One of JRR Tolkien’s ideas for Aragorn’s backstory in The Lord of the Rings was that he was actually just three or four generations removed from Isildur himself.
Then how did he survive for the thousands of years between the Second and Third Ages?
The story goes something like this:
Many hundreds of years ago, young Aragorn fell in love with an Elven woman, who exactly resembled Lúthien Tinúviel in shape and outward form.
She called herself Arwen Undómiel, the Evenstar.
He fell for her, and romanced her, and gave himself to her; together they lived in her kingdom, where her magic and her power slowed Time to a crawl for them, while hundreds and hundreds of years passed in the world outside.
At first, the Elven-maid seemed every inch a queen: beautiful, graceful, soft-spoken, meek, and with the manners befitting an upbringing in Valimar long ago.
But over time, Aragorn came to realize that his beloved had a hard, greedy, grasping side, even a cruel streak, which more and more showed itself in unexpected flashes.
Worse, she was not who she seemed to be.
Eventually Aragorn pieced together the secret.
His bride was Sauron, divested of her usual male disguise.
Greatly weakened by the loss of the Ring, Sauron yet maintained strength enough to craft a prison for the heir of Isildur: a false realm of hollow bliss and sterile delights, where the one she thought was the greatest threat to her power could languish in eternity.
A part of herself, wearing a female aspect – the gender she had hidden long ago in the deeps of time, to gain entrance as an apprentice to the smithies of Aule – remained in this pocket world, as Aragorn’s bride: a plaything to keep his attention from the bars of his gilded cage.
But eventually, Aragorn figured it out.
Eventually, Aragorn escaped.
Thousands of years had gone by in the world outside since Aragorn had been ensnared by Sauron.
Now, emerging from long captivity in a magical sub-realm, he studied the world around him, and learned what had changed and what had endured.
He met Gandalf, and learned much from the Grey Pilgrim, and taught him some things of his own; and, in search of information, he pursued and captured Gollum, who had possessed, and been possessed by, the One Ring for so many centuries.
And, shortly before his ascent to the throne of the reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, he met his future bride: Eowyn Elfsheen, sister-daughter of Théoden, King of Rohan.
(PS: Christopher Tolkien or another amanuensis may have written this story down as part of the Secret Library Archive Project.)
I ship this now.
My reaction:
“Aragorn’s backstory“ Oh, ok, is this gonna be what the whole Amazon thing is going to be about?
“He meets Arwen“ Yeah ok
“She seemed evil” um, ok…that’s new.
“She was Sauron“
so you’re telling me Sauron was getting ploughed by Aragorn for thousands of years “as part of a fiendish plan to waylay the heir of Isildur”, no other reason, Sauron just lying back and thinking of Mordor, hating every second of it, is that what you’re telling me
shortly after william the conquerer came to power he initiated something known as ‘the doomsday book’- he sent envoys to survey his new lands to record the properties he now controlled so they could pay accurate taxes. every acre of field, every mill, livestock, buildings and their relative size- all would be recorded to determine the wealth of each settlement so a percentage could be expected as rent. for an example of what this book meant; the previous king was aware of and collected taxes from about 20 grain mills in england, william’s audit shot that number above 200. you dont know the meaning of ‘pedantic’ untill you start reading about medieval grain mills, theres a church that paved its floor with confiscated ‘illegal’ millstones to ensure that the town had to get its flour from the church’s official mill and one war simply about stealing the same millstone back and fourth for quite a few decades
of course word of these envoys traveled faster then they did, virtually every town they came to had time to claim they had far less taxable wealth then they actually did have by the time the audit arrived. in one of the more over the top cases an entire village pretended to have caught insanity- when the taxmen arrived they saw screaming laughing idiots with underwear on their heads so they left as fast as they could considering at the time insanity was thought to be literally contagious. it would be over five years before anyone tried to audit that town again. its safe to assume a large number of other villages also had sudden cases of strange diseases, mysteriously disappearing cows, or very large shrubberies and haybales shaped like buildings and you dont need to look over that hill either. thats not even touching how many small communities just plain didnt technically exist because they were too small, somewhere weird, or in legal limbo of who owned it
of course when the feudal part of feudalism started moving its gears you found that the local lord of that village was unlikely to divulge the exact amount of rents they could collect to THEIR lord either, knowing that the more they admitted to receiving the more they were expected to hand over. this was not exclusive to england either, the more you learn about feudalism the more you have to ask how all these minor lords out in the boonies kept having the money and soldiers to do all the political intrigue bullshit, the answer is also tax evasion. each village kept claiming it had fewer people living in shittier houses with less land and fewer livestock then they actually had, and each local lord kept claiming they were receiving less rents then they actually took so were also adverse to an accurate audit.
