When I wrote this article over a year ago, I meant it as a joke. But with the news today that Peter Jackson has a perforated ulcer, delaying The Hobbit yet again, I’m suddenly not so sure it is a joke.

First, there was all that bad blood between New Line Studios and Peter Jackson over profits from the Lord of the Rings movies. Then there was a lawsuit from the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien where they threatened to shut down the entire production of the movie version of The Hobbit. Now MGM is suddenly on the verge of bankruptcy, jeopardizing the production all over again.

Is The Hobbit cursed or what? Will this movie ever see the light of day?

Industry observers say it’ll all work out in the end — that there’s way too much money at stake for the movie to not get made.

I’m not so sure. Here are my predictions for what can — and almost certainly will — jeopardize The Hobbit next:

• A man who went to kindergarten with Tolkien will sue the producers for a share of the profits, claiming the Lord of the Rings author plagiarized his books from the man’s contributions to “storytime.”

• Andy Serkis will insist on playing the part of Gollum with the voice of Donald Duck.

• Swine flu will take out the entire New Line staff.

• Guillermo Del Toro, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh will become involved in a complicated love triangle which results in none of them speaking.

• Olaf Engelstad, a man of Norwegian descent, will sue the producers for a share of the profits, claiming his ancestors invented the concept of the “elf.”

• Director Guillermo Del Toro will be replaced by Eli Roth.

• Locusts will descend on New Zealand.

• The trend of big-budget special effects extravaganzas will come to an abrupt end as Americans suddenly develop an insatiable yearning for non-linear foreign film (without subtitles).

• The descendants of Eadweard Muybrid will sue the producers for a share of the profits, reminding them that Muybrid was the inventor of “film.”

• Peter Jackson will reveal that he’s become Amish and insist that no technology whatsoever be used in the making of the movie.

• The part of Bilbo will be played by Sofia Coppola.

• Unable to vanquish the locusts, New Zealand will also fall into eternal darkness.

• Ian McKellen will develop massive boils.

• Eli Roth will replaced by Rob Zombie.

• Actual Ents will be discovered in the Redwood forests of California, right before they go on a rampage, destroying Los Angeles.

• Still consumed by locusts and darkness, New Zealand will sink into the ocean.

• CGI green-screen technology will become impossible when God unexpectedly eliminates the color “green.”

• A meteor will crash into the planet, eliminating all life on Earth.

This article was originally published in October 2009.

For those of you living under a rock, Zombieland opened last weekend and went quickly to number one (and we, of course, reviewed it here.) One of the clever moves of the film is that it takes your traditional Hero — muscular, confident, aggressive — and your standard Sidekick — smart but cowardly, neurotic — and flips them, so that we see the film through the eyes of the sidekick, played with hilarious gusto by Jesse Eisenberg.

Although the characters in the film aren’t aware of this switch, and continue on in their respective paths, we in the audience are clued in to the fact that this won’t be your traditional action/horror film. In fact, Eisenberg’s character, Columbus, in a moment of meta-consciousness, even refers to himself as “sort of a Sancho Panza-type.”

Sancho Panza was, of course, the prototypical sidekick, who traveled around at the side of Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes’ historic novel of the same name. Unlike the slender, intelligent Columbus, however, Sancho was overweight and dim, riding atop a donkey, yet lovable for his unshakable loyalty to his master, Quixote.

It is this loyalty that allows for Quixote to continue on in his quests, whether he’s aware of it or not, and like a truly great sidekick, Sancho never asks for affirmation. He simply is there for the hero, even though in this case, the hero is a delusional old man (which, perhaps, proves Sancho’s worth all the more.)

But while the sidekick has his or her place in a story, longer tales often develop the sidekick to the point where they’re on the same level as the hero, which is always satisfying for a reader or viewer. After all, haven’t we all, at some points in out lives, felt a lot more like Robin than Batman? So it’s small wonder we take comfort in the fact that Robin, the epitome of a sidekick, grew up and became Nightwing, a hero in his own right, on par with Batman.

In fantasy literature, perhaps one of the greatest examples of a sidekick rising up to the level of hero is Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings. Like Sancho, Sam is neither slim nor very smart, and for most of the story, Sam exists to cook food for Frodo and keep up his spirits, all the while contentedly walking behind his master on their epic quest.

But when Frodo is attacked and Sam believes he is dead, a change occurs in him, something visceral, something which can never be undone. He realizes that the fate of the Ring and indeed, the world, now rests solely on his humble shoulders, and so he stands up, picks up his master’s sword, and carries on.

Frodo didn’t die, of course, and the two hobbits are reunited, but things will never go back to the way they were before. By the end of their journey, Frodo has come to respect Sam as an equal, and when death again seems imminent, utters to Sam the famous words, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, here at the end of all things.”

In the wake of Sam, it seems that the sidekick-turned-hero angle is all the rage. The most obvious example that springs to mind from contemporary is, of course, Gabrielle, the Battling Bard, whose popularity threatens to outshine that of the hero, Xena. Throughout the six seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess, we see as Gabrielle grows and changes from a feisty but physically weak farm girl into an accomplished warrior, inheriting Xena’s place after her death.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow Rosenburg, who was naught but a vastly intelligent nerd, became aware of the existence of the supernatural when Buffy Summers came to town, and that indirectly resulted in her learning witchcraft to the point where she became the “most powerful witch in the western hemisphere.”

But as for my favorite sidekick? That would have to go to Ron Weasley, the bumbling poor kid who was just another Weasley sibling until he met up with Harry Potter in their first year at Hogwarts.

Come on, just look at that picture! If you didn’t say “Awww…” you’re made of stone.

Ron comes into Hogwarts the way many of us do any other school, frightened and overwhelmed, feeling very small and very alone. But by befriending Harry Potter, he assured his name would go down in the history books. Had it not been for Harry and all of the danger that followed him like a dark storm cloud, Ron might never have been tested as thoroughly as he was, thus never knowing his true potential.

While real life is never as cut-and-dry as fiction, sidekicks and heroes do exist, just as villains and henchmen do. But as fiction is  realizing, those roles are never binding, and we can easily go from being a lowly servant one moment to the savior of the world the next.

Back again for another highly opinionated — some might even say downright cranky — look at some element of the fantasy genre. You’ve been warned!

WHEN DID FANTASY STOP BEING ABOUT SWORDS AND SORCERY?

Whenever I tell people I edit a website devoted to fantasy-themed entertainment, they usually say the same thing: “Oh, wizards and sorcery and quests and stuff like that?”

Usually, I just nod and say, “Yup!”

But if I’m in the mood to give a more complicated answer (and if I think the listener actually wants to hear it!), I say, “Well, swords and sorcery are a part of it. But increasingly, traditional or ‘high’ fantasy is a smaller and smaller part of the genre. These days, it’s much more about contemporary or urban fantasy — anything that involves magic or the paranormal or supernatural in general. These days, most of the creative energy is around shows like Supernatural or vampire-themed projects like True Blood. If anything, swords and sorcery is becoming sort of the bastard stepchild to the genre.”

Let me pause here to say that I love swords and sorcery. It’s what drew me to the genre, and it’s still probably the fantasy sub-genre I love the most (indeed, this site and this column are named after it!).

But the fact is, when was the last time a “traditional” sword-and-sorcery fantasy project took the world, or even the geek world, by storm? Legend of the Seeker? We all know how that story ended up.

Sure, there’s George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice (soon to be an HBO series called A Game of Thrones). But that series’ claim to fame is its post-modern “realistic” bent — and its almost complete lack of magic. Spartacus: Blood and Sand, meanwhile, subverts the traditional genre with its explicit gore and (especially) its sex.

Harry Potter kept the sorcery — but put it in a traditional setting.

True, the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia movie franchises are still going strong, but let’s face it: these projects are fueled, in large part, by nostalgia — by the desire of geeks like me to see their childhood passions finally fully realized on-screen, in a way they couldn’t be pre-CGI.

You can certainly still find high fantasy in fiction and in many video games — Dragon Age: Origins was deservedly a sensation. But you can also find plenty of urban and supernatural contemporary fantasy in both mediums as well.

Still, the swords-and-sorcery backlash became clear to me yet again last week when I was reviewing a new (pretty good) webseries called JourneyQuest. Basically, it’s a satire of all the traditional fantasy conventions, with the wizard, the warrior, and a villain all given modern, ironic sensibilities.

But when I was writing my review, it occurred to me that I’d been seeing this mock-the–traditional-fantasy-conventions premise a lot lately: last year’s Comedy Central series Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, and a long list of other recent webseries: The Legend of Neil, Doraleous and Associates, A Good Knight’s Quest, The Gamers, and The Guild.

Mocking fantasy conventions really isn’t anything new. I think a big part of the reason why Xena: Warrior Princess became  the sensation it did (especially compared to its originator Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) was because of its take-no-prisoners sense of humor (and its female protagonists for a change). There were no sacred fantasy cows on Xena, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, the next swords-and-sorcery fantasy movie, Your Highness (coming in April 2011), is, of course, a fantasy-comedy, making fun of the genre.

What is it about traditional fantasy that is making people so eager to make fun of it?

Ironically, I kinda blame it on The Lord of the Rings — or at least the authors and fantasy enthusiasts who followed directly in Tolkien’s wake. Sure, the “fantasy” genre existed long before Tolkien, but it was Rings that basically ended up creating the modern fantasy genre: elves, dwarves, an all-powerful magic item, an evil force to be destroyed.

Lord of the Rings cast a long, dark shadow all through the 60s, 70s, and 80s — a shadow that was reinforced by the explosion of the D&D gaming culture where people basically acted out those Tolkien conventions over and over again. Before long, the template Tolkien had popularized almost became something sort of … sacred.

And let’s face it: in the hands of most 70s and 80s fantasy writers, these ossified conventions also became very predictable and very boring. Been there, done that, that’s for sure. Around 1989, I decided if I read about one more humble medieval farm-hand who was destined to save the world from yet another Big Bad, I was going to scream.

In short, the genre was ripe for implosion. Indeed, the genre wasn’t just ripe for implosion, it was actually sort of begging for it.

So cue the rise of fantasy reinventions like A Song of Fire and Ice and Xena: Warrior Princess, and the parodies like JourneyQuest and Krod Mandoon.

None of this is a bad thing. Fantasy is richer and more sophisticated than its ever been (IMHO). But sometimes I do think: wouldn’t it be nice to see another great work of traditional fantasy, without the irony, the parody, or the reinvention?

That’s when I remember: all those favorite fantasy works of my childhood still exist: all I have to do is cue them up on my DVD player or Kindle.

That fact that I don’t do it all that often — that I’d rather watch the latest episode of Supernatural or read the newest Jacqueline Carey book — makes me think: well, maybe I’ve moved on some too.

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Q: It’s a fantasy trope that you can’t ever vanquish Great Evil completely: Sauron, Voldemort, the White Witch — somehow they always come back. I get that it’s a metaphor for how evil is eternal. But how does their ability to resurrect themselves work exactly? – MegaMouth, Manchester, NH

The Oracle Speaks:

This is a classic example of various authors basically starting from a philosophical “point” they want to make and working backwards from there: as you say, the point they’re making is that evil is a fundamental part of us all, and since we can’t ever deny our own natures, we can’t ever vanquish evil completely (although we can certainly reduce its influence and impact!).

But even apart from the fascinating philosophical question, the specifics are pretty interesting too: how do these powerfully evil beings always seem to survive death?

First, they find a magical means to ensure their immortality.

Voldemort, for example, created the multiple horcruxes — magical, hidden totems that stored bits of his soul, binding him to the material plane (Voldemort thought he had created six horcruxes — the only wizard ever to create more than one — but of course he had accidentally created seven, one being Harry Potter himself). But with each additional horcrux, he became less and less human.

Voldemort directed a Killing Curse at the infant Harry to prevent the prophecy that the boy was destined to kill him from coming true — but the spell rebounded, destroying Voldemort’s physical body (but not his soul, which was, of course, kept alive by the horcruxes).

Meanwhile, Sauron, who started out as an immortal anyway, created the One Ring to gain additional power and influence, forging it in secret to give him control over the other Rings of Power, but also requiring that he imbue it with much of his power and some degree of his essence. When Isildur cut the ring off Sauron’s finger in the War Against the Last Alliance, it destroyed his weakened physical body, but his soul lived on in hiding, desperate to regain the ring and the power it wielded over the other rings.

Finally, the White Witch (then known as Jadis) gained immortality by eating The Fruit of Everlasting Life shortly after Narnia’s creation. Subsequently, she somehow learned Deep Magic From the Dawn of Time, which bolstered her knowledge and power (but, alas, not Deeper Magic From Before the Dawn of Time, which ended up biting her in the ass).

But while these beings’ essences or souls were preserved from total destruction even in defeat, they eventually did need to draw at least some of the power necessary for regeneration from the evil in the hearts of their followers — reinforcing the authors’ philosophic point that evil lives on in the world because ultimately we allow it to.

Voldemort relies at first on weak-willed people like Quirrill and Peter Pettigrew — and later, he openly enlists other evil allies like Lucius Malfoy. But ultimately it’s the fear, prejudice, and lack of conviction on the part of the entire wizarding community that allows Voldemort to rise again.

Meanwhile, Sauron’s return to power, initially in the forests of Dol Guldur (part of Mirkwood Forest), is directly aided by the Nazgul, especially the Witch-King of Angmar — nine weak-willed former humans who were seduced and destroyed by the Rings of Power. Subsequently, infighting on the part of  the White Council and Saruman (who hoped to gain the One Ring for himself) allowed Sauron’s hatred and evil to grow unchecked.

As for the White Witch, in Prince Caspian, she is about to be brought back to life even after Aslan killed her in a previous book through black magic on the part of her evil followers, a hag and a werewolf, and also the weak-willed dwarf Nikabrik.

Incidentally, did the destruction of the One Ring in The Return of the King finally ultimately destroy Sauron, and did Harry’s defeat of Voldemort in Deathly Hallows kill the wizard?

In both cases, the answer is probably not.

In The Return of the King, Gandalf says:

If [the Ring] is destroyed, then he will fall, and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so a great evil of this world will be removed.

As for Voldemort, J.K. Rowling reportedly said in a podcast that, post-Deathly Hallows, he would be similarly diminished, living on in a form like the vision Harry has of the piece of Voldemort’s soul inside himself: a flayed naked child, whimpering and abandoned under a bench. (Truthfully, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I thought a lot of Deathly Hallows was a stretch.)

As for the White Witch, some say she reappears in The Silver Chair, reincarnated as The Lady of the Green Kettle (Glimfeather the Owl says she’s “of the same crew”), but after that, she’s never heard from again.

