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paradoxcase · 4 years

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After Gandalf heals Theoden (in the book it is described as healing, there is no scene where Saruman is actually in possession of Theoden or where he personally battles Gandalf), he suggests that Theoden should send Eomer out to defeat Saruman (in the book Eomer was a prisoner at Edoras at this point, freed when Theoden was healed) and lead the rest of his people to a safe place. Theoden says,

‘Nay, Gandalf!’ said the king. ‘You do not know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall in the front of the battle, if it must be. Thus shall I sleep better.’

There’s note on this piece of dialog in the companion, where basically, where someone wrote to Tolkien to complain about all the archaic dialog in the Two Towers, to which Tolkien responded, a) it’s appropriate to complain about people who use affected archaism without actually knowing how archaic English worked, but Tolkien is a linguist who studied the Anglo-Saxons and most certainly does know how archaic English worked and always uses it correctly, b) Tolkien has actually spent so much time studying Anglo-Saxons that he’s actually more comfortable with archaic English than with modern English anyway, and c) really, it could be much worse, Tolkien could have made the dialog even more archaic.

Then he provides some translations of this piece of dialog, first into “even more archaic”:

‘Nay, thou (n’)wost not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall...’ etc.

And then into modern English:

‘Not at all my dear G. You don’t know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren’t going to be like that. I shall go to war in person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties.’

He then wonders, what would come next? He suggests “I shall lie easier in my grave”, but claims that no one who speaks modern English would say such a thing and thus it would sound out of place. (It was only at this point that I realized that when Theoden said “thus I shall sleep better” he doesn’t mean literally that he will sleep better at night, but that his soul will rest easier after he dies.)

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure what Tolkien means here. It’s not true that we don’t talk about resting or sleeping in death or the idea of being at peace versus not at peace after death, because we say “rest in peace”. It is true that we don’t generally consider fighting in battle to have an effect on our souls after death, like I think the full weirdness of how medieval people regarded war is not fully apparent to us because all that stuff is dressed up in this medieval aesthetic which we’ve learned to regard as romantic and valorous. Like, if a modern-day seventy-year-old army general unretired and decided to go fight on the front line of a war with the other soldiers because it was brave and valorous, in spite of this not being tactically beneficial and maybe it even being tactically a bad idea, we would think he was nuts. But this is exactly what is happening in this scene with Theoden. And yes, if you strip it of the aesthetic, it seems weird. But this is fantasy, characters talk about things which seem new and strange to us as a matter of course. Like, what type of dialog or aesthetic would you suggest for Mr. Weasley talking about how amazing and neat everyday modern technology is, or for the descriptions of Diagon Alley or other fantastic elements of Harry Potter? Tolkien is obviously going for a particular time period here, as the companion frequently reminds me by continually explaining how everything about Rohan is really just Beowulf in Middle Earth, but I think there’s no reason you couldn’t express medieval ideas in modern English. It’d sound odd, but isn’t that the point of fantasy?

Also: In the scene where Theoden casts Wormtongue out, they do use some of the book dialog, but the movie is much more direct about it. This is how it goes down in the book (if I may be pardoned by our lord and savior Tolkien for paraphrasing the dialog in modern English):

Hama: I found your sword, my lord, Wormtongue was keeping it in a locked chest, we also found a bunch of other stuff he’d stolen from other people in there, too.

Wormtongue: That’s not true! Anyway, Theoden gave me this.

Theoden: And now I’m asking for it back. Anyway! Guess what? We’re going to war. And so are you. Hurry up, you just have time to clean the rust off your sword.

Wormtongue: Oh please, my lord, please don’t send your loyal servant from your side!

Theoden: I’m not. I’m going to ride into battle too! And you’ll come with me by my side.

Wormtongue: ...don’t you need a trustworthy steward to stay behind and keep the castle up?

Eomer: If this pathetic request doesn’t excuse you from war, what more degrading position will you accept instead? Maybe you will offer to schlep grain to Helm’s Deep, if anyone would trust you with it?

Gandalf: No, no, you don’t understand what he wants. He’s trying to find a way to continue working for Saruman.

Wormtongue: That’s not true!

Gandalf: You say that a lot. Anyway, you’ve been a very good stooge so far, and Saruman tends to forget about nice things people have done for him. Maybe you should go back and remind him what a good boy you’ve been so you can get your reward? You see, Theoden, there’s a problem: we’ve found a snake. It’s dangerous to take it with you, it’s dangerous to leave it here, it’s sensible to kill it but we probably shouldn’t. So, give him a horse and let him go wherever he likes, and make your opinion of him based on what he chooses.

Theoden: Ok, Grima. Here’s your choice: you can come with me and ride to battle, or you can go off somewhere else. Think carefully. If you make the wrong choice, we probably shouldn’t meet again.

Wormtongue:

Slowly Wormtongue rose. He looked at them with half-closed eyes. Last of all he scanned Théoden’s face and opened his mouth as if to speak. Then suddenly he drew himself up. His hands worked. His eyes glittered. Such malice was in them that men stepped back from him. He bared his teeth; and then with a hissing breath he spat before the king’s feet, and darting to one side, he fled down the stair.

