Arwen-Undomiel.com
http://arwen-undomiel.com/forum/

The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli
http://arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16781
Page 4 of 5

Author:  orangeblossom [ March 18th, 2012, 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

i love this scene- legolas and gimli are funny!
i also like the scene at minas tirith, "shall i describe it to you or shall i find you a box?" ahhh so funny

Author:  Aralas Tulisse [ March 21st, 2012, 4:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

:-D :lol: OH Man! I love this scene! It is so funny. LOL This is one of my favourite scenes!!!!!

Author:  Areanne [ May 6th, 2012, 9:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

orangeblossom wrote:
i love this scene- legolas and gimli are funny!
i also like the scene at minas tirith, "shall i describe it to you or shall i find you a box?" ahhh so funny




One of my favorite quotes. :lol:

Author:  GotPrecious [ August 4th, 2012, 5:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

:lol: Aaahhh!! This scene is so funny! I love how different the two of them are, yet they are the perfect pair (not in any way slash, though :orly: ) Gimli is totally out of it -It's the dwarves that go swimmin' with the little haaaiiiry women! *passes out* - while Legolas remains completely composed and unaffected. -I feel a slight tingle in my fingers... *all nervous* I think it's affecting me- :D

Author:  PeregrinTook [ December 2nd, 2012, 12:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Best. Scene. Ever.
Plus, the following scene where Merry and Pippin dance on the table is fun to watch.

Author:  Lhunardaien [ December 2nd, 2012, 4:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Apart from the scene being very funny, I also liked how it provided a nice lightening of the mood in the overall seriousness of the Return of the King :)

Author:  Aragorn Elessar [ December 5th, 2012, 10:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

The drinking contest is a funny moment between Legolas and Gimli.

Author:  Hanasian [ April 16th, 2017, 8:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

PeregrinTook wrote:
Best. Scene. Ever.
Plus, the following scene where Merry and Pippin dance on the table is fun to watch.

It was a good scene as far as the movie goes, but the fact elves can and do get drunk as established in The Hobbit book (thinking Mirkwood guards) doesn't line up with Legolas being more or less immune to alcohol.

As for the hobbits dancing on the table.... I love Hama(?) when his ale gets kicked all over him!

Author:  Gandolorin [ April 17th, 2017, 8:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Hanasian wrote:
It was a good scene as far as the movie goes, but the fact elves can and do get drunk as established in The Hobbit book (thinking Mirkwood guards) doesn't line up with Legolas being more or less immune to alcohol.

Yeeeees, but ...
The Elves generally (and especially if you think of the utter silliness of the Rivendell Elves, except for Elrond Half-elven), are still seen much closer to the Tinker Bell end of the spectrum. :psycho:
Then Legolas is a Sindarin prince, while most of the subjects of Thranduil would normally be Silvan Elves.

And here's a quote from "Barrels out of Bond", chapter 9 of The Hobbit: "It must be potent wine to make a wood-elf drowsy; but this wine, it would seem, was the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion, not meant for his soldiers or his servants, but for the king's feasts only, and for smaller bowls not the butler's great flagons." I don't think any of us would stand a snowball's chance in Angband in a drinking contest with this butler! :drunk:

The drinking contest in TTT EE is with ale or beer. Now from my reading in historical crime novels and plenty of history books, the amount of ale / beer which people drank or, for example, sailors or soldiers were alloted as a daily ration, would make one wonder how any battles ever got fought. Well, that drink was far less potent than our present-day beers, and may have been thinned down too (the Greeks did the same with wine, and were amazed that the Scythians drank their wine undiluted), there being a point about these beverages containing alcohol still being less harmful than the often polluted water. So we may assume that the ale / beer in the drinking contest between Legolas and Gimli was perhaps one-fifth, perhaps even one-sixth or less potent than Thranduil's kick-head wines.

