entre les ruines

[hiatus ¤] née dans les années '80.

[cupkakie]

I kind of wish that Amazon had made its own medieval fantasy show instead of tacking on LoTR and making it spiritually/creatively bereft of meaning from the source it claims to have been adapted from.

If you really want to know the histories of the First and Second Age of Middle Earth -- the Silmarillion is where you will find the heart.

tldr; just wish Amazon would stop beating an already dead horse...

[yingtan]

Deng Kai as Qi Min│Ep. 11 PURSUIT OF JADE 逐玉 (2026)

[mhevarujta]

I don't believe that, in Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim, Wulf was in love with Hèra in the simple, loving sense. He mostly seems to me obsessed with what she represents.

He doesn't see just someone who is strong, stubborn, resourseful and a free spirit. He sees a loved princess of Rohan and, while he and his people were marginalized, this symbol of the very people by whom he is not accepted happens to show affection towards him.

So throughout the years he is away he nurtures those feelings and they get twisted more and more. The Dunlendings and he will not be accepted and loved by Rohan and therefore Rohan and every person that has made Wulf feel inferior in some way must be destroyed. Even after he has avenged himself on Helm and on her brothers, he wants to entomb Hèra. The seeds for that have been planted before he even asks Hèra to marry him. Her rejection and his father's murder seem to be the last straw.

Also, I feel that Wulf's insecurities and resentments were very present even when they were children. It's why he starts attacking so viciously when he feels lesser because Hèra has the upper hand, which is when she does not control her movement as she is trying to keep him off and ends up scaring him. He still protects her by Freca though and seems scared at the prospect of his arrival.

Overall, I feel that he was interesting enough. But I DO wish that the writers had done a better job at showing how things were for him as he was growing up among the Dunlendings and next to Freca. It would have given depth to the character. I also have to give an honorary mention to General Targg. I feel that the presense of someone honorable who cares for the people and was not just acting for selfish reasons gave a bit of nevessary nuance to the Dunlendings and indirectly attributed some validity to their motivations and to their war-effort.

[cupkakie]

War of the Rohirrim thoughts:

Overall, I would say that I quite enjoyed stepping back into the world of LOTR (and it would be impossible for a single film to live up to the atmosphere of the original trilogy) it was a relief to see that, despite a few deviations/flaws, you can tell there was a lot of care and respect for the source material from those involved.

I only wish they provided more of a historical context as to the disparity or ongoing conflict between the Dunlendings and the Rohirrim to give more depth to the 'contract' or marriage proposal that eventually goes awry. I also wish that they fleshed out Wulf more and I think reducing him, even jokingly to an "incel" (or even reducing the character of Héra under a label) doesn't do justice to their characters. Wulf could have been more of a compelling villain and the fact that his late father's general (a new character in the story of the movie) placed some measure of faith in his rulership, points to that possibility. But, I guess it's also realisitic that he fumbled those grand ambitions (if there was a tiny seedling of that in his quest of revenge) in the end. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that General Tark (?) had more nuance than just throwaway supporting villain.

Apart from one major plot deviation concerning how the conflict is resolved, some may take issue, but with the choice of how the story was more Hera focused at that point, I'm not sure how the writers could have made it align with how it really concluded according to the book. I'm also not sure if the writers intended to open up the question I had been wondering before this was film was released about "deeds remembered in history" and added to that with "who" and "how" these tales are recorded or passed down generations. It is mentioned in Appendix A of RotK that "[m]any lords and warriors, and many fair and valiant women are named in the songs of Rohan [...] (Tolkien 424). So, it's not far-fetched to think there could have been such a story about Hera but it was never written down or recorded as such, and the story as Éowyn tells it may have survived only orally through song.

There was no "girlbossery" to be found in Héra if ROP's "Galadriel" is an exemplary model of that regurgitated toxic trope. She had her strengths and weaknesses and cared deeply for her family and for her people.

I enjoyed the familial relationships we saw, though I wish there was more, especially of Fréaláf. I wish we could've gotten more on his situation in Dunharrow during the Long Winter and how and why it was difficult to secure aid for the refugees in the Suthberg (Hornburg later named after Helm Hammerhand).

