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meteor752 · 4 years

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The insecurity of Tilda of Mirkwood

When I write about Tilda, I mostly write a pretty unstable but still happy person who just generally craves more in life, sort of like a Disney character.

(Honestly, short side note, every time I hear either How far I’ll go or Go the Distance I can’t help but imagine her just standing on the worst place possible singing the song, like a cliff or the top of a tree, before just jumping down and nearly breaking her neck)

But Tilda has a bit more to her than that, that I didn’t really get to touch in her deep dive, mostly because I couldn’t figure out how to put it in there.

When it comes to the insecurities of Matilda Lucia Dragondaughter, it’s mostly centered around the comparison to others around her, and how she sees herself.

There wasn’t much of it when she was a child, just like any other kid she was pretty carefree and didn’t really mind that sometimes people would talk weirdly about her and her antics.

It begun around the time her da married the elven king and she moved from Dale to Mirkwood, and when Legolas officially became her brother.

Now Legolas is messy and wild, sure, but he’s still a scholar, soldier, athlete, and generally very good looking for an elf, who’s also a prince and next in line for the throne.

Sigrid is a musician, a writer, a scholar, an axe wielder, a future queen, a black smith, and the perfect daughter.

Bain is a sweetheart, an excellent peace keeper, a good soldier despite his disability, the captain of the royal guard and the dream son in law.

Tilda is an emotionally unstable screwup that can’t sit still for one second, is petty as hell, had no sense of self care, has no goal in life, and is just a general nightmare to be around.

That’s at least how she sees herself.

Now while reading this you may think ‘Meteor this sounds more like self loathing than Insecurity, what are you talking about’.

Well, we’re only getting started, because Tilda lives a long life with a lot of shit in it.

When Tilda joined the elven army, she noticed how the trainer was harsher on her than on literally anyone else.

At first she thought it was because she was human and not an elf, until she figured out that they were trying to make her quit, which confused her of why.

That was until her training was done, but unlike basically every other recruit she was only called onto small scouting missions that were generally safe and lame, and she was like oh my family set this up okay.

So she quit immediately, and then the dark times begun.

Tilda was straight up miserable after leaving the army, and would mostly sit in her room and sulk for two reasons.

One, to join the army was her one chance of living up to the standards her siblings had put, by becoming a great soldier and maybe even captain one day, but she had never been given the chance.

Two, her family had tried to make her quit, and then made sure she was only put on the safest and meekest missions there was, which only proved that they didn’t trust or believe in her.

Tilda had always wanted her time in the spotlight, her big chance, her moment to truly shine so to speak. She’d always been in the shadow of her siblings, and the only way to get out of it was to create a scene which made her family angry at her.

See it as sort of a Luna from mlp mixed with Cassandra from Tangled.

And despite the self loathing, she did know that it was only in her head and that her family and friends probably didn’t think that way of her.

But when they refused to let her be a proper soldier, she then they refused to let her go anywhere without a consort, when they refused to let her show what she was capable of, it just proved that what she thought of herself was how they thought of her too.

A screwup.

A mistake.

A spare.

So yeah, she became really depressed, and refused to talk to anyone except Aloe.

She spent a lot of time in Rivendell just to be away from her family, moping in the room she was given and barely ever coming out.

She started to put burn marks on her arms and hands, she started to jump from a bit too high heights, she started to “accidentally” cut herself sometimes.

She just wanted to feel something that wasn’t misery.

Her family tried to cheer her up, but they genuinely didn’t know what was happening since she wasn’t exactly the person to be open about her insecurities and issues, so all their efforts were in vain.

It was Aragorn, out of all people, who got her out of her hole of despair.

Legolas had sent a message to him after a few years of Tilda’s bad habits of barely eating, barely sleeping, and barely talking to anyone else.

Aragorn basically nearly kicked the door in, which nearly scared Tilda to death, before hugging her firmly and demanding that she will follow him on a hunt.

And because of the fact that Tilda respects Aragorn quite a bit, she just nods shortly.

To her surprise, Aragorn doesn’t try to make her talk of what’s going on like literally anyone else, but simply talks about other stuff that is going on in both of their lives.

