#like númenóreans ish

[morwensteelsheen]

I struggle with figuring out what the expectations are for aristocratic marriage in Gondor and Rohan. One thing I’ve toyed about with in my head is treating LOTR as not just unreliably narrated, but as super unreliably narrated, and taking ‘the Steward and the King’ not as gospel, but essentially as a bit of PR/marketing. Because wow, isn’t it really, really convenient that the Steward of Gondor/second most powerful man in the realm gets married to the most powerful woman of the Riddermark, Gondor’s closest ally? Isn’t that a little too convenient? What if Frodo just copies down the press release given to him by Faramir and instead of being this stunning high romance, he and Éowyn are basically just a run-of-the-mill political marriage?

(Obviously I don’t believe this fully, but it is an interesting thought.)

Here’s where it becomes harder to justify though, and here’s why I’m really confused about how marriage works for both Gondor and Rohan’s nobility. 

If political marriage were a thing in either of them, it stands to reason that it’s quite strange that neither Boromir nor Théodred are married with kids. The appendices say that Denethor ‘married late’ for having married Finduilas when he was forty-six, but when Boromir dies he’s forty-one. So he’s not far off at all. Théodred is the same age as Boromir, and we know that Théoden was married to Elfhild at least by the time that he was thirty, though he probably married her before that. So Théodred’s really late. 

So not only do neither of the heirs have kids, they’re not even married. Even if they didn’t have kids, you would think that, if political marriages were the norm, they’d be shipped off post-haste, right? Dol Amroth was secured in its loyalty to MT through Denethor marrying Finduilas (and obviously the whole happy go luck proto-nationalism shit that’s going on), and it seems like the rest of the major provinces are mostly in line, so why not use a marriage to secure the alliance with the Mark? I would have Boromir married off to Éowyn ASAP since there are no women to marry off to Théodred. But the fact that that doesn’t happen is interesting, I think. And also really complicates my HC that Éomer/Lothíriel is mostly a political thing, tbh. 

It’s all even more interesting in light of Faramir’s line in TTT where he’s explaining why the Kings of Gondor fell apart:

Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry...

Because, like, buddy, you are a childless lord sitting in an aged hall. And not only that, but since his brother was unmarried and childless before his death, he was probably always going to become the Steward at some point anyways, even if only briefly. So it’s not like he gets to claim amnesty via spare-status, because until the moment Boromir had kids (which he never did), he was constantly in secondary heir mode. So??? why wasn’t Faramir married off either? My dude was THIRTY-SIX during the war. He could’ve had fuckin hunners of kids by that point, but you’re telling me everyone was just gucci with him maintaining bachelor status?

Also, Faramir pointing it out does have the effect of politicising marriage somewhat. We know that Faramir’s somewhat out of step politically with the rest of Gondor, at least that in he appears to be very, very obsessed with bringing back the Númenor stuff and criticising Gondor over the last five hundred or so years. So if he’s diagnosed this childless lords problem as a problem that led to Gondor’s decay, he’s probably doing it because others don’t really see it that way. ‘Others’ here could be either Boromir (see the bottom of this post) or it could be Gondorians generally, we can’t know. Either way, Lord Faramir, thirty-six years old and unmarried, seems to think that lords not ensuring there were heirs to their houses was a problem. That contradiction/incidental hypocrisy is noteworthy!

I’ve typically taken this in my fics as an indication that the war was quite an intense and cataclysmic thing even before the official War of the Ring starts, and that all of these guys are way, way too busy dealing with that to consider marrying, but that opens up the question — when did things get so dire that securing the future of the ruling houses got deprioritised? Sauron openly declared himself in TA2951, but twenty-six-ish years later both Denethor and Théoden get married, so marriage is still at play in ~TA2976. Not a huge amount happens between 2976 and 3018 in explicit canon. We know that Elrond recalls Arwen from Lórien in 3009 because everything east of the Misty Mountains is becoming dangerous. By this time Boromir and Théodred are 31 and Faramir is 26, which made me wonder if it would be reasonable to have expected any of them to be married at that point. I did some quick math to see how old the title-holders were when they were married, stopping at the fifth generation back to accommodate Thorondir, who was the first Steward to not crack a century of life. Here’s what I’ve got:

(Where an actual wedding year wasn’t given, I based it on the year their eldest child was born.)

(Worth noting that Denethor’s not that much older than Ecthelion likely was when he married, so the ‘married old’ remark could instead be a reference to when Gondorians got married generally, not specifically to the Númenórean lot.)

There’s a chance all these guys got married way, way earlier and just spent ages childless, but… I sort of doubt that. Also I’m doing this based on what I can access from my laptop, so both HoME and PoME might contradict me or give more specific dates. If that’s the case — sorry! 

It is interesting that if we accept HoME’s dating of Faramir and Éowyn’s wedding as TA3020 as canon, then Faramir (married at 37) is actually younger than the average for the previous five generations of Stewards. So is Éomer, because by marrying Lothíriel in 3021 he’s actually just getting in early by a a year or so. 

Regardless, it makes statistical sense that neither Boromir nor Faramir are married by 3009, though Théodred is sort of pushing it. Certainly by 3018 when he dies he’s really taking the piss, but Boromir is still sort of in the clear (but getting up there), and Faramir’s kind of fine. 

We know, at least, that there’s a canonical acknowledgement of Boromir’s bachelor status, per Appendix A:

Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms.

No accounting for Théodred, though based on Faramir’s bitching about Rohan and Gondor becoming more alike, you could probably chalk it up to the same thing as Boromir. I note, however, that Théodred’s need is slightly more urgent because in absence of an heir from Théodred, the throne would then pass to Éomer. I think we might reasonably assume that he wouldn’t have a problem with this (Théoden might have, given how effective Wormtongue’s manoeuvring was), but we can’t know for certain.

Worth pointing out as well that Elphir’s son Alphros is born in 3017, so it’s not like nobody is getting it on. 

I was interested in what the numbers for the ladies would look like, and obviously this is complicated by the fact that there’s like twenty named human women and even fewer with birth dates/marriage dates, but here’s what the table looks like:

(Because so many of the women we know of are women who crossed between Rohan and Gondor, I put them in columns based on their birth culture, not where they married into.)

Also here’s some fuel for the age gap discourse:

(Can you tell I’m procrastinating my dissertation???)

Anyways, outside of some apparent liberalism towards the ol’ begetting of heirs, there’s not a huge amount of information floating around to help us understand how or if marriage was understood politically in Rohan and Gondor. You get bits and pieces (Aragorn’s ‘no niggard are you, Éomer’ comment at Éowyn and Faramir’s trothplighting, for example, Wormtongue being after Éowyn, for another), but nothing extended or particularly explicit. 

Just one of those things, really… 

#just having some Thoughts really #lotr #long post #also lmao just realised that alphros being born in 3017 buggers my AFTA timeline for fuck’s sake

[lizziestudieshistory]

The Tolkien Tag

Happy Hobbit Day! In honour of this very special day I’m doing the Tolkien Tag - I haven’t been tagged but I wanted to do something to mark the day. The Tolkien Tag was created by Andrea Heckler on YouTube.

How does your Middle Earth story begin?

As with A LOT people my age, I watched the the Peter Jackson films before I read the books. My parents, mainly my Dad, decided to show me and my brother the films when I was 8-ish, which was too early... Dad put on the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (yes we’re THAT kind of family) and I was absolutely terrified of the Nazgul! I had nightmares about them for YEARS afterwards...

I only made it through the first disk and refused to watch anything else until I was 12/13. I was convinced I didn't like Tolkien and didn't want anything to do with them. However, I eventually got over my fear of the Nazgul and was curious about what the whole deal was with the Lord of the Rings because EVERYONE seemed to have seen them except for me.

Well it’s needless to say I fell in love, and devoured the whole extended trilogy in a single weekend. From there I went to the books and here we are! If you want the slightly insane story of how I read the books feel free to ask, it’s was an...unconventional order.

What is your favourite Middle Earth book?

The Silmarillion. It’s an esoteric choice but I adore the first age - it’s my level of nerdy, high fantasy! I’m one of those annoying people who doesn’t have an issue with keeping characters straight in my head, nor do I struggle with the writing style in the Silmarillion! The scope is even bigger than the Lord of the Rings, the stakes are higher, and it’s just generally more epic. The only downside is it’s less personal to the characters than the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.

However, if I’m allowed to point to a single work, not book, my favourite piece that Tolkien wrote is the Lay of Leithian. It’s beautiful, tragic, and captivating to read - it’s an unfinished epic poem telling the tale of Beren and Luthien, I'd highly recommend to for everyone.

What is your favourite movie?

The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s a close call between Fellowship and The Two Towers, however, the weight of nostalgia for the Shire and the Fellowship coming together makes me far too happy to pick anything else.

