justangrymacaroni asked: i'm imagining the significance of the dwarves inventing a printing press. like you said, their years spent traveling without a home probably did a lot of trauma, which trickled down through the generations. to be able to tell their own stories and to see them permanently pressed with something stronger than a hand and pen, is probably really special. catch me crying in the fuckin' club thinking about this, goddam fucking line of thrain and children of Mahal.
Honestly I need a shirt that reads “Catch me crying in the fucking club about the children of Mahal” because HARD SAME. THE STORY OF MY LIFE.
I never thought about it, but, I mean…of course it’s the dwarves.
The elves would never think of it, fading out of Middle Earth with their perfect memories entirely intact, bearing the lore of ages in their own lifetimes. Elrond would never think to write down the story of his life, for all that it stretches back to the Silmarils’ crafting. When they do write things down, they believe in taking the time to inscribe the words with their own hand–no one knows the hard truths of permanence and impermanence like the Firstborn, and if you are going to take the time to make something ephemeral into something lasting, you do it right. And besides, Quenya and Sindarin and forgotten Noldorin, all are made with elaborate curling letters, intended more to be written with a brush tip or a calligrapher’s pen than printed for clarity. A printing press would never capture the fluidity quite right.
The race of men…well, they’re still trying to recover. The great kingdoms of the human race–hard Gondor and broken Arnor, wild Rohan and poor shattered Harad to the South–took the brunt of the Ring War hardest of all. Even the strongest of them is left in fragments. New rulers, damaged walls, burned cities. Not many have time, in those first years–and it does take years–to worry about the lore that might have been lost or muddled by water and fire and falling stone, not when there are still leaderless orcs roving and people starving as they try to stretch the harvests. By the time they do, they’re trying to piece together what they used to have. No one thinks twice about trying to piece it together the way it was, and the way it was, was handwritten. Someday the race of men will be great innovators, reaching toward the stars with sure hands and bright eyes. Now, though, the race of men is enduring, is rebuilding and making alliances, trying to prevent the losses of the war from reappearing ten, twenty, a hundred years down the line. They are doing well, at enduring–pragmatists, grim and tough and determined–but they hardly have the time for mechanical marvels that don’t aid building, speed farmwork, or otherwise smooth the path.
The hobbits persist in being stubbornly hobbitish. Oral history is what they do, and their memories for family ties and dramatic gossip could give the oldest Eldest a run for their money. Who’s going to bother to write down the story of the time Athella Proudfoot–no, not that one, the other one, Odo’s great-great-great aunt–drank half the tavern under the table, got up on the bar, did a jig in nothing but her bloomers, and then settled in to drink the place dry? (And still looked fresh as a daisy, if quite a bit less sober, the next morning.) No one, because anyone you ask knows the story of everyone who ever did anything worth knowing the story of. What do the hobbits care for legends and lore? They know who they are and where they come from, songs and stories and all, and there’s a certain level of strength in that. Strength enough to walk into Mordor, strength enough to reclaim the Shire.
The dwarves…the dwarves are a people who once had libraries, sweeping and beautifully full of knowledge. The libraries in Khazad-dum have rotted, by now, ransacked by orcs and goblins or burned entire by Durin’s Bane. Books and scrolls, illuminated with precious metals and expensive inks by the finest scholars, are worth nothing to a dragon, nothing but fuel for amusement, things to send sparking. The library where Dis learned to read, where Thorin and Thrain before him learned statecraft, are nothing but ash. The Iron Hills, Ered Luin, those places were filled by a people seeking refuge. Few dwarrows snatched tomes as they fled Erebor. Fewer still kept them at the ruin of Azanulbizar. The dwarves escaped their ancestral homes with the clothes on their backs and scraps of bread baked on stones, with the pyres of the burned dwarves still smoldering behind them.
It’s a survivor of that flight who scratches down the first idle plans. She remembers seeing Dain Ironfoot, barely more than a child–but then he seemed such a grown-up to her, at the time, when she was still a beardless babe only just walking–bloodied and limping on a crutch as he stood up to claim the leadership his father had left in his wake. Dain and Thorin, young dwarrows still, but already old with the weight of the world. She remembers that better than the dragon, better than the battle. Her mother died in Ered Luin, but not before writing a poem for the burned ones, a poem for the two dwarves who had surrendered their own youth for the sake of their people. She can’t stand the idea of her mother’s poem being lost, the way so many things were lost in flight after flight.
