#to paraphrase my boy tolkien

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Hello~ how are you doing? I really like your meta posts about star wars they all cause me emotional damage but also thoughtful.

First I want to say that I'm relatively new to SW fandom and universe. I watched the trilogy a long time ago, but just now that I decided to know more. I watched the movies and series (currently watching tcw animation), besides of what is Disney canon I only have some informations of what happens in the Legends.

Anyway, I said this all because I have this doubt in my mind since I watched the prequels, and this only got stronger when I re-watch the saga. Was Anakin destiny to fall?

And this lead to another doubt, because I don't really know what is determined by the Force or is free choice.

I'm not Anakin apologist. I just fail to recognize a path where he fulfilled the prophecy without falling in the dark side. Tbh, I feel like he always was one step to the dark side, always in the limit... I don't think I'm reading correctly, because in the end, he chose it. Just like Reva chose to not kill Luke.

Anakin chose to follow the dark side over and over. And yet, I still wonder if he really had a choice? Am I being coherent here? Probably not :')

You're definitely being coherent haha! And thank you for this question--I was literally just talking to my friend about this the other day, so I'm glad to have a chance to flesh out my thoughts :)

The whole point of Anakin is that he loves so deeply it's unhealthy and it burns him up from the inside out. He ties himself so deeply to those he loves that he struggles to handle things involving their relationships with him in a reasonable way. These issues stem from his childhood, and they're never adequately addressed; it's likely he never even consciously recognized how dangerously deep his attachments to others ran. This makes him vulnerable to manipulation, which is exactly what Palpatine takes advantage of.

Anakin did make a very distinct choice: he is accountable for his actions and in the end he did know what he was doing. But I don't think that, at least at first, he realized what the root cause of his actions truly was. When he first turns to the Dark Side he's not consciously doing it for selfish reasons--deep down, it is a selfish desire for control and ultimately for power, but in his mind he's doing it because he has to: he is trying to save Padmé's life and overthrow what he views as a corrupt regime.

This persepctive is a direct result of Palpatine's influence. Palpatine groomed Anakin from the time he was a vulnerable and traumatized child through his adulthood. He leveraged his access to Anakin to put himself in a fatherly role in Anakin's life-- someone who he trusts and who seems to be the only one who fully trusts him and his judgement is naturally going to be more appealing to an immature and desperate young man than the often-restrictive Jedi order and the expectations he can never seem to live up to.

Palpatine very intentionally plays into Anakin's heightened impression of his own responsibility and power (caused by his awareness of his status as the Chosen One), and Anakin's simultaneous sense of utter powerlessness and loss (caused by his childhood as a slave, the suddenness of his departure from Tatooine, and the death of his mother) by making it out to be that Anakin, and only Anakin, has the ability and the right to determine how things should be. Not only that, he removes the only support system Anakin has by sending Obi-Wan to Geonosis and framing Padmé as a victim--as Anakin's victim--if Anakin doesn't use his power to save her.

To his credit, Anakin initially resists. He's opposed to Palpatine at first, so Palpatine pulls on Anakin's attachment to him as a father-figure (despite what Anakin had just witnessed) to goad him into killing Mace Windu.

As the lightning arcs across the room, connecting the two men in front of him in a violent and burning display, Anakin watches, his own battle raging inside him. He knows what is right, and in truth he knows he is powerful enough to stop Palpatine. He is the Chosen One. He is fated to bring balance to the Force. He could choose that fate: he could save Mace and stop Palpatine. But Anakin allows what Palpatine offers, and what Anakin himself feels, to blind him to the truth he had just recognized. Choosing the right is choosing to sacrifice what he wants, what he loves, and he will never do that. That scene is a representation of Anakin's internal decision as much as his physical one: in the moment he kills Mace Windu, he chooses to attack the good in himself instead of the evil, and commits himself to the Dark Side.

The tragedy of Anakin's fall is that it could have been prevented, in some other life. If he was protected from Palpatine's influence; if he had been able to see his mother before her death; if he had been shown how his attachment was unhealthy and why, and taught how to love people without making them his entire universe; if he had talked about these things and listened to the counsel he received; then it would have been different. But it would have been different because he would have been different. He was shaped by what happened to him and those around him, and changing those things would have made him into someone who would never have chosen to fall. Who would never have felt like he needed to. Who, perhaps, would never have wanted to. But as it was, he had a furnace in him, and others saw that and stoked the flame, and Anakin chose to let it consume him.

So in the end, it's a both-and situation: what happened to Anakin was both fully Anakin's choice and never only his choice. The circumstances and plans of other people intersected perfectly with the kind of person Anakin was naturally, which was shaped by his childhood experiences, which was shaped in part by the Jedi and in part by simple chance, and Anakin's own determination of the person he wanted to become. Ultimately the final decision was made by him--he recognizes himself that he killed Anakin Skywalker--but it's impossible to assign sole blame to any one party for all the decisions and factors that led him there. That's just how life works: nothing happens in a vacuum, and it's impossible to tell what the tipping point is, because everything is entangled in ways we can't describe. And in that way, I suppose you could call it fate.

But fate is never stronger than will. The true tragedy is that even after all of this, Anakin was presented a way out, through Obi-wan, and he chose not to take it. Who can truly know why we cling to what destroys us? But he did, as so many of us do. He chose a path of suffering and cruelty and death, and he walked that path for many years.

But in the end, he chose to turn around--and so can we. No one is ever truly beyond the point of saving. We always have a choice. And that is what I think is most important of all: no matter why we fall, we can always rise again.

#star wars #anakin skywalker #darth vader #meta #sheev palpatine #my meta posts #responses aka the ramblings of my brain #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #quality meta seal of approval #not to hype my own post up i just put that on all meta posts so that i can find them #obi wan kenobi #i feel like i'm really channeling him here lol 😂 we are basically identical but i really do think this is how he thinks of anakin as well #never beyond saving but choosing not to listen #how tragic is that? #but he is saved in the end. the good that was unfinished is completed. and they will laugh together yet #to paraphrase my boy tolkien #(also yes for my mutuals if you're seeing christian themes here that's intentional 👀) #kay has a party in the tags #rots #hopefully that answered your question/was at least clear! it was frickin long but hey 😂 hope you don't mind!

[justgp]

Peregrin took

#Peregrin took free

Boyd was asked several questions and shared plenty of stories regarding his role as Pippin, from his audition process and being the first one cast in the series, to the hobbits’ Guinness Book of World Records listing for their amount of time they had to have getting their hobbit feet applied, as well as which costume prop he still owns. Always be prepared, as you never known when inspiration will strike.Īlways map out your plans. Instead, I’m working here without a net, fueled by memory and tepid Irish breakfast tea. If I had remembered even a small pencil, I could have treated readers to some very fun comments. As a result, I have to resort to “paraphrasing” everything I heard during the talk. This was an important lesson reinforced for me as a writer, as I didn’t even think to bring my notepad and pencil with me into the theater. He also talked about how inspiration for his own music comes from all over the place. Of course, Boyd had his guitar nearby, so that when the spirit moved him he could play a favorite song. It’s always good idea to keep the tools of your trade at hand. “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,” Boyd read. This also gave him a chance to enthusiastically introduce folks in the Southwest United States to some of his favorite Scottish words. Boyd pulled a copy of the poems of Scottish poet Robert Burns from his pocket to illustrate this point, by using the poem “To a Mouse” to answer an audience question. When you want to explain something as eloquently as possible, it never hurts to have some literary reference. Boyd said some of the creative people he knows - artists, musicians, poets, photographers - make beautiful things and “keep them hidden.” That’s a shame, as something we make today may make someone else happy tomorrow.Ĭarry books with you wherever you go. However you share it, get your work, ideas, and talents out there. He talked bout how interesting it is when a person creates something, it can find its way through the universe and be discovered.īoyd did say social media can be both a good and bad thing, as it gives creative types more ways to share their work, but also makes it harder to stand out in that huge sea of images out there. As a frontman for the band Beecake, he talked about the random circumstances where one of his band’s songs, “Please Stay,” made into an episode of a television series. Boyd is one exceptionally entertaining individual, both on screen and musically, and he was a vocal advocate of not being selfish with the things you create. Here are a few things I picked up from the man who made us all love Peregrin “Pippin” Took.ĭon’t hide your talents. I had no idea, however, how much we would learn from his casual, positive personality about the importance of the creative spirit. He is also a patron of the Scottish Youth Theatre, and the National Boys’ Choir of Scotland.Īs an unapologetic follower of all things Tolkien and an admirer of Boyd’s music, I attended the event with my teenage daughter fully expecting to be entertained. The Scottish-born actor is best known for his performance as Pippin in the Lord of The Rings trilogy, as well as for his moving performance of the ending song, “The Last Goodbye,” for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.

#Peregrin took free

The event was of the many free presentations offered at the Las Cruces International Film Festival. I recently had the privilege of attending an event in which actor, musician, and hobbit Billy Boyd spent an afternoon answering questions from young musicians, filmmakers, and Lord of the Rings fans.

#Peregrin took

[frodo-with-glasses]

More Reading Thoughts: Minas Tirith

(So I would like to start this off by saying that I’m writing this from the perspective of having already finished the chapter a while ago and had a couple days to chew on it. This is not a live-blog; this is a recap. The reason for this disclaimer will become clear below. ;-P)

I want to say something about these portions of Pippin’s ride with Gandalf, but nothing I say will really do it justice. There’s just something dreamlike, spell-binding, nostalgic, melancholy, and longing about it. The whole world whirling by under Shadowfax’s hooves while Pippin slips in and out of sleep.

People talk about the strange, extraordinary feeling that the scene at the Grey Havens gives them, but I can actually kind of identify that feeling, because I’ve thought about it a lot. This, though? I can’t even identify what emotion this is giving me. It’s like waking up and yearning for a dream you can remember less by the second. Wow.

“Sleep again, and do not be afraid! For you are not going like Frodo to Mordor, but to Minas Tirith, and there you will be as safe as you can be anywhere in these days. If Gondor falls, or if the Ring is taken, then the Shire will be no refuge.” “You do not comfort me.” Hahahaha there’s Tolkien’s bathos!

“He wondered where Frodo was, and if he was already in Mordor, or if he was dead; and he did not know that Frodo from far away looked on that same moon as it said beyond Gondor ere the coming of the day.” Hnnnngg my heart TT-TT

Hahaha the way that Pippin takes offense to being called a man AND being called brave X’-D

Bruh I dunno how people can read the description of Minas Tirith and actually picture in their heads what it looks like. I can see it now, because I’ve seen it in the movie, but it’s no wonder that this description made Little Me’s head spin.

I’m glad the movies took the comedy route here because Gandalf giving Pippin a long list of Things You’re Not Allowed to Talk About is very funny

Broooo Denethor’s face reminds Pippin more of Aragorn than it does Boromir 8-O Something something noble lineage and dramatic parallels…

Pippin immediately stuttering as soon as Denethor asks him a question is a huge mood

Movie!Denethor when you meet him: Grumpy. Grieving. A few crayons missing from the box. Easily not somebody you’d ever want to be around on purpose. Book!Denethor when you meet him: Serious. Level-headed. Shrewd. Asks intelligent and uncomfortably probing questions. A little bit manipulative. Still not somebody you’d want to have over for lunch, but someone you have to respect even if you don’t like him.

“[Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smoldering fire, drawn from eye to eye, that might suddenly burst into flame.” This is literally the same comic book effect that I used in these comics what

Speaking as a normie who also doesn’t have this stuff memorized, I find Pippin wondering about Gandalf’s age to be absolutely hilarious. “Well, my boy, to understand that, you’ll have to read this little thing called the Silmarillion—”

“Was it so, or had he only imagined it, that as he spoke of the Stones a sudden gleam of his eye had glanced upon Pippin’s face?” Ohohoho, foreshadowing??

(This is brilliant because at this point you could just write it off as Pippin’s overactive guilt from looking into the Palantir a couple days ago, but I’m also fairly certain we’re gonna find out later that Denethor has one of the Stones too, so?? Maybe he saw Pippin too?? Who knows???)

Denethor calls Pippin “my liege”, “half kindly, half mockingly”. I don’t really have a comment on this except that I find it fascinating he’d refer to Pippin as a superior, even sarcastically.

I can’t even paraphrase Denethor and Gandalf’s rap battle without making it less concise and biting than it actually is. Denethor says “let your wrath at an old man’s folly run off, and then if you’re going to come back, let it be to my comfort” and Gandalf says “BOI don’t even start with me, you can’t use your grief to hide, I see your game and we both know you’re no old man yet; when you’re a dotard, you will die!” SAVAGE—

“I am also a steward. Did you not know?” I’m sure Gandalf is just talking about the free peoples of Middle Earth being under his care, but my first thought went to, “I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Arnor…”

“Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, where it to gush forth.” Bro there is something INCREDIBLY Biblical about that, I can’t even. The utterly overwhelming wellsprings of joy in a being powerful enough to see beyond the present grim circumstances into a bright and glorious future. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God…”

“Indeed you did your best, and I hope that it may be long before you find yourself in such a tight corner again between two such terrible old men.” Gandalf’s self-depreciation is genuinely making me feel better. Pippin isn’t even full-grown yet, and I’ve been a kid before, so I know getting stuck between the grown-ups when they’re arguing is TERRIFYING. This little bit of encouragement is badly needed.

“Well, there is no need to brood on what tomorrow may bring. For one thing, tomorrow will be certain to being worse than today, for many days to come.” First of all, mood. Secondly, I think that’s a good role model for how to deal with times like these. “This is gonna suck! Now let’s get out there and do what we have to do.”

Pippin’s first concern, the instant he’s left alone: “I want breakfast :-(”

(Okay so here’s where the recap disclaimer comes in. I’ve had a couple of days to think about it, and after much careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Beregond is my new husbando.)

(NONONONO LISTEN. SHUT UP, STOP HECKLING ME, LISTEN. Look, I didn’t REMEMBER about Beregond until rereading this, okay?? I’m fairly certain I skipped through the Gondor and Rohan bits pretty quickly—because kingdoms of Men looked a LOT the same to Little Kid Me—and Beregond is NOT in the movies, so there was nothing to make him stick in my mind. BUT. HOLY COW. HE IS THE BEST(TM). So I’m gonna be keeping a counter of Beregond Being A Dreamboat for the rest of this post. Ready? Ready. Okay.)

Pippin has been left alone. Gandalf left on business, and now he’s stuck in an unfamiliar place with no idea of what to do. He sees a man coming up the street and makes up his mind to say hello because he’s lonely. He doesn’t need to! That man comes right up, introduces himself, welcomes Pippin to Gondor, and offers his hand to shake. He doesn’t gawk at Pippin. He doesn’t spend too much time interrogating him about who and what he is. He’s just like, “Hi :-D You’re the Halfling, right? I’ve been sent to show you around.” He’s so friendly and laid-back and easy-going I love him <3 DING!

Gandalf is gone for all of two seconds before Pippin almost blabs about Aragorn to somebody. Can’t take this fool of a Took anywhere.

Beregond asks good questions. He asks for clarification of terms, like “who is Aragorn?” and “what is a Hobbit?”. That proves he’s paying attention, and that he’s intelligent and curious and attentive and genuinely interested in what Pippin has to say. DING!

Beregond: “Is there anything you would like to know?” Pippin, hesitantly: “B b break fast? ? 🥺”

Beregond laughs so easily. I freakin’ love him. He asks Pippin “you haven’t eaten anything today?” and Pippin says “I had some wine and a white cake or two, but I had to answer questions for an hour and I’m hungry >_<” and Beregond laughs and jokes “at the table small men may do the greater deeds, we say”, clearly thinking of children—OF WHICH HE HAS ONE, so he’d know! DING!

And THEN he says “sounds like you’ve had as good a breakfast as any of us soldiers get around here” and when Pippin’s face does a “D-8 !!!” he laughs AGAIN like “nonono it’s okay I’ll find you some food, don’t you worry!” He’s kind and understanding AND he’s got snacks!! DING!

And then! When Pippin says “wait, Gandalf asked me to check on Shadowfax,” Beregond says: “But come! You shall make me acquainted with this good horse. I love beasts, and we see them seldom in this stony city…” LIKE HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS MAN, HE LOVES ANIMALS, HE’S SO EXCITED TO SEE A HORSE, I’M— DING!

I love that Pippin talks to Shadowfax like you’d talk to another person—and even better, that Shadowfax seems to understand, and lets Beregond pet him.

Shadowfax can neigh loud enough to shake a stable. Noted.

“Then they took their leave, seeing that the manger was well filled. ‘And now for our manger,’ said Beregond.” DAD JOKE DAD JOKE DAD JOKE— DING!

The way Beregond vouches for Pippin to Targon the Food Guy is the funniest thing. “He has had sore labor this morning,” not “he was sitting and talking for an hour”. Love it. DING!

Beregond learns a lot about the Shire and Pippin’s adventures, and apologizes for assuming Pippin was just a kid that Denethor took on “as a whim”. But there are two factors here: 1) he apologized proactively, before Pippin even had any reason to feel offense, and 2) he treated Pippin so well that there was no need to feel offense in the first place. I imagine his thought process must have been, “The lord has taken on a page, and I’m supposed to teach him the passwords? Sure, I’ll take this as seriously as I take any other duty I’m given.” No talking down to Pippin, nothing to make him feel any less than welcome.

Why is this important? 1) Because anyone who is quick to apologize is a person of humility and integrity. DING!

2) Because it says good things about his personality that he’s willing to accept what seems like a ridiculous situation with good humor and complete sincerity. DING!

And 3) Because if that’s how he treats someone he thinks is a kid, that means he treats kids really, really well. DING!

“And there were always too few children in the city; but now there are none—save some young lads that will not depart, and may find some task to do: my own son is one of them.” And it was at this moment —at this exact moment—that everything made sense.

You wanna know why Beregond immediately knew to treat Pippin the way he did? ‘Cause it’s ingrained. Him’s a DadTM. He saw Pippin and the paternal instinct in him immediately went—

—and now, even despite knowing that Pippin is nearly full-grown, he can’t shake it. Mans is warm and nurturing and attentive and an excellent teacher because he’s had practice and I absolutely love him. DING!

Also ohhhh he has so much reason to be invested in how this battle turns out. He’s gotta make sure his kid has a future that isn’t in death or slavery to the Dark Lord. That’ll motivate ya.

“It is but the deep breath before the plunge.” Duuuude. That was Beregond’s line at first! I can definitely see why they gave it to Gandalf tho.

“It is over-late to send for aid when you are already besieged.” That’s…actually really good advice. Both militarily, and also in a lot of other circumstances. Cf. why I’m taking steps to avoid the clinical depression that runs in my family BEFORE it gets to the point that I need medication.

The way just witnessing a Black Rider immediately makes Beregond and Pippin become overwhelmed with despair until it leaves. That thing deals psychic damage just by existing.

And then, as soon as it’s gone, the mood passes, and both of them declare “nope, actually, I’m gonna hold on to hope, thanks”.

“‘Rightly said!’ cried Beregond, rising and striding to and fro. ‘Nay, though all things must come utterly to an end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet. Not though the walls be taken by a reckless foe that will build a hill of carrion before them. There are still other fastnesses, and secret ways of escape into the mountains. Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green.’” I just. I. Hjzzzg.

First of all, standing up and walking around to shake off the unwanted foul mood. I can see that in my mind, it’s so clear. Second, practical speech mixed with utter poetry. “Hope and memory shall live in some hidden valley where the grass is green”?? That’s just. Get out, that’s brilliantly evocative. And third: holding on to hope bare-knuckled, despite KNOWING the odds are stacked against you; despite realizing you might very well lose the fight, lose everything, even lose your life; despite having a family, and so much more reason to worry about what the world will look like on the other side of the storm; but stubbornly choosing to believe that light and song and goodness will endure, even if it’s after you’re gone. I just. I. HHHHNG. DING!

“I am no warrior at all and dislike the thought of any battle; but waiting on the edge of one that I can’t escape is the worst of all.” It’s interesting to see how much of this conversation was given to the conversation with Gandalf in the movies instead.

Beregond laughs again at the mere notion that he might be a captain. But he’s not the least bit bitter about his lower rank, and actually seems very proud of it. Humility and quiet confidence and still a good sense of humor. DING!

A rumor has already gone through the Citadel Guard that all the Riders of Rohan “each would bring behind him a halfling warrior, small maybe, but doughty”. They’re not right, and they’re not entirely wrong, because Merry, at least, is going to be riding behind Eowyn.

Pippin gets all the food and drink he wants and his only problem is keeping his mouth shut. Seems about right!

Aaaaand the final point in Beregond’s favor before we leave him for the day: Man loves his son. “But if you are lonely, as you say, maybe you would like a merry guide around the City. My son would go with you gladly. A good lad, I may say.” Can you imagine the twinkle in his eye when he says that?? Ugh, it’s too cute. DING!

I’m just imagining the thought process here. He’s getting to know Pippin and he’s like “Bergil would absolutely love this guy, he’s a hoot, he’d get a kick out of it”, and as soon as he knows Pippin pretty well he’s like “I’ll betcha he’ll like Bergil too, and I think he’d be a good influence”, and then he puts those two pieces together and sets up a playdate for his son and the hobbit he just adopted. Adorable.

People really do come out to stare at Pippin, don’t they?

Bergil is just. Written perfectly. His vernacular is much more polished than that of a kid nowadays, but the things he wants to talk about are EXACTLY what kids always want to talk about. “Hi! Who are you? How old are you? I’m ten, and almost five feet tall, and very grown up. Have I told you about my dad? He has the greatest job ever! Wow, you’re a grown-up already?? That’s so weird. Wanna wrestle?”

Also. One more point in Beregond’s favor. I love the fact that Bergil introduces himself with the name and occupation of his father. Is this likely a standard way to identify oneself in a culture without surnames? Yes, probably. Are kids usually proud of their parents’ occupations by default? Yes, if they’re allowed to keep that enthusiasm. Is it still very telling that Bergil draws himself up and puffs out his chest to proclaim whose son he is? Yes, yes it is. Beregond is a dad worth being proud of. DING!

I have nothing to say about the procession of reinforcements from the Outlands pouring into Minas Tirith, except that it’s a brilliant show of the diverse cultures Tolkien dreamt up for Gondor, and also FORLONG THE FAT

Also Beregond wants to hear all about his son when Pippin gets back. They’re so darn cute.

The lights are being dimmed in Minas Tirith. Somebody lived through the bomb raids in Britain….

“The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.” Dun dun dunn…

Final Dreamboat Points: 15

Results: Husbando

#peregrin took #pippin #gandalf #denethor #shadowfax #beregond #bergil #mention of: #frodo baggins #aragorn #boromir #lord of the rings #lotr #my writing #assorted thoughts #if beregond dies i am going to be. very upset. #please let the good dad live tolkien i beg you

[absynthe--minded]

This is going to be a long questions, but I feel you are the right person to ask this too... How late in the many rewriting of the Silmarillion material does the rescue of Maedhros from Thangorodrim appear? The reason I ask is that I have been wondering how that plot line, which is objectively a) pure fire b) a very clean "stand alone" narrative, did not in time evolve to receive a more similar treatment to the three "great stories" (CoH, B&L, tFoG), and my best hypothesis is that iirc in general the Sons of Feanor become the characters we know relatively late in the process, being more straight up villains before. Or maybe you have some different thoughts about this...

oh this is a great question and I am somehow the right person to ask this to because I have an answer for you, but it’s not quite the one you’re expecting, I think. this story is stupid old, and also, it’s pure fire, exactly like you said. this is a LONG post but I’m trying to be brief.

Maedhros’s rescue is inherently tied into the story of and the development of the Oath of Fëanor, which in its earliest appearance wasn’t actually connected to Fëanor at all. Maedhros has basically always been a captive, and always been important, but Fingon’s part in the tale is what’s newer. In The Book of Lost Tales vol. I, Christopher says that the earliest iteration of what would become the Oath was sworn voluntarily by Maedhros and his brothers after Fëanor’s death - he led an assault against Angband, and was captured, and his torture and torment were because he refused to give up the secrets of Noldorin jewelcrafting. It’s never explicitly said he escaped or was rescued or freed, but he gets free somehow, because once he rejoins the others they all collectively swear an "oath of hatred, for ever against all, Gods or Elves or Men, who should hold the Silmarils” and then the seven of them and their host withdraw from the rest of the Noldor and live in Dor-lómin.

Christopher mentions in his commentary that Fingon plays no part in any of this and that there’s no mention of Maedhros being maimed but he finds it interesting that the story still has quite a lot of its core elements in place despite that - the Oath, withdrawing from the Noldorin people at large, capture and freedom - and I’m inclined to agree with him. I also want to point out that these earliest versions of the stories place a much greater emphasis on the Silmarils as objects, and jewelcrafting as a skill to be coveted and stolen, where I think later versions focus more on Finwë’s death with the Silmarils as a sort of proxy for Fëanor’s grief. I also feel like the Oath makes way more sense as a response to trauma in the “sworn out of anger and the desire for vengeance towards Morgoth for years of torture” version - if I were tortured over a bunch of rocks I’d sure as hell be mad at the guy who did that.

In The Lays of Beleriand, which is the next volume chronologically and the next phase of Tolkien’s writing, we get mention of “Maidros whom Morgoth maimed and tortured” wielding his sword in his left hand, and later (I think in version VI of the Lay of Leithian) we also get a verse telling of the swearing of the Oath on Túna (here called Tun) by Fëanor and his sons. All the key pieces are already in place, even “Be he friend or foe” (though what follows after is in verse and paraphrased). Fingon is here! We’re told he freed Maedhros, and that Maedhros was hanging from Thangorodrim in a cruel shackle, but we don’t see how or hear any of the key details. Though, this is an introduction to the world designed to set the stage for Beren and Lúthien, so I don’t actually mind too much. Too much. (I’ve talked before in my own meta about the connections and thematic parallels between the Thangorodrim rescue and B&L, so I think it’s interesting that JRRT explicitly mentions it in this context). Fingon is also then immediately said to have fallen in battle with his “white banners and his lords”. because this is the Silmarillion, did you expect happiness here?

By the time we hit The Shaping of Middle-Earth, we start to see things really come together. In what Chris calls “the earliest Silmarillion,” Fingon (here called Finweg, hilariously) resolves to heal the feud, goes off to find Maedhros, and finds him but can’t release him because he’s trapped by an “enchanted bond”. Maedhros begs to be slain, Thorondor shows up, Fingon cuts off his hand, Thorondor takes them back to Mithrim, we know the story from here on out. The Quenta is much the same, though he’s still called Finweg, and here we get the first mention of the bow and Maedhros begging to be shot with it. After Fingon gets to Maedhros, we get another “please kill me”, the hand is cut off, and off to Mithrim we go. Here’s also the first mention in prose that I could find of Maedhros being more deadly with his left hand than his right.

The Lost Road doesn’t have anything new, and then we get 6-9 talking about the history of LotR’s drafts; anything after that is what Chris refers to as “The Later Silmarillion”, which has basically everything you’d expect.

The thing I find most interesting personally is how complete this narrative element was basically right from the start, after the early installment weirdness of the Lost Tales - it’s a lot like the Great Tales in that respect, where the core of the story doesn’t shift much at all. Fingon’s prominence and characterization, and the details surrounding his rescue, get more and more pronounced with time. Fingon and Maedhros being tied together by some form of friendship is new, I’m fairly certain that Fingon being the person Maedhros asks after at Losgar is new, and by the 50s and the Grey Annals in The War of the Jewels we get “and their love was renewed” and mentions of the green stone as a gift to Fingon. From a Russingon perspective it’s a bit like the inverse of Túrin and Beleg - those two start out extremely textually gay and get more and more subdued with time, where Fingon and Maedhros get fleshed out more and more as they go on.

As to your theory about how the Fëanorians got more developed over time, I think there’s a lot of truth to it. I don’t think that they were ever solely villainous - even in the Lays they’ve got some ambiguity - but all of the elvish characters began to develop their individual identities more and more over time, and the intricacies of the family drama really flourish in Morgoth’s Ring as opposed to Shaping (though, in a moment that made me laugh, Tolkien talks about there being “little love” between the two camps of Noldor in Mithrim in that book, and I have to imagine them glaring at one another across the lake). But I think that the rescue did evolve, it just didn’t ever become its own Great Tale, and my best guess there is that it’s just too interconnected, almost? Like, in order to understand (in the latest versions of the story that coincidentally have the most emotional impact) what’s going on, you have to care about the characters’ ties to one another, and you have to know about Valinorean family drama and Fëanor vs. Fingolfin and the Silmarils and all of that stuff.

despite the length I absolutely loved talking about this, holy shit, I’d wanted an excuse to go digging in HoME on this subject and boy do I have it now.

#replies #anon replies #tolkien #absynthe's meta

[wjcopelandwriter]

First Post and Introduction

Hi!  Call me Joe.  Does anyone recognize that first line?  It’s a paraphrase from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, who wrote “Call me Ismael.” to start the massive novel.  I’m a writer too.  I suppose you could call me an author, too, since I self-published a book on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).  The link, if you’re interested is down below.  The book is based on a food blog I’ve been writing for the last 6 1/2 years.  It details my life through cooking and includes recipes, tips, tricks, restaurant reviews, book reviews, anecdotes, and some short stories.  That link is also down below.  I try to write the blog once a week, but life gets busy for me all the time, so some weeks I’ll post several times, and other weeks, not at all.  There’s over 800 posts, and I’ve numbered them for easy access.  So, if you want to know about food, it’s all there.

https://hohcopelandwj.wordpress.com/

Mostly, I like to write fiction.  I started writing when I was in the second grade, which is also when I published my first short story for the school’s yearbook.  I don’t remember what the story was about, but I do remember how proud I was to see my name in print as the author.  I must have been 6-7, so that would be 60 years ago.  I’ve been writing ever since.  Last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and completed the goal!  It’s an unofficial competition to complete 50,000 words in 30 days.  That’s 1667 words per day, or about six and a half pages typed double-spaced.  It’s completely on the honor system, although they do have a system for tracking word counts.  You could conceivably write “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” over and over until you had 50,000 words and it would count.  I worked on a novella I want to publish, and only got to the beginning of chapter 7 before I reached my goal.  I’m still plugging away at it.

When people find out I’m a writer, inevitably their first question is “What have you written that I’ve read?”  Since I don’t know their likes or dislikes, it’s a tough question to answer.  When I started my “real” writing career, I was writing short stories and articles for children and early teens.  I had moderate success, but not a financial windfall by any means.  The second question I’m asked is usually “What do you write?”  The easiest answer to that is “Whatever captures my interest that day.”  When I was a teenager and wrote incessantly, I was heavily into science fiction and fantasy.  Asimov was king, and everyone wanted to be as detailed as Tolkien.  But as I grew older and more experienced, my tastes changed.  I started writing more slice-of-life stories and literary stories.  The third thing most people will ask is, “Do you want to write a book with me?  I’ve got a great idea!  I’ll tell it to you and you can write it up.  We can split the money half and half.”  I always reply “So I do all the work and you get half the money?  Nope.”  “Oh, but it’s my idea!”  “Then you should write the story.”  “I don’t know how.  I’ve tried before but I never do it right.”  

Like every skill, writing can be learned.  No one is born knowing this stuff.  It takes practice.  I wake up every morning thinking about what I’m going to write that day.  Some days it’s the blog.  Some days, it’s just some letters or emails I have to get done.  Other days, my “writing” is actually re-writing; revisions are the true work in a novel.  And always, I’m working on ideas.  I once made a deal with God that I wouldn’t die until I’d written the stories for every idea I had.  I’m going to live forever.  Once, I got involved with a church in my home town, a very controlling group of people.  They were sincere in their beliefs, and just as sincere in their sense of rightness.  For three years, while I was with that church, I put away my writing.  When I finally left and took up writing again, I was worried that it had left me.  It hadn’t, and the ideas are still pouring out of me today.  Ideas are the easy part.  Every writer I know, and know of, has a huge list of ideas they’ll never get to before they die.

I once tried to give a writer friend an idea for a vampire story that I thought was a great story, but I didn’t have time to write it.  He wrote vampire stories so I thought he’d like to take it.  He loved the idea, but didn’t take it because “I don’t have time for the list I’ve already written down.  You should write it.”  I might some day. 

So, here’s the info for my published book at Amazon.  You’ll notice that if you have Amazon Prime, it’s free.  If not, it’s only $1.99.  It’s excerpts from my blog, funny stories and recipes to go along with them.

And this next pic is my KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) page with the three projects I’ve got listed there.  That list will be growing soon, but I’ll tell you about that in the next entry.

Herne’s Hart is a fantasy/adventure story involving centaurs, a human man, and Gaia the Earth Spirit.  Ring of Magic is an action/adventure story set in the days of legendary Robin Hood.

This was a long post since you don’t know me.  I wanted to put as much in this post as I could to answer your questions.  Please, always feel free to comment, ask questions, make suggestions, or just say HI.  My goal is to post something at least once a week, but hopefully twice a week.  My food blog will automagically post here if I’m lucky.  If not, I’ll link it by hand.  I’m also on Facebook, and on Instagram.  If you send me a friend request on FB try to let me know where you learned about me.  There’s some less-than-savory people out there, and I’d rather not deal with them.

So, have a great day and 

#Introduction #blog #kindle books

[paradoxcase]

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

[vardasvapors]

Hey I’m a fellow Tolkien fan and I’m just starting to get into the untamed (largely bc I’ve seen a lot of Tolkien fans are into it) I’ve watched 3 eps so far and from what I can tell it’s about a dead war criminal who was killed by his adopted brother. He’s resurrected by a dude with a shit family to get revenge. He tried to sort of disguise himself but completely fails bc he can’t resist following around his husband from his old life who is some kind of Jedi like priest. I’m on the right track?

Wait do u want spoilers.....if u don’t, i’ll say yes you are on the right track in sense that yes, this is what ur supposed to think is correct at the 3 episode mark. skip the next paragraph.

If u DO want spoilers for the 30 episode long flashback, then: you’re correct except that everyone other than him is also a war criminal lol. on a widely varying spectrum of culpability definitions. murder brother is like slightly higher than the halfway point. jedi bf was somewhere in the bottom half of the spectrum. Main Character War Criminal is lower on the spectrum than him. but main character officially qualifies as a war criminal and everyone else officially doesn’t qualify because he was fighting [reason for fighting is important but yet another layer of spoiler] the other war criminals who are the majority and the victors, so what they declare is the truth is Officially The Truth. jedi bf disagrees. murder brother disagrees too but that’s not enough to make him change his behavior, because the first uhhhhh 22 episodes of dumb wuxia magic are functionally a decoy plot and then it suddenly turns into one of most realistic ever history anecdotes on how war crimes work lol. the only complete non-war-criminal is the cute chained-up zombie. unless disobeying a cartoon decoy villain to help the main character and murder brother qualifies as a war crime? when jedi bf did the exact same thing for main character later on, everyone thought it did qualify as a war crime bc main character had fallen out of favor with the majority by then, and bc the villains who jedi bf disobeyed were the main supporting cast. unlike purposely-cartoonish decoy villain, this main supporting cast is also very likable! i love them. i love murder brother. jedi bf is my favorite character. jedi bf is and has always been morally inferior to war criminal main character and he knows it full well, that’s why he’s gay. war criminal main character is also dumb as shit and his biggest moral flaw is probably that he’s too wishy-washy to murder the entire main supporting cast like they deserve, because the main supporting cast contains his friends and family. the supporting cast contains all my other favorite characters and also 100% deserves to be murdered in a peasant uprising. though being murdered by the resurrected zombies of everyone they murdered is the next best thing. these are all completely non-contradictory statements! i will die on this hill. anyway jedi bf’s attempted solution to all of this is to corrupt the youth (cute boys in white and spoiled brat in gold from episodes 1 & 2). these ones aren’t war criminals! hopefully they never will be. jedi bf agrees with phillip larkin’s This Be The Verse except for the very last line.

anyway this sounds like meta but tbh it’s the main theme of every single thing mo xiang tong xiu (the author of mo dao zu shi, the book the untamed is based on) has ever written lol so it’s very much intentional and unsubtle and explicitly spelled out in both the narrative and in multiple characters’ dialogue, especially murder brother’s. i’m just paraphrasing. this is unsurprising salt coming from a chinese author in china semi-anonymously writing stuff she could get jailed for because of its gay content but as someone with a Defense Lawyer Soul it waters my crops as well.

#i’m mercifully not gonna put this in the main tags lol #/ #// #/// #//// #the untamed #mdzs

[nerdismyhobby]

Dan I'm new to LOTR should I read the books now that I've seen the movies and been blown away

Hoo boy. Ok. One, you’re welcome to come off anon and message me if you want, I’ll keep the conversation between us.

Two, i was going to do some creative writing and work on a play tonight but I have a feeling this is going to replace it. 

Here we go- I will say, right off the bat, my love for Lord of the Rings comes from the movies first and foremost. I experienced them before reading the books and I latched onto the epic story of it, the acting, the music, the visuals.... It was such a complete package that it formed my identity and still is into my late 20s. It will continue to be for a while I’m sure. 

That being said, I’ve read the books probably I wanna say three full times. I firmly believe that everyone should read the books at least once in their life. I don’t care if you do it all at once, read just one a year, read just one of them every five years, whatever. Read the Hobbit. Read  all of Lord of the Rings. Even if it’s only to say you did it. Do it anyway. 

However.... Be prepared for a slog at times. There, I said it. 

The books can be A LOT at times. Almost too much. 

One- There are a lot of differences. The films did a very good job distilling as MUCH as they could into three movies. But they still couldn’t get everything. There’s the obvious Tom Bombadil omission and everything contained therein (the Old Forest, the barrows, etc) . There’s the hill people between Rohan and Gondor that help out. Who the fuck is Glorfindel. Saruman with his gay rainbow/many colors robe. Who the fuck is Erkenbrand. The Scouring of the Shire. Where is Arwen? On the one hand, it’s exciting to read and see the differences. On the other hand, the movies are already twelve hours total as the extended editions and you STILL had to omit stuff? Do you know how bonkers that is? There’s already so many details in the movies and now you want to add MORE?? Are you goddamn nuts????? 

Two- I don’t have a lot of evidence for this, but I’m not sure if Tolkien expected to ever actually have his other notes and books published, such as the Silmarillion, book of Lost tales, etc. Yes, I know he wrote and composed the Silmarillion before Lord of the Rings, but i’m not sure if publication was ever expected. So all of a sudden, you have this epic three part book series (or six books, or one book split into three volumes with two books each, as Tolkien prefers) with a rich history that no one knows ANYTHING about, apart from the Hobbit, which was a bed time story Tolkien made up to get his kids to finally go the fuck to sleep and then he happened to publish. Because of this, you get a lot of tangential history woven in. Which is fascinating at times, but also REALLY slows the story down. So often you get stuff like this (paraphrasing here): “Off to the side of the road there was a copse of trees. Strong sturdy trees, like the ones sung about in the songs, that Earendil used to carve his magical flying boat out of and used to strike down the terrible dragon known as Ancalagon the Black, whose ruin he smote upon the earth and destroyed a mountain range, before Earendil himself perished only to be lifted up to the stars”.  Seriously. You get history tangents like that at least once a chapter. Which back in the day was helpful. But now? it’s not as necessary when you can literally just look all this stuff up on a tolkien wikipedia. It puffs up your word count sure, but this isn’t your dissertation. This is an epic fantasy novel. You’re here for the action and the fights and the character development and the twists and turns and stunning reveals and the gay bromance between Legolas and Gimli (seriously, I don’t necessarily “ship” them, but in no universe are those two straight). I don’t care as much about the trees and the terrain when there are orcs that Aragorn could be cleaving in two and Legolas and Gimli could be flirting/not flirting. 

