Which Lord of the Rings Race Would You Be??

These go together like tobacco and tea grounds...

I'm going to nerd out on this blogpost. I consider it my right since I've been so serious lately.  Consider this fair warning. 

I was bubbling up with mirth as I walked onto my patio today. After a lot of running around in preparation for my new job and move out to Nova in a week, I finally had some real downtime to vegetate before writing this blog. It wasn't all roses, though; I had to figure out how not to get a scap-line (took it off) and spent two hours pondering whether this massive bumblebee hovering a foot above my head would just sting me or would rather torment me. It turns out he was my buddy, so that was nice.

Naturally, I had come out to the beautiful sunshine to smoke a pipe and watch my submerged teabags turn their water into delicious tea via the power of the sun. While loading my pipe, I naturally had to come up with some subject of thought that substantiated the widely held belief that pipe smokers must be wise and wistful. Luckily for me (as I had no idea what to write about today) I was smoking a Shire Pipe.

My wistful question that I proposed to myself was "What race of Middle Earth would I like to be?" As with all good questions, I mentally dove my inquisitive exercise with relish, remaining semi-comatose and breathing shallowly with my pipe, forgotten, in my slackened grip. Seconds stretched on to minutes. Minutes luckily did not become hours, and I re-awoke to real earth after a few minutes of intense thought. What follows is the fruit of this thought.

My first consideration was with the evil peoples. I knew they wouldn't work out for me from the get-go. I'm too much of a teddy bear, I guess. Let me put it this way: When I try to play Fable or some other choose-to-be-good-or-evil-by-your-actions game I try to be evil and can't pull it off. I end up feeling bad for my choices #Fail.

 I quickly ruled out the first two evil races for some pretty substantial flaws. The Orcs are pretty short, ugly, and have terrible teeth. The Uruk-Hai, while long and strong of limb, are still seriously ugly, plus at one point they have to survive on nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days. 

The evil race I really lingered on was the Goblins. Those guys were pretty chill. They mainly searched for treasure under mountains and harassed the dwarves when the latter dug too greedily and too deep. 

I'd hang out with them.

Who wouldn't want to capture a group of dwarves and dance around them singing down, down to Goblintown...

When it came to the meat and potatoes of the matter, though, they're still wicked ugly. So I passed on the Goblins (though it would have been pretty hipster of me to choose them.





Heaving a mental sigh of relief, I moved on to the good peoples. Dwarves have some things going for them, I guess. They make some gnarly weapons, turn mithril (aka truesilver) into bling coats of armor, and are sort of the short, ugly, bearded Lannisters of LOTR. Apparently the women dwarves look just like the men, so that right there was three strikes rolled into one.

To be honest I didn't really consider the elves. They don't really count because they aren't a people of middle earth, but of the Eldar across the Sea. Same goes for wizards, although Saruman has a pretty awesome crib.

Men? Men are weak. The age of men is over. Also, since I'm already a man, I think it would be pretty boring to move to a fantasy land and stay the same. Men are full of pride, but because of that they are able to show true nobility, which is what I love most about the human condition. 

So I guess they aren't really any races left...Oh wait, the hobbits! That's right. I decided that I would absolutely, 100% be a fat little curly-headed, hairy-footed hobbit. Hobbits know how to enjoy the truly good things of life. They live in small, beautiful communities, do not desire more than they have or need, and spend their days eating and drinking together while the other races squabble for power and riches. They're just...happy.

When I awoke from my momentary trance, there wasn't a place I would have rather been than outside smoking a pipe, feeling the sun on my pasty skin, and watching water become tea. Cheers to the good life!

And he lived happily ever after...to the end of his days

~Worley