#Words Are Poison {Gríma Wormtongue} | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

emyn-arnens · 1 year

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'[Gríma] is bold and cunning. Even now he plays a game with peril and wins a throw. Hours of my precious time he has wasted already. Down, snake!' he said suddenly in a terrible voice. 'Down on your belly! How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price? When all the men were dead, you were to pick your share of the treasure, and take the woman you desire? Too long have you watched her under your eyelids and haunted her steps.' — The King of the Golden Hall, TTT

‘My friend,’ said Gandalf, ‘you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.’

‘Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden’s ears? Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that Wormtongue at home wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister’s love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?’ — The Houses of Healing, ROTK

What I love about these two scenes is that they show how Gandalf, despite all of the responsibilities and concerns burdening him, and despite having his attention fractured between all of the pieces he must move across the board, stops and sees Éowyn—truly sees her, as even her own family cannot—and he understands and he cares. The first quote shows that Gandalf has noticed Gríma's preying on Éowyn for quite some time, before the Three Hunters ever reached Rohan, and that her fear and suffering has been on his mind and continues to be, even though he is focused on setting Rohan right and undoing the work of Saruman.

Despite all of the pressing concerns weighing upon him at the moment—worrying about Frodo's safety, freeing Théoden and galvanizing the Rohirrim, arranging the pieces on the board against Saruman, etc.—Gandalf has compassion for Éowyn and marks her suffering from Gríma's words and advances as something worthy of attention and concern, as important as the other matters that must be addressed.

Even after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, when victory has been won for the day but at a steep cost, and the future is still uncertain, and the work to be done is still mountainous, and the hope of the world walks treacherous paths in Mordor and his safety and success are uncertain, and all these things weigh upon Gandalf—still he pauses to pay attention to Éowyn's suffering, and to show Éomer all that he has neglected to see, due to his place of privilege that has blinded him from seeing what Éowyn has longed for and been barred from.

It’s moments like this where Gandalf's time spent learning from Nienna truly shows. Despite every important, pressing concern—concerns that other characters might argue are more important at the moment—he stops, notices, understands, has compassion, and encourages others to have compassion as well.

#lotr newsletter #lotr #rotk #gandalf #eowyn #eomer #.txt #my meta #i just. have so many feelings about this #and about how the narrative pauses to place importance on eowyn's suffering #anyways. compassion is the heart of lotr etc. etc.

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themoonlily · 2 years

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it’s so weird to me how people frequently insist that Éomer (and/or Théoden) are somehow responsible for Éowyn’s state of mind when her actual stalker Gríma Wormtongue is right there and it’s expressly stated that he targeted and manipulated her just as much as he did Théoden.

Aragorn: “Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden’s ears? Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that Wormtongue wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips; you might have heard even such things as these escape them.”

Théoden himself was practically incapacitated by despair that seems to stem from the constant downpour of bad news that Wormtongue presented in the worst possible light (which sounds a lot like what was going on with Denethor and Sauron). Upon Gandalf’s intervention, his actual words are: “It’s not so dark here”, and “Dark have been my dreams of late.” There’s every reason to assume Théoden is/was just as depressed as Éowyn, even if he is not as clearly suicidal as she. It’s like some fans are hell-bent on making Éowyn even more miserable than she already is by vilifying her family, as if her situation didn’t already invoke enough sympathy.

Sidenote, Éowyn only abandons all hope of life when Aragorn turns her down (Faramir: “But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle.”)