Indicidentally, when most people hear Wormtongue’s name they probably think of worms. But actually, it’s from wyrm, which is Old English for serpent (Rohirric is, basically, Old English). He’s named that because he’s deceitful, not because he’s icky.

Minor shipping note: Apparently Tolkien originally intended for Aragorn to get together with Eowyn, and only added Arwen to the story later. So, he didn’t actually plan for there to be a love triangle, he just changed his mind while writing the story and I guess didn’t want to get rid of the Aragorn/Eowyn UST in the new version. Arwen does definitely seem like a character who was added at the last minute - in the movie she has actual scenes and dialog, and is an actual character with a personality, but in the book if you blink you miss her existence entirely. Aragorn occasionally says things that have subtext related to Arwen, but if you’re reading for the first time you’ll completely miss this unless either a) you’re the kind of shipper who shipped Blaise Zabini before even knowing what gender he was, or b) you already read the appendix that’s about Aragorn and Arwen.

Another note is that Wormtongue’s obsession with Eowyn is only mentioned in the above paraphrased scene as yet another thing that makes him awful, he doesn’t actually have any interactions with Eowyn at all, and presumably it is never important again because I don’t think Wormtongue is ever within arm’s reach of Eowyn ever again.

#lord of the rings #lotr #wormtongue

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nocompromise-noregrets · 3 years

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Favourite Works Meme

Tagged by the fabulous @lemurious - THANK YOU I LOVE YOU <333333

Rules: Choose your favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

2020 was a hell of a year for me. I last wrote anything of substance in 2011, and although I’d been posting to AO3 here and there, a lot of it was older stuff that I wrote back in the mid-2000s, and I hadn’t really found a fandom that inspired me enough to want to write much for it. I’d been heavily into the Tolkien fandom between about 2002 and 2004/5 but had fallen away as the excitement over the films faded, and for some reason the Hobbit movies didn’t get me back into it all at the time. (Now I wish they had!)

And then that LotR cast reunion video appeared on YouTube in early June. Honestly, it was like seeing dear old friends again who I hadn’t seen in years. I spent most of it alternately grinning broadly and weeping like a small child, and after it was over, I ran back to the films for a rewatch. Then I started looking at my old WIPs, and following blogs on here, and then...and THEN the words just started pouring out of me. I wrote around 430k between June and December, which is absolutely unprecedented for me - 2011 was probably my previously most productive year, in which I wrote somewhere just over 100k, none of which got posted anywhere other than my old LJ as it was for a tiny fandom that doesn’t exist on AO3 (it died before AO3 really got going and we all tacitly agreed never to speak of it again xD ).

So...my favourite works from 2020. This is going to be tough, because I love them all, but...

Firstly, the It’s Always Been You series, which grew from notes and a few scenes from a side-fic to a ‘verse I was playing in with @myfairprouvaire back in about 2003; I looked at it in June, thought ‘I want to read that fic...dammit, that means I have to write that fic’ and then...and then, miraculously, I DID. It’s very niche, being that it centres on the pairing of Orophin/Rúmil, which is rare enough without the obvious issue, but I adore them, they’re one of my OTPs, and it gave me the opportunity to explore their characters, plus those of Haldir, Arwen (<33333), and her brothers, who happen to be one of my other OTPs. Yes, I know, and I don’t care.

Secondly, once I got that out of my system (sort of, it’s still not finished), I had been percolating something about Bard and Thranduil, having not even needed my slash goggles to see the potential between them in Battle of the Five Armies. It probably helped that they’re both unreasonably nice to look at, damn them, and they kept looking at each other. Anyway, what I was expecting to be 10k of eventually-resolved-sexual-tension turned into the absolute monster that is the (currently just over 210k O.O ) series My Heart Is An Empty Vessel, the main story of which is currently standing at somewhere over 160k and has an epilogue, a sequel also in progress, and several side-fics AND allowed me to weave in my existing Legolas/Imrahil series A Little Piece of the Sea, which I also wrote some new pieces for this year. I love those two so much, so I was super happy about that. Empty Vessel also ties in to pretty much everything else I’ve ever written in the Tolkien fandom, including the It’s Always Been You series - everything is in the same ‘verse, and characters referred to in one series are the same versions as those in another. Hooray for self-referentiality!

Thirdly, there is the ridiculous Christmas-movie modern Bard/Thranduil AU It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like..., which is breeding a sequel and turning into a series as we speak, although I don’t have a title for the series yet. I didn’t think I had a modern AU in me, but it looks as though I do. I had so much fun with this one, weaving in little canon references and headcanons and references to the Empty Vessel versions of the characters (and making Sigrid and Tauriel girlfriends, yay!), and I’m really looking forward to seeing where the sequel goes.