But is she gone forever? You know the answer to that: absolutely not.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

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Death: the undiscovered country. Why is it undiscovered? Because once you cross over into the Great Beyond, there’s no going back. As a result, those who are left behind in the world of the living have no way of knowing what’s coming next.

That’s the way it is in real life anyway. Things aren’t quite so straightforward in fantasy fiction, which frequently features characters dying and returning to life.

Sadly, fantasy authors are no more privy to knowledge of life after death than the rest of us, so these forays into the afterlife usually end up just telling us something about the character — a mere emotional truth, not a literal one about the nature of death.

Damn!

Still, let’s see what some of the more interesting and famous of these fantasy resurrections have to tell us, shall we?

Xena Warrior Princess (in “Fallen Angel”)

At the end of the fourth season of Xena: Warrior Princess, Xena and Gabrielle both died — victims of Caesar and the culmination of a prophecy given to Xena by the evil shaman Alti at the very start of the season.

Unlike most fantasy “deaths,” the “Fallen Angel” episode shows us exactly what happens to Xena and Gabrielle after they die: the episode is actually set in the world of heaven and hell. But Xena being Xena, she just can’t help getting involved in the eternal struggle between good and evil. I could write for pages about this wonderful episode, but suffice to say: it was a thrilling, knock-our-socks-off moment when we learn that Xena sacrifices herself, choosing to spend all of eternity in hell, not for Gabrielle (as we might expect), but for her uber-nemesis Callisto. Since Xena “created” Callisto, it makes perfect sense in retrospect.

Of course, Xena died other times over the course of the series — six times total, according to some estimates. And the last time she, um, didn’t come back to life. But it’s best not to think about that, right?

Aslan (in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

In one of the most famous “Christ” metaphors in all of literature, the god-lion Aslan allows himself to be sacrificed by the White Witch in exchange for the life of the traitor Edmund, which belongs to the witch as a result of “deep magic from the dawn of time.”

But surprise! As a result of “deeper magic from before the dawn of time,” which says that death is reversed when someone willingly sacrifices himself for another, Aslan comes back the next morning — which is really good, because otherwise the witch was going to kill them all anyway!

I know this story has profound meaning for Christians, which I respect, but as a non-Christian, I gotta say: this storyline has always struck me as a bit of clunky metaphor and a colossal plot-cheat. Wouldn’t it have been better if the Pevensie kids had been more active players in their own story?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in “The Gift”)

In the sixth season musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy famously sings, “Hey, I’ve died twice.” But her most significant “death” may have been in the 5th season episode “The Gift,” when Buffy sacrifices her life to save her “new” sister Dawn by diving into (and closing) an inter-dimensional portal created by a god.

Later, Willow and the others perform a spell to “save” her … or do they? In the aforementioned musical episode, we finally learn why Buffy had been so depressed all season long: she was in heaven, finally at peace, and her friends ripped her back out again! Needless to say, the decision by Buffy’s friends to bring her back to life ends up having major ramifications, which — duh! — is exactly the way it should be.

Ged (in The Farthest Shore)

The Wizard Ged has it rough in Ursula le Guin’s The Earthsea Cycle series of books: first, he unleashes a shadow-being into the world that is impossible to “destroy.” And in The Farthest Shore, the third book in the series, he must cross the “wall” between life and death in order to stop an evil wizard who has opened a breach in the wall so that he may live forever.

Ged closes the breach, but it comes at a great cost: he loses his ability to do magic. Ged survives his fantastic (and very effectively written!) foray into the land of the dead, returning to the world of the living, and le Guin gives the character two endings: in one (later developed in subsequent books) he returns home, but in another, he sails off into the ocean, never to be seen again. The latter is a less optimistic, but bolder ending, implying — truthfully — that in any confrontation with Death, human beings ultimately always lose.

Thomas Covenant (in Fatal Revenant)

At the beginning of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, Thomas Covenant, still in the “real” world, is stabbed in the chest by one of Lord Foul’s minions — but he and Linden Avery are transported into the magical “Land” before he can actually die. When, at the end of the three-book series, the main characters returns to the “real” world, Covenant is, in fact, dead.

Or is he? Linden hears his voice in the first book of the next series, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and eventually encounters a being who looks very much like him — although looks can sometimes be deceiving. Has Thomas Covenant really come back to life? Not yet, but he does later in the second book, once again by command of the all-powerful Earthblood.

In fantasy literature, humans never seem to learn some lessons, namely, that we should leave the damn dead alone! Oh, and drinking the all-powerful Earthblood is generally a bad idea too.

Frodo (in The Two Towers and The Return of the King)

Okay, so Frodo isn’t really killed by Shelob’s poison in his trek into Mordor over the Ephel Dúath mountains — he’s merely paralyzed by her venom so she can keep him “fresh.” But Sam, of course, thinks Frodo is dead and carries The One Ring on without him, and I’m including the encounter here because it serves as a example of the function that resurrection often serves in fantasy fiction: that of metaphorical rebirth. When Frodo and Sam both emerge from this encounter, they are different people, having learned important truths about themselves and even more determined to continue forward.

