On Hold How to build the Eye of Barad-dûr?

I like the idea of not a window for the palantir, but have it designed in a way that a beacon textured as one on a viewing platform thing on top of the tower between the forks shooting a textured flamey beacon light up into the eye “projecting” it from the palantir.
Just explain it away as Sauron has spooky magic powers to intensify the palantir.

BWOT said:

Why change it? The book does not say specifically there was no eye, as many people said it’s up to interpretation (the great things about books) the only thing is that we sometimes go to the movie look due to what many people are expecting it to look like, unless it’s definitively said in the book to look different than we are still keeping to the book.

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You just said we based many locations based on films not the book, the server has as well created some fake cities I'm talking about it in general cause I don't really care what is built

The first decision should be if we want the giant eye or not. This is by far the most important decision.
Afterwards we can discuss about details wether to add that great window described in the book as suggested by @ryttyr or to make some palantir projection as suggested by @Indorilian.
I don't think a third choice in the poll would make sense. More choises make a poll result less clear. Imagine there are 10 people voting for window only 6 for giant eye only and 6 for a mixed version. Book votes would be the majority. But without the third choice it would probably been 12 people for eye and only 10 for the window choice (This is why in most countries there are run-off elections in the case no candidate got an absolute majority in the first ballot).

Oh I wouldn't think there would be any doubt of having a window beneath to fulfill that description from the book. I do want to follow the specific descriptions but if there is something not exactly said like about the Eye (Eye is physical or metaphorical) then that can be disputed and decided upon.

BWOT said:

Oh I wouldn't think there would be any doubt of having a window beneath to fulfill that description from the book. I do want to follow the specific descriptions but if there is something not exactly said like about the Eye (Eye is physical or metaphorical) then that can be disputed and decided upon.

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Welll Miiil pointed out that Gollum said that he was tortured by (or saw him) Sauron and he was missing a finger, so that means he saw the spirit or an actualy body of Sauron and not the eye. Isn't that enough to presume that there wouldn't be an eye ontop of the tower? Ontop of that I don't think many people will care about if it has the eye or not, aslong as they see a black tower that looks dark and Mordor-ish they'll recognize it.

didi45 said:

I think as pointed out by some others that we should stick with the movie in this case, Peter Jackson pretty much created a perfect world (not entirely with lore...) But we should use it in this case as the eye takes a huge role in middle Earth as also it is something physical and much nicer to follow for building

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Peter Jackson did not create a perfect world. Tolkien created a perfect world. Period.

I think the point of this server, regardless of the official catchphrase, has always been to create our own vision of Tolkien's work. That includes taking artist representations and real world examples into account with the lore in order to construct both a realistic and interesting fantasy landscape.

Building an eye and at the same time build a window? I think we should do both. Even if we build the eye, the window would not obstruct the flaming eye. Personally i think we do have the artistic integrity to build our own interpitations of all the builds that we have based on the movie. I for one would preffered builds closer to the book descriptions, not what movie fans want. Actually i think it is an insult to Tolkiens ability to discribe places to base so many builds on the movie in stead. I say, honor him and his amazing skill to take us where no one has ever dared before him.

What about a plugin where one who wants the eye does /eye, and an eye just visible to them would appear. Idk how we would do this, but... Also the default would be having the eye there @Eriol_Eandur

We should just use the books as a source. Also I'll leave this link here as I did on discord.

https://middle-earth.xenite.org/what-did-sauron-look-like/

Lindolas said:

We should just use the books as a source. Also I'll leave this link here as I did on discord.

https://middle-earth.xenite.org/what-did-sauron-look-like/

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Middle-earth Xenite is probably the best Middle-earth blog out there, so it's totally reliable and worth reading. I think the books say that Sauron's 'spiritual form' was an Eye, or a wheel of fire as Frodo (almost half a ring-wraith at the time) describes it. Also it's used by Mordor as emblem, like when the Orcs painted it on the statue in Ithilien. I think it's quite clear the books say Sauron did have a physical form, and not that of an Eye. After Sauron's fair body that he used to corrupt the Númenoreans in the end of the Second Age was destroyed, he could no longer take fair shapes. That was a big loss for him, because especially in his early days, shape-taking was his specialty. This doesn't mean that he couldn't take body forms anymore, of course not: he had a body during the Last Alliance. But the books provide proof that also after Isildur cut off his finger, Sauron took a physical body. When Gollum described his tortures in Mordor, he describes Sauron having four fingers. This has to be the physical embodiment of Sauron, and not that of an eye. So I'm convinced that Tolkien thought of Sauron having a body.

I actually like Red's idea of choosing and I think it is possible, and we could even extend the eye a bit above the height limit. I remember @q220 testing the holograms plugin a few years ago, I think it's this plugin: Holographic Displays. He even tested it with an image of the Eye (coincidence? I think not). This could easily be switched off and on by preference and might be the best solution? One problem would be that the holograms would rotate with your point of view. The holograms are actually nametags of invisible entities I think, and nametags rotate along with you. Maybe this could be fixed by dividing the eye in a lot of different hologram though.

RubenPieterMark said:

Maybe this could be fixed by dividing the eye in a lot of different hologram though.

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Wouldn't that just make it one big mosaic of rotating name tags, that wouldn't solve the problem it just makes more small problems.

TI_020601 said:

Wouldn't that just make it one big mosaic of rotating name tags, that wouldn't solve the problem it just makes more small problems.

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If it were one big hologram it would have one axis in the middle, but if it would consist of many it would have a lot of axises divided over the surfaces.

I'm personally against the "eye" imagery. I know in a medium like movies there needs to be some form of reference for viewers (particularily non-LOTR fans). There is also the fact that the height of Barad Dur means anything shown would mean flying up to the top irregardless. Very little chance it would be seen from ground level at any distance. I think a better question at this time regarding the tower might be "How will we achieve the height we need?"

That is already taken care of and planned.

Not sure if it's been said yet but im just gonna say - im against the eye simply because its too garish and huge... in Minecraft it's distasteful and MCME doesn't really do characters and I feel like it's just comic next to everything else we have