»Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, called The Magnificent, was a Hobbit, the son of Saradoc Brandybuck. [...] Saradoc "Scattergold" Brandybuck was a Hobbit and Master of Buckland.«
That's Pippin, not Merry, who’s labeled "quasi-royalty". It comes from him being the Shire-thain. Not sure it's exactly right to call him "royalty", though it's similar in a lot of ways. The position was literally called "Shire-king" in the past before the events of LOTR too.
@mina @pseudosage @mem @bruces Ah, I didn't realize that about the Took.
I was long frustrated that they never explain how Bilbo made his living before he goes off on an adventure. It's a detail I could ignore in The Hobbit, when we don't see anything of the Shire except Bilbo's house, but we do see gradations of status in LOTR. I figured Bilbo was probably sort of a minor gentry landlord, on the model of 19th century novels that are too "polite" to mention why the idle rich have money.
I remember from "the Hobbit" that the Baggins family was a well respected one (which usually means: of money).
I always believed that Bilbo was kind of a land owner, living from rent.
Was soll mit Galadriel sein?
Sie gehörte ja nicht zur Gemeinschaft, genauso wenig wie Elrond.
@mina @bruces @volt4ire How it started .. How it's going ..
"You bow to no-one" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VWhHJaSjA
Excellent, indeed, but have you seen the one on car walking?
No, I hadn't. Thank you. It's hilarious. Took me awhile to read it because I had to translate all the replies. Used AI for that 
@mina @DoNotPunchDown making me wish I could read German.
Gimli is also royally cussin, sometimes. 
You're damn right about this aspect, and yet: The trilogy remains an excellent adaption, other than the abomination that was "The Hobbit".
@bruces
waiting for the Tom Bombadil replies to this post
⏚ ⸫ @mistakenotmy @mina @j3j5 @bruces And I remember how deeply disappointed me and my friends were about that... We hoped he would appear in the long DVD version, but alas...
I have to defend Jackson here.
Tom is irrelevant for the story.
@j3j5 @mina @mistakenotmy @bruces I'd simply say that the trilogy turned contemplative books in action movies. I was unable to watch the third to the end.
(Many people who loved the movies hated the books, which they found too slow and boring; this is not a surprise to me... I'm much more surprised by the amount of people who loved both)
I have read the books about a dozen times over the years (strangely enough, with every lecture, I keep discovering new aspects).
When I'm saying, the films were a good adaption, I'm not implying, they were completely faithful.
Books and films are different forms of art and deserve to be judged independently of each other.
I mean: Nobody ever accused Mozart of leaving out the nuances of Beaumarchais' play in "La nozze di Figaro".
@mina @j3j5 @mistakenotmy @bruces when I say that the movies dropped out the contemplative parts of the book, to keep mostly action scenes, I'm not talking about being totally faithful. I'm talking of the spirit of the work. But never mind, I'm not denying anyone the right to love the movies.
(And I'm not entering a contest about the number of times I read the books. What's more significant maybe is that I read them before I saw the movies, that I was really young the first time I read them, and that I read them again and again for years.)
@j3j5 @mina @mistakenotmy @bruces Good point. Have a Goldberry.
:georgianribbon: