Neville retrieved it from the Sorting Hat just as Harry had, so perhaps this theory is correct in saying that whenever a true Gryffindor has need of the sword it appears (as Dumbledore said to Harry after the Chamber of Secrets debacle).

Although the Goblins felt that the sword was rightfully theirs after Godric Gryffindor's death, presumably the sword did not feel the same way and left Griphook when Neville needed it.

The hat acts as a portal to transport the sword

The Sorting Hat has another ability, which has rarely been revealed to anyone at Hogwarts.

It is a magical portal, by which another of Godric Gryffindor’s possessions may be accessed: the sword of Gryffindor.

This sword was enchanted by Godric to appear whenever a member of his house asks for help while wearing the Hat.

Twice, in the course of the Harry Potter series, the sword is transported from a temporary owner to aid a Gryffindor who needs a weapon.

Pottermore - The Sorting Hat

(behind paywall)

In the movie the sword materialises (from the hat??), which backs up the "it shows up just as a true Gryffindor needs it" idea.

In Pottermore [SPOILER] JKR writes about the Sorting Hat being very adamant about placing Neville in Gryffindor (despite his hesitations), which adds some credence to "true Gryffindor".

I believe either the goblin who produced the sword to Godric Gryffindor's specifications, or Godric Gryffindor himself added the magic which would make the sword appear to a worthy Gryffindor in need.

I'm leaning towards Gryffindor himself, because I'm sure the goblin would have been reluctant to do so, or would have made it somehow stop with Gryffindor's death.

I'm not sure that's possible, so I believe it was Gryffindor, who was a powerful wizard, who did it.

In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming hat fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a glittering, rubied handle...

(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) .

Neville exhibited the courage of a true Gryffindor.

And since the sword shows up to help a true Gryffindor who is in need of it (just as it did for Harry in the Chamber of Secrets), it came to Neville's rescue.

Question: I recently read the final book of the series. At one point was the vault heist, where the goblin Griphook runs off with the Sword of Gryffindor. Yet near the end of the book, Neville Longbottom suddenly has the sword and uses it to defeat the snake Nagini.  How could this be possible? Griphook wanted the sword because it was goblin-made, so I doubt he would given it over to any non-goblin. How does Neville suddenly get the sword?

How does Neville Longbottom get the Sword of Gryffindor?

Some people believe it was Gryffindor, who was a powerful wizard, had to sword produced to his specifications, or Godric Gryffindor himself added the magic which would make the sword appear to a worthy Gryffindor in need (as Dumbledore explained to Harry in the Chamber of Secrets). It is said that Neville retrieved it from the Sorting Hat just as Harry had, as a true Gryffindor.

Neville retrieves the sword from the Sorting Hat — it just shows up when he needs it.


Last & First Men by the mighty Olaf Stapledon published in 1930 has Martians described as a virus-like dissociated group mind; ...

In the most developed forms, an immensely complicated neural "telephone" system connected every part of the body with a vast central exchange, the brain.

Thus on the earth a single organism was without exception a continuous system of matter, which maintained a certain constancy of form.

But from the distinctively Martian subvital unit there evolved at length a very different kind of complex organism, in which material contact of parts was not necessary either to coordination of behaviour or unity of consciousness ...

Thus the typical Martian organism was a cloudlet, a group of free-moving members dominated by a "group-mind.

" (Public domain PDF in the wiki article links)

1931 , " The Beautiful Bacillus " by Patrick Dutton has a bacterium that transforms into an intelligent communicating lifeform with a sense of humor.

Link

From "Science-fiction:

The Gernsback Years : a Complete Coverage of the Genre ...

" By Everett Franklin Bleiler, Richard Bleiler, I saw this description of a short sci-fi story from 1936 : #1820: "LIQUID LIFE" . October 1936 .

(Reprinted in Conklin, Best of Science Fiction, and in Leinster, Great Stories of Science Fiction.) ... ...

A rambling account of an intelligent virus-like life form that is discovered in a local pond.

It was originally published in October 1936 in "THRILLING WONDER Stories"

The novella "Visiting Amoeba" by Brian Aldiss, published in The Canopy of Time has a protagonist who describes himself as an amoeba, although it is perhaps more of a metaphor than a literal truth.

As I recall (and I've not read it in decades)

he's from our successor universe, and is the most primitive form of life in that universe as the amoeba is (well, could plausibly be claimed to be in 1957) in our universe.

The doorstopper novel Battlefield Earth (by L. Ron Hubbard), has the Psychlos being made of viruses instead of cells, so that might technically be an example.

(Not that it makes any biological sense, but compared to many of the things in the book...)

An early television example would be the Doctor

Who story "The Invisible Enemy"

broadcast in October 1977 which featured an intelligent virus trying to move into the macroscoptic world.

There was also a US series in the 1990s (I think) which i've been trying to find the name of.

It featured an intelligent and mutanting virus as part of the main story arc.

The series was cancelled after maybe half a dozen episodes and all I can remember is that one of the male characters may have been called Gage

and I think they were a team which investigated medical emergencies surprisingly enough.

This is later than the accepted answer, but I think it's worth including for posterity - the 1948 Ray Bradbury short story Fever Dream has a child being taken over by a virus that takes control of his entire body, eventually replacing his brain and becoming an intelligent organism that then sets out to infect others.

From Wikipedia: The story concerns Charles, a fifteen-year-old boy who is suffering from a severe illness.

The local doctor diagnoses it as scarlet fever, but Charles protests that his hand has "changed" and is no longer under his control.

He claims that he has been infected by microbes that are not only causing illness, but literally taking over his body and forming a new being.

The doctor, however, assures Charles's parents that this is all in his imagination—a fever dream brought on by his illness.

Charles continues to lose control of his body—first his other hand, then his legs—but the doctor continues to assure him otherwise, and gives him antibiotics to deal with his problems.

After Charles tries to choke himself, he is restrained to the bed by his parents.

One night, Charles begins to lose control of his body, and he feels himself being taken over by the microbes.

Question: What's the earliest example of an intelligent virus/bacterium? There have been a number of comic-book characters (e.g. Sublime, Hlavac, Despotellis), television versions (e.g. the black oil from the X-files, the sentient virus in Farscape), and there was one in a Doctor Who Annual story from 1971, but what was the earliest?

What was the first sci-fi work that had an intelligent virus/bacterium?

The concept of an intelligent virus/bacterium dates back to works including Last & First Men  by Olaf Stapledon in 1930; The Beautiful Bacillus by Patrick Dutton in 1931 and Liquid Life by Everett Franklin Bleiler, Richard Bleiler in 1936, among others.

There are likely several options but the earliest is Last & First Men by Olaf Stapledon.


Bastards are given a specific surname based on where they lived in Westeros.

It varies depending on where you are born.

From

The Tower of the Hand : The Crownlands: Waters

The North: Snow

The Iron Islands: Pyke The Riverlands: Rivers

The Vale: Stone

The Westerlands:

Hill The Reach: Flowers

The Stormlands:

Storm Dorne:

Sand

So since Jon lived in Winterfell (in the North),

Jon Snow is the appropriate surname.

"Snow" is the name used by all bastards in the north , as explained in the first chapter of A Game of Thrones : the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.

Ned Stark being a Lord of House Stark was a well known and prominent man in Westeros.

It was well known he bore a bastard son.

I think the fact that Jon Snow's bloodline preceded him is the reason people know.

With the fact that news travels via Raven or Rider the name alone wouldn't identify him.

People may not know who he is by look but certainly join the dots when they ask him his name.

Taken from ASOIF Wiki - Ned returned home, bringing with him a bastard son, Jon, about whose origins he refused to speak, even to his own wife; he quickly silenced rumors that the boy's mother was the Dornish noblewoman Ashara Dayne - Referencing chapter 6 - Catelyn This would create rumours amongst the lessers, the traders - thus the information spreads.

Maybe not his looks but definitely the fact that he bore a bastard.

Catelyn did not hide her disgust for Jon either.

This is due to the fact he is a constant reminder of Ned's infidelity.

So in this series there are a few rules surrounding bastards.

If the Bastard has a highborn parent then so long as that highborn parent acknowledges the Bastard they can have a bastardy surname.

EX:

Gendry shouldn't have the last name Waters until Robert or the leader of his family acknowledges Gendry lives.

So until Stannis agrees that Gendry is Roberts bastard he didn't have the right to call himself Gendry Waters.

The surname is based of the region the mother is from.

This is mostly the same area the father is from but not always.

In the books King Robert has plenty of bastards from different regions having the last names Rivers, Storm and Waters.

It is possible for two highborns to have a bastard, as such they will have the Bastard name of where the mother is from.

Bastards cannot inherit nor wear their family's sigil.

Because of this when fighting for their families bastards will invert the family colors to make their sigil their own.

EX:

House Targaryen has the sigil of a red three headed dragon on a black flag.

House Blackfyre was founded by a Targaryen bastard and their sigil is that of a black three headed dragon on a red flag.

A bastard can become legitimate should a king grant it.

The lord parent can ask of this from the king and if the king believes this then it will be granted.

Only bastards born from nobility have the name Snow, Waters, Storm, etc.

Lowborn/commoners do not have last names, so it's a non issue for them.

The children of bastards would just be commoners, so no last name.

If they somehow marry into nobility their children take the spouses name.

Question: There are a number of times characters ask Jon Snow who he is, when he says his name many of them comment about him being a Bastard. How can people tell Jon Snow is a bastard just by his name?

How do people know Jon Snow is a bastard just by his name?

Bastards are given a specific surname based on where they lived in Westeros.  Snow is the name used by all bastards in the  north , as explained in the first chapter of  A Game of Thrones, and only bastards born from nobility have the name Snow, Waters, Storm, etc.

The surname "Snow" confirms he is a bastard.


The Silmarils had no power in and of themselves.

What was contained within them was the Light of the Two Trees, which had been killed by the spider Ungoliant at the behest of Melkor near the end of the First Age.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Two Trees of Valinor are Telperion and Laurelin, the Silver Tree and the Gold that brought light to the Land of the Valar in ancient times.

They were destroyed by Ungoliant at Melkor's behest, but their last flower and fruit were made by the Valar into the Moon and the Sun.

Made by the Noldor, Fëanor, it was the light from the Two Trees that made them significant, no other construct could ever replicate the light from the Two Trees, once they died.

The Sun and Moon were sung into existence from the last fruit of the two dying Trees.

What made them worthy of song were the struggles to claim them by all parties involved.

The Valar could have potentially returned the Two trees to life since the Silmarils contained their Light, but Fëanor refused to give them up.

Morgoth wanted them because they were the last, best creation of the First Age and holding the Light of the Two Trees was a treasure of incalculable wealth.

Fëanor's pride in the unmatched quality of his craftsmanship made him unable to part with what was arguably the most famous artifact ever made.

Even the combined skills and ability of all the Valar were unable to replicate their creation.

Fëanor's work was unable to be duplicated.

Thus the value of the Silmarils was their unique craftsmanship and the primal Light held within.

They would eventually burn Morgoth if he touched them unprotected as he became more corrupt in his nature.

Morgoth would eventually lay claim to them and the War of the Valar would be to reclaim them.

Thaddeus has the right answer.

I will add, though, that power (especially magical power) is a very nebulous thing in Tolkien's world.

Gandalf does a remarkable job (for a wizard) in using hardly any magic at all; he lights up his staff and makes fireworks.

Galadriel, arguably the most powerful or second most powerful non-Ainur in the Third Age, doesn't really exhibit any powers (other than a little fortune-telling).

But they both had power to stir people to do great deeds.

And so it was with many things like the Silmarils.

They had Power, but they didn't have "powers".

Power was an intangible, ethereal device in Tolkien's World (IMHO), and should not be taken too literally.

The Silmarils contained the combined blessings of the Valar, in addition to a significant part of Feanor's strength.

Displays of power in canon: Helping Luthien when she put Morgoth to sleep Breaking the Girdle of Melian Opening the path to Valinor Enhancing Dior's beauty beyond that of anyone in Middle-Earth Killing Luthien Bringing prosperity to Doriath

The light of the Trees was no mere light, it was the physical manifestation of the blessing of the Valar upon the world, bringing beauty, knowledge and power.

Indirect manifestation in LotR : When Sam uses some of it via Galadriel: chasing a spawn of Ungoliant, breaking an invisible barrier.

Speculative powers:

It's widely believed by fans that each of the Silmarils are linked to one of the elements of Arda due to: Mandos saying that the Silmarils were linked to the Fate of Arda

The Three rings of power being linked to the three elements And their eventual fate - one into the sky, one into the sea, one into lava.

First of all the power was in them to revive the Two Trees, if they were to be broken so the light would "return to its source" so to speak and second: Then Elwing and the people of Sirion would not yield the jewel which Beren had won and Luthien had worn, and for which Dior the fair was slain; and least of all while Earendil their lord was on the sea, for it seemed to them that in the Silmaril lay the healing and the blessing that had come upon their houses and their ships.

And so there came to pass the last and cruellest of the slayings of Elf by Elf; and that was the third of the great wrongs achieved by the accursed oath.

(Silm, Chapter 24, Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath) .

The light of Two Trees is in itself great power, each elf who have seen it is stronger and more powerful than others of his kind who do not: The Noldor, outnumbered and taken at unawares, were yet swiftly victorious; for the light of Aman was not yet dimmed in their eyes, and they were strong and swift, and deadly in anger, and their swords were long and terrible.

The Orcs fled before them, and they were driven forth from Mithrim with great slaughter, and hunted over the Mountains of Shadow into the great plain of Ard-galen, that lay northward of Dorthonion.

So maybe Silmarils could somehow enhance natural traits of beings who had them (sort of like the Rings of Power, but in their case through the holy light which the jewels contained), we know that Luthien's beauty was increased (and I doubt that it was only the matter of stylish jewellery:)

But the wise have said that the flame of Luthien wearing the necklace was so great that it was too bright for mortal lands.

This would also explain Carcharoth's passing through Girdle of Melian, also unstoppable rage caused by unbearable pain from holy light and enhancing native power, added significantly to his might, enough to fulfill the prophecy and kill Huan.

As far as I know, the "white star" Sam saw in Mordor was a Silmaril, and the sight of it made him feel hope, and caused him to become fearless enough to sleep.

Question: In the Silmarillion, the Silmarils were described as being very powerful, holy jewels.  What form did this power take exactly?

What powers, if any, did the Silmarils have?

The Silmarils had no power in and of themselves. However, they contained the combined blessings of the Valar, in addition to a significant part of Feanor's strength.

The Silmarils have no power but they do have  the blessings of Valar and a portion of Feanor’s strength.

The Silmarils have no power. The Silmarils have the blessings of Valar and a portion of Feanor’s strength.


In short, the Sartan of Abarrach had degenerated in magic much more significantly than they believed.

In long: Sartan (and Patryn) magic works by assessing the possibilities and probabilities, then using the appropriate rune structure to call up the desired version of reality.

The more improbable something is, the more strength was required to pull that into existence.

There's multiple references throughout the books of Haplo and Alfred (and, on rare occasion, others) assessing the possibilities.

My favorite version of this being described is actually from Alfred in the final book, The Seventh Gate , while the group is under attack and he's trying to figure out an escape.

Note how even Alfred, the Serpent Mage, doesn't immediately come up with a good solution: Possibilities whirled through Alfred's mind, dazzling, confusing, terrifying.

I'll make the cavern roof collapse.

(No, that would kill us all!)

I'll bring a fire dragon up through the floor.

(No, same outcome!)

A flower garden will suddenly appear out of nowhere.

(What good will that do?!)

The lazar will attack.

(Someone might get hurt . . . ) The floor will open and swallow me up . . .

(Yes!

That's it!)

(Additionally, he is later berated for choosing that last possibility, because there was a chance he would have dropped them into a magma pool.)

Throughout Fire Sea , the Necromancers have occasionally given us history of the art in their world.

According to them, necromancy was a lost art among the ancient Sartan (Alfred's people), and they had rediscovered it.

Through trial and error, they perfected it, better preserving the corpses, discovering the 3-day rule, and so on - remember the comments early in the book about the "old dead" being in bad repair?

So, The Necromancers of Abarrach, despite being Sartan, no longer see/sort through the possibilities in the same way a "full" Sartan like Alfred can.

They never rediscovered the correct way to use the resurrection runes.

(Identical rune structures can be used in different ways, producing different - or incorrect - results.

See the appendix in Dragon Wing , titled "Magic in the Sundered Realms/Excerpt from a Sartan's Musings" for more information)

They incorrectly interpreted what the shadow/spirit attached to each corpse was, and what was supposed to happen to it after death of the body.

Their strength was sapped due to keeping themselves alive in the toxic fumes that permeated the atmosphere, so it was unlikely (but possible) they could have performed a true resurrection like Alfred, even if they knew the correct way to use those runes.

It's been a long time since I read the books, but as I remember, the Sartan of Abarrach had forgotten/lost the true strength of Sartan magic.

Alfred, however, has not degenerated so.

In fact, as the serpent mage (even though he may not be consciously in control of his full power, IIRC

he resurrected Hugh without conscious action), he may be uniquely gifted to resurrect without the same ill-effects the lazars suffered.

Keep in mind Hugh was not unchanged by his return, although he did appear to be much better off than, for example, Jera.

Given Hugh's curse when he returned, it's possible Alfred is just able to tap into a completely different type of resurrection than that the Sartan (of Abarrach, at least) used.

Alfred notes that the magic of the Sartan of Abarrach is all about death -- perhaps their resurrection techniques, focused on death, result in zombies and lazars, while what Alfred did is focused on life, which causes Hugh's return to life but also his curse.

I always understood it as a reapplication of possibilities, the rune construct used on Hugh the Hand for example called forth the possibility that he didn't die.

That's why when he was killed he summarily returned to life, this would be different than a rune structure that allowed for the possibility that the spirit couldn't leave the body.

But that's just my understanding.

It was stated near the end that it was the reasoning behind Alfred's use of necromancy that didn't turn Hugh into a lazar.

The Abarrach Sartan used necromancy for selfish purposes.

Alfred used it out of compassion and love.

That was the difference described in the books.

Another possibility is that the Lazars were resurrected Sartans.

They had magic of their own, so when they felt tormented by being brought back to life they instinctively tried to break the spell which causes them to be stuck between life and death.

Hugh, being a regular human, didn't have the kind of power that was required to fight Alfred's spell, so he stayed alive.

Question: In The Death Gate Cycle; why didn't Hugh the Hand turn into a lazar when Alfred got him back from the dead?

Why didn't Hugh the Hand turn into a lazar?

Hugh, being a regular human, didn't have the kind of power that was required to fight Alfred's spell, so he stayed alive. Alfred notes that the magic of the Sartan of Abarrach is all about death -- perhaps their resurrection techniques, focused on death, result in zombies and lazars, while what Alfred did is focused on life, which causes Hugh's return to life but also his curse.

The fact that the Spartan of Abarrach lost their strength of magic combined with the reasoning behind Alfred’s use of necromancy meant Hugh didn’t turn into a lazar. Furthermore, Hugh’s human powers kept him alive.

I always understood it as a reapplication of possibilities, the rune construct used on Hugh the Hand for example called forth the possibility that he didn't die.

It was stated near the end that it was the reasoning behind Alfred's use of necromancy that didn't turn Hugh into a lazar.

In short, the Sartan of Abarrach had degenerated in magic much more significantly than they believed.

It's been a long time since I read the books, but as I remember, the Sartan of Abarrach had forgotten/lost the true strength of Sartan magic.

The reason for this is that the Spartan of Abarrach lost much of their powers of magic. The reasoning behind Alfred’s use of necromancy meant Hugh didn’t turn into a lazar. Hugh’s human powers kept him alive.


This is an interesting question, but you can't actually answer it.

There are simply too many possible factors and possibilities for both answers.

Just to name a few examples: 00 might be a reserved value.

If the number is seen as an ID, a ID of 0 might denote a returned error or an illegal state (like "ID not set yet").

Another possibility would be the assignment to some core/critical/central (or previous) place.

Many languages start their indices at 0 , but there are others starting at 1 as well.

For example, the "first" byte in short strings in Pascal (index 0) stores the actual length of the string.

The first character is at index 1. Programming languages count as usual, i.e. if there's a count of 5

, that means there are 5 elements.

As such, it's possible that the first city receives the number 1, because now there are a total of 1 cities.

Maybe they weren't programmed in C (or a derivative) that uses array address offsets as indexes.

Maybe they were written in Smalltalk or Lua .

Zero One (01) would be the binary equivalent of the number one (1).

More than likely since they were machines, the binary number system would have been the way the machines communicated between each other.

Because humans would have seen the "01" as "Zero One"

that's probably how it was commonly pronounced while it was in existence.

So while it looks like a number to us, to the machines, the numbers probably mean "First".

Hope

this helps answer your question some.

Reference: The Binary Number System

The name "01" refers to the Machine City seen in the Animatrix segment the "Second Renaissance" and latterly in the film "Revolutions".

We also see the online counterpart (" One Zero ") in the Matrix Online game.

There is no canon reason to conclude that it was the second attempt to create a machine city.

Narrator:

Banished from humanity, the machines sought refuge in their own promised land.

They settled in the cradle of human civilization, and thus a new nation was born.

A place the machines could call home, a place they could raise their descendants.

And they christened the nation 'Zero One'.

In terms of elegant simplicity, there's no reason for the machines to call their city anything else.

The name has connotation of binary (01 literally equals 1) and even the city flag functions as a logo;

Some of the answers come pretty close, but the real answer is that computers don't start counting with a zero.

In C++ indexing an array with a[i] is just shorthand for give me the i-th element after the first one.

So in this case you just count a different set of objects (those after the first) but zero has the proper meaning in this.

If you stand on the first step of stair and do up 0 steps you are still at the first step.

Also, if you ask C how long a string is it will not return 0 for a single letter, it will return (correctly) 1.

Basically the rules of mathematics are the same for us and a computer, and starting counts with zero does not make any sense because you need to be able to count the elements in the empty set (zero) and differentiate this from a set with just one element.

The machines do whatever is efficient.

They "tend to count from zero" in our world because in the situation they count this is more efficient.

In other situations, it may or may not be efficient to "reserve" the 00 for something else.

Even if they do not reserve it, where is the proof that machines use this name for their city internally?

Maybe the name was made for humans (or maybe not).

Also, Neo refer to it as "the machine city" instead.

Or maybe had not built another city before 01, maybe they refer to their life with the humans as "the initial state", 00.

As often it is necessary to create a prototype to build a stable software from the ground-up afterwards (kind of "wiser after the event"), the machines may have seen their co-living with humans as a prototype of their existence, and gone to fix it's shortcomings into their "release city", 01 (incrementing the version number).

Either way, I find the interpretation of "the first" in 01 a human thing to do, machines most likely interpreted it differently.

The nice symbiosis in this is, that while for humans 01 means "first", since, from a human point of view, this is the "first" city of its kind, being a machine city; from a machine point of view, it means (in human terms) "

the second one".

Most likely because they interpreted their living with the humans as their initial one (and in particular something that didn't work or needed a redesign).

It is very worth to note that after founding their own city and nation, the machines acted in attempt to coexist with humans: they produced vehicles for them for instance.

From this point of view, it is not sure that they meant to name the city 01, they could mean "our way of life", as in "our way of life with humans as a dominant part of the environment, version 2.0" (01 in machine terms).

But machines... doesn't waste bytes with storing all this and call it just 01. :)

Question: In The Matrix (and Animatrix), the machine city is called  01  (Zero One). From what I've read, this is the only city the machines have. If this is the first city built by machines, wouldn't it be called 00, since you typically start  counting from zero  in computer programming?  Was there a city before this one, which would have been "00"?

Since computers normally start counting from zero, was there a city before Machine City 01?

This is an unanswerable question as there are too many factors and possibilities involved. Many languages start their indices at  0 , but there are others starting at  1  as well. The rules of mathematics are the same for us and a computer, and starting counts with zero does not make any sense because you need to be able to count the elements in the empty set. The machines may have seen co-living with humans as a prototype (version 00) of their existence, and fixed the problems with the release of city version 01.

Among other possibilities, machines start at ‘01’ since the elements in the empty set need to be counted and ‘00’ can’t be counted because, strictly speaking, no element exists. Also, the machines may have considered co-living with humans to be the ‘00’ prototype and their release city to be ‘01’

Among other possibilities, machines start at ‘01’ since the elements in the empty set need to be counted and ‘00’ can’t be counted because, strictly speaking, no element exists. The machines may have considered co-living with humans to be the ‘00’ prototype and their release city to be ‘01’


In the 10th volume of The History of Middle-earth (specifically in the "Myths Transformed" essay) it's written that Orcs had short lifespans in relation to the Númenóreans , which would mean that they weren't immortal.

But at least Orcs could live a long life.

The proof for that is Bolg , who died 140 years later than his father, Azog .

Of course it may vary among different breeds of Orcs.

Orcs seem to have lifespans based on how famous they are.

Azog lived to be at least 319[1], but died through combat at the Battle of the Five Armies.

No definite age is given, only how long he ruled Moria.

Bolg lived to be at least 150[2]

years old.

The Uruk-hai(Saruman Breed) were months/years old.

And some orcs(hinted at, with no evidence) spent their entire lives in Minas Morgul, which spanned several human generations.

And in the behind the scenes(RotK, I think) one of the modelers on the tower made the mention of having orcs live for 100-150 years, then a new set would begin a new set of construction on Barad-dûr[3].

So if you look closely, the CG model of Barad-dûr has a different look all the way up the tower.

In conclusion:Really infamous orc: Possibly 500 years,

at least 319Known orc: 150-200 yearsPeons:

~100 yearsUruk-hai(Saruman Breed): 3-4 years[1]

- Tolkien, The Hobbit, ch. 1: "An Unexpected Party".[2]

- Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937), in Douglas A. Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit,[3] - I am unable to locate an internet source for this bit of information, or an exact time stamp since my DvD player reads 19:99 at anything over 20 minutes.

Since orcs were a corruption of another race (Maiar, elves, men, depending on which fragment you chose as canon), their lifespan would have been similar to that of that race.

However, the violent culture of the orcs would mean that few "old" orcs would survive.

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/2682/Sardathrion - against SE abuse

The uruk hai probably had life spans similar to men, and there is no indication that they had accelerated aging.

Saruman began his treachery in TA 2759 when he settled at Isengard with the intention of using the Palantir there, and began to fortify Isengard and communicate with Sauron ten years after the Necomancer was driven from Dol Guldur.

This is the most likely time that he started to breed his Uruk Hai, which were a variant of the Black Uruks used by Sauron starting around TA 2475.

It is highly improbable that they were only a few months or years old.

Since "myths transformed" are not canon as they where never published, and seemed to be in flux at the time of their writing....

the short answer is no one knows....

however if you ascribe to the common belief of "the wise" of Middle Earth, and Tol Eressëa , Orcs are immortal, and reincarnate after death if possible like the elves whom they where bred from. Since their fea more than likley would not obey the summons to the West...

this could likely explain how they were able to recover so quickly from crushing defeats.

I always thought that once the power of Sauron was finally lifted after the destruction of the ring, the orcs of middle earth gradually changed back to their former selves whether they were elves or men.

I would think that orcs live forever under the influence of Sauron until that point.

Question: The average or expected lifespan of Hobbits, Men and Dwarfs is easily found but I can find no definitive answer for the 'expected' lifespan of an Orc. All I can find so far is, 'unknown'.

How long does the average Orc live?

Although noone really knows, orcs are said to have lifespans similar to their related races (Maiar, elves, men, etc). Orcs are said to have short lifespans in relation to the  Númenóreans, although it is highly improbable that they were only a few months or years old.

It would seem Orcs had a lifespan meaning they are not immortal but there is little information available on their actual lifespan. Since Orcs are a corruption of another race, it is likely their lifespan is mirrored on the lifespan of that race. Furthermore, it is highly improbable they only lived a short time.

It would seem Orcs had a lifespan meaning they are not immortal but there is little information available on their actual lifespan. Since Orcs are a corruption of another race, it is likely their lifespan is mirrored on the lifespan of that race. It is highly improbable they only lived a short time.


Douglas Anderson wrote (in The Annotated Hobbit, Flies and Spiders (note 6) 1988) "In his notes on the stem LAS[1] from *lasse = 'leaf' and LAS[2] 'listen' (*lasse = 'ear'),

Tolkien noted the possible relationship between the two in that Elven "ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped" than human ones.

Please note, I remembered this from my copy of the Annotated Hobbit, but I happened to find and copy the text from the same link @herzbube used.

I just didn't realize it was the same source.

I myself think this particular about linguistics trumps every other objection, in particular the one about Quendi and Men being the same species would imply they had similar ears.

If Quendi can live forever and still mate with Men, they can very well have pointed ears.

This essay , which to me seems pretty well researched, comes to the conclusion: In the final analysis there is no definitive evidence either way on this issue.

A strong case can be made for either viewpoint by leaving out the opposing arguments, but when viewed as a whole the matter is ambiguous.

The lack of any reference to elven ears in 'canonical' writings ultimately makes a decisive answer impossible.

A very strong argument in favor of pointedness, in my opinion, is that JRRT did not object to illustrations by Pauline Baynes that portray elves with pointy ears.

Yes Tolkien wrote that they do in fact have pointy ears in a letter to the Houghton Mifflin Company: [A hobbit has] A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish' ; hair short and curling (brown).

(emphasis mine)

I think that answers the question.

(If it doesn't I'll change the question :P)

According to the Tolkien Society, the answer is a resounding "Yes".

Do Tolkien's Elves and Hobbits have pointed ears?

Yes, they do.

Tolkien doesn’t often dwell on describing the minute physical details of his characters, so it is possible to read The Lord of the Rings and his other writings without noticing that either Elves or Hobbits have pointed ears.

However, in a 1938 letter (No. 27, p. 35) to his American publishers Tolkien says Hobbits have “a round, jovial face; [with] ears only slightly pointed and ‘elvish.’”

From this it is clear that Elvish ears were more obviously pointed.

This was confirmed when The Lost Road was published in 1987.

In the Etymologies under the first definition of ‘LAS’, which is the element in lasse meaning ‘leaf’, there is this note: “The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?

human]”

[page references:

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 1981 & 2006; The Lost Road, 2002 UK paperback]

The actual quote from letter #27 , to Houghton Mifflin, describing Hobbits:

I picture a fairly human figure,

not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg.

A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish' ; hair short and curling (brown).

- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien , #27

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/44025/Wad Cheber stands with Monica

Looking at "new" evidence, perhaps JRRT might have (later) desired the answer to be ambiguous.

Etymologies is primarily a linguistic text written in the mid to later 1930s, with some overlap with the early draft writing for The Lord of the Rings .

Note the date of the letter about Hobbits too: 1938.

But we now have a much later description, one arguably comparable to the Etymologies entry itself.

For comparison, I'll first quote Etymologies (sorry about the lack of diacritics): LAS1- *lasse leaf: Q lasse, N lhass;

Q lasselanta leaf-fall, autumn,

N lhasbelin (*lassekweene)

, cf.

Q Narquelion [KWEL].

Lhasgalen Greenleaf

(Gnome name of Laurelin).

(Some think this is related to the next and *lasse ear.

The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than Human).

LAS2- 'listen'.

N lhaw 'ears' (of one person), old dual *lasu -whence singular lhewig.

Q lar, lasta-

'listen'; lasta 'listening, hearing' - Lastalaika 'sharp-ears', a name, cf.

N Lhathleg.

N lhathron 'hearer, listener, eavesdropper' ( *la(n)sro-ndo ); lhathro or lhathrando 'listen in, eavesdrop'.

So "some think" this is related, seemingly due to the following description about more pointed and leaf shaped Quendian ears.

Yet much later, after The Lord of the Rings was published, Tolkien once again deals with words deriving from a base LAS (or in the later scenario, also the base SLAS).

From Tolkien's Words, Phrases and Passages , published in Parma Eldalamberon 17: Q lasse 'leaf' (S las); pl.

lassi (S lais).

It is only applied to certain kinds of leaves, especially those of trees, and would not e.g. be used of leaf of a hyacinth (linque).

It is thus possibly related to LAS 'listen', and S-LAS stem of Elvish words for 'ear'; Q hlas, dual hlaru.

Sindarin dual lhaw, singular lhewig.

lasse 'leaf'.

So while we still have the similarly worded "possibly related", now (years later) there is no following statement that actually describes Quendian ears, and no comparison to human ears.

While neither text was published by the author himself (Elvish words like lassi "leaves" and lasto "listen" and Amon Lhaw were published in

The Lord of the Rings in any case), this latter entry is a post-Lord of the Rings description... ... where these Elvish "leaf words" are "possibly" related to the Elvish "listen and ear words".

Question: I think we all imagine elves with pointy ears – but do they really  have  pointy ears? (canonical references please)

Do Tolkien's elves have pointy ears?

While some believe that Quendi ears are similar to those of men, there is a very strong argument in favor of pointedness, in that JRRT did not object to illustrations by Pauline Baynes that portray elves with pointy ears. He also wrote that a hobbit has "a round, jovial face; ears only slightly  pointed and 'elvish'". The Tolkien Society also says that elves do indeed have pointed ears.

There is not much evidence that elves did, in fact, have pointy ears. However, Tolkien confirmed in a letter elves did have pointy ears and according to the Tolkien Society they did indeed have pointy ears.

There is not much evidence that elves did, in fact, have pointy ears. Tolkien confirmed in a letter elves did have pointy ears and according to the Tolkien Society they did indeed have pointy ears.


The Last Starfighter (1984) is a feature length theatrical release that fits the main plot elements you have outlined here.

Main protagonist is named Alex Rogan, who's kind of an average teenager, who does maintenance at a trailer park and is the best at the video game Starfighter.

Unknown to Alex, the video game is actually a test, and the conditions in the game with the war against "Xur and the Ko-Dan armada" are real.

After much teen angst, Alex Gets his act together and saves Rylos, and is proclaimed a hero by the people.

He returns to Earth to get his girlfriend and then leaves to train a new generation of Starfighters.

You might be thinking of the first episode of Stargate Universe, where character Eli Wallace is playing a game called Prometheus.

Being the first and only person to win the game solve a top secret weapon puzzle placed in the game results in the military general in charge of the Stargate program showing up at his door...

My guess is Warriors of Kudlak from series 1 of The Sarah Jane Adventures .

It's about a laser-tag game where the children who are best at it disappear without a trace.

And as it turns out, they are being recruited by aliens.

While not technically a "computer game" in the strictest sense, this also reminds me of Photon , which was based on the laser-tag style game/set of toys.

Per Wikipedia: Photon followed the adventures of a young high school student, Christopher Jarvis with the alias of "Bhodi Li".

Chris discovers that the lasertag game Photon is actually a way to detect the strongest warriors in the galaxy, who will then be recruited to fight the forces of darkness.

After shooting his laser gun and saying "The light shines!

", he would be transported to a space station to join his fellow Photon Warriors.

His alien compatriots include an orphan earthling boy genius named Parcival, a shape-changing blob named Pike, a lizardoid named Leon, a cyborg named Lord Baethan, and Tivia, a black ninja princess from Nivia populated by women after the males became extinct.

Their mentor is a sentient computer named MOM (Multiple Operation Matrix).

The villains' motto is "Let the darkness grow!"

The Demon Headmaster series (first broadcast on the BBC in 1996) featured a plot a little like this, although it was a girl, Dinah, who was good at the game.

I think you're searching for Aaron Stone.

He also needs to fight mainly the villains that are included in the video game, and he also gets a Robot to live with him as a sort of handler/watcher.

Question: It was about this boy who was the best player of a computer game in the world, and gets recruited by this organisation by using the same weapons in the game.  It was a drama played by actors, not a cartoon. Anyone know the title of it?

What children's TV show had a boy recruited by an organisation because he was the best at a computer game?

Suggestions for films and TV shows with such a premise include "The Last Starfighter"(1984); "Stargate Universe", where character Eli Wallace is playing a game called Prometheus; "Warriors of Kudlak" from series 1 of  The Sarah Jane Adventures; "Photon"; or "Aaron Stone".

The title of this may be one of: The Last Starfighter; Stargate Universe; Warriors of Kudlak; Photon; or Aaron Stone.


The Mjölnir is made out of an Asgardian metal named 'uru'

And assuming you're referring to the nordic Thor instead of the Marvel Thor: Mjölnir could either be a stone hammer (Based on the name), or made from iron when Sindri and Brokkr had a bet with Loki that they could create items more beautiful than those of the Sons of Ivaldi.

The last item they created - Sindri puts iron into the forge, and whilst Brokkr is working on it

Loki succeeded in distracting him (By biting his eyelid as a fly and drawing blood).

This is why Mjölnir has a short handle.

Then Sindri laid iron in the hearth and bade him blow, saying that it would be spoiled if the blast failed.

Straightway the fly settled between Brokkr's eyes and stung his eyelid, but when the blood fell into his eyes so that he could not see, then he clutched at it with his hand as swiftly as he could,--while

the bellows grew flat,--and he swept the fly from him.

Then the smith came thither and said that it had come near to spoiling all that was in the hearth.

Then he took from the forge a hammer, put all the precious works into the hands of Brokkr his brother, and bade him go with them to Ásgard and claim the wager.

From the Skáldskaparmál .

Thor's hammer, Mjolnir is made of the fictional metal Uru .

Uru's main property is that it is a metal that holds magical enchantments well.

The ore is unique to the realm of Asgard.

Another version of Thor's hammer is actually made of few devices and different materials, as presented in stargate SG1.

From Stargate Wiki :

Thor's Hammer was an Asgard device that protected the people of Cimmeria from Goa'uld interference.

According to legend, the Hammer was said to be a great weapon, wielded by the god Thor.

In reality, the Hammer was a complicated collection of devices, consisting of several parts, serving as Cimmeria's only line of defense.

Two part answer: 1)

Uru...

but what is Uru? 2)

In the first Thor movie, Odin, I believe, mentions that Mjolnir was forged from the heart of a dying star.

We know that stars of sufficient size to create neutronium at their cores do so during the last phase before death; just prior to supernova.

Some result in neutron stars, others exceed the Chandrasekhar limit and become black holes.

Ergo, Uru=neutronium.

Question: What is the element used to make the Hammer of Thor?

What material is Thor's hammer made of?

Thor's hammer, the  Mjölnir,  is made out of an Asgardian metal named 'Uru'.

The hammer is made out of a meal called "uru" and other materials.


This is a bit like asking why the fundamental physical constants (gravitational constant, fine-structure etc.) have the values we measure.

No physicist can really answer this.

One approach is varieties of the antropic principle : if they didn't have those values (or similar ones) , then human life wouldn't be possible, therefore we couldn't ask the question as to why they have those values.

An interesting variation to this has been proposed by Lee Smolin : he suggests that there might be an "evolution of universes", which in summary has it that (through somewhat complicated but not-too implausible means) such universes are preferred which happen to allow life to develop.

Now, in HHGTTG canon (right in the beginning of The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe ), there is a somewhat similar idea: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Later this is picked up, concluding that it means the Ultimate Question and Ultimate Answer simply can't be known at the same time in the same universe.

And we might also read it thus that The pair of Question+Answer must be nonsensical / incompatible / wrongly calculated, in order to prevent removal of the discussed universe.

