bilbobagginsbrainrotblog:

not the big dick energy of bilbo baggins to be named a hero in Erebor, Dale and Mirkwood and then promptly fuck off back home where everyone thought he was a crackhead and his relatives were literally waiting on him to die already, live a stupidly long amount of time just to spite them, give all his money to some random relative he adopted, and then fuck off to rivendell of all places and spend the rest of his days making fun of elrond while eating his food and living in his home rent free.

the-swift-tricker:

faramir in the movie when he encounters the ring: yes…yes perhaps i will take this. a chance to prove myself. a chance for glory. a chance to save gondor.

faramir in the book when he encounters the ring: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha no.

rohirric-hunter:

The purest expression of Love in Tolkien’s works is following

Sam follows Frodo into Mordor. Arwen chooses to follow Aragorn’s fate instead of the one she was born to. Amroth will not leave Middle-earth when Nimrodel cannot follow. Sam, Merry, and Pippin will not let Frodo leave the Shire alone. Beren and Lúthien follow each other into the darkest places in the world, or rather Beren goes, alone, repeatedly, and Lúthien pursues him with the same fervor that he once used to pursue her.

Tom Bombadil follows the river to find Goldberry and once he finds her he’s always following the path home to her; the only paths in the Old Forest that are dependable and constant are the ones that lead to his home and to Goldberry’s pool. “I have my house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting,” for him to follow her home at last.

Gimli follows Legolas and Galadriel into the West, and bears a love so powerful that he is the one exception to the rule; he bore no ring and yet is welcomed for the sake of his love for them. Sam swears to return to where he thinks Frodo died after the duty is done, but in that moment, the hardest thing is not the weight of the Ring or the fear of Sauron, but the burden of leaving him. Éowyn and Faramir stand together on the walls of Minas Tirith as they wait for the end. The Three Hunters push themselves to near impossible feats of endurance pursuing their friends when they are in danger. The ents constantly followed the entwives to their gardens, even though they didn’t care for them much, and the story goes that one day they will follow them and find “a land where both our hearts may rest”, a place where they can both be happy.

They go only because they would not be parted from thee – because they love thee, Éowyn whispers.

You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end…. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word, Merry scolds.

Don’t go where I can’t follow, Sam weeps.

libbyframe:

Sword of Isildur commission for twoamhoney.tumblr.com

sugarsu:

dreaming-in-circles:

overthinkinglotr:

Ok but I really love how the LOTR films use colors/costume design to show Denethor’s power over the other characters

Like: every character in LOTR has their own set of Characteristic Colors™. Denethor’s Characteristic Colors™ are desaturated black and grey:

. These aren’t necessarily Gondor’s colors (I’ll get to that in a minute) but they’re definitely his. In The Two Towers’ flashback scene, Gondor’s soldiers are dressed in Denethor’s black/grey, including Boromir:

But when Boromir leaves Gondor– and is free from needing to carefully Perform in front of his father– he starts wearing his own Characteristic Colors™ instead. These colors are royal red, gold and blue:

(Literally wearing your true colors)

Meanwhile Faramir, unlike Boromir, doesn’t wear Denethor’s colors in the flashback. He wears his own Characteristic Colors™, which are brown/green, bc Faramir does not do what Denethor wants him to do…

….until ROTK, when Faramir surrenders to his father’s will and exchanges his characteristic brown/green armor for black/grey armor. It’s like his identity is stripped away

Similarly, Pippin’s Characteristic Colors™ are blue/green:

But when he enters Denethor’s service:

No individual expression allowed

“But black and grey with no accents are Gondor’s colors–” Nahhh I don’t buy  Denethor’s anti-color propaganda. When Aragorn replaces Denethor, the first thing he brings back is colorful fashion

Aragorn doesn’t wear black and grey, like Denethor did. He wears things that merge the black/white of Gondor with the sort of royal red/blue/gold of Boromir’s characteristic colors

And so at last the tyranny of Denethor’s drab fashion sense was ended

I know this post is slightly cracky but I go feral every time I think about this because Aragorn is not only removing Denathor’s color tyranny with his fashion choices, he’s also honoring Boromir with them! As op pointed out, Boromir wears red/blue/gold when he has the choice, and when Aragorn becomes king, he does the exact same thing in almost the exact same pattern, that is, red shirt, blue vest, gold accents. He adds the white tree embroidered on top of it because of course, he’s riding into battle with evil incarnate, he’s going to wear his colors like a shield and this is his heratige, his family legacy - but it is also Boromir’s legacy!! And Aragorn is honoring and embodying that when he can’t be there himself! Boromir didn’t like Aragorn, and vis versa. Not really. Not until Boromir died defining Merry and Pipin and died in Aragorn’s arms and saw what Aragorn is and represents to their shared kingdom and people, and Boromir goes from “Gondor has no king” to “you are my king” and Aragorn felt that! And I would argue that’s at least a small part of the ferocity with which he goes after Merry and Pipin but that’s a different post And so here, at the gates of what is essentially hell for all intents and purposes, Aragorn is wearing Boromir’s colors to honor the man who couldn’t be - but should have been - there and that just makes me lose my gd mind every time.

