Category: the lord of the rings

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.

“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.

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!)

“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or…”

“Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, preface to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings.

“‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will…”

“‘But it is not your own Shire,’ said Gildor. ‘Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.’”

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

Thoughts about Bree-land

I’m probably shouting into the void here (Do I even have followers who aren’t bots? Signs point to no…) but Lord of the Rings is never far from my mind and I’ve been having a few thoughts about Bree that I wanted to try to get down.

What strikes me is just how unique Bree-land seems to be when you compare it to other places in Middle-earth. It’s not a kingdom or a formalised realm with a named ruler like Gondor, Rohan, Lórien, or the Woodland Realm in Mirkwood, and it’s not a kind of city-state under the authority of a mayor or a master either, like Laketown. Nor do it’s people fit into another category often found in Tolkien, that of the wandering band of exiles (Beren, Thorin & Co., the Rangers of the North).

It was a part of Arnor, of course, and becomes part of the Reunited Kingdom during the Fourth but inbetween there doesn’t seem to be much central authority or government at all. Is there a mayor or some kind of council of town worthies we don’t see? Presumably somebody has to organise the watch on the gates that Harry Goatleaf is part of. And do the outlying villages such as Combe and Archet have their own laws and governance? We just don’t know!

The thing that I think is most interesting about Bree-land though is that it’s the only place, at least that I can think of, where you have two different races living side-by-side: men and hobbits. There are obviously plenty of examples of co-operation between races, particularly elves and men, going right back to the First Age. But none these examples actually involve elves and men or dwarves living together in the same settlements. Which makes sense, given longstanding feuds between elves and dwarves and different lifespans etc.

By contrast though there seems to be a lot of intermingling in Bree. I think there are some villages which are said to be predominantly populated by either men or hobbits, but it’s implied that the two populations live together without any major problems. The Prancing Pony, for example, has rooms built specially for the use of hobbits and hobbits work there. Barliman Butterbur seems to know quite a bit about about the lifestyle and preferences of hobbits.

To be honest I don’t really have much of a point here but I just think Bree has a lot of interesting wordbuilding potential and I feel like it should get more attention from the fandom!

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much…”

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

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