Now, I know this makes it seem like I don’t like the books. Which isn’t necessarily true. It’s just the way that books are written just aren’t necessarily for me. I’m a very modern minded person, in that a lot of the media I tend to enjoy (be it plays or movies or books) are all more modern or contemporary (think like, post 1990. Yes, I’m serious). With the way my brain works in consuming media, things written and released in the 40s don’t necessarily appeal as much to me. I’m not a big fan of classic novels in general due to the writing style. I can think of maybe two or three I like, when I have all of the classics we read to high school to choose from. The style just isn’t for me. Reading any of them can be a chore for me, or like it takes a lot more effort for me to get through them. 

That being said- the books are still magical. It gets bogged down by history at times, but that’s only because Tolkien did such a fantastic job of world building that you can’t help but be taken in by it. Some of the omissions from the movies are actually very exciting parts of the books, and it’s fascinating to see the differences. And if nothing else, the movies did such an A+ job of casting that honestly? I don’t feel bad visualizing the actors as the actual characters when reading the book. I know some people try not to. But I genuinely find it difficult to differentiate. It’s so much fun to read along and follow along with the plot of such an epic movie series and see the inspiration for it. 

So yes. Read the books. But don’t be surprised if it’s difficult. If it’s frustrating. If it takes a while. If you kinda roll your eyes and go “yes yes, get on with it” at times. Cause I did. But the world building. The characters. The friendships. The action. The battles. The hobbit people and how they are living the ideal life. It’s all worth it at least once.

Pace yourself. 

You got this. 

But most importantly, have fun with it and appreciate it for what it is. For its messages of friendship and finding the good in the world, even when so much bad has happened. It is still Lord of the Rings, after all. 

Enjoy :) 

And thanks for the question! I really appreciate getting to talk at length about my favorite thing in the world. 

[paragonrobits]

*deeeeep breath* 1, 2, 10, 12, 21, 22, 24 (I know you have but it'd be nice to see you talk about 'em here!), 25, 29, 43, 46, 49!

1. Books or Movies? To be honest, while i adore a lot of the visual aesthetics and inspirations of the films (taking Rohirrim’s Land Vikings to the logical extreme, Gondor’s Byzantium vibes), I have to say the books. It’s the original source material, its the books that defined the modern fantasy genre, and there is so much subtext and atmosphere that can’t be captured any adaptation so far!

2. Which character do you connect with the most? tbh I kind of really dig Gandalf’s vibe, from the little we know of him on a personal level. And while the hobbits are the most relatable characters, and I really GET frodo’s whole slow descent, i have to say it’s a toss up between Gimli and Treebeard. Gimli because he’s very relatable to me in a way i can’t quite articulate, and Treebeard’s sad note about his people’s inevitable decline and his benevolence in spite of how the world has largely forgotten him is very emotional to me.

10. Who is your OTP? Hard to say! I’m fond of Arwen/Aragorn for obvious reasons, but honestly, if there’s a ship, i probably dig it! pretty fond of a lot of brotps; among them, Eowyn and Merry, and Boromir and the collective hobbit people.

12. What unpopular opinons do you have about the movies? Honestly, Gimli gets played TOO much for laughs in the movies; he’s a fairly poetic warrior straight out of the norse Poetic Eddas and he consistently speaks in the most lyrical ways, so him being a comic relief bumbler feels a little like a disservice to him. (Granted, I still love movie Gimli, but where’s his loving speeches about the careful cultivations of a mine, eh???)

21. What is your favorite line from the movies? I have to say... Gandalf’s speech to Frodo when they discuss Bilbo’s choice to spare him. “Pity? It was pity that stopped his head. There are many, I daresay, that deserve life, and many living that deserve death. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so hasty to give judgement. For even Gollum, I think, has a part to play in all this.” (Sorry for paraphrasing!)

22. What is your favorite line from the books? While it got adapted into the movies, in a fashion, I’m very fond of Sam’s musing upon a fallen Haradrim warrior: “He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace.”

24. I have, certainly! I’m unsure how the earlier animated Hobbit movie factors into this (though i have a fairly clear memory of it as a kid, and the visual designs of the hobbits influenced me for a long time since), but then there’s the animated Lord of the Rings movie, by Ralph Bakshi. Hoo BOY you definitely know all about that one! Pros, the animation is genuinely experimental and intriguingly weird at times, the regular character animation is fantastic and i really love Aragorn’s grimy, ‘Kay from Sword in The Stone but brunette’ look. Cons: The animation is also experimental. Sometimes, it looks really weird. I MEAN THE BALROG. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT, I TELL YOU, aND WHATS GOING ON WITH THE ORCS. And poor Sam gets hit HARD With the comic bumbler button; that said, i think i would have liked to see how they handled the 3rd movie, and this movie DOES cover some things that didn’t make it into the Jackson films, such as Sauruman’s coat of many colors.

25. How has LOTR changed your life? It remains one of the most influential stories in my life, though I didn’t read it until the mvies came out; as a younger child, i found the tone of the book too difficult to readily grasp, and it wasn’t until later that I was able to do it, but it was a good thing i did; to this day, Tolkien’s writings remain a touchstone in my life, especially in terms of how people try to imitate him without considering the context of his writing, and his sub-text about the corrupting influence of power and the value in struggling against evil, even if it is hopeless, remains a big aspect of my ideas of heroic fantasy.

29. Most attractive character? Gandalf, obviously, that beard was crafted by the Valar themselves! Okay but I think Galadriel is probably my fav, both in terms of personal headcanons (i imagine her as being tall and perfectly capable of ripping foes in half), and canon implications that she is the fairest of all, sort of like an inverse fairy tale queen; she has the evil sorceress queen vibe, but is pure good.

43. “EXCUSE ME, WHO STOLE YOUR TASTE.” And then i prepare a lecture, with bullet points of interest, on the relevance lord of the rings has to the fiction genre as a whole, the symbolic elements of his work, the fact that the man made up several languages and did this story specifically to use them somewhere, the events of his life that likely influenced him and the course of story elements like Eowyn’s disgust at winning glory at the expense of her family’s lives... if they’re not bored to sleep, they will be part of the fandom. I SHALL SEE TO IT.