Movies or books?

Books. I’d sincerely miss the films if I was held at gun point and made to choose, but I can’t let the books go. There’s so much more in them that you miss out on if you only watch the films. However, both films and books are my happy place.

Who are your favourite characters?

Short answer:

Long answer, in no particular order:

Finrod

Theoden

Aragron (films only, I have a tense relationship with book Aragorn)

Sam 

Boromir

The Fellowship (let's just move on because they are a given 😂)

Fingolfin

Glorfindel

Lúthien

Beren

Faramir

Eärendil

There are a lot of characters I find interesting, but don’t necessarily love enough to call favourites - Gollum, Fëanor, or Galadriel and all good examples. Again feel free to ask if you want me to go into detail.

What Middle Earth race would you be?

I know I joke a lot about being a hobbit, however, I’d be bored stiff in the Shire within a couple of months. Teenaged me desparately wanted to be an elf, but it’s never going to happen (I’m not tall, thin, or graceful enough...!)

However, I’d be happy as one of the Dúnedain/Númenóreans, as long as I don’t have to live through the Downfall! I’m definitely okay with belonging to the race of Men.

Best actor/character casting match?

I want to avoid all the typical choices, such as Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. I completrly agree that they’re perfect in the roles and I can't see anyone else as these characters now. But, they're ALWAYS brought up in this discussion, and for good reason.

However, I want to highlight Bernard Hill’s performance as Théoden King. He's WONDERFUL in this role, Theoden is a character that's difficult to portray because he's so heroically flawed AND he has to hold his own against Aragorn and Gandalf, which is no mean feat! There's strength and weakness in everything Theoden does, he's desparately trying to defend his people when he's lost all hope (especially at Helm's Deep), and I think Hill captured Théoden's struggle perfectly. I BELIEVED Théoden King, he feels real, whether we're seeing him at the height of his glory or in his lowest moments. And even now I watch Théodred's funeral scene and breakdown with him... Just phenomenal and we hardly ever talk about him!

What is your favourite place in Middle Earth?

The Argonath... Just stunning 😍

But to actually live in? It's a toss up between Gondolin or Gondor - depends when we are in the timeline. (I don’t want to be in Gondolin around F.A. 510 for example...) I'd be making regular visits to Rohan though, I just can't live there because I'm 99% sure there's no plumbing!

What is your favourite quote from the books or movies?

"No living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

Eowyn: The Return of the King, Book V, Chapter 6, p.841

I’m also have a slight obsession with the Fall of Gil-Galad from The Fellowship of the Ring (p.185) for some reason, I literally don't know why considering Gil-Galad is not a particular favourite character of mine.

#the tolkien tag #j.r.r. tolkien #middle earth #lord of the rings #the silmarillion #hobbit day #eowyn #theoden #not my gif #happy hobbit day

[brynnmclean]

For the record, I am deeply interested in your Akallabêth campaign stuff... it's a fascinating concept and such an interesting time period... is very cool that you are running this for people, I hope this run goes well!

Thanks!  Yeah, I have (had?) two main gaming groups, one local to me (now since disbanded mostly due to a recording situation and two players leaving) and then another that has a bunch of us old college friends in different states (luckily our timezones aren’t so far apart!).  The first campaign was with my local crew and then this reboot is with that second group of friends.

I’ve deeply loved Númenor as a setting for years and when I was trying to come up with the concept of the new campaign, I picked the Akallabêth era because it’s so contained?  There’s a good window of events + a stretch of years that could be filled in with stuff the group wanted to do.  

Some rambling under the cut because I got excited... 

I thought a good canon(-ish) adventure would be aiding Isildur in rescuing the fruit of the White Tree in Armenelos (I know canonically he does it alone, but this is a TTRPG, so why not have him and his good, trusted friends go?), so that was going to be a milestone event in the overall campaign.  Before we went on hiatus, I revised my plan and marked it down as the soft finale of that first campaign.  It felt like it would have been a happier note to end on than the actual Downfall!

The main mission that the campaign ended up centering around though was set a year prior to the Rescue-- I started out the whole thing with what I called the Meeting of the Venturers at Eämbar, essentially a secret meeting of Faithful captains and quartermasters in the wreck of a huge, culturally significant ship that the King’s Men grounded on Tol Uinen in the Bay of Rómenna (that is all a MOUTHFUL of namedropping, lol, can you tell I had fun).  Lord Amandil made a speech that gave my players a few overall paths: (1) delivering a letter from “Elentir of Armenelos” (read: Tar-Míriel) to Gil-galad asking for aid and a renewal of the alliance between Faithful Númenóreans and the Elves of Lindon, (2) exploratory mission(s) for refugee settlements on or near the Continent for Faithful trying to leave Númenor but who maybe didn’t want to all pile into Pelargir, and (3) violence and disruption of trade routes to Umbar if the group wanted to just... have a campaign full of fighting and piracy.

The letter delivery won for the Big Mission, but the campaign unfortunately ended just when the group reached Lindon.  

There was a lot of stuff that happened on the way, particularly with a set of players!  The quartermaster was an agent of the King’s Men for the grand majority of the campaign, planning and orchestrating a mutiny that he was injured during to keep his cover intact.  He actually was brought back from the brink of death and had a vision of the Halls of Mandos that then sowed MASSIVE amounts of doubt in his King’s Men loyalty.  He eventually confessed his deception to the rest of the crew and they held a trial for him (they all wrote speeches!  They came up with questions!  I sat back and witnessed one of the best sessions of my TTRPG GM life!) and sentenced him to death by drowning.

There was another character (romantic interest of the Quartermaster which was also fun to witness!) who was having visions of the Valar throughout the campaign.  It started out because that player picked Foresight as an ability, but then I started thinking about how I could give this player who deeply missed spellcasting some kind of Middle-earth flavored magic... That plan didn’t come to fruition, but I was eventually going to lead the group to the island remnants of Beleriand (Tol Himling, Tol Fuin, and Tol Morwen) and have him meet with Nienna who would give him certain spells off a very specific list I had compiled.

I’m very sad that that plotline isn’t going to happen also because it was going to bring back the Dead Quartermaster as a spirit atoning for his past sins by working for Nienna and leading his almost-boyfriend to his destiny.  I had other plans for other players later on down the road when they got back to Númenor, but I was also trying not to plan too far ahead.

The Reboot Campaign is probably going to start with a fairly similar Venturers’ meeting, but I really don’t know what’s going to happen after that!  Different players, different characters, no secret traitor in our midst or anyone playing Captain Isildur... who knows what will happen!  

I’m still mourning the abrupt end of the first campaign, but cannot tell you how excited I am for a fresh start, too.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, bless you. <3 I’m always happy to talk about this campaign setting and to offer up ideas/resources if anyone else wants to have a go at running something similar for a gaming group!

#isi7140 #replies #do i need a loremaster tag? #akallabeth campaign #long post for ts #i'm so sorry you probably were not actually asking for this novel of a response #i got excited though #btw i run this mostly via cubicle7's adventures in middle-earth + some ghosts of saltmarsh nautical rules #with a bit of beowulf 5e thrown in because i LOVE the rules for followers #anyway... anyway. #yeah! #:D

[scriptstructure]

How do I create a multispecies and interspecies society? One aspect I'm having issues with is varied lifespan and childhood. What is the parents lifespans are 80 and 800 and had a child at 40 and 770. Say that the child isn't an adult until 100 which means parents are dead. What if the only relatives have small lifespans and are they even obligated to accept the child (even if rhe child is older than them)? How does any other age related issue work.

This seems like a question that is more suited to @script-a-world than to me, since it seems like you’re working on figuring out the way that the society in your secondary world works, rather than figuring out how to portray it on the page.

I will say that all of the questions you’ve laid out up there are questions that you’ll need to explore for yourself to decide how you want your world to work, how you want your society to function, and how you want your characters to think about the world they live in.

Of course, there’s going to be some major differences between a world with such widely varied age ranges and our own world, but how exactly that works depends a great deal on the type of story you’re trying to tell, the kinds of characters that you want to have, etc.

Some books that I can think of that have societies with characters with widely varying age ranges:

-The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien: The most obvious one is the elves, who can be just about as old as the world itself, but even the Hobbits and Númenórean men have different lifespans to just regular old human people.

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: There are multiple characters in the show, usually vampires, or demons (like Anya) who have lived for hundreds of years, and who have their own cultures alongside the human world.

-The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice: I find these books very interesting in the way that they handle characters who were born human but become long-lived through vampirism (or other means) and how the different characters process their extended lives.

-The Twilight Saga, Stephanie Meyer: The Cullen family have a very different lifestyle to the Volturi, but they’re all long-lived people amongst regular humans.

