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| Useless Heroes, Uselesser Villains by Virtuella | 20 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 6/29/2025 |
| How to circumvent security protocols: If you’re a Wizard, pretend you need your staff because you’re old. Stir fried worms and lava brew LOL Yeah, orcs are cheap. “Password 123.” It figures. Trivial Pursuit indeed! PS Still living dangerously, but I haven't died laughing just yet. Well, almost. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I have a death wish or anything like that, but I am still looking forward to your next chapter. | |
| shirebound | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 6/28/2025 |
| “May I just point out,” said the Mouth of Sauron, “that you are jumping to conclusions a little? Shouldn’t you at least have questioned the Halfling? After all there were four of them, and you didn’t even ask his name.” That Mouth is a lot more clever than he gets credit for. Hmmm, I wonder what's for lunch in the Mt. Doom Canteen today... | |
| Lindelea | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 6/28/2025 |
| I feel for Theoden. I cannot face the day without my coffee. “Come now, hobbitses!” Gollum cheerfully gesticulated southwards. “Fresh disappointments lie ahead!” Pretty accurate, actually. I can see why they eventually made Pippin Thain. He has lots of bright ideas. Just wait until he thinks of putting some of Gandalf's firework powder into shells and invents rocket launchers to chase away potential ruffians... Treebeard and Gandalf, besties forever? Perhaps Theoden could suggest that Gandalf bring strong coffee back with him from Edoras. Empty biscuit tins can be so handy! Maybe not for just everything and anything, though. | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 6/25/2025 |
| I disregarded your warning. This is too much fun. I love the way Pippin keeps coming up with ideas for things that haven't been invented yet, and everyone keeps fluffing him off. Now he's all the way into the 20-21st century with the GPS tracker idea. | |
| Lindelea | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 6/23/2025 |
| Ah yes (rubbing hands together), another chapter to savor! There's an old advertising jingle I remember from the 1970s: Plop Plop Fizz Fizz (I just now found a mini-documentary that CBS posted on their YouTube channel by that title, like a stroll down memory lane). It popped into my head when Frodo asked for an aspirin. And then, of course, other applicable scenes came to mind. "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" Pippin and lembas, Pippin and/or Merry lounging around at Isengard with their pipes and plentiful foodstuffs, any number of hobbits at Bilbo's Birthday Party... "Try it! You'll like it!" I'm drawing a blank. Boromir arguing for someone from the West to use the Ring? Aragorn sampling Éowyn's cooking in the film? The other three hobbits shoving Sam towards Rosie after their return to the Shire (also in the film)? "Mama Mia! That's a spicy meatball!" Gollum tasting something, I don't remember. Lembas? Stewed rabbit and herbs? "Oh what a relief it is!" Frodo after the Ring goes into the Fire, for sure. oOoOoOo (excuse me whilst I borrow your divider) I choked on my tea when I read, "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" Well done. Take a bow. "There's no time for that!" <--Did he learn that from Gandalf? Alas, poor Sauron. It appears that excessive orb-viewing is ruining his eyesight. Ah, Gandalf. He's one of those souls to whom "make haste" has no meaning unless he's saying the words himself, I suspect. It tends to be one of the shortfalls of an immortal being, I find. I have detected a trend. Rather than a randomly organized commentary, we're following the flow of the plot, more or less. And it only took me five chapters to figure this out. Accordingly, I am looking forward to reading more. | |
| shirebound | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 6/23/2025 |
| I love Pippin's ideas, too bad no one else pays attention to him! | |
| Lady Forlong | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 6/21/2025 |
| If it was possible for someone to die laughing, I'd be dead by now. Good thing the password didn't involve multi-factor authentication ;) Author Reply: Oh, no, we can't ahve readers expiring on me! I must caution you not to read on... | |
| Lindelea | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 6/20/2025 |