their knowledge of tax loopholes also extended to finding out that clergymen were either exempt from tax or received a far lower rate of tax, so proving you qualified as a clergyman was an endeavor that paid dividends. specifically to prove you were clergy you proved that you could read and write enough Latin to satisfy an official, so you could spend some money to hire someone to tutor you enough Latin to fake it. its estimated that due to this fully ten percent of medieval english households wrote ‘clergy’ on their tax forms.
another and even more extreme example was the peasants revolt of 1381, london was swarmed by the unwashed masses from all sides instigated by an official trying to collect (a lot of) unpaid poll taxes, an angry mob driving a teenaged king Richard II to retreat to a boat in the river, and culminating with 1500 peasants being executed by an emergency militia. this doesn’t sound like a huge success untill you dig into some of the details- peasants from a large number of villages all arrived at london at the same time, leaving dedicated forces specifically to stop ships from acessing london to break the siege, the peasants executed a select number of court officials and started burning paperwork- but systematically only burning the ones detailing who owned plots of land, debt records, and a few criminal records. the peasants who besieged london and scared the king into the river had successfully purged a whole lot of debts and reclaimed a lot of land in one very ballsy and highly coordinated move that relied on them being seen as illiterate dirt farmers with no ulterior motives besides pitchfork mob riot and trying to kiss the queen mother while they touch everything in the tower of london with their grimy hands
found it. this is… this is amazing. I did a BA in Medieval British History and we never, ever, once considered this. Not once. At a major Canadian university.
jfc this changes my entire brain
Any sources on this? I’d like to use them for a paper I’m working on.
okay, ive been INNUNDATED by people asking me this and i dont really have a good way to address all of the questions. partially because thats surprisingly harder then youd expect
firstly- im absurdly over read. im the kind of nutjob that reads this for fun so i have the hurdle of trying to remember which of 200 plus sources im actually drawing from and it doesnt help that asking this makes me doubt sources that i already checked for credibility before i even read them in the first place. i have a LOT of background radiation that ive spent years checking for expiration dates as i keep replacing knowlege, and its hard to dig up the papers (yeah, actual research papers, im that much of a nerd) that im thinking of because their naming/searching system is also crap. theres a dearth of cool shit i read but have no hope of finding again on command
secondly- when you get into ‘history’ fact hunting you repeatedly run into a bibliography issue where you find that your source cites a source that cites a source that itself is dubious, or that you have thirty sources that all cite the same source thats been proven wrong. this is probably the hurdle -you- have to smash through as well, a handy default is to give prefference to any newer source that actively challenges the pre concieved notion- as they had to explain and give reasons as to why previous notions were wrong
with that out of the way there are a few good places to -start- in digging up the decidedly NON whitewashed versions of history. seriously, if you like my rants you probably are in love with the idea that all of human history was full of actual live assholes instead of clean respectable boring statues.
