Glory ,'The Killer In Me'
Frodo: Please, what does it always mean, this... this "Aragorn"? Elrond: That's his name. Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Aragorn: I like "Strider." Elrond: We named the *dog* "Strider".
A discussion of Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King. If you're a pervy hobbit fancier, this is the place for you.
Then, some uncounted years later, some of the elves who were at the party had a screaming argument, and headed back to Middle-earth.
Showing that elves are much like people and feuds lasting thousands of years can often be traced to things like What Glorfindel Said About Our Neville.
Nutty is so much more fun than The Silmarillion.
So, before Thranduil was King of Mirkwood was he one of Thingol's people?
Calli, you have no idea how much Tolkien nerds love to show off.
We really, really do.
I think part of it is that we're just as geeky as, say, Star Trek geeks, but when a Star Trek geek goes off about phasers and warp coils and stuff, they immediately ping as geeky*, whereas when a Tolkien geek goes off about the Noldor, and the Silmarils, and who's the son of who and what happened when, it at least sounds sort of scholarly. For that, we Tolkien geeks endlessly thank the good professor and his mastery of language.
(*ETA: And I should know, having pontificated at length about those subjects, too)
And you don't think scholarly pings as geeky? I think we must know different scholars.
I think "history geek" pings differently than "Star Trek geek" does, and Tolkien geekdom pings closer to the former.
Oh yes. WHat Jess said. I'm not saying Tolkien geeks don't ping as geeks, just that they sound much more erudite while doing it.
What Jess said. As an occasional war-gamer, I can tell you that while history buffs don't always have a lot of use for sci-fi/fantasy, Tolkien is a big ol' exception.
And scholarly geeks give less of an impression of "still living in my parents' basement".
So, before Thranduil was King of Mirkwood was he one of Thingol's people?
I don't know -- I don't think it's laid out that clearly, or if it is, it's in one of the posthumous books which are full of additional details I can't remember very well. But Thingol's people weren't the only elves in all of Middle-earth after the Noldor left, so it's just as plausible that Thranduil came from Thingol's realm, or that he wandered along from someplace else.
I don't know about other Tolkien geeks; until the movies started being the topics of general discussion, Tolkien pretty much never came up in conversation. Except in the home, where quizzing each other over the appendices was a beloved pastime.