huh. @crowsaresocool - Tumblr Blog

Missing You- Short Andriel Comic

First time I’ve ever made a comic like this

Lowk nervous cause im worried it either doesn’t make sense or it’s too out of character but DO YOU SEE THE VISION PLEASE THEYRE SO CUTE I LOVE THEM

This isn’t really my normal stuff, some things aren’t as polished but whateverrrrrr

i-am-weis

Chapter 9 / The King’s Men - Nora Sakavic

voyaging-too

People often say LOTR is a story about hope. (I'm reminded of it because someone said it in the notes of my Faramir post.) And that's true, but it's not the whole picture: LOTR is in large part a story about having to go on in the absence of hope.

Frodo has lost hope, as well as the ability to access any positive emotion, by Return. He is already losing it in Towers: he keeps going through duty and determination and of course Sam's constant help.

For most of the story, Sam is fueled by hope, which is why it's such a huge moment when he finally lets go of the hope of surviving and returning home, and focuses on making it to the Mountain. To speed their way and lighten the load, he throws his beloved pots and pans into a pit, accepting that he will never cook, or eat, again.

When Eowyn kills the Witch King, she's beyond hope and seeking for a glorious death in battle. It's possible that in addition to her love and loyalty for Théoden, she's strengthened by her hopelessness, the fear of the Nazgúl cannot touch someone who's already past despair.

Faramir is his father's son, he doesn't have any more hope of Gondor's victory or survival than Denethor does, he says as much to Frodo. What hope have we? It is long since we had any hope. ... We are a failing people, a springless autumn. He knows he's fighting a losing war and it's killing him. When he rejects the ring, he doesn't do it in the hope that his people can survive without it, he has good reason to believe they cannot. He acts correctly in the absence of hope.

Of course LOTR has a (mostly) happy ending, all the unlikely hopes come true, the characters who have lost hope gain what they didn't even hope for, and everyone is rewarded for their bravery and goodness, so on some level the message is that hope was justified. But the book never chastises characters who lost hope, it was completely reasonable of them to do so. Despair pushed Théoden and Denethor into inaction, pushed Saruman into collaboration, but the characters who despaired and held up under the weight of despair are Tolkien's real heroes.

(In an early draft of Return, Frodo and Sam receive honorary titles in Noldorin: Endurance beyond Hope and Hope Unquenchable, respectively. Then he cut it, probably because it was stating the themes of the entire book way too obviously, because this is what Tolkien cared about, really: enduring beyond hope. Without hope.)

Also, people who know more than me about the concept of estel, feel free to @ me.

maenefa

Ok, so if Eowyn wants to die in battle to avoid a worse fate at the hands of the enemy, why is it so easy to miss that??? Why does Tolkien misdirect us?

I could write a whole essay on Tolkien’s love of understatement, of meaningful silence, of “glimpses of untold stories,” but let’s focus on Eowyn for now.

Tolkien creates a suffocating bubble of silence around Eowyn. It’s brilliant and horrible and I love it and I hate it.

Faramir tells Eowyn what he thinks about her motives: “You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn…. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle.” And Eowyn doesn’t correct him! She just looks at him silently. And she declares her love for him during this scene.

Eowyn is often described as “frozen” or “cold,” and it’s clear that she has to hide her true feelings a lot of the time. Tolkien REALLY hits us over the head with the silencing of Eowyn in the Houses of Healing, when all the men are staring at her unconscious body and wondering why she was so unhappy. Eomer is positive that her crush on Aragorn was the problem; Aragorn doesn’t want to take the blame. Finally Gandalf speaks up:

“My friend, you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, being born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours.”

And then he says this:

“My lord, if your sister’s love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?”

Gandalf has just made the most openly feminist statement in the novel (aside from Eowyn and her “burned in the house” speech), but he follows it by saying that Eowyn has private thoughts that he cannot or will not explain. It is up to the men to decide if they want to know more. Eomer is deeply struck by Gandalf’s words and silently rethinks his entire life with Eowyn.

And then Aragorn has a truly infuriating bros-before-hoes moment: he breaks the uncomfortable silence by reassuring Eomer that yeah, maybe Eowyn’s crush on him was actually the problem after all. Just a minute earlier, he had denied responsibility for Eowyn’s despair. But he hates to see his friend, his brother in arms, feeling shamed. So he jumps in to rescue Eomer from his negative emotions. And Eowyn is RIGHT THERE, silent and unable to defend herself.

We already know that Aragorn is reluctant to know more about Eowyn’s problems. During their confrontation in Dunharrow, Aragorn dodges all of Eowyn’s attempts to make him see her point of view.

“A time may come soon,” said he, “when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

And she answered: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honor, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.”

“What do you fear, lady?” he asked.