| "bats as spies"; Sauron obviously needs one of those suggestion boxes on the wall. Maybe some kind of programme that pays a bonus to employees who offer valuable contributions. Of course, with such a toxic corporate culture, I can imagine the suggestion box filled with cobwebs rather than slips of paper. Pippin is ahead of his time. Do you think Caradhras might have potential as a ski resort someday? It might be more profitable and less fraught with peril than delving in the depths of Moria in search of mithril. Gandalf reinforces the idea with his impression of a Saint Bernard with a jug of spirits tied around its neck. What exactly did they scout out? I have often wondered... Suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration while watching Sauron watching the Wargs in the palantír. He should hire someone to create an action-adventure video game! Then he could try out different parameters (numbers of Wargs, numbers of Orcs, weather phenomenon, strategies, etc.) before committing his forces. I'm surprised you left off the part where Boromir chucked the stone into the lake and woke up the Watcher in the Water. Probably annoyed the heck out of the creature, too. ...not to mention the loss of one Pony, known as Bill. Commas versus quotation marks. You know what they say. "Grammar saves lives." (As even the most rudimentary web search reveals...) There's Pippin being creative again. Only this time he's re-inventing the wheel, as everyone, I'm sure, remembers the rails-and-carts system that Bilbo and the Dwarves took advantage of quite a few years before this time, reminding me of a Harry Potter "Gringotts" scenario or a "Hobbit movie" video game preview. In addition to tricks on a tightrope, have you seen Legolas on a snowboard? (a stairboard?) Alas poor Elrond. First a migraine and now a toothache. I would definitely vote for railings. I'm surprised the government inspectors haven't come around and levied heavy fines for health and safety violations, at the very least. Do the Galadhrim even have permits to build treehouses? Maybe they considered the boat route during the planning stage and discarded it because they'd lose Gimli (I think Dwarves hate boats, though I might be mistaken) and Legolas (the Sea-longing is even worse after an Elf actually sails on the waters of the Sea and doesn't merely hear about it second-hand from a few seagulls). Very amusing! Reading the chapter was a nice Friday-night treat! Cheers! Author Reply: [First a migraine and now a toothache.] I confess the idea of perpetual migraines and toothaches was inspired by Hugo Weaving's dour face in the movies. Glad you enjoyed this; thanks for commenting. | |
| shirebound | Reviewed Chapter: 4 on 6/20/2025 |
| “Warg attack! Warg attack!” squealed Sauron. “Get them, get them, pewww, pewww, pewww!” *snork* You have me grinning mightily. Author Reply: :D | |
| Lindelea | Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/15/2025 |
| Actually, you could have posted a chapter with no text, and just the title would have left me laughing... I'm glad you didn't do that, though, for I am looking forward to reading the text. In reading, I kept thinking the observations here go well with the Elvish chapters of my "Answering Machines in Middle-earth" which the mods (perhaps reluctantly) allowed to remain on the site despite its modernish elements. Bless them. Glassless windows... a bug? or a feature? Gah! How I hate evaluation forms. Do people even *read* the things, or do they just have a checkbox in the management plan that they feel better when they check it off? ("Distribute and collect evaluation forms.") Revisiting the topic of procrastination: Why didn't they reforge the sword a lot earlier? Here they have the Heir to the Promise running around Middle-earth with a scabbard containing a blade that's about a foot long! (In the inn at Bree: He drew out his sword, and they saw that the blade was indeed broken a foot below the hilt. ‘Not much use is it, Sam?’ said Strider. ‘But the time is near when it shall be forged anew.’ Why wait?) Might Arathorn (and possibly other Chieftains) have lived longer if he'd had a full sword blade, I ask you? Aragorn might have had more than a 2yo's memories of his father! What??? Boromir had rope all the time, and he let Pippin jump over a giant fissure without it? That sounds more caddish than noble. He may be exaggerating his skills here, as well, for how did an "experienced traveller and warrior" happen to lose his horse??? Effectiveness of the presentations at the Council? Um. (See my "Council of Elrond" story for more details.) Maps. Yes. Maps would have been quite helpful, I should think. I'm a visual learner, myself. Though I have a preference for chocolate in my sweets, I must agree that the pink cakes with almonds on top are quite good. Author Reply: Lol, I'm glad that even just the chapter titles are amusing to you. :) Thanks as ever for your comments! | |