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Terrible Argument

Even if he didn't mean it, don't use it.

In a blog post, journalist John Scalzi said:


In a film with impossibly large spiders, talking trees, rings freighted with corrupting evil, Uruks birthed from mud (not to mention legions of ghost warriors and battle elephants larger than tanks), are we really going to complain about insufficiently dense lava? Because if you’re going to demand that be accurate in a physical sense, I want to know why you’re giving the rest of that stuff a pass. If you’re going to complain that the snowman flies, you should also be able to explain why it’s okay to have it eat hot soup.


Now, this is absurd. Not the story; the argument.

First of all, Shelob is part spider, part demon. The laws of physics simply do not apply to supernatural creatures.

Talking trees? Tolkien magic is possible—it's seen in the Bible.

"Uruks birthed from mud" and "ghost warriors"—ditto.

Mûmakil—admittedly unlikely, but not quite impossible. Come on, you can do better.



Luckily, someone else commented on his blog and set him straight. And he agreed—it appears that he did not mean the paragraph above in the way you thought. He actually came to the same conclusion as me.

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