#unimportant and comedic until they were just 'figures of fun'. idk it's a bit harsh for that to happen with the elves as well

[fluentisonus]

hmm mixed feelings on some people in the notes of my drawing saying how funny it’d be if legolas was just making things up about the dwarves to tell the other elves. like on the one hand I DO think it’s a funny concept and there’s a lot of comedic potential in only having one source for so much history. but at the same time it’s sort of painful to interpret it that way because how absolutely devastating the idea of being intentionally, permanently misremembered is. like it’s almost worse in a way than being forgotten, because it implies a sort of careless disregard on the part of whoever’s trusted with those memories. but also it’s not like the dwarves really set out to be remembered or even understood in the first place, so maybe they wouldn’t care either way how outsiders choose to see or remember them

#but in that case what do we do with gimli's whole interaction with galadriel? because the reason he felt so strongly towards her is that #she knew and remembered the dwarves and used the khuzdul place names and understood his grief in a sort of generational way #what's the quote... 'it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding' #idk it may just be more specific to gimli (see: the family tree he drew up for aragorn; the info in the appendices etc) but #it's still sort of a desire to be remembered and understood by people he loved #anyways it's just something I'm thinking through. #no hate at all btw to people who commented joking about it!! like I def laughed at them #it's just idk. a slight discomfort with the idea i've been contemplating I guess #thoughts #tolkien #also it makes me sad bc of that other bit of the appendices about how the way men remembered dwarves slowly became more and more #unimportant and comedic until they were just 'figures of fun'. idk it's a bit harsh for that to happen with the elves as well #but I guess also we're reading the book. so it's all still 'remembered' in that way