That dwarrowdam dies, an old dwarf in her bed with her loved ones around her, and it’s her best friend’s daughter who comes across the plans, many years later. Yes, she thinks, looking at the levers, at the vague notes about possible lettering methods, yes, that could work.
It doesn’t work, at first. It doesn’t work a lot, really, but the dwarves are a stoneheaded bunch and not in a rush to be put off by a few petty failings. Or by a total collapse of the base mechanics, the first time she tries to pull the lever. The dwarrowdam unearths herself from a pile of metal and gears and wood, with the help of a few other folks who heard the complicated crash and weary cursing, and starts again.
It takes most of two years and a lot of brainstorming–first with her friends, then with her guild, then with any poor fool careless enough to wander into her workshop–but the scribe-machine works. She shrieks and bursts into tears when the first page comes out crisp and clean and beautiful, and sprints into the great hall waving it triumphantly over her head.
The paper says, in kuzdh runes, plain and clear, We are Mahal’s children, and we are yet unbroken.
John was a soldier huddled in the trenches facing No Man’s Land, feeling the most wretched he had ever been. He was cold and hungry, overwhelmed with the stench of unwashed bodies and infected wounds, the nearly endless rounds of gunfire and grenade explosions, the screams of the dying.
Sometimes he felt as if he would never again know the taste of bread and a proper cuppa tea, to breathe in air that was not foully tainted by the Enemy’s noxious poisons. Sometimes he felt that they were all under the pitiless gaze of some great Eye, naked in the Dark.
And then he heard an American voice say, “Don’t you understand? This is No Man’s Land. That means no man may cross it.”
And thus, John’s attention was captured by the hooded figure the American was speaking to. She dropped the cloak to reveal armor, that her hands carried a sword and a shield, and she ascended the ladder with steps swift and sure. John would always remember these words, though she herself had never said them aloud, but her actions spoke clear as day:
“I am no man.”
There she stood, a shining figure in the middle of No Man’s Land, facing the Enemy and drawing their fire, beautiful as the dawn, terrible as the sea, stronger than all the foundations of the Earth.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien does not remember how he scrambled up the ladder to follow after her, only that he and his fellow soldiers followed in Her wake, to fight by her side and onwards to victory.
During Boromir’s death scene in the Fellowship of the Ring film, you a hear a choir in the soundtrack. The choir isn’t singing random vowel sounds; they’re actually singing in Elvish.
The English translation of the lyrics? It’s a line from the books: “I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only what they defend.”
For bonus hurt points– in the book, those lines were said by his little brother Faramir.
(to request a soundtrack to be analyzed/translated, reblog this linked post. All these soundtrack-related posts will be tagged #lotrsoundtrackfacts)
so on the subject of stolen property, i’ve seen various arguments on this point but it is in fact true that inheriting something from a relative, when you know full well that it was stolen, does not make it yours.
this clearly goes doubly so for powerful magical artifacts, and especially for artifacts which are strongly implied to contain part of their creator’s soul!
you can talk about consequences - maybe the artifact in question has benefits for you, maybe you’re not convinced its rightful owners would use it responsibly - but talking about the consequences doesn’t erase the fact that whatever benefits you think you’re getting are achieved through wrongful means.
which is why i, too, think Frodo should have given the One Ring back to Sauron. thief.
Hahahahaha here comes the law student nerd ready to complicate your wonderful post, op.
(Really this is just pretext for me to study for my property final in a week, so thanks yeah)
Because according to the principles of common property law, the matter of who actually owns title to the One Ring becomes really complicated really fast.
Buckle up babes for the pedantic law lecture no one asked for.
The best part of this is: trust me I guarantee Tolkien knew this much about the Common Law (English mediaevalists end up knowing ridiculous amounts about both Common Law and mediaeval Catholicism whether we want to or not), and indeed if you look at the text, this was relevant to the story.
