Nobody expects the elvish inquisition!!!

Yay for Monty Python references... :)

Their chief weapon is suprise. Surprise and fear! I love her jewelry.

surprise even...

Yay! And Ayne's looking nice in the last panel.

thank you a lot. this managed to brighten my day once more

awesome job again! Thanks for updating!

Nobody expects the elvish inquisition!

Except the dwarves.
Paranoid buggers, wonder if there is an elvish inquisition or are they just being pro active.

No, not the Comfy Chair!! Anything but the Comfy Chair!!!

I think the point is that if the Dwarves always have somebody expecting them they'll never be able to say the catchphrase.

Gee, what's with the last ten comics being devoted to Leaf and Ayne asking questions? I wasn't expecting the elvish inquisition.

Hmmm. Ayne is nicely spathic in those last two panels...

Well, I suppose "sound engineers" makes sense, considering the importance of engineering in dwarven culture. They're musicians...just with a different name.

And everyone can stop saying no one expects the elvish inquisition because there are quite clearly three dwarves who are doing so right now.

Good job Mith and Alien, you're playing to the fans, their devotion level just shot up.

bing out......... THE RACK! wait, what's that? a dish rack?

Classic! I love this page!

This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It has expired and gone to meet its maker!

(See, that's what you really weren't expecting!)

This is an ex-parrot!

lol she's half scared in the 4th pannel there lol

I never said I wasn't scared of the Elvish inquisition, I'm just saying they're expected now.

"The inquisition, let's begin
The inquisition, good-bye sin
I know you're wishing that'd we'd go awaaaay!!
Bu the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay!

You've got to admire the dwarves' committment to safety. Even if they did lock up a pacifist ogre, a vegetarian dragon, and a (relatively) harmless elven boy.

(still, they let Ayne roam free. That might be a mistake)

Okay, so random aside here: Has anyone else checked the information Wizards has released regarding Fourth edition races and classes for D&D? And if so, is anyone else irritated by the fact that Wizards spent effort making dwarvish women "sexier"?

Seriously, isn't there something Wizards could have better spent their effort on?

And now I can't make the Gimli Speech...T_T

Hey. Don't dis the wizards. After all, humans spent how many years perfecting mayo and ketchup?

I meant Wizards of the Coast, the people who brought you Magic The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.

I LOVE THE SECOND BREAKFAST SPEECH!

Gimli speach? (too long since i readt LotR, and utterly refusing to see the movie)

Gimli: You know, it's true you don't see many dwarf women. In fact, they're so alike in voice and appearance, that they're often mistaken for the dwarf men. (Aragorn aside: It's the beards) And this has lead to the belief that there are no dwarf women, and that dwarves simply...pop out of holes in the ground. Which is ridiculous of course.

Actually, Gimli's speech is in the books, it just isn't said by Gimli and isn't recorded in LotRs itself. I think it's in the Silmarilion. And dwarves only "pop out of holes" because the original dwarf fathers were put to sleep in the caves just after one of the lesser gods created them. They weren't allowed to wake up until after the children of the Great God (elves and men) woke up.

I know it's from the movies and appears in the vast appendices of LOTR. I still like saying it anyway. Besides, it's a running question in fantasy, "Where do baby dwarves come from?" I just wish Wizards of the Coast didn't spend time making dwarvish women "sexier". But I'm just ranting anyway.

well, i'm more disturbed by them no longer being subterrean race who can see in complete darkness

that could be a problem when you have to visit the bathroom at night...

Back in the Old Forest where he belongs. Honestly Goldword, you have to admit Tom Bombadil does nothing. NOTHING. He delays the plot for, what, two chapters?

And yes, I'm also mad about losing darkvision.

how can you not miss Bombadil? He was awesome!

I was miffed that Bombadil was gone, but I really miss the Scourging of the Shire! The only time in the series that hobbits get to kick butt, and the director skips it. Humph.

I've heard that the Scourging is in the extended version of Return of the King. But to be honest, they dragged the last part of the Return of the King too much. Just seemed like it took too long to me.

Nah, the Scourging wasn't in the extended version. But they did alright with the length; half the third book (or more, if you include all the appendixes) take place after the ring was destroyed. They did a nice job tidying it up. It would have been weird if they had just ended it right after the ring was destroyed.

SECOND BREAKFAST SPEACH!