Any universes in which 42 might not have been the answer would have been destroyed already in favour of ones where it is.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Now, obviously the Odyssey of Arthur Dent's depends a lot on the bizarreness of that universe.

More fundamentally, one might say the very existance of life needs certainly complexity.

At any rate, we can say that Douglas Adams wouldn't have written about a less bizarre universe, implying that he would have chosen the one in which, by the aforementioned mechanisms, the Answer would need to be 42.

I think everyone is answering the wrong question, perhaps.

Maybe the question should be "what was Adams getting at when he indicated that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything" was 42?

Adams was an atheist.

If there's no God, metaphysics is meaningless, and mere omphaloskepsis (look it up).

All of your deep longing for meaning and purpose in the universe is nothing more than an evolved response, and the joke's all on you for thinking that there's anything more.

Saying that 42 is the answer is to indicate not merely that there is no answer, but that you're an ass for having asked in the first place.

I think that's what Adams was really getting at, especially in light of the rest of the work.

His answer is neatly fractal - there's nothing more elevated in the universe than the pettiness and meanness of humanity, seen reflected in his alien characters.

I will always treasure HHGTG, but as an adult I can see it for the deeply fatalistic and ultimately hopeless work it is.

I don't believe there's a definite answer to this in canon, but I think we can at least infer the question to which it is an answer to.

In the books, at the end of "Life, The Universe and Everything", they try to extract the question from Arthur's subconscious using tiles from a Scrabble set which he has constructed.

They pull out the following question: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"

Now Arthur is known to be a descendent, not of the original Earth creatures designed to be part of the living computer designed to calculate the question, but rather of the Golgafrinchian Arc Fleet B which crash landed on the planet.

As such it is posited that his brain may contain a corruption of the question, rather than the question itself.

6x9 is, of course, 54, not 42.

So it is likely that the best in universe explanation we have for why the ultimate answer is 42 is probably "because the ultimate question is 'what do you get if you multiply six by seven?'

Of course, we're still left with a dilemma as to what sense, if any the question and answer are "ultimate", and why that is the ultimate question as opposed to any of the other suggestions.

Perhaps the very point is that the question and answer are both meaningless.

This is one of those questions, that if you have to ask you can't understand the answer.

To expand; in the recorded history of the question only a single being ( a human from the planet earth ) has ever truly understood the meaning, the understanding was immediately followed by the destruction of the planet Earth.

This gets rather complex in that understanding has not yet occurred in our timeline.

This is self-evident as our planet has not yet been destroyed, and we are still asking the question.

We do have enough knowledge to define when the answer will be available/understandable.

One need just skip over to the planning office and see when the hyperspace bypass is scheduled to begin construction in our area.

One of the important things to remember is that in-universe, it is impossible to know why 42 is The Answer .

Prak (who had received a massive overdose of truth serum, and as such was stuck speaking Absolute Truths for a great period of time) explains in Life, the Universe and Everything that it is impossible for The Question and The Answer to be known in any one universe.

This is because this would trigger the aforementioned idea that if anyone truly understood the meaning of the Universe, it would vanish.

So while 42 is indisputably The Answer To Life The Universe and Everything, we will never understand why - the fates will always conspire to prevent the discovery of The Question.

Whether that takes the form of a conspiracy of psychiatrists who have the Earth destroyed moments before its massive program was to complete, or any number of other stumbling blocks, the universe will attempt to prevent its own destruction by preventing the completion of the question/answer set.

Presumably there are other parallel universe whose people know The Question (or at least the correct Question) for that universe) and are eternally trying to discern The Answer.

Question: According to  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , 42 is the  Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything .   Is it ever explained, in canon 1 , why the answer to the meaning of life is 42?  1 - Book, Film, TV series or Radio series.

Why is '42' the meaning of life?

No physicist can really answer this. Presumably there are other parallel universe whose people know The Question and are eternally trying to discern The Answer. In  Life, the Universe and Everything, Prak  that it is impossible for The Question and The Answer to be known in any one universe. Perhaps the very point is that the question and answer are both meaningless.

This question will remain unanswered since the answer is impossible to obtain and cannot even be explained by a physicist.


Let's run the numbers: The wall is 700 feet high = 213 meters On its top, 12 knights can ride abreast and it's wider at the base.

Let's say that's 25 meters wide at the top and 75 at the base, so 50 on average.

It takes 334 kilojoules to melt 1kg of ice (if it's at 0 degrees C to begin with, but the melting energy is large compared to what it takes to heat up).

Oak wood yields about 15 megajoules per kg when burned An oak tree weighs about 14 tonnes

So: A 100m section of wall would contain about 213*50*100*1000 = about 1 billion kg of ice.

Burning

1 kg of wood can melt (at 70% efficiency) about 30 kg of ice.

Which means you'd need to burn about 2500 fully grown trees

In practice, efficiency would be lower, but you wouldn't need to melt the entire wall section to make it collapse.

OTOH, the melting water as well as partial collapses would tend to extinguish the fire.

Given a force of many thousands of wildlings, as well as giants and Mammoths, it seems doable.

But it would be a massive effort requiring many days, and giving the Night's Watch ample warning (via a gigantic smoke cloud, even if there were no patrols) and time for countermeasures.

Simply digging a tunnel would seem to be an easier and quicker alternative.

It should be.

In the very first sentences of the first book GRRM writes that the wall "was weeping", that is, it was dropping water from the ice.

This means that during the Great Summer the ambient temperature is really near to the water melting point (0C).

A different question is if the Night Watch would allow it.

A third point would be that melting the wall in part will cause water enough to kill the fire!

With the release of the latest episode, the answer now appears to be yes.

In Season 7, Episode 7, with the help of an undead dragon, the wall has been melted.

The discussion on if the dragon was breathing fire is discussed below.

Was it Ice or Fire?

One plausible counter argument you could make, is that fire didn't destroy the wall, but rather the magic of the Dragon Fire and/or Night King himself.

The wall was created by magic (the details are uncertain), and you could argue it takes magic to destroy magic.

Yes, no, but.

There are good answers on if it, as it stands, would be feasible.

One point though is that a ice-construction like the wall would not remain with that shape.

Put simply it would become more like a big heap of ice as the weight of the wall forces the construction to widen making it a slope of ice rather then a wall.

A big one, but still.

From what I know there is no maintenance crew making sure the walls are steep etc.

so in other words other forces has to be at work for it even to be standing as it is.

As such once have to take into account that the wall itself is under some sort of protection or time-warp-anomaly.

By which the melting by fire also might prove futile.

Why not?

There are tunnels through the wall

so we know that the wall isnt indestructable.

So, if the wildings could get enough raw material ( Wood, oil etc ) to the wall and they could light a fire and keep it going for a few days they could start making dents in the wall.

I dont think that the entire wall could be melted but a hole through a wall could deff be done if done in secrecy.

Most of the rangers are dead.

Only 3 forts on the wall are operable ( barely ) and the Black Brothers are very few in numbers.

As far as I know, (no sources at the moment, sorry)

the wall is magically protected against melting completely, but partly the ice can melt ("The wall is weeping" from the prolog from the first book)

Question: Is it possible for the enemies of the Wall (wildlings etc) to light a fire so big that it will melt the Wall?

Can the Wall be melted?

Given a force of many thousands of wildlings, as well as giants and Mammoths, it seems plausible to be able to at least melt a section of the wall or melt a hole in the wall. Indeed, Season 7, Episode 7 confirms that the wall can be melted.

The wall from Season 7, Episode 7, can be melted with the help on an undead dragon.

Given a force of many thousands of wildlings, as well as giants and Mammoths, it seems doable.


Whoopi Goldberg had/has dreadlocks (quite some quantity) so the hat was to cover them up.

Presumably

El-Aurian women don't have dreadlocks.

Durinda Rice Wood

, Senior TNG Costume Designer has given a convincing "out of universe" reason for Guinan's choice of hats... *

As for Whoopi Goldberg's character Guinan, Rice Wood also explained that she wanted her to look different without her typical dreadlock look and that's the reason Guinan is wearing large hats.

We have seen a few other El-Aurians, most prominently Soran : Also, we have seen another male El-Aurian: Martus Mazur .

Also from Generations , when we meet the lovely Mr. Soran, we also see a lot of Guinan's people in one of their space stations .

Female El-Aurians sometimes wear hats: And sometimes do not: And the hat of the first one is quite different from Guinan's.

Since Guinan seems to wear civilian clothing (not a starfleet uniform), it stands to reason the hats are just her personal taste.

Guinan's hats durign the TV series are most likely her own style, since as you pointed out we never see anyone else wearing ones like them.

However, when we first see Guinan in the movie Generations

she is wearing a hat very similar to the ones donned by most of the other hat-wearing El-Aurians seen on the Enterprise B (as shown in bitmask's answer).

Why she, or any of the other El-Aurians, wore hats

was likely just as a stylish means to keep her hair out of the way, especially while working in Ten Forward.

You probably wouldn't be too pleased if your bartender's hair fell in your synthehol or ice cream sundae.

If you ignore the colors and texture of Guinan's costume it becomes obvious that what she is wearing is a slightly updated nun's cornette and habit.

Given her ever-placid demeanor and role as confidante to several characters her costume is a visual cue to the audience that cannot be accidental.

Not sure if Star Trek Online is considered canon on the Stack Exchange, but Nelan on Earth Spacedock is another El-Aurian bartender and he wears practically the same costume, hat and all.

He's also a male, meaning that the outfit is most likely unisex.

Maybe it's some kind of "bartender uniform" in El-Aurian culture?

I think several of these answers are valid, I also suspect that aside from practical issues with the hats, the costume designer drew on South African Zulu head dresses called Isicholo.

Question: Guinan dons two hats, if I recall correctly (pictured below).  My question is:  are these hats something special to El Aurians, something special to 24th century bartenders, or something else?   I don't recall ever seeing anyone else wearing either type of hat in TNG (and I've seen it all now!). I've noticed that both hats completely conceal the top of her head, but I don't know if that's significant.

