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Magical Stamps

Aitch

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Not sure if this belongs here or in Religion/Philosophy or Arts. :boggled:

Anyway, the Post Office (UK) is bringing out a set of stamps depicting assorted fictional wizards etc.

How long before some religious group objects?
 
Unless you're thinking some non-Christian group might object to Aslan being one of the most expensive stamps?
 
I object. Why do they use "Lord Voldemort" instead of his real name: Tom Marvolo Riddle? What are they so afraid of?
 
They should have added Gandalf and Saruman instead of the Harry Potter lot. They have at least stood the test of time rather than just being flash-in-the-pan wizards :)
 
Aitch said:
Not sure if this belongs here or in Religion/Philosophy or Arts. :boggled:

Anyway, the Post Office (UK) is bringing out a set of stamps depicting assorted fictional wizards etc.

How long before some religious group objects?
Click to expand...

I object to placing a mass murderer, even if fictional, on a stamp.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Wouldn't that remove most if not all the British monarchs from stamps?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it's time to consider that, as well. Why hold up as respectful people who sat atop power because they were the best at literally killing off their political enemies?
 
Beerina said:
Perhaps it's time to consider that, as well. Why hold up as respectful people who sat atop power because they were the best at literally killing off their political enemies?
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That's unfair. Some of them got the job for having been born, and they only killed their enemies to keep it.
 
Me? Naive?!&*&*^%^&%$£$
Look- she's commander in chief of the army, navy and air force.
One has one's problems solved.
She doesn't do stuff like that herself for heaven's sake!
 
Soapy Sam said:
Me? Naive?!&*&*^%^&%$£$
Look- she's commander in chief of the army, navy and air force.
One has one's problems solved.
She doesn't do stuff like that herself for heaven's sake!
Click to expand...

Yeah, right. She cut the throats of thirty frogmen during the Falklands War. They kept it out of the press because it was so shocking. Not that she'd do it, of course, but that she did it with such gusto, and drank from the wounds saying "I feel the life coursing darkly within, the beating of my fell heart thunders like the doom of nations" and stuff. Lord Voldemort got nothing on Liz II, she'd cut him open and fry his liver up for her tea and he knew it.
 
Salerio said:
They should have added Gandalf and Saruman instead of the Harry Potter lot. They have at least stood the test of time rather than just being flash-in-the-pan wizards :)
Click to expand...


How much time do you think is required? Are there any other tests?

LOTR could have been described as a "flash-in-the-pan" by the Eighties. I had both the Ace and the Ballantine editions when the paperbacks first came out in the Sixties, and later bought the Houghton-Mifflin hardbacks, but two decades later most of the people I knew who had actually read them had done so about the same time I had.

For two or three decades being able to make or understand an LOTR reference was something of a mark of the lit-geek. It took the the Peter Jackson movies to resurrect interest in the books, and it isn't clear to me how many people who saw those movies have ever bothered to read the books anyway.

By contrast I think that the vast majority of the people who have gone to the Harry Potter movies had read the books ahead of time. Just going by sales alone I think Rowlings may already have the edge in book sales, and she's only had a fraction of the time to rack 'em up.

I doubt I'll be around to collect, but I'd be willing to wager that in forty years or so, when the Potter books have been around as long as LOTR has been now, that they will have stood the test of time equally well. Maybe better. They're already doing pretty well by most other measures.
 
quadraginta said:
For two or three decades being able to make or understand an LOTR reference was something of a mark of the lit-geek.
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Indeed. For my generation, the population was long divided into four parts, listed below in order of increasing geekiness:

1. Those who had read nothing of Tolkien
2. Those who had read "The Hobbit" only
3. Those who had read "The Lord of the Rings"
4. Those who had read "The Silmarillion"

By the time you got to the last group you were down to about a hundred people, all of whom were very geeky indeed.

My sister's sixth grade English class actually read "The Hobbit" for school! That would have been in mid 1980s. Like most in Category 2 above, she then tried but failed to complete reading LoTR. I think a common giving-up point is Tom Bombadil. It's the first big WTF in the books.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Indeed. For my generation, the population was long divided into four parts, listed below in order of increasing geekiness:

1. Those who had read nothing of Tolkien
2. Those who had read "The Hobbit" only
3. Those who had read "The Lord of the Rings"
4. Those who had read "The Silmarillion"

By the time you got to the last group you were down to about a hundred people, all of whom were very geeky indeed.

My sister's sixth grade English class actually read "The Hobbit" for school! That would have been in mid 1980s. Like most in Category 2 above, she then tried but failed to complete reading LoTR. I think a common giving-up point is Tom Bombadil. It's the first big WTF in the books.
Click to expand...

This was the point where you were supposed to take a break, roll up a really fat doobie, and read Bored of the Rings instead.

Whether or not you made it back to Tolkien was the big step.
 
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