Tilda ends up having a bit of a wake up call, realizing that she’d been moping for the last eight years, and just decided to get off her ass and do something with her life.

Legolas was quite surprised when Tilda just turned up one day in Mirkwood like if nothing had happened demanding that he’d go kill some spiders with her.

Despite the fact that she’d stopped sulking, she still didn’t make an attempt to better her well being and kept her negative thoughts to herself.

She simply didn’t want to be seen as weak and fragile, like so many thought of her because of her human biology and her constant inability to stay still for one second.

If her family would find out that she also thought of herself as weird and useless, then they would just pity her.

And Tilda honestly thought she was strong enough to handle it.

She was certainly not.

Every time Legolas had to leave for something, every time there was some diplomatic journey ahead, every time the elves were called into battle, she was left behind. She’d always wanted her moment of glory as I’ve previously mentioned, but how could that be given if she never even got the chance?

She just felt like she was in the way for everyone.

After she left her family behind, (Or more exactly literally escaped out the window), she felt free and happy for basically the first time in her life. It was just her and Aloe against the world, with no expectations, no one to feel like she let down, no judgment, just her and her best friend.

And it remained like that for a while, as she didn’t meet many people she didn’t need to compare herself to others.

It was first when she received the invitation to the wedding of Aragorn and Legolas that she was put back on earth again and reality hit her.

Especially when both Sigrid and Bain tried to convince her to come back to society, just so she wouldn’t hurt herself, because which angered her greatly.

She left the wedding early, angry tears in her eyes without turning back.

Which was the reason she took on a dragon and became a dragonslayer. To prove that she wasn’t a doll that would topple over any minute. To prove that she was just as capable and great as her siblings. To prove that she wasn’t just the younger sibling.

And if you’ve read the deep dive, you know how that turned out.

***

I love Tilda, she’s literallyy favorite Lotr character, which is why I write so much about her. But sometimes I just like to make characters suffer through trauma and insecurities.

This is heavily inspired by me listening to Waiting In The Wings and The Moon Rises for like 24/7 for the last few days, which are both awesome songs go listen to it.

Tilda’s way of coping with how she felt is really bad, (like seriously kids talk to someone take your meds) but from what I’ve written about her I knew she wouldn’t be the one to confront her more weak looking emotions. She was raised by elves, she’s prideful by nature.

The way Tilda feels is not that she’s not worthy of what she has, but more that she deserves more than what she has, which has to do again with the youngest sibling thing.

But honestly with the right power and proper snap, she probably could be like an mlp villain.

AU Masterpost

#the hobbit #lotr #tilda daughter of bard #legolas greenleaf #bard the bowman #sigrid daughter of bard #bain son of bard #thranduil #aragorn son of arathorn #barduil #aralas

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stainedglassmaiden · 4 years

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spoilers ahead - okay - so i just watched the siren on xfinitystream.

im so disappointed - or maybe ive just gotta think harder about it/watch the ending again - because it wasnt a common kind of style of a movie, and during most of it, i felt like it was going somewhere interesting . but thenn, at the end like in the last 5-10 minutes, idk, there were flashbacks or fantasies or something, i wasnt suree what was real or not, and it made the end confusing, and there be wayy less closure than i feel like there could have been!!! cause i feelll like maybee if they picked maybe onee of the confusing scenes/fantasies or something at the end, it could’ve made the closure and whole movie seem like 40% better and have more of a clear message. ughhh! they were soo close to having something interesting [and good+clear]!

some ppl had very negative reviews of it, because they didnt understand how the details related, but i think those were some of the most significant parts, and found how i thought they related, to explain and explore some themes in the story.

so the movies about a young man, whod never been in love and is mute and v christian, who is taking a break from his life in the church, to stay at a cabin on a lake. [although he had lost his voice in the first place when he was drowned type thing when he was young]. and his neighbor is a man whos lookin kinda rough, cause he lost his husband to what he thinks is a folklore of a monster in this lake, who drowned the husband. so now, this widower wants to find the monster and get revenge and kill the monster. and the background is, that the monster is supposed to be a woman based on like a siren [bc of the title] orr? -a slavic myth of a woman whos undead and haunts a body of water where she had drowned herself when she was unhappy with her husband/was heartbroken.