And to get "scientific", the Elves were practically immune to poisons, and ethanol in large quantities is a poison, so Legolas, as per an annoyed quote by JRRT the hardiest, swiftest, having by far the keenest senses and most deadly fighter of the entire fellowship including Aragorn, could probably drink Thorin's company (even including Bombur :-o ) under the table! :-D

Author:  Hanasian [ April 18th, 2017, 6:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

So you thought PJ got it right then. :closedeyes:

I still liked the reaction of Hama(?) when his ale gets kicked all over him!

Author:  Gandolorin [ April 18th, 2017, 2:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Hanasian wrote:
So you thought PJ got it right then. :closedeyes:

I still liked the reaction of Hama(?) when his ale gets kicked all over him!

C'mon, PJ & Co. didn't get everything wrong! :annoyed:
It does fall in the category of not being in the books, and of comic relief at the expense of Gimli, but it's not implausible (as per my extensive ramblings above). :whistle:

As for movie Hobbits getting up on tables to dance, what with their ridiculously (and non-canonically) large feet, I always felt a need to duck, so Hama was just too slow or something (had too much of the brew himself?) to avoid minor catastrophe. :hide:

Author:  Elthir [ April 20th, 2017, 11:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Gandolorin wrote:
The Elves generally (and especially if you think of the utter silliness of the Rivendell Elves, except for Elrond Half-elven), are still seen much closer to the Tinker Bell end of the spectrum.


I'll ignore that for now... except to add "some" Elves in Rivendell, and at a given point in time, sing an arguably "silly" song. Which isn't totally ignoring this. Admittedly. Ahem.

Quote:
The drinking contest in TTT EE is with ale or beer. Now from my reading in historical crime novels and plenty of history books, the amount of ale / beer which people drank or, for example, sailors or soldiers were alloted as a daily ration, would make one wonder how any battles ever got fought. Well, that drink was far less potent than our present-day beers, and may have been thinned down too (the Greeks did the same with wine, and were amazed that the Scythians drank their wine undiluted), there being a point about these beverages containing alcohol still being less harmful than the often polluted water. So we may assume that the ale / beer in the drinking contest between Legolas and Gimli was perhaps one-fifth, perhaps even one-sixth or less potent than Thranduil's kick-head wines.


I don't know about this real world comparison necessarily leading to this conclusion. Even within the conceit [the Third Age as pre-history], in my opinion we don't really know enough here to measure these potencies against each other. The Elves and Dwarves of Middle-earth arrived well before the Greeks and Scythians, and for example, if the Greeks were amazed that the Scythians drank their wine undiluted, it's an illustration of variant practices within different cultures.

Quote:
And to get "scientific", the Elves were practically immune to poisons, and ethanol in large quantities is a poison, so Legolas, as per an annoyed quote by JRRT the hardiest, swiftest, having by far the keenest senses and most deadly fighter of the entire fellowship including Aragorn, could probably drink Thorin's company (even including Bombur :-o ) under the table! :-D



Celebrian seemingly needed to be healed from poison upon her rescue. And Aredhel died rather quickly from poison, as her wound had otherwise seemed slight enough, and no one had suspected Eol of using venom.

Just sayin' :bye:

Also, I'm guessing that you're referring above to the following "wrathful" comment by Tolkien, protesting against a depiction of Legolas: "He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship."

Basically I needed some colour to help draw the eye to some of my avatar's fur!

Author:  Gandolorin [ April 20th, 2017, 4:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Elthir wrote:
Gandolorin wrote:
... And to get "scientific", the Elves were practically immune to poisons, and ethanol in large quantities is a poison, so Legolas, as per an annoyed quote by JRRT the hardiest, swiftest, having by far the keenest senses and most deadly fighter of the entire fellowship including Aragorn, could probably drink Thorin's company (even including Bombur :-o ) under the table! :-D



Celebrian seemingly needed to be healed from poison upon her rescue. And Aredhel died rather quickly from poison, as her wound had otherwise seemed slight enough, and no one had suspected Eol of using venom.

