Are plot holes the end of the world?

Or if you're like Douglas Adams, and the plot holes just give you an excuse to revisit the story.

 

If it came up in a work of fiction, it would probably be labeled a Deus ex Machina. Especially if you factor in the incident with Arashi. In real life, you can get all sorts of convenient events with convenient timing that people would never accept in fiction, because they'd think it was a copout by the author. The Miracle of the House of Brandenburg is one such instance.

 

Victory disease denotes when in military history, due to complacency or arrogance brought on by a victory or series of victories, an engagement ends disastrously for a commander and his forces.
The origin of the term ((戦勝病 senshoubyou) in Japanese[2] is associated with the Japanese advance in the Pacific Theater of World War II, where, after attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japan won a series of nearly uninterrupted victories against the Allies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.[3][4]

Although the Japanese had planned to establish a perimeter and go on the defensive, victories encouraged them to continue expanding to where it strained logistics and the navy. This culminated in the Battle of Midway in 1942, a catastrophic defeat of the Japanese navy: all four Japanese aircraft carriers involved were sunk, and the hitherto unstoppable Japanese advance was blunted.

You could argue that the descent on the torpedo planes was Victory Disease at its most virulent. Prior to Midway, the Zero had proved itself the best plane in the Pacific (after the Battle of Coral Sea, the fleet heading for Midway was quoted as saying "If sons of geisha can obtain such a great victory, how much better can sons of noble ladies perform?") and the Japanese pilots were all combat-experienced after the war in China. But they hadn't really come up against the best of the West. They probably couldn't imagine that an enemy could throw two attacks at them almost simultaneously - even if that was by accident. Prior to the carrier engagement, ground-based planes had made a number of unco-ordinated attacks on the Japanese fleet, all of which had been repelled without difficulty.

 

This is easily translatable to so many different things. The stock market, gambling at a casino, and playing sports or competitive video games are some examples. Victory breeds confidence, which can in turn breed arrogance and complacency (as you stated). In my off time, I occasionally play a computer game (MOBA for anyone who knows what they are) called Smite. It's a lot of fun most of the time, but I often get placed with teammates who play well at the start of each game, then fall apart at the second half of the games after they come off a hot streak. They take bigger risks to try and end the game faster, because getting an early lead usually means you're going to be at a higher level and have stronger items built up. They end up underestimating the power of mid-game teamwork and get ambushed. Getting killed later in the game is more punishing, because you have to wait longer to respawn.

I used to play tennis in high school and early college, and while I was team captain and #1 on the varsity squad, I was by no means the best player out there. I would have good sets in the beginning, and when I would get comfortable in the lead, my game got sloppy and I would miss key plays that I would otherwise have handled without problem. After that, it would be a struggle to get back into a groove, because that confidence I once had was shattered and I began to doubt myself. I've lost a lot of matches that way. I was diseased indeed.

 

Not my statement, that was a cut-and-paste from Wiki.

Only the last paragraph was mine.

 

Well you mentioned it, that's all that matters =)

 

In the book, when the last battle suddenly turned and the Nazgul plunged to earth and the orcs all started to run away, Gandalf and Aragorn realised Frodo had succeeded in his quest. They deliberately sent the eagles to rescue him and Sam. It was clearly told in the book so it wasn't a deus ex machina there. I think the movie rather glossed over that. And they had time to escape the cave and get halfway down Mt Doom before it started breaking up around them. They had time for a conversation while they sat and waited to die. So some time elapsed before they got rescued.

 

The movie certainly did the impeccable timing thing. But the movie also left Frodo dangling by his 9 fingertips at the edge of the fire for a hellishly long time (the stupidest scene in the whole movie, in my opinion) while in the book he merely became visible again (on his knees) as soon as Gollum bit off his finger. Sam dragged him out of harm's way, but Frodo never went over the cliff at all.

As I said in my previous post, the eagles didn't come out of nowhere in the book. They were deliberately sent by Gandalf when the battle turned—when he realised the Ringbearer had succeeded in his quest and that Sauron had fallen.

The book actually dotted all the "i's" and crossed the "t's" very well indeed. Tolkien was a heavy-duty planner, and nothing escaped his eye. While he did create a few 'miracle saves' at times during the story, even that was okay because the ring was 'meant' for Frodo to carry (according to Gandalf) and something 'meant' to help Frodo in his quest. Gandalf said, 'Bilbo was meant to find the ring, and not by its maker.' So there WERE supernatural forces at work ...although they were pretty evenly balanced between good and evil. It was the actions of the mortals that made everything come together at the end. If Frodo, unwittingly aided by Gollum, had not put the ring into the fire, the forces of Sauron would have won the day, and control of Middle Earth. So it really wasn't deus-ex-machina that drove the story.

With the exception of Tom Bombadil (who was fun, the first time through, because you assumed he'd have a part to play later on) and those horrible songs—glimmering, shimmering, aargh—I think the book was pretty near perfect. The movie did a great job of bringing the story to film, but didn't quite touch all the bases that Tolkien did himself.