Aurë entuluva!

artist by trade, writer by hobby, opinionated bibliophile by nature | fond of mythology, tea, Nightwing, Tolkien, history, a green and gold marvel villain/anti-hero, a certain pair of Daily Planet reporters and a fictional planet called Naboo | feel free to chat | most of my writing attempts are archived here https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverdaughter. Header image is W. Waterhouse

[anipologist]

I don’t know why it took me this long to put together but Palpatine is basically just space Philip the Fair…

[fictionadventurer]

Where is my movie of The Napoleon of Notting Hill? Better yet, the stage play? This story is made to be played out visually (Shaw knew what he was about when he told Chesterton he should write for the stage). The bright colors of the livery and banners of the various boroughs. The conversations and arguments and grand speeches played out by actors who can bring out the different personalities and perspectives. The little shops with their trinkets and toys turned through imagination into the grounds of a medieval battle. You'd need someone brilliant to play Adam Wayne--someone very young but strangely magnetic, who can fully believe and sometimes draw people in with his stirring speeches while also retaining a level of absurdity. The cast would need to maintain that balance between the fully practical people and those who get swept away into the romance of this silly little war. It would be great, but no one cares about this story, and there's no way to make it happen, and that is an injustice against art.

[fictionadventurer]

@anipologist

I can't find the words to properly express

How much this delights me

How glad I am that this exists

How happy I am that you got to see it

How jealous I am that you got to see it

How devastated I am that I didn't get to see it and likely never will

[anipologist]

Glad you enjoyed the idea of it!

Sadly, it was a one time deal and I doubt anyone will ever get to see (this version at least) again. On the other hand it’s a nice reminder that you can just do things!

[devonizara]

#"i have no idea where he gets it from," says area jedi knight still picking glass out of his robes from leaping out of senator amidala's window earlier in the evening.

[anipologist]

This is why I think it’s so hilarious when people portray Obi Wan as this super controlled Jedi who just wants to be left in peace…

Like did we watch the same movies? Have you met this terror in deceptively bland Jedi robes?

The man jumped out of a window after a bounty hunter in a city that doesn’t have a bottom…within the first 15 minutes of this movie.

I still can’t believe Anakin was the one that went to get a speeder. How crazy do you have to be that Anakin Skywalker is acting more sensibly than you?

[anipologist]

I wonder if one of the reasons elves seem so contradictory (specifically on the going from wise & ancient to endearingly childish front) is that theoretically they never really lose their parents.

Obviously in reality in Middle Earth at least, they do (which would explain why Elrond, Galadriel, Celeborn & Thranduil for instance whose parents are either dead or unreachable are the grownups in Middle Earth).

But in the proper order of things even a grown elf, whether 100 years or 10,000 years old can always come back and tell their parents their worries and fears and hopes.

And that’s something that humans or even dwarves simply can’t comprehend because in the natural order of things their parents will always pass on and leave them as the next generation of adults.

(Related)

Feanor is the only elf in Valinor permanently without his biological mother…which definitely causes issues…

When his father dies as well it’s kind of unsurprising that he completely, snaps…

[littlewhitemouseagain]

...and you know what? Everything would have gone better for pretty much everyone if Ungoliant HAD eaten the silmarils, and then Melkor as dessert. Like, none of this book happens after that. 'But Ungoliant would have then consumed all light' I see that like John Himself you are drunk on the light=goodness doctrine. Thousands of beautiful Avari disagree. 'But she would have become a super powerful--' still way easier to kill than Melkor because she is a big round dummy. MY big round dummy. She would eat up Elf Satan and his three pretty shinies and then take a happy little nap and then 1 Tulkas would solve the whole problem. Then the Valar could make the sun and moon as usual and everything is fine. Besides the silms were already hallowed so eating them might have killed her anyway. Either way, wins all around. The silmarils rightfully belong to Ungoliant because she was promised them and then absolutely 100% textually won them fair and square.

'What about Sauron' you know what, fascinating question. I bet he cries.

[winterinhimring]

#………… you know. i hate how good an argument this is.#I mean Nobody Is Happy About It but also it is a solution that works!!!#i feel like this is the ‘you can’t defeat me!’ ‘i know. but HE can.’ solution to the silm#in all fairness nobody is happy ANYWAY in the silm if ungoliant just ate the damn things then maybe fewer people would be dead potentially (via @nelyoslegalteam) yeah.

[anipologist]

Not to sound like a Feanorian but the Silmarils textually belonging to Ungoliant is dead wrong.

Stolen property is never the thief’s to promise away. And frankly at this point in time Feanor has been a jerk but he is not murderer (yet) and he and his sons haven’t lost their right to the Silmarils.

