During the time period of The Hobbit , a character is mentioned called the Necromancer. Radagast even (in the movie) specifically states that the Necromancer can "summon the spirits of the dead." (It's been a while since I read the book so I don't know if this exact phrasing is used there, but given the name it seems reasonable.) This character is later revealed to be Sauron. Since when can Sauron summon the spirits of the dead? He can extend life ad infinitum , like Gollum's, for example, and he can twist people into half-alive monsters, like the Ringwraiths, and he himself seems impossible to kill so long as the One Ring remains, but I can't recall ever actually seeing him "summon" something that was once fully dead. In fact, the only character I remember doing that was actually Aragorn, though he merely commanded them and didn't raise them himself. Is this just an unfounded rumor about the power in Dol Guldur, some hushed-whisper nightmare tha...

Scott Snyder made an interesting discovery that people here might be able to answer: who are these two characters (see pics below) that keep reappearing in the background of both Marvel and DC kids books? One has red hair, glasses and often facial hair, while the second has darker skin, dark hair and sideburns. For the rest of the images (to avoid making this question massive in length), see here .

Is the height of races (men, elves, orcs, goblins, etc) ever mentioned by Tolkien? If not, did the movies just make up the certain heights? Answer Yes, he has, but as far as I remember, not for all the races. Hobbits were 3 to 4 feet tall -- average 3 feet, 6 inches ( Letter #27 ) Actual size – only important if other objects are in picture – say about three feet or three feet six inches. Source Orcs were 3 & 1/2 to 4 feet tall ( The Fellowship of the Ring) The size of the Elves and the men was similar. There was a mention I think that the dwarves had similar height to the Hobbits, if not slightly taller.

I was re-watching The Empire Strikes back this afternoon and there is the scene where Ozzel and Piett are arguing over the data sent by the Hoth probe droid. Ozzel is insistent that this isn't Rebel activity. He then continues to argue it with Darth Vader when the Sith lord joins the conversation. Finally, after losing the argument, he then makes the most incompetent approach to Hoth, providing the Rebels with enough warning to allow most of them to escape the planet. From a logic standpoint, it seems unlikely that someone who was that completely incompetent and that poor a strategist could have risen to the rank of Admiral. It seems to me that a reasonable alternate theory is that Admiral Ozzel is actually a Rebel agent (or sympathizer) who competently made his way to the rank of Admiral, then used that position to try and divert Imperial forces away from Rebel bases. And that, failing that, he risked death (and received it) to try and save as many Rebels as possible. I know nothi...

I'm hunting for the title of a short story where a senile old man appears in a capsule in a laboratory. They eventually realize time is passing backwards for him. After years he helps them build the machine he's in, and he changes places with the him that has been aging normally in the timeline. Answer Could this be Ian Watson's "The Very Slow Time Machine" ? Google Books offers this: The Very Slow Time Machine arrives on earth in 1985. Its sole inhabitant is old and mad. Soon it becomes apparent that for him, time is going slowly backward. With every day, he is getting younger and saner. The world, and its whole concept of time, science and philosophy, must wait for him to speak. But while the world waits, it changes...

In Star Trek TOS episodes, interstellar space was divided into large volumes each containing at least several stars. These volumes were identified as sectors and quadrants. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sector 1 https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Quadrant 2 In the TNG era a quadrant became identified as a vast region, a quarter of the entire galactic disc. Whether sector and quadrant referred to the same type of division or not in a specific work of fiction, they are definitely different words, so the correct answer for sector may not be the correct answer for quadrant. In any case, TOS was probably not the first space opera to divide interstellar space into quadrants. In A Life For the Stars James Blish (part of Cities in Flight ) 1962, 1963, chapter 4 "Schoolroom in the Sky" Chris deFord is taught galactic history. In 2289, Earth colonists made contact with a planet of The Vegan Tyranny, an interstellar culture which, we now know, had ruled most of this quadrant ...

The Death Eaters obviously had no problems with murdering people, and based on the dialogue in TGOF when Voldemort returns, they knew what Horcruxes were. So why then, did none of them create their own Horcrux, even if only one? Even if Voldemort did not want them to, they still could have done it behind his back. One of his Death Eaters even went as far as to get one of his Horcruxes behind his back. Voldemort says: "And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death?" Note he does not say "They who knew I took steps..." which could imply that they didn't know what steps he took. How it's worded strongly suggests that the steps he took were known to his Death Eaters (certainly at least to Regulus). Answer Simply put, they didn't know how to and (probably) didn't have the skill to do it without seriously injuring themselves. Per Pottermore ;...