Frequently Asked Questions

Every faith finds itself at that point in time where it is pinned by its believers' increasingly paranoid questions against the rock of its own exposure. It's crunch time. Do you stick to your story, or admit there was a sperm involved? Is it possible you got the age of the Earth wrong, or can you successfully dismiss 4 1/2 billion years of rocks with a wave of the hand?

For Frodology, that time is at hand. Here then, are our twenty most frequently asked questions.

1. Why did Frodo and Sam have to trek all the way to Mordor when Gandalf had that allegiance with the Eagles? They flew them away, why not fly them there?

The eagle is a proud creature of the order Minor Background Characters. It is remarkable for its habit of showing up when a protagonist has painted himself into a corner from which it is impossible to escape, without him dying of course. A single eagle raises between two and three young simultaneously, and its nest is known as an 'aerie'.

2. Boromir lugged that heavy shield all the way from Gondor only to forget it when he was shot in the chest with three arrows, arguably the time when he needed it most. What gives?

There is actually only paltry evidence that his leather bound, studded bronze shield even was a shield. Apart from using the shield as a shield to fight goblins and the cave troll in the Moria mines, no further mention is made of the shield-like object. Its shield-like appearance is therefore thought to be only a coincidence, and it is far more likely that the shield was actually a pillow, or perhaps a fruit bowl.

3. Eowyn is said to have killed the Witch King leader of the Ringwraiths. How is this possible when we now know that she was a woman?

We now live in an enlightened age where misogyny and sex discrimination are not tolerated. Women are perfectly capable of accomplishing things when they are given help by others, just as Eowyn was helped to kill the Witch King by the hobbit Merry.

4. The demon that drags Gandalf from the bridge of Kazad-Dum and battles him to the summit of a mountain is made from fire and shadow. I didn't know fire and shadow could do that.

That's not really a question.

5. The ents eventually leave the forest to bring hell upon the evil wizard Saruman at Isengard, but only after they let an army escape, one that later kills a lot of people. Why didn't they do something sooner?

Ents are a type of tree, and it is widely considered miraculous by Frodologists that they "did" anything at all.

6. When Gandalf, Elrond and Frodo 'sail into the West' at the end of the final book, where exactly are they going?

At this point in time, it was not known that the globe was spherical, so presumably they thought they were sailing to the end of the Earth, or the 'Undying Lands'. Cirdan, the elven shipwright, had never left his home port and would not have known that they would merely end up several thousand miles East of where they started. He would later lose his shipwright's license and purchase a Radio Shack franchise.

7. I find myself attracted to the character of Grima Wormtongue. Is there something wrong with me? What if he looks like my middle school PE teacher?

There is nothing wrong with you. Grima was a handsome individual, widely loved for his greasy black hair, pale, watery eyes, and ghostly complexion. Frodo teaches us to follow love where we find it. If that happens to be your PE teacher, then who is to stop you, other than the law and your teacher's contract of employment?

8. After installing a new hard drive, Windows freezes on the login screen and won't even accept my password. Is that supposed to happen?

Ensure your drive is set to 'slave' mode. Frodo teaches that great deeds are possible through enslavement.

9. Gandalf says that Gollum evolved from a river person, a creature not unlike a hobbit. How is that possible when we know evolution is false?

Gollum was an unholy, evil creature, and evolution is an unholy, evil theory. Poetically it's fitting, provided you don't trouble yourself over the how.

10. Don't you think Glorfindel is a pretty gay name?

I do.

11. You criticize Christians who think that their god created the world from an infinite supply of silly putty, but you believe that a bunch of sky fairies sang the world into existence. What the fuck does that even mean?

We now think that 'sang' is a metaphor for 'allowed to occur through natural processes'.

12. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the group bands together and glories in killing a troll, when it's clearly an endangered species. Isn't that kind of wrong?

Not if you consider that the animal's endangerment is punishment for its evildoing, notwithstanding its inability to comprehend the concepts of guilt, punishment, justice, or evil. It's all part of Frodo's plan.

13. At the very beginning, Sauron is killed when Isildur merely chops off a few of his fingers. Is he a hemophiliac or something?

Scientists nowadays think it was more the shock that killed Sauron, rather than the loss of a few fingers. The sudden pain sent his adrenal gland into overdrive, which gave him a heart attack and caused his body to, uh, evaporate. These things happen.

14. It's a huge deal when Elrond reforges Narsil, "the Sword that was Broken" and convinces Aragorn to wield it, proving he's King of Gondor. But if it was broken, it's clearly not a very good sword, is it?

We believe that Aragorn wanted to have someone else to blame if the sword broke again. It's a concept known as 'delegating responsibility'.

15. At least four people wear the Ring and go invisible: Isildur, Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo. But when Sauron wears it, all it does is make him look like he's married. Was Sauron married?

Oh, I, um, was expecting a different question... Well, records suggest that despite his many minions, Sauron lived a fairly lonely life. The closest you could say is that Sauron was 'married' to the Ring. The analogy is apt, as Sauron was willing to enslave and torture while under his spouse's corrupting influence.

16. In the film when Sam and Frodo walk through Mordor, we see hundreds of thousands of orcs, but no visible means of supporting them. Where are the farms and shops? Did they even have irrigation?

Viewers have received a distorted view of Mordor from watching the film, seeing as they did only the barren scrub land of North Mordor. The orcs marshaling there had traveled a great distance from their homes in South Mordor, or Mesomodoria, a region largely ignored by Tolkien, but famed for its agricultural bounty and culture. We still hate them though.

17. Gandalf is thousands of years old and enormously wise, and yet still has to google "gold ring makes wearer invisible" to discover that Bilbo is in possession of the One Ring. Shouldn't he be better at his job?

That's a little unfair on Gandalf. Googling is a legitimate element of most office jobs these days, and is generally what lawyers are referring to when they speak of "research". Furthermore, the Wikipedia page on the One Ring was only a stub when Gandalf began his search.

18. Sauron's tower only has one all seeing eye. Doesn't that interfere with his depth perception?

Absolutely. In fact, when Frodo first dons the Ring whilst staying at a tavern in Bree, Sauron could be seen madly swinging his sword on the steps of his dark tower, thousands of miles away. Orcs embarrassed by their leader's klutzy discoordination are said to have deserted Sauron in droves at this point.

19. Why do the Black Gates open outwards? Wouldn't it be better if it was called the Black Cupboard?

Um... no.

20. Gondor and Mordor have been fighting over the same patch of dirt for yonks. Wouldn't it have been in both their interests to establish a power sharing agreement with a rotating leadership, under the supervision of a neutral third party?

Gondor benefits from thriving wartime industries. It is widely known as a manufacturer of quality armor, and but for the aid it desperately solicits from Rohan in times of conflict, Gondor's economy would likely suffer. That and all of Mordor is stupid and evil. All of it. Every last conscious being. Would you share power with them?

The good thing about an FAQ is that nowhere in the title does it say that questions are going to be adequately answered.