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Dudley's (New, Improved) Dungeon

< Jan 25th, 2009 >Dentarthurdent
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@ "Now, therefore, things shall be openly spoken that have been hidden from all but a few until this day."
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@ "The tale of the Ring shall be told from the beginning even to this present. And I will begin--"
E - a gold ring.                          
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@ "..."
Really attack the hobbit?  [yn]           
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@ "Hey!"
A cookie for every named character you can pinpoint.
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Ratings

  • 2 poor
  • 6 mediocre
  • 11 fair
  • 16 good
  • 22 excellent
Average rating: good
Number of ratings: 57
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24 Comments

#1 slowpoke Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:53:29
Considering that a lot of NetHack derives from Tolkien, I have a hard time getting enthused about this one.

#2 zanasj Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:27:36
You're a tad bit early, slowpoke. But I digress. This comic has a nice setup, but mediocre punchline.

#3 nate879 Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:37:02
Whoever made this website, can you please remove the popup in the voting screen? It made me click "poor" instead of "mediocre". I know I can change it, but it's very annoying.

Also, when navigating to another page and back(with the back and forward buttons), this comment text shouldn't disappear.

Last edited: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:37:13

#4 paxed Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:14:28
@nate: I'll think about the popup.

...why shouldn't the comment textarea clear? are you going to make the same comment more than once?

#5 Avzin Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:41:41
I'm afraid I don't understand this one, not having read LotR.

#6 mijae Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:04:53
Well I love it just for the attention to detail. A blue elf-lord for Elrond, A single grey-elf for Legolas, Rodney-purple for Gandalf the Wizard, two h's next to him for Frodo and Sam plus a human @ for Aragorn, and the other hobbits hiding behind the trees... but which one is Dudley attacking, Merry or Pippin? (I'm assuming Bilbo's the one off to the side) I can't think of who the third human is after Boromir though.
Anyway, better leave some cookies for the rest of you guys.

#7 TobyBartels Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:55:12
The book wouldn't identify everybody by position, would it? You want the movie, and a fan site to tell you the names of all the obscure characters.

Except … I haven't checked with the book yet, but the movie only has one hobbit by Gandalf. (The three hidden hobbits are Sam, Merry, and Pippin, with Sam separate. Bilbo could be the second overt hobbit, but I don't see him in this scene.) In fact, come to look more closely, this varies from the movie in several ways, but perhaps the movie just got it wrong.

PS: Firefox's spell checker knows ‘hobbit’ but not ‘hobbits’. And it knows ‘Bilbo’ and ‘Pippin’ but not ‘Frodo’ or ‘Baggins’. What's up with that?

#8 Dentarthurdent Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:02:49
It's based purely on the book. A few can't be really pinpointed (e.g. you can't tell the difference between the two dwarves), but you can narrow them down to a few positions.

mijae earns three cookies for spotting Frodo, Merry and Pippin. Hint: Gandalf is nothing like the Wizard of Yendor (if anybody is, it'd be Saruman). He may be semi-divine, but in Nethack terms he's just "a wizard".

#9 TobyBartels Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:02:18
All right, so we can't identify people down to position, since the book doesn't give that detail and the movie is irrelevant (or even wrong).

So I guess the hobbits in the circle must be Bilbo and Frodo, while Sam, Merry, and Pippin are hiding. The two dwarves, which we know can't be distinguished, are Gimli and Glóin. Although you didn't give mijae a cookie for Legolas, he is a Sindarin gray-elf (despite living with Sylvan woodland elves). Possibly you made Legolas blue on the grounds that he is heir to the throne of Mirkwood, so one level below an elvenking; you might even have made him purple. However, I'd be more inclined to make Elrond the purple elvenking (even though he did not have that title), on the grounds that he carries Vilya.

Although I don't have the book to check (if even this is mentioned), I expect that the hobbits would stand next to Gandalf. That makes him the white wizard (although not yet the White Wizard) standing next to them.

Last edited: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:06:32

#10 anther Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:03:06
I was assuming the purple @ was Elrond, just because Elrond was the leader of this council (and therefore would be speaking)... the two dwarves would be Gimli and Gloin... that's most likely Bilbo and Frodo standing next to Elrond... and Merry, Sam, and Pippin behind the trees...

