The situations are entirely different. Theoden was under a spell, placed there by a man in the pay of Saruman. Balgruuf is just sticking to the middle because he's wary of both sides.

TLotR and The Hobbit are awesome; genuine classics of the English language. TES is an awesome series of games, and well written, but I have fairly hard-and-fast rules about franchise literature. Really, just one rule: Hell no. I've read quite a few Star Trek novels in my younger days, a couple Star Wars novels as a kid, the original Dragonlance series as a teenager, the Timothy Zahn novels and one other SW novel as an advlt, and I said enough was enough. I love Mass Effect, but I'll never, ever read a Mass Effect novel. I love Halo, but I would die before reading a Halo novel. There's no way in hell I'll ever read an Elder Scrolls novel. I've dabbled in franchise fiction before, and it unversally stinks, no matter how awesome the origins of the franchise in question are. The original Star Trek is one of the greatest television series of all time - I think they'll be watching it in a hundred years from now - but seriously, the novels are bad. Star Wars outside of the movies is terrible - comics, novels, even the plots of most of the games I've seen.

Never, ever, ever, no matter how desperate for beach reading I become, will I ever read an Elder Scrolls novel, a Halo novel, a Mass Effect novel, a novel written about a superhero - NEVER. I'd rather have another root canol.

Look at it from the outside, it looks similar with the tower rising up from inside of it and the fact that it's built up against a mountain/valley/whatever you want to call it. It doesn't resemble Helms Deep much from the inside really. It's not nearly as obvious as the Whiterun - Edoras comparison though.

I'm talking about after the spell was lifted, Theoden struck me as the kind of person who wasn't too interested in the war and was more concerned with the safety of his own realm. Could be wrong of course I'm no expert on LOTR, I've only read the books once or twice.

Your logic is flawed. Game of Thrones was written in 1990 or something, and the tv show was just made. Just because a book is really good it doesn't mean that it will just become a movie just like that.
Anyways, I prefer the lore and the world of TES. The story of LOTR is better though.

I really, really hate to sound elitist about this, or to sound like some self-loathing nerd, or anything like that - but really, there are far, far better things to read, and I'm not talking about suffering through some supposed "classic" that's about as much fun as clipping your fingernails. Try some Raymond Chandler, or read some of Tolkien's less well known books like The Silmarillion or The Children of Hurin. My brother keeps saying that The Iliad is a pretty quick read.

Very, very few works of art translate well to another medium. I'm still astonished that they did such a good job putting The Lord of the Rings on the big screen. Most of the time, these things fail horribly. Look at the instances where they've taken a superhero movie and made a comic version of it; they generally stink. Batman Begins was a great movie; the comic version of it was terrible. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are two of my favorite games, but how many superhero games have svcked over the past thirty years or so?

Taking a computer game and trying to make movies or comics or novels out of it is bound to produce awful drek. The drek might sell, for a while, but it's still gonna be drek.

Elitist rant over now.

Ah. Yeah, once the spell was lifted, he was willing to aid Gondor.

I really, really hate to sound elitist about this, or to sound like some self-loathing nerd, or anything like that - but really, there are far, far better things to read, and I'm not talking about suffering through some supposed "classic" that's about as much fun as clipping your fingernails. Try some Raymond Chandler, or read some of Tolkien's less well known books like The Silmarillion or The Children of Hurin. My brother keeps saying that The Iliad is a pretty quick read.

Very, very few works of art translate well to another medium. I'm still astonished that they did such a good job putting The Lord of the Rings on the big screen. Most of the time, these things fail horribly. Look at the instances where they've taken a superhero movie and made a comic version of it; they generally stink. Batman Begins was a great movie; the comic version of it was terrible. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are two of my favorite games, but how many superhero games have svcked over the past thirty years or so?

Taking a computer game and trying to make movies or comics or novels out of it is bound to produce awful drek. The drek might sell, for a while, but it's still gonna be drek.

Elitist rant over now.

Ah. Yeah, once the spell was lifted, he was willing to aid Gondor.

Let's not forget about the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. First book was written in 1947 (making it older than LOTR,) and guess what? In 1965, it beat out Lord of the Rings to win the Hugo award for "Best All-time series." It's still the only series to have won that award.

A movie has been attempted. Twice. As of 2011, no work is being done on it.

No-one is talking about that, why did you even think that was possibly related to the thread?

He says he doesn't want to at first, he is reluctant in both the book and the film.

And the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin are unknown for a reason (that reason being they are hard to read). And the in-game TES books are pretty good.

It's been a while since I've read the books, but from what I remember he doesn't debate the issue all that long. Sure, as soon as Gandalf breaks the spell, he doesn't jump up and shout WAR ON ISENGARD AND MORDOR NOW, but neither do I remember him resisting very hard the call to honor the old treaties and aid Gondor. I'd have to re-read the books to find out for sure.

The Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin are very easy reading. They aren't in verse, or anything, and many of the stories in the Silmarillion are fairly short. The earliest parts of the books tend to read like mythology, and are quite short.

As for the in-game TES books, sure, they're good in terms of being in-game books, but they're a far cry from being novels.

It's been a while since I've read the book as well, but I'm sure that in the movie he says something about Gondor not helping them, I'm not sure if they overstated it for drama though.

I'd honestly put the chapters of the Silmarillion on the same level as the TES ingame books, short non narrative based historical anecdotes. They are easy reading if you read each part seperately, when you try to read it as a novel it isn't a great experience.