as much as I appreciate the fact that there are people in the Silmarillion fandom who are willing to see Melian as more culpable and responsible for various ills than the text seems to indicate, I feel like this comes at the expense of an aspect of Elu’s character that I wish more of us would explore
namely, Elwë Singollo, Monster Fucker
this guy comes upon a minor god in the woods, a god that we aren’t even told is in a recognizable human form, and his innate reaction is “I’d tap that”
then once the enchantment lifts (over them both, not just him) and his free will is back in action they immediately get to babymaking and kingdom building
not only that, it’s his descendants that are interested in interspecies romance
he’s the equivalent of a Tumblr blogger crushing on Venom, only he got his wish
you go, Elu
never stop for anything
I saw this post and then lost 2 hours and when I came too this was here
also consider: LOTR but hobbits have Tapeta Lucidum
Boromir gets the fright of his life their first night on the road
Boromir: *glances over his shoulder* ??!!!!???!!
Hobbits:
Hobbits: what
i will never get over that you used an image of raccoons for this purpose because it is incredibly accurate
LOTR au but instead of hobbits literally raccoons
Gandalf: well this raccoon found the ring and has been carrying it around. unfortunately we can’t take it off him or he gets very bite-y. so I figure, the raccoon is the ringbearer now
Elrond: what are those other three raccoons doing here
Gandalf: he brought his buddies. I call this one ‘Merry’
Aragorn: *watching Frodo & Sam scamper off in the direction of Mordor* our hopes lie with those raccoons now
Legolas: do they… know where they are going
Aragorn: I sure hope so
Faramir: father why is this raccoon in the livery of the citadel
Denethor: haha doesn’t he look precious
Elfhelm: Dernhelm, is that a raccoon in your bag?
Dernhelm: *sweating nervously* Uh no, sir.
Eowyn, later: And I said no, you know, like a liar.
Denethor: WHY did you let a raccoon go off with the Ring??
Faramir: ….it just seemed like the right thing to do
Gandalf: he scratched you up real good huh
Faramir: ……………gouged my FUCKING arm and bit me on my face
Witch King: no living man can kill me – AUGH FUCK, RACCOON, RACCOON ON MY LEG ARGHHHH
Eowyn: *stab*
Wraiths break into the room at the prancing pony: *UnHoLy ScReEcHiNg*
Trash Panda Hobbits:
Wraiths: Oh, what the fuck, whAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!
Treebeard: Baroom, humm, where are my small, impatient friends?
Merry and Pippin:
Don’t go where I can’t follow, Mr. Frodo.
~~~~~~The Hobbit interlude~~~~~~
Thorin:
You’re the burgular.Go on and…burgle something! Bilbo:
Saruman: Well since some fucking TREES took over Isengard I guess I’ll take over The Shire. Farmer Maggot and ever other Halfling down to the Sacksville-Bagginses:
goes to her knees in the mud of Pelennor Fields, and rises up a Queen—split lip and still reeling, blinking up at
Eldwyn
as though it will somehow change what she has become.
He touches the crown of her head with his hands, and says, “I am sorry. I pray it is enough.”
It is. It isn’t. It is both. Théoden is dead and Éomer lost, never to wake from the feverish sleep of a Black blade, there is only her. She is all Rohan has left, and Éowyn wonders if they are glad of it, her decision to ride for Minas Tirith instead of throwing in her lot with the other women.
(At the very least, it makes the coronation easier. She is there, in the mud, already. No need to send for a man, her hair falls over her shoulders in a cascade of Rohirric
gold.)
Still—Aragorn looks at her oddly when she strides into the Merethrond wearing the shield and helm of
Eorl, the Horse-lords’ sigil painted in flaking gold on her breast.
“You called,” she says, taking her place at the Council-table without so much as a by-your-leave. “And the Oath of Eorl is fulfilled in me.”
In Gondor, they call her names after some creature of their mythological past—Health, or something like. They have a tendency to do that, she’s learned, Gondor is so in love with its own stories.
In Rohan she is only Éowyn, Queen,
daughter of Éomund.
(It also keeps her from becoming too proud, the knowledge that most of Edoras remembers her running shiftless through the Meduseld, shrieking at Éomer to give her back her poppet.)
She becomes close with Faramir, son of Denethor, in wake of Pelennor—they are both thrust, an ill-prepared, into a role they had not expected to play. After all, she was three persons removed from Rohan’s crown, and he was the younger brother of the immortal, burning Warden of the White Tower; neither of them had ever imagined being here.
