Swinging both ways, violently, with a bat. Brit, she/her, ScribeofArda on ao3 where I have no control and can't stop writing sequels. Author of A Thread Unraveled and the aurë entuluva verse, the time loop fix-it of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad that has gotten way out of hand
They step through one more set of doors and then suddenly they’re within utter darkness. The torches sputter and nearly die, and even when they flare again they seem muted and weak. Ereinion stutters to a stop. Every breath feels like a tremendous effort. His father’s hand on his shoulder seems like it’s the only thing keeping him standing upright.
the nearest depiction of an animal or other sentient fantasy creature to you at this moment comes to life right where it is (i.e. cat photograph, shark plushie, dragon painting, etc)
assume it doesn’t know you (unless it’s actually a specific animal you’ve met) and that it’s normal for its species and would do whatever was natural for it. including being too giant for and destroying the room it’s in. as well as dying immediately if its environment can’t support its life
Tonight in sad headcanons: I genuinely don’t think the celegorm&huan relationship is reconcilable.
Like, I feel like the Huan side of this is… self-evident. Celegorm has thoroughly and comprehensively betrayed the shared values that presmably brought them together as a team. Celegorm has ceased to be the person that Huan thought he was, and no amount of repentance and groveling can resolve that.
From Celegorm’s side… his best friend made a very deliberate choice to aid and abet the people trying to take possession of the work of his father’s soul. The work that Celegorm, and his father, and all of his brothers, have functionally staked their own souls against the ability to retrieve. And Huan decided to help a pair of fucking strangers take that work into the impenetrable territory of people who 1) hate Celegorm & brothers and 2) are complicit in Aredhel’s presumed captivity. Like, damn. I agree that luthien deserved aid escaping Celegorm, but I don’t know that my best friend could do something bad enough for me to aid someone in a way that would damn them to eternal darkness, even if it was ultimately the consequences of their own choices. From celegorm’s perspective Huan’s choice is an absolute cold-blooded betrayal that helps to fuck over not just Celegorm, but every one of his brothers and his father as well.
Just. Damn. I couldn’t trust that dog again.
I wrote a whole dang novel—as yet unpublished, but I’m working on it—about the consequences of a foolish oath. I think Tolkien was doing exactly what I was doing in my novel: criticizing, or at least exploring the consequences of, the ancient idea of the unbreakable oath. That keeping a foolish, unbreakable oath has tragic consequences, like your best friend betraying you, is kind of the point. No one could stick to their ethics in that situation and win. Celegorm and Huan were both doing what they felt was right. The thing is, Celegorm’s oath was stupid.
The Sons of Fëanor took their oath in the name of the very gods who didn’t want them to take it. I don’t know what Tolkien thinks would happen if they abandoned their oath, but would the Valar or Eru really punish them? If so, then the gods are the problem. But I don’t think so. All the Valar want is for the Noldor to repent; and only pride was stopping them. Pride that led to kinslayings and wars and murders and betrayals and your dog leaving you.
Sure? I mean, you and I clearly have very different perspectives on the noldor-valar relationship, but that’s not actually relevant to the angle I was considering.
Everything you said can be correct AND ALSO Huan’s actions still reflect on Huan. That depth of disloyalty in a dog makes for a dog that, quite frankly, I would be leery of letting around children. There’s Huan-as-character and there’s Huan-as-epitome-of-Dog, and fandom on the whole leans really fucking hard on that second aspect without ever reckoning with the fact that, in every sense but the literal, Huan turned around and viciously bit his boy/co-worker/partner.
Part of what we, as a culture/society/humans, want and value in a dog is loyalty. Your parents may neglect you and your spouse may cheat on you and your friends may abandon you but you can trust your dog.
And the plain fact is that you can’t say that about Huan. And part of that is the domino effect of the oath, and part of it is Celegorm being a piece of shit! But that doesn’t mean that Huan-as-character or Huan-as-dog is excused from the bare fact of his betrayal.
And only his death prevents anyone from actually confronting that.
Because, really. Do you think Beren is going to hold baby Dior in his arms, and look at a dog who savagely (if understandably) betrayed his partner of hundreds of years… and trust that dog around his child??
“Immortal were the Elves, and their wisdom waxed from age to age, and no sickness nor pestilence brought death to them. Their bodies indeed were of the stuff of Earth, and could be destroyed. Oh boy, they could be destroyed. Let me tell you, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, but shit went down and it turns out elves can die pretty easily and in large numbers, too.”
i keep thinking about how most depictions of the power of prophecy only acknowledge the potential for abuse in insofar as accepting that people can lie and the existence of grifters (false prophets) when there’s so much more potential to it
what are the moral/ethical ramifications of knowing information about other people that they don’t have access to unless you choose to share it with them? is it ever okay to withhold information about the future in order to negotiate or simply because you have no interest in sharing it? is it ever okay to demand that someone share information about the future with you because you suspect it could be relevant to your imminent decision process? is it an irresponsible and selfish rejection of duty of care to ignore or reject a premonition or to only take advantage of precognition for personal use? is prophecy an invasion of privacy? what about the potential for abuse of prophetic power in order to manipulate and even terrorise by withholding, misleading, or even outright fabricating, knowing that your position is safe due to the value of your power to those who might prosecute you for it? to what extent does personal bias affect the translation of prophetic visions into the future tense? who does a prophet serve? is a prophet human? does the humanity of the prophet matter at all?
most difficult problem of writing fanfiction is when you need a character to express the particular surprised/dismayed/disappointed sentiment of going “jesus christ” but this isn’t a lore friendly thing to say and there’s nothing lore friendly that conveys quite the same emotion
“Kaynemaile has worked tirelessly to perfect the material science behind beautiful architectural mesh, collaborating with architects and designers on projects that embolden urban environments with positive buildings. The company’s patented polycarbonate mesh, inspired by 2,000-year-old medieval chainmail, was initially created for the armor and weapons seen in the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy and is now used on major architectural projects around the world.
“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”
‘Are these magic cloaks?’ asked Pippin, looking at them. with wonder.
‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”
- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien
This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.
Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?
they took forced perspective and scaled sets to a new level by adding moving set pieces to create the illusion that the hobbits and dwarves were much smaller than everyone else even when the camera moved.
every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.
but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there
in the background lurking
if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.
And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.
ALSO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON FREAKING HOWARD SHORE AND HIS 100+ HEARTSHATTERINGLY BEAUTIFUL LIETMOTIFS AND BRILLIANT SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN THE FLIPPING 13 HOUR SOUNDTRACK. AND ENYA SINGING IN REAL ELVISH.
I loved the books long before the movies came out and… yes, this.
I disagree with a few choices here and there but they’re really, really good.
lord of the rings really was lightning in a bottle. it shouldn’t have worked but by god it did. peter jackson, who had no filmmaking education and was mostly known for making low budget splatter movies, had no business going out and changing the movie industry like that but he did. return of the king showed up at the oscars and became one of the most awarded movies of all time. to this day it holds the record for the highest clean sweep. hollywood will keep trying to recreate that magic with bigger budgets and high profile actors and they will keep failing. i look at the state of these blockbusters where everything is smoothed over by soulless cgi and actors are acting opposite tennis balls and they will never hold a candle to the pure heart and soul and craft of the lord of the rings. every single person involved in that project loved being part of it and it fucking shows. i’m so thankful the stars aligned the way they did for these movies to happen like that.
ALT