nemertea:

hacash:

So I get really narky when people pull the whole ‘oh Eowyn’s storyline came to such a sucky ending; she was really cool going around killing orcs and Witch-Kings and then she got shoved into a traditional girly role by marrying Faramir and becoming a healer’ thing, because no. No-no-no-no-no. Not only does that stray dangerously into the territory of ‘women only have worth if they’re doing traditionally blokey things’, but that misses almost the entire point of Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien was in the trenches in the first world war, right? He got all that ‘for death and glory’ shit shoved down his throat, that was the whole point about the war, it was when so many people came to see how awful and misleading all the propaganda about winning glory through violence and death was. And Tolkien’s work completely shows that: it’s why the hobbits, who’ve never craved power or battle the way men do, are the heroes of the book; it’s why strong men like Aragorn and Faramir are shown to be lovers of peace rather than war. It’s why the quote - but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory; I love only that which they defend – is so poignant and beautiful, when seen in the context of all Tolkien had gone through. He’d seen all but one of his closest friends die in an utterly pointless war; the prevalent message in his books is ‘if you’re going to have that many people die, let it be for something worth dying for.’ (Like defending your home from the lord of all darkness, for example.)

And Eowyn might be a fantastic female character, but she’s also got so much development to go through, and she’s by no means perfect. I find it really interesting that when Eowyn talks to Aragorn about wanting to go off and fight she never really actually mentions protecting her people, but speaks about wanting to ‘face peril and battle’, and to do ‘great deeds’. And it’s not that Eowyn doesn’t want to protect her people, because of course she does, but she’s also got such a driving motivation within her to do glorious and fell deeds simply for the sake of valour and renown. It’s one of her defining features, having an attitude that got so many young men killed in the war and which, obviously, Tolkien would have been very wary of.

(Also, I think, there’s so much in Eowyn that wants to prove herself to be more than ‘a mere woman’; because twice in that conversation she asserts that she’s no mere ‘dry-nurse’ or ‘serving-woman’, but a member of the house of Eorl and therefore capable of greater things. There’s almost this slight sense of Eowyn considering herself more than ‘just’ a domesticated woman that I sometimes get from her in the books? Which is very sad - the idea of Eowyn having less regard for others of her sex who do mind the house or raise the children - and why I so love that ‘I am no man’ moment in RotK. Eowyn’s no longer hiding herself, or dismissing fellow women as the weaker sex, but acknowledging and embracing the fact that women in all their forms can fuck you up.)

And then we reach the Houses of Healing, and Eowyn yearning for death in battle just like her Uncle Theoden, and basically buying into that whole world war one ethos that Tolkien would have considered so poisonous. Which is why her friendship and courtship with Faramir is so fricking beautiful. Remember that quote I wrote earlier? That’s from Faramir. He’s not backing down from conflict, he’s in no way less of a ‘real man’ than anyone else; he’s just saying there needs to be more to the fight than simply having a fight. There needs to be a reason; something worth fighting for. Eowyn recognises that Faramir is a good man in every sense of the word: he’s strong and valiant, but he doesn’t fight simply to prove himself or for the sake of winning glory, he fights for other people. And Faramir gently challenges Eowyn on her idolisation of battle-glory and encourages her not to scorn gentleness or peace, and he’s so freaking good for her.

(Seriously. Can we just stop for a moment and think about how wonderful Eowyn and Faramir are for each other: Faramir encouraging Eowyn to turn towards life and healing and openness while never denying her strength or courage, and Eowyn giving Faramir the validation and security he never got after so many years of an awful relationship with his father? I honestly don’t know why I don’t get all giddy about these two more often, because they make the very best otp.)