As to Ungoliant eating the Silmarils solving any problems…I suspect that the elves and the Valar would have just traded one existential and malicious evil for another and oddly less controllable existential evil.

Morgoth at least has a will and intelligence still, Ungoliant is basically a living black hole at this point with nothing driving her beyond monstrous gluttony. I don’t think she would be a problem that could be tossed over to Tulkas to solve.

In fact the Dagor Dagorath would probably have turned up at the beginning of the first age and nobody would have gotten much of (even a sad) story. It wouldn’t be a matter of less people dying but of less people existing at all.

Goodbye Earendil and Elrond and Andreth, Haleth and Elros and Celebrain, Arwen and Aragorn and Legolas, Gimli, Frodo and Sam, Elladan and Elrohir and Merry and Pippin and Bilbo and Thorin, Éomer, Théoden, and Hurin and Tuor and Eowyn and Rosie and all the rest.

[justjudethoughts]

"yOu'Re nOt GeRmAn, yOu'rE AmErIcAn"

Okay, bestie, let me explain something to you that is very important to American culture — very, very few of us are ethnically American. When an American says they are "German" or "Irish" or "Italian" they aren't talking about citizenship. They are talking about ethnicity.

The U.S. is primarily a country of immigrants. Everyone says we "don't have a culture" or we have a "bastardized version of *insert culture*" but that's not true!!!! Our culture is made up of American Immigrant Culture!!!! American Italian food isn't "fake Italian food" — it's the innovation of Italian Immigrants who used traditional Italian food along with the ingredients that were more accessible to them in the States. It might not be the food "of Italy" but it is the food of proud sons and daughters of Italy who are also proud Americans. And you can be both.

When American culture is treated as a rip-off of every other culture, we are essentially dishonoring the memory of very brave men and women who chose to leave their homelands under unfortunate circumstances. Men and women who didn't have much money, but did what they could. Used the materials they had. And still managed to make something beautiful out of it. When you leave your home, it doesn't stop being part of your identity — it just looks a little different now. You pass on your old traditions to your children and your children's children, and along the way, new ones are created. Cultures mix and create subcultures. And it's beautiful. It's good. It's primally human.

If I'm not "German" care to explain to me my pasty white skin? Or my last name? Or all the post cards written to and from Germany that we have upstairs in a box? Or the name of my town? Or my grandparents' first language? Or the fact that my American Church, in the year 2024, still sings "Stille Nacht" at every Christmas Eve mass? Sure, I'm not fully German, but the awareness of where I have come from makes up a huge part of my understanding of myself and my place in this world. I was raised in a German Catholic farmtown, and it shows. It shows in the way we worship, and our work ethic, and our reverence for family life.

When an American calls themselves "German" or "Irish" or "Italian" they mean that's where their blood comes from. And it's okay for them to care about that. It's okay for them to care about their roots. It's a major part of American culture.

If you want to "respect" world cultures, you can't just pick and choose which ones are "real" according to you.

[books-and-cookies]

Tbh, if you don’t think Bilbo Baggins is a little shit, you haven’t read the stunt he pulled when he left his belongings to his relatives after he left the Shire:

Dora, your advice is trash With love,  Bilbo

I mean, seriously, the little shit

I cry

B.B.

B. fucking B.

*throws all the shade, Baggins style*

[anipologist]

I don’t have any actual proof but this feels very personal.

I’m convinced that most of these were people that Tolkien himself very much wanted to gift sarcastic going-away presents to, so he had Bilbo do it to their hobbit counterparts instead.

Also, does anyone think that someone at some point stole spoons from either JRR or Edith? Like those spoons just never go away…

[anipologist]

I wonder if those elves that end up visiting Minas Tirith after the War of the Ring have a hard time not laughing every time another Gondorian with a very historical and elvish name pops up.

King Elessar (trying not to chuckle): “Meet my High Council Your Highness, Lord Ecthalion and his brother Lord Beren, Lord Barahir (no relation) and his wife Lady Melian, Lady Finduilas and her daughter, Lady Idril and of course Captains Guilin, Ingold and Voronwë. Over here on the left you already know Prince Faramir and Prince Imrahil, but have you met Lord Angrod of Anfalas and the Ladies Andreth and Earwen of Belfalas?”

Legolas (valiantly not laughing): "A pleasure to met you all."

(a couple hours later laughing with Elladan and Elrohir) “It was the most maddening gaggle of famous elves I have yet had the pleasure of beholding. Barahir married to Melian. You remember that time a dozen centuries that Erestor misjudged his tolerance for Dorwinion? This was almost as jumbled.”