Éomer actually appears to be more hopeful in character compared to his uncle or sister, or at least he seems to believe Rohan can still be saved with the help of three strangers he meets on the plains (so I would think from the way he risks his own neck when he gives horses to Aragorn and co. and lets them go look for their friends, even though at this time nobody should be allowed to travel in Rohan without Théoden’s leave.) He only loses his hope when the Corsair ships (bearing Aragorn and the Dúnedain) arrive and it momentarily seems like the battle is lost. (”To hope’s end I rode and to the heart’s breaking.”). But even in this truly hopeless instance, in one of the most memorable moments of all the trilogy, he refuses to give in: “And lo! even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them.”

to say nothing of Denethor, Boromir and Faramir! Denethor starts out in a very similar situation as Théoden, Boromir dies because the Ring uses his despair to consume him (although he redeems himself in the end by trying to protect his friends), whereas Faramir seems similar to Éomer in the sense that he holds on to hope even as his family fall prey to despair around him.

anyway, I think it’s a mistake - though commonly made - to examine Éowyn’s story outside this larger context of the ruling families of Rohan and Gondor, because each member of these two dynasties reflects a facet of the wider themes of hope and despair. their stories don’t exist apart, and they can’t control the ultimate reason for their individual sufferings - they only have the choice of how to deal with it (just as Gandalf tells Frodo: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us:”). all the same, it’s probably what also makes Éowyn and Faramir’s romance so rewarding even though it happens in just one chapter: they are essentially the two sides of the same coin.

it’s also interesting to reflect how these different characters respond to Gandalf and especially Aragorn (whose childhood name is Estel, meaning hope!). Only Denethor outright rejects Aragorn (i. e. Estel/hope) and his demise is undeniably most grim of them all; though Boromir and Théoden also die, their deaths are seen as having achieved something, or at least they are redeemed in death.

(also a lot can be said about the symmetry that their individual stories create in various ways, for example how Théoden and Denethor are essentially narrative foils in how they respond to despair and Gandalf’s message of hope, or how three members of these two families die while three members survive and live on. I admit that this second example is bit of a stretch because technically Théodred would be the fourth one to die, but he never appears in the narrative except as a dead man and has no arc that can be compared to the rest of them.)

#Éomer #Éowyn #Théoden #Eomer #Eowyn #Theoden #Faramir #Boromir #Denethor #Lord of the Rings #Tolkien

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chojrak-making-things · 2 years

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Maybe that’s just logical and lore effect. Spy can make a poison and report suspicious people to king. He can even poison king as well. But then, why to keep him in palace then? I feel like I missed something . In medieval times many people were poisoned, but most cases were rather accident, cause of wrong food storage. The whole “Spy” profession doesn’t really fits for me to medieval times, as well as this word itself. When I think of spy, I have in head more like James Bond character or at least someone from 20th century.

Anyway, I had in plants to create a snake-mounth, sly, insidious, treacherous persona, like in many fantasy lores (for example Gríma Wormtongue from LOTR), but then I randomized this guy in CAS and felt that I liked him. He’s not treacherous anti-hero, but rather good-hearted but clumsy normal hero. I didn’t come up with that idea, but I liked that game randomised him like that. His name was randomized as well, but I don’t remember if it was Florian or Felicjan, or something other beginning with “F”. :p

Btw, for future saves I have the third idea for spy. So the first one was sly-spy, second one was clumsy-spy, and third will be a flirty-spy. So handsome that nobody in the whole kingdom would stand off by reveal their secrets. 😻

I came up with the third idea when game generated this sim, from post few days back. But sadly, I forgot to save him in the bin, so I’ll need to randomize more until I get close to that point. It’s not that hard though, cause this game can easily generate pretty nice sims. TS3 and TS4 could never, cause of too much variety of styles in CAS.

#the sims medieval #games #the sims #tsm

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moretreasurewithinarchive · 4 years

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Gosh, I need Éowyn and Faramir talking about people who’ve hurt them and wronged them, and being ready to kick ass on the other’s behalf. Like can you imagine her telling him how Gríma was obssessed with her, and that she was gonna be his prize if Saurman succeeded???

#Outofjourneys {Ooc}#Gone Beyond Recall Or Desire {Wishlist}#The Gift Of A Gentle Heart {Faramir}#Words Are Poison {Gríma Wormtongue}#Look #My girl is perfectly capable of defending herself #But she's still a woman and I'm sure had Wormtongue chosen to #He could have overpowered her

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morwensteelsheen · 3 years

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so @tinacharles and I have sort of been having this conversation about the varying levels of culpability of all the men in Éowyn’s life re: her abject fucking misery, which got me to thinking about how that discussion would play out in-universe.

