[MUSIC] I'm in front of the doors of the chamber of Mazarbul near the 21st hall, deep in the mines of Moria. This is the setting for one of the most thrilling encounters of the Fellowship of the Ring. The fierce battle between the Fellowship and a horde of goblins, orcs and a crazed troll. In the novel, this scene carries enormous weight. It's the first time the whole Fellowship fights together, and it will be the last time as well. For shortly after they escaped from the chamber, Gandolf has to face the Balrog. And when the wizard is pulled off the bridge into the cavernous depths of Moria, the fellowship is divided for good. The chamber also carries enormous emotional weight for Gimbli, the dwarf. It is here that he learns the fate of his cousin Balin, who led an earlier, ill-fated mission to reclaim Moria. The film remediates the novel in a faithful and transparent fashion. The director seems to be attempting to translate Tolkien's description directly into visual imagery. Tolkien writes, the chamber was lit by a wide shaft high in the further eastern wall. It slanted upward, and far above, a small square patch of blue sky could be seen. The light of the shaft fell directly on a table in the middle of the room. A single oblong block, about two feet high, upon which was laid a great slab of white stone. The game lets us walk up and examine the tomb in person once your character has done the requisite quests that allow you to unlock the chamber. One of the remarkable effects of the three dimensional perspective of virtual reality is that you can walk all around the tomb. Peer down yourself at the runes on Balin's tomb, and even bow before the fallen leader. The book of records they find in the film is nicely reproduced from Tolkien as well. The novel describes it like this. The book had been slashed and stabbed and partly burned and it was so stained with black and other dark marks like old blood that little of it could be read. Here's the passage from the film. [SOUND] >> We cannot get out. >> The game first unlocks the doors to the chamber of Mazarbul after you have successfully completed an instance in the epic quest line. This instance comes in volume two, book three, chapter nine. Those of you who are new to the game may be surprised to see how many episodes there are in the epic quest line. In Tolkien, the book Gandalf finds tells of the valiant stand of three dwarves from Balin's company at the Bridge of Khazad-dum, Frar, Mani, and Nali. And of the drums in the deep and of the repeated phrase, we cannot get out. The epic quest chapter in the game is called "we cannot get out!" And you are tasked to help Frar, Mani and Nali at the bridge Defending against wave after wave of orcs. At the end though, of your valiant attempt to hold the bridge. A Balrog appears and the three dwarves send you running back to the 21st hall to warn them there and to help the remnant of the dwarves. While the three remaining dwarves at the bridge fight a doomed rear guard action. As the book tells you, and as the game shows you, they all three die in their defense of the bridge. Shortly, you find yourself barricaded in the Chamber of Mazarbul, along with the few remaining dwarves. Fighting against overwhelming numbers of orcs and trolls. It's a desperate confrontation, and I won't spoil it by telling you how it ends in the game. But I'll just say, that it's not the outcome that you expect to find in most video games. Once you've completed the epic quest line, you become eligible to repeat this quest in the form of a group skirmish. A special kind of instance to allow players to repeat particularly memorable instances along with their friends. We'll come back to the chamber and one of these skirmishes shortly. But first let me return to the film to show you how it handles the Fellowship's battle in the chamber. The film conflates Pippin's accident at the well, with an earlier scene from the book, where Pippin drops a pebble into a well and starts the drums to beating. >> They are coming. [MUSIC] [NOISE] [NOISE] Here too, the drums begin to roll and it is a terrifying sound an intermingled with the shrieks of orcs. [SOUND] There's a nice dramatic economy with having Pippin provoke the drums only moments before the battle was to begin in the chamber. As you might suspect, the film handles the fight itself very well. The fight with the troll owes a debt to countless movies from the pass, with mythological beasts and monsters in them. Think of the encounter with the cyclops in the 1958 film, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Or the many-headed hydra in the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts. CGI techniques may have improved the realism of the encounter, but we've seen most of the moves before. The arrows, spears, and ax blows that serve only to enrage the beast. The warrior, who leaps on the back of the monster. The character who dodges the groping arm of the troll. And the final killing blow down the gaping mouth of the monster. As you can see, I'm in the chamber with a fellowship. The five players along with me are all good friends from my kinship Vicarious Universe. The instance follows the sequence of action from the book closely. First, waves of orcs rush into the room and our characters take them on in a free-for-all combat. Their captain is fighting alongside them, just as he is in Tolkien. He's a boss with a high hit point count. In the game, we learn his name is Mazog. And we have several more encounters with him to come while completing the epic quests set in Moria. This isn't the same orc captain that Frodo encountered though. Since Tolkien tells us that Aragorn cleaves that orc's head asunder with a savage blow of his sword. Orc. But we're not interested in how close the content of these scenes match. But with what our comparison of the three scenes can reveal about the various media involved. Here in the game, the greatest difference lies in the interactive nature of the experience. You are there. You are able to move around at will, take on an orc, fight the captain himself or tank the troll. If you were a healer or a ranged character like a hunter, you will want to stand back from the fight as I'm doing here, and throw heals on the members of your group. The tank could choose to kite the troll, which means to run him in a circle, to get him away from the other members of the group while they dispatch the remaining enemies. You could also work to coordinate your attacks by choosing someone to be the target through whom you channel all your fire. Online games excel at this kind of interactivity. And it's extremely satisfying when a group performs well together, with each player executing his or her role in coordination with others. But there's very little narrative content in this kind of interactivity. Sure, there's plenty of interactive action. But scarcely interactive dimension to the story. In both the book and the film, story progresses through the action. In the game, the story pauses while the fighting goes on. The death of the troll brings this instance to a close. It was fun for me to get together with my friends from the kinship, and revisit this instance from Moria. I hope you enjoyed it too. [MUSIC]