46. Have you seen the musical, or listened to it’s soundtrack? THERE’S A MUSICAL?! I NEED TO FIND THIS SOUNDTRACK PRONTO

49. Should more of Tolkien’s songs have been included in the movies? ABsolutely! You may assume that the songs/poems are too clunky or long-winded to be produced as good music, but from what I understand, Tolkien created them to be meant to be recited to music, in the style of the poetic tradition he was drawing from: there is a very good youtube channel called Clamavi De Profundis that does EXCELLT covers of Tolkien’s songs, that are often hauntingly beautiful to hear, and I highly recommend them. Here’s one of my personal favorites:

(the Song of Durin, if you’re not inclined to click the link without knowing which one!)

#replies #ask meme replies #videos #lotr #macrocondy3point0

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Sorry I'm paraphrasing here, but don't you think, 'Dany came howling into the world', rather a strange choice of words? And why are there these specifically wolf associated words in Dany's narrative, 'moon', 'silver'?

Oh, you know must know exactly why I think Dany’s associated with wolves! 😅

I think Daenerys is the ice to Jon’s fire, the wolf to his dragon! (I know y'all love thinking of Jon as a Stark, but if he’s a Stark then his siblings are all Tullys. Hey, I don’t make the rules!)

The quote? Oh, it gets better!

“Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greatest storm in the memory of Westeros howled outside”

The word “howling” is used all over the series to describe any number of noises, sure, but what makes this quote interesting is that it’s used twice, and in reference to Dany’s origin.

One of the most irritating parts of writing is using the same word or a variant one after the other - it’s one of my biggest grievances as a fanfic author, and I’m always on the lookout for these recurrences as a beta. That said, this could be a simple case of both GRRM and his editor(s) overlooking repetition… or it could be intentional.

Here are just a few examples of GRRM applying the appropriate house sigils/animals to dialogue:

“Is this how justice is done in the Vale?” Tyrion roaredTyrion threw back his head and roared. Tyrion had roared at them and sent them runningJoffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring cursesHe peered in, saw Bran howling out the window“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled

Either way, “howling” is strongly associated with wolves. Thefreedictionary describes it as:

“a long plaintive cry or wail characteristic of a wolf or hound”

and

“(of a dog, wolf, or the like) to utter a characteristic loud, prolonged, mournful cry”

Also, the only characters who seem to hear wolves howling in the books are Starks, those with POVs while accompanying Starks or remembering wolves howling while near the Starks and… Daenerys.

Also, while trying to research why the Stark sigil looks so damned dragony, I stumbled across this:

This blew my mind, and I went searching to confirm it, myself:

We happen to know GRRM is a huge fan of Tolkien, it’s one of the biggest inspirations for the series. And when you see the clever insight and planning that went into names like Bran (raven) or Sandor (defender), I can’t accept that Drogon is simply named as such because of Drogo’s name. Drogo is, after all, just a means to an end. And that end is dragons. In terms of creative planning, Drogon almost certainly came first and Drogo second.

Either way - Daenerys named her boy Stone Wolf.

In the effort of not droning on and on, if you’re interested in more connections between Daenerys and the Starks and the Starks and Dragons, I’d check out our website - where my co-conspirator, the brilliant @ktwrites  , found a very compelling connection between the Starks and Kipling’s The Jungle Book (another one of GRRM’s heroes), as well as a more in-depth look at Ghost and how he just might’ve been intended for Daenerys, as well as evidence of Dany’s warging abilities!

Thanks for the ask! 🐺

#dayne heiress #n+a=d #got theories #nothing burns like the cold

[coldalbion]

Regenerate

This is the first regeneration of the Doctor I can't talk with my Mum about, can't wonder what they'll be like. Can't share speculation on what this new face will bring to the character, adding to the cultural touchstone. The mythic Stranger whose weapons are wisdom, fierce intelligence and an alien kindness buried bone deep, that shines out from, because, and in spite of, darkness. In one of the Virgin New Adventures, THE LEFT-HANDED HUMMINGBIRD, there's a constant refrain: "The healer becomes the warrior." A duality which the Doctor resolves, by being the Doctor. Neither one, nor the other. Just, and absolutely and completely, the Doctor. My Mum died in January, and though she was 9 in 1963, when the world first heard the TARDIS shred the boundaries of time and space with hir distinctive engines, Tom Baker and David Tennant were the incarnations she loved the most, with Peter Capaldi a close second. Both of us wondered when they'd let the Doctor mistakenly be identified as a human woman by various foes. Now, it seems like that time is soon to come, and I'm more than a bit choked up, because Doctor Who, and SF/F in general were Mum's gift to a disabled son who always felt more kinship with the alien wanderer(s) of time and space. Closer to hose sometimes marooned here in a world where they never fit, than the rest of humankind. She had Cystic Fibrosis and made it to her sixties, not only by medical care, but by just, absolutely and completely, being herself. She too knew what it was to be different, and she answered that with kindness and grace, along with fierce compassion. All of that was her, an inheritance from her family combined with her own nature, a legacy which I try to continue with varying such success. When I was a small boy, just getting my head around language, she told me that Doctor Who was a question. We were always supposed to *wonder*. And that wonder-ing is wandering, is in the words of the Volva, the seeress from Norse myth: "Would you know more, or what?" It is the Old Man journeying for wisdom, sacrificing self to self. The Gnostic impulse towards *beyondness* manifesting in what, to paraphrase Tolkien, is the use of so-called fantasy to effect the duty-bound escape of every imprisoned person. In the words of Michael Bertiaux: "We want to go where we are forbidden. We want to know what has been denied to us. We seek, in a word, the ‘more.’' And right now, as I recover from my surgery, as I grieve still, I feel the pressure, the stricture all the more keenly. The Doctor as fantasy, as the Stranger with nigh infinite faces, now assuming a feminine incarnation, as the woman that gave me my first gaol-breaking equipment in the form of books and stories has passed by death, beyond any confinement? That feels right, bone-deep beyond doubt, despite the sudden urge to weep. I post this then, in honour of my Mum, in honour of all those who make-more-whole by their presence in the world, to honour all the women and the Mothers before mine who have been wise and known Mysteries, and all those who have been healers and doctors and maker-betterers. Because a TV show is just a TV show, and human culture is of course a bulwark against the sheer ruddy Strangeness, the utter Wyrdness of the kosmos. And yet... Aye, and yet the Stranger always crops up, don't they? Funny that.

#the old man #gnostic #doctor who #grief