#(like. carrying frodo's extra personal items he forgot to pack! what kind of camping trip etiquette i ask u!)

[aeide-thea]

my tolkien revisitation has involved many big thoughts but my small thought from tonight's grocery-run-by-bike is: WHAT is up with that one 'hive of ants' simile. like. my guy. i am very sure hives are for bees. ants have hills, or nests maybe, or like, a group of them is a colony. but gandalf at the council of elrond is all:

I came to Buckland and found it in uproar, as busy as a hive of ants that has been stirred with a stick.

i mean. radagast would never!!

#like i guess hobbits are too small to be bees so they have to be ants?? although like. hobbits fuzzy. bees fuzzy. seem equivalent 2 me. #bookblogging #the matter of arda #language #(also thots on Class Dynamics like. sam does call frodo 'master frodo' in the movie iirc) #(but on the whole i feel like it doesn't come off like he's a Servant the way he's very clearly a Servant in the book) #(like. carrying frodo's extra personal items he forgot to pack! what kind of camping trip etiquette i ask u!) #(mind u in the movies i feel like sam gets slotted into the‚ like‚ Hollywood Chubby Sidekick role instead which. debatable if that's better) #(but idk i really just have been extremely Struck by like. merry as Young Scion of the Aristocracy and pippin also‚ i think) #(like that really kind of does explain a lot of his haplessness at the outset) #(and then frodo as like. honestly kind of only barely part of the ton as like. adoptive heir of an Eccentric) #(and finally sam as his Loyal Servant) #(and like. idk. the movies i feel like really kind of collapse that into a 'gang of indeterminate mad lads' energy) #which honestly is probably good! although ALSO honestly probably kind of related to the social dynamics hollywood media tends to feature #(i know PJ and co were not american and i'm sure there's also stuff to be said abt like. aotearoan relative informality) #(anyway like. always a question with adaptations. like i think they tried to tone down the class and gender stuff) #(unclear how much of that was deliberate and how much was just like. if you love these books that's not the part that stuck with you prolly) #(but like. arguably a misrepresentation of the original ethos— #altho idt i really care so much abt that‚ like‚ we amend the constitution‚ we can amend tolkien #let's move things towards a truer expression of the humanism their original flawed founders wanted insofar as they could perceive it— #but also like. issue always of like. you make changes to a Beloved Property and then yr changes didn't even fix things... #like. arwen still total cipher. lady waiting around for aragorn to be ready to receive his prize.) #(REALLY if they weren't cowards they'd have‚ i don't know‚ genderswapped boromir or something. ...wow now i want that.) #(...boromir as like. xena except dressed for a northern climate. fuck i'm a genius and i want that desperately now.) #(oh man that sure would throw a spanner in the aragorn/arwen works though. #like. you're really gonna marry someone you can't go camping with #when instead you could marry yr sister in arms and‚ like‚ cement yr position in gondor by joining yr line to that of the stewards #who have kept yr seat faithfully in yr absence all these generations AND she's a fierce proud hot warrior lady) #(i mean i think you'd have to make boromir less of a himbo for that pairing to quite work but like. #everyone in tolkien's a cipher you can do what you want to them really. maybe boromir loves oral poetry. equivalent-of-homer readathons.)