Interesting fact: The Two Towers includes material from Shelob’s POV, and these passages make it very clear that the giant spider is trying to “kill” Frodo with her bite, not just “paralyze” him. It’s later we learn (when Sam overhears the guards) that the venom is not fatal. A cheat on Tolkien’s part?

Harry Potter (in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Does Harry “die” at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, or is he merely killed, but before he “dies” is given the opportunity, by magic, to decide whether to live or die? Then again, it’s been established that Harry can’t kill Voldemort without dying himself, so it’s pretty clear that Harry has to be truly “dead” in at least some respect.

Speaking of plot cheats … I’m not trying to get into any arguments here, and I’ll grant that J.K. Rowling did, if you squint, just barely make her whole epic saga hang together in the end.

But Voldemorte accidentally made Harry a horcrux when he was a child and now can’t kill him, because he somehow also incorporated Lily’s protective charm into him? And brilliant mind and fantastic magic-user that he is, he didn’t figure any of this out (but Dumbledore did)?

Okay, that’s not strained at all. I do, however, buy the bit at the very end of Deathly Hallows, with the Elder Wand — that Harry might figure out who the wand’s true owner is and that Voldermort, in his supreme arrogance and over-confidence, would refuse to believe it, effectively condemning himself to death.

Which brings up another fantasy “resurrection”: that of Voldemort himself. He too had died previously and come back to life. In fact, plenty of fantasy villains — Voldemort, Lord Foul, Sauron — have “died” (or been vanquished) and somehow eventually reformed themselves and returned to “life.” Evil is never really “dead,” right?

But, alas, those resurrections will have to be the subject of another article!

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There are many things I love in life. I love my parents. I love my friends. I love playing online Tetris for free. I love a tall, ice-cold pint of beer. I love that the space bar will pause Youtube, Hulu, and Netflix Instant viewing.

I love all of these things and never have to defend that. But one thing I occasionally do find myself defending is my love of fantasy.

In a way, I get it. Fantasy is, on its surface, a genre packed to the gills with elves, dragons, and wizards — not exactly grown-up fair. How can a story with magic spells and dashing princes compare to the very realistic plays of Tennessee Williams, the written works of Jack Kerouac, or the films of Gus Van Sant? What makes fantasy so great?

In a word: metaphor.

For those not too proud to explore a work of fantasy and not too dense to look beneath its surface, the fantasy genre is a rich addition to the literary, film, and television canon because it explores very real human problems and desires by creating allegories through which to explore them.

Name any fantasy work that has withstood the test of time, and you will find in it a fable full of lessons of all too real applicability.

Michael Ende’s landmark novel, The Neverending Story, which was turned into a decent movie in the ’80s, is about a young boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux, who is neglected by his father and bullied by his schoolmates. He finds a book that transports him into another world called Fantasia, a world that is the embodiment of all the dreams and fantasies of the real world, which is being destroyed by an enemy called the Nothing.

The story is moving and absorbing not due to its host of magical creatures, but because it taps in all of us that longing to be a child again, to be able to lose yourself in worlds of your own creation, before the dark, unimaginative specter of adulthood falls upon us.

This theme of the wonder of a child’s imagination is explored many times over in fantasy, from The Wizard of Oz to The Chronicles of Narnia to Labyrinth.

While passionate, romantic love is a theme explored in virtually every genre imaginable, has there ever been a better representation of the honest, pure love between friends as there was in The Lord of the Rings? The entire sprawling epic that is Tolkien’s masterpiece essentially hangs on a single conceit: that we as an audience accept that Sam will do anything for Frodo.

This is a hard sell for some, because the notion of the power and beauty of platonic love is not a prevalent idea in our culture. Their relationship isn’t romantic so there’s no promise of sex. Frodo is hardly royalty so there’s no allure of vast treasures. Sam is committed to Frodo, with no reward expected, because that’s just the kind of person he is, and who wouldn’t want a friend like Sam? Who wouldn’t want to be a friend like Sam?

Toss in the fact that it’s two lowly hobbits, humble and small in stature, who succeed in saving the world, and you have a classic for the ages. It takes a story about hobbits to make us see the wonder in our fellow man.

This past year, the high fantasy television show Legend of the Seeker came into its own when episodes began appearing that were not necessarily part of the larger plot, but instead focused on characters by throwing them into fantastical situations that mirrored real life problems.

Kahlan, a young woman who was torn between her sense of duty and her love for her companion, Richard, was in one episode magically split into two people, and through this spell we came to learn much about her and how difficult her burden really was.

Another episode featured Cara, a woman who was abducted and brainwashed and turned into a killer. As she attempted to regain her humanity, she was turned into a Baneling (basically a sentient zombie), thus making her metaphorical fight to be a regular person quite literal.

The point is that we could have simply watched biopics of Margaret Thatcher or Patty Hearst, and I’m sure some would be content to do just that, but those projects are limited to the real and mundane. By steeping a story in allegory, you have a much larger canvas on which to paint.

