No, Legolas does not appear in the original text of the Hobbit, even though Thorin's company does go through Mirkwood and meet the Wood-Elves and their king.

In fact, the King isn't even named in the book, not to mention any sons he might have, and the description of the Wood-Elves is a far cry from that of the Elves in the Lord of the Rings - wild and dangerous and fond of wine.

Their king isn't even given a name - he's just the Elf King.

It's clear that he didn't really have the whole backstory of the Elves in mind when he wrote them -

The Hobbit wasn't even originally planned to be part of the Legendarium of the Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, it just merged into it later.

He does not explicitly appear, as the other answers here note, but in not mentioning his name it is also not made explicit that Legolas is not in Mirkwood when Bilbo and the Dwarves make their way through.

In fact, as Peter Jackson noted by putting him into The Desolation of Smaug , his apparent age and forest of origin make it clear that he certainly could have been one of the elves the Hobbits ran into during their adventures (or misadventures) in the forest.

As Jimmy Shelter has pointed out, there is no familiar interaction between Gloin and Legolas at the Council of Elrond, but this could easily be chalked up to the old Dwarven-Elven feud (although, of course, the real-world reason is that Legolas had not been invented when The Hobbit was written).

What is revealed in the Tolkien Legendarium is: Legolas was the son of Thranduil Greenleaf, the Elvenking of Mirkwood (formerly Greenwood)

The Mirkwood Elves were becoming increasingly withdrawn and xenophobic in the Third Age, making it very likely that the son of the Elvenking would have been among their number when the Dwarves' company entered the Elvenking's halls Elves did not reach maturity until near their hundredth year, meaning that Legolas' adventures with the Fellowship must have happened after his first century of life.

Counting back to Bilbo's journey with the Dwarves, Legolas was (at the youngest) in his mid to late twenties during those events, and probably far older (the film producers claim he was 2,931 years old during the adventures of the Fellowship, but that has no basis in the book's canon.

More telling is, as Paul Griffiths notes, he says he "feel[s] young again" when venturing through Fangorn after the Fellowship fragments).

So clearly, it is possible (and maybe even likely) that the Dwarven Company met Legolas, though the book never mentions this meeting.

Tauriel, on the other hand, was invented entirely for the film adaptation.

No, he was added for the movie.

They may have seen or even met him, but he was never mentioned in the books, let alone by name.

If you search

The Hobbit for Legolas (which is easily done on Google Books ), you will not find that word.

Legolas is never specifically mentioned in the book.

However, he may very likely have been present in Mirkwood at the time that Thorin's company was imprisoned there.

Many of the answers here say that there was no familiar interaction between Gloin and Legolas at the Council of Elrond, but, respectfully disagreeing, there actually is in fact an instance of familiar interaction between Gloin and Legolas at the Council of Elrond.

Legolas explains to the council that Gollum has escaped from the elves in Mirkwood where he was being held because they were perhaps too kind to him by allowing him special privelages (specifically allowing him to go outside to climb a tree while under watch of an elvish guard.)

To this Gloin makes a reply:

"You were less tender to me," said Gloin with a flash of his eyes, as old memories were stirred of his imprisonment in the deep places of the Elven-king's halls.

(This is page 249 in my copy of The Fellowship.)

Whether or not "You" referred to Legolas specifically or to the Mirkwood Elves in general is unclear, but given the context in which Gloin replies, I believe that Gloin does in fact remember Legolas personally from his imprisonment with Thorin's company in Mirkwood.

No, Legolas does not make an appearance in the novel, though Thorin and company are captured by Wood-Elves.

None of the elves are named explicitly in the novel; even the king is simply referred to as "The King" or like variations.

Much of the movies deviate from the original story line.

For example, in An Unexpected Journey , the rock giants were added in simply for more action.

They never appear in the book.

Nor do the orcs; there are goblins, briefly, but they don't chase the dwarves and hobbit like in the movie.

This subject causes alot of confusion between the bookies and the filmies.

Seeing as the books were written by Tolkien himself

we should use only the books for reference.

There is no mention of Legolas in the Hobbit.

The Elf Legolas Greenleaf is actually first mentioned in The Fall of Gondolin although we can't be too sure if this is actually the same Legolas.

When Legolas first realizes he is about to face Durin's Bane in Moria he clearly loses his cool.

While all elves hated balrogs if Legolas was at Gondolin he would have witnessed the deaths of Ecthelion and Glorfindel not to mention the general devastation wreaked by the balrogs.

This example of genealogy suggests that he is of the Gondolindrim but not if he is Noldorin.

Being the son of Thranduil means he would be Silvan.

After giving this great thought, I have come to the conclusion that the two elves are most definitely two separate elves.

The Legolas of Gondolin was of the House of The Tree and members of that house fought with heavy spiked clubs and slings as opposed to the marksman skills so noteworthy during the War of the Ring.

He lead the survivors out of the Ecoriath and was a known scout with excellent sight and hearing.

These skills I feel would be inherent to all elves rather than to only Legolas.

Question: Legolas is the son of Thranduil, the King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood. He is also a member of The Fellowship of the Ring in  The Lord of the Rings . Legolas also appeared in the films of  The Hobbit . Does he appear in the book  The Hobbit ?

Is Legolas in The Hobbit Book?

There is no mention of Legolas in the Hobbit.

Legolas does not appear anywhere in the novel the Hobbit.


In-canon, no-one knows.

Per Pottermore : A Boggart is a shape-shifting creature that will assume the form of whatever most frightens the person who encounters it.

Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like if nobody is there to see it , although it continues to exist, usually giving evidence of its presence by rattling, shaking or scratching the object in which it is hiding.

Boggarts particularly like confined spaces, but may also be found lurking in woods and around shadowy corners.

It's not even apparent whether a boggart actually has a physical form, but rather manifests as a force of nature: Like a poltergeist, a Boggart is not and never has been truly alive.

It is one of the strange non-beings that populate the magical world , for which there is no equivalent in the Muggle realm.

Boggarts can be made to disappear, but more Boggarts will inevitably arise to take their place.

Like poltergeists and the more sinister Dementors, they seem to be generated and sustained by human emotions.

Out of universe, there are very few people that lack a fear response and even those individuals (extreme psychopaths, sufferers of Urbach-Wiethe )

do have a psychological (but not physiological) ability to identify things that they dislike highly, even if they lack the mental capacity to actually feel a fear response.

It's possible that they would have the same response as a Muggle:

The more generally fearful a person is, the more susceptible they will be to Boggarts.

Muggles, too, feel their presence and may even glimpse them, although they seem less capable of seeing them plainly and are usually easily convinced that the Boggart was a figment of their imagination.

Perhaps it wouldn't turn into anything.

From "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban": So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form.

He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door.

Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.

-Professor

Lupin

It is safe to assume then if one did not fear anything the boggart would not change at all.

You would know what a boggart's true form looks like.

Another idea is that the boggart would just guess what to turn in to, because as Hermione says: It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.

This wouldn't scare the person of course

but it might be rather funny...

They appear to have no form...

Therefore, if there is no fear for them to transform into they will probably not even materialize or attempt to.

Like dementors, they appear to feed off of emotions, so if there isn't something for them to feed off of, they will either leave or stay hidden.

When children learn to bear with Bogarts they make them change to funny things, so it's feasible to supose that a Bogart facing a totally fearless character (suposing that's possible) will probably switch to any form he can get from their "victim's" mind and it can be related someway to fear.

It would randomly switch between anything.

When Molly Weasley was trying to get rid of the Boggart at Grimmauld Place, the Boggart switched between her worst fears.

‘R–r–riddikulus!’

Mrs Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron’s body. Crack.

Ron’s body turned into Bill’s, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty.

Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever.

‘R–riddikulus!’

she sobbed again.

Crack.

Mr Weasley’s body replaced Bill’s, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.

‘No!’

Mrs Weasley moaned.

‘No ... riddikulus!

Riddikulus! RIDDIKULUS!’

Crack.

Dead twins.

Crack.

Dead Percy.

Crack.

Dead Harry ...

If a person didn't have a fear, their "worst" fear would tie between everything, therefore it would randomly switch between anything.

Question: Rereading the Prisoner of Azkaban, this interesting question(at least to me) popped in my head. What shape would a boggart take if a person is never depressed about anything, has no evil memories whatsoever for the boggart to feed on or has no fear?

What shape would a boggart take if a person doesn't fear anything?

If there is no fear for them to transform into they would probably not even materialize and stay hidden. However, if a person didn't have a fear, their "worst" fear would tie between everything, therefore it may randomly switch between anything.

A Boggart does not change shape at all if the observer has no fears since it takes on the form of the observer’s worst fear or fears. However, there is a chance that a Boggart would switch to all sorts of forms since the observer’s fear would take on the form of everything.

A Boggart will not change shape at all if the observer has no fears since it takes on the form of the observer’s worst fear or fears. There is a chance a Boggart would switch to all sorts of forms since the observer’s fear would take on the form of everything.


Yes.

In Chapter 33 of AFFC , Jaime discusses the matter with his cousin Ser Daven, who mentions: His wife's with child, did you know?

He also says that she is "fond of Edmure", which Daven finds odd.

In any case, this confirms both of them are still consider married and (oddly enough) still wish to be married.

Yes, the wedding is presumably still valid... if it was actually consummated (i.e. Edmure and Roslin had sex).

As far as I can recall (and the Wiki of Ice and Fire backs me up), marriage in Westeros generally requires the two participants to willingly exchange vows, and then consummate the marriage in bed.

A wedding that has not been consummated can be annulled.

I believe this came up with the marriage of Tyrion to Sansa, since he did not force her to consummate it.

However, failure to consummate doesn't mean they aren't married, just that it can be dissolved.

They clearly were brought up for the bedding ceremony, although I don't recall if there was any indication of what happened after they were stripped and thrown in the bedroom.

I recall that Roslin was distraught:

Poor Roslin's smile had a fixed quality to it, as if someone had sewn it onto her face. and 'To bed!

To bed!

To bed with them!'

Roslin had gone white.

Catelyn wondered whether it was the prospect of losing her maidenhead that frightened the girl, or the bedding itself....

Catelyn felt sorry for the girl.

Most brides tried to return the banter, or at least pretended to enjoy it, but Roslin was stiff with terror, clutching the Greatjon as if she feared he might drop her.

She's crying too, Catelyn realized..." But fear of her grandfather would likely keep her from revealing anything to Edmure, and he certainly seemed willing, and unaware.

So it seems likely the marriage was consummated.

The vows were certainly exchanged, and exchanged willingly, so the circumstances of the later wedding... "activities"... do not change the status of the marriage.

Only Edmure's opinion of his new family.

Yes they are still married and they have consummated the marriage.

In A Feast for Crows, in one the chapters of Jaime's (not sure which one -- I think chapter 33)

Edmure says that he was consummating the marriage during the murders of the Red Wedding (seksy).

He said that the Freys had posted musicians right outside of their room so that they won't hear what is happening in the castle.

It is even mentioned that Edmure got his wife with child and Jaime

said that if it was born, he would send it to him in a catapult.

You ask if the marriage is still valid.

I ask... why wouldn't it be?

There is nothing to indicate that Roslin knew about what was going to happen or was forced into the wedding.

Likewise, Edmure consented to the marriage out of his own free will.

The matter of them consummating or not doesn't even affect if the marriage is valid, just if it can be annulled.

Sure, it is quite possible that Edmure does not want to be married to Roslin anymore after the atrocity that her family committed, but that doesn't mean the marriage isn't considered valid.

However!

There might be things we do not know.

Westeros is very much a country that relies on "old laws" like the guest right.

There may very well be a law that states that a marriage may be annulled if it turns out that the bride's family has committed heinous crimes, but that is not something we know from reading the books.

So yes, as far as we know, the marriage is still valid and can't be annulled.

Yes, they have consummated the marriage, Chapter 33, AFFC: " ...

The Blackfish pays his mummer's show no mind, so come evenfall Lord Edbure is taken down again.

His wife's with child, did you know?"

He hadn't.

"Edmure bedded her, after the Red Wedding?" "He was bedding her during the Red Wedding.

Roslin's a pretty little thing, hardly stoatish at all.

And fond of Edmure, queerly.

Perwyn tells me she's praying for a girl."

Jaime considered that for a moment.

"Once Edmure's son is born, Lord Walder will have no more need of Edmure."

Question: Given that...    The Freys slaughtered Edmure's sister and nephew, and many men and women loyal to the Starks and the Tullys, and given that the Red Wedding was a hideous farce of a wedding created not for political ties but for the purposes of regicide and mass slaughter...   Do we still consider Edmure's marriage to Roslin valid? After all, I'm not sure a man in his right mind would  want  to be married to the granddaughter of the architect of the Red Wedding.

Are Edmure and Roslin still considered married?

The wedding is presumed to be valid and to have been consummated.


As usual, Tolkien Gateway has the best compilation of info: There were 4 named ones: Glaurung — Father of Dragons, slain by Túrin Turambar.

First of the Uruloki, the Fire-drakes of Angband.

He had four legs and could breathe fire, but didn't have wings.

Ancalagon the Black — first and mightiest of the Winged-dragons, slain by Eärendil in the War of Wrath.

Scatha - Slain by Fram of the Éothéod.

Apparently a cold-drake.

Described as a "long-worm", although this imprecise term seems to be more of an expression rather than a separate taxonomic group.

Smaug — the last great dragon (but possibly not the last dragon based on Gandalf's words) of Middle-earth.

A winged Urulokë.

2 more were mentioned but unnamed An unnamed dragon, with red eyes, black wings and teeth like knives.

( src: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, "The Hoard" ) Beast of Gondolin — A Fire-Drake at the Fall of Gondolin.

Total numbers aren't given but there were many: At the Fall of Gondolin, Morgoth's foul host included dragons, " many and terrible " ( src:

The Silmarillion, "Quenta Silmarillion:

Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" )

Dragons were "created" by Melkor/Morgoth during the early part of the First Age of the Sun, and for a long time the only dragon mentioned by name was Glaurung, the father of dragons.

We may assume that more dragons were being bred in the Pits of Angband during this time.

The first occurrance of more than one dragon was at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, where we read: Morgoth loosed his last strength, and Angband was emptied.

There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs, and dragons , and Glaurung father of dragons.

( Silmarillion ) Following this battle, and until the Fall of Gondolin, Glaurung is again the only dragon mentioned as being active in Middle-earth, but at the Fall of Gondolin they come out again

(Glaurung had been killed by Turin by this time): At last, in the year when Earendil was seven years old, Morgoth was ready, and he loosed upon Gondolin his Balrogs, and his Orcs, and his wolves; and with them came dragons of the brood of Glaurung, and they were become now many and terrible.

( Silmarillion )

Finally, at the War of Wrath, we see the first appearance of the winged dragons:

But he loosed upon his foes the last desperate assault that he had prepared, and out of the pits of Angband there

issued the winged dragons , that had not before been seen...

( Silmarillion )

During the War of Wrath most dragons were killed (including Ancalagon); some variants of the texts note that two escaped, but the Silmarillion itself is not specific about the number:

Then the sun rose, and the host of the Valar prevailed, and well-nigh all the dragons were destroyed...

Dragons were entirely inactive during the Second Age, and only reappeared after a good part of the Third Age had passed, as the Tale of Years ( LotR Appendix B ) notes:

The Dwarves hid themselves in deep places, guarding their hoards; but when evil began to stir again and dragons reappeared, one by one their ancient treasures were plundered... 2570 .

Baldor son of Brego enters the Forbidden Door and is lost.

About this timeDragons reappear in the far North and begin to afflict the Dwarves.

At no stage is the actual precise number of dragons given.

The most famous dragon in Middle-earth is, of course, the Green one in Bywater.

The LOTR wiki identifies 7 dragons by name (as well as a host of other dragons described but not named)

Glaurung - Slain by Túrin Turambar, also known as the father of Dragons.

Ancalagon the Black - Slain by Eärendil, the mightiest Winged Dragon to have ever lived.

Scatha

the Worm - Slain by Fram, the hoard Scatha guarded was taken from the Dwarves,

thus Fram taking it led to arguments and his eventual death at the hands of the Dwarves.

The Great Cold Drake - A cold drake of great power which attacked Dwarves of Grey Mountains and killed Dáin I and his second son Frór.

Smaug - Slain with the Black Arrow by Bard

the Bowman, afterward King Bard, of Dale.

[The] Fire-drake of Gondolin - The beast defeated (not killed) by Tuor, who stabbed it in the foot.

Gostir - a name-only known individual

The Silmarillion also identifies that in the "War of Wrath", Ancalagon commanded a " Dragon-host " (e.g. a sizeable number of other dragons).

There's no specific numbers but we're left to infer that it was a substantial armada since their destruction effectively ended the reign of dragons on Middle Earth.

Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host , and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin.

There's also a handy (but completely non-canon) size-chart :-)

There is no canon reference for the total number of dragons.

Dragons referenced by name: Ancalagon the Black Fire-drake of Gondolin Glaurung , the first dragon bred by Morgoth, know as the father of dragons, though it is unclear if he is literally the ancestor of all dragons.

He was killed by Túrin Turambar.

Gostir

Smaug - from the Hobbit Scatha

the Worm - took a Dwarven hoard (like Smaug)

The Great Cold Drake - attacked the Dwaves of the Grey Mountains and killed Dáin

It's also of worth noting that dragons first appeared in FA 260 and continued to exist at the time of Lord of the Rings.

When discussing destorying the Ring, Gandalf said "there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough", implying that some dragons still existed.

In Appendix A "Durins folk it says in the far north there were dragons in the wastes & after many years they became strong & multiplied.

Question: How numerous were dragons in the time before 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit'? How many dragons did Tolkien ever mention by name?

How many dragons ever existed on Middle Earth?

Tolkien names four dragons in his Middle-earth writings.


Iron Man and the Hulk have fought each other on a handful of occasions.

The most brutal battle was during the World War Hulk storyline .

Even with all of his technology and wearing the Hulk Buster suit, Tony is unable to stop the Hulk.

ComicVine explains: Iron Man dons his "Hulkbuster" Suit, in hopes of defeating Hulk.

As the fight rages on, Iron Man, in a monologue, takes full responsibility for the incident, and explains that he knew that this day would come, as soon as he heard news that Hulk had not reached his destination.

As they are battling, Iron Man injects nanobots into Hulk's bloodstream.

This was supposed to slow him down, but hasn't seemed to take effect yet.

After much fighting in the now empty Manhattan, Iron Man seems to have defeated Hulk.

But, after a flashback of the death of his wife, Caiera, he only becomes angrier.

He bursts from the crater his body had created, and dominates Iron Man.

The one-on-one ends with the Hulk victorious, and Tony's Hulk-Buster armor destroyed.

The Hulk goes on to defeat the Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange, and everything and everyone thrown against him.

That red wreckage in those last two panels?

That's Tony's Hulk Buster armor.

Or... It was.

Hulk v

Iron Man's latest, most heavily weaponised, Hulkbuster armour from this weeks

Hulk v Iron Man.

Hulk could do this to Ultron but for plot purposes they avoid writing a fight between them.

Hulk wins.

Iron Man has made armors specifically designed against Hulk before; there is the Hulk Buster Mark I in Iron Man (vol. 1)

#304, which was capable of lifting 175 tons but in Secret Wars bannerhulk one of the weakest hulk forms lifted a montain which weights way more than 175 tons and the Hulk Buster Mark II was destroyed in a brutal battle in World War Hulk #1.

Based on previous comics, the strength of the Hulk has always outweighed anything Stark can design, so he always wins

Iron Man has won against Hulk before.

In Iron Man #132 Iron Man put all of his power into to a punch and defeated Hulk.

