Slii Arhem: if he was happy, you left, if he was anything else, chances are you never left
[04:27] Destro: well, there was that
[04:27] Lord Herman: Moria did have the world's only indoor bungee jump
[04:27] Terumitsu: And the only thing in the giftshop was a bunch of plastic cups
[04:27] Destro: and then there was the fact that Smaug wasn't much for lighting
[04:27] Slii Arhem: that's true
[04:27] Destro: bloody great dragon can make his own light
[04:27] Slii Arhem: what he called mood lighting was just whenever he felt like exhaling
[04:27] Slii Arhem: too cheap to pay for power
[04:27] Destro: but he tended to forget that other races couldn't do that
[04:28] Destro: well, the only power producer around was lake town
[04:28] Terumitsu: So glad that his place is under new management, now.
[04:28] Terumitsu: I hear they're doing pretty good
[04:28] Slii Arhem: You know what else almost rivaled the dwarves of Moria for creepy parties?
[04:28] Slii Arhem: The Goblin tribes
[04:28] Destro: Lake Town had a monoply in that area, so they could charge whatever they wanted
[04:28] Slii Arhem: man could they ever spook you
[04:29] Destro: the Misty Mountain ones were pretty good.
[04:29] Slii Arhem: special attractions, invisible, behind the scenes tours
[04:29] Destro: they had this one guy, I think he lived in a lake near the bottom. Former employee of Sauron's?
[04:29] Happy: just don't go to Smeagol's help desk
[04:29] Slii Arhem: and they never broke character
[04:29] Destro: yeah, Smeagol
[04:29] Happy: "Er, Im just looking for the exit"
[04:30] Happy: "Okay, I'll do that in a minute. Or I might eat you."
[04:30] Destro: he had a mental illness, I think. Sad, really. Couldn't run the help desk very well.
[04:30] Slii Arhem: Still, it was stable employment in an out of the way corner
[04:30] Destro: but whenever the halloween parties came around, he was great
[04:30] Slii Arhem: least the goblins could do for the guy
[04:30] Destro: well, he did improve their parties
[04:31] Destro: stat holidays, anyways
[04:31] Destro: they threw him a birthday party once. Didn't go well
[04:31] Slii Arhem: never actually saw him, but you always knew he was around
[04:31] Terumitsu: I hear he knew how to make some mean sushi. I think he used to be a cheif before taking up work there.
[04:32] Happy: you know what's awesome though? Rivendell, with the horse stampede waterslide
[04:32] Happy: the Nazgul /love/ that one
[04:32] Destro: pies too, Teru, but it was really hard to get proper ingredients down there
[04:32] Slii Arhem: to hear him tell it, he's got everything from fish to pies to eggs are his specialty
[04:32] Slii Arhem: as his*
[04:32] Lord Herman: And rabbitses
[04:32] Lord Herman: Not big on potatoes, though
[04:33] Terumitsu: Rivendell was pretty good, yeah
[04:33] Slii Arhem: barely even knows what to do with them
[04:33] Destro: which figures. I mean, the ONE THING he could get easily down there
[04:33] Terumitsu: But it was kind of a tourist trap as there was hardly any other ride there
[04:33] Slii Arhem: Rivendell had that creepy old guy on staff though, always rubbed me the wrong way
[04:33] Destro: he wasn't always there
[04:33] Happy: I heard it was the perfect place for anything you wanted
[04:34] Slii Arhem: Bilpo I think he was
[04:34] Destro: yeah, he worked for the Shire originally
[04:34] Destro: but their waterpark was designed with hobbits in mind
[04:34] Slii Arhem: You know, he hissed at me once over a piece of costume jewellery?
[04:34] Happy: stories or feasts or ogling the scantily clad elf-chick
[04:34] Destro: it was kind of small, didn't attract a lot of attention from the taller folks
[04:34] Terumitsu: Now, I heard tell of this Witch of the South or something like that? Really mysterious project there but apparently it's supposed to be pretty big
[04:34] Destro: they had to do some layoffs.
[04:34] Slii Arhem: put on an amazing traveling fireworks show though
[04:35] Destro: Bilbo got the sack, unfortunately, so he had to go to Rivendell to find proper work. Only had training in burgling and adventuring and water park administration.
[04:35] Slii Arhem: I heard he was trying to become a writer of all things
[04:35] Slii Arhem: good bloody luck there
[04:36] Destro: well, it was him as orchestrated the takeover of Smaug's place
[04:36] Destro: so maybe he could make a good story about that
[04:36] Terumitsu: I dunno, if he had someone to edit things properly, he might be able to get something worthwhile. At the least I hear that he had some good stories
[04:36] Terumitsu: YEah, like that one
[04:36] Slii Arhem: so he tells it anyway
[04:36] Slii Arhem: there were more hands in that deal than just his
[04:36] Destro: well, sure, but it's a bloody good story
[04:37] Slii Arhem: must've taken at least fourteen people to negotiate with that old brute
[04:37] Terumitsu: A few of them had to drop out because of the stress from the negotiations if I remember right
[04:38] Destro: they were doing well, though. Kept pushing Smaug for a better deal
[04:38] Destro: course, Smaug goes off to laketown looking to hire a lawyer.
[04:38] Destro: terrible negotiator, you know
[04:38] Slii Arhem: still can't believe he fell in the lake and drowned himself
[04:38] Destro: needed to have someone to explain these things to him
[04:39] Slii Arhem: I heard rumors of foul play
[04:39] Slii Arhem: but nothing concrete
[04:39] Terumitsu: That black arrow guy is still at large, you know
[04:39] Destro: what I heard, is they thought he was coming to burn the place down
[04:39] Slii Arhem: is he now?
[04:39] Terumitsu: Oh yeah
[04:39] Slii Arhem: thought he was the mayor
[04:39] Destro: dispute with the power company, right?
[04:39] Terumitsu: No that was the other bloke
[04:39] Destro: Smaug always had a hell of a temper on him
[04:40] Terumitsu: Yeah. Smoked like a chimney too. Couldn't stay in the room with him for long for any reason, really
[04:40] Terumitsu: If the smoke didn't get'cha, the fire did
[04:41] Slii Arhem: one of the reasons you'd need so many people to deal with him, gotta take him in shifts
Terumitsu says:
True, true
Destro says:
but that was the rumour. Got angry about the power company rates after had those guys over for negotiations.
so he goes off to complain about that and hire a lawyer to explain the contract
they figure he's going to burn the place down again
once an accident, twice is a conspiracy, right?
so this black arrow guy up and shoots him, is the rumour.
Slii Arhem says:
I want to take a step back before I go to sleep and point out that a fluctuating number of three to five playgrounders have constructed a stable, flowing narrative about why Middle Earth could logically just be a bunch of competing water parks
Slii Arhem says:
without missing a god damned beat
that is beautiful
Terumitsu says:
HEhe
It is
Lord Herman says:
^.^
Destro says:
this is quite possibly the best chat I have been a part of in a while
I am greatly amused by Middle Earth Water Parks

So now that you've sat through a rambling, poorly edited super-happy fun conversation, add to it yourselves! Keep this narrative alive in any way you see fit. Whether you feel that the Dead Marshes were under-represented at that critical 3AM meeting or thought the entire thing was an utter crock, and that clearly Middle Earth ran on a rock candy and geological museum based economy, let's hear your opinions.

[Inigo Montoya]

One problem with the waterpark Mordor theory. Frodo and Sam could have gone through the black gate. They could get a children's admission!

[MLai]

Nah the trolls would just think they're dwarves.
They're taught to charge double for dwarves.

[happyturtle]

The really lame one is the Mirkwood river. One splash, and then it's naptime for weeks.

[endoperez]

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/15/last_ringbearer/

Retelling from Sauron's side. Available as a free book.


An author called Dennis L. McKiernan wrote a fanfic continuation in which 7 dwarves come to the semi-autonomous Shire to hire Sam's descendant, because he's got the complete history of what the Fellowship did in the caves of Moria, and this book retells every turn they took, allowing the dwarves to find some ancestor's tomb and other stuff.
Except he didn't get the rights, so the dwarves came to Boskydells, home of the Warrows (what? hobbits? nooo...), to hire a totally original character called Peregrin Fairhill (it's a perfectly common name!) to guide them to Kraggen-Cor (it's this idea I got, it's an ancient home of the dwarves, see, but). The Sauron was still bad.


Also, there's this funny little thing I've only realized relatively recently. Sam Gamgi was Frodo's manservant, or personal servant, responsible for packing their equipment and packhorse. Or bathorse (from anc.fr. bât). Which makes him Frodo's batman.

Yeah....