As to the allegations that may be out there that Helm is a "Gary Stu" , I think he's more akin to the mythic characters like Beowulf or Gilgamesh; just an epic, larger than life character --and I think the medium of animation did that mythic hyperbole justice, and live-action would require some kind of creative framing to suspend the disbelief of the audience.

For me, the movie had the potential to be more, but I still enjoyed it, coming away with loving Rohan and the Rohirrim all the more, especially Fréaláf, who may hearken back to another horse-lord, but is not a "copy-paste" of him, just as Hera is not a facsimile of Éowyn (though I do wish they had given her a more Anglo-Saxon inspired name).

TLDR; if you enjoyed the trilogy/ hated the travesty that is ROP, you will most likely enjoy this movie.

(Also, kudos to the voice-acting, especially Luke Pasqualino.)

[lansjue]

MELODY OF GOLDEN AGE 长乐曲 dir. Wang Wei, 2024.

[sanctimoniousplatitudes]

JFC I’m having to see Emily Brontë’s famous “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” quote in posts about fucking Sauron and Galadriel.

This is what rings of power has done. That’s the world we live in now.

[cupkakie]

Interesting stuff that within the show's "canon", that the kiss between Elrond and Galadriel is defended by people lobbing "you're xenophobic because not all kisses are romantic /or the situation required deception" misses the point that this kiss would never have occurred in the first place if you go by the events in The Silmarillion. Other people are upset the kiss didn't happen with Halbrand.

Within the lore, there is no Haladriel(?). Galadriel is married to Celeborn. Elrond is married to Galadriel's daughter Celebrian.

I'm not remotely upset. I am just in wonder at the lengths this billion-dollar show can go in destroying Tolkien's life's work.

[flowerytale]

J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Return of the King

[southfarthing]

20 YEARS OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (18 DEC 2002)

The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time!

[escapismsworld]

“Do not draw me without reason. Do not wield me without valor.”

[cupkakie]

Watching the trailer for The War of the Rohirrim leaves me, at best, hopeful and at worst, sinking into cynicism hoping that it won't be a reprise of the RoP treatment by Amazon.

I don't know if I should take it as a warning sign that a Halbrandriel? Saurondriel? shipper finds parallels in a seeming enemies to lovers (but I would argue the lovers part gets thrown out the window when you look at the lore, even if the movie hints that in childhood a friendship existed between the two as children).

If this will be more of a Héra-centered movie, I wonder if the movie will also pose the question of deeds remembered or what gets recorded in history as a possible answer to why she was not named or why her potential deeds were not remembered as other members of her family were, like her father, brothers, or cousin Fréaláf.

Then again, Tolkien must have had his reasons for not including more information about her. I just hope they do give equal attention to her father and brothers in the story.

In short, I just hope this film is nothing like the hot trash fire that is Rings of Power.

[wanderingwolfwitcher]

High King Gil-galad: “Galadriel must leave these shores at once for Valinor, lest she court the very evil she was obsessively pursuing more than her own missing husband and bring it down upon us all.”

Elrond: "Agreed."

Galadriel: “Hey guys! I decided to skip Heaven, go for a swim, enjoy an island vacation with this random hot guy I met adrift at sea, encouraged him not to pursue a life of quiet and peaceful isolation, then invaded the Southlands with him and an army and put a crown on his head. Meet my new boyfriend, Satan. What’s for supper?”

[light-miracles]

Fans: The worldbuilding is absolutely destroyed. That's not Galadriel. That's not Elrond. Dwarf women should have beards. Elves don't have short hair. Finrod's death was turned into a joke. It's impossible for a hobbit to be called "Elanor". There can't be 2 Durins alive at the same time. Celebrimbor is younger than Galadriel. WHERE IS CELEBORN.

Amazon: OH MY GOD STOP BEING SO RACIST

[hedgehogoftime]

Hi, I'm still angry about Amazon trying to turn Galadriel into a shitty YA romantasy protagonist by making her generic sword girl and taking away her entire backstory as one of the most powerful and revered of the Noldor and Queen of the Sindar and giving her a shitty enemies to lovers relationship with fucking Sauron.

[happpy-holidays]

[weltenwellen]

Anis Mojgani, from “Here I Am”, Songs from Under the River: A Collection of Poetry

[bartolomeo-the-cannibal]

amo este cast con todo mi corazon 🥺💕