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Gandalf in The Hobbit: You are Took and that makes you absolutely suited for adventure!
Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring: Who the FUCK let the Took come on this adventure?
He learned his lesson
Nah you guys don’t get it. For all that Gandalf complained about Pippin, he better than anyone else knew that Pippin was absolutely crucial. Pippin accomplishes a very impressive feat: not only does he manage to see something in the palantír (most hobbits would perceive nothing, as these stones were designed for use by high elves), but he manages to close his mind against Sauron. That is a seriously impressive feat of ósanwë given Pippin’s youth and almost total inexperience.The only clue Sauron manages to glean from the meeting with Pippin is that he is in Meduseld: which Pippin probably did not even directly give to him. Pippin did not tell Sauron his name, so Sauron is led to believe that Pippin is Frodo. I remind you, in the books, the Good Guys manage to trick Sauron, by making him believe that Aragorn has claimed the One Ring. They can only do that because of Pippin’s ridiculous feat of ósanwë. Far from sabotaging the mission, he is the one who allows it to succeed (albeit, not on purpose). This is why Sauron doesn’t think anything is fishy when Aragorn wins the Battle of the Pelennor Fields by controlling ghosts: that would be consistent with the idea that he is using the One Ring. Which Sauron believes that Pippin brought to him. This is why Sauron pulls out his old “play nice and weak” card from his Númenor days. He first of all believes that Aragorn is a lot more powerful than he actually is, and secondly thinks that the Ring is beginning to affect him.
He should perhaps have remembered that Aragorn is named for Fingolfin. Fingolfin’s mother-name, Arakáno, would properly be translated to Sindarin as “Aragorn”. Most people would not show up to an enemy fortress with an army they knew was far too small, and start a battle they knew they would lose. But Fingolfin famously did exactly that.
When you read the line “fool of a Took!” It is important to understand that in the context of Gandalf calling himself a fool on several occasions. Galadriel too sees beyond the veneer of foolish naivety in Pippin. She gives him and Merry belts that almost definitely were once her brothers’. A golden flower on a gift from Galadriel can only be a golden lily, the sigil of the House of Finarfin. Galadriel, while all hell was breaking loose in Tirion, raided her brothers’ rooms and took their belts from when they were little kiddos, hauled them across the Helcaraxë, and then held onto them for three Ages before giving them to two hobbits she just met. Merry, of course, is comparable to Angrod and Aegnor: his great deed is done in a moment of beserk rage, and it is a feat of strength. This then implies that she is comparing Pippin to Finrod. That’s one hell of a complement coming from Galadriel: but as I just pointed out, entirely warranted. Pippin manages to reproduce Finrod’s feat of radio silence, in the face of torture by Sauron. Which again, is extremely impressive given that Pippin is far younger and less experienced than Finrod was.
as someone with aragorn’s kind of face framing layers i just know the front pieces are hanging in his eyes all day every day… “my path is hidden from me” you are 4 bobby pins away from utter clarity.
[ID: #this is why Legolas’s elf eyes can see so far, because he tied his hair back
“Boromir apologist” he doesn’t have anything to apologize for????? He fell victim to evil ringTM like once. and then immediately redeemed himself. Guys come on.
Boromir’s desire was to protect his country that his family had been the steward of for generations. This country was on the front lines of the war against Great Evil™️. The Ring saw that desire and twisted it for its own use. Characters more powerful than he worried about being corrupted by the Ring. Tolkien did not write Boromir to be “bad”, but as a flawed man with righteous desires. The point is that you cannot use the tools of evil to accomplish good.
Also, in the book, Éomer is so much more grieved at Boromir’s death than Gandalf’s, calling him a great man and more like a man of the Rohirrim than one of the grim men of Gondor.
The Lord of the Rings is so full of goodness. It’s good on a literary quality level, but it’s also just crammed full of good things written by a guy who understands goodness. It’s good on a literary level, good on a moral level, good in its appreciation of so many different kinds of good things. You’ve got the vastness of ancient myths and the homely coziness of small towns and casual heroism from the most ordinary people. It knows a hot bath is good, an ancient legend is good, giving up everything and everyone you’ve known in a desperate attempt to save the world is good. So many different layers of what good is, and it understands and appreciates all of them. Very few books are to-the-core Good the way that this one is.
