Tag: tolkien

me, looking at the current state of the world, crying:I wish none of this had happened…
Gandalf, materialising in my conscience, smiling kindly: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, besides the will of evil.

basilandtheblues:

if you ask maedhros how they met, he’ll tell you about a fight on the silver-lit streets of tirion, about the scrapes and bruises of a drunken scuffle (because my brothers are asses and fools, and i am forever cleaning up their messes) and he will tell you about the boy with gold in his unraveling braids who blackened his eye and broke his nose.

he’ll say that for at least a century after that night, fingon hated him.

that sometimes, across a crowded square, at formal dinners, in the wild rustling woods and valleys, maedhros would catch a glimpse of his cousin’s face, and he would think: here is a boy who will make his father proud, here is a child of the house of finwe.

if you ask, maedhros will shrug and say that fingon was the only one of his cousins worth fighting, that one day they realized they could go to war with the world, instead of one another.

but if you ask fingon, he’ll say that he loved maedhros from the first moment he saw him, bright and untamed under the light of telperion; centuries old, and still young enough (fey with blood and his father’s spirit) to laugh when fingon broke his nose.

violent-darts:

needstosortoutpriorities:

ashleynef:

simaethae:

so on the subject of stolen property, i’ve seen various arguments on this point but it is in fact true that inheriting something from a relative, when you know full well that it was stolen, does not make it yours.

this clearly goes doubly so for powerful magical artifacts, and especially for artifacts which are strongly implied to contain part of their creator’s soul!

you can talk about consequences – maybe the artifact in question has benefits for you, maybe you’re not convinced its rightful owners would use it responsibly – but talking about the consequences doesn’t erase the fact that whatever benefits you think you’re getting are achieved through wrongful means.

which is why i, too, think Frodo should have given the One Ring back to Sauron. thief.

Hahahahaha here comes the law student nerd ready to complicate your wonderful post, op.

(Really this is just pretext for me to study for my property final in a week, so thanks yeah)

Because according to the principles of common property law, the matter of who actually owns title to the One Ring becomes really complicated really fast.

Buckle up babes for the pedantic law lecture no one asked for.

(more under the cut)

Keep reading

EXCELLENT

The best part of this is: trust me I guarantee Tolkien knew this much about the Common Law (English mediaevalists end up knowing ridiculous amounts about both Common Law and mediaeval Catholicism whether we want to or not), and indeed if you look at the text, this was relevant to the story. 

It’s part of the reason that Sauron is as terrified of Aragorn’s potential claim on the Ring as he is of Gandalf’s or Saruman’s or Galadriel’s – if not more. Because in Middle Earth this shit matters. This is a world where a broken oath will literally bind your unhappy restless soul to the earth in spite of the dictates of the literal creator of the universe (who designated humans as Passing Beyond The World when they die). This is a world where a damn oath is responsible for Everything That’s Wrong With The First And Second Ages. 

Oaths, ownership, duties, rights, things owed and owing: this shit matters. 

And sure Aragorn is also direct line from Lúthien, but so is Elrond, and so are Elrohir and Elladan. So is Arwen. But what none of them have that Aragorn has? Is a rightful claim to ownership of the Ring. 

So much of what Aragorn spends his time in the second and third volumes doing is Establishing Claim – establishing that everything that Isildur owned, he now owns. Why? Because it means he has power that is absolutely needed. “Isildur’s Heir” isn’t a woo-woo floofy-high-concept thing: it’s a literal matter of rights, duties and authority. 

When he takes the Palantír from Gandalf and uses it, his companions are aghast, but he reminds them that he has both the right and the strength to use it – and the Right is actually important. Saruman was, face to face, stronger than Aragorn (never doubt that) and Sauron completely pwned him, but Saruman had no right to the Seeing Stone, no more right than Pippin. 

But the Palantíri belonged to Aragorn: he’s not only Melian’s ever-so-great-grandchild, he’s also Fingolfin’s ever-so-great-grandchild, and since the Fëonori died out with the poor Ringmaker, the only competition Aragorn could have for ownership of the Stones are Galadriel and Elrond. (And that’s only if you are going right back to the maker-rights, and ignoring the establishment of the Stones as the property of Elros’ line rather later). 

It matters. It changes how power works and doesn’t work. Aragorn’s status as the Heir is in fact grounded in these ideas, which play a hugely powerful part (in fact the fight over who rightfully owns the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien brought out of the dark is part of the bloodshed that makes it so that in the end the Silmarils themselves actively reject the last two living sons of Fëanor, negating their claim). Because Aragorn is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can use the Palantír. Because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can summon the Dead. And because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he stands equal to two of the Ainur, to the oldest member of the Trees-blessed Noldorin royal house, and to his own much more powerful (straight up) relatives as a potential claimant of the Ring. 

And that is why Sauron is willing to take the chance to catch Aragorn, and (he thinks) ensure his capture, rather than attacking him earlier on when there’s a chance that (even if Aragorn can’t possibly WIN) he could still escape and then bide his time before the next Ring-War and learn to use the damn thing. 

But. It’s also important when it comes to Frodo. 

Frodo uses the Ring twice, and lays open claim once. Both of the times he uses it are on Sméagol, both times overwheming him and in the second case cursing him (“if you ever touch me again you will be thrown into the fire”). We get both moments from Sam’s POV, where the physical reality of Frodo is replaced by an image of him as a much larger figure, alight from the inside, robed in light, and with a “wheel of fire” at his breastbone. 

Frodo does not have any genetics (so to speak) more special than any other hobbit. It’s not like Aragorn vs most humans, where there’s actually a legit difference because most humans were not, at that point, descended from a Maia. Frodo’s just this guy. 

The only thing that’s really special about Frodo in terms of the Ring is that, like Aragorn, he’s the other person who has a viable claim. It would, as it were, have to go to the judges to figure out whose claim is better. 

And this is why in the moment that he claims the Ring, in the Mountain, Sauron is fucking terrified. It’s why he drops everything else, even the issue of trying to keep his mindless drone-fighters going, even the maintenance of his actual control of weather, of light, of whatever fight he and Gandalf have going, to get his best servants back to the Mountain now now now now. 

Because Frodo having an actual rightful claim on the Ring means he can, in fact, use it. Not well, which is why Sauron can paralyse him for that moment it takes for Sméagol to strike (and carry out both Frodo’s demanded oath – “save the Precious from Him” – and his Curse – “if you touch me you will be thrown in the fire” – at once), but he could. This tiny little person is a threat to Sauron, in the heart of his own home, because he has the right to have and use this Ring. 

The tricky thing about Tolkien is that whatever his flaws (and he has many), the one thing he’s never unclear of is that the concept of right and might are actually separate. Just because you are strong enough to do or take a thing doesn’t mean you have any right to do it; and just because you aren’t strong enough to enforce your right, doesn’t mean it goes away. 

…/UTTER NERD

“any elf (generally or pick a specific one/ones) + casual sex” if you will allow this for the meme

gurguliare:

What if the horrible answer is I don’t think elves have casual sex and I’m fine with them all being insectile monogamists? …………. nooooo uhhhhhh hhhhhh I… still pretty much stand by “all sex is casual if it’s not telepathic” …. I guess I should pick a specific elf to talk about, it’s just, my answers for that are horrible too. I suspect Nerdanel and Fëanor managed to have a LOT of premarital sex through innovative, like, psychic blindfolds, and also that Nerdanel wanted to keep doing kinky willpower-based contraception while Fëanor was begging her for kids. It’s like orgasm denial but instead Fëanor is sitting there TRYING to push half a soul out and Nerdanel is jamming it back up the spout

All this Maglor talk makes me think about what he was up to post First Age. Do you think he was a Third Age ghost story, like elves tell their children, don’t wander too far from home or you’ll be stolen away by the Maglor! Or elves traveling alone in the forest coming upon a lone elf and always in the back of their minds thinking, shit, what if that’s him?

thelioninmybed:

“Listen!” cried the bard. “Listen, good folk and I shall tell a tale such as never you have heard before.” 

The taproom of the Prancing Pony stilled and quieted, which said much for the skill of his voice, or of the mannish want for new stories.

“The Dark Lord is thrown down and a king crowned in the West!” the bard went on, leaping up onto a table and drawing out his harp. “But Sauron – yes! I shall speak his name! – is not the first nor the greatest foe of the free peoples, and there are kings that sit e’en now in a West more distant than Gondor. A flagon of ale and a warm bed for the night, and I shall tell you of the fall of Morgoth, and the fall, too, of the great Elvenkings of old. I shall sing to you the Noldolantë, as was first sung by Maglor Fëanorian, the greatest bard to ever walk this earth.”

Barliman Butterbur looked around at the crowded taproom and the folk squeezing in from the stables as the news spread and decided he knew a good deal when he heard it. He filled the requested flagon and handed it up. 

