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another crying frodo because why not

"In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor, either beside the long shores of the Sea or in the hills; and thus she and Fëanor had met and were companions in many journeys"

postarcadian

this is another discussion tangential to the one about LotR/Tolkien, but I do also think that the cartoon-fascist cosplay that is in vogue on the US far right has hindered a lot of people's (especially Americans') ability to recognize or push back against strains of conservatism/fascism that rhetorically focus more on things like stability, tradition, family, and community rather than the worship of power and cruelty for the sake of power and cruelty. the deep Catholic conservatism that underpins LotR might seem opposed to the far-right politics that is in vogue right now in the US (see also the whole Pope Leo vs. Trump and Vance thing) but obviously there's a reason that fascists and conservatives have loved Tolkien's work for a long time, and there are more sophisticated and arguably more dangerous strains of fascism that are extremely skilled at weaponizing the same "universal" values that LotR's heroes are fighting for. and obviously I'm not immune to this, or the tendency to project my own politics onto LotR -- I watched the theatrical rerelease of The Two Towers the same day that Alex Pretti was murdered, and when Théoden says "so much death. what can men do against such reckless hate?" I felt myself moved almost to tears because it seemed to speak with such clarity to the precise moment. but there is a difference between "this is what the text seems to be saying to me in this moment" and "this is the value system underpinning the text itself."

#mm yes agree #do i think jirt was a fascist? no #but do i think that his desire to create a purely english mythology stems from the same place and therefore has a commonality with fascists?#yeah #we CAN find meaning for ourselves in these texts as op said and certainly there is a lot about hope to hold on to #however that shouldn't get in the way of critique and understanding why peter thiel and lots of far right folks like lotr so much #as tempting as it is to say its bc they cant read #it is not always that #they dont think theyre the bad guys. they think theyre gondor fighting against the orcs

ringmakers

Aragorn

The Meeting

“eowyn and theoden” for tolkien women’s week day 1: love / family / lineage / companionship

@tolkienwomensweek

calocera

balrogballs

India, 1960s: When they told him to “dress as his heart desires” to his first gay club night, nobody, least of all Fingon (who spent the present-day equivalent of Rs 50,000 on his own outfit for the evening), expected Comrade Maedhros to borrow a doggy harness off Celegorm’s newest Alsatian and turn up dressed as a “small dachshund wearing a little Lenin hat”, inadvertently influencing global gay culture for decades to come.

happy pride from prayers!au russingon 😌

mycelliumelium

girl idk what to tell you, sometimes you’ve just gotta rip the blorbo apart

erumelde

nochd

Tolkien wasn't super clear about this and what hints he did put in, the movies left out, but the answer is: The Ring controls people.

In the book, Frodo does this to Gollum on the slopes of Mount Doom, and curses him to "yourself be thrown into the Fire" if he ever touches him again.

I feel Peter Jackson didn't understand that -- as he also didn't understand why Gollum, having sworn on the Ring not to harm Frodo, couldn't (personally) harm Frodo (and therefore had to lead him into Cirith Ungol for Shelob to kill him instead).

"Smeagol promised!" "Smeagol lied" was never how it worked.

Which is why Jackson had Frodo still apparently be drawn to the Ring after it was bitten off him and attack Gollum and push him over, because he thought Gollum just "randomly fell off the edge" in the book. It wasn't random, it was the effect of Frodo's curse using the Ring's power.

At all levels the Ring's power is to give its bearer power. For small mortal folks like Hobbits that means the gift of invisibility, which, like the Ring of Gyges in Plato's Republic, removes social consequences for one's actions. For people like Denethor or Aragorn it would have meant the power to command armies, which is what Sauron thought was happening when Aragorn marched on the Black Gate and why he sent every soldier he'd got to take it back. For Gandalf ("through me the Ring would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine") or Galadriel ("all shall love me and despair") it would have meant phenomenal power over nature.