Question: I've been thinking about, and I've read spin-off stories that talk about who would win in a fight: Iron Man or the Hulk. Iron Man has technology and speed on his side, but the Hulk has brute strength and would be able to reach the height Iron Man does (as shown in the Avengers when the Hulk scales buildings as if it was nothing).  Has there ever been an answer to this?

Has there ever been a fight between Iron Man and the Hulk where one of them won?

The strength of the Hulk usually outweighs anything Stark can design and the one-on-one ends with the Hulk victorious, and Tony's Hulk-Buster armor destroyed. However,  in Iron Man #132 Iron Man put all of his power into to a punch and defeated Hulk.

Iron Man has defeated Hulk before. However, Hulk generally outperforms Iron Man and defeats him.

Iron Man has defeated Hulk before. Hulk generally outperforms Iron Man and defeats him.


He certainly seems to find some information when giving Harry these 'piercing looks', but he still doesn't know about Harry hearing the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, so I would say no; he's just extremely smart, so he makes some educated guesses as to what Harry is thinking.

I would also say that Dumbledore would feel it is rude to intrude on Harry's thoughts with legilimency, which is likely the reason he gives Harry plenty of opportunity to tell him his thoughts of his own accord.

Harry's free will would factor greatly into Dumbledore's decisions.

I disagree.

I absolutely think he was using legilimency.

There’s a lot of evidence to support this, but the best example is when he asks Harry, notably in Chamber of Secrets, whether there is something he wishes to tell him.

The reason Harry can tell when Snape is reading his mind is because Snape is using magic to force him to think of those images and thoughts.

Dumbledore is much more subtle, as well as an exceptionally gifted wizard, so he simply asks Harry, who is very honest and open by nature (which is why he fails to learn occlumency with many lessons while Draco learns it almost immediately when taught by Narcissa)

automatically thinks of the things he would tell Dumbledore if he weren’t afraid to, such as hearing the voice of the Basilisk.

It also explains Dumbledore’s general tendency to know a lot more than he logically ought to.

I originally assumed he was just making good guesses, and he jokes in one book that his guesses (not the word that’s used

but I’m blanking right now) are usually correct.

(Maybe the word is hunch.

I digress)

but I’ve also come to realize that when Dumbledore is amused with himself it’s on account of a private joke.

Again I wish I had a quote for this

but I don’t feel like digging for one.

I agree with this answer that Legilimency isn't imperceptible, that the 'victim' knows what information is being extracted and that the example with Snape and Harry proves this.

We do have one hint that Dumbledore used Legilimency on Harry, however.

Since it's the only instance in canon that suggests

this explicitly

I thought I'd add an answer to the pile.

Boiling with anger at Snape, his desire to do something desperate and risky had increased tenfold in the last few minutes.

This seemed to show on Harry's face, for Dumbledore moved away from the window, and looked more closely at Harry , a slight crease between his silver eyebrows.

"What has happened to you?"

"Nothing," lied Harry promptly.

"What has upset you?

"I'm not upset.

" Harry, you were never a good Occlumens -" (Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 25, The Seer Overheard) .

Dumbledore's behaviour here is consistent with the use of Legilimency.

He maintains eye contact and focuses intently on Harry.

Ultimately, he's able to work out that Harry's lying to him.

Arguably, Dumbledore wouldn't have needed to use Legilimency to work out that Harry was lying to him.

Harry was not in control of his emotions and was pretty easy to read once Dumbledore started observing him closely.

Moreover, Dumbledore doesn't find out exactly what Harry is angry about, which he probably would have done if he were using Legilimency.

On balance, I don't think that Dumbledore was using Legilimency here.

Nevertheless, Dumbledore brings up Harry not being good at Occlumency, which could indicate that he had used it.

I don't think he did

but it's possible to make an argument that he did based on Dumbledore's wording.

No. Harry would know if legilimency was being used on him, as when Snape used legilimency on Harry (all emphasis added) :

“Liar,” said Snape.

Harry’s throat went dry.

He knew what Snape was going to do and he had never been able to prevent it. …

The bathroom seemed to shimmer before his eyes; he struggled to block out all thought, but try as he might, the Half-Blood Prince's copy of Advanced Potion-Making swam hazily to the forefront of his mind.

And then he was staring at Snape again, in the midst of this wrecked, soaked bathroom.

He stared into Snape's black eyes, hoping against hope that Snape had not seen what he feared, but – Here, what Snape was trying to see "swam [...] to the forefront of his [Harry's] mind", so Harry was an observer as well as Snape.

This did not happen when Dumbledore gave Harry a piercing look; I guess he was just looking sharply at Harry.

Remember, Dumbledore was extremely smart and had a lot of information that Harry didn't.

Chances are that he could guess anything he was a bit uncertain about simply by observing Harry closely and his reactions to what Dumbledore was saying.

I doubt it.

If Dumbledore wouldn't use Legilimency on Slughorn to learn what he had told Riddle all those years ago, instead relying on Slughorn being honest, why would he read Harry's mind instead of just asking him?

What ZenLogic said about Harry's free will is extremely important.

You have to remember that Dumbledore had taught literally hundreds of students, so Dumbledore's "piercing look" would have been something he had used for decades.

I believe it is simply reading the non-verbal cues of a child that is not yet in control of their emotions.

Question: At many points in the story, when Dumbledore asks Harry something, he gives him a piercing look. It makes me wonder if that is Dumbledore using Legilemency against him. Is he?

Is Dumbledore using Legilimency when he gives Harry a "piercing look"?

There is some confusion on this topic. Dumbledore may be using legilmency, although he may also be making educated guesses as to what Harry is thinking. However, Dumbledore mentions that Harry is not good at Occlumency, which could indicate that he had used it.

It is likely Dumbledore would simply ask Harry what is on his mind or take a guess at what is on his mind instead of practising Legilimency on him. However, Dumbledore mentions Harry is not very good at Occlumency which might suggest he is using Legilimency on him at this point.

It is likely Dumbledore would simply ask Harry what is on his mind or take a guess at what is on his mind instead of practising Legilimency on him. Dumbledore mentions Harry is not very good at Occlumency which might suggest he is using Legilimency on him at this point.


The only rule when it comes to time spent in Narnia is that there is no rule about time spent in Narnia.

Lewis intentionally made things inconstant, arbitrary, and dare I say, magical .

That said, Lucy enters the wardrobe to visit Mr. Tumnus at one point, and then Edmund comes in a few moments later.

They leave the wardrobe together, and end up at some point after Edmund comes in.

So in your example, they'd probably exit in the second person's time.

The comparison between Narnian time and time in our world isn't consistent, except in one respect: time flows in the same direction in both worlds .

A year into the future in our world might be three years or three thousand years into the future in Narnia, but it won't be a year into the past.

So if person A enters Narnia from our world at one point (1920, say), and then person B enters ten years later (in 1930), then a certain amount of time will have passed in Narnia during those ten years in our world.

If that time is less than a human lifespan - say, twenty years or so - then A will still be alive, albeit older, when B enters, so it will be possible for them to return together.

The point at which they do so, in our world, will be after B left this world for Narnia , but we can't say more than that.

The fact that all journeys into Narnia seem to last only moments in our world seems to be a fluke - or, more likely, the will of Aslan.

It's clearly impossible that both A and B could re-enter our world only moments after they left, but it would be possible for B to do so.

The most likely answer for their time of return is probably moments after B left .

To put it another way, Peter entered Narnia in Prince Caspian approximately a year before Eustace entered it in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader .

If Peter had stayed there all that time (three years, by Narnian time), then he would still be there, perhaps together with Caspian to greet Eustace, and the two of them could then have gone back to our world together as Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace did at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader .

At the end of Prince Caspian (the book, that is), Aslan creates a door in the air.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and the Telmarines who are going to our world go through the door in single file, each successive one's hands on the previous one's shoulders (presumably the first Telmarine had to stoop to rest his/her hands on Lucy's shoulders unless he/she was quite young or very short!).

As the Pevensies pass through, they see three things at once: a glade in Narnia, a South Sea island in our world and a railway station in England.

So the portal has two simultaneous exit points in our world, and each person is directed to the right one for him or her.

While it may be assumed that both points exist at the same point in our world's time, we don't know that for certain.

Suppose the pirates who became the Telmarines' ancestors left our world in 1750 (long before Digory and Polly in The Magician's Nephew were born, so predating the creation of the Narnian world apparently, but possible if the arrow of time in the Narnian world is allowed to go backwards with respect to ours on occasion).

Then, when Aslan tells them that the original race of pirates has died out, it could be 1850, while the Pevensies arrive back in 1942 or whenever.

Since Aslan says that the island hasn't been discovered by the rest of our world yet, that's far less likely in the mid-20th Century when we have air travel and satellites are only 20 years away.

So my view is that, as the whole point of arriving back just moments after leaving is not to have anyone missing from our world for any noticeable length of time, person A would arrive back 10 years before person B.

As Aslan is God among beasts and man, the answer is simple: Whatever time he wants them to go back to.

Whether it be both the earlier time, both the later time, both their own time, or any darn time imaginable.

He is a wild lion, unrestrained by your puny sense of logic.

It can be read that the Telmarine (the people Prince Caspian leads and is from), came to Narnia after the Pevensies but are possibly from a time before them.

So linear consistency may not be a factor in travelling to and fro from Narnia.

Elaborating on the previous answers...

Towards the end of his life, Lewis had started a work that would tie his Narnia and Space Trilogy sets together called "The Dark Tower" (no relation to the Stephen King set by the same name).

Unfortunately, the work was never completed.

It starts with the premise

that time is three dimensional, that there are ways to measure it in all dimensions, that travel between timelines is possible, and that the relationships between timelines (worlds in the parlance of Narnia) are quite variable.

@Lan has the right of it with this additonal information on the nature of time in Lewis' universe.

Question: I call it "the Wardrobe Paradox." Would they arrive independently at their respective time of entry, or would one of them arrive at the other's time?

If two humans enter Narnia through the Wardrobe with 10 years between them and come back to our world together, at what point in time do they arrive?