What about 5 o'clock lunch? And tea?!?

I know that's not exactly right...but that's what I remember!

I think it's important to tie up loose ends. That's very good at defeating fanfictions, keeps them from trying to fill plot holes and such.

Fanfics are evil...

Very true. Fanfiction is oddly addictive to me, but I hate its undead and undying guts. It would be hard to make a fanfiction of LOTR simply because of the 80-odd pages of appendixes (gah! sooo many appendixes!). My friends and I are making a spoof version of LOTR, but it's not fanfiction.

Since when did this turn into a LOTR message board?

(But I still love LOTR!)

Bombadil is awsome, I've read the first two books and haven't heard of the Scourging, and the Gimli thing is because of a running joke in LOTR- most of the book is saying that old Middle Earth syaing and stuff got passed down to us - but in mangled form.

Well, this is a fantasy webcomic. You can expect the majority of people who read it to be fans of fantasy. As such, since LOTR is one of the major pillars of twentieth century fantasy literature, you can expect the majority of the readers to have also read LOTR. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that once a brief mention of LOTR occurs, the readers will proceed to go off in different directions regarding this topic.

Furthermore, when Mith and Alien don't post in a while, we tend to stop talking about the comic and start talking about other things. Which is cool because we usually have some good discussions while Mith and Alien make quality comics.

I suppose you'd call that meta-fanfiction?

..."We have decided that you are not orcs."
"What else?"
"that's it...it..takes..a..long..time..to..speak..in..old..ent..."

All hail to Mithandir and Alien! The comic has been getting better and better!

Does anyone know who won the internaional hide and seek championship this year? ;P

when is next slide coming??!!! i have been waiting for days!!

bookbook, wouldn't it be easier just to come up with an original idea? You're creative, I'm sure you have one or three ideas.

jynx, 80 pages appendix... did you miss the silmarillion book?

"It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole population. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among men that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'.

It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other. As for the men, very many also do not desire marriage, being engrossed in their crafts."

This is from Appendix A. In my copy it is on the second to last page of the appendix (not including the family tree of Durin part).

Jynx, there are 12 History of Middle Earth books all of which are incomplete notes or earlier drafts for various Middle Earth stories. There is also the Silmarillion which is like a cliff-notes version of the history of Middle Earth. (It was put together after Tolkien's death by Christopher Tolkien, the son he left in charge of such things. Christopher doesn't add anything to the text, he just digs up notes, puts them in order, and publishes them. He put out the History of Middle Earth series as well.) There is also (I can't wait to read it) The Children of Hurin. Christopher apparently managed to scrounge up enough notes about the children of Hurin (one of the three main stories in the histories of Middle Earth, the other two are the Fall of Gondolin and the tale of Beren and Luthien) to make an actual novel! This is the first novel published by the Tolkien Estate in roughly 30 yrs.

So, as you can see, there are hundreds of incomplete pages of back story just begging to be made into fanfic, sadly. I hate fanfic too. The only type I really like would be fanfic drawings (of families, mostly, the other ones can get annoying).

Oh, I forgot to say that I LOVE this strip! I just never comment because everyone has already said what I was planning on saying.

Best quote about writing (by Stephenie Meyer):

"I should probably mention here that I am not crazy (that I know of); it's just that I am a character writer. I write my stories because of my characters; they are the motivation and the reward. The difficulty with strong, defined characters, though, is that you can't make them do something that is out of character. They have to be who they are and, as a writer, they're often out of your control."
Sorry, one of my faves. Had to share it :)

Yay Monty Python references!
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Our chief weapon is surprise.
Surprise and fear, fear and surprise
Our two weapons are fear and surprise.
And ruthless efficiency,
Our THREE weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency
And almost fanatical devotion to the pope,
Our FOUR, no,
Amongst our weapons...
Amongst our weaponry such elements as fear, su-
I'll come in again...
I didn't expect the kind of Spanish inquisition
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: Fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, almost fanatical devotion to the pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh death!

I'm confused, don't worry.

Also, it's not sacrilegious to mention Dune. It just takes so long to read...so...complicated...I control the spice. I CONTROL THE UNIVERSE!

Narian Goldword: read Discworld much? ^_^ You sound like the author~

YES! One day, nine hours left til new comic!*holds fantasy/sci fi party*

*is confused utterly by bookbook*
I love Discworld too!