Discussion here has had me thinking...why didn’t Smaug know about or even sense the ring? Surely he would have known or at the very least heard of Sauron. I know in the unfinished tales there is the story of the quest of Erebor which is where Gandalf lays out precisely why the dragon must be dealt with, but I think he meant that Sauron could use the dragon’s mere presence In the mountain as a means to attack Elrond at Rivendell. I guess I’m just curious why Smaug would not have known about the ring.

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Posted by Decisions

Member since Mar 2015

1553 posts

Posted on 5/26/20 at 6:47 am to Thurber

quote:
why didn’t Smaug know about or even sense the ring?

I’m sure he’d heard of the Rings of Power, but to sense them (only vaguely, granted) you really needed a presence on some level in the “non-physical” realm. This was why the wraiths could see Frodo when he wore it, why other ringbearers had an inkling as to the Ring’s presence, and why Gollum was able to vaguely follow them.

Smaug had none of these things, and being a creature of Morgoth rather than Sauron, it makes even less sense for him to be in tune to that particular brand of magic.

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Posted by crash1211

Houma

Member since May 2008

3415 posts

Posted on 6/4/20 at 11:36 am to Sneaky__Sally

quote:
With Wheel of Time and LOTR, Amazon has a ton of great source material coming up. With Wheel of Time and LOTR, Amazon has a ton of great source material coming up.

While I did enjoy Wheel of Time. Once I got to the 6th book I was wanting him to wrap it up. I never did end up finishing the series. I guess I'm more aligned to a Trilogy or at most 5 Books to tell your story.

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Posted by Breesus

House of the Rising Sun

Member since Jan 2010

67957 posts

Posted on 6/7/20 at 2:28 pm to crash1211

quote:
guess I'm more aligned to a Trilogy or at most 5 Books to tell your story.

Agreed.

If you are going to write more than three books then have an over arching universe but separate it into contained but related stories.

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Posted by Sneaky__Sally

Member since Jul 2015

12364 posts

Posted on 6/7/20 at 2:59 pm to crash1211

I loved the world and the story in WoT and it helps that the main character has several shifts in his development (series definitely could have been done in a couple fewer books though) - you can probably name 4 or 5 unique "stages" in his character over the series. I've felt that way about other series though where I'm happy its just a trilogy or whatever.

But if I really love the world and the story, then I'm in for more. WoT and Malazan are both 10+ book monsters and are two of my favorites.

WoT just has like 5 main characters in it and you see them a ton of time on screen each. The story certainly could have been written with fewer viewpoints, but for me that wouldn't have made it better. The scope and depth of the world is half the point for WoT. That said, I have done rereads where I just follow one or two characters' POV's and ignore the rest.

ETA:

This video does a great, spoiler free, job of sort of outlining why WoT just isn't for some people but for some, like me, its exactly what i'm looking for. Basically it is a really obsessive series, showing tons of minutia and excessive description - but for those that love it those are both positive things and not a negative.

LINK

This post was edited on 6/8/20 at 11:22 am

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