And fourthly, I am going to put together all the challenge/exchange fics I wrote this year because I had so much fun with them and I’m super proud of all of them. Kicking off with Broken On The Inside, written for @lemurious, the Erestor/Glorfindel getting-together tale in which Glorfindel has sustained a head injury and is thinking about his time at the Last Homely House, home of the misfits, the outcasts, the broken and the damned. the only home, a piece of experimental poetry which is all that Elladan and Elrohir would give me when I asked them to tell me about sailing West for @secretlythranduil, and Two Princes, about Legolas and Imrahil getting together, aided and abetted by their interfering friends and Legolas’ Ada, were written for the same event (Innumerable Stars). Then for Have A Happy Hobbit Holiday I wrote Should All The Stars Shine In The Sky for @bayta-darell, about winter celebrations in Dale, with Bard/Thranduil, Sigrid/Tauriel, and Bain and Tilda being adorable, and for Tolkien Secret Santa I wrote Come Home for @gamjawo, featuring Elrohir’s childhood fixation with Maglor finally paying off. Aaaaand for Yuletide I wrote A Tale Untold, a post-movie A Knight’s Tale fic in which the Black Prince gives William and Jocelyn a little manor in the country and the gang all settle down to live happily ever after (featuring a Latin deed of grant that’s as close to accurate as I could get it, a translation thereof, and a bunch of stuff about how medieval manors operated, because I am That Kind Of Nerd), and Six Bottles of Wine, a 2011-Three Musketeers story in which Porthos bets Aramis that Aramis can’t seduce Athos, and there is, eventually, some debate as to whether it’s Aramis or Athos who actually wins the bet. And as part of those exchanges I received some absolutely wonderful stories which I thoroughly encourage you all to check out.

ETA: oh yeah and FIFTHLY how could I forget Overrun By Halflings, which is a thoroughly ridiculous little thing I wrote for Tolkien Crack Week, in which Rosie makes Sam take her and all the kids to Valinor to join Frodo, and Certain People Who Have No Room To Comment At All get a little sniffy about it. :D (and everything I wrote for Writers’ Month, and and and... :D :D :D I’m just ludicrously excited about all of it!)

I had such a wonderful time with all of these, and all the other fics I wrote last year. My life is infinitely better, and I am infinitely happier, for being back in the Tolkien fandom and for being able to write again. This time last year I honestly thought it was over. I thought I’d never find something to inspire me again. And then...all it took was that reunion video and BAM here we are. <333333

I think everyone’s done this one by now, but if any of you haven’t and want to, consider yourselves well and truly tagged!

#fic meme #my writing

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thereluctantherosrose · 7 years

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Getting to know me Tag

Tagged by the awesome ^^ @pathfindersemail

Rules: Answer the 20 questions and tag 20 amazing people you would like to get to know better.

Name: Sydney

Nicknames: Syd or Sydness. Idk why some of my friends call me that LOLOLOL XD

Zodiac Sign: Saggitarius

Height: 5′3″ or 160 cm

Orientation: Straight

Ethnicity: Canadian, Italian, Irish, Scottish

Favorite Fruit: OMG...uh...idk owo I love most fruits...Tho lately I’ve been eating alot of cherries XD

Favorite Season: Winter

Favorite Book Series: Crap....XD One of the hardest questions...*looks at my gigantic bookshelf* :”“D uh.....heh...Do I have to choose just one...?

Favorite Flower: Red roses XD I know I’m a dorky romantic

Favorite Scent: Cherry Blossom.

Favorite Color: Blue. But my favourite shade of it is Sapphire

Coffee, Tea, or Cocoa: Coffee and tea XD ahha

Average Sleep Hours: I have troubles sleeping X””D Usually about 4-6 hours

Cat or Dog Person: Dogs

Favorite Fictional Characters: .....dammit X””D Uh....hmm...too many...Daenerys, Jon Snow, Arya, Levi Ackerman, Maggie Greene, Daryl Dixon, Reyes Vidal, Sera DAI, Cole DAI, Cullen Rutherford, Alistair Theirin, Fenris, Kaidan Alenko, Hajime Saito, Souji Okita, Heisuke Toudou Hakouki,Joker ME, Jack ME, Thorin Oakenshield, Gandalf, Legolas, Will Turner, Arwen Evenstar, Aranea FF15, Lunafreya FF15, Noctis, Prompto, Nyx, Rin Okumura, Ciel Phantomhive, Guren Ichinose, Shinya Hiragi, Shinoa Hiragi, Katsa, Bitterblue and Po from Graceling, Aphrodite and Stark from Marked, Kale, Leetu, Dar, Bardon, Toopka from DragonSpell, 11th Doctor

I have a bunch of other fav characters from other series there are too many of em XD

Dream Trip: I’d absolutely love to go to Scotland and Ireland and Japan. One day I will!! ^^ It’ll happen ahhah

Blog Created: 2 three years ago I think? Idk XD LOOLOLOL I had another account but I forgot the old password...and well didn’t bother to go through the process of recovering it

Number of Followers: Not many LOLOLL XD 96 but its cool

Uh...ok for tag...hmm...

@gabentine @annahakuouki @mega-animelove-stuff @himluv @vorchagirl @charomiami and all the rest of my followers lololol XD

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