6 Lord of the Rings Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball
In our never ending quest to expose fictional cinematic incompetence, we're going to take a hard look at characters from The Lord of the Rings trilogy who screwed the pooch at key moments.
These are moments so infuriatingly inexplicable that they make us want to throw our $100 Platinum Series Special Extended Edition of the trilogy out window and watch Willow three times in a row instead.
#6.
Aragorn Spares One Pervert, Dooms Thousands
Remember Grima Wormtongue from The Two Towers? He was that pervy albino fellow whose preferred method of mind control was to whisper sweet nothings in King Theoden's ear. Anyway, when the good guys rescue the King from the bad guys' mind control, the King is ready to kill Wormtongue's treacherous ass, having finally figured out he's something of a doucehbag (as if his last name wasn't a dead giveaway).
Then, just as the King is about to have a stab-party on Wormtongue, Aragorn intervenes, saying, "No, my lord. Let him go. Enough blood has been spilled on his account."
He just lets the grubber go. Oh, and he lets him make off with one of the army's valuable horses, too. Not that they'll need those or anything, there on the eve of Middle Earth's World War III.
Now, we know Aragorn is a good guy and thus you're not going to see him giggle while the King sword-fucks Wormtongue. But somewhere between hacking the worm to bits and letting him leave on a horse carrying information that will be incredibly valuable to your enemy there are other, perfectly good choices. Put him on trial. Put him in jail. Or, if even that is too merciless for Tolkien's heroes (and keep in mind, no Orc is ever shown that kind of mercy) then just let him hang around and make sure he isn't allowed to leave and tell Saruman everything he knows.
"Boss, you will not believe what just happened.
Aragorn's judgment is so poor it'd make Sun Tzu prolapse in his grave. And even his rationale--"enough blood on has been spilled on his account"--is bullshit. Wormtongue's release DOES lead to blood being spilled. A whole freaking water park of hemoglobin, in fact, as it was Wormtongue who told Count Dooku about the weak point in the walls of Helm's Deep. Which brings us to...
#5.
Legolas Chokes At Helm's Deep
Remember that awkward moment during the siege of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers when the bad guys decide to stage their own Olympic torch procession mid-battle?
In what turned out to be the game-changer of the battle, a halfwit Uruk-hai berserker grabbed a torch and charged straight toward a pile of mines at the base of The Big Wall That Was Protecting All of the Good Guys. Aragorn called upon Legolas--the greatest archer in Middle-Earth who we've seen put an arrow through an orc's eye at a thousand yards--to snuff this running Roman candle.
Considering that Legolas has 200,000/20 vision, should he really have had any trouble hitting this lumbering, bowlegged creature right below him? This is the elf who racked up one of the highest body counts in the trilogy, and we're pretty sure most of those kills were with his eyes closed.
So, when it's time to kill one slack-jawed soldier, what does Legolas give us? He gives us the Middle Earth equivalent of Casey at the Bat-- two utterly non-fatal shots to the collarbone that even your mom could have shrugged off in an emergency. A few seconds later, the wall is blown.
Thanks, Legolas. Your thinly veiled sexual bantering with Gimli the dwarf cost approximately 10,000 children their fathers and, according to our Cracked math, ruined over 100,000 Middle Earth Christmases. Way to be blinded by your Napoleon fetish, Link.
#4.
The Witch-King Has No Peripheral Vision
He can sense the One Ring from thousands of miles away. He is immortal. He is tireless. He rides a pterodactyl straight out of Sauron's zoo for especially evil dinosaurs. He is the Witch-king of Angmar a.k.a. The Black Captain a.k.a. Lord of the Nazgul a.k.a. one of Old Dirty Bastard's 300+ aliases.
He also has the worst optometrist in all of Middle Earth.
For an omniscient, nigh unkillable Ringwraith, the Witch-King can barely see what's under his invisible nose. Not once--but twice--does it seems that the Witch-king's hood and helmet suffer from a fatal blind spot that makes it impossible for him to see a certain clumsy hobbit: Mr. Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck.
A.K.A. the bassist for Drive Shaft.
That's right, Merry scampers under the Witch-king's radar not on one, but on two separate occasions. In The Fellowship of the Rings, the Witch-king has cornered Frodo's gang, who are hidden under tree roots. He's mere inches from making a nice hobbit intestine sarong when Merry devises a clever diversion--this:
That's right. A cabbage. Merry tosses out a damn cabbage and the Witch-king goes doddering after it like some rubber-suited Scooby-Doo villain.
His second screw-up is even more mortifying. During the siege of Minis Tirith in The Return of the King, the Witch-King is in his element. He's killed scores of good guys and now has Eowyn--the sword-slinging she-wolf of Rohan--by the throat. What happens next is too painful to type, so we'll just go to the clip:
Really? A three-foot-tall inbred Munchkin get the drop on a 10-foot-tall demigod? Yes, we totally get that this is supposed to be about the underdog, about the arrogant evil not noticing the smallest and humblest of creatures and paying for it in the end. But even if that's the moral of the story it doesn't change the fact that the fucking hobbit was right there. The good guy didn't win because he was more clever, or more pure of heart; he won because the Witch-king acts like he has cataracts, twice failing to notice an enemy two feet away, both times in the middle of a crucial military operation with all of evil depending on him.
Imagine how much you'd hate Predator if--instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger--the lead role was played by Urkel. Not the actor who played Urkel, but actual Urkel. Scratch that, you wouldn't be pissed because that movie would fucking rule.
