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beatlemaniacinthetardis

It’s almost 4 am but anyway

brucesterling

#Frodo returning to the shire

propalahramota

They should add "On Horseback" option to Google Maps. For writers.

kotitontunmanaaja

"Hevoslinja" (Trans-Horse) is a European art project started in 2014 by Finnish artist Eero Yli-Vakkuri - according to his own words 'skilless in riding and afraid of animals' at the start.

The aim of the project was to travel 270 km / 168 miles between Helsinki and Turku in Finland, and to highlight the possibility of horse travel in modern society. Since then they've took to promoting horseback efforts in urban landscapes with several European collaborators and artists.

Yli-Vakkuri and collaborators first spent eight months practicing riding to become safely self-sufficient in saddle, and bought a Finnhorse gelding Toivottu Poika ('Awaited Son'). The route followed, as closely as possible, the old coastal royal country road of the premodern era, Kuninkaantie/Suuri Rantatie, and took 9 days.

Toivottu Poika is a very average example of his breed, standing at some 155 cm / 15.1 hh tall. The Finnhorse is a relative of for example the North-Norwegian Lyngshest breed, the Icelandic horse, the Swedish Gotlandsruss pony and the Estonian landrace horse and Tori horse breed. It is a mid-sized light draught and trotter, a sensibly realistic mediaeval country travel horse equivalent.

For more hardcore short-term treks, looking into competitive endurance riding can be helpful. Mongol Derby might be one of the most intense races, as it recreates the Chinggis Khan era postal system of swapping horses continuously over a 1000 km / 620 mile route.

By only including skilled endurance riders, keeping up a constant fast speed and swapping horses every 40 km / 25 mil, the Mongol Derby route only takes 10 days even though it's several times the length of the Trans-Horse project. This is the speed of highly organised imperial messengers with the supporting cultural infrastructure, professional marathon runners where Yli-Vakkuri and Toivottu poika were leisure hikers.

The Mongolian landrace horse is a very distant relative of the breeds above, but much lighter and smaller than the agriculturally focused modern Finnhorse - typicaly standing at 142 cm / 14 hh at most. (This would've also been common for Finnhorses before the 19th century.) What really differentiates them from Western breeds, however, is the way they're trained and raised in semi-feral herds, and it's said that while the rider may decide where the pair is headed, the horse is the one to decide how to get there.

drev-the-procrastinator

also it's not quite google maps, but there is a lovely site called Viabundus!

the last i checked, the map of roads stretches from Calais, France to Moscow, Russia west to east and from Košice, Slovakia to Tornio, Finland south to north. it doesn't cover all of Europe, for example Sweden and Norway are empty at the moment, but it is quite extensive and still being worked on! in addition to showing the old roads, you can calculate the distance and travel time from one city to another, and there are a lot of options:

and that's not all! here's a description from the site itself (emphasis mine):

"Viabundus is a freely accessible online street map of late medieval and early modern northern Europe (1350-1650). Originally conceived as the digitisation of Friedrich Bruns and Hugo Weczerka's Hansische Handelsstraßen (1962) atlas of land roads in the Hanseatic area, the Viabundus map moves beyond that. It includes among others: a database with information about settlements, towns, tolls, staple markets and other information relevant for the pre-modern traveller; a route calculator; a calendar of fairs; and additional land routes as well as water ways."

it's quite neat and also free! i hope someone else finds it as fascinating and cool as i did :)

vrabia

the silmarillion is wild because you read it and you're like huh okay, and then you read lotr and it turns out everyone's just going around doing their own thing while the surviving elves are living through the final chapters of a post-apocalyptic horror story

vrabia

rivendell's a pretty chill place, right? everyone gets along splendidly. dream retirement home et cetera. solid chance the guy you're having afternoon tea with has either survived or personally committed war crimes. also the reason it's so chill is elrond has this magic ring that makes it so the whole place exists slightly outside normal time

galadriel's been around since the beginning, like, for pretty much all of middle-earth's history you understand, she has Seen it all and despite what you may have been led to believe is at all times this close to snapping. also the reason lothlorien is so chill is she has this magic ring that makes it so the whole place exists slightly outside normal time

i can't emphasize enough how much of a post-apocalyptic horror story thranduil lives in. homeland destroyed and half his people massacred. has fucken sauron in his backyard and the spawn of the primordial beast that eats light puttering about on his lawn. a dragon lives next door. does NOT have a magic ring and is therefore obliged to rule over his murderforest in normal time

just so we're all on the same page here, legolas' day job before joining the fellowship was to hunt the spawn of the primordial beast that eats light and it's not like, a big deal or anything. he just has to do it. he's used to it.

'elves are leaving middle-earth and it's so sad :(' they have ptsd samwise.

theundergroundwoman

for the love of god please let the gays run away together at least once successfully

iibislintu

itspileofgoodthings

I know that Peter’s Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy technically has flaws but also….it doesn’t. It’s perfect.

byjoveimbeinghumble

‘Are these magic cloaks?’ asked Pippin, looking at them. with wonder.

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

When they made that movie, they put all that they loved into all that they made.

septembersung

#just hundreds of people who went ‘sure let me try this’ #and they made something breathtaking #and then they made it 12 more times in different sizes ( @byjoveimbeinghumble )

phoxxent

Wait tell me more about that chainmail thing

byjoveimbeinghumble

“Kaynemaile has worked tirelessly to perfect the material science behind beautiful architectural mