Dino. 20. Christian. INFJ. Full time uni student, part time poetry writer, part time photographer. Contents include things that make me laugh, things that are important to me, especially cute dogs which are my actual favourite things. Hit me up to talk about Jesus at any time.
If I was remaking the Princess Bride I'd have Buttercup hire Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik herself to help her fake her death and take her away so she could go and seek out the Dread Pirate Roberts and get revenge for Westley's death, and also get out of the marriage to Humperdinck, so she rocks up on the ship in disguise and this time Westley doesn't recognise *her*, but she realises it's Westley and she's just making loads of snide remarks trying to figure out why he's been merrily fucking about on a boat this whole time, meanwhile Westley's having a little bit of a bi moment about Buttercup-in-disguise but because he's loyal as fuck he's not going to do anything about it but they get into a fight and Buttercup is like 'Why the hell did you just fucking leave your girlfriend to fuck around being a pirate you could at least have written a letter' and he's like 'Oh I'm sorry???? What on earth would you know about it, this is none of your concern, I should've killed you when you came on board' and of course during this scene they're also having a very tense sword fight with Inigo making quips from the sidelines like a sports commentator, and Buttercup's like 'WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST KILL ME THEN, FARM BOY???' But then the ship lurches to the side and she gets thrown overboard and Westley is like 'Oh my God I'm so stupid!!!!' So then he has to dive in after and pull her out.
Once she’s back in the boat she and Westley have a heart a heart conversation and it’s very cute (Inigo and Fezzik are throwing rhyming couplets back and forth in the background).
Humperdinck is still trying to start a war, so when he hears his prospective bride is captured! by pirates! he chases them, and captures them all as soon as their boat makes landfall. Westley, Inigo, Fezzik, and Vizzini all go to the dungeons, and Buttercup is confined to the court physician’s rooms to ‘recover her wits’ from her ‘scare with the pirates’ (translation: she’s spitting mad and has a sword now and has to be restrained to keep from Murdering Humperdinck).
The gang in the dungeons are all in separate cells, so they each organize their own jailbreak. Fezzik just. breaks his door, Vizzini confuses his guard into handing him the keys to the door, Inigo has his ‘Father, guide my sword’ moment and finds a secret passageway out, and Westley is just sitting outside his cell waiting for them, both of his guards knocked out. he claims they turned on each other and then he picked his lock.
Meanwhile, Humperdinck releases Buttercup, which was a mistake, because now she gets to beat him up and give the ‘to the pain’ speech. Inigo has his conclusion with the six-fingered-man, meanwhile Westley finds the queen, convinces her that Humperdinck has been warmongering, and she decides to crown her younger child instead. Westley meets up with Buttercup, and together they find Inigo and Fezzik (who has grabbed the horses).
Inigo becomes the next Dread Pirate Roberts and Fezzik goes with him. Humperdinck never recovers from the scandal and gets shoved in a monastery somewhere out of embarrassment. Westley and Buttercup become wandering swords, just Robin Hooding their way through life, settling down to be farmers in their old age.
“Well,” said Inigo, shrugging, “I myself am no stranger to murder plots. I just don’t know that the four of us can fight an entire crew of pirates.”
They were drawing quite close to the Revenge, now.
Vizzini scoffed. “Obviously not. They say Roberts is a bloodthirsty pirate, but too honorable for his own good. Our employer will simply challenge him to a duel.” He glanced forward, to the front of the boat, where the enigmatic figure who had purchased their services stared intently ahead, and continued in an undertone. “And, since we’ve been paid in advance, the outcome matters little.”
“But, don’t they kill everyone they meet?” said Fezzik.
“Obviously not,” scoffed Vizzini, “or no one would know they existed. Besides, I’m sure that, if their captain wins, they’ll be all too happy to have us go and spread the story of his immense skill.”
“When you say skill...” said Inigo, leaning forward.
“They say he’s an accomplished duelist. Scourge of the seas? Known to have slain 100 men in single combat!?” Vizzini turned away in disgust at his evident lack of knowledge.
