u/SpectrumDT

TL;DR: I read the Silmarillion to my 6-year-old son and he loved it.

My son loves fantasy and monsters. We have some Lord of the Rings Lego sets, and he had seen several glimpses of Tolkien's universe, including some short videos on YouTube. He was especially fascinated by the character of Melkor. (I probably influenced him on that point; I am a big Melkor fan myself.)

Some months ago (when he was 5) I figured I would try to read The Hobbit to him. The first chapter was a slog to get through, and he complained that it was slow and boring. But after that point he got really into it. We would read a bit every evening, and often he would ask to read a bit extra during the day.

We watched the movie trilogy concurrently. After each 1/3 of the book we would watch the movie that covers the part of the book. (I am one of those people who LIKE the Hobbit movies.)

He loved The Hobbit. One detail that particularly fascinated him was the lost realm of Gondolin, where the swords Glamdring and Orcrist were forged. He kept bringing that up and wanted to know more about it. I had also told him about Fëanor and his creations (the Silmarils and the Palantíri), and he loved hearing about that.

So I figured, let's try to read the Silmarillion.

And it went great! It was slow going, because it was sometimes difficult to understand, and he would often have questions and need explanations or reminders. Sometimes we would only get through 1-2 pages per evening. It took several months to get through the entire book. His interest waxed and waned; some nights he preferred to pause the Silmarillion and read something easier. But he never dropped it. He was especially looking forward to the parts about Gondolin and about Eärendil.

Tolkien's prose is difficult, so I would sometimes paraphrase in simpler words instead of reading aloud. (Our native language is Danish, so I read it to him in Danish translation, but the translated prose is also difficult.) I would also sometimes skip boring paragraphs. There is a vast number of character and place names to keep track of, so we often had to pause and look at the map or revisit who is who. I often reassured him: "I can only keep track because I have read it several times before."

We also read the Akallabêth and The Rings of Power and the Third Age. We have the Lego Barad-Dûr, and he loves that, so he was excited about the story of Sauron and the One Ring.

For children, one great thing about the Silmarillion is that the pace is relatively fast, since it is structured more like a summary of events than a novel. I want to read The Lord of the Rings too, but I am not sure whether he is ready for that, since the pace is so much slower.

In summary, though, reading the Silmarillion for my 6-year-old was a smashing success. Would recommend. :)

• You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
• Do not cast pearls before swine.

I am a sucker for powerful high-pitched belted vocal lines. They can be the highlights of a song. I can think of many examples, both from metal and other genres.

(By "belted" I mean sung with full force and volume, as opposed to a thin "falsetto" sound. I am using the term "falsetto" in a very informal sense here. I hope you can figure out what I mean.)

I want recommendations for such vocal climax moments by female singers. (No, not "Pleasure Slave" by Manowar. Not that kind of climax. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

Off the top of my head I can think of a few:

• Nightwish - "Ghost Love Score" (the 2007 live version with Floor Jansen): "My fall will be for you"
• Luca Turilli - "Mother Nature" (Bridget Fogle): "mountains and oceans", "paint skies with rays of light"
• EDIT: Unlucky Morpheus - "Knight of Sword" (Fuki): "Mizukara no shimei o hatasu Knight of Sword"

What else can you recommend? It does not need to be power metal, but it does need to be metal.

No opera-style singing, please.

EDIT: Please name specific songs. Do not simply namedrop a singer or band.

I recently watched Maul: Shadow Lord.

I notice that Maul is very outraged about being betrayed, and that he is constantly trying to make deals and alliances. This gives the impression that Maul is very concerned with honesty and loyalty.

In the series Maul is also mostly honest. He does not lie nor overtly betray anyone. (He subtly sabotages >!Daki during the fight in the final episode, which arguably counts as a betrayal, but does not obviously violate the deal that Maul has with Daki (which boils down to "escape together").!<)

I do not remember Maul's personality super-well from Clone Wars or other media. What is he like in general on this point? Is he mostly honest albeit evil, or do we see him lie and betray his allies elsewhere?

I asked an LLM. It said "no, Maul is not a man of his word", but the examples it gave looked like hallucinations to me, so I do not trust it. I would like some human opinions.

• There is no I in "team".
• I before E except after C.

I used the Waking Up app briefly a few years ago. I did not love it in general, but one thing I did like about it was the "moments" - mindfulness reminders that would pop up at random, accompanied by some helpful words.

Can anyone recommend another app that has something similar?

