I was totally not prepped for a Slayers/Tolkein fusion debate. ;)

Count yerself lucky. Last time this came up, we got into a long involved 
arguement over whether or not the Fireball spell contianed enough heat to 
make the Ring warm to the touch.

 I dunno. Eowyn managed to kill the Witch-King of Angmar using only a
 normal sword, so I would suppose Lina could thrash a Nazgul easy.

Noooooo, she did not. Eowyn was using one of those 3000 year old, Second Age, 
whipass Numenorean things that were specifically designed to kill things like 
the Nazgul.

 Remember, both the energy of the Giga Slave and Laguna Blade spells is
 drawn from the same source: the Lord of Nightmares, a powerful and chaotic
 force. The Giga Slave was enough to destroy part of Shabranigdo, in an
 incomplete form (the Giga Slave Lina uses in Slayers TV is not the 'true'
 Giga Slave). 

Interesting. One wonders if a Tolkienesque Giga Slave would take it's power 
form Morgoth, or from Iluvatar. Melwe would be a possibility, but brute force 
was always more the sort of thing they'd leave to Tulkas......

 However, even the Laguna Blade couldn't defeat Maryuoh Gaav,
 one of Shabranigdo's lieutenant monsters, so it's sort of up in the air. I
 think the Laguna Blade "wielded" by a male spellcaster wouldn't do jack
 (which is fine, since Lina's the only living being who knows it and can
 actually cast it, save the potential exception of Xel); the "will not die
 by the hand of man" clause in the Witch-King's destiny may make it
 effective. Hard to say.

Remeber that prophecy, as anybody whose ever read a Robert Jordan novel 
knows, is HIGHLY interprative. "Will not die by the hand of man" could just 
mean that a man, using his hand, would be unable to kill Angmar. OTOH, a man 
using his SWORD.........

 	On a more interesting note: I think this fusion idea has a lot of
 interesting possibilities, mainly because the low-key magic of the Istari
 (Gandalf, et. al.) is so much NOT the hyper-dramatic DBZ magic style of
 Slayers. 

Keep in mind that Gandalf is not low-key by CHOICE. Olorin (Gandalfs real 
name), when he agreed to go into the East with the other Maier chosen, also 
agreed to abide by certain power limitations, as did Radagast and Saruman and 
those two unnamed blue guys. Technically, without any restrictions placed 
upon him, Gandalf has as much or more raw power as Sauron; most people forget 
that Sauron was a Maier himself before he threw in with Melkor. 

The snag here is to NOT let Lina blast her way through the
 countryside; because frankly, she COULD. 

In the Third Age? Definitly. Although what would be the point? By the time of 
Tolkiens original novels, half the continent is a depopulated wilderness. She 
can blast her way through that if she wants, but it won't do much real good. 

 I think the CHARACTERS from
 Slayers with a much more low-key approach (toning down the blast radius on
 most spells is a good start, eliminating extreme stuff like the
 world-blasting Giga Slave and the city-busting Dragu Slave) would make
 wonderful additions to a much more sombre Tolkein cast. The idea of
 Princesses Amelia and Gracia of Rohan is really catching me, for some
 reason. 

Agreed. I can also see Prince Phil as Boromir, and Sylphiel as Galadriel. 
Okay, sure, she isn't QUITE as serene as she needs to be, but c'mon, 
Galadriel is pushing 8000.... you ain't serene by then, you're doing 
something wrong.

 I think Gourry and his Sword of Light would make an interesting
 addition to the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Another interesting plan for
 the HARDCORE Slayers/Tolkein fanatic would be to put the Slayers crew in
 the time of the Silmarilion, when they could REALLY do some damage.

Actually, they would be able to do LESS damage. Keep in mind that during the 
first age, there was..... MORE of everything. In the Third Age, ONE Balrog 
scares the bejeezus out of everybody; in the First Age, there are hordes and 
hordes of them and nobody thinks much of it. In TA, you have to go out of 
your way to even catch a GLIMPSE of elves; FA, they march around Beleriand in 
huge armies and do things like surround entire forests in magical Girdles and 
build hugeass underground hidden cities. TA, Sauron has to resort to subtlty 
and trickery half the time to get what he wants, and has ONE measly Dark 
Tower. FA, Morgoth Bauglir turned an entire mountain range into his Hells of 
Iron, and could basically spit in the face of anybody he wanted, anytime. 

Sure, Lina and Gourry and Co. would be fine in the Silmarillion..... for 
awhile. They'd go around toasting things, looting orc strongholds, messing 
with the sons of Feanor (who suck) and basically getting in everybody faces. 
But then she'd do something stupid, like try to recover a Silmaril, and the 
Big M would sick Glaurung, Ancalagon, a couple legions of Balrogs, ten 
thousand or so Orcs, Sauron, and his own bad self on her. I doubt Lina could 
handle all that at once. Plus, assuming she gets her hands on one of the 
gems, she then has to deal with the fact that half the elven leaders are 
sworn to brutally slay her and take it from her corpse.  

 	Lest I lose you all in Tolkein-blather, however, I'll say this: I
 like this idea. I wish *I* had the time to do something with it. But if
 you do it, do it right, dangit.

Well, I DID lose people in all the Tolkien blather (yes, I'm a hardcore 
Tolkien nut.... what of it?) but I wholeheartedly agree; do this. This will 
rock as a story. Sure, you'll need to add WAYYYYYY more dialogue than Tolkien 
had, but it should still be cool.

Oh, and Arwen/Usagi? Loved it. ^_^

-Mercutio
"A plague 'a both your houses!"