[mamwieleimion]

"and that's Commander Turin"

The silence after that introduction said more than a thousand words. I think Gondorians have problems with naming their kids, or are just really that uncreative.

[anipologist]

I feel like there’s a possibility that you have two different sets of Gondorians pulling from the same list of names…

Gondorians who know history and stick to impressive historical figures and Gondorians who are just like “this name is cute/pretty/handsome…and either name their kids after the worst elves and humans in history…or the unluckiest/died the worst way elves and humans in history.

[christiangittingsblog]

"It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons."

-JRR Tolkien // Cool quote

[outofangband]

Tell that to Túrin, Niënor and family…

[anipologist]

I think he did 🤣

[anipologist]

I wonder if those elves that end up visiting Minas Tirith after the War of the Ring have a hard time not laughing every time another Gondorian with a very historical and elvish name pops up.

King Elessar (trying not to chuckle): “Meet my High Council Your Highness, Lord Ecthalion and his brother Lord Beren, Lord Barahir (no relation) and his wife Lady Melian, Lady Finduilas and her daughter, Lady Idril and of course Captains Guilin, Ingold and Voronwë. Over here on the left you already know Prince Faramir and Prince Imrahil, but have you met Lord Angrod of Anfalas and the Ladies Andreth and Earwen of Belfalas?”

Legolas (valiantly not laughing): "A pleasure to met you all."

(a couple hours later laughing with Elladan and Elrohir) “It was the most maddening gaggle of famous elves I have yet had the pleasure of beholding. Barahir married to Melian. You remember that time a dozen centuries that Erestor misjudged his tolerance for Dorwinion? This was almost as jumbled.”

[anipologist]

I am curious about the reception of Amazon’s latest installment of Rings of Power. Please reblog for a good sample size. How do you feel about RoP? And had you previously read Tolkien’s books? For the purpose of this poll I’m not getting into whether people liked PJ’s movies.

I loved RoP and had never read Tolkien

I hated RoP and had never read Tolkien

I loved RoP and had read some Tolkien (Hobbit/LOTR trilogy)

I hated RoP and had read some Tolkien (Hobbit/LOTR trilogy)

I loved RoP and I am a Tolkien obsessive (Silmarillion/HoME etc)

I hated RoP and I am a Tolkien obsessive (Silmarillion/HoME etc)

Meh…I don’t care much one way or the other.

Something else

Voting ended onSep 8, 2024

[fictionadventurer]

It's kind of silly that Tolkien and Lewis are constantly positioned as polar opposites when it comes to worldbuilding. Lewis might just throw a bunch of wildly different stuff together and call it a world, but Tolkien's doing the same thing, too--he's making this huge mishmash of tons of different stories he loves. The only difference is that Tolkien puts in a lot of work to weave these into a cohesive history, rather than giving us a lot of little details and letting us imaginations how they all fit together.

Also, it's silly that people compare Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. They're completely different genres written for different audiences. Of course the series written for literal children isn't going to be as complex as a sprawling epic fantasy for adults. The better comparison would be between Narnia and The Hobbit. Or better, between Narnia and Roverandom. Compare the fun stories written for children based on events from real life.

Maybe the real difference between Tolkien and Lewis is that Lewis stories take an ordinary human and send them to a magical world where they confront a bunch of weird things all at once, while Tolkien stories (all three that I've mentioned) take an ordinary non-human guy and send him on a quest that lets him meet all these weird people one at a time.

[anipologist]

Are they seen as opposites though?

Most of the people I have read/discussed them with see them as sort of different branches of the same tree.

Their target audiences are different but they are both written in a way that makes them enjoyable to people of all ages.

I read the LOTR trilogy for the first time as a 9/10 year old and I still enjoy Narnia in my current late 20s.

Actually now that I think about it…writing that is accessible and enjoyable for both kids and adults in the 21st century is becoming increasingly rare.

It’s part of a broader narrowing of focus that hyper specializes on a particular demographic and thus does nothing to broaden the knowledge of the target demographic and is totally uninteresting to anyone outside of it.

[thelonelybrilliance]

Armand St. Just the stupidest man ever invented in fiction I think

[anipologist]

Yep…but he’s Marguerite’s brother and French so the League just kind of goes with it.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

I have a very rough idea in my head that I don't think I can clearly articulate beyond "And that concludes tonight's reports on German air forc—WHAT'S THIS? IT'S KING ARTHUR WITH A STEEL CHAIR"

[the-writers-wrench]

IDK what this is about, but I want to know more.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

This isn't exactly the same idea but it could be but there is more rattling around in here so:

The Blitz here manages to qualify as Britain's Darkest Hour, thus triggering the return of Arthur from the Realm Avalon.