Inigo nodded his head to either side, trying to tally up his own numbers.
He didn’t have time to share his calculations, though, as a shout came from the Revenge.
“Ho there! Who goes?”
Their nameless employer stood up, and responded in that oddly light tone of his.
“I seek an audience with Roberts!”
The man who had spotted them, young, but already grizzled, laughed derisively. “You’ll meet him. Whether you get ‘an audience’ or not...” He let the implication of their treatment hang in the air.
“Whether I give him an audience...” Muttered their employer, hand going to the sword at his side.
A minute passed, and then, from over the side of the Revenge, there came a ladder.
“Come aboard,” said the man who had called out earlier.
They came alongside, and their employer stepped up first, nimbly climbing up. The rest paused, there, none quite as eager, until the voice called out again.
“And the rest of you.”
Inigo went first, and Fezzik took up the rear, and they made it to the deck, where...
The deck was filled with battered, scarred, salt-worn men. It was a motley crew, but each of them was armed, and none seemed especially friendly.
On a higher deck, a man leaned on the railing, and gave them all a careful once over.
“Well then... Not many seek the Revenge. Come to join the crew, then?”
Their employer shook his head.
The man pulled back, and looked closer at him. He took in the dark, loose clothing, the mask, and the hair, cut short, but brilliant gold all the same. And the mask...
“Then state your business.”
“I’ve come to seek an audience with Roberts,” he repeated. “Is that who I’m speaking to?”
There was a rumble of laughter from around the deck.
“No,” came a much smoother voice, and a man in black stepped forth from the shadows. “I am Roberts.”
He took a few paces around the four of them, but his eyes, bright beneath the mask, seemed only interested in their employer.
“Now... By the sword at your side, you are not rich... By the clothes you wear, you are a swordsman... And by the mask...” He stopped, and turned to face them in earnest. “You have come to kill me, then.”
Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik would have expected a stoic affirmation, but since Roberts had stepped into the light, an indefinable change seemed to have come over him.
“You took someone from me who I held very dear.”
Roberts paused, and then shrugged. “Perhaps. I kill many people.”
“I came to challenge you to a duel.”
Roberts nodded. “Naturally.”
“And you accept?”
“Of course!” he said, throwing his arms out, as if the question surprised him. “What kind of self-respecting legend of the seas can turn down an offer to duel?” That drew a laugh from the surrounding pirates.
“I ask that the men behind me, regardless of my fate, be left to leave freely.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A strange request.”
“They have no valuables to steal, and they are in similar work to you.”
“Are you asking for honor among thieves?” said Roberts, and clicked his tongue. “There is no such thing. But, nonetheless, if it is as you say, unless they make themselves my enemies, they will be spared.”
Roberts stepped forward, and, as if on cue, the pirates on the deck pulled back, going to the railings, and some onto the higher decks, clearing a large space in the middle. Vizzini, Inigo and Fezzik matched the motion, until there were only two figures in the middle of the deck.
“Now,” said Roberts, “you know who I am, but I must admit, I am curious who you are.”
“I do know who you are,” said their employer, a flash of light in his eyes, a perfect match for his sword, which was suddenly aimed straight at Roberts’ chest. Roberts seemed, for a moment, taken aback by his vehemence. “And if you do not know who I am, then perhaps you will have to continue wondering.”
“Fezzik,” whispered Inigo, “do you see the position of the feet?”
“Mhm.”
“Do you see the way he maintains his stance despite the shifting of the deck?” the words came out rapidly, as Inigo stared intently at every inch of their employer’s posture. “He has been trained well.”
“Oh. Good,” said Fezzik, trying and failing to see what exactly Inigo was so fixated on.
Roberts studied his opponent, a moment longer, and drew his own sword, the motion strangely nonchalant. Inigo’s eyes widened.
“What?” said Fezzik.
Inigo shook his head, seemingly unable to put words around what was so impressive about the motion. Perhaps the ease with which Roberts handled the weight.