“I will miss you most,” she says stiffly, once it all has calmed, and the Men of Rohan are free to return to their plains and stables. Faramir, son of Denethor, smiles in a way that makes the light of him shine through. Her chest aches. “I as well,” he says, and she is grateful for the pace Winfrith sets as they ride for the border after, the wind dashing her tears away.
They greet her with—only slightly less joy than they might have greeted her uncle, and Éowyn rides through the streets she knows well, touching hands and murmuring thanks and thinking, you are Rohan’s now, you are King of the Mark, earn it. Deserve it.
Being King is slightly less tedious than being the King’s niece, if only because they must listen to her now. She holds counsel, so when they mutter to one another and complain about her unwomanliness, she is already there. She may glare at them, pointedly, until they stop.
The news from Minas Tirith comes late, and piecemeal—she doesn’t hear about Aragorn riding for the North until they are on her doorstep.
“King Dernhelm,” Aragorn says, embracing her like a king instead of bowing to a queen. Éowyn laughs and kisses his hands, calling him Royal Elf-fucker in Rohirric. (She’s not sure he understands, but more than one of her men suddenly erupt into coughing fits, so that’s enough.)
“Why are you riding north, Aragorn?” she asks. The welcome feast is burning itself out, and Meduseld is almost dark; only
Éowyn and Aragorn remain. Two kings—alike in dignity, and equally conflicted about who they are to be now. (Aragorn is a Ranger-king, and she is a Shieldmaiden-queen, they understand one another, this way.)
“My people have suffered,” he said, sounding morose—she could have guessed he’d be graven, once the drink got to him. “The darkness in the East is only one enemy, there is—old darkness, that lingers still in the North. I must protect my people.” “All of Gondor are your people now,”
Éowyn said quietly, murmuring mostly to the mug of beer she lifted to lips. (Aragorn is High King, but in a way she understands him—Rohan is her people, still, no matter how longingly she thinks of the warfront, of Minas Tirith where the news comes from.)
Afterwards, she foists him onto one of his second-lieutenants, or—something like it, a Gondorian soldier with soft grey eyes, who assures her he will get the High King back to his bed. “Take care,” Éowyn says, “he is my friend.”
(She is surprised—lying in bed, staring up at the plaster ceiling, chewing on her lower lip—to find it is true.)
“Do you ever regret it?” Aragorn asked as they departed, his head tipping forward heavily—it might have been the leftover of his drinking, if there hadn’t been so much shame in his eyes.
Regret, that was a better word. So much regret.
And Éowyn thought of Faramir, son of Denethor, who was dark and fair both, and she thought of Eomer, her brother, who might have been king in her place, and she thought of Aragorn, King to Come, who was more a story than anything else. More than a person.
Except where he cared for Northmen above all else, despite himself. That was real, she suspected, if only because it was so inconvenient to his overall political goals.
So I’ve watched a bunch of Very Good Videos today.
Lindsay Ellis has been doing an examination/critique of The Hobbit films and her team’s finally finished the last one:
They are Excellent(u_u), Perfec(u_u u_u), and Majestic(u_u u_u u_u).
Lastly, through a VERY Circuitous route which began with searching for obituaries for the late lamented Harry Anderson(Here is Markie Post. Here is John Larroquette. Here is an Obit By David Hill at The Ringer which I very much liked), is this talk on Consciousness by Dan Dennett(TED 2003; somewhat dated; don’t want to bother trying to embed it) that, incidentally, has some pretty fun perception games in it :>
Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?
Then about a week into their journey like
Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying
Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst
Legolas:
~*~earlier~*~
Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits
Merry: Frodo what’d he say
Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish
i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.
english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.
they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max.
frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.
so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.
plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.
so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.
to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather
was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a
somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.
so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his
upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his
Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice
from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really
obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!
considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.
…it’s
also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though
with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.
which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.
this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!
Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.
Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*
Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now
Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?
Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?
Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.
Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.
Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y’all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.
Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man
Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?
Then about a week into their journey like
Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying
Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst
Legolas:
~*~earlier~*~
Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits
Merry: Frodo what’d he say
Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish
i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.
english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.
they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max.
frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.
so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.
plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.
so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.
to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather
was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a
somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.
so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his
upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his
Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice
from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really
obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!
considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.
…it’s
also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though
with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.
which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.
this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!
Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.
Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*
Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now
Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?
Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?
Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.
Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.
Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y’all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.
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
just moving along like everyone else 