-The Black Jewels Trilogy*, Anne Bishop: This series has something which, with the brief description you’ve provided, sounds similar to what you’re working on. There are multiple human-ish races, with lifespans varying from your normal 80-ish up to 8000 years. There are a few characters who have managed to live (kinda posthumously?? It’s hard to explain without getting into the complex magic system) up to about 50,000 years. LIke with the Vampire Chronicles, there’s exploration of the ways that time differs for people with disparate lifespans, and also with romance between someone who is short-lived, and someone who is long-lived (extremely tragic!)

There are probably many many more books that deal with these kinds of concepts, and every one handles it slightly differently. I’d definitely suggest reading some books that have these themes and think about how you want to approach it in your story.

And that’s really what it comes down to in the end: what do you want to do with this concept in your story? How does this conceit change the way your world works?

I hope this helps!

*Content note for the Black Jewels Trilogy: contains strong sexual violence, body horror, and other violent themes which might be upsetting for some readers.

#writing #worldbuilding #world building #Anonymous

[zenxenophilia]

20 Questions

Thank you to @that-transformers-fan for the tag!  :)

Name: Nice try, faeries.  >__>  But you can call me Quinn if you like.

Nickname: Zen or Blue (though not as many people use that one)

Zodiac: Capricorn

Height: 5,6″-ish

Languages: English

Nationality:   Númenórean  :P

Fav Season: Fall, obviously

Fav Flower:  Roses, tulips, peonies, wisteria, lilac, and orchids

Fav Scent: Lavender and Vanilla, and sometimes peppermint, lemon, balsam or almond

Fav Color: Lavender

Fav Animals

Domestic: Cat

Wild: Fox

Fantasy: Unicorn! <3

Fav Fictional Character: Too many to count!  But today...  Lady Amalthea from the Last Unicorn

Coffee, Tea, Or hot Chocolate: Tea, but hot chocolate is nice too.

Dog or Cat: Gotta go with cat for this one

# of Blankets: Enough that people refuse to buy me more for Christmas :|

Dream Trip: A cruise around the world.  I’m tired of long flights.  Let me chill in my room with wifi and just tell me when we get to Spain idk.

Blog Established: Bruh, I don’t even remember what I had for breakfast...

Followers: 1,600-something?  I try not to check on it too often.  It’s a slippery slope.

Random Fact: I am amazing at assembling furniture.  I put together nearly every piece in my apartment.  

20 Questions and 20 Followers lets go

I tag anyone who wants to join in!  That includes you!  Yes, you!  :)

#ask memes and such

[girlbookwrm]

i can’t believe i’m doing this

@jhscdood​ listen i got No Time to write the fics for this right now, but have some Fellowship of the Pod People (but not like that) Headcanons.

@ all of the rest of you, please for Eru’s sake help yourselves: literally nothing would make me happier than to have someone else write this shit so i could read it like the lazy asshole i am.

None of this will make a DAMN LICK OF SENSE if you aren’t familiar with the Not Your Mama’s ABO Clownfish AU that @silentwalrus1​ created with @skellerbvvt​ and @galwednesday​ in the Magnificently Weird MCU Stucky Gem Scents & Sensibility 

shit this got hella long don’t look at me but please all feel free to correct/expand/modify because I just whipped these off to decompress after a long day

The Númenóreans are responsible for all that “reef” “pod” and assorted “fishy” terminology, so while “pod” “reef” etc may be the accepted academic names, they’re often replaced with local variants and colloquialisms. The Númenóreans picked this linguistic quirk up from the sea-obsessed Noldor elves, so it’s sometimes used in Rivendell and Lothlorien too.

(The Sindar elves fucking hate that)

(Sindar use bee euphemisms instead. It’s all “hives” and “skeps” etc etc etc. Try to tell me Thranduil isn’t a Queen Bee. I FUCKIN DARE U. The wine is all honey mead. Hex honeycomb aesthetic for the win. Even the dungeons.)

(FYI Dwarves ALSO have a Hexagonal Aesthetic and that just Really Gets Thranduil’s Goat.)

everyone’s got their own local names for alphas and omegas too because seriously who fucking came up with that, i bet there’s a whole appendix at the end of the red book about terminology and shit

(Now I’m having meta thoughts about linguistics and there being a clownfish!Tolkien to go with the clownfish!Middle Earth. And now I’m thinking about the Inklings being a pod and if i follow THAT rabbit hole any further I’ll fu cki ng  AS C E N DHJKfghjk.)