I know it’s pretty popular (and not incorrectly so, imo!) to have Éomer being fairly distrustful of Faramir, but I think it's underplayed just how much ammunition Faramir has to be out-and-out fucked off with Éomer on Éowyn's behalf.

Part of that understatement is a desire, I reckon, to see all the named Rohirrim as basically innocents, manipulated beyond aid by Wormtongue, and functionally helpless until Gandalf and the Three Hunters show up, but that's a take that is, imo, too reliant upon what we get in the movie canon and not reliant enough on what's actually written in the text! The point of Théoden's downfall is that it is his pride and his hubris (and not any magic!) that is his undoing, and it is Gandalf's reminders that his responsibilities are greater than the weight of the injuries to his pride that "brings him back" so to speak. The ability to stop fucking around exists at all moments within Théoden, there is no magic, no great battles, not valiant rescues involved, it's just about him putting his big girl panties on and dealing with his own life. But because there's a tendency to see too much of the movie canon in these characters, their relative culpability in Éowyn's immiseration is largely erased, which is incredibly unfair both in terms of treating these characters with the nuance they deserve, but also in terms of treating Éowyn's misery with the seriousness it deserves!

And a key element of this is Éomer's complacency/culpability in all of this. I often quote the conversation between Gandalf, Aragorn, and Éomer after the Pelennor about Éowyn's ~fundamental unknowability~, but I think it is, uhhh, pretty fucked up that Aragorn, Faramir, and Gandalf are all able to spot out Éowyn's deeply destroyed mental health within minutes of coming into contact with her (and yes, it is true enough that they're all powered-up slightly by magic-ish things) while Éomer, who has spent literally his entire life around her, doesn't really have an inkling of what's actually going on in her interior life. That's really upsetting to me, and is no doubt deeply upsetting and isolating for Éowyn, who has basically no other people in her life until Faramir shows up (you know, after she literally tries to kill herself!).

More than that, when Gandalf and the Three Hunters show up and immediately break Théoden free of his pity party, we don't get a sense that undermining Wormtongue has any actual political repercussions—Hama (👑) immediately names Éowyn as the favoured heir to the throne, which says that she's got a substantial amount of organic support where and when it matters. Yes, it's true they immediately have to go fight Saruman's forces in Helm's Deep, but Helm's Deep is a pretty unique battle in the books for how "small" it is in terms of coalitions: the Rohirrim fight that sucker almost entirely unaided! So if a consequence of unseating Wormtongue had been facing down Saruman's lot on the battlefield (assuming that he would have been prepared to do so at any point before the canonical Battle of the Hornburg), we know that the Rohirrim could have handled it, and what's more, they might have been in an even better position to have handled it, because Théodred would have likely still been alive, alongside however many men they lost at the Battle of the Fords of Isen. A lot of words to say: there's really no indication that there was a danger, per se, to beating Wormtongue's ass down; but we do know that there was some obstacle. Tolkien goes pretty far out of his way to hint that it's a lack of will that's doing most of the work there. As readers, I think we're all mostly content to ignore this element of Éomer's complacency because we do largely see Éomer at his best and most noble, but I think we do a real disservice to both his and Éowyn's characters for not dealing with that more intimately.

Anyways, my original point is that I think Faramir has really good reason to be quite grumpy with Éomer and I think he'd actually probably be supported in that frustration by Éowyn, who would almost certainly be pretty chuffed to finally have someone fighting her corner after so many years. I don't know exactly how Faramir's frustration would manifest—almost certainly not with the level of vitriol and overtness that his frustration with his father manifested itself, but I do think he would be very good at making sure that Éomer is keenly aware that Faramir is Unhappy about his actions/lack thereof. That, I think, adds a really interesting dynamic not just to Éowyn and Faramir's personal life, particularly as they're off starting their lives together, but also their political life, given that Éomer is the new King of the Riddermark, shown to be exceptionally close with both Aragorn and Imrahil, and, of course, is later married to Faramir's cousin—some of Faramir's last living family.