Opinions differ. Some say that i this  example, they'd probably exit in the second person's time. Others claim that as the whole point of arriving back just moments after leaving is not to have anyone missing from our world for any noticeable length of time, person A would arrive back 10 years before person B. However, others maintain that the most likely answer for their time of return is probably  moments after B left .

Person A would likely arrive back 10 years before Person B though it is possible Person B could return immediately upon leaving. If Person B can return immediately upon leaving, then Person A and Person B will be able to return together.


It's not saying the word "Shazam" that results in his transformation, it's saying the word " Shazam! "

(complete with exclamation mark in most cases) and with the intention of transforming .

As you see from the panel below from the Curse of Shazam , he's perfectly capable of introducing himself without transforming:

In short, he introduces himself by saying "Hello, I'm Shazam"

Saying Shazam!

only matters when William Batson has focused his will and intent behind it.

At any other time it's just a word.

In the New52 version of Shazam, we are introduced to the Justice League (Justice League #00, 2012) with the retelling of the origins of the Big Red Cheese .

When Billy Batson appears in the tower of the Rock of Eternity, the last of the wizards awaits him.

The wizard, running out of time tells Batson to say Shazam.

Batson tentatively asks "Shazam?

" Nothing happens.

The wizard admonishes him when nothing happens.

This time, when Batson says it with intent: In previous continuities, it was possible for Batson (or any of his partners) to say their "magic word" by accident and be transformed or at least trigger the lightning.

Likely this effect was played for humor in the early decades of the character's existence.

Spoiler warning for Shazam! (2019):

The movie reintroduces the problem Shazam has when introducing himself.

During the scene where he explains himself to Darla, he mentions how the wizard made him say "Shazam".

As soon as he said it, he transformed, and it was clear from the scene that he didn't mean to transform.

It was a problem that Captain Marvel Jr. had as HE transformed by saying "Captain Marvel".

However , it appears that, as of Shazam! #1 (January 2019), Shazam has the same problem.

SHAZAM: You're going to have to guess.

I've been having a bit of trouble saying my name recently.

As you can see from the picture, Billy is saying that he no longer has control of the lightning when he says the Word.

The characters of the name SHAZAM!

all represent a powerful champion, even the exclamation point.

"It took the combined might of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury and ! to stop and contain Mister Mind." Shazam, current run, issue 2 tells us there was another champion, represented by "!" that is part of Billy's transformation.

Therefore, the exclamation point is part of the name, and if only "Shazam" and not "Shazam!" is spoken, the transformation is not triggered.

Question: Shazam turns into a superhero and back by saying his name. So how does he introduce himself?

How does Shazam tell people his name?

He introduces himself by saying "Hello, I'm Shazam". "Shazam!" with an exclamation point is needed to transform.

He introduces himself by saying "Hello, I’m Shazam" or, most importantly, by saying "Shazam!" with an exclamation mark to trigger his transformation.


The only indication that Sauron had anything to do with the Balrog is given in a footnote to Appendix A in Return of the King : Or released from prison; it may well be that it had already been awakened by the malice of Sauron.

However, this doesn't imply any service or even awareness (and as both were Maiar in origin it's hard to imagine either serving the other), and it's difficult to reconcile with the Balrog's inactivity during the destruction of Eregion in the Second Age, when surely it would have been more useful: The power of Moria endured throughout the Dark Years and the dominion of Sauron, for though Eregion was destroyed and the gates of Moria were shut, the halls of Khazad-dûm were too deep and strong and filled with a people too numerous and valiant for Sauron to conquer from without.

A Balrog would certainly have been useful during the battles at the end of the Third Age, but you're forgetting that Sauron's policy was one of secrecy for a long time, and it was only quite late that he went to open war: by which time the Balrog had already been destroyed.

I was browsing through Appendix B in

The Return of the King

and I came across some interesting points from the Third Age calendar: 1980:

A balrog appears in Moria and slays Durin VI.

2480: Orcs begin to make secret strongholds in the Misty Mountains.

Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures.

There's no doubt in my mind that Sauron knew of Durin's Bane's existence by (and probably far earlier than)

the time the War of the Ring started.

Some servant, hiding underground doing nothing.

Nah, he was Melkor's servant, just as Sauron was.

That's why he ended up in Moria.

With Melkor gone, that whole army kind of crept off and hid away.

Smaug pillaged a bit and fell asleep inside a mountain.

Balrogs crept underground and stayed there.

Shelob too, found some cave and led pretty much a normal spider lifestyle (well, people instead of flies, but hey, she's big).

Sauron's army, on the other hand - orcs, trolls, nazgul - was pretty active, since it had its commander.

Although when Sauron bit the dust they basically did what Mekor's gang did.

Seems the standard operation for these dark guys is lose it and scatter when their leader goes.

No, the balrog was unrelated to Sauron.

Sauron no doubt knew about balrogs, having been a servant of Melkor, who created them.

But from all that's shown in the LOTR there's no evidence he controlled the one in Moria, or even was in communication with it (the orcs seemed to hold the balrog as some sort of demi-god more than another asset of Sauron

, it's not even sure whether the orcs of Moria were under control of Sauron or an independent group, left over from the distant past).

From the books, Moria was a dark and evil place all of its own, its hatred for the company the result of an ingrained hatred of everything else (and probably especially of dwarves), rather than aimed specifically at them.

Gandalf the Grey defeated Durin's Bane although he did die

but Gandalf the White was easily overpowered by the Witch King who is not really as strong as Sauron

so the possibility that Durin's Bane could be a servant of Sauron is there in terms of power but

in the story there was no clear evidence that Durin's Bane was a servant of Sauron.

No The Balrog may have been an ally though because like Sauron Durins Bane once served Morgoth so undoubtedly they knew each other as Sauron was Morgoths top lieutenant & in The Silmarillion, Sauron once lead a group of Balrogs in an attack against the Noldor in Bereiland during the first age

No .

Durin's Bane and Sauron are both servants of Morgoth, but Durin's Bane doesn't serve Sauron.

Not so much an answer, than to highlight a possible tactic in Sauron placing the Balrog in Moria.. and thus supporting the hypothesis of Sauron having influence over the Balrog..

Sauron certainly didn't rush his rebuilding after any defeats in the first two ages.

I propose that, in a long calculated stratagem for victory in the Third Age, he would seek all potential retreats and strongholds for his enemies, be eradicated or controlled.

He warped Saruman to his service via the palantir, having him build an army and, amongst other things, destroy Helm's Deep.

What other stronghold, (ignoring Gondor) would have remained, but for the Balrog and the Goblins?

Moria would have clearly been capable of hosting an extremely large number of refugees and retreated armies.

Tens of thousands easily.

Sauron would surely have considered this.

I discount the Realms of the Elves as realistic similar retreats for various reasons, chiefly the difficulty of accepting Dwarves.

With regard to why the Balrog got there after the War Of Wrath, and so long before the Third Age, is probably the main issue with this theory.

Issued there by a clever and far sighted Sauron, guessing the future inevitability of Moria and the dwarves?

Anyway, yea.

There you go.

Conjecture I know, but from the strategic mind of Sauron the Great?!

Surely a certainty... or not..

Question: Just wondering if Durin's Bane was under orders from Sauron when he fought Gandalf and if Sauron would have the power to control a Balrog? Sauron did have servants in Moria but if the Balrog served him why keep such a powerful force in there? Wouldn't it make more sense to have him leading his armies?

Was Durin's Bane a servant of Sauron?

There was no clear evidencein the story that Durin's Bane was a servant of Sauron.

Durin’s Bane is not controlled by Sauron nor is there any clear evidence he is a servant of Sauron. In fact, the pair might even be allies.

Durin’s Bane is not controlled by Sauron nor is there any clear evidence he is a servant of Sauron. There is a chance Sauron and Durin’s Bane are allies.


In the book to create a new house it typically has to be granted to you by a highlord or the king.

A knight winning favor may be then risen to a lord and given land.

As for your question whats to stop say a rich merchant to have land and set himself up, in Westeros it appears that all land is owned by the crown first, high lords second (Stark, Greyjoy, Lannister, Tyrell, others) then given out by highlords to the lesser lords.

Therefore as is typical in medieval Europe, especially Britain, there is no way to own your own land or to go into the woods and claim land to become a noble.

Now as a side note say you are a wealthy merchant, you may be able to buy yourself land from the king, highlord and receive a title for a price, this seems to follow Westeros style politics though I don't recall any instances of it happening as of yet.

Edit - also say you set yourself up as a lord without approval, your local lord or highlord will come and kill you for treason ASAP.

A run of the mill peasant can't declare himself lord of anything.

For the simple reason that he doesn't own the land he lives and works on .

A commoner rents the land from its owner, who is a lord.

Which is why being given lands is such a big deal in Westeros (and any feudal state).

A title is just an empty honorific without land.

There are countless knights running around in Westeros, desperately looking for employment because the vast majority of knights are not landed knights, i.e. the title didn't come with lands.

Westeros operates under a Feudal system .

In such a system, if anyone steps out of line, someone above them in the hierarchy will be there to... remind them of their place.

For example, a Lord might have a peasant executed for treason for declaring themselves a Lord.

In order for a new house to be established then, it would fall to someone with the proper authority to grant a family the titles.

We see this quite a bit over the course of the story.

For example, after the Battle of the Blackwater , many of the fighting men are granted honors, lands, titles, etc by the crown.

In the Game of Thrones taking a house and giving yourself a name is more complicated than is described.

You have to find a area that no one owns.

You have to be able to protect it from other people and thieves.

And as Justin Either's answer says: a Lord might have a peasant executed for treason for declaring themselves a Lord.

You have to have the necessary forces.

You can see from here: On Dragonstone, Stannis declares he is the true heir of Robert Baratheon to the Iron Throne, as Joffrey has no true claim to the throne.

Since the king's death Stannis has been gathering what strength he can from the lords of the narrow sea and from Myrish and Lyseni sellswords, but his forces are too few to challenge the Lannisters in King's Landing You have to be able to defend the position you say you have.

Just anyone can't do that.

I mean Stannis barely did it.

In either position you have to have power.

I mean the series is called "Game of Thrones".