Oh and also the dark riders that were after the hobbits can't see in the books, their horses see for them. Apparently they can smell though which still makes that scene not make sense, unless the cabbage or whatever threw off their smell, but that part wasn't explained in the book. Sorry to pick at the article, but its still funny from the movie point of view.
ReplyI just started reading the books and I've noticed a lot of these mess-ups are just in the movies. The movies leave out so much stuff from the books that it just isn't the same story. In the book Gandalf ends up remembering the password to the door to Moria after a few trials and errors. And the part about him stopping to read the book he did because he didn't know exactly where he was and it was so dark that they had to kind of feel their way around (gandalf didn't want to light up his staff too bright incase it was still infested with orcs and goblins). Oh and gimli was curious to see what became of balin and the other dwarves that attempted to reclaim Moria.
Replyand i wish people would shut up about the eagles, its just annoying to have everyone point that out continually as if we've never heard it before. its not an original idea and it doesn't even make sense. sauron can see anywhere in the world he looks. he knows the ring has gone to elrond. so he's watching to see what happens. if a giant eagle suddenly appeared flying a hobbit, and he's been searching for a hobbit, he would probably tell the black riders to get on their flying monsters and go sort it the f**k out.
Replyalso why does the black rider in the fellowship have to be the witch king? there are 9 people wearing totally identical robes, its more than likely it wasnt him
the one ring was not some green lantern esqe piece of crap that grants users the power to warp reality but still struggle in fights. It was created to control the other rings of power and the only way sauron could do that was by investing his own power in it. he then wears it to get his own power back to normal levels.
ReplyYou guys are hilarious. This article just made my day. Gandalf is a dick. How DID the worlds best sniper archer miss the most important target?
ReplyI'll freely admit to only having read the books once, so there's probably something I've forgotten. But when the Ents attack Isengard at the end of TTT, why doesn't Saruman (the Head of the wizard order, mind you) perform any magic to defend himself? He just runs back inside like a terrified old guy whose lawn has been invaded by unruly teenagers. Does it happen this way in the book?
ReplyThese... I don't know where to start. That was AWESOME. I LOL'd my way through them all...
ReplyI just gotta' say....I love the "a.k.a. the Bassist for Driveshaft" comment. So many people never make that connection and it put the biggest grin on my face ever. And I'm sorry, but Merry is a badass. The end. Also....these comments miss a few key plot points, and seem not to recognize the fact that these movies are in fact based on a book and thus, have to follow certain rules. But meh. Whatever.
ReplyI'm looking at the comments and all I see are butthurt fanboys nitpicking this hilarious article. Learn to take a f*****g joke, guys, seriously.
ReplyYou butthurt LOTR fanboys WOULD nitpick this article. I'd like to see you write something this hilarious. This thing is damn funny, just leave it at that for Christ's sake.
ReplyYou know why comedians are good at stand-up routines?
Because generally, they make valid points with their jokes. This didn't.
6 Reasons Why Cracked Should Stop Trying to Write About LOTR:
Reply1. Nobody at Cracked read The Hobbit.
2. Nobody at Cracked read The Fellowship of the Ring.
3. Nobody at Cracked read The Two Towers.
4. Nobody at Cracked read The Return of the King.
5. Nobody at Cracked read The Silmarillion.
6. Nobody at Cracked watched the movies, either - or can't remember the key points in the movies.
I mean you pointing out plot holes that are the filmmakers fault, not J R R Tolkien..the book is alot better :)
ReplyNONE OF THESE ARE PLOT HOLES. figure out what a plot hole is
Love you Cracked, but you are s**t at writing about LOTR...I mean really really shit...out of the mouth shit...
ReplyOoooh Cracked, have you noticed that you fail at every article discussing LOTR?
ReplyI have thought about the "Why didn't they just use the eagles to fly to Mordor?" question deeply. I believe that there were only about as many eagles as there were the Wraiths winged-beasts. So, this would have been too great a risk to try when the Wraiths would just attack them in the sky. I agree that the Wraiths had worse vision than a Stormtrooper but their flying monster things did not.
ReplyNope. First of all, in the books, there are quite a few giant eagles (going by The Hobbit, at least enough to carry 15 people). And at the end of RotK, they easily take on the remaining Wraith beasts. It's a simple matter of "A not-really-that-interesting-but-very-logical flight to Mt Doom to drop off an evil ring" vs "Long and epic journey to save the world". Check youtube for "HISHE LotR". Funny, but not a great story. :P
Thanks for the laughs!!
ReplyI always thought Gandalf was a little harsh with Pippin.
Reply"have a stab-party on Wormtongue". Damn, I just made it to the bathroom on time! That made me bust a gut so hard I almost peed myself. Maybe I should buy some adult diapers before I finish the rest of the article...
ReplyMost of these are explainable with ye olde "it wasn't in the book". But if you're just watching the movies, I think it's pretty clear that the ring's power is only effective when it's actually being worn on the finger (along with its drawbacks). That's why Sauron is wearing it while fighting and not on a chain around his neck.
ReplyI don't know why he decided to reach for Isildur instead of just curb stomping him.
Elrond Elrond Elrond. Moments after chopping off Sauron's ring , Elrond is trying to convince Isuldur to destroy the ring. Of course with negative bresult. They are standing above the lava pit presumably where Frodo would dispatch years later. With the entire future at stake, and with the fact that the elves appear to be somewhat altuistic, Elrond should have grabbed Isuldur and flung him into the pit. Thus nullifying all the conflict that comes later
ReplyI just laughed for five minutes thanks to this. That would have been great