Category: j.r.r. tolkien

laura's mathom house 2022-09-23 07:58:11

maximum-mom:

maximum-mom:

I want an online quiz that assigns you a hobbit family last name. Are you a Baggins? A Took? I want fist fights over who is assigned what in true fellowship fashion.

Welp. I found a quiz. Here it is.

But also, fuck this quiz! I’m ready to throw hands! (As the prophecy foretold. And it was my own damn prophecy.)

Let me know your results and if you’re ready to throw hands about it? Just don’t fight me. I didn’t make the quiz.

laura's mathom house 2022-07-09 11:11:05

warrioreowynofrohan:

I’ve been working on a series of short ficlets/drabbles for @tolkiengenweek on characters’ Returns from the Halls of Mandos; some silly, some serious. Most of them I haven’t finished yet, but here’s the first of them.

Fingolfin (Wonder)

“Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it…” ~ Fëanor

Fingolfin did not have a tranquil return to life.

He had only just opened his eyes and scrambled to his feet, blinking against the unaccustomed light - has just begun to register the sensation of air on his skin and the scents of the garden around him - when he was bowled off his feet by a sudden, vast blow.

“DUDE,” said a loud, boisterous voice far above him. “DUDE. That was AWESOME!”

Tulkas picked him up bodily and placed him on his feet again as Fingolfin struggled to catch his breath.

“That was AWESOME!” he repeated. “You kicked his ASS!”

“I did lose,” Fingolfin observed, a broad smile breaking across his face in spite of it. He’d recognized that his return to life meant the Valar had pardoned him, but he hadn’t expected them to be this…enthusiastic.

(Though to be fair, he’d only had a few Vala to draw conclusions from, and Námo had never been enthusiastic about anything in his life.)

And he had never regarded his death in exactly this light before, rather than as rash despair that had left the Noldor unmoored.

“You’re an elf! You should never have been able to scratch him! You wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t fucked himself up so badly, that’s why we thought you were all mad when you went away. But you hurt him! Badly! You scared him, the damn coward! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

That was an extremely enjoyable thought. A lifetime’s experience of attempting to avoid at least outward displays of ego, however strong inner pride grew, made him make one more attempt. “Lúthien won.”

“Lúthien! That was stupendous! Nessa adores her, she was crowing about it for weeks! ‘She beat him with dance, dance, dance!’ We’ve spent many years since bickering about which of you was more impressive. But Lúthien was nice about it. She didn’t stab him. I still like you best!”

Fingolfin could not stop himself from laughing, and for the first time in a long while, he didn’t even want to.

“You beat him,” he said, “and I am very grateful for it! You clearly followed my fight closely enough! - would you care to give me a play-by-play of yours?”

“Oh, that,” said Tulkas. “He was terribly boring by the end. Very little to tell. Now, the rest of the war” - brightening again - “that was marvellous! I wish you’d been there! Your little brother, he’s a surprisingly talented commander, but he doesn’t know how to enjoy these things properly!”

He regaled Fingolfin with tales of the War of Wrath all the way back to Tirion.

middle-earth-mythopoeia:The case against Finrod revisionism  I’ve always been frustrated by what I…

middle-earth-mythopoeia:

The case against Finrod revisionism 

I’ve always been frustrated by what I see as bad-faith interpretations of Finrod’s character. You don’t have to like him or find him interesting, but it bothers me when people make claims about him that don’t make sense. When it comes to Finrod, they usually follow a similar pattern, something like: ‘I thought Finrod was good the first time I read the Silmarillion, but now I think he’s bad.’ ‘I thought Finrod was a friend of Men at first, but now I think he actually looked down on the Edain and treated them poorly.’ ‘Finrod comes across as a perfect good guy in the Silmarillion, but what if he’s secretly manipulative and evil?’ That’s what I’m calling Finrod revisionism. This is not a callout post; I’m just giving my reasons why ‘Finrod is actually evil and the Silmarillion is lying to you’ is not a take that does it for me. I think it’s entirely fair to criticize Finrod. He’s not perfect and if he were I think he would be less interesting (more on that later). I just do not vibe with interpretations of his character that paint him as someone who intentionally sacrificed the Edain in battle, someone who committed genocide against the Petty-dwarves, or someone who held prejudiced views, and I think those interpretations are unsupported by canon. This is a long post, so I’ll put it under the cut.

Keep reading

“Frodo woke and found himself lying in bed. At first he thought that he had slept late, after a long…”

“

Frodo woke and found himself lying in bed. At first he thought that he had slept late, after a long unpleasant dream… Or perhaps he had been ill? But the ceiling looked strange; it was flat, and it had dark beams richly carved. He lay a little while longer looking at patches of sunlight on the wall, and listening to the sound of a waterfall.