Its a game of power, you either fight for your position or you get dethroned.

There are actually two separate questions you ask: How does one found a House, and how does one become a lord.

There are many noble Houses that do not have lords.

Prominent examples at the start of ASoIaF are House Poole, the stewards of Winterfell, and House Clegane, whose head is known as Ser Gregor.

The general rule seems to be that only Houses that rule over lands and castles are called Lords, although the Cleganes prove there are exceptions.

Lordless Houses seem to be created primarily through knighthood.

Two characters, Davos and Rolly, obtain surnames of their own creation upon being knighted.

However, some knights seem to lack surnames (such as Ser Duncan the Tall or Gendry).

My guess would be that men knighted by high lords and kings are often also granted nobility and a surname, which would limit the number of nobility.

Typically, lordship and nobility is granted-- and can be stripped-- by the high lords of the Seven Kingdoms or the King himself.

Lordship can be conferred for pretty much any reason, but usually happens after another House has gone extinct or turned traitor.

Notably we only ever see nobles raised to lordship.

Examples include the Spicers (who are named the Lords of Castamere for their role in the Red Wedding) and the Royce cadet branch (granted lordship of the Gates of the Moon by Petyr Baelish to consolidate his rule).

The title Lord is also conferred on a select few in the realm who hold certain ranks.

The head of the Night's Watch or the Kingsguard is styled Lord Commander, and members of the small council are called Lords, even someone as lowborn as Varys.

Question: What's to stop any old smallfolk from declaring himself Lord of (his dwelling), making a simple drawing, taking a last name, and sharing that name with all members of his family and their descendants? And even if that's not recognized, how would a highborn person do the same?

How does one found a house in Westeros?

Typically, lordship and nobility is granted-- and can be stripped-- by the high lords of the Seven Kingdoms or the King himself.

All land is owned by the Crown and the highlords and is distributed to the lesser Lords by both of these parties. Also, a house may be granted to a person upon being knighted and small folk are killed for treason for declaring themselves as Lords without prior approval.

A new house in Westeros is typically granted to a person by highlords and kings. All land is owned by the Crown and the highlords and is distributed to the lesser Lords by both of these parties. A house may be granted to a person upon being knighted. Small folk are killed for treason for declaring themselves as Lords without prior approval.


To add a little bit on this.

The original TMNT as of the comic book had masks.

But they were all red as seen in this cover:

Thus they were only distinguishable by the weapons they carried.

The tvTropes page on the franchise gives us even more information.

It seems that the comic was originally in black/white, so the color of the "masks" was not relevant anymore.

But with the first cartoon that changed and the turtles all got their "Color Coded Character" appearance:

Even the special colored issues had the bandana masks they wear all red.

The original cartoon gave the turtles different color bandannas (which have since been used in every successive incarnation) and the action figures, different skin colors (ignored until the 2003 cartoon).

And the tvtropes wiki gives even more information: The Archie comic series Lampshaded this with a "Truth in Television" flashback story about the pre-teenaged Turtles all wearing red headbands and Splinter having difficulty telling them apart until they decide on color coding their masks a la Donald Duck's nephews.

This also seems to be the "in-universe" explanation.

To elaborate on part of my comment to Liath's post, the real-world answer is probably just that it was part of the intentional ridiculousness of the "ninja turtle" concept--as described on this page and this one , the idea started as a joke drawing during a sketch-sharing session between creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, you can see that Eastman's first sketch looked even more like a semi-realistic turtle wearing a ninja outfit:

A stubby-legged large-bodied turtle is about the last creature you'd expect to have ninja-like reflexes, hence the humor of giving it a ninja outfit (which naturally includes a mask, since ninjas are known to hide their faces) and a tough-looking expression.

Whether any attempt was ever made to give an in-universe explanation for why they would need masks, I don't know.

You could imagine it was an aesthetic choice on Splinter's part, since as mentioned here his original origin story was that he learned martial arts when he was a pet of a real ninja named Hamato Yoshi and practiced mimicking his moves, so he may have felt motivated to imitate the clothing style as well after he mutated and began to train the turtles.

If you never heard of this comic and someone were to ask you to draw a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

" then in all probability you would draw some type of walking turtle wearing a mask and carrying a sword or some other appropriate weapon.

You might also draw it in some kind of ninja outfit.

Point is, in the eyes of the general person, there are certain defining characteristics to what can be called a ninja.

One of them is most definitely the presence of a mask.

Without the mask, it would be "Teenage mutant fighting turtle" or the like that coincidentally might make use of ninja-like weapons.

I doubt the original creator/artist had in mind the practicality of giant turtles masquerading as ninjas.

He just drew the concept as he saw it in his head.

From there, the characters were pretty much established.

So, just to play Devil's advocate here, (fictional) ninja do not wear eye masks.

Doing a google image search for ninja shows tens and tens of images looking like: Their entire body is hidden in black and only the area where the ninja turtles have their masks is visible.

So, how would the ninja turtles have looked like real ninjas?

I drew up a quick sketch:

Doubt anybody would have recognized that as turtles rather than oddly fat ninjas.

So during the first sketching game one of the creators must have decided to instead inverse the entire outfit, leaving some resemblance of how ninja's look without any parts of the actual ninja outfit thus answering why the ninja turtles wear masks instead of ninja outfits.

Well, let's see.

Those guys have no eyebrows, so after a couple of minutes of skipping around all that forehead sweat starts going straight into their eyes.

And yes, ok, turtles don't sweat.

But after their transformation they became all sorts of active, so there has to be a way to get rid of all the body heat.

You don't see them walk around with tongues hanging out,

so canine-style heat loss isn't it.

They don't roll around in cool mud, so that's out too.

Basically, they behave like humans.

Most likely they developed an ability to sweat.

So, without eyebrows, headbands are basically a must-have accessory for them.

But they don't exactly have many options of where to put headbands.

Have you seen their heads?

Not a hell of a lot of space up there for a headband.

So their only option is to cut eye holes in the headbands and put them over their face.

It's basic survival for them.

They'd probably gladly take em off, but then they're blind out there.

The only answer I can give is an out of universe one (I'd love someone to answer in-universe!).

The turtles are colour coded:

Leonardo - Blue Donatello - Purple Michelangelo - Orange Raphael - Red

In the original comics the characters had no voices (clearly)

so their weapons were the only other way to distinguish between the characters, which is no use if they're not fighting or are disarmed.

So the original comic book authors needed some clothing.

What's the distinctive clothing of a ninja?

Ninjas wear masks!

Like in the movie 3 ninjas , they wore masks.

Its also so we can identify them.

Question: This is something I don't understand. Are they trying to hide their identities? How many turtles are there that can stand on their feet? Is it because they are ninjas? Again the shell is a big give away.

Why do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wear masks?

Ninjas are known to wear masks as part of their outfit. We also identify the turtles by their masks.

The turtles wouldn’t be named Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles without the mask because ninjas wear masks to hide their faces and the mask aids their identity as Ninja Turtles and allows them to mask their faces

Ninjas are known to hide their faces by wearing masks. The turtles wouldn’t be named Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles without the mask because the mask aids their identity as Ninja Turtles.


Almost a tie with " Get Smart ": Kiss of Death, Airdate: Saturday, Dec. 31, 1966 , 8:30 PM, Writers: Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, Director: Bruce Bilson Max rescues Tracy Dunhill, a rich heiress who then falls in love with him.

Unknown to Max, Dunhill is actually a member of the Daughters of KAOS.

She is seeking revenge against Max, who killed her father, the founder of U.S. KAOS.

She invites Max to a party at her apartment where she will kill him with poison lipstick .

Agent 13 is stationed inside a sofa in the apartment, but he's drunk and unable to save Max from the deadly lips.

As Richard pointed out, there's also this autobiographical reference:

From an interview with Baroness Carla Jenssen in The Brownsville Herald, by Gilbert Swan, May 31 1932: Despite the girlishly engaging gesture, the reporter shuddered just a little.

"Just a few years ago," he suggested, "had I but smelled this bud

—there would have been sudden sleep—I would have awakened hours later from drugged dreams—"Yes, that's quite true!"

came the calm reply. "

And if you had accepted one of my cigarettes something similar might have happened.

Had you wooed me, and been a man who held secrets of state or information I wanted—well, you might have fallen in love with me.

At least, I should have pretended to be a seductress.

And when a man kissed me—again, morphia!

For coated on my lips, on my teeth and on the roof of the mouth was a certain lethal preparation.

We who were in the service and were women were trained to apply it, with a thin coating to protect ourselves.

When men kissed, the coating came off—and then I would search their rooms, their baggage and their clothes until I found what I wanted."

She is the Baroness Carla Jenssen, late of the British secret service.

Now she has arrived in America but recently from London to discuss arrangements for a prosaic lecture tour, to look over the American radio broadcast prospects and check up on the filming of a book, "I Spy," which she wrote concerning her adventures.

Jenssens's " I Spy " was published in 1930, by Dodd, Mead & company and by Jarrolds.

It doesn't look like it has been... scanned?

ebooked?...

It looks like it's not commercially available in a downloadable format yet.

No idea who invented the concept, but the first time I read about it in a Sci Fi Novel as a teenager was in the Mag Force 7 series from Margaret Weis and Don Perrin.

I think it was Knights of the Black Earth (but it might have been Robot Blues), published in 1995 (96 for Robot blues), so before the Firefly series.

Raoul de Beausoleil has perfectly applied lipstick during a ball.

I'm almost certain

he mentions he has a cover layer to prevent it touching his lips and he admits after the assassination is complete he'll take the antidote just to be sure.

He leaves a perfect kiss mark on the back of the hand of his mark who jokes to his friends about it.

(It mentions his lipstick assassination in this Wiki article)

I'm sure someone can come up with an earlier example, but that's the first time I encountered it.

The earliest reference to it can be found in North by northwest (1959).

Mr. Tornhill (played by Cary Grant) goes to the art auction where he meets the villain.

Until then, the villain had been trying to kill him by various methods.