so! i thought it was unique bc it was a very simple set, and not much dialogue probs cause the man was mute, but that was alright with me! it wasnt uncomfortablyy quiet. it was fun for a rainy day, like a little melancholy and a little spooky and a little lovesick . idkk, it was a moodd, if youre in that mood lols, and want solidarity with a movie.

fun how they had diversity, with an asian woman playing the siren - you dont see much asian representation in western movies. and a gay man just casually thrown in there, not a big deal, which is also cool uncommon diversity representation a little bit . andd likee, ability-diversity with a mute character, and its not like a big deal, but maybe people like that would like to see people like their own selves reflected/represented in movies tooo, so they dont feel on the outsidee of the realm of “kinds of people who can be starred as kinds of movie characters” usually, you know? :).

some details that other people thought werent relevant and annoyingly random, were things that i thought weree very interesting and related to a message of the movie!

-like i thought the music was significant. it was this very like, etherial possibly what would you call it - like monk like, cathedral echo-y singing. you know how theres that kind of music like in cathedrals? etherial? -andd its like the kind of music that sirens are traditionally thought to sing. like echo-y and kinda haunting. so i thought that tied the siren and the religious mute characters together. andd they were falling in love anyway. andd it sounds haunting-y and theyre both kindaa haunted by stuff in the back of their minds, like she, by her curse and her lost love in the past or whatever, and she wishes she could come back to land and be normal, but this curse is keeping her in the water - and him, by whether he should return to his church or not - since he had gotten a phone message from them saying like, dont strayyy from the churchh and dont sinnn come back to us!

thenn, i dont think his mute-ness is random either. i think it signifies the theme of like, misunderstanding and miscommunication [and how that can be frustrating]. like how she is frustrated bc shes seen as a monster [and is one] but shes also, sometimes just a normal girl, when the curse isn’t taking a hold of her. and the widower thoughtt he misunderstood her, when he wasnt sure if she wass actually the monster, because sometimes, she just acts like a lady, and he felt sorry that he was blaming her, since he was like, “theres probs no such thing as monsters, shes probs justt a normal lady”.

thenn, i dont think him being gay was random either i guess . people were annoyed about all these random choices about the characters’ characteristics, because they seemed random and distractingly irrelevant. but i think its relevant because idk i thought maybe because sirens were originally supposed to lure menn to their graves. so it makes it easier for him maybe, and more believeable that he wouldnt be able to be more focused, to try to kill her, and not be lured. even if it wouldnt literallyy work, maybe its just supposed to be symbolicc for their repellant -rather than luring - relationship.

something lacking in love - is another theme i think it was cool how they explored it in different ways. like how the mute man had never been in love, and when talking about that, the neighbor was like, “i dont know if i should feel sorry about that or not. can you imagine that?!”. and even when he did nearly get love with the siren, they could never really comfortablyy be alll the way in each others’ worlds, either on land or in the water. -not on land, because she has to always have atleast part of her body in the water, so shes always just kinda soggily, uncomfortably, sitting on the edge of the dock. they cant comfortably be in the water either, because firstly, he doesn’t know how to swim/is afraid of getting in the water, since thats how hed lost his voice as a child - and, because i guess the curse starts to take control of her when shes near other people when theyre in the water, and she needs to drown them. and, how both the other couples had had love, but then i guess they either lost their partner, or it ended in heartbreak.

it made me sad but was moving in a good way, how when she wasnt feeling the siren curse, they did try their best to change to be able to hang out. like she triedd to resist the curse and climbb out of the water to join him on land (although it didnt work). and how since she couldnt come out, hed lie on the dock withh her so she could stilll put her foot in the water. that was cute and thoughtful.

v low lighting though. like, i know we’re trying to make it spooky and a bummer, but also, i can barely see what youre doing. ever heard of likee, idk, a gray or dark blue filter for the camera, so its like the illusionn of night time, but doesnt actuallyy make things too obscure to see things?!