Edit: just picked up the books to double check some stuff so adding cites beneath the cut

On Théoden's 'malady':

"the influence over him that Gríma gained when the King's health began to fail. This occurred early in the year 3014, when Théoden was sixty-six; his malady may thus have been due to natural causes, though the Rohirrim commonly lived till near or beyond their eightieth year. But it may well have been induced or increased by subtle poisons, administered by Gríma. In any case Théoden's sense of weakness and dependence on Gríma was largely due to the cunning and skills of this evil counsellor's suggestions."

From Unfinished Tales, V. The Battles of the Fords of Isen.

On Éomer Missing The Fucking Point:

"But Aragorn came to Éowyn, and he said: ‘Here there is a grievous hurt and a heavy blow. The arm that was broken has been tended with due skill, and it will mend in time, if she has the strength to live: It is the shield-arm that is maimed; but the chief evil comes through the sword-arm. In that there now seems no life, although it is unbroken.

‘Alas! For she was pitted against a foe beyond the strength of her mind or body. And those who will take a weapon to such an enemy must be sterner than steel, if the very shock shall not destroy them. It was an evil doom that set her in his path. For she is a fair maiden, fairest lady of a house of queens. And yet I know not how I should speak of her. When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?’

‘I marvel that you should ask me, lord,’ he answered. ‘For I hold you blameless in this matter, as in all else; yet I knew not that Éowyn, my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked on you. Care and dread she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king’s bewitchment; and she tended the king in growing fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!’

‘Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden’s ears? Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that Wormtongue at home wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister’s love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips; you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?’

Then Éomer was silent, and looked on his sister, as if pondering anew all the days of their past life together."

From Return of the King, VIII The House of Healing

#lotr #meta #this counts as a meta right?#faramir #éowyn #éomer #théoden #excessive tagging is for my blog organisation i am SO sorry

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 3 years

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Chapters: 24/24 Fandom: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types Rating: Mature Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Boromir (Son of Denethor II), Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf, others will be added as needed Additional Tags: Canon Typical Violence, Everyone Has Issues, Boromir pOV, Grima POV, it flips between them, some violence to animals - off screen, some psychological abuse (saruman being saruman) Series: Part 2 of swimming through fire Summary:

Boromir has survived Amon Hen, to everyone's great joy. So the Four Hunters (self named) now must journey into Rohan to attempt to rescue their friends. Everything goes a bit pear-shaped from there on in.

Obligatory excerpt:

‘If we are speaking of poisoned words, what shall we say of yours, young serpent?’ snaps Saruman. ‘You had best keep your forked tongue behind your teeth.’ Abruptly he stops, smiles, and returns his voice to the rich cambric of seduction. ‘But come, now, Éomer son of Eomund. You are the son of kings. Are we to speak to one another as if we are little better than drunkards in a tavern? You are honourable and brave. But your valour is in your arms and the wise speak only of what they know. Therefore, slay whom your lord names as enemies and be content. Meddle not in policies you do not understand.’

A delicate pause.

‘But maybe, if you become king,’ Saruman gives Gríma a lingering look, ‘you will find that you must choose your friends with care. You have won a battle, but not a war - and the battle itself was won only with unreliable help. The Shadow of the Wood is wayward and senseless. You may find it at your door next. And this time, not offering aid.’

HOLY CRAP MY FRIENDS.

This is the last chapter. We are officially done with The Two Towers.

Give me a bit to re-coup and you know, starting writing again, but we will move on into ROTK. Probably in the new year.

Thank you all for coming along on this ride. Thank you to those who were Here For It. And thank you for my followers who were like “....i followed this person for napoleon content why are they going on and on about grima wormtongue??”

I would absolutely not made it as far as I have without you and your encouragement. It means a lot.

Happy yule-tide and may 2021 be bright.

#lotr #lord of the rings #saruman #grima wormtongue #eomer #writing #lotr fanfic #my land is bare #boromir #boromir defense squad

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