He had hired a woman to play muse to Cary on a train which Cary comes to know after the assassination attempts on him.

Cary, in his characteristic style confronts him with the question:

"I wonder what subtle form of manslaughter is next on the program.

Am I to be dropped into a vat of molten steel and become part of a new skyscraper, or are you going to ask this female to kiss me again and poison me to death?"

Possibly still not the inventor, and it was fantasy, but poisoned lipstick showed up in the November 21, 1966 episode of Gilligan's Island , "The Invasion", as part of Gilligan's dream of being a super-spy.

Although, looking at some descriptions of the episode, it fails at the "doesn't harm the wearer" test, although apparently because Gilligan's kiss (wearing plastic lip protectors) is so vigorous that the poison "bounces back" on her.

Another early reference of poisonous lipstick includes a fictional super-villain in the DC comics and movies, Posion Ivy , particularly during her first appearance in book #181 of a Batman comic series in June 1966 .

Because of this, she is commonly in association with the superhero Batman, but one of her special abilities is having poisonous lipstick.

Poison Ivy was created by Robert Kanigher and Sheldon Moldoff, where she used plant toxins and mind-controlling chemicals to defeat her enemies, in addition to the poisonous lipstick.

An example of her using her poisonous lipstick is in the movie, Batman & Robin , made in 12 June, 1997 .

An example of her using her mind-controlling special ability is in a 2009 comic book Batman HUSH written by Jeph Loeb and pencilled by Jim Lee, where she takes control of Superman in the last part of Chapter Four: The City, but that is irrelevant to the topic of the question (although it nonetheless provides some insight into her character).

This may not be a full answer, because the ticked answer above has perhaps the earliest reference, but I wanted to add to that answer.

I am also new to all of this.

Question: In the Firefly episode “ Our Mrs. Reynolds ”, Saffron is able to temporarily knock out Mal by getting him to kiss her after treating her lips with some kind of knock-out agent (Inara later gets some of the same).  In Doctor Who, Professor River Song uses a similar technique – an  hallucinogenic lipstick  to escape her cell when she needs to.  My question is – What is the earliest reference in a work of science fiction/fantasy to a lipstick that would  poison the kissee but not the kisser?

What is the earliest reference to a poisoned lipstick in a work of science fiction?

The earliest reference of a poisoned lipstick may be Jenssens's " I Spy ", published in 1930.

The earliest reference to a poisonous lipstick that would poison the kiseee and not the kisser may appear in: North by Northwest (1959); Knights of the Black Earth (1995); Robot Blues (1996); Gillian’s Island episode "The Invasion" (1966); Batman Comic Series (1966); Mag Force 7; I Spy (1930); or "Get Smart" Kiss of Death (1966)


In terms of pure speed, in their respective universes, the Flash (Barry Allen) is faster, by far, than Quicksilver .

When Marvel and DC have had crossovers between Universes, Quicksilver's powers remained constant due to their mutant origins (which presupposes his body has been organically adapted for the use of superhuman speed)

while the Flash's speed is an aspect of an external power which he may not have access to in the Marvel Universe.

With great effort, the Flash may reach the speed of light, in atmosphere, without deleterious environmental effects!

Quicksilver has been seen at a top speed of four or five times the speed of sound (Mach 4 or 5).

This level of speed for Quicksilver is new.

He used to max out at Mach 1.

Since crossover events are exceedingly rare, it is safe to assume that if you were comparing their speeds, the Flash is consistently faster than Quicksilver, though operationally speaking both could be consider comparable since their feats tend to be done at the same overall speed.

Generally speaking, the Flashes of the previous DC Universe continuity were far faster than almost anyone else in their universe with superspeed because they are able to channel a temporal phenomenon called the Speed Force.

Other speedsters haven't had as pure a connection and as a result are only a fraction as fast.

See:

Johnny Quick , Jesse Quick (Chambers) , Max Mercury

In the New52 universe, Barry Allen appears to be the only Flash on Prime Earth with a connection to the Speed Force.

The renewed Jay Garrick on Earth 2 is now receiving his power from the god Mercury and does not (as far as we currently know) utilize Speed Force energies.

There was a version of the Flash on Earth 3 called Johnny Quick whose powers were the same as the Flash's of Prime Earth.

He is now deceased.

UPDATE:

To answer a question regarding both of these speedster's thinking capacities: Both have shown they are able to use their minds faster than an ordinary human.

Given their need to have increased perception abilities to handle their bodies moving far faster than any ordinary human's.

If they were unable to speed their cognitive abilities they would likely die once they were moving faster than about two hundred miles an hour because they would be limited by their human reflex time.

There is already a question here answering Barry Allen's (The Flash) ability to think at superhuman speed.

Given Barry's far greater speed, he would also likely need to be able to think at a far faster rate than Quicksilver.

Baring that, he would at least need a reaction time far greater than Quicksilver's in order to control his much higher top speeds.

See:

Can The Flash See the Future Now?

Depends on the universe.

In DC, Flash can beat the speed of light while Quicksilver tops out at Mach 4.

However, in the crossover events, we've learned that Flash cannot access the speed force in the Marvel universe and cannot go faster than Mach 1 while Quicksilver has the same speed in either universe.

Source

The below image is a common image macro / meme used to address Flash's reaction time and speed.

It is taken from the post-Crisis pre-New52 era Superman story arc "Grounded" (part 7, Superman Vol.

No. 709)

wherein Superman walks across America reflecting on his relation to it and, at one point, asks Flash (Barry Allen) about what he sees.

There is no explicit proof that such continuity is preserved in the current line except for Grant Morrison's Multiversity project and his position that: “People have this idea of canon, but there is no canon,” he says.

“To me, it’s all real.

Every comic you ever read is real.”

Arguably a philosophical position, but distinguishable as he is an architect of the DCU with the ability to actively shape its continuity.

Nonetheless, it is instructive in the creator's perception as to the magnitude of Flash's speed as conceived of by J. Michael Straczynski, written by Chris Roberson, and vetted by Eddie Berganza.

Such sentiments have carried into the New 52 with feats such as these: By comparison, Quicksilver is generally perceived as a super-sonic, rather tha super-luminal, speedster.

The most notable exception is when exposed to the Terrigen Mists which enabled him to time travel and create temporal duplicates of himself.

However, the ability took a severe toll on him and such abilities are commonplace to the Flash family.

Impluse (Bart Allen) similarly had temporal duplicates and several iterations ofthe Flash and members of the Flash family can time travel.

Thus, Flash is consistently portrayed as faster by an order of several magnitudes.

Which flash are we talking about?

The Barry Allen flash is technically the fastest thing in both universes [1] .

In terms of his max speed, he can "run faster than the speed of thought" [2] (which is a really weird way of saying hes infinitely fast).

Flash (BARRY ALLAN)

In Flash #150, "straining every muscle," he ran at ten times the speed of light.

And lets see this pic - Death of THE FLASH

HE IS THE FASTEST THING IN ALL UNIVERSES full size of pic: http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121005105640/marvel_dc/images/5/57/Flash_0050.jpg

Question: We see a lot of information about both of them, but is there a specific speed that each one can reach? I'm trying to figure out the current speed of each one, in the current comics line.

Who's faster? Quicksilver or Flash?

In Flash #150, "straining every muscle," he ran at ten times the speed of light. Quicksilver has been seen at a top speed of four or five times the speed of sound (Mach 4 or 5). Flash is faster.

Flash may reach or surpass the speed of light and Quicksilver is known to run at a speed that far surpasses the speed of sound.


The Death Star's natural gravitational field would be exceedingly weak.

The Death Star was described as a "small moon" in Star Wars; Wikipedia lists the first Death Star's diameter as 140 to 160 kilometers.

A large moon like ours, 3500km of solid rock, only produces a gravitation field 17% of Earth's at its surface.

The Death Star, besides being much smaller than our Moon, is also mostly hollow, the reason being that you don't build something that big unless you really need the interior space.

The Death Star at its surface would not have a gravitational field of even a thousandth that of Earth, and the field would decrease as you moved into the interior of the station.

Given the weak field, there's nothing to be gained by orienting the floors relative to it.

A radial orientation means all windows are skylights.

If you're lucky enough to have a window office in the Death Star, it would be much nicer if you could sit in your executive chair and look out at the stars without craning your neck.

But if the floor is always pointed toward the center of the station, then the windows out are necessarily on the ceiling.

The Emperor seemed to prefer normal windows.

A radial structure would give the floors and ceilings a noticable curvature, which would get more pronounced closer to the interior.

Flat objects, like regular furniture, wouldn't be flush with the ground: all of their weight would be carried by their centre, with the edges sticking out above the floor (or, more accurately, the floor would stick out under the edges).

Not only would this require expensive custom furniture and equipment, but the curvature on inner levels would be greater than the outer levels, so equipment would only sit properly within a particular range of levels.

"Local flatness", eg.

per room, wouldn't work either:

Items

nearer the walls would roll towards the centre, which is technically "down hill"

The layout of rooms on each level would have to depend on those above and below it, to avoid floors and ceilings "pinching" together.

Alternatively, some extra space could be allocated to allow for pinching (eg.

with adjustable floor/ceiling tiles on pistons), but this reduces the number of levels that can fit in the structure.

Floor plans couldn't be revised by simply moving walls around: the floors would need to be altered and walls from one place might not fit in another.

There would be abrupt changes between the sections, eg.

at doors and along corridors.

Large spaces like hangars would need to be split into several areas with different floor orientations.

The design you're describing is very similar to that of Centrepoint Station , a large space station in the Corellian system .

Its construction pre-dates the invention of artificial gravity without spin in the Star Wars universe.

By the time the Death Star is constructed, however, artificial gravity is commonplace.

It makes sense, therefore, for the Death Star to use the pre-existing and commonly used artificial gravity convention used in all other Imperial construction, rather than pursuing a radically different design philosophy, no matter how much sense it might make from a physics background.

All the above answers are good, but I'd also like to add that with a radial layout, only one layer would be on the surface of the station: a single shell surrounding the entire sphere.