‘Where am I, and what is the time?’ he said aloud to the ceiling.

'In the House of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning.’ said a voice. 'It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.’

'Gandalf!’ cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard, sitting in a chair by the open window.

'Yes,’ he said, 'I am here. And you are lucky to be here, too, after all the absurd things you have done since you left home.’

”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.

perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin:Good morning to those who wish people a good morning, those who mean…

perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin:

Good morning to those who wish people a good morning, those who mean that it is a good morning whether anyone wants it or not, those who feel good this morning, those who feel it is a morning to be good on, those who suppose they mean all of these at once when they say good morning, those smoking a pipe of tobacco out of doors in the morning, and those who never thought they’d see the day they’d be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son.

warrioreowynofrohan: Sorrow and Laughter I’ve been thinking about my earlier Nienna post and the…

warrioreowynofrohan:

Sorrow and Laughter

I’ve been thinking about my earlier Nienna post and the connection between her and Gandalf. One of the things that stands out about Gandalf is his sense of humour, and in particular his enjoyment of laughing at himself. We see it at the Doors of Khazad-dûm; when he gives Merry an in-depth discussion of Saruman in response to a simple are-we-there-yet and Merry calls him on it; and plenty of other times. Indeed, one of the things he likes best about hobbits is their tendency to make it impossible to take yourself too seriously.

Humour, in the form of willingness to laugh at yourself, is the antithesis of pride, and pride is the root of most evil in Tolkien’s Legendarium. The characters who go bad in Tolkien’s works - Morgoth, Sauron, and to a lesser extent characters like Fëanor and Denethor - tend to be prideful ones who take themselves very seriously. Saruman, in the Unfinished Tales backstory, responds to Gandalf’s teasing with scorn and resentment.

So I’m trying to work through the connections between sorrow, compassion, humility, and humour. I think one of the things that the sorrow and compassion associated with Nienna gives to a person is “perspective”. In the words of the Valaquenta, “She does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope.” Sorrow and compassion are tied to understanding how much larger the world is than you yourself, or the things/people/lands closest to you. It’s why Gandalf’s lack of fixed abode is so crucial to his escaping the failures of the other Istari - he values and seeks to understand everyone, not one realm. (This is made most apparent in two exchanges with Denethor, which could sustain a whole essay in themselves.)

And so it is the compassion associated with sorrow that produces a recognition of one’s littleness in the world, which frees a person from obsession with their own dignity and enables them enjoy laughing at themselves.

(This still feels rambly; there were some excellent additions to my Nienna post, so if anyone has something to add to this I’d be very appreciative!)

warrioreowynofrohan: Sorrow and Laughter I’ve been thinking about my earlier Nienna post and the…

warrioreowynofrohan:

Sorrow and Laughter

I’ve been thinking about my earlier Nienna post and the connection between her and Gandalf. One of the things that stands out about Gandalf is his sense of humour, and in particular his enjoyment of laughing at himself. We see it at the Doors of Khazad-dûm; when he gives Merry an in-depth discussion of Saruman in response to a simple are-we-there-yet and Merry calls him on it; and plenty of other times. Indeed, one of the things he likes best about hobbits is their tendency to make it impossible to take yourself too seriously.

Humour, in the form of willingness to laugh at yourself, is the antithesis of pride, and pride is the root of most evil in Tolkien’s Legendarium. The characters who go bad in Tolkien’s works - Morgoth, Sauron, and to a lesser extent characters like Fëanor and Denethor - tend to be prideful ones who take themselves very seriously. Saruman, in the Unfinished Tales backstory, responds to Gandalf’s teasing with scorn and resentment.

So I’m trying to work through the connections between sorrow, compassion, humility, and humour. I think one of the things that the sorrow and compassion associated with Nienna gives to a person is “perspective”. In the words of the Valaquenta, “She does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope.” Sorrow and compassion are tied to understanding how much larger the world is than you yourself, or the things/people/lands closest to you. It’s why Gandalf’s lack of fixed abode is so crucial to his escaping the failures of the other Istari - he values and seeks to understand everyone, not one realm. (This is made most apparent in two exchanges with Denethor, which could sustain a whole essay in themselves.)

And so it is the compassion associated with sorrow that produces a recognition of one’s littleness in the world, which frees a person from obsession with their own dignity and enables them enjoy laughing at themselves.

(This still feels rambly; there were some excellent additions to my Nienna post, so if anyone has something to add to this I’d be very appreciative!)