The World's Silliest Nitpick:

[omorka]

So, in the climactic scene of Return of the King, Gollum falls into the magma and is sucked down almost immediately. The One Ring floats on top of the lava for a few seconds until the intense heat melts it, and it becomes a swirl of molten gold.

Okay, it's the One Ring; it can maintain its integrity far longer than anything else subjected to that heat. And Gollum is so happy to have his Precious again that he forgets to scream when he hits the lava. I'll buy both of those, because of the way the Power of the Ring is portrayed.

But Gollum shouldn't sink until he struggles. Lava is a lot denser than any creature who can swim! So it should act like quicksand - he should float half-in and half-out of it unless he struggles and pulls himself down.

The ring, on the other hand, is heavy. Even Sam found it heavier than a ring of gold should be, and of everyone who bears the ring he's the least affected, so it's at least as heavy as the gold it's made of. Gold in its solid form is denser than rock in its liquid form. So that's gotta be some serious surface tension there, to hold it up until the Tengwar appears, much less until it actually melts.

Yeah, okay. I know. It's a fantasy movie, and it's more dramatic that way. It wouldn't be any fun for the audience to see Gollum roasted atop the lava - it's enough to make you feel sorry for him again when he sinks like a, well, something heavier than a stone. But the physics in Tolkien's universe, at least in the Third Age, usually doesn't suck (giant flying beasties excepted), and Peter Jackson was usually fairly careful about things not being ridiculous.

Oh, well. If I'm complaining about it this far after the movie came out, it can't have been that bad.

Comments

this is just too funny

[binaryathena.livejournal.com]

the entry immediately before this on my friend's page this morning is also about LOTR. and camarilla storyteller politics. The Forces of Darkness(LOTR) work the Camarilla System (http://www.livejournal.com/users/shkspr13/206798.html)

anyway, the whole lava physics is strained, to say the least

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

My impression has always been that a lot of the "weight" of the One Ring was psychological. Remember, there at the end when Sam picked Frodo up, he was expecting that he'd barely have the strength to carry Frodo himself, and then also to have to share in the horrible dragging burden of the Ring, but it didn't happen that way.

Which doesn't negate your point about gold and lava; I just don't think that the "heavier than gold" hypothesis is fully supportable.

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought. Also, the ring has some influence on the outside world. Maybe it didn't 'want' to sink and be destroyed.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

My point was merely that it was at least as heavy as gold, and that its heaviness had been emphasized repeatedly throughout the books and the films (remember the bounceless "thump" with which it hits Bag End's entryway floor in the first film?). Even if it's just plain gold, it should sink in molten rock.

And I can see its magic/will keeping it together and not melting for much longer than it should - that's in keeping with the kinds of physical influence it's shown before (slipping on or off of people's fingers). But floating? That seems like physical influence of an entirely different sort, and not one it had shown before. Most of its influence, as y'all point out, is mental.

At any rate, it's a highly pedantic nitpick and I fully admit it.