Since finishing Fellowship I keep seeing references to LOTR as a sweeping heroic tale etc and this is now confusing to me, both in terms of story structure (hero tale or Romance; immram or exile tale) and the level of fantasy. The thing I’m learning about the art of writing swords and sorcery is that — to me, personally! And I get that this sounds bonkers! — Tolkien mostly feels like low fantasy. He just made the magic that was already there real. To the point where it takes a long time to even notice when people are doing magic, and whether it’s magic is sometimes debatable. Sam even complains about this briefly in Lorien (that the Elf magic isn’t dramatic) which is funny bc he’s utterly surrounded by small magics the whole time. Hell, in a story that stresses the power of words, quite literally to protect, I think that in of the fellowship plus Bilbo, only Aragorn, Bilbo, Legolas [edited to add Legolas sorry for forgetting u my guy], and Sam have actually composed their own poems and songs. And most of Aragorn and all of Legolas’s was Boromir’s funeral song.
I’m mostly asleep and have effectively only read Fellowship so far but idk! My point is that it doesn’t feel like it’s so influenced by the structure of later high medieval and onwards hero stories all that much. WAS Tolkien influenced by French Romances and Shakespeare and modern novels like oh absolutely! But lotr isn’t the Green Night or even Melusine, and it is only Macbeth for special occasions.
I know it’s considered a model hero’s journey or whatever but in-universe (and again, maybe just to me!) it’s not? it’s an exile story. Like The Wanderer or Erik the Red or Deor. Frodo et al say it at the beginning a bunch of times: the hobbits have exiled themselves. Gollum we’re told was exiled by his matriarch long ago and has lived as an exile ever since. Where I am at the beginning of Two Towers, Aragorn just saw the mountains that hide Gondor to the south and sang to them because he cannot yet go home. And there are a lot of those exile stories to draw on, in the time period and languages from which Tolkien was drinking deepest. Exile was a legal state and also a favourite story-frame.
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Your influence in this world doesn't need to be all-encompassing and World Changing. It can be small ripples. It can be gentle and easily missed.
Let yourself do small things. So often, people have this idea that to do "good things," it must be a grand gesture that changes every little thing. Honestly, that can be so intimidating and scary. We weren't meant to carry the world by ourselves. We each contribute, often in small ways, often in ways that aren't seen by everybody. But the people you affect might just take that kindness you gave them and let it light them home. Let yourself be that in whatever way you want. You don't need to carry the world alone.
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Ah, we finally have it. The holy Trinity of Doctor Who horror.
“Are you my mummy?”
“Hey, who turned out the lights?”
And now…
“My arms are too long.”
Though I’ll never forget the absolutely terrifying-
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i love going back through my posts in a stress/boredom induced haze bc its fun finding asks i answered while Tired. the grammar & tenses are so fucked....
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“What about my books?”
“Leave ‘em too.”
“I shan’t want them after hall?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Tea’s more important than hall. It stands to reason — well what are you giggling at? — that if we follow a dyke long enough we must come to a pub.”
“Why, they use it to water their beer!”
Maurice smote him on the ribs, and for ten minutes they played up amongst the trees, too silly for speech. Pensive again, they stood close together.
(THIS SCENE !!! THIS BOOK !!! THEM !!!)
(I tried to make it book accurate but I forgot what book accurate was so maybe it’s just me accurate but🧎🏻♀️🧎🏻♀️anyway💅 Maurice is on the right, I gave him his little tash)
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isn't it frustrating when there's not enough time for anything when you have a job
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