And the result of the departure of the Shadow and her friendship with Faramir is Eowyn’s decision that ‘I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’

I think that last bit is so important because I’m certain that Tolkien doesn’t mean for Eowyn to immediately pack up her sword and shield and become a good girl sitting at home with her knitting and waiting for the men to return home after the fight – after all, she’s going to be the wife of the Steward of Gondor and there’s a lot of mess to clean up after the War of the Ring. Eowyn’s probably still going to find herself defending hearth and home from time to time. But the important thing is that she’s no longer defining herself simply by the doing of valiant deeds; she’ll no longer compare herself to the great warriors of her house and feel lacking simply because she hasn’t killed as many men. Most importantly, she’s not going to take joy only in the songs of the slaying, in destruction and death. Tolkien was all about healers symbolising life and rebirth, and Eowyn’s decision to become one – to aid in the preservation of life rather than the taking of it – is so beautiful. I don’t think Tolkien ever wrote Eowyn’s ending to make her reclaim her ‘lost femininity’; I think it’s a lovely way of adding to the ever-present theme in Lord of the Rings of hope and frailty and healing and friendship over glory and battle and strife.

Yes.

Also, the other really fucking significant healer in the text is Aragorn. He acknowledges his claim to kingship of Gondor not through the sword but by healing the wounds that the Enemy has inflicted – “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”

So much of what Eowyn does is motivated by her heatwrenchingly awful and unhealthy love for Aragorn. She puts all of her hope in him – and he can’t reciprocate. So she follows him out of a black despair at her perceived loss and a desire to make something of herself through the only avenue she thinks that she has open to her. She’s fighting for Middle Earth because she loves Theoden, because she loves her brother and because she loves Aragorn, but not because she loves herself. She is valiant and brave and she fucking kills a goddamn Nazgul. It’s amazing, but it breaks her because she doesn’t even get the death she was chasing.

Aragorn heals her from her wounds, but it is Faramir who heals her despair. This healing doesn’t just give her a second prize husband; Faramir is better for her, understands her and welcomes her. And with a healthy love in her life, she understands the core of the King. She is able to love Aragorn in a way that Aragorn can return. At the end of Return of the King, Eowyn takes up Aragorn’s standard again, and follows him into battle against death and decay. She does for Ithilien what Sam did for the Shire. That is motherfucking triumphant.

I love Eowyn so much. She got a happy ending, and she had to fight tooth and goddamn claw for it and I will fight you if you want to take it away from her.

mctreeleth:

faustandfurious:

faustandfurious:

faustandfurious:

Whenever I read LotR and reach the battle between Eowyn and the Witch-king, I get the impression that the reason why the prophecy loophole works isn’t that the Witch-king is unkillable except for some illogical weakness nobody had thought about yet for misogynistic reasons, but that the Witch-king himself derives so much of his power from the fear he instills in others and from his own belief that he is unkillable. Eowyn doesn’t fear him, because she doesn’t fear death. When she twists his words right back at him, she’s not trying to exploit a prophecy loophole, she’s just making a play on the double meaning of the word «man» with fairly standard battlefield bravado.

But, crucially, it gets the Witch-king wondering if there might be an actual loophole in the prophecy. He starts doubting his own invincibility. There’s no logical reason why a woman might be able to kill him if a man cannot, but prophecies are tricky things. What if …

And this is what undoes him, in the end. This last minute doubt. The Witch-king, deep down, believes that Eowyn can kill him, thus making it possible for her to do so.

The elves care about the prophecy. The Witch-king cares about the prophecy. All the old, powerful beings of Middle Earth play by the rules of prophecy and live by the logic of Norse Sagas and Germanic legends.

Eowyn marches up to the Witch-king like Jared (19), goes “that sign won’t stop me because I can’t read”, and because the storybook logic, the fairytale logic, of the prophecy allows for her kill him, the Witch-king as a creature of stories and nightmares has to play by his own rules and die by her sword.

As people have pointed out before, the phrasing of Glorfindel’s words about the Witch-king allow for quite a number of the inhabitants of Middle Earth to kill him, if we’re only looking for possible loopholes in the prophecy.

not by the hand of man shall he fall

According to this, the Witch-king could technically be killed by elves, dwarves, ents, hobbits, orcs or maiar. Why doesn’t Legolas kill the Witch-king? Why doesn’t Gandalf?

As mentioned, elves are very aware of the story logic that governs Middle Earth. They see their own place in the narrative, they know which foes are beyond them. Gandalf, too, knows that he cannot be the one to kill the Witch-king, and the Witch-king knows that Gandalf cannot kill him. Through their combined beliefs, the outcome of their fight is predetermined.

Eowyn doesn’t know what she can or cannot do according to story logic. The Witch-king has killed her Theoden. She sees no reason why she shouldn’t avenge him. And when she hears the Witch-king tell her that no man can kill him, she simply decides that that rule doesn’t apply to her.

Eowyn isn’t the only person who could have been the exception to the rule, but she is the first person who decides to genuinely, honestly believe that she is the exception to the rule, and this is why she ultimately kills the Witch-king.