Neither Aragorn nor Eowyn want to talk about what will happen to her if the enemy wins; this is why there is so much misdirection about Eowyn’s motives! Aragorn glosses over the atrocities that are likely to happen and tells Eowyn she can have a heroic last stand, as a treat. Eowyn is infuriated by his poetic vagueness and spits out this horrifying image of being burned alive—but then she fiercely insists that she is a warrior and fears neither pain nor death. She doesn’t want to perform feminine vulnerability to get Aragorn to listen to her. Eowyn is proud and dignified, which makes it especially painful when she resorts to kneeling and begging Aragorn to let her fight. As she tells Faramir, she desires no man’s pity.

I have to give a shoutout to @balrogballs, who has written about this subject extensively:

The cultural fantasy of the female victim of violence often traps women in an unyielding present tense, positioning them as symbols of sentimentality. These women are objectified and become sites of social intervention, their suffering the focal point of external pity and mourning. The narrative demands their pain be witnessed, but rarely offers a way forward, reducing them to objects for emotional consumption rather than subjects of their own story.

This is exactly what Eowyn is trying to avoid. She wants to be remembered as a hero, not a victim.

Tolkien embroiders this theme very cunningly by having Faramir give Eowyn a cloak that belonged to his mother, Finduilas, who died when he was five. Faramir thinks the cloak is “fitting for the beauty and sadness of Eowyn,” which has a deeper meaning that he probably does not intend. Finduilas is also the name of an elf maiden from the Silmarillion, who was captured by orcs and killed with a spear. In Tolkien’s work, both Finduilases exist mainly to provide tragic backstories for male protagonists. Oh, and Arwen’s name was originally Finduilas as well. To be a Finduilas is to be beautiful and passive, and to die tragically. A fate that Eowyn rages against.

(The Finduilas thing becomes even more absurdly cryptic when you recall that only Tolkien knew about the tragic connotation of the name at the time LotR was published. But he did this kind of thing!!! Recall Elrond and his warning against oaths.)

I have always wondered why Eowyn didn’t challenge Faramir when he informed her that she was suicidal because of Aragorn. Perhaps she simply wanted to put the whole nightmare behind her.

But the most painful silence, to me, involves Theoden. Gandalf reveals that Wormtongue was planning to rape Eowyn, and Theoden says nothing. Eomer grabs his sword and has to be restrained from killing Wormtongue, but Theoden actually offers Wormtongue a second chance to prove his loyalty:

"Do you hear this, Wormtongue?" said Theoden. "This is your choice: to ride with me to war, and let us see in battle whether you are true; or to go now, whither you will. But then, if ever we meet again, I shall not be merciful."

This betrayal of Eowyn happens so fast that it is easy to miss. None of the characters comment on it, and the narrative moves on. There’s something horribly realistic about a powerful man with a beloved image casually offering a second chance to a sexual predator and everyone, including the reader, being unable to process what is happening.

The silences in Eowyn’s story come from the male characters and from Eowyn herself. Theoden and Aragorn want to avoid talking about the type of violence that threatens her, and they ignore her desires. Eowyn doesn’t want to be trauma porn; she resents having to explain herself. And this silence offers readers the freedom to empathize with her, like Eomer, or to fall back on sexist explanations, like Aragorn.

poissond-avril

whatever man🚶‍♂️

gay-mooshrooms

me mentally: these characters have a relationship that cannot be defined by any one thing and reaches throughout the narrative and is so woven into their characters that trying to force it under one label would be inaccurate and doing it a disservice.

me out loud: idk man they're fuckin gay

peatbogpirate

Two Towers reread silliness

[Part 1] [commissions open!]

cuprumbao

resting

do2faj

So. Just a casual thing to say to a 'friend' right

shinraalpha

i love how Gandalf invested in Hobbits in year one and has been pushing them ever since. Thorin, i hear you need help with a breaking and entering. Can I recommend one of these little cunts? Silent as fuck, trust me. Elrond my dude i know you're skeptical but these four chucklefucks just transported a weapon of mass destruction all the way here. Theoden, you've gotta get yourself a hobbit man, I've got a spare one here. Denathor you big prick, take a hobbit - literally this is the bottom of the range but listen to him sing. Beautiful little bastard.

sunsetbuddie

hey so anyone else just, feel thin. sort of stretched. like butter scraped over too much bread. like you need a holiday. a very long holiday. and you don't expect you shall return? or is that just me and bilbo baggins

thefishywizard

Victors

13th-wheel

Cycled through all the major robins in 9? years and now Steph is my favourite

Hi I’m back was on the uni entrance exam grind for three years but now I’m sitting on a dental school offer so I feel like posting again

sillywillyco

1 2 3 i want yuri

getanshi

one of the many tragedies of stephanie brown’s time as robin is that i do genuinely think if the circumstances were different, both in-universe and out of it, she would have thrived in the colors

r.i.p. cassandra cain you would've loved ethel cain and feeling doomed by the sins of your father comitted long before your conception

#stephanie is her willoughby #stephcass #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #batgirls #batgirl 2000 #I'm tired of you still tied to me (bleeding whenever you want)#cant tell me that isnt her about david cain