firstly, ‘medieval lives’ by Terry Jones. Terry is your best friend. name sound familliar? yeah, after monty python he became one of the leading historians simply by accepting the possibility that people in the middle ages actually had lives and thus actually started scrutinizing beliefs that had been considered fact for nearly a century. this is the go-to book of his to start with. its entirely possible that this was thought of -because- of monty python putting in the idea that people were just as much twats back then, as you can see from my rant that basically paints half of village elders, knights, and barons as basically being Grunkle Stan wearing wollen hose (probably the most accurate way to think about it, considering a society based on that makes just too much sense)
its divided by chapter based on what class in society you were looking at- peasants, jesters, monks, knights, women; which is super handy because one of the chief problems with historians is they only bother to find out what the king was doing and not the 99.9% rest of the population was up to. supplement this with the documentary version as well, hes also got some very informative information on the crusades (he kind of put out the allegation that king richard had mainly gone on them to follow his bedroom budy the king of france) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_oYlqav7eA
while on the subject of doccumentaries you can also check out basically anything by Mike Loades, particularly his history channel ‘going medieval’ special which keeps going on and off youtube due to third party issues but is exquisite as it deals with all medieval life not just what the royals were up to. seriously follow this guy on facebook, he posts such beautiful historical reenactment photos of any weapon or horse he finds. Mike is predominant because he engages on living recreations of what hes investigating to test it out and gets as many sources of his own as he can- that ‘going medieval’ special includes such things as examining soaps used, common clothing styles, what kind of foods someone with a bit of land might use for a party, agriculture observations, and a forray into falconry that shows how many phrases in the english language are because of danger-birds. Mike is also the author of several books although they chiefly feature warfare logistics- a lot of other bits of medieval life make more sense when you piece together how logistics work, for example i have a separate rant on how the adoption of the english longbow forked up the feudal system and the legend of robin hood is actually a very specific story of exactly how it fell apart screwing over everyone in england, and made france invent french toast in rebuttal (another installment of sounds like i made it up but im not)
he was quite irritated at that stunt archer claiming to have ‘re discovered’ forgotten techniques a full two years after this book was published- also that stunt archer was using a bow of 40 pounds or less draw, whereas any bow for war would have been well over double that, typically between 100 and 150. this dude deserves a knighthood for his absolute gusto
you may notice much of that is -essays-, a lot of people bump into that and mistakenly think theyve come across a dump of someones homework; but keep in mind that college professors (a sizable portion of Tolkein’s work is considered ‘essays’, as well as Douglas Adams, dont assume theyre all stale boring tripe) write a shitload of essays and sometimes they are absolutely glorious in their ability to ask a question nobodys asked before or to connect two things nobody has connected yet (i recommend reading larry nivens ‘man of steel, woman of kleenex’ if you need to injure yourself snorting). i could do some good ones myself if i got over my horrible, horrible mistreatment of commas, airquotes,
parentheses, and reliance on crassly colorful language (though i swear very seldom, i may use a euphemism about an anus from time to time)
another bizzare tip would be to find some (gasp) textbooks. weird, right? this one is beyond ironic as so many of us who have gone to college had to pay for textbooks we barely covered. assuming we even got to take the plastic off of it we typically only got to open 1/3 of the individual chapters for anything and of that only included about 1/6th of that chapter in the course material. well i spent money on those cursed textbooks so damned if i didnt actually read the rest of the chapters and was honestly surprised some of it actually contained information i enjoyed learning amdist all the regurgitated date/name soup. the deal also is ‘this class taught me nothing about india’ but the book had whole chapters on it, class content and book content only lightly overlap. if you dont have spare textbooks laying around dont worry, people are literally throwing them away if theyre over six months old because the institution of college is a broken scam, used bookstores practically use them as carpeting, you can likely find one from within the last 10 years for less then a sandwitch (do avoid any textbooks printed in the 90s or earlier, they have a bad case of citing sources from the 60s or earlier without critical thought)
another great standalone book is ‘lies, damned lies, and history’, i highly recommend even just for fun
anyone still reading after all of this? if folks actually like me ranting im happy to respond and very glad most people have been very polite about asking me where the hell i got all this instead of dissing or being accusatory that im full of shit (im barely half full) and if theres more anyone would want me to engage in rant mode let me know, my inbox is open and im grossly over educated even if its hard to track down where i get it from after eating all these books
In December of 1940, America still hadn’t entered the war.
There were a lot of Americans – such as the 800,000 paying members of the America First Committee – who looked at fascists massacring their way through Europe and declared “that’s not our problem.”
Captain America was created by two poor Jewish Americans, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, with the specific intent of trying to convince Americans that entering the war was the right thing to do. It wasn’t easy – Kirby went far beyond what was expected of artists at the time, penciling the entire issue with a deadline that would have been difficult for a two-man crew to pull off.