Obviously you could divide that "surface level" into different zones for different operations, but it would quickly become unwieldy to have, for example, a docking station where ships come down from the roof and then you have to go down a series of floors for different levels of operation.

Much better to have a sphere with flat levels equivalent to latitude, so that the re-supply docks can be at a certain latitude while the military docks can be elsewhere, etc.

With a flat level structure every floor has a ring of surface contact around the edge, allowing for more efficient transfer of objects and ships between the interior of the station and the outside, and easier localization of different departments and facilities along a single floor of the facility.

Given fixed density, gravitational acceleration at the surface of a spherical body is proportional to the radius of the body (mass goes up as the cube of radius, but gravity falls off with the square of distance from the center of gravity).

Thus, the gravity of a solid rock Death Star of the same density as Earth's moon would be on the order of 0.007 Earth gravities at the outer edge, and decreasing as you go deeper.

The Death Star isn't solid rock; a large fraction of its volume filled with nitrogen and oxygen gas, hundreds of times less dense.

This means the artificial gravity generators still have to do more than 99.3% of the work even if you orient floors center-ward.

The Empire was obviously not concerned with engineering efficiencies of that order.

Question: The Death Star is large enough to have its own gravitational field. One would expect that the preferred "down" direction points toward its center, instead of running from pole to pole. However, the pictures of the incomplete station show a structure that favors two perpendicular directions. How come?

Why isn't the Death Star's structure radial?

Being hollow, the Death Star's gravitational field would be weak, so there is nothing to be gained by orienting the floors relative to it.  The flat, level structure makes movement around the Death Star easier and prevents curvature of the interior space.

A radial structure would mean a weak gravitational field, no view from the windows and the curvature of the floors and ceilings would decrease the size of the interior. Moreover, the layout of each room and the floor plans could not be moved around as easily.

A radial structure would mean a weak gravitational field. It is impossible to see out of the windows of a radial structure. A radial structure would make the curvature of the floors and ceilings more noticeable and would decrease the size of the interior. The layout of each room and the floor plans could not be moved around as easily.


Probably Hexanerax 2 in Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke, given that Robert L Forwards's Dragon's Egg is a neutron star not a planet.

Here's how it is described: The planet was absolutely flat.

Its enormous gravity had long ago crushed into one uniform level the mountains of its fiery youth--mountains whose mightiest peaks had never exceeded a few metres in height.

Yet there was life here, for the surface was covered with a myriad geometrical patterns that crawled and moved and changed their colour.

It was a world of two dimensions, inhabited by beings who could be no more than a fraction of a centimetre in thickness.

That's pretty much all we know about it -- it's a throwaway vision, not the setting for any of the novel.

(Hal Clement's Mesklin from Mission of Gravity is an obvious contender, but its gravity is a mere 3G at the equator where the known life is, and 665G at the poles, which is probably still less than Hexanerax 2 as described.)

I'll venture that the winner is none other than our old favourite; Krypton .

Without focusing on specific numbers, the surface gravity on Krypton would have to be tens of thousands of times heavier than Earth to meet the description below.

It was "The Black-Hole Planet."

Nothing ever left.

It was as dense as a newborn star and as dark as the pit.

From a more conventional planet with crusted frozen oceans, life should at the very least have reflected so much that astronomers in nearby systems might at first have mistaken it for a star.

It was so heavy that space itself contracted around it.

A dull green glow, the backwash of starlight that collected in its atmosphere, reflected downward to streak Krypton's daytime sky with red-shifted luminous clouds and light its nights with a phosphorescent pink.

The light radiated from every horizon.

The days were barely brighter than Krypton's nights.

It took an enormous expense of energy to launch anything from the world's surface.

Even a nuclear-powered vessel designed to accelerate across lightyears of space needed to tap the thermal energy of the planet's underground in order to trigger a reaction big enough just to escape Krypton's terrible attraction.

Even on a world whose population's profligate use of energy had actually slowed the planet's self-destruction, Jor-El realized that his use of so much power in one burst would certainly attract attention.

He gave himself the chance to make the only test of his prototype starcraft.

If we're just looking at heavyworld sci-fi in general, then you can't got far wrong with Flux by Stephen Baxter.

The main characters are tiny humans living inside the surface of a neutron star rather than merely living on the surface, like the wimpy lifeforms in Dragon's Egg

I don't remember the name of the story; but you didn't ask that.

I believe that the answer might be Jupiter .

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story in his robots series about the "ZZ" line of robot,which was designed to travel to the surface (!) of Jupiter.

Three of them traveled there in a non-airtight spaceship(rather than try to build something that could withstand the atmospheric pressure).

They encountered creatures that were sufficiently

advancedthat they attacked the robots with weapons (although not effectively).

By far not the one with the highest density (looking at Mike's and Richard's answers here), but Perry Rhodan issue #16, "Die Geister von Gol", was about a planet of 916g surface gravity, making it a #3 entry at the time of posting.

Rhodan and his crew navigated the surface with tracked multi-purpose vehicles ("Shifts"), which needed their anti-gravs (usually used to let them fly) running at max output just to keep them mobile (and not crushing the crew).

I am not sure if you could call the beings they encountered "life forms" (and neither were the protagonists), as they seemed to be energy-beings, but they were attracted by the vehicle's shields (reacting to stimulus), and drained their power supply, growing in size in the process (feeding, growth), so let's call them "life".

The highest gravity planet to bear human life in the PR universe would be Oxtorne, a 4.8g world.

A shipwrecked crew of emigrants managed, with the help of genetic engineering, to adapt to the harsh environment of their world within four generations.

Not as much gravity as a neutron star, but Iain M Banks's The Algebraist features a race called the Dwellers who float around inside of gas giants throughout the galaxy.

ZanLynx mentioned in the comments the Hades Matrix from Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series, a neutron star that was somehow converted into an impossibly dense and powerful computer so that a long-dead race could go on living as programs within the matrix.

So they're not exactly life forms in high gravity, but maybe it still counts.

First Mesklin popped my mind from "Starlight" by Hal Clement.

It is a true planet (not a neutron star like Hexanerax2) and it has a solid surface (unlike the aforementioned gas giants), but it has a size of a smaller gas planet and a shape

so distorted that the strenght of the gravity on its equator is slightly different than on its poles.

Stephen Baxters Flux tells a story about a "human" civilization living on a neutron star.

Not really humans, but made by humans to be able to live on the neutron star.

Question: I've just started reading  Foundation  and Gaal Dornick has landed on Trantor for the first time and notices that:   The air seemed thicker here, the gravity a bit greater, than on hishome planet of Synnax...   This prompted me to wonder,  what is the highest gravity planet mentioned in science fiction that has lifeforms?  Edit 1: I am specifically asking about planets with solid surfaces.  Edit 2: I am referring to the gravitational force at the surface.

In science fiction, which planet with lifeforms has the largest gravitational force?

Hexanerax 2, Krypton, the planet in Flux by Stephen Baxter, and Oxtorne are all suggested answers to this question.

The possibilities are as follows: Hexanerax 2, Mesklin, Krypton, the Black-Hole Planet, Jupiter and Oxtorne. The planet in Flux by Stephen Baxter is also a contender.


First of all, Dumbledore did NOT tell Harry the full truth (SHOCKER, right?).

He didn't actually see "himself holding socks" as the main part of an image:

Allie:

What did dumbledore truly see in the mirror of Erised?

J.K. Rowling:

He saw his family alive, whole and happy – Ariana, Percival and Kendra all returned to him, and Aberforth reconciled to him.

(source: J.K. Rowling Web Chat Transcript Jul 30, 2007 ) Now, whether he wears socks or not is unstated, but based on the rest of the answer, I would posit that yes, he does.

I would say that he did NOT outright lie (from a certain point of view :), and the socks answer was a way he hinted at the truth : The rest of the quote explains it:

"I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."

Harry stared.

"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "

Another Christmas has come and gone

and I didn't get a pair.

People will insist on giving me books ."

( Philosopher's Stone ) What Dumbledore wants isn't really socks .

What he wants is family - someone who will give him comfortable socks for Christmas and not co-workers or associates who will give him books.

Interestingly, we could surmise that this is what Dumbledore actually meant purely from the books, without JKR's interview quote above (as proof, edit history will show that I posted this part of the answer before I remembered about the interview :) JKR hints at the truth in two other places, and the first one is why the "Christmas" thing was important in the PS quote: JKR makes a big deal of Harry getting clothes from Mrs. Weasley: ...'

My mum.

I told her you didn't expect any presents and –

oh, no,' he groaned, 'she's made you a Weasley jumper.'

Harry had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of home-made fudge.

Every year she makes us a jumper,' said Ron, unwrapping his own, 'and mine's always maroon.'

That's really nice of her ,' said Harry, trying the fudge, which was very tasty.

(PS)

And this is an annual tradition she puts in in all the books.

JKR always goes on about how special it was for Harry to be treated as family by Weasleys (especially at the end of GoF).

Being given cloths for Christmas is a family tradition.

Something Dumbledore would severely miss.

Dumbledore lets on to Harry that the main reason he basically killed himself (accidentally - by putting on the cursed Resurrection Stone before Year 6), was because he longed to see his family: "When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts – the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons

– I lost my head, Harry.

I quite forgot that I was not a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse.

I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second

I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father , and to tell them how very, very sorry, I was...

This pretty clearly establishes what his deepest desire was, which is what the Mirror would show.

Here's a second reason why "comfortable, warm socks" is an appropriate evasive answer for Dumbledore to give: It is consistent with his persona as the wise old headmaster.

The philosophers generally agree that appreciation of life's simple pleasures , such as warm feet, is a key aspect of the wisdom that comes with age.

I think he didn't want talk with Harry about his family, it may be, because he didn't want to burden him with this information, since Harry was very young at the time or because Dumbledore was so deeply wounded by the events that he didn't want to talk about it with anyone.

It was probably a combination of both.

The socks were what he said in order to maneuver out of answering the question.

Despite the great Ms. Rowling's answer, I see more in Professor Dumbledore's.