the choices of casting were nice though. i feel like the mute man and siren had chemistry you can feel, evenn if they couldn’t even talk much!.

the ending couldvee been clever. i just didnt really understand. but there wass a flashback or fantasy where idk, i think it was the mute man ended up becoming a siren tooo! (you could tell because his eyes became as big and dark as herss when she was under the curse being a siren), and then that was cooll cause thenn they were shown just bothh being sirenss in her little cove in the waterr, so they couldd be happy and togetherr all the time actuallyy, in the water! thatd’ve been a nice ending. although they would have to explain why hes a siren now, cause they hadn’t. i guess hed have to drown himself or get drowned, with/from a broken heart, just like she did, to become one. but why would his heart be broken, cause theyre ablee to hang out pretty much, when shes nott a siren, and shes not dead ..

butt, they did just end the movie (spoiler!) with him deciding to leave the lake (i didnt understand why?), and when he leaves, she seen kinda swimming up in the distance, to/towards his empty cabin. maybe thats just saying, “and thenn, they were never ablee to be together anywayy, and itd alwayss be like this imagee for them - how it was in the first place, with him on just on land, and herr, only and forever just kinda stuck lurkingg in the distancee, in the waterr - tooo far away from him/remote/[misunderstood! -and cant fix that [monster part] about herself] - to ever really be with him for real. :(.

hm. so i think idk, either make it clearerr, which of these endings are just fantasies,/why, or just choose onee of them, and committ to thatt message. for the movie. lols. orr if you choose the ending where he becomes a siren too, you gotta explain why that happened better.

plus, (spoiler) when the widower got killed and joined his husband at the bottom of the lake, i feel like that couldve been used to say something significant or to bring something full circle or make a point of some kind. but it didnt, so.. i kind of dont understand why that was done. although i cant think of a better ending for that character, and cant think of how else his story could’ve played out - because either he has to get killed by the siren, he has to kill the siren, or he has to never be able to catch and kill the siren - but either way, idk howw youd make eitherr of these possible endings come to an interesting and satisfying solution, for the scheme of the rest of the movie’s story. i guessss its kindaa cool that atleastt he ended up with his husband againn.. [at the bottom of the lake..] which is kinda dark - but its like , ..so ? that wasnt even his/the goal..!

so yea. i like this movie. its quiet and oddly sweet and kinda moody, which sometimes youre actually in the mood to watch. just kinda chilly. and spooky and nostolgic. im just frustrating cause i felt like it was onto something brilliant, then the ending was kinda noncommital and a flop.

but it seemed kinda thoughtful and cool how it was somethingg about like - the themes of frustration, misunderstanding, things not quitee fitting together in life, longing. which are things that arent usuallyy the point of most movies, so it was cool to get to reflect on those things [in media], uncommonly/for once, through watching this one.

[maybe the point/message of this movie was: Sometimes, you just try your best to make things work out (from the various examples of this being tried throughout the movie), but its okay to be sad and bummed when it doesn’t work out how you wanted it too, because that is how it has to end up sometimes (likethe husbands wanted to be together - and they didnt quite get what they wanted cause they didd end up together - but it was when theyre Dead at the bottom of the lake, -or how the siren wantss to overcome her curse, by healing and moving on from her previously broken heart, by trying to overcome riskss to fall in love againn with a neww man, and defying the curse trying to climb out of the water - but (for some reason?) sometimes, i guess thats just a fantasy, like all their flashbacks. so now shes just gonna be soggy and dripping and uncomfortable (physically and emotionally) in her humans clothes (not like, traditionally fun and comfortable and alluring like how mermaids who weree made to originallyy belong in the water, look.), just watching her potential [future] lovers and things she thoughtt were opportunitiess to heal from the curse, pass her by on land - while she watches them from very far away in the water. [im not suree how the mute one fits in to this message perfectly - but i guess maybe hes just the accessory to the siren’s part of the message].

#movies #movie review #the siren #folklore #longing #misunderstanding #vulnerability

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