He does not speak a lick of modern English. He speaks an unholy mishmash of Brittonic and Late Classical Latin.

(Honestly I can see the latter becoming a plot point if they manage to get their hands on a Roman Catholic priest to act as a translator. It wouldn't be a perfect arrangement, but probably better than anything else.)

Truthfully he probably gets mistaken for a madman.

Somehow manages to steal a Spitfire out from under the RAF's nose, proceeds to use it to bring down like half an enemy squadron on his own, then lands in a field in the middle of nowhere.

Police and RAF converge on his location on account of the whole "stealing a plane" thing. They eventually overwhelm him with sheer numbers, but he manages to knock out an impressive number of them in the process. I mean, come on. It's Arthur.

[leseigneurdufeu]

"a catholic priest" i mean yeah sure why not but JRRTOLKIEN himself was alive and a teacher at the time so go big or go home.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

You know what sure why not let's just make literal real-life JRRT himself a character in this Arthurian return story, he deserves it.

[chainsawsdreamer]

@seajr DUDE

[anipologist]

Amazing

[paranoid-android-official-deact]

(also, 2 more things: 1: if that photo has multiple fictional characters, all of the fictional characters in that photo will be your roommates. 2: for characters that can only live in certain conditions, those conditions will be ignored, and they’ll still be able to live.)

(sorry if you don't like this content, I just saw one of those "fictional character in photo roll" posts and thought I would make one.)

[endcloser]

[text transcription: Stop!! The second fictional character in your photo roll is your roommate now. Did your life become better or worse?]

[anipologist]

Apparently Padme Amidala is now my roommate…

Should be interesting…I am expecting to have to replace the windows and assorted pieces of furniture at least twice a week.

[velvet4510]

Rumors say a Took once “took a fairy wife.” Does this mean that the modern Tooks are descended from an Elf maiden?

Yes, “the fairy wife” was actually an Elf

No, “the fairy wife” was a different race

No, there was no “fairy wife” at all; just another hobbit

Voting ended onJun 10, 2024

[anipologist]

I actually think there’s a pretty plausible possibility that a lighthearted, merry green elf totally fell in love with a hobbit with an adventurous spirit and a love of nature.

If elves can fall in love with men and a Maia can fall in love with an elf I don’t see why this is crazy.

I love the Noldor as much as the next person (or more) but it’s important to remember that not all the elves were 7’ 6” with gleaming eyes and the blood of the Lindar on their swords (I know not all the Noldor did either).

In fact I’d say it’s actually a lot more likely than an elf falling in love with a dwarf since hobbits and elves have more in common.

It could have even been an elf that fell in love with a hobbit lass rather than an elf maid that loved a hobbit. It worked (sort of) for Andreth….

[cantsayidont]

In an undated letter written in the late 1950s, reproduced in THE LETTERS OF JRR TOLKIEN, Tolkien alludes to the legal difficulties Sam faced after returning from the Grey Havens at the end of LORD OF THE RINGS:

When Master Samwise reported the ‘departure over Sea’ of Bilbo (and Frodo) in 1421, it was still held impossible to presume death; and when Master Samwise became Mayor in 1427, a rule was made that: ‘if any inhabitant of the Shire shall pass over Sea in the presence of a reliable witness, with the expressed intention not to return, or in circumstances plainly implying such an intention, he or she shall be deemed to have relinquished all titles rights or properties previously held or occupied, and the heir or heirs thereof shall forthwith enter into possession of these titles, rights, or properties, as is directed by established custom, or by the will and disposition of the departed, as the case may require.’

You can see how the residents of Hobbiton might have seen Sam's return as the premise of a kind of Agatha Christie mystery plot: favorite servant of eccentric middle-aged local resident departs on an unexpected journey with his master; returns home alone two weeks later; and then conveniently produces a copy of said eccentric local resident's new will, naming the servant the heir to all his property — and the only account the servant can offer of his master's whereabouts is a preposterous story about Elves. Suspicious! Very suspicious indeed!

[anipologist]

I feel like this would be a great way to frame a LOTR tv show…

Wholesome hobbit detective is deeply suspicious of Mayor Gamgees sudden fame and inheritance and starts poking around to find out how exactly this happened.

He sneaks into Bag End, finds the Red Book, gets Merry and Pippin drinking, even finds himself interviewing some elves about half way through…

Sam is utterly exonerated of course but the hobbit detective now has a somewhat dubious reputation and the Sandymans never stop claiming that Sam bribed him…