Roberts settled into his stance, and there was a moment of silence, the two of them facing each other, neither quite willing to make the first move.
Their employer struck first, the jab snaking out. Roberts blocked ably, once, twice, thrice, the strikes coming in blisteringly quick.
“Do you see that motion? If the feet do not move quickly enough, then he would lose his balance in an instant.”
“They’re good then?” came Fezzik’s bass response.
Roberts struck back, jabs alternating in a dizzying pattern, first from the left, then the right.
“Oh, Fezzik, if you could see it as I do.”
Roberts’ deadly offensive seemed for a second to splinter, and then fracture back on itself, a pair of thunderous clangs seeming to almost disarm him.
“The entire stance was a feint!” cried Inigo, seemingly jubilant at the concept. “Tulis, flowing into a high lunge rather than a low slash!”
--
“I rarely find others who wear masks,” said Roberts, almost conversational as the fight roved across the deck. “Have you been burned by acid, or do you just prefer to keep your identity a secret.”
“I have as much reason to keep my identity a secret as you do,” she hissed in response.
“You know,” he said, “I thought you seemed suspicious of something.”
“I know who you were,” she said, managing to push him back, up to the upper deck, the perfect shift of his technique as he started up the stairs prompting another excited cry from Inigo, who seemed to have gotten the pirates riled up. They seemed to be shouting their own interpretations of the fight, though none quite so learned.
“I am Roberts, and no one else,” he said, but she knew the smile was fake. “You are mistaken.”
“No. Tell me, what have you been doing out here? Searching for adventure? Wealth? Fame?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know my business, if I were you,” he said, his expression suddenly darkening.
“Was it the prospect of drink? Gold? Women?”
That seemed to hit something, and, with a perfectly timed lurch of the deck (for the waves had been choppy all day) he managed to reverse the momentum of the fight despite his tactically poor position. Inigo, though neither heard it, interjected yet again with a rapid, excited burst.
Roberts seemed angry now.
“You say it like you have some reason for asking. Have you come here in the hopes of seducing me by your victory?”
“I came here with the intent of killing a spineless, unfaithful coward.”
The insult was hardly subtle, and neither his response. Both were the more effective for it, and the furious chop sent her sword flying away. It soared across the deck, almost impaling a crewmember’s foot, and then stuck in the wood, wobbling.
She was pressed back against the railing, his sword point almost in her chest, his expression as thunderous as the sea beneath them, which, during the fight, had begun to violently rock the boat.
“I don’t believe that I will take any satisfaction in killing you,” he said, “only in not having to listen to you speak anymore.”
She grimaced, and reached up to her mask.
“Then kill me and be done with it,” she pulled away the mask, “farm boy.”
For an instant, he didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing, and then, he staggered back, as if struck. The sword dropped from his hand.
“You.”
She nodded, grimly.
What now, Westley?
He seemed...
He seemed...
A wave struck the boat, and she, already forced backwards, toppled over the railing, and into the water below.
So anyway Christopher Tolkien literally took 70 boxes of his father’s disorganised notes and spent his whole life turning them into something that could be read, appreciated, studied and loved. Words can’t express how much this man did for everyone to whom Tolkien’s work means something…thank you so much, Christopher. Safe journey to the white shores under a swift sunrise.
I often joke that “J.R.R Tolkien published more books dead than alive” but thats mainly due to the lifetime of work Christopher Tolkien did and the many books that were Christopher Tolkien “edited” were essentially co-authored between him and his deceased father.
that is exactly my point of view. if all people were given universal basic income, we could have tens of thousands of boring, tedious, dangerous, and long term harmful jobs done by robots, while humans are free to explore their passions without fear of poverty and homelessness.
in a good society, automation means a boom in the arts. language, painting, music, dance, writing, philosophy, architecture, etc. these are the sectors that advance tremendously during periods of human health and flourishing
Back in the 1960s, we were told that automation and rising productivity would mean shorter work weeks with higher pay. Instead we have multibillionaires, growing poverty, and crumbling infrastructure. The money is all there, it’s just being hoarded.
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