Anyway

Men smell gross. Everyone else is agreed upon this. Unflattering comparisons to badgers and weasels have been made.

This makes “MANFLESH” 12000% more hilarious ur welcome

it’s funny cuz Men are big into perfumes. Incense! Herb Sachets! Oils and tinctures! Have you ever seen a olde tyme perfumers’ box? That kinda shit. Everyone has their Signature Smell.

but elves especially are like you still smell like man stop trying to hide it.

The Dúnedain embrace The Musk. (some have fully weaponized it)

this is very important: Aragorn Smells Amazing. (to be clear, still very Man Smelling, but awesome. first time he goes all I AM UR KING everyone in the throne room goes a little glassy eyed.)

Minas Tirith, being old, is very Old Numenorean Oceanic Aesthetic. Give me all that white stone carved to look like coral and driftwood holy shit YES. 

WHITE! TREE!! GARDEN!!! 

ATHELAS!!!! SCENTED!!!!! EVERYTHING!!!!!! (pairs well with lemon and other citrus smells.)

veering away from Gondor now

The Rohirrim stick with horse metaphors because of course they fucking do. Also, since they’re more nomadic, the entire concept of a “reef” as in a physical structure is kind of ??????? to them. So. “Reefs” = “herds” and “pods” = “bands.” 

Fresh Hay is considered to be Peak Homely Smell in Edoras. Tapestries! Only The Softest and Nicest and Most Beautifully Tooled leather! leather smells!

OH SHIT GIVE ME ALPHA-FOR-LIFE-EOWYN MEETING FOREVER!OMEGA FARAMIR *HEAVY BREATHING*

(oh shit while we’re in the neighborhood, Dúnedain Rangers tend to be solitary As, which spooks the natives like whoa, but the Ithilien Rangers are generally O, and their waterfall hideout is totes a big ole reef.)

hang on i forgot about elves

Listen, I’m not super into elves myself but I’m imagining that they are perpetually switching back and forth between A and O depending on the day — nay, the HOUR — and the extremes between A and O are much less extreme for them than other races.

Every other race finds this super weird and disturbing.

Legolas is like “hm this forest is making me feel very O.” And Aragorn and Gimli are just like ‘what’ and then suddenly Leggy smells very O too and Aragorn and Gimli are like ‘WHAT’

Feänor is the exception. He turned the dial all the way to A and broke the goddamn knob off.

Galadriel can go from Maximum Softe O to Roid Rage A in .0004 seconds. “iiiinstead of a dark lord yyYYOU WOULD HAVE A QUEEEEEEN!!!1!” and the Hobbits are literally bowled over.

Elves in general smell woody but also very ocean-y i think? Have you ever stood in a pine forest by the ocean, where you get those light, clean wood and cedar and pine smells all shot through with sea breeze? Like That.

But elves are more into visual/audio. Soft singing. Leaves moving in the breeze. The whisper of pages in a library. 

and the light. Elves are lighting wizards, they are all about that gentle starglow.

(I’m also having thoughts about the Lothlorien Elves embracing that A-ish urge to be Up High. A holdover from Galadriel’s time with the feanoreans? I'm not as up on silm lore as I should be)

but let’s get back to my happy place: 

THE MUTHAFUCKIN SHIIIIIIIIRE

Hobbits really embrace dat sweet sweet O lifestyle. good food and warm hearths. throw blankets and pillows. hugging and cuddle puddles and playing footsie. gardens. Gardens. G A R D E N S. 

“Going A” is done as rarely as possible. the transition takes about a month and Hobbits who are “going A” tend to call in sick like it’s some unsightly thing. 

Tooks have an unusually high rate of going A. Of course they do.

Bilbo has never gone A. Not! Once!

Neither has Frodo.

Sam did, after the breaking of the Fellowship. Merry and Pippin did, in Fangorn, when they grew six inches. The three of them all stayed A after that, for the most part. YES EVEN SAMWISE. it was v scandalous.

Hobbit “reefs” are called “warrens” (unless ur rich, then they’re Smials and they’re Only For Family) and their “pods” are “nests.” “Nesting” is a whole Thing.

Hobbits! Smell! Like! Baked! Goods! Not sweet but like… warm. Humans sometimes turn their noses up and call it a “yeasty” or “beery” smell but it’s usually much more a rising-bread smell. Pipeweed smoke and sweet florals make a nice contrast to the perpetual bakery window smell.