Just sayin' :bye:

I highlighted the word in my statement above that you may have glossed over: practically does not mean totally. To pick nits, I could say that those are the only two poisonings of Elves mentioned in M-e (at least that I remember; if there have been others I'm sure you will shortly be telling us about them, Elthir :hide: ). But, concedo, failure of mention does not mean they haven't happened.

Further speculation could be that Eöl had some special knowledge of poisons, being and Elf himself. They would likely not have been the herbal sort, rather mineral or chemical. Mercury, lead et.al. are not good for your health.

Or, not totally out of the question, that the poisoning bit went way back into the early days of the mythology - Fall of Gondolin is one of the oldest parts, I believe - and JRRT kept it in even though it had become an anachronism? Like his use twice or so of the term "heathen" in LoTR, even though in a time reputedly several millennia B.C. it had no useful meaning.

Author:  Héalic [ April 20th, 2017, 6:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

I think it was really kind of interesting to see Legolas' face as he was taking his first sip. It was as if he had never tasted ale before and was hesitant to try it, which is completely implausible he is a mirkwood elf. They are freaking party animals! That's all they seemed to do in the Hobbit! And then pj comes along and says, "oh, he's an elf. He's probably too classy for alcohol." Oh pj, sometimes your mistakes are laughable.

Author:  Elthir [ April 21st, 2017, 8:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Gandolorin wrote:
I highlighted the word in my statement above that you may have glossed over: practically does not mean totally.


I didn't gloss over it, but I'm still not exactly sure what's meant -- with respect to Elvish bodies that is -- yes practically immune to poison doesn't mean totally immune... but what is meant; what's your statement based on? And if the references to Dwarves being poisoned in Middle-earth is less than two, would that mean that Dwarves are more immune to poisoning than Elves?

In any case, what we do have [so far anyway], is at least two descriptions where poison needs healing or is deadly to the Elvish body, with no, even brief hints, that either case represents a special potency regarding the poison used (like we have, in some measure anyway, with respect to the Dorwinion wine, for instance).

Keeping in mind that this discussion ultimately relates to Jackson's invented drinking game [complete with a gassy Dwarf, if I remember correctly].


Quote:
Or, not totally out of the question, that the poisoning bit went way back into the early days of the mythology - Fall of Gondolin is one of the oldest parts, I believe - and JRRT kept it in even though it had become an anachronism? Like his use twice or so of the term "heathen" in LoTR, even though in a time reputedly several millennia B.C. it had no useful meaning.


The poisoning of Aredhel does not appear in the original Fall of Gondolin, nor in any early "Silmarillion" text. The notion was introduced in print as late as 1951, after the story proper of The Lord of the Rings had been "finished" but not yet published (noting the poisoning of Celebrian again, described for inclusion in the Appendices). In addition we have a very late note, possibly dating to the early 1970s even, where Tolkien added to a typescript (following a reference to Eol):"For the Eldar never used any poison, not even against their most cruel enemies, beast, ork, or man; and they were filled with shame and horror that Eol should have meditated this evil deed." JRRT Maeglin, The War of the Jewels

I note also the late spelling of ork. I don't know why I note it, but it's done now ;-)

Author:  Hanasian [ April 21st, 2017, 9:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Drinking Contest between Legolas and Gimli

Héalic wrote:
I think it was really kind of interesting to see Legolas' face as he was taking his first sip. It was as if he had never tasted ale before and was hesitant to try it, which is completely implausible he is a mirkwood elf. They are freaking party animals! That's all they seemed to do in the Hobbit! And then pj comes along and says, "oh, he's an elf. He's probably too classy for alcohol." Oh pj, sometimes your mistakes are laughable.


Yes Héalic, quite laughable. Makes one laugh so hard it makes one cry. :lol: :'-(

Page 4 of 5 All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/