What's the deal with Guinan's hat?

The large hats were a way of covering Whoopi Goldberg's dreadlocks. They are also part of Guinan's personal style and taste.

The hats are Guinan’s own style and she wants to look different without her typical dreadlock look.


The most straightforward example of pleasure reading shows up in Chamber of Secrets : Ron’s school spellbooks were stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics which all seemed to feature The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle .

Ron’s magic wand was lying on top of a fish tank full of frogspawn on the windowsill, next to his fat grey rat, Scabbers, who was snoozing in a patch of sun.

Chamber of Secrets

- page 35 - Bloomsbury -- chapter three,

The Burrow

Wizards generally may not read Muggle literature -- aside from Dumbledore -- but they do seem to read about Muggles.

"Hope springs eternal", quotes Dumbledore in Tales of Beedle the Bard .

To which J.K. Rowling notes:

[This quotation demonstrates that Albus Dumbledore was not only exceptionally well read in wizarding terms, but also that he was familiar with the writings of Muggle poet Alexander Pope.

JKR]

Tales of Beedle the Bard - Bloomsbury --

The Tale of the Two Brothers

Harry Potter himself has been known to read " Quidditch Through the Ages " by Kennilworthy Whisp.

And at least one wizard has read " A Brief History of Time ", by Stephen Hawking.

In Flourish and Blotts (during the Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire films) we see several books that might be read for fun How to Tame Tigers

This book is seen in the ' Elf-and-Safety ' section, so presumably it's a self-help book rather than a literal book about taming tigers Household Stories from the Collection of the Brothers Grimm Moronic Muggles

A Children's Anthology of Monsters Wanderings of a tree in the Alps

It's certain in canon that there is wizard literature - think of Gilderoy Lockart, who made a living writing books, so obviously they are bought and read...

And I think Ron mentions that his mum is reading romantic wizarding love novels, but I don't recall where...

But I don't think that there is canon evidence that wizards read the muggle literature

- it's possible, but maybe unlikely as the wizard community tries to separate from the muggle society.

Muggleborns might be another case, depending on their parent's they might get introduced to muggle literature and might like it -

but that's all speculative.

Magical children, at least read The Tales of Beedle the Bard .

“Oh come on!

All the old kids’ stories are supposed to be Beedle’s, aren’t they?

The Fountain of Fair Fortune’...

‘The

Wizard and the Hopping Pot’...

‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’...” — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Certain wizards or witches (hint: Dolores Umbridge) may read Beatrix Bloxam's Toadstool Tales instead: It was summed up best, perhaps, by Beatrix Bloxam (1794-1910), author of the infamous Toadstool Tales.

Mrs Bloxam believed that The Tales of Beedle the Bard were damaging to children because of what she called “their unhealthy preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as death, disease, bloodshed, wicked magic, unwholesome characters and bodily effusions and eruptions of the most disgusting kind”.

Mrs Bloxam took a variety of old stories, including several of Beedle’s, and rewrote them according to her ideals, which she expressed as “filling the pure minds of our little angels with healthy, happy thoughts, keeping their sweet slumber free of wicked dreams and protecting the precious flower of their innocence”.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard Gilderoy Lockhart's books, while based on (someone else's) true stories were nonetheless heavily fictionalized.

They seemed to be general in the style of adventure novels, featuring Lockhart himself, and were of course hugely popular.

As mentioned in another answer, Ron read a comic called The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle .

As indicated in a picture from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the film version), there may be a wizarding novel called Cassandra and Her Cat Gustavus .

Question: Do people read literature in  Harry Potter ? Fiction books are rarely mentioned in the series, and none of the characters seem to read novels. We understand that a majority of teenage students aren’t prone to pick up Chaucer just for the fun of it, but you would think a bookworm like Hermione would occasionally peruse Dickens, especially since other forms of entertainment, such as television and computers, aren’t common in the magical world.

What do wizards read for fun?

Books that are said to have been mentioned in the movies include  The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle; Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp; How to Tame Tigers;  A Children's Anthology of Monsters Wanderings of a Tree in the Alps; and even A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.  Muggleborns might also be introduced to muggle literature.

While Wizards read about Muggles for fun, they do not read Muggle literature.

Wizards read about Muggles for fun. Wizards do not read Muggle literature.


In-universe answer:

It seems quite plausible that Elsa is descended from someone who was cursed by ice magic.

That power may have then transferred down the family line.

As you can see from the image below, the King's library has a book detailing the risks of being hit by ice powers.

In this book we see a picture of a man being cured by trolls.

The runes next to the picture state that his condition was caused by being... " ...

to stone brought forth (by) powers of the moon sky " presumably in much the same way that Rapunzel's powers relate to a drop of sunlight falling from the sky.

Given the fine clothes he's wearing and the royal crest on his tunic, it's quite possible that he is of noble birth and hence, an ancestor of Elsa's.

Assuming some of the residual 'ice magic' was left in this man's system after he was cured

it would explain why one of his descendants was born with those same ice powers.

Out-of-Universe answer: Screenwriter Jennifer Lee specifically spoke to this point in an interview with Scriptnotes.

The origins of Elsa's powers (planetary alignment, predestination, etc) were intentionally obscured in order to simplify the story.

In a nutshell, she has powers because the plotline requires her to have powers .

Jennifer: And that there’s a connection between them, but

yet it’s not in your face, but it’s just something that… — Because what I always loved about, particularly Pixar films for me, was that everything just added up.

And everything had a special little, “Oh my god, oh my god, wait, and that, and that!”

And it was my favorite thing and we wanted to make kind of every time we had a scene trying to say what is that that’s maximum, why is it here.

If there’s anything extraneous we got to get rid of it.

But yet adding all that flavor, so that’s why.

But to move onto Elsa, it was an exhausting process coming to the simplicity of her powers.

At times we had a narration by a troll, who used to have a Brooklyn accent for no reason other than I miss Brooklyn.

You know, no reason.

But, we had this whole explanation like when Saturn is in this alignment with such-and-such on the thousandth year a child will be born and blah, blah, blah.

And then – John:

Ultimately you almost throw it away with one line.

So, the line is just like, “Was she born with the powers or was she cursed?.

And it’s born with it and that’s the last piece of it.

Aline:

It’s so great.

Jennifer:

And that’s it.

But I think part of what it was is if anything about us felt like it was like, “Oh, god, like okay, we have to say this,” then we didn’t want to say it.

And then also we found the more you explained the more questions you had about magic and the rules.

It was like, argh.

You know?

When they visit the trolls, the Grand Pabbie asks "Born or cursed?"

Elsa's dad answers "Born."

Aside from this, there is no other reference to how she got her powers.

Here's a link to the screenplay.

On page 6 is where they visit the trolls.

EDIT AFTER FROZEN

2 RELEASE:

Elsa was given her powers by the spirits in the North so that she could right the wrongs committed by her grandfather, and calm the angry nature spirits.

Frozen is cited as being inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen .

However, the link seems pretty loose, and the titular Snow Queen's powers don't seem to have a specified origin beyond simply being her nature.

Furthermore, Elsa's character doesn't really bear any resemblance to the character of the Snow Queen, and in general there is very little similarity between the plots.

As MyCodeSucks points out, the only reference to the power's origin in Frozen is that Elsa was born with it.

Here's a quick summary of the history we learn from Frozen 2:

There was a group of people called the Northuldra living in an enchanted forest to the north of Arendelle.

These people had a great connection to magic, living and working with the four elementals (water, fire, earth, and air)

up until the elementals were upset by conflict between the Northuldra and the Arendellians, which was started by Elsa and Anna's paternal grandfather, King Runeard of Arendelle.

(Then) Prince Agnarr is saved by one of the Northuldra, Iduna, who becomes his wife (and of course they are Elsa and Anna's parents).

As for what this makes Elsa:

Elsa is the fifth elemental, born with her powers as a gift from nature due to her mother selflessly saving her father.

She is destined to be a bridge between the mundane and magical worlds.

Which means that her powers aren't from a curse after all.

The Grand Pabbie asks Born with the powers or cursed? and the King immediately says Born.

And they're getting stronger.

However, when Anna tells Elsa that her ice powers have set off an eternal winter "everywhere", Elsa loses hope and sings,

Oh, I should have known, I can't be free/

No escape from the storm inside of me/

I can't control the curse/Anna, please, you'll only make it worse!

Basically, Elsa calls it a curse because she sees it as one, but it isn't; she was born with it.

Question: I recently saw the movie  Frozen , and got to wondering about Elsa's amazing Ice Powers.    Where exactly did they come from?  It's apparent that there's some type of curse from the dialogue between her parents and the Trolls, and possibly that it's an inherited curse from her father's knowledge of how to control it by wearing gloves, but does anything beyond that indicate how Elsa (and possibly the whole family) came to be cursed this way?

Is it ever explained where Elsa got her powers?

Elsa was not cursed with her powers, but born with them. Elsa was given her powers as a gift from nature by the spirits in the North so that she could right the wrongs committed by her grandfather, and calm the angry nature spirits.


It might not be possible to build a robot of that size that can support its own weight, or function properly.

(As noted by @MarkGabriel in the comments, see this question on the Physics Stack Exchange ).

Even if it were, the weight/strength of such a robot might still not be enough to crush a kaiju.

Such a robot might also be slower, and thus not able to intercept the kaiju before they reach population centres.

And if you just build one big robot, if it gets taken down, you’ve got nothing.

If you build three smaller robots, you can lose one and still have a chance of the remaining two defending you by utilising the mad skillz of the pilots.

The same reason we don't build tanks the size of buildings, or carriers the size of island chains: it was considered the most efficient cost/benefit ratio by the designers at the time.

Bigger doesn't always mean better, it often means slower, heavier, more expensive and more unwieldy.

Lifting a heavier arm means needing more powerful engines, which in turn make it heavier, requiring even more powerful engines, etc.