Hobbits are very mouth/taste/chew oriented. Mouthfeel is a Big Deal. Recipe Books are Heirlooms. Courting is frequently Food/Drink Oriented.

Rosie Cotton brews the finest ale in all the land and she did that for the express purpose of seducing Samwise Gamgee

He Did Not Realize.

Courting that is not food/drink oriented is Flower/Plant oriented.

Sam Gamgee became the finest gardener in all the land in the desperate hope of wooing Mr. Frodo.

He Did Not Realize.

Everyone Else Realized. Merry and Pippin especially considered it Peak Comedy.

(they eventually worked it out.)

last but not least:

there’s just no way around it. Dwarves smell like dirt. nice dirt tho! Petrichor and stone with hints of copper and metals. Smoke smells. Rich spice smells. Eau de forge is considered a particularly desirable perfume. Dwarves don’t particularly notice smell though (for reasons that will become apparent) when it comes to Softe Things they’re much more about dem sweet sweet sparklies, and fur, and being super fucking tactile.

Dwarves are SUPER into haircare, like, every night the Company of Thorin makes a braid circle and exchanges hair beads. 

(elves are also super into hair care. this too really Gets Tharanduil’s Goat)

Dwarf social structure is like… hobbits in reverse. They tend to default to A status, hence their general rowdiness but with strict codes of conduct to help manage conflict. They’re just these huge roving groups of A’s just rough-and-tumbling around their one O. dogpiles are peak pod bonding. aaaaand the alpha reek kind of tends to make them all a little noseblind.

Poor Bilbo.

Lucky, Lucky Bilbo.

But also poor, poor Bilbo.

Most dwarf Royals go O, but Thorin hadn’t been O since he was 24 and got chased out of Erebor by that pesky dragon.

Dwarf “reefs” and “pods” have their own terms in Khuzdul that do not translate well but have to do with crystal growth. Rough translations are “lattices” and “cells” (Hence the hexagon aesthetic)

Wizards Have No Designation. They Smell Like Gunpowder and Lightning. It Is Very Disturbing For Everyone Around Them.

A

N

Y

W

A

Y

Give me EveryoneLives!au Hobbit stuff. Bilbo trying to homely up the lonely mountain! Thorin going O and chilling the fuck out as a result! 

Give me fellowship!pod!! Aragorn is the diplomat! Pippin is the wild child! Gimli is the Adventurer! Frodo is the peacekeeper! Boromir is the den mother!

How Much More Heartrending is the Breaking of the Fellowship if the fellowship was a pod????

and then you’ve got the fractured podlings: Merry and Pippin bonding hard with their new Rohan and Gondor stress-pods. Sam going A to protect Frodo from Gollum while Frodo tries to adopt this weird frog into their pod. The Three Hunters as Nick, Nora and Nelson (Gimli is Nick, Leggy is Nora, Aragorn is Nelson.)

Give me post-war Legolas and Aragorn and Gimli (and Arwen too) breaking cultural boundaries and proving that yes! Interracial Pods Can Work! these differences are cultural, and cultures can be melded! nothing wrong with this! if half-elves exist and can have kids of their own, then elves and men are not separate species, and I’d bet a significant limb that the same is true of all the other races so

GIVE IT TO ME

ok i gotta stop now.

...

yeah there’s probably a star trek one of these coming too

kill me

(And hey jhscdood I’m not saying you have to come back at me with more lotr clownfish or ocean’s 11/Star Wars/M*A*S*H/Leverage/West Wing/whatever clownfish But I would certainly consider it a Fair Exchange if you did. MORE INSTITUTIONALIZED SOFTISM. MAXIMUM SOFT FISH FRIENDS.)

#clownfish tag #seriously don't look at me this got Severely Out Of Hand.

[anghraine]

Hello there! I have only one blog and it's a single-topic one so I can't reblog it, but I just wanted to say I saw your post about Elladan and Elrohir's names (the one with the cat gif!) and aweouyiheisdghs! It made me smile really hard for about a whole minute! Then I felt sad I haven't seen this much in LotR fandom, though I might just be looking in the wrong places. Anyway this is a silly ask but I was bursting to let you know how glad I am! It will brighten my next LotR readthrough!

Oh, thank you. 

The one that really gets me is Elladan (Elf-Númenórean aghahdfhdafj), so I’ve always been surprised that the Elrohir one is what took off, but they definitely go together! I’m glad it was so happy-making :)

It’s from the letters, so I think ... I mean, a lot of the fandom reads stuff in them, but it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, so I think it’s possible that people just haven’t seen the reference or seen the peredhil things in LOTR(Elladan and Elrohir not being counted as Elves, Aragorn lumping Elrond and Dúnedain into one people, etc) in that light. 