Captain America punched Hitler right on the cover, at a time when a majority of Americans just didn’t feel like doing anything decisive against the Nazis.
Kirby and Simon faced considerable resistance for their creation, including steady hate mail and outright death threats.
Once, while Jack was in the Timely office, a call came from someone in the lobby. When Kirby answered, the caller threatened Jack with bodily harm if he showed his face. Kirby told the caller he would be right down, but by the time Jack reached street level, there was no one to be found.
Both creators enlisted after America entered the war. Kirby, as an artist, was called upon to do the extremely dangerous work of scouting ahead to draw maps. He also went on to co-create Black Panther in 1966.
They didn’t create Captain America to be an accurate depiction of America-As-It-Is. The character was meant to inspire and embolden, to show America-As-It-Should-Be.
The subject of where the Vibranium for the shield came from actually never came up for decades of comics, until it was finally addressed by Black Panther’s writer, Christopher Priest, in 2001. Priest never shied away from acknowledging America’s racism, but he also understood that Captain America represented an ideal, intended to inspire Americans to be better.
The story mixed together a “present day” discussion between Cap and T’Challa with flashbacks to when Cap met the Black Panther ruling Wakanda during World War II.
FLASHBACK:
PRESENT:
PRESENT -> FLASHBACK
PRESENT:
The Vibranium was given, freely, by one good man to another good man.
It is right to rage against the injustices done by our governments. We must call them out, and we must fight for what’s right.
But if you can’t even stand to see the symbols created to inspire people to be better, and rail against those,then you’re just confusing cynicism for realism.
This was a masterful callout that deserves a place in the callout hall of fame, which I just realized needs to exist. It strikes the perfect tone of, “I’m not criticizing where you’re at on this, I’m holding my hand out and inviting you to step up to the next level in your thinking about it.”
That’s the kind of callout that people can sometimes actually hear, not just for entertaining the bystanders. Truly, we need more of this.
avengers infinity war is the same as homestuck game over. i dont know how. it just is
it’s because everyone just fucking died with no warning and when it’s all over and you see the death count and see these characters you thought were invincible and thought ‘well they can’t die they’re the main characters/our heros!’ but they did. and you’re left with just that. the high death count in characters you thought were invincible, and at the end when there’s no resolution or happy conclusion or anything on wrapping what just happened up you’re left speechless and wondering: what the fuck happens now.
Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.
it’s my fault. it’s just that when we met it was autumn; her red-orange hair and crackling laughter. there’s a little spooky in her, a lot of play. and what a better time for falling?
i didn’t realize it for the first few years – something shifting, something so subtle. the winter makes us all cold, the summer makes us all a little out of our minds. i just loved her, because she was incredible, and i was the luckiest person alive.
it’s just that i realized that spring came with sudden bursts of cold. it’s just that summer frequently raged in with fire sprouting from her lips. it’s just that winter was the worst of all, her eyes dead. it’s just that autumn loves me different; throws herself into it without the clingy sweat of summer. i used to love that summer girl, you know? i loved how wild she was, the way in summer she took every risk she could. but i carried her home drunk one too many times, cleaned up one too many of the messes she made for no reason than to enjoy the sensation of burning. and winter was worse; the shutdown, the isolation. how she became distant, a blizzard, caught up in her own head, unable to tell me what was wrong and unable to think i actually wanted to listen.
she comes home, her hair bleached white. a dark smile on her lips. the shadowy parts of her are back. they loom like icicles overhead. she kisses me with her body held at a distance, a peck on my cheek that feels like an iceberg. she makes polite conversation and we go to bed early, our bodies untouching.
it is a lonely season, i think on the ninth day of this. winter is cold. winter is known for the death of things. when i look at her, i see the girl i fell for, inhabited by an alien. she was the first women i loved so much i felt it would kill me. i can’t leave. when i wake her up with my crying, she tells me to shush and go back to sleep. she’s different like this, quiet, doesn’t eat.
