Forth Eorlingas!

my lotr/th sideblog :). salem / 19. pippin and eowyn-posting abounds

[sindar-princeling]

something absolutely lovely about especially the first half of fellowship is that the hobbits keep meeting random kind helpful strangers - the elves, bombadil, butterbur, aragorn (also farmer maggot and his wife, though they're not strangers) - until the book solidifies in you the feeling that these are not really instances of random luck, but rather the inherent nature of the world. kind people are everywhere, and no matter where you are, there is surely someone closer than you think that would offer help if you needed it. it's such a beautiful theme across all of LOTR, and it's very sweet to me that it starts from the very beginning of the journey, on such a 'small' (comparatively), everyday scale

[sindar-princeling]

@dancingaloneintheforest :') so beautifully said I couldn't let these tags remain just in the tags

[sunb1eeder]

eowyn shieldmaiden of rohan and arwen evenstar seen “dyking out” in the streets of edoras

[sunb1eeder]

“FUCK i love weed and pussy” says the lady of rivendell, when pressed by reporters

[m0unta1ndude]

may the horse be with you

[wraith-of-thiodolf]

[erumelde]

[inthiskingdomwewillendure]

Faramir's ranger armor in 4k

[grossvampire]

laughed myself sick last nioght imaging lotr gollum having a blog where he just talks normally while also signing all his posts in beautiful cursive for some reason. like this:

[oatmealaddiction]

No but like, this is the thing about Sam carrying Frodo and the ring up the mountain. It's a cool scene in the movie, but they don't explain what's happening at all. The ring at this point is so heavy Frodo can't even lift his head. It's like essentially a cinder-block he has to carry around his neck. And finally he gives up and Sam offers to carry him and:

DO YOU GUYS GET IT? THE RING IS A BURDEN, BUT FRODO ISN'T. FRODO DOESN'T WEIGH ANYTHING TO SAM. SAM CAN LIFT HIM EASILY!!!! HE'S NOT A BURDEN AT ALL I —

[torchwood-99]

While it was a longshot, I do appreciate that Gimli did try chopping the Ring up with an axe first. It was worth a shot, and they'd have all felt like bloody idiots if they took the Ring all the way to Mordor only to find out it could have been chopped up by an axe all along.

[contact-guy]

Did you know that JRR Tolkien wrote an unpublished epilogue to Lord of the Rings? It's achingly, beautifully wistful in the way that only Lord of the Rings is. I revisited it recently because I'm guesting on my friends' LOTR podcast, and THAT reminded me that I drew a comic of the epilogue back in 2021 (all text is entirely canon). Anyway I thought folks on this website might enjoy it!

[entnoot]

Éowyn, disguised as Dernhelm, among the Riders of Rohan ⚔️

Based on Eugéne Grasset’s “Jeanne chevauchant au milieu des hommes d’armes” (1894)

[linguini390-deactivated20250929]

The hobbitses

[rutobuka2]

who's gonna tell Boromir? 🙊

[oatmealaddiction]

This is an interesting thing I'm noticing as I'm reading but it kinda seems to me like a lot of the Tolkien characters all seem to have elemental symbolism that seems to follow their characterization.

Like Gandalf and Bilbo both seem to have a lot of fire symbolism that follows them around. Gandalf uses light and fire as kind of his two go to weapons and he's the keeper of the ring of Narya which is the fire one. And of course Gandalf the White is forged out of flame. And then Bilbo's introduced in the middle of smoking, and he spends a lot of time hanging around campfires and hearths, like the campfire storyteller he is. He seems to like hanging out in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, and his conflict with Smaug obviously also involves a lot of fire. He's also arguably the character who is closest to Gandalf.

Frodo on the other hand is like all water imagery. One of the first things we learn about Frodo is his parents were weirdos who hung out in boats and then drowned, and he's introduced filling drinks at Bilbo's party. He makes his stand against the Nazgul at the river. He himself nearly drowns like three times in the story, and spends a lot of time in boats, being haunted by dark waters, and the sound of the ocean (and of course ends the story going over the sea). Like the water symbolism with Frodo is nonstop and he shares that in common with Gollum, who specifically is characterized by pools, rivers, and lakes, as well as fish, worms, mud and roots and caves—very wet and slimy compared to Frodo's more mariner/wayfinder imagery. But they're still kind of two sides of the same coin.

Pippin and Merry get a lot of plant and tree symbolism. Besides hanging out with ents and drinking tree wine and that time they both got eaten by a tree, it's clear Merry grew up wandering forests and knows a lot about wild plants (and writes a book on it later) and Pippin gets a ton of association with Gondor, y'know, that place that is represented by a big ol' tree. Their tobacco leaves too actually kinda play a pivotal role, and are again, very plant focused.

You'd think Sam would also be more earth oriented, being he's a gardener, but not really? Unlike Merry who's out here spitting plant facts 24/7 and working on his plant book, Sam's interest in plants seems like to only be around when he's on the clock. His symbolism is all very celestial. He's the guy who ends up using the Star of Earendil. He sees Earendil while he and Frodo are walking through Mordor. He evokes Elbereth, the Star Goddess like multiple times. He names his daughter after the star-sun shaped flower Elanor which literally means "Sun and Stars." And if you think about it, Gardener is actually kind of a perfect role for a star-guy when you remember how dependent plants are on the sun. He also seems to share some kind of connection with Galadriel who is also caked in a lot of star imagery. It also tracks he'd be paired with Frodo thematically as he serves as a guiding light to a mariner, in contrast to how Gollum represents the depths.

IDK what all that means, I just think it's neat!

[peatbogpirate]

Pippin-centric doodles from Book 2 of Fellowship during my recent reread

(comms open!)

[wilwarin-wilwa]

you are strong. you can do it. resist the pippinification of merry

[now-for-wrath-now-for-ruin]

Aragorn, the Chieftain of the Dúnedain

I based the Northern Dúnedain dress mainly on ancient Turkic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe and Late Romans, since I see Arnor as the Western Rome to Gondor's Eastern Rome, but the Northern Dúnedain have long been nomads in a cold climate. There's also a bit of medieval Egyptian and Iron Age Baltic influences.

[samwises]

Mary Oliver, Felicity