One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that you can hate or you can spell, but you can't do both. Something about hatred of one's fellow human beings tends to short circuit that part of the brain that processes spelling... either that or this individual is the Witch King of Angmar:
I confess to having an anti-wight bias... I mean level drain is a terribly 'metagaming' mechanic, sure to break versimilitude at the gaming table. Don't even get me started on these assholes (confession, I just downloaded Myth II: Soulblighter at 'My Abandonware' to kill social distancing time). Wights just aren't that appealing, they uneasily occupy that weird, liminal space between the corporeal and semi-corporeal undead worlds. Zombies are unambiguous, wraiths are unambiguous... wights really need to commit to one single state of corporeality. I mean, even that jerk Peter Jackson isn't into wights, I mean, hell, how can one make a drawn-out spectacle out of some hippie weirdo singing a song?
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The nifty thing about the way Tolkein (following, according to Prof Wikipedia, William Morris' translation of one of the Norse sagas) uses "wight" is that it leaves so much to the imagination, and his creepy description of the spider-like hand on an elongated arm walking on its fingers surrounded by a green luminescence does just the same. The old master had imagination, and he had absorbed the terrors and weirdnesses and beauties of Anglo-Saxon and Finnish poetry down into his brain's cell structure.
I followed your links, and I have to say, speaking as an illustrator, that most of the art (some of it excellent in various ways) just doesn't do what Tolkein's writing does. It's not, for me anyway, creepy... but then, we're all harder to scare after the last 3 5 years, aren't we!
"One of the fundamental laws of the universe is that you can hate or you can spell, but you can't do both."
That's the niftiest line I've seen on the Internet in eons. Congrats.
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
The old master had imagination, and he had absorbed the terrors and weirdnesses and beauties of Anglo-Saxon and Finnish poetry down into his brain's cell structure.
Yeah, he would have made a decent horror writer if he had turned his hand toward that. Look out, M.R. James!
That's the niftiest line I've seen on the Internet in eons. Congrats.
Grazie! My work here is done.
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