It’s part of the reason that Sauron is as terrified of Aragorn’s potential claim on the Ring as he is of Gandalf’s or Saruman’s or Galadriel’s - if not more. Because in Middle Earth this shit matters. This is a world where a broken oath will literally bind your unhappy restless soul to the earth in spite of the dictates of the literal creator of the universe (who designated humans as Passing Beyond The World when they die). This is a world where a damn oath is responsible for Everything That’s Wrong With The First And Second Ages.
Oaths, ownership, duties, rights, things owed and owing: this shit matters.
And sure Aragorn is also direct line from Lúthien, but so is Elrond, and so are Elrohir and Elladan. So is Arwen. But what none of them have that Aragorn has? Is a rightful claim to ownership of the Ring.
So much of what Aragorn spends his time in the second and third volumes doing is Establishing Claim - establishing that everything that Isildur owned, he now owns. Why? Because it means he has power that is absolutely needed. “Isildur’s Heir” isn’t a woo-woo floofy-high-concept thing: it’s a literal matter of rights, duties and authority.
When he takes the Palantír from Gandalf and uses it, his companions are aghast, but he reminds them that he has both the right and the strength to use it - and the Right is actually important. Saruman was, face to face, stronger than Aragorn (never doubt that) and Sauron completely pwned him, but Saruman had no right to the Seeing Stone, no more right than Pippin.
But the Palantíri belonged to Aragorn: he’s not only Melian’s ever-so-great-grandchild, he’s also Fingolfin’s ever-so-great-grandchild, and since the Fëonori died out with the poor Ringmaker, the only competition Aragorn could have for ownership of the Stones are Galadriel and Elrond. (And that’s only if you are going right back to the maker-rights, and ignoring the establishment of the Stones as the property of Elros’ line rather later).
It matters. It changes how power works and doesn’t work. Aragorn’s status as the Heir is in fact grounded in these ideas, which play a hugely powerful part (in fact the fight over who rightfully owns the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien brought out of the dark is part of the bloodshed that makes it so that in the end the Silmarils themselves actively reject the last two living sons of Fëanor, negating their claim). Because Aragorn is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can use the Palantír. Because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can summon the Dead. And because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he stands equal to two of the Ainur, to the oldest member of the Trees-blessed Noldorin royal house, and to his own much more powerful (straight up) relatives as a potential claimant of the Ring.
And that is why Sauron is willing to take the chance to catch Aragorn, and (he thinks) ensure his capture, rather than attacking him earlier on when there’s a chance that (even if Aragorn can’t possibly WIN) he could still escape and then bide his time before the next Ring-War and learn to use the damn thing.
But. It’s also important when it comes to Frodo.
Frodo uses the Ring twice, and lays open claim once. Both of the times he uses it are on Sméagol, both times overwheming him and in the second case cursing him (“if you ever touch me again you will be thrown into the fire”). We get both moments from Sam’s POV, where the physical reality of Frodo is replaced by an image of him as a much larger figure, alight from the inside, robed in light, and with a “wheel of fire” at his breastbone.
Frodo does not have any genetics (so to speak) more special than any other hobbit. It’s not like Aragorn vs most humans, where there’s actually a legit difference because most humans were not, at that point, descended from a Maia. Frodo’s just this guy.
The only thing that’s really special about Frodo in terms of the Ring is that, like Aragorn, he’s the other person who has a viable claim. It would, as it were, have to go to the judges to figure out whose claim is better.
And this is why in the moment that he claims the Ring, in the Mountain, Sauron is fucking terrified. It’s why he drops everything else, even the issue of trying to keep his mindless drone-fighters going, even the maintenance of his actual control of weather, of light, of whatever fight he and Gandalf have going, to get his best servants back to the Mountain now now now now.
Because Frodo having an actual rightful claim on the Ring means he can, in fact, use it. Not well, which is why Sauron can paralyse him for that moment it takes for Sméagol to strike (and carry out both Frodo’s demanded oath - “save the Precious from Him” - and his Curse - “if you touch me you will be thrown in the fire” - at once), but he could. This tiny little person is a threat to Sauron, in the heart of his own home, because he has the right to have and use this Ring.
The tricky thing about Tolkien is that whatever his flaws (and he has many), the one thing he’s never unclear of is that the concept of right and might are actually separate. Just because you are strong enough to do or take a thing doesn’t mean you have any right to do it; and just because you aren’t strong enough to enforce your right, doesn’t mean it goes away.
i will not buy flowers for a girl because flowers are stupid and worthless and they die like really fast. get a girl a rock. rocks are strong. rocks don’t die after 2 days
diamond
the word you’re looking for is diamond
Diamonds are overpriced and far too common. Hand-forge a ring. Etch a script into it. Use it to ensnare the world leaders and take over the world.
