Lemme check...nope still not mine.

Now For The Bad Guys

There is one avenue of Middle Earthians appearing in our lounge rooms that we, the fanfic writers, have never considered. We've dressed the Fellowship at Wal-Mart (some of us have at least, not me personally), irritated Middle Earthians that annoy us, drooled over our favourite boys in boxer shorts and driven their mental health to a dangerously fragile state. It occurred to me about five minutes ago while looking over a failed story of mine. I've mentioned having to confiscate weapons, hiding them from various authorities, but,

What the hell do you do when a freaking ORC appears in your living room!

Hiding comes to mind. Running would also be on my list. Then calling the cops, imagine telling that story to 000 operators. It would be beyond scary to have those residents of Middle Earth living in your house with you. I'd go right past swearing and straight to paraletic, cowering, whimpering terror. It's not like a handy Ranger/elf/dwarf/Steward's son/Rider would save you. I've yet to meet any of them in Australia. Except that guy at the LOTR exhibition, but he was just weird.

It's not like you can bribe orcs into good behaviour. The type of things they'd want would be things I'm not willing to give. I'm with Merry and Pippin on this issue, I like my legs still attached. The orcs would probably try to eat my poor kitties and inspire my one moment of suicidal bravery. I love my pets obviously.

Conversation would be limited too, even if I did get a Uruk-Hai. That makes them sound like a present. Ugh. 'What did you get for Christmas Shy-Shadow?' 'I got a minion of the Dark Lord, wanna trade?' This whole conversation idea is assuming I wasn't gutted immediately. What do orcs talk about? Ambush tactics? Beheadings? Sounds like a conversation for a Slayer, not a teacher. Maybe orcs would like really, really, really violent and disturbing movies. Can't see me renting too many DVDs for them though. Too many visions of maiming. And since I'd rather keep this PGish let's gloss over the possibility of my fate being similar to Celebrian's. I'd like to keep my sanity. I vote for just agreeing they would not be my preferred houseguests.

You couldn't palm them off to anyone else either, I've yet to hear of an orc fangirl/boy.

Then Sauron. The eye himself. How do you explain a giant flaming eyeball to your neighbours? I bought it on e-bay and there was a problem with metric conversion so it was bigger than I thought? How do you keep him suspended like he is on his tower? (Name of tower escapes me right now. Is it Cirith Ungol? Maybe, can't remember. My copy of the books have vanished into the black hole that is my room and I don't relish the idea of cleaning. I might actually find orcs lurking under stuff in there) Would Sauron set of the smoke alarm? I mean he doesn't seem to be actually burning, just flames. I think I'd have enough problems without the smoke alarm screeching at me. Will he burn carpets, blinds, furniture or my eyebrows? I fear yes. Would he try to take over the world and try to make us all his minions? Probably. Is it morally wrong to consider posting him (in flame proof box) to the Prime Minister? Again probably. Although imangine the look on his face. 'Ooh a present!' opens box and Sauron emerges in flaming (and angry) glory. 'Aaargh!'

Or can Sauron levitate himself? I could have a few moments of fun with that before trying various methods of extinguishing him. That would solve the Sauron problem you gotta admit and be kinda fun too. I'd try a bucket of water first, then as many different fire extinguishers as possible. Except the one for electrical fires, that would just feel silly.

I could have a staring competition with him, and probably lose, then taunt him about being unable to blink. I could throw out the stove and cook on him. Mmmmm Sauron flamed grilled burgers. Sounds catchy. I could toast marshmallows on him and once I figure out what s'mores are, I could make those. I hear they involve chocolate. This is all assuming he's pretty much powerless of course. Or is it remotely possible he'd arrive pre-Isildur all be-ringed and all powerful? Huh. Rather no think about that. I don't wanna be a minion.

Let's consider Ringwraiths instead. Just as terrifying really. You'd need a handy-dandy Ranger around again then you could toast marshmallows on flaming Ringwraiths. You could rent them out to debt collectors, I guess. See if it is possible to have a conversation that doesn't involve screeching. Come one, they're really old and they were human once, maybe they'll say something worth listening to. Or maybe they'll just sniff a lot, like they did to creep out Pippin. I could run a revenge service with them or something. 'Is there someone you don't like? Send them a Ringwraith-o-gram! They'll never bother you, opr any one else again! Call Now!' If I could convince them to fight for us, maybe they could join the Australian army. No one would dare to make any more shrimp on the barbie or Steve Irwin jokes then! Would that make me morally bankrupt? A deal with the devil sort of thing. Nazgul, I think there'd still be a lot of running on my part. After all I know where the ring is. In theory anyway. With my grasp of geography I could give a vague guess. Actually Frodo would be quite safe, with my directional skills they'd end up in a hitherto unknown land beyond Harad. Is there a Middle Earth equivalent of Timbuktu? That's where they'd end up.

Not that I'd try really hard to send them back to Middle Earth, it'd be more like sending them away.