The size they finally settled on must have been the one that the designers decided was the best trade-off, as with any construction project.

Also, it's worth noting that three robots of normal size don't necessarily equal one robot of three times that size: double the dimensions of a square, and you'll end up with four times the surface area.

Similarly, building a 3x Jaeger might have taken the resources of 3 or 5 or 10 normal Jaegers, and at a certain point that becomes not worth it anymore.

It's actually laid out in the beginning of them film (around 2:45 - 3:15): The Jaeger program was born.

There were setbacks at first -

the neural load to interface with the Jaeger proved too much for a single pilot.

A 2 pilot system was implemented... left hemisphere-right hemisphere pilot control.

We started winning.

Splitting control of a Jaeger two ways, apparently doable.

Three ways, apparently possible, although it isn't clear to me that the third pilot of Crimson Typhoon controlled anything but the third arm, and presumably it was no coincidence that triplets were piloting it

(...and that triplets are more capable of unity in the drift.

In fact, I have triplets, and I can tell you that's completely untrue in real life).

How many ways can you split that control?

If getting two pilots to drift together is as difficult as is implied throughout the film, then isn't three, four, five, six much harder?

This also shows up in the differences between generational Jaegers - newer ones seem to be better armed, have better materials, or have better technology, but they aren't bigger that I noticed.

There's a scalability problem.

I think it's a reasonable in-universe explanation that the size of the Jaegers was limited by the ability to control them, and that that was limited by the combination of technology and human capacity to drift.

Keep in mind that initially the Kaiju were smaller than the Jaegers.

They were already oversized so it would be easy to simply crush them.

Bigger Kaiju came over time -

thus the classification of size.

So as far as I can tell, the answer to your question is, "They did.

The Kaiju got even bigger."

A)

The makers did not know that Kaiju's were bound to get bigger (category n) after every event or so B)

It's difficult to implement neural load sharing among more than two pilots as it is equally difficult to find pilots that are drift compatible C)

The govt hoped Anti kaiju wall would be a viable alternative and therefore diverted funds meant for Jaeger program.

So the military poured whatever's left into creating digital jaegers that are fast and effective (unaware of category 4 kaiju Leatherback)

This is an engineering problem.

Let's say it takes x amount of force for a Jeager of average size to move its leg y distance in order to walk.

Using proportions, it would take a Jeager 3 times average size & weight 3x in order to move y/2

Probably same reason why the opposing side did not grow even larger Kaijus to crush all Jaegers easily: there are limits on how large the things could be.

Question: Really, instead of three one-hundred-metre robots, why not use the resources to build one three-hundred-metre goliath (yeah yeah, didn't think it through. It would just be really skinny!) to send the monsters packing?

Why didn't they build the Jaegers twice as big as the Kaiju to crush them easily?

With three smaller robots, you can lose one and still have a chance of the remaining two defending you. Also, bigger doesn't always mean better - it can means slower, heavier, more expensive and more unwieldy. Lifting a heavier arm requires more powerful engines, which in turn make it heavier. An in-universe explanation could be that the size of the Jaegers was limited by the ability to control them.

Bigger doesn’t always mean better, since one giant robot would require more strength to lift.


Like any trained athlete, Captain America will tell you he is only as good as the effort he pushes his body to perform.

The Super-Soldier serum did make his body physically fit, but being at the peak of human capacity and being battle-tested are entirely different things.

While we are never told if Captain America needs to exercise to maintain his beef-cake physique, in the comics, the Captain is always training to increase his combat effectiveness, his battle awareness, his strategic sense of the battlefield and working to decrease his reaction time.

Steve Rogers' physical transformation, from a reprint of Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941).

Art by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

While we have seen the Captain go for months without training to no ill effect, it would seem the more he trains, the more confident he feels about his abilities under fire.

Given he is one of the members of the team with comparatively limited superhuman abilities, he may feel an extra incentive to push himself to his physical limits.

Early comics confirm this perspective.

Captain America may also train because he can do things ordinary humans cannot easily do and the only way to reach those peaks of performance and enter the flow state where they become effortless is to practice, practice, practice.

Captain America has no superhuman powers, but through the Super-Soldier Serum and "Vita-Ray" treatment, he is transformed and his strength, endurance, agility, speed, reflexes, durability, and healing are at the zenith of natural human potential.

Rogers' body regularly replenishes the super-soldier serum; it does not wear off.

The formula enhances all of his metabolic functions and prevents the build-up of fatigue poisons in his muscles, giving him endurance far in excess of an ordinary human being.

This accounts for many of his extraordinary feats, including bench pressing 1200 pounds (545 kg) and running a mile (1.6 km) in 73 seconds (49 mph/78 kph).

REF:

Captain America's Powers and Abilities; Wikipedia.

In the end, Captain America may not need to train because against any single human opponent, he is more than adequate to the task, but more often, he is fighting against entire armies where one wrong move may be his last.

This is what the training is really for, to prepare him when he is out-manned, out-gunned, or outclassed and prepare him to dig deep to find the hidden reservoirs of awesome he needs to come out on top.

Cap has fought against some of Marvel's heaviest hitters: Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, The Thing, Mr. Hyde, Wolverine, Magneto, the entire Serpent Society for Pete's sake, the man has fought against a good portion of the Marvel Universe at one time or another.

From his perspective if you're not training, you're dying.

Some people run just for the joy of running.

My understanding is that it often has to do with endorphins, something that Steve probably doesn't have to deal with in the shape that his body is in, but he might simply enjoy the feeling of the well-oiled machine of his body functioning (especially given he used to lack the sort of musculature or endurance necessary), or he might find it relaxing to think while moving, the same way so many people like to take a walk to think.

And, of course, that's assuming that the super-soldier serum obviates the need for exercise.

The mechanism for it is seldom explained.

The fact that Rogers stepped out of the device fully muscly suggests that it probably has some degree of "instant beefcake", but regular exercise might improve things further, or help with things like muscle definition.

Lastly, he might run simply because it feels like something that normal people do.

The Super-Soldier serum makes him separate from humanity, but that doesn't fit with Rogers's personality.

Exercising is an essential part of healthy lifestyle.

Super-Soldier Serum gave him muscles, strength and faster metabolism, but it doesn't mean he could stop eating and breathing.

He is still a human who can build up cholesterol in his blood vessels, for example.

There are countless benefits of exercising which I don't think Super-Soldier Serum can provide: Fitness.

Brain Plasticity dictates that it'd support a part of body which is used more often and vice versa.

Your sedentary lifestyle can turn off your motor nerves making you clumsy irrespective of how big your muscles are.

Muscle tissue refreshments.

When you exercise, lots of muscle tissues get broken down and new strong muscles (which can withstand previous stress) are formed using proteins.

New things are always better.

Better blood flow.

Exercising boosts up heart rate to supply more resources (oxygen, nutrition) to involved cells, but the whole body gets benefit.

Also, in the process, a nitric oxide isomer named eNOS is released from the blood vessels into the blood which maintains the blood flow throughout the day.

Fat/Cholesterol burning.

This doesn't need to be explained as heart diseases are popular these days.

Rogers likely suffers from some form of PTSD, while not necessarily diagnosed with a lifestyle or drug prescriptions, he may be using running as a form of self medication.

Rogers displays common symptoms of PTSD throughout the second film and in the Age of Ultron trailer in self destructive tendencies, distancing himself from others, and distracting himself with other problems, all of which are aggravated by seeing Bucky again and being put under combat-like circumstances.

So overall, Steve probably has PTSD and may use running as a way to make himself feel better as it creates endorphins which help remediate depression, a side effect of PTSD.

I'm sure he trains because it's a part of the regimented routine the army had him on, and it keeps his life in order.

It's something he can hold on to from his past that hasn't drastically changed since he woke up in the present.

PT is a typical part of the U.S. Military lifestyle which Steve still lives as much as he can.

If I remember right he loses the power from the super-soldier serum, but I don't remember when it happens.

So he needs to keep exercising to stay in shape.

Question: In the beginning of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we see Sam Wilson going for a morning jog and Rogers sprints right by him, "On your left." Then a few minutes later, we see Rogers sprint by Wilson again, and then once more. I liked the whole scene, it was really funny; but why is Captain America exercising? Doesn't his Super-Soldier Serum keep him in tip-top shape anyways?

Why does Captain America need to exercise?

The Super-Soldier serum did make his body physically fit, but being at the peak of human capacity and being battle-tested are entirely different things.   While we are never told if Captain America needs to exercise to maintain his beef-cake physique, in the comics, the Captain is always training to increase his combat effectiveness and it seems that the more he trains, the more confident he feels about his abilities under fire, especially against entire armies. Given he is one of the members of the team with comparatively limited superhuman abilities, he may feel an extra incentive to push himself to his physical limits. He may also train because he can do things ordinary humans cannot easily do and the only way to reach those peaks of performance is to practice. It may also be a way of dealing with PTSD.

While the Super-Soldier serum increases his muscle strength, metabolism and overall fitness, Steve runs to maintain a healthy lifestyle and to push his physical limits and increase his confidence. Moreover, running was part of his regimented routine in the military and he continues to run to keep his life in order.

The Super-Soldier serum increases his muscle strength, metabolism and overall fitness. He runs to maintain overall fitness, muscle tissue regeneration and a good cholesterol. He runs to combat depression and self-destructive tendencies and to push his physical limits and increase confidence. Running was a part of his regimented routine in the military and he continues to run to keep his life in order.


Matt Fraction, the writer of " Invincible Iron Man " has explicitly stated in interviews that Tony Stark is indeed an atheist : The Iron Man story in Fear Itself, there’s a cataclysm that befalls one of Tony’s favorite cities in the world, and he goes to investigate it.

As the Avengers resources are split, and they’re running around the world dealing with Fear Itself, Tony goes to take care of this one thing.

It’s kind of an arc about science versus magic.

A man of science, an atheist, dealing with gods.

It really speaks to a lot of Tony’s greatest fears.

How deep does Tony’s faith in science go, and what happens when you shatter it on an anvil?

The ultimate man of science is forced to stare deep into the eyes of what can only be described as a god.

A god that wants to kill him.

And more recently they've actually referenced the image you've linked to...

He also expresses a deep mistrust of "gods" in older serials such as Iron Man #294

And in She Hullk #18, he explicitly identified his personal (non)religion; he's a "futurist":

First of all; there is no proof about Tony Stark and his religious tendencies presented to us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, as a scientist with a skeptical mind, it is more likely than usual that Tony Stark is not a religious man and in this instance I believe that a lack of proof is more likely to mean he is an atheist, rather than a theist.

This is because he is a fictional character, and if an element of a character such as religion was important to them, it would be for a reason and be present in some form.

The fact that it isn't means we can certainly say that religion isn't important to Tony Stark in the writer's eyes, and as such probably not important to the character either.

It's also worth mentioning that the lifestyle that Tony Stark leads both pre and post-Iron Man is hardly one that a religious man would live.

He is a womanising, selfish, obnoxious and egotistical arms-dealer turned womanising, obnoxious and egotistical walking weapon.

That hardly screams religious to me.

That being said, the very nature of the picture you refer to is wrong.

Asgardians, at least in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, are categorically NOT gods.

It has been mentioned multiple times, from Thor to The Avengers/Avengers Assemble to Thor:

The Dark World that Asgardians are merely aliens with increased longevity, which has resulted in their culture progressing much slower than their technology, creating a world in which their advanced science is indistinguishable from magic to normal humans.

Additionally, even if Asgardians WERE gods, neither Captain America, Iron Man or the Hulk would have met two of them, as Loki is in fact a Frost Giant, not an Asgardian.

Which means that when Steve Rogers says; These is only one god ma'am, and he doesn't dress like that.

He's closer to the mark than it may appear.

Note: I appear to have created something of a... kerfuffle in the comments below regrading my answer.

In no way am I saying that intelligence and religion are mutually exclusive.

However, this article shows a solid correlation between American scientists and a non-theism when compared to members of the American general public.

As such, despite people's urge to find offence in what I have said, the likelihood of Tony Stark being an atheist is higher than that of the general population.

This, combined with all the other points mentioned above, speak volumes (at least to me) about Tony Starks religious tendencies.

There is evidence in Age of Ultron that suggests Stark is an atheist (at least in as much as he does not believe in the Christian god).

Some Christians express their religious convictions by using a bumper sticker proclaiming the centrality of Jesus Christ in their lives: Here is a screen cap from the latest Avengers movie (roughly 13 minutes in), showing Stark's bumper sticker: Jarvis is the artificial intelligence that is often called upon to control Stark's machinery and provide assistance during times of difficulty.

Given the fact that Stark's Jarvis bumper sticker plays on the wording of the Christian Jesus bumper sticker, specifically replacing Jesus with an A.I., and that this might be considered blasphemous in the Christian religion, we can probably assume that Stark is, at least, not a believer in the Christian god, who tends to frown on this kind of thing.

Whether this means he does not believe in any god is a different matter.

He may consider Jarvis a deity, for example.

Given that there's no evidence for Tony Stark's religious position within the MCU, it's actually entirely possible that his beliefs are undefined if the writers have never really thought about it as an important aspect of his character.

Writers frequently don't know anything about certain parts of their characters' lives because it just doesn't matter to the story they're trying to tell.

Of course, that in itself might mean he's an atheist of the non-evangelising variety - but there's no evidence of it.

We could appeal to the comics where he is definitely an atheist, but this is the MCU and we can't take anything from the comics as applying to it.

Therefore the only entirely correct answer is "we don't know".

We can assess that it's likely that he's an atheist, and I'd be surprised if they ever decided to contradict the comics on this, but really when there's no evidence in canon

you just can't say.

Ultron makes multiple references to God and quotes at least once from the Christian Bible.

Vision speaks of "Grace.

" That's a weird thing for robots to do.

It's well established that Ultron has been copying Tony's speech pattern.

So it seems very likely that Tony occasionally uses religious language.

That vocabulary could just be assimilated from the people around him - I myself have used phrases like "oh my god."

But it's some evidence towards Tony being a Christian.

He's not Catholic - he makes a joke at their expense.

Question: I've seen an image multiple times on the Internet lately claiming that Captain America met two gods and still is a Christian (no doubt about this) while Tony Stark met two gods and is  still an atheist.   I'm assuming the image talks about Marvel Cinematic Universe's Iron Man. Is he really atheist? Do we have any hard evidence of this?

Is Tony Stark an atheist?

Matt Fraction, the writer of " Invincible Iron Man " has explicitly stated  in interviews  that Tony Stark  is indeed an atheist. However,  in She Hullk #18, Stark explicitly identified his personal (non)religion - he's a "futurist". Stark's AI bumper sticker is a play on a Jesus sticker, suggesting that he does not believe in a Christian God.

Although there are many factors pointing towards Stark being an aetheist, most notably his Jarvis bumper sticker and his scientific background, there is no concrete evidence in the MCU to back up these theories, though the writer of Invinvible Iron Man has explicitly stated he is. Stark does, however, confirm in She Hulk that he is a futurist.

There is no concrete evidence in the MCU to confim Stark is an aetheist though his scientific background and his Jarvis bumper sticker may suggest that he is. In She Hulk, Stark confirms he is a futurist. The writer of Invincible Iron Man has publicly announced that Stark is an atheist.


The binary language of vaporators is different from Binary, the language of droids Binary is specific a language , sometimes called droidspeak , Astromech droids such as R2-D2 communicate through an information-dense language of beeps and whistles known as Binary.

It is not "binary" as we use it (having to do with the digits 0 and 1).

While the language was common to all astromech droids , it apparently wasn't standardized in all other droids since we know that binary loadlifters required programming: "Vaporators!

Sir, my first job was programming binary loadlifters – very similar to your vaporators in most respects.

" ―C-3PO

It appears the vaporators Lars has are not able to communicate in standard droid binary language, and use a specialized "binary language of vaporators."

It's also possible newer machines have adopted the binary language, but these are simply salvaged or very old models that don't have that capacity and require specialized translation.

In our world, there are many, many programming languages .

Not every computerized system can be programmed in every language.

Many can only be programmed in one, specialized language.

It seems like the Star Wars universe hasn't found a solution for this interoperability problem either.

Apparently the moisture vaporators are programmed in a binary code which isn't exactly the Star Wars equivalent of Java but rather something unique and proprietary.

This scene is a little longer in the novelization: "I need,"

[Owen Lars] broke in, demonstrating imperious disregard for Threepio's as yet unenumerated secondary functions, "a 'droid that knows something about the binary language of independently programmable moisture vaporators." "Vaporators!

We are both in luck," Threepio countered.

"My first post-primary 1 assignment was in programming binary load lifters.

Very similar in construction and memory-function to your vaporators.

Star Wars Chapter 3

Although Threepio is bargaining for his life, meaning we have take everything he says with a grain of salt, his specific reference to memory-function suggests that moisture vaporators and load lifters accept different instructions than other sorts of droids.

Would that then be his second assignment?

I imagined it as a sort-of API, like it has added functions to more finely tune calibrations.

For instance the binary language of most droids would include "wet", but a moisture vaporator would need to be far more precise, and may use special nomenclensure, if for instance, there are other gases being tracked, etc.

On the planet earth, today, there are a huge number of binary encoding standards.

Based on 6, 8, 16, 32 or 64 bit groupings Encodings for specific character sets (for differnet languages), there are encodings which carry simple lean data (such as the readout from a scale) to more complex, video, photo and audio encodings.

Different manufacturers (for instance, Microsoft Office keeps changing it's file encoding to avoid their files being read by other manufacturers' software).

If, in the real world, we can't come up with a single standard for everything.

How would a galaxy of many worlds, a huge number of species who presumably each have distinct thought-patterns, with many languages and manufacturers, come up with a single standard binary encoding?

The binary language and the machine language are synonyms.

Different machines need different languages.

At the lowest level, this is the arbitrary decision of how to assemble groups of binary digits into instructions.

At the higher level, it would be what peripherals are attached and what kind of interface is needed to talk to them.

If you want to think of binary as an actual language, there are numerous parallels with human languages, for example breaking words into phonemes, how many symbols are in the alphabet, what the grammar is and so on.

As to why moisture evaporators should require an non-standard language, there could be numerous reasons, optimisations to maximise compatibility with solar panel technology, maximising battery life, providing reliable unattended operation for long periods, etc.

It's possible Owen was simply working off of C-3PO's list of talents.

3PO was explaining how he could speak a wide variety of languages; this is of little use to Owen.

The only skill that he needs a droid to know is the one that makes them a good moisture farmer.

And that's what he tells 3PO: you can be the best droid for talking to organics, but if you can't get my machines to work

you're no use to me.

The reference to binary language is simply used as a segue from 3PO's language skill and the desired skill of the operation of moisture vaporators.

It's also worth mentioning that droids aren't always going to be naturally good at talking to other machines, just like humans aren't very good at talking to monkeys.

Question: In  Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope  Owen Lars says,   "What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators."   Was he just being overly specific in what he needed? (e.g., "I need a hammer for 3/4-inch nails")

Why would the binary language of moisture vaporators be that different from the binary language of other machines or droids?

Different machines need different languages, and it appears the vaporators Lars has are not able to communicate in standard droid binary language, and use a specialized, unique  "binary language of vaporators." While the language was common to all  astromech droids , it apparently wasn't standardized in all other droids since we know that  binary loadlifters  required programming.

It is said that the vaporators are specialised and rather unique and proprietary in nature and are not capable of being pre-programmed. They function based on instructions that are different to other machines and droids using a specialised binary language. The reason Owen describes them using such language is also to impress C-3PO.

Vaporators have a unique binary code. They require different instructions from other droids and machines. They are not pre-programmed as a consequence. They are unique, specialised and proprietary.

Owen uses such language not only because it relates to the way moisture vaporators specifically function but also because it’s the language C-3PO would have used.