The bard drained it in one long gulp, wiped his mouth upon his sleeve and struck another cord. “There was a man – a prince! The greatest of all princes! – and he had seven sons-”

It was a long story, but a good one. Barliman liked the clever maiden in the vampire fell even if he couldn’t quite keep up with all the Fins – what kind of names were those, he asked you? – and much of it was sadder than he liked. But it kept the patrons in and kept them drinking, which was more than enough to recommend it to him. 

The young bard told the story well, slipping into the characters like they were well-worn boots and a favourite jacket. He was a handsome fellow, bright-eyed with hair as raven-dark as the plumes in his fine hat, and the flames licking in the hearth threw shadows across his features that made him seem now fair and merry, now old and fell as a grizzled wolf in keeping with the characters in his tale. 

When he was done with his tale, had accepted another flagon of ale and refused, despite much pleading, to do an encore, the room started to empty out, the patrons wending their way home or upstairs to their beds. 

“Here now, though,” said Barliman, pausing with his hands full of empty jugs and greasy plates. “What about that last fellow? You never said what happened to the second son.” He was an innkeep after all and every innkeep has a sense for when he’s been cheated.

“Faded from grief,” said the bard, wearily for it had been a long performance. “Or drowned with Beleriand. Returned to the West when the weight of his sins grew too great for even his proud shoulders to bear up under. Or perhaps,” – he leant in closer and Barliman was not sure why he’d thought this old man young. “Perhaps he lingers still upon these shores. Haunting the woods, and singing sad songs beside forgotten pools. Perhaps he steals away Mannish children to raise as his own, scions of his dead house.”

“Not around here, I shouldn’t think,” Barliman huffed indignantly. “That may have gone over in that drowned country but we have a proper king now and he wouldn’t hold with stolen children.”

The bard laughed merrily. “Of course, of course. The poor fellow’s surely dead, but I’ve long found a neat ending, all tied up in a bow, makes for a poorer story. A more forgettable one, certainly, and I would not have poor Maglor fade from history altogether. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am for my bed.” His hard heeled boots rang on the stairs as he picked his way up them. 

His words rang on in Barliman’s mind a good while longer. After the tables were wiped down and Barliman was in his nightshirt blowing out the candle, he thought about that wanderer, weeping upon the cold sand of a distant shore.

All innkeeps have a sense for when they’ve been cheated and a new thought tickled at the back of Barliman’s mind. 

But the bed was soft, the hour was late and Barliman never had had much luck in recognising kings. 

animetitle:

Tom Bombadil is the best/most amusing character in anything I’ve ever read because here you have this dude who skips around the forest all day and sings nonsense songs about himself, and the One Ring, the single most powerful object in all of Middle Earth that a fucking ancient evil is furiously searching for, has absolutely no effect on him. He pops it on and doesn’t turn invisible like most do when they accessorize themselves with the pure manifestation of power and greed but instead pulls some sleight of hand shenanigans and makes it disappear into thin air like a party trick before casually flipping it back to Frodo. Frodo asks Tom’s wife who the hell he is and she just responds “He is” because Tommyboy over here is fucking beyond mortal description. The elves, who are essentially immortal themselves, refer to to this guy as “the Elderest” because he was there before any of even the oldest beings on the planet could remember. The only reason the Fellowship didn’t pick the guy to journey to and destroy the Ring in Mordor was because he might accidentally displace the whispering hellcircle that even Gandalf, a primordial spirit that helped in shaping the world, was afraid to touch because Tom Bombadil just doesn’t give a shit. So the character that many scholars speculate is the supreme being and one true god of Tolkien’s entire universe is just this secondary character that refers to himself in third person and fishes in the forest while writing iffy poetry. 

swaglexander-the-great:

sathinfection:

i completely forgot how elven balls to the wall brutal the silm gets after the noldor have been in middle-earth for a while

finrod felagund bit a werewolf to death

Fingolfin shamed everyone into going back to war with Melkor, cause he full on just simply walked into Mordor and hollered at Melkor, a god, for a 1v1. Melkor was like oh shit i don’t want to, but had to or be Forever Shamed and was stabbed seven times by this crazy elf lord. Melkor only got the upper hand when Fingolfin tripped on The Ground, but when Melkor stepped on him to pin him, Finglofin just…stabbed him in the foot, so great was his Fuck You. When he died, Fingolfin was carried away by the Eagle King, his corpse still presumably pulling the finger at their demonic overlord.

Elven balls to the wall=perfect description