The key feature here is that the reminder is NOT just a fixed message, but a new one each time. That makes them much more impactful for me. If the mindfulness reminder that pops up is always the same, it becomes very easy for the mind to tune it out.

Thanks! :)

I am looking for albums with a collection of duets by a bass and another male singer. I have two:

• Samuel Ramey and Thomas Hampson - No Tenors Allowed.
• Ildar Abdrazakov and Rolando Villazón - simply called Duets.

I can find a few tenor/baritone duet collections, and plenty with a bass and a woman. But can you recommend me any other collections specifically with a bass and another male singer?

It does not have to be the same two singers on the whole album. A collection of duets with different singers is also acceptable.

Thanks!

Most of the named Noldor who left Aman eventually died in Middle-Earth (not counting Finarfin's host who turned back after the Kinslaying at Alqualonde).

This includes Fëanor and all of his sons save Maglor (whose fate is unknown), Fingolfin and all of his children, and the sons of Finarfin.

In the published Silmarillion, Idril returned to Valinor with Tuor some time near the end of the First Age. And at the end of the Third Age or the beginning of the Fourth, Galadriel sails west.

These are the only named Noldor I know of who returned alive from exile. I do not count Celebrían nor Elrond - they were both born in Middle-Earth; they did not leave Aman.

(Of course Círdan and Celeborn do not count either; they were Sindar and never came to Aman in the first place.)

Glorfindel is a candidate. He was slain in exile during the First Age but was re-embodied and came back to Middle-Earth during the Second Age. He presumably sailed west at some point, but nothing is known.

Are there any others that I have forgotten or do not know about?

Early drafts also count.

In pre-modern times, disease was often attributed to demonic beings and/or sorcery. "Witches" were often suspected of bringing disease upon their enemies, and "a pox on you" is a well-known curse.

I have not seen much fantasy fiction that explored this. In some worlds, evil magic poisons the environment as an accidental side effect (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Sun or the undead blight in Warcraft III), but I don't remember any stories where sorcerers deliberately call down disease upon their foes.

(Stephen Marley's Spirit Mirror has creatures that cause "disease" with their touch, but this kills the victim in minutes, so it feels more like poison than disease.)

One obvious reason is that it's difficult to turn this into a good story. The ability to cause disease is difficult to balance - it is either highly un-dramatic or super-overpowered, depending on the limitations. But the parallels with real religion and folklore makes it feel evocative. I am interested in seeing this explored more.

Have any of you explored this in your worlds? Or can you cite any examples from published fiction?

This is a question that I started thinking about recently which I do not think I have seen addressed in any fiction or role-playing game I have read.

Human dwellings have always attracted vermin and other animals. Rats, mice, and flies come to feed on stores of human food. These in turn attract predators like cats, snakes, and spiders. (These predators are effectively symbiotes that help humans get rid of their parasites, whether the humans appreciate them or not.) Many other small animals seek shelter from their own predators in human houses, such as pillbugs.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (which I read recently for my son), the lair of the dragon Smaug is described as completely still and lifeless. This seems odd to me. The lair is huge. Even if there is no fresh food (Smaug can apparently sleep for decades without eating), there is bound to be something that living things can eat. The dragon can of course kill vermin with fire, but they are bound to return, and to keep a great lair completely clean would entail a lot of effort for a lazy dragon.

A possible explanation is that Smaug's great spiritual power and evil instills such terror that even pillbugs dare not enter his lair.

That explanation works well in Tolkien's world. But there are many other fantasy worlds where dragons without such a spiritual presence dwell in caves and ruins and other lairs. (Dungeons and Dragons is an obvious example.) Yet I do not recall any books that have explored what vermin might live in dragon lairs.

A dragon might of course have minions or allies, but in this post I am more interested in "dumb" beasts - be they natural or supernatural, parasitic or symbiotic.

I am sure many of you in this sub come up with dragon stories and worlds of your own. Have any of you addressed this question in your worlds? :)

Today my wife told me about an episode where she and our 5-year-old son met a blind man on the bus, and our little guy went: "Mom, I think that man is blind!" He kept talking about the blind man, and my wife got more and more embarrassed and tried to get him to stop.

She used the argument: "What if people did it to you? What if they went 'look at that kid; he looks Chinese'? How would you feel about that?" (Our son is half Chinese.) He thought about it and said: "I would be OK with that." I think I would also be OK with it, but I am not the average person.

I would like some opinions from actual people with (visible) disabilities: How do you feel when children talk about you? What would you prefer the parents to do, if anything?

Thanks in advance!