There are literally two trilogies telling you why that is a bad idea
Anonymous asked: legolas & gimli!!! bc i saw you mention them in your faramir & eowyn answer and got v excited but then you didn't get TOO sidetracked lmao
1. I love the dynamic, of like, light-hearted kinda scatterbrained eccentric and slightly goofy elf ranger who verbally shitposts and sounds like a loon whenever he opens his mouth but occasionally says deep and genuine things too, plus the super-serious well-spoken soulful proud dwarf lord who also talks weird but in like, the opposite way, with these heartfelt open feelings couched in kind of solemnity and manners, but more and more frequently over the book babbles and says spontaneous stuff, and how they fit together so well in a dynamic that is really un-cliched on the personal level – this weird melding of senses of humor and viewpoints on the other characters and events around them, which are pretty different but don’t oppose one another as much as overlap and join together to create a single bigger, even more fun outside viewpoint, they’re such a good pseudo greek chorus-y thing
2. I think this pairing is the main reason I kinda like the LACE ‘elves have no desire to have sex with anyone unless they fall in love and sex equals getting married for them’ thing tbh. I love the symmetry with the ‘dwarves only ever fall in love once and never marry otherwise but nothing is said about extramarital sex for them’ thing, Meaning it’s like, some weird special experience on both sides but in different ways. I usually don’t care for this trope in most shippy fic, but I like it in interspecies and I really like it for them.
3. Aaggghhhh the getting-together process! Most of all, I think about the fact that by all accounts, and as implied by certain lines in Fellowship, the dwarves of Erebor don’t really get elves and the elves of Mirkwood don’t really get dwarves, and there’s probably a lot of just, natural assumptions that are totally wrong and which they never thought to examine. It could even be that the fire-forged-ness of their bond might actually interfere with some of this understanding of each other, if they moved into this state of complete attachment and acceptance of each other while in this upside-down fugue state of pre-apocalypse where they didn’t really have…that much time to talk, after their period of downtime in Lothlorien where I assume the first stage of their friendship was formed. Like, when they emerge from emergency-mode after the destruction of the Ring, they’ve already plummeted straight into “oh I know he’s a weird alien and I love him, oh no wait it’s that kind of love, okay lol this definitely won’t work welp I’m screwed I guess???” without considering that no maybe he’s not that much of an alien, and yes you can fuck him without it being a disaster.
4. OBVIOUSLY the whole immortal/mortal thing, especially highlighted since they live in pretty close contact and temporally in parallel with Aragorn and Arwen, whose mortal/immortal problem is totally different. Also the sea-longing! How, and when, was it decided that Legolas would stay in ME that long, or that he would take Gimli with him to Valinor? So many opportunities! In some ways, their time in ME after the war is a grace period, a finite stage of overlap, a kind of once-in-an-age, improbable, forgotten, enchanted sort of time, where the dwarves are building for the future but the elves are just pretty much just lingering and housekeeping for the humans on their way out, and it would feel like there is a sort of pressure to make something of this time, both their own separate lives and whatever their relationship is like.
5. lmao I think the main reason I imagined Legolas as blond was either because Thranduil had golden hair in the Hobbit book or because something something weird associations with personality types something (because I had no idea about any of the movie castings at the time I read the books). BUT ALSO: “I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet
over you gold shall have no dominion” :)
6. I am TRASH. I will read SO MUCH SILLINESS with them. But here are just three HQ recs:
And speaking of pronouns, flat-out my favorite part of the LOTR Appendices is when it’s revealed that the Gondorian dialect of the Common Speech differentiates between formal and informal second-person pronouns but the distinction’s been lost in the Hobbit’s dialect, so Pippin’s blithely been using familiar terms of address with the Lord of the City, and thus helps to explain both why the Gondorians are so ready to assume he’s a prince and why Denethor finds him so amusing to have around.
not what i expected from a post that began with “speaking of pronouns,” but an a++ show of the versatility and surprise daily available on tumblr dot com
