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demigodsanswer · 4 years

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Clarisse & The Lord of the Rings

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

When she was 12, Chiron noticed that she was the only year-round Ares girl. He pulled her aside one day and offered her a room in the Big House for herself, figuring she could use some privacy and alone time from her brothers.

The room had a small TV and DVD player in it, and she had the only key to the room. She could use it when ever she wanted, as long as it wasn’t during training or school work.

That’s where she found The Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs. She watched all of them in two days.

She cried when Boromir died, but nothing prepared her for the raw emotion of this scene from The Two Towers . She thinks about this scene constantly, and it’s probably her favorite scene from any of the movies in the long term. The only scene that rivals it is the Battle for Osgiliath in The Return of the King.

What really fucked her up though, was the Battle for Osgiliath/Pippin’s song from Return of the King. That scene made her realize, more than anything she’d encountered before, the ways in which war, while it can sometimes be comprised of glorious moments of good triumphing over evil, it could also be comprised of moments of leaders gluttonously and recklessly consuming those willing to fight for them.

After she watched all the movies all the way through, she asked Chris to re-watch them with her. He agreed, because she was his best friend. She didn’t expect to cry at all, because she knew what would happen, but she cried twice, once at the Sam scene in The Two Towers, and "I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”. Chris didn’t judge her.

When Chris was really sick, she would sometimes sing “The Edge of Night” to him, and it would calm him down.

Chiron had large text print copies of the books, which he gifted to her.

She read them all in one summer. She rereads them every summer. They’re ear marked and annotated to death.

While she always loved Faramir in the movies, when she read his line: “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” She was so overwhelmed that she had to lie down.

Tolkien’s ideology, philosophy, and stories have shaped her understanding of war, its purpose, and its consequences.

Her favorite part of the main three books is the scouring of the Shire, because it is the part that helps her cope with the war the most. Camp had always been her home - her idyllic home where she could be herself, study at her own pace, and train as much as she wanted. But after the war, it had been changed. Thalia’s tree had been poisoned, people had died there, and it was no longer the same place it had been in her childhood. But she had also been changed by the war. Like Frodo, she felt like there wasn’t a way to remain in the place after a while - she couldn’t go home again. Unfortunately for her, there are no undying lands for her to sail to.

Her favorite book is The Silmarillion. When people (read: annoying Athena boys) question this, she just looks them dead in the eye and asks “Oh, I’m sorry, are mythological wars not in my DNA?”

She went to Tolkien’s grave once on vacation and read the tale of Beren and Luthien out loud and left flowers.

Do not talk to her about The Hobbit movies or she will put forks in you. She was nearly kicked out of An Unexpected Journey when Thorin charged at the Orcs at the end because she yelled “THAT’S THE RINGrWRAITHS’ THEME!” and then spent a few minutes explaining to Chris that “thing mean things” and that “the ringwraith theme is a poem written by Philippa Boyens about the wraiths and then translated into the ancient language of man. It’s not just some random, intense battle music!”

She slept through most of Desolation of Smaug. She was so out cold that Chris actually left the theater to walk around the mall for a while. He came back before the end, just in time for her to wake up. “How long have I been asleep?” “Since dwarf barrel boing boing. I brought you a soft pretzel, thought.”

She straight up left the theater during Battle of Five Armies when she heard Thranduil say: “Go north, find the Dunedain. There’s a young ranger among them; you should meet him. His father, Arathorn, was a good man; his son might grow to be a great one. He’s known in the wild as Strider, but his true name you must discover for yourself.”

“Go north? Look at any map of Middle Earth and you’ll see that Erebor is the northern-most kingdom on the map. The only thing north of Erabor is desolate dragon territory. And go north to find the Dunedain? Dunedain literally translates to ‘men of the west!’ Why would you go north into dragon territory to find the men of the west?! And ‘there’s a young ranger among them known as Strider?’ The Hobbit takes place 77 years before the Fellowship of the Ring is formed, which means that Aragorn is TEN! When Aragorn was ten he wasn’t a ranger! He was living at Rivendell! His name was Estel! They didn’t even need Vigo to sign on to the project if they wanted an Aragorn cameo, they only needed some kid with black hair! And he wasn’t known in the wild as Strider! He was known in Bree as Strider, and he didn’t even like the name! This isn’t even deep lore! This is just stuff in the main books and appendices and the maps printed on every inside cover!”

She has three (and a half) Lord of the Rings tattoos.

The first one she gets is a pretty common design: it’s the white tree of Gondor with the shards of Narsil, but she gets the text “Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king” around the design. She has this on the inside of her right forearm. She likes this line because in the movies Arwen says them as if they are ancient prophecy, but in the books, Bilbo writes them in a song. It’s a little inside joke with herself.

Some people have asked why she didn’t get the text from the ring itself, and her response is always “It’s an accursed language. Why would I want an accused language on my body?” “it’s a made up language.” “All languages are made up.”

The second one she gets on a bet. She gets a goofy illustration of Gollum from before JRRT republished The Hobbit to be more canon compliant with The Lord of the Rings. She has this one on the inside of her left arm. As goofy as it is, she does love Gollum as a character.

She then has the door to Moria on her ankle.

The half is her drakon tattoo. She has a tattoo designed partially after the drakon and partially after Tolkein’s illustrations of Smaug. The drakon is weaving itself through a hand, so it is proportionally very small. This tattoo is on the right side of her ribcage and was the first tattoo she got (Ares paid for it as a gift).

When she was pregnant for the first time, she played The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and watched the movies a ton deliberately to train her baby to respond to the sounds. Her first kid ended up (by no accident) being calmed by The Lord of the Rings.

However, her favorite book is The Hobbit, and she proudly proclaimed at three years old that she was going to be a burglar when she grew up. Chris was very smug.

(anyway, come talk to me about the lord of the rings @nohomo-mrfrodo) (did I write this whole thing to go on that rant about that line from battle of the five armies. yes, yes i did)

#wow look at the time #its time for emilys whitest opinions #clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez

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