I think there is foreshadowing symbolism in Dumbledore's assertion that he desired socks most of all.

Socks represented the familiarity of family that Dumbledore deeply regretted losing.

The complexity of the symbolism was made more explicit when Harry gave Dobby a sock to escape slavery.

The sock, in retrospect, is what Dumbledore needed to escape the slavery of everlasting guilt.

Dumbledore answered the question just not when Harry asked him about it.

He sort of also answered it when he warned Harry about the dangers of the mirror.

He sees himself getting socks in the mirror because that is what he most desires -- since he has learned that he should not dwell on things that cannot be, like this family being whole again, etc.

The idea being that Dumbledore is wise enough to know he cannot have his family back and has reconciled that, so the mirror instead shows him with warm socks.

Spoiler Alert: If you did not see Crimes of Grindelwald - Do not read.

This does not belong here, but rather here , but for some inane reason, they're marked as dupes when they're clearly not.

Dumbledore does not see socks in the Mirror, he sees Grindelwald.

Now this is only at this particular point of time, and very likely changed, but at least in Canon we know at one point, Dumbledore's greatest desire was to be united with the one he truly loved - Grindelwald.

Question: In the Harry Potter books, Prof. Dumbledore doesn't fail to mention his love for socks, but he does fail to mention the  reason  for his fascination with them.  I think that when Harry asked him what Dumbledore saw in the Mirror of Erised, the truth was he saw his family: his sister, brother and mother; but he told Harry his second favorite desire instead: Holding woolen socks. What is the meaning of this fascination?

What is Dumbledore's fascination with socks?

What Dumbledore wants is  family, someone to give him comfortable socks for Christmas. This reflects what he most desires - his family being whole.

Dumbledore regrets losing his family and the socks symbolise the profoundness of his loss and the strength of his reconciliation. Dumbledore appeciates life’s simple pleasures and doesn’t want to burden Harry with his guilt and pain and so he chooses to talk to Harry about socks instead.

Dumbledore regrets losing his family and the socks symbolise the profoundness of his loss and the strength of his reconciliation. Additionally, Dumbledore appeciates life’s simple pleasures and doesn’t want to burden Harry with his guilt and pain and so he chooses to talk to Harry about socks instead.


Yoda is not mourning the death of the Jedi after order 66.

He is physically responding to the disturbance in the force caused by the death of so many powerful Jedi.

The same way Obi Wan reacted in Episode 4 when Alderaan was destroyed.

Edited to add:

The part where Yoda is actually attacked was left out of the novelization but later, when Obi Wan freaks out about the children, this dialog occurs:

"We took them from their homes.

Obi-Wan fought to stay in his chair; the pain inside him demanded motion.

It became wave after wave of tremors.

"We promised their families—" "Control yourself, you must; still Jedi, you are!"

Yes, Master Yoda.

" That scab on his knuckle—focused on that, he could suppress the shaking.

"Yes, we are Jedi.

But what if we're the last?"

"If the last we are, unchanged our duty is.

" Yoda settled his chin onto hands folded over the head of his gimer stick.

He looked every day of his nearly nine hundred years. "

While one Jedi lives, survive the Order does.

Resist the darkness with every breath, we must.

He lifted his head and the stick angled to poke Obi-Wan in the shin. "

Especially the darkness in ourselves, young one.

Of the dark side, despair is."

The simple truth of this called to him.

Even despair is attachment: it is a grip clenched upon pain.

Slowly, very slowly, Obi-Wan Kenobi remembered what it was to be a Jedi.

So in this scene from the novelization

Yoda is clearly saying not to grieve for the dead Jedi.

It is not in the movie

and I am not clear if novelization is considered canon or not, but

well... it's here.

The difference is that a single Jedi dying is part of the cycle of Life.

That Jedi unites with the Force, and that is not something to mourn.

But the killing of all Jedi is not part of the cycle, and causes disequilibrium in the Force (and the galaxy).

Not any single one of the killed Jedi is to be mourned: they are all reuniting with the Force, but the fact that they all are being killed is to be mourned.

A different take on Envite's answer (+1, by the way), is that Yoda isn't mourning for the ones that are dying, but rather, for the ones that are doing the killing.

Yoda also trains Luke even after insisting that he's too old to begin Jedi training.

And advises him that he should never use the force as a weapon for attack, despite the Jedi having been a major combatative force in the Clone Wars.

Yoda in the prequels is learning that his own advice, that the advice of the Jedi council, does not always work .

This is a repeated theme in the original trilogy - that the Jedi's own pride and refusal to change is what led to their downfall.

Contrary to popular desire, Yoda is not necessarily the most perfect being in the universe.

If he was, perhaps he could instantaneously bring balance back to the force at the snap of his fingers.

So then, if all these other great answers are somehow incorrect, another possibility is that he is in fact mourning the death of so many Jedi.

In other words, while he has intellectual assent to his own principle of not mourning Jedi when they die, and when only a few of them dies at a time he is able to emotionally handle it, he is not able to do so when nearly ALL of them die.

It's analogous to when you see him easily lift small objects with the force, but is then visibly straining when you see him lift extremely massive objects.

I don't think canon intends to make him out to be perfect.

Just saying. :)

Perhaps it is the difference between someone dying a natural death, and someone being killed.

One is the conclusion of a life, while the other is a life being cut short.

He is mourning the tragedy of the Empire's genocide and the loss of all of the potential good contained within the Jedi Order, rather than just the loss of a friend.

Question: In Episode 3, Yoda tells Anakin,    Rejoice for those around us who transform into the Force. Mourn them, do not. Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy, the shadow of greed, that is.   However, as Order 66 is executed, it shows Yoda most definitely mourning for the Jedi who are currently being slaughtered.  Why doesn't Yoda hold true to his own advice and rejoice those who have transformed into the Force?

Why does Yoda mourn the Jedi after Order 66 is executed?

Yoda is clearly saying not to grieve for the dead Jedi.  Yoda is not mourning the death of the Jedi after order 66, he is mourning the tragedy of the Empire's genocide.

Although Yoda is not mourning the loss of the Jedi per se, it is possible he is mourning their death since they are dying unnaturally and as a result of genocide.

Yoda is not mourning the loss of the Jedi being killed. He learns that his own advice is not always practical. It is possible Yoda is mourning the death of the Jedi since they are dying unnaturally and as a result of genocide.


Micah's answer reminded me of when I had recently watched the DS9 episode Past Tense: Part 1 .

There is a scene where Sisko and Bashir are filling out forms in Sanctuary District A, when Sisko realizes what day it is.

As he's explaining the events that will occur a few days later, we get this shot of a screen on the wall: As you can see, the temperature is listed in degrees Celsius.

Since they are in a US government building, I think it's reasonable to assume that the US had switched to using Celsius at least by Friday, August 30th, 2024.

Since this predates the formation of the United Earth government, I think it's reasonable to assume they always used the metric system, at least for temperature.

So far as I can tell, nobody in Star Trek from the near future ever uses anything but the metric system .

We see people from future Earth in the following years: 2024, in the DS9

2-parter "Past Tense".

To the best of my searching ability, none of them use any units at all.

2036, in the Voyager episode "One Small Step".

There's some brief dialogue at the beginning of the episode between astronauts which involves metric units.

2050, at the very end of the Voyager episode "11:59".

There's only one line, with no units in it.

, in Star Trek: First Contact .

Lily talks about the cockpit of the Phoenix being four meters long.

When Riker reports the Phoenix 's speed (presumably reading off the instrumentation that Cochrane and Lily installed), it's in kilometers per second. ...

and then we're into the backstory of the Enterprise crew, in "Broken Bow" and "First Flight.

" I can't find any humans using units (other than warp-scale numbers) in any of the flashback scenes in either of them.

However, one Vulcan in "First Flight" does quote a length in kilometers; as they're not a Vulcan unit, this probably means the humans he's talking to use them.

So everyone who uses units, from the present up until the Enterprise era, uses the metric system.

That said, everyone who uses units, from the present up until the Enterprise era, is some kind of astronaut or scientist who might very well be using metric even if they were a present day American.

So this is all kind of shaky.

It's really too bad "

Past Tense" doesn't have any units in it, as none of its past characters are scientists or astronauts.

Additionally, there seems to have been a revival of imperial/customary units in the 23rd century; for example, in "The Doomsday Machine," atmospheric pressure aboard the Constellation is reported as "eleven pounds per square inch."

Though you could just chalk that up to Early Installment Weirdness ...

For now, only two or three countries uses the Imperial system.

In the future, probably no one is going to.

As United Earth was the unification of Earth, It's probably that they chose the most used - the metric system over other systems.

So I presume when It was created either all countries already used the metric system or It was chosen as the official one after it's creation.

I sincerely hope I could give you some information.

Bear in mind that the Imperial system is completely useless in engineering applications, and never used or taught in science or engineering courses at college or university.

So in answer to your question, Earth already uses the metric system in serious applications.

While the general public may still use imperial measurements on a united Earth, we only ever see starship crews and being trained in a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines, they'd all be used to metric anyway.

In the episode "Arena" S1/Ep18 Spock gives out the distance of enemy ground forces in yards measurements.

Question: When the crew of the Enterprise are talking to the food replicators on board about a beverage, they state the temperature in Celcius. Is there any record of when United Earth as a whole adopted the metric system?

When Did United Earth Switch to the Metric System?

As United Earth was the unification of Earth, It's probably that they chose the most used - the metric system over other systems. The metric system is also most commonly used in engineering and scientific disciplines. One might assume that when United Earth was created, either all countries already used the metric system or it was chosen as the official system later on. However, claims are made that this happened in 2036 or 2050.

Although there is no concrete evidence of when the metric system was adopted by United Earth, the starship crews have always been used to working in the metric system due to their scientific and engineering backgrounds and the year 2036 and 2050 feature in Star Trek: Voyager as possible answers to the question.

In the Voyager episode "One Small Step", the year 2036 is mentioned. At the very end of the Voyager episode, the year 2050 is mentioned. The metric system is the official system in science and engineering so the Starship crews are used to working in metric.