Im not sure there is much to explain. The books have way more detail, insight, and therefore things to reflect on. Subtle things that make huge philosophical differences and change how you view it all.
Take for example Gandalf, there are a lot of details not in the movie that are huge.
1) He was a Maiar, the same order of being as Saruon. Basically an immortal angel-like creature
2) He was the bearer, and wearer, of one of the three elvish rings of power, his ring how the power to inspire others and fight tryanny
3) Originally many ages early on the wizards were first sent to defat Sauron and Morgoth (his leader) by whatever means they could, using power and their magic to overthrow him. They failed, especially because Sauron had the ring of power, so being power with power would never work. LAter when the wizards were sent back they were ordered not to use power to fight sauron, so they were sent back in weak, frail, old bodies and rarely used their magick if at all. To subvert sauron through subtle encouragment and faith in others whoa re "weak" by comparison (Though strong in their own way) and thus defeated sauron in the end.
War and peace is amazing, and yea has a lot of detail.. But im not wsure i agree that it has the level of intricacy of LOTR.. I mean the dude spent a life time inventing an actual functional language before he felt he was even ready to start writing the books. The guy was a mad man :)
Oh and side note, Sauroman was just a wizard who wanted to do good but thought intentionally not using his power to try to win the war was dumb. So he refused the orders from the gods and used power anyway.
As we see this resulted in his faul and ultimate corruption.
It is a common theme in magic based fiction, that true magickal power comes for subtlety.
New Zealand? I actually always wanted to go to New Zealand. I'm a scuba diver and I havent done any diving in that region so its really high on my list.
Its overwhelmingly detailed for many, to the point it is hard to hold it all in your head.
I recommend you read it slowly and whenever you dont know a word check out the wikipedia on it, because there is a **lot** of vocabulary tolkein makes up.
With that said if you do make it through the books I find it amazingly rewarding. You can spend a life time reading these books and still miss entire subtexts.
Ohhh, im in the netherlands, so that would actually be a short trip. I also have friends int he UK so I go there often.
So while I wont be doing any SCUBA diving still a good chance ill be in your neck of the woods in the near future. I do love a good hike so I'd love to join you on an adventure next time im there.
Well I always liked anything that had danger that could be made safe through science and responsibility as a theme. Not sure why. Its the reason i do chemistry as well, can be lethal but fun.
So there was that element combined with my love of nature. I dont have the body to be able to hike the top of mount everast or anything of that nature, so I picked the depths of the sea.
At first it was scary as hell, which motivated me to do it more as I like challenges I have to overcome. But the overwhelming beauty of the sea and the suprising social nature of the anmimals in it (fish are cuddly in their own way) also sealed the deal for me.
It also helped that iw as spending 6 months out of the year on a carribean island diving before work every morning.
After falling in love I did what i do when i love any difficult persuit, I wanted to be pro at it. So I spent about 2 years of intense training and study to become what is called a "technical" diver (basically means I can dive really deep in the ocean and take down many tanks with me and advanced equipment, deep sea diving) and then even trained for deep-sea cave diving. It was all great and i keep doing it because i love it.