#so it's hard to extricate the employee/boss relationship from their characters

[vakarians-babe]

someday i'll write my paper on the complicated tropes of power and love and homosociality that are inherent to Sam and Frodo's relationship but for now i'm stuck sitting here saying i kinda like Samfro but also there's a power balance there that makes it hard for me to ship wholeheartedly

#tolkien 100% experienced queerness in the trenches but there's also the fact that #officers and their batmen existed in a very rigidly defined space of social class and power #and that's the model for sam and frodo's relationship #so it's hard to extricate the employee/boss relationship from their characters #esp in the book where frodo is by far the older #i have a more general like for the ship nearer to the end of LOTR after they're on more equal footing #and definitely in the movies #but the power dynamics are also inherent to the subliminal queerness of their friendship #because they are brought together by sam working as frodo's batman #lotr