[Carorëiel]

Ah, but did they inhale? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Hehe. Sorry.

I don't know that there's a lot more to be said on this topic except that it seems a trifle silly. Clearly the inhabitants of Middle Earth are not biologically identical to present-day humans. If we can accept short man-like creatures with furry feet and no facial hair, and men who live to be nearly 200 years old, and wizards, why can't we accept that tobacco has a different (perhaps slower) effect on them?

Did the question of why smoking wasn't having negative effects on the characters really occur to anyone while reading the book? I can't say that I ever wondered about it. I just accepted it as part of the story, just as I accepted that anyone could comfortably live in a hole in the ground, that a golden ring could be thrown in a fire and come out cool, that a man could run for days on end with hardly any rest, and so on.

From a creative writing major-y point of view, the smoking is there because it adds something to the story (the male-bonding etc, as someone else has already mentioned) and the negative effects of the smoking are not because they wouldn't. What purpose would it serve to see Aragorn doubling over on day two of chasing the Uruk-Hai, hacking and laboring to breathe, and swearing he'll never light up again? The story is not about the dangers of substance abuse.

Apologizing for implying a topic was not worthy of discussing and then rambling on about it anyway. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]