I suppose the fantasy genre will always be overlooked by those who wish to appear highbrow. After all, magic and flights of fancy are a hard sell to the academic.

But for those of us in the know, fantasy has a way of engaging our suspension of disbelief by accessing the emotional truths in stories about hobbits and goblins, and reflecting the realities of our world through a supernatural lens. Like opera and musical theater, which engage our emotions through music rather than realism, fantasy will forever be a step removed from reality, but never so far that we can’t recognize it. And it’s because of that very distance from reality that the genre is able to remark on it so keenly.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

Q: So I must know: will Lucy Lawless be back in the second season — not the “prequel” — of Spartacus? Basically, did she die in the finale? — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

The Oracle Speaks:

First, a spoiler alert.

“She was still twitching at the end of Season 1, if you look,” Spartacus‘ executive director Steven DeKnight said at the recent Television Critics Association conference in L.A.

In other words, yes, she’ll be back, not just in the prequel, but also in the subsequent second season.

“You know, the original plan with Lucy and that character was to kill her at the end of the season,” DeKnight said. “Basically we had John Hannah and Lucy Lawless for only one season. That’s what we could get them for. Towards the end of Season One, Lucy was having such a great time, and we all loved her so much, there was interest in bringing her back. And I got a call from Rob Tapert saying, ‘Starz called, and they’d really like Lucy to come back, and you know, Lucy really wants to come back,’ and I said, ‘Absolutely not. She’s got to die. That’s the way the story goes.’”

But DeKnight soon changed his mind, he said. “The next day I called him up and said, ‘Rob, I got an idea. And we’re thrilled to have — Lucy will be back in Season Two. And where the story goes with her is really something special. I’m very excited about that.”

What of John Hannah? “John Hannah is a little harder to bring back, obviously,” DeKnight joked.

Q: Are lembas magic or is it just a really, really impressive Powerbar recipe? — Jonah, Dallas, TX

The Oracle Speaks:

We know what Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson thinks: in the movies, one bite of lembas bread “is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man” — which is, of course, physically impossible, so magic must be involved.

But in the book, it’s a little different: “one cake” is enough for “a full day’s march,” which is much closer to the laws of physics and means that magic isn’t necessarily involved.

Still, there are repeated references to the fact that lembas don’t just sustain the body; they also sustain the spirit.

“Lembas does put heart into you,” J.R.R. Tolkien writes. “A more wholesome sort of feeling.” And Gollum can’t eat the bread.

This could, of course, all be psychological; when eating lembas, people often think of the elves (and the beauty of Galadriel), which could definitely provide a psychological boost.

But then there’s the fact that the elves, who created lembas, are an immortal, magical race — literally created by the magic of Eru IIuvater. Everything they do is suffused with magic — although not necessarily magic of the spellbook and incantation sort.

And come on: one thin cake for a full day’s march?

Count on it. Lembas are magic.

A more interesting question is why is the word always italicized when plenty of other elven words are not?

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Please send an email to thetorchonlineoracle@gmail.com and be sure and include your city and state and/or country.

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The Magic of Gaming is a weekly column with the latest news about fantasy-themed games.

Lots of gaming news, previews, and trailers this week as Gamescon kicks off in Germany.

Final Fantasy XIV Online (Sept. 30 on PC, and March 2011 on PS3) was unveiled for the first time yesterday. Both IGN and Gamespot have detailed write-ups of the game play that you can check out, so I’ll just post a few screenshots:

I want that guy’s house!

More details were released this week about BioShock Infinite (2012). Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine told Kotaku that the missing woman you’re hunting, Elizabeth, becomes a companion of sorts:

She’s an amplifier for your powers if you choose to have her be an amplifier for your powers … There’s no component of squad commands with her in the game. She is a self-driven entity. She will react if you go this way or that way on the field. She’ll say different things; she’ll react different ways verbally. She’s kind of a combination of what you saw on the screen and there’s a Left 4 Dead component about her in terms of her saying things that are driven by the simulation…

Frankly, I’ll be happy as long with whatever she does, as long as it doesn’t involve sticking corpses with a syringe.

BioWare has revealed the Advanced Classes for your Jedi in Star Wars: The Old Republic (TBD 2011): Sentinel and Guardian.

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but I’m looking forward to this game because BioWare’s behind it, and I’ve already played Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 so many times I’m starting to see dialogue trees in real life.

Speaking of Dragon Age, the new DLC “Golems of Amgarrak” was released; I didn’t like it.

Dragon Age 2 finally has a release date! It drops March 8, 2011 in US and March 11, 2011 in Europe. Mass Effect 2 will be coming to PS3 in January.

Excalibur Online, a “free to play MMORT set in the days before Camelot,” started their open beta this week. Registration is free and you can start playing immediately.

A new extended trailer for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (XBox, PS3, and PC, 2011) emphasizes the co-op gameplay.

New trailers/teasers were also released this week for Arcania: Gothic 4 (XBox, PS3, PC, Oct. 12, 2010), Tera (PC only, 2011), and Kingdom Under Fire II (Xbox and PC, late 2010).

Finally, for those who can’t get enough of Albion, Microsoft is making a special $60 Fable III-themed controller available for the XBox on Oct. 5, with a code to download a unique in-game tattoo.

You can buy a Fable novel the same day — Fable, The Balverine Order, which comes with a code for a unique in-game weapon. The novel’s synopsis reads:

The days of magic and adventure are fading away, giving way to the age of industry and science. As the aged last Hero sits upon the throne of Albion, two friends-the privileged Thomas and his loyal servant, John- set out for the East in search of a legendary beast: the vicious, rarely-seen balverine. But their desire for adventure may be their ultimate undoing-because their quarry has just found them…

You’ll have to spend a lot of gold if you want these and the exclusive location and quest that comes with the $79.99 Fable III Collector’s Edition (Oct. 26). Better get to bartending/woodchopping/blacksmithing!

Sarah Warn currently runs EntertainHer.com; you can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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Just because someone’s fictional, that doesn’t mean they can’t be involved in juicy scandal! Here’s all the gossip on your favorite fantasy characters:

• Readers of this site know that The Lord of the Rings‘ One Ring was created by Sauron during the Second Age in the fires of Mount Doom. But an upcoming book on the One Ring, Ring!, has revealed a little-known fact: Sauron made an earlier attempt at creating an item that would control all the other rings of power: the One Onion Ring, created deep within in the Deep Fat Fryers of Sammath Naur. Unfortunately, unlike the One Ring, which is impervious to everything except the fires of Mount Doom, the One Onion Ring was soon done in by a hungry orc with side of the delectable Tartar Sauce of Numenor.

• Tragedy to report from the offices of MTV. In preparation for the launch of their new winter series, Teen Wolf, the directive went out to hire “a new Teen Wolf publicist.” Unfortunately, a mix-up in human resources led them to hire an actual teen wolf … which was all well and good until the young man organized a promotional event for the show that happened to take place on a full moon. On the plus side, despite the carnage, the young man is reported to have terrific abs.
  

• Speaking of orcs, is it discrimination against them that caused Ugluki, the reigning Miss Mordor, to be expelled from the Miss Middle Earth Beauty Pageant, now underway in Caras Galadhon? She thinks so and has filed suit against the contest.  “Discrimination?!” declares one of the organizers. “She disemboweled one of the judges and wrapped his entrails around her head!” Responds Ugluki, “But that’s my talent!”

• Han Solo’s foul new celebrity fragrance, Rogue, is already being called the biggest flop in the history of celebrity fragrances. Solo takes full responsibility for the failure, saying, “It should’ve been a red flag for me when they said they were making it with Tauntaun guts.”

• Finally, I’ll leave you with this blind item about a certain green witch who once had a house fall on her sister, and then she — wait, that pretty much gives it away, doesn’t it? Doing blind items in fantasy is hard!

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As we all know, Hollywood is a fickle mistress. For a movie to actually be made, a lot of items must first be checked off a list, and it’s not at all uncommon for projects to fold right before, on the day of, or even into actual shooting.

Nothing is ever guaranteed.

Not surprisingly, this means there are innumerable fantasy or sci-fi themed projects that have almost seen the light of day, but were ultimately canned. Here we take a look at a choice few.

Superman Lives

Back in the 90s, long before Brandon Routh pulled on the red-and-blue in Superman Returns, there was a lot of attention being given to another Kryptonian project. The buzz was partially good — written by Kevin Smith — and partially abysmal — starring Nicolas Cage.

I think most Superman fans can agree that this project disappearing is one of the best things to have ever happened to the Superman legacy, and indeed, movies in general. Seriously? Nicolas Cage?

Night Skies

Still fresh from the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg was planning on making another flick about aliens. But rather than continue the sweet tone of Encounters, The Berg was planning a very different film. His imagination conjured up a dark, horrific tale where a family living in a farmhouse is terrorized by nasty aliens with mean tempers and long, hideously bony fingers that they reach out and touch you with, resulting in your death.

In a truly fascinating example of how nothing creative ever goes to waste, the film evolved into a family-friendly tale of a young boy bonding with an alien whose long, bony finger brings not death but healing, and ET continues to be one of the most loved movies of all time.

Ender’s Game

Controversial nutjob author Orson Scott Card’s tale of a heroic young boy who saves the world was written in 1985 (based on an earlier novella), and since then movie studios have been attempting to turn his work into a feature film. Unfortunately for Card, he wrote a tough story to translate to screen: an epic battle is fought by a group of adult-like genius children, which means expensive effects and a roster of characters that’s very hard to cast.

Toss in the fact that Card is a vicious, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-gay bigot, and you don’t really have a package many Hollywood types would come running to. Ender’s Game is likely to go down in history as the cool movie that could have been but never will.

Halo

Now here’s a film that has a slight chance of actually happening, but my guess is the project is just too ambitious for enough people to get on board and get their collective mojo working. One of the most popular shooters, the original Halo wowed audiences with its at-the-time ground-breaking visuals and wild but easily-digested science fiction storyline.

A movie seemed almost inevitable, and for a while, geek god Peter Jackson was even attached as a producer. Since then, momentum has fizzled, and while anything can happen, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

The Lord of the Rings … Starring The Beatles

Speaking of Peter Jackson, we all know the jovial Kiwi best for his outstanding job helming the Lord of the Rings films back in the early ’00s. Before these films, there was an animated adaptation of the classic, with the first part by Ralph Bakshi and the second by Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass.

But before the epic fantasy was even a twinkle in these filmmakers’ eyes, there was another group of Tolkien enthusiasts who wanted to make a Rings film. They went by the names John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

If that’s not bizarre enough for you, John Lennon had his eye on the role of … Gollum. Admittedly, the rest of the casting was actually pretty good: Paul as Frodo, Ringo as Sam, and George as Gandalf.

But while I love the Beatles, and I love The Lord of the Rings, like beer and ice cream, not everything we love should mix.

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Like you, we’ve gotten caught up in the Olympic hullabaloo over the last two weeks. There’s something about international cooperation and elite athletes and musical montages and Bob Costas’ voice that just fills us with unusual glee.

But as much as we like those things, we can’t help but think they might be improved upon with a little help from the fantasy world. Here are some sports we here at TheTorchOnline.com would really like to see in the 2014 Winter Games:

Panserbjørne Polo — Regular old horse and pony polo doesn’t have a place in the Olympics because, frankly, it’s too elitist and boring for the average citizen of the world. But what about polo carried out in the snowy mountains on the back of an armor-covered bear? Now, that’s exciting! Especially if the player’s dæmons are running interference! We know that, strictly speaking, panserbjørnes aren’t supposed to let humans ride them, but for a chance at international glory (and a shot at landing on the cover of a Wheaties box), we’re pretty sure plenty of bears would participate.

Tesseract Track Speed Skating — If you’ve seen one speed skating race, you’ve seen them all. Oh, sure, the sport tries to keep things fresh by mixing up the distances, but after about three races, we’re begging for a pile up. To add a little adventure to speed skating, we think it should take place in more than one physical plane. After a few laps around the ice, skaters would be forced to wrinkle to another dimension. And then another. And then back to their original track. Keep your balance and wits about you in that kind of race and you deserve to win a medal.

Flux Capacitor Bobsled — Quite similar to the Tesseract Track, but in this sport, teams would strap a flux capacitor to their sleds and be forced to hit 88 miles per hour before the track runs out. Teams will finish in the next Olympics. Not only does it add an element of surprise to the competition (teams won’t be able to study the second half of the track in the future!), it also keeps viewers on the edges of their seat for another four years. It also doubles the potential television coverage. Races are finishing up from the last Olympics, and races are taking off in the current Olympics.

Middle-earth Curling — Did you know that traditional curling stones are made from a specific kind of ailsite that can only be found on Ailsa Craig, off the coast of Scotland? Experts are pretty sure there’s only enough ailsite for about 20 more years of curling. It doesn’t matter much, though, because it’s not a very exciting game. What if, instead of securing ailsite from the Highlands, curling stones were forged in the fire of Mount Doom? With, say, one stone to rule them all, one stone to find them, one stone to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. We’d like that, wouldn’t we Precious? Tricksy little sweepsers, aren’t they? Yes, yes, Precious.

Turkish Delight Cook-off — The standard for Turkish Delight belongs to the White Witch of Narnia, of course. But this blasted cold weather makes us want more, more, more! Every four years, the best chefs in the country should come together and have a bake off to see who can create the most magical version of the dessert. It becomes infinitely more interesting if Tilda Swinton judges the competition on live TV. She would make Gordon Ramsey look like a puppy.

Wonkathon — Our favorite event of the Winter Olympics is the biathlon because it reminds us of Nickelodeon’s Double Dare obstacle course from when we were kids — only a little more dangerous on account of the guns. We think an actual obstacle course would be a good add to the Winter Games, especially if it was designed by Willy Wonka. Chocolate rivers, trippy boat rides, experimental TV equipment, magical animals, Oompa-Loompas: any athlete would be lucky to make it through alive! In addition to the medals, winners of the Wonkathon would receive a lifetime supply of everlasting gobstoppers. Though, if they really are everlasting, you’d probably only need the one.

Lightsaber Skating — Figure skating is a classic favorite. We love it, we really do. But we think we could amp the entertainment value (and athletic prowess) if we turned down the lights and required each skater to compete with lightsaber. The whizzing and twirling and jumping and tossing would be even more artistic (and awesomely dangerous) with the added equipment. Plus, the sport suddenly becomes marketable. What child would leave the arena without a lightsaber of his or her own from the souvenir stand? What adult, for that matter?

Quidditch Tournament — We’ve got nothing to add to J.K. Rowling’s magical competition. We’d just like to see it in the Olympics is all.

Now, be honest — would you rather watch the IOC’s version of the Olympics or our version of The Olympics?