three days later i stare at myself in the mirror. i wonder if it’s me. if the fat on my body or something in my face or the wrinkles and she doesn’t love me. i try prettier lingerie, lean cuisine, i try different hair, more makeup, try harder. it doesn’t work. she looks at me the same; that empty gaze that neither loves nor condemns my actions.
somewhere in februrary i lose it. we’re fighting again, from car to restaurant to car to home again. we fight about stupid things, small things; i tell her i feel she doesn’t love me, she says i’m not listening. the circle goes around and around, old pain peeling back, new pain unhealing. i sleep on the couch.
i wake up when i hear her crying, white hair around her all messed up. the kind of sobbing that only comes at two in the morning, heavy and thick and hurting. my winter girl. my heart is breaking. she looks up at me like i’m her anchor. “i’m sorry i’m like this,” she says. and i start saying, it’s okay i’m here we’re married, but she just shakes her head and says, “I know this isn’t the real me.”
i hold her cold hand. she stares at the blankets. “i am different in winter,” she whispers, “i know i am and i’m sorry.” she looks at me. “why do you think i dye my hair? cut it off? get rid of the old me?”
i tell her it’s okay. we’re together and it’s okay, and then she whispers, “i’m sorry you married four of me.”
we lay there like that, her head on my chest. she falls asleep. i stare at the ceiling, thinking of the way she sounded when she was crying. how i helped put her in that pain. how i promised in sickness and in health and everything in between.
the next day i spend at the library. there aren’t enough books on how to love someone with seasonal affective disorder so i make my own, notes and pages and little ideas on post-its. and i take a deep breath and make myself a promise.
she comes home to her favorite dinner and we kiss and she’s uneasy but that’s okay. the next day i bring home flowers and the next day she finds little love notes in her pockets. i love her quiet, the way winter demands, understand her sex drive is faltering; spend more time just cuddling. we drink wine and we kiss and some part of her starts relaxing.
the truth is there is no loving someone out of their mental illness. the truth is that you can love someone in despite of it; love them loud enough to give them an excuse to believe they can make their way out of it.
and i learn. i remember the rebirth of spring, when she starts thawing. we kiss and have picnics in pretty dresses. i remember her joy at little birds and her rain dancing. i fall in love with the flowers in her cheeks and the little bursts of cleaning. i fall in love with summer’s slow walks and milkshakes and shouting to music playing too loud on the speakers. i fall in love with her dancing, with the sunfire energy. and when winter comes; i am ready. i remember that snow used to look pretty. i fall in love with the hearth of her, with the holiday, with the slow smile that spreads across her face so shyly. i fall in love with how she looks in boots and mittens and every day i find another reason to love her the way she deserves – they way i always should have.
she comes home with her white hair and dark smile and a package in her hands. i ask to see what it is and that small shy grin comes creeping out. it’s a sunlamp packed in with medication. she looks at me with those wide eyes and that beautiful winter blush. “i’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “i promise.”
recovery doesn’t look immediate. sometimes it isn’t neat. i can’t say we never fight or that we’re suddenly complete. but each day, that tiny girl’s strength gives me another reason. i love her. i love her while she tames the roller coaster of spring; i love her for reigning in the summer storms; i love her for taking her winter and trying to be warm. it is hard, because everything worth it is hard. she spreads out her autumn leaves; mixes the best parts of her into everything. learns to take winter’s silence for a moment before yelling in summer. learns to take autumn’s spice and give it to spring. we are both learning.
one day she comes home and her hair is different, but it’s a style i don’t know. i kiss it and tell her that she’s beautiful and the inside of me swells like a flood. i’m so glad that she’s mine. every part of her. the whole. i am the luckiest person on earth. and i always have been. but she’s hugging me and saying, “thank you for helping me,” and i can’t explain why i’m crying.
this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.
this is what love looks like in an autumn girl: it is winter and she glows.
I’m actually sobbing jesus christ
my heart is aching??? this is gorgeous
Wow. Worth the read, don’t scroll.
This is everything.
Everything about how to love.
I was not prepared
Nor was I.
“this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.”
Honestly, if you scrolled… Go back up and read it.
I’ve read this again and again, and it just wrecks me every time.
This is beyond beautiful. Thanks for doing this prompt @inkskinned
just moving along like everyone else 