I would love to see more on the complicated interrelationship between the peredhil and Dúnedain, definitely. Particularly in LOTR, where you get things like Faramir’s remark that the Dúnedain are a fading people, “a springless autumn.” It’s very peredhel-ish: discussed in terms of Men, but it could just as easily be a peredhel or Elf speaking with zero alteration (esp considering the literal springless autumn of Lothlórien). It’s one of the most interesting things about the relationship between Men and Elves, imo, but also one of the most overlooked.

#*stares at the movies* #anon replies #respuestas #team dúnedain #peredhil #/ #// #/// #//// #elladan #elrohir #elrond #aragorn #faramir #lord of the rings #legendarium blogging #nice things people say to me #Anonymous

[anghraine]

irresistible-revolution replied to your post: Can you let us know what your oldest OTP is? Sorry...

oou what would you have liked to the movies to do differently wrt to Faramir/Eoweyn?

Everything.

I mean, as a ship, it’s barely there at all. But I tended to dislike movie!Éowyn, who I thought was watered down into a more generic feisty girl and made... warmer and more accessible, I guess, than I thought(and still think) of her. The whole thing about her being like a premature frost—she seems cold and hard and proud, unnaturally so, and it doesn’t really melt until Faramir. Even then, she’s hardly soft.

(There’s even ... I know why they reduced her speech to the Witch-king to “I am no man” and “AGHHHHH,” but I do think there’s a sort of elegant scorn in her “you look upon a woman” with a laugh that isn’t there in the brash film version, and reflects the changes to her character.)

And I don’t think it’s nearly as clear that her interest in Aragorn is primarily desperation+hero worship+shame; a significant part of it is her desire to be Queen of Gondor, which I don’t think comes across in the films at all. It looks a lot more like straight-up attraction (Aragorn is also a lot less clear about where he stands. To me, it honestly felt like the filmmakers preferred Aragorn/Éowyn and would have gone all the way for it if they’d dared, and instead took it as far as they could get away with. So I think it’s a clusterfuck all the way around.)

And if I disliked movie!Éowyn, my towering hatred of movie!Faramir as any sort of version of book Faramir is... kind of beyond the power of words to express. (Though I did expend a lot trying.) I think part of it is that the movies dropped the ball so comprehensively wrt the Dúnedain—they nearly excise their entire existence, in fact, and Númenor is so intensely critical to Faramir’s identity that a lot just... doesn’t work even if it hadn’t been a mess apart from that. (I mean, they gave his dream of Númenor to Éowyn for a romantic-ish scene with Aragorn?? why?????) 

And there are—like, Denethor is so awful and Faramir so pathetic wrt him, in contrast to the movies’ love affair with Rohan, that I think the parallel between Faramir re: Denethor and Éowyn re: Théoden falls apart. They both have a sense of their respective peoples on these downward spirals from nobler pasts that both exemplify more than those around them. That’s much less profound without Faramir’s fey edge (or center, rather) as a Númenórean. IIRC we don’t even get his Foreshadowing(TM) line about how, though he considers the Rohan-ifacation of Gondor as regrettable, the Rohirrim are inspiring and full of vitality where the Dúnedain are burning out and ‘we love them.’

(Wouldn’t make a lot of sense with movie Faramir, anyway.)

This is just complaining and not constructive at all, but it’s just ... I mean, they could include more of Faramir and Éowyn meeting so we know where it’s coming from, that sort of thing, but ROTK already drags so much anyway, and Faramir in particular is so utterly divorced from the books that it’d be pretty vacuous in any case. (I do think ROTK should have been two movies, however.)

In theory, I’m fine with movies finding their own vision—or, at least, I think there’s a level on which adaptations should be approached simply as art in their own right, separate from how they function as adaptation. Film!Faramir/Éowyn is vaguely nice in the strictly artistic sense. But as adaptation, a lot of their arcs and characterization are such a mess that it’d have to be rebuilt from the ground up.

#irresistible revolution #respuestas #this is. uh. pretty stream of consciousness ranting rather than proper meta #but #i have only grown (somewhat) more polite about my seething hatred over the years #anghraine rants #legendarium fanwank #lord of the rings #faramir #éowyn #otp: and the sun shone #aragorn #lord of the rings movies #pj critical