I was actually assuming Gandalf was the gray @. But if he's just "a wizard", then he'd probably be the white @ standing next to the two hobbits, making the other two white @s Boromir and Aragorn respectively. (Aragorn was at the council, right?)

Legolas has to be in there somewhere, but I don't know if he's the blue @, the gray @, or one of the green @s.

Was Arwen at the council?

#11 mijae Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:15:31
Oh right, it was Bilbo up there with Frodo, duh. Oh well, at least I got enough cookies for second breakfast.

#12 Dentarthurdent Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:18:29
I made Legolas a Woodland-elf, actually, as I was ignorant of his actual race. He is thus indistinguishable from the other green Elves present. (The nameless attendant Elves should also be gray, shouldn't they? Oh well.) The gray one is meant to be Galdor, "an Elf from the Grey Havens". TobyBartels gets ten cookies, plus an extra-yummy cookie for setting me straight. Elrond is the magenta Elvenking, of course; though he's not a proper King, as you mentioned, I figure the bearers of the Three are the closest thing in Middle-Earth.

Anther: Ah, but which is Aragorn, and which Boromir? :)

#13 PIxels Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:23:36
Actually, only two of the three Elven Rings were being carried by elves during the events of the Lord of the Rings. Círdan gave Narya to a very worthy cause; it is present at this meeting, in fact.

However, I'm not at all sure I'd try to draw too many parallels between Nethack elves and Tolkien elves. Besides any question of alignment and general conduct (I've watched an Elf-Lord mow down one of his companions with arrows trying to shoot me), I'd be surprised to find so many Elf-Lords and Elvenkings wandering about the depths of some random dungeon, let alone allow themselves to be summoned by the like of nalfeshnee.

Lastly, the One Ring isn't a unique item or at least an artifact? Come on!

#14 Dentarthurdent Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:39:19
Nitpick, nitpick. I'm merely using Nethack symbols to represent LotR, not suggesting that Celebrimbor is actually meandering about the Dungeons of Doom waiting to get scooped up by Dudley's tinning kit. (The whole "Dudley coming in and trashing the place" thing is totally different. >_>)

As far as the Ring: again, I'm using the closest equivalent Nethack symbol. There is no unique ring in the game, so it doesn't appear as one in the comic.

And I suppose by "bearers of the Three" I meant "the two Elven bearers of the Three". I know what Gandalf has got in his pocketses.

#15 anther Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:30:35
I would expect Boromir to be on the upper left, and Aragorn on the lower right. Because Aragorn doesn't like being crowded.

#16 TobyBartels Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:56:21
Num, num, thanks, Arthur!

I hereby donate one cookie to Wikipedia, and one to Wikihack, for supporting me in my research.

#17 Thvor Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:24:18
I was very confused, because I'd assumed that the purple @ was Aragorn and couldn't figure out why he was stealing Elrond's lines.

#18 acheron Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:17:08
Legolas refers to himself as a Silvan (forest) Elf, despite his father being Sindarin. So a green @ is probably fine.

#19 Dentarthurdent Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:16:53
Two more cookies for anther :) Aragorn is "in a corner by himself", as I recall.

#20 anther Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:10:21
The only thing I can't figure out is who the blue boy is. Or girl. That's the color for an elf-lord...

I'm also guessing at this point that Legolas is the green @ between megaman here and Galdor. The other green @s are just residents of Rivendell, right?

#21 Anonymous Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:26:32
I stared at this comic for a few minutes, not getting it. Finally I looked up a few symbols (I'm still not Nethack savy yet). Finally, when I realized that "=" meant "ring" it clicked. I probably laughed for about five minutes straight.

#22 Anonymous Fri, 23 Aug 2013 23:05:09
Shouldn't the ring be "a cursed gold ring" instead of just "a gold ring"? It was placed on an altar.

#23 Anonymous Thu, 9 Apr 2015 18:28:55
Dudley should've put on the ring immediately (he's too noob to BUC test) and have become invisible (only cursor can be seen).

#24 ThePathfinder Mon, 30 May 2016 05:16:40
Sorry,but I hate ratings that resembles something.

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