There's a couple of things wrong here

• Shelob wasn't killed by Sam (as stated by another user). She was wounded greatly, but definitely not mortally, and she retreated back into her caves to heal
• Ungoliant (the mother of all spiders, including Shelob) did not eat "the original sun and moon". She drank the light of the two trees which provided light to Arda before the sun and moon, causing them to rot and die.
• The two trees weren't the original sun and moon. Before the two trees, there were the two lamps which stood on or near the poles of Arda and were the original lights of the world. I don't think it's fair to call either the lamps or the trees iterations of the sun and moon since the idea of a day-night cycle didn't exist prior to the sun and moon, at least in how we think of it. During the age of the two lamps (the Spring of Arda), both lamps shone constantly (no transition for time of day). During the age of the two trees, the trees would bloom throughout the day on a cycle, alternating which one was in full bloom. This is closer to day and night, but the trees shone so brightly that dark night never existed. Plus, the trees blooms mingled twice a day, essentially creating two "noons" per day

The taxation part of this is a bit of an unfair point. The US allows for an exclusion of ~$150k in foreign earned income if the US citizen qualifies as a bonafide resident of a foreign nation. On top of that, the IRS lets you deduct any taxes paid to a foreign government dollar for dollar against owed US taxes, and since most other developed nations have a higher tax rate, this essentially wipes out your US tax obligations (federal only, some states will still apply taxes separately). The only people actually double paying taxes are the ultra rich, but they obviously don't pay taxes at all since that's for the poors 🫩

Obviously, the system is still stupid and overly complicated (why should I even file a return with the IRS when I don't owe anything?), but it's not as egregious as this video makes it out to be

This meme, but with the scouring of the shire

Missed opportunity to make Saruman symphonic metal considering he was in a symphonic metal band

One correction: Morgoth didn't "create" any Balrogs. He merely corrupted Maia to his will

sigh I'll just put this here instead of writing it all over again: https://piefed.social/comment/10585049

This is in the hobbit. Gandalf and crew find Glamdring, Orcrist, and Sting in the troll hoard, and Elrond tells them the names of the blades. Sting was named by Bilbo since the knife didn't have an elvish name

Ah this happened to me this weekend! Not the train explosion, but the winedbg flood. For me, it was because I had my proton and steam Linux runtime installations on an NTFS disk instead of something more Linux native.

Lots of reasonable claims here, the fellowship is certainly an international menace. It's important in the political climate that Arda finds itself in to point out fallacies, even in rhetoric we agree with:

• The natural habitat of Balrogs is certainly not the deepest darkest depths of a mountain. In fact, Durin's Bane is more or less a squatter living in the unexplored basement of the mountain. I doubt he's even ever paid taxes!
• While certainly an enemy military (or militia), the fellowship doesn't directly cause any acts of terrorism in the borders of Mordor. The ring was honestly destroyed on accident, afterall, and the mess at Cirith Ungol was at worst a B&E without theft.

Another interesting note about flying evil creatures: the earliest forms of dragons in Tolkien's works (and until after the primary writing of The Children of Húrin), were wingless. They were closer to dinosaurs rather than flying dragons. In fact, the father of dragons, Glaurung, was wingless and was similar to Fafnir in Norse mythology, with elements of Basilisk thrown in for good measure.

This is an oft repeated factoid with lots of variations (my favorite is the tale that Tolkien's editor underlined "dwarves" and corrected it to "dwarfs" citing the OED. Upon seeing this correction, Tolkien allegedly replied "I wrote the OED, and I said dwarves"). This link seems to be a good resource in explaining the reality behind the difference: he was writing a lot very quickly, and made a mistake based in familiarity of plurals rather than philology or linguistics.

Nope, she's Power Girl. While still Superman's cousin, in this specific continuity (injustice), she's from an alternate timeline. So it's like half incest

That's a very good point. Sam's achievement shouldn't be understated, as he is the first and last mention of any harm coming to Shelob. Beren did pass through Shelob's birthplace in the first age as he traveled through Ered Gorgoroth (he was the only one of the children of Ilúvatar to do so), and I wonder if he crossed paths with her, as she was the final and mightiest of Ungoliant's spawn and therefore must have had a place of dominance amongst the other great spiders there.

Imagine being a creature born of an ever yawning abyss, living for eons; and possibly the second mortal to evade your maw is not Beren, greatest of men, but rather Samwise, the humblest of the children of Ilúvatar, and not only did he evade her grasp, he wounded her and stole her finest meal in what was probably hundreds of years. Sam was truly one of the most valiant souls to ever walk Arda

Tom Bombadil is (probably) the avatar of Arda itself, which makes him far stronger than a Balrog, but not omnipotent. Theoretically if Tom Bombadil had to solo the entirety of Morgoth's forces in Dagor Dagorath, then he'd probably die, but who knows what would happen to the planet after that ¯\(ツ)/¯

This meme is entirely false. Tolkien stole from the Red Book of Westmarch, not the Hobbit!

The witch king was absolutely not unkillable, just hard to kill. Eowyn slew him after Merry stabbed him in the leg with a barrow blade. There is no indication that, had Frodo and Sam failed, the witch king would have risen again.

You are correct regarding the implication, but I think it's a bit different than that. The blade Merry uses to stab the witch king was from the barrow downs, and was enchanted to be able to harm the witch king. So it was less "oh duh she's not a man, problem solved" and more "his magic shield is busted, stab him quick!"

GROND

Fun fact: the siege engine Grond was named for Morgoth's mace which he used in the first age to smite Fingolfin, the younger half brother of Fëanor (the crafter of the Silmarils), during 1 on 1 combat. In that battle, Fingolfin's final act of defiance to the first Dark Lord was to stab his foot, leaving Morgoth with a limp for the rest of his time on Arda. Interestingly, Morgoth never recovered from this injury, whereas he is stated to have recovered from other injuries to his physical form such as the attack of Thorondor the eagle as Fingolfin laid dying, and the betrayal of Ungoliant after the ruining of the two trees of Valinor. This is also the only time mentioned in Tolkien's writings when a Vala was injured by a child of Ilúvatar.

I would say Boromir is closer to glam or hair metal. Dude was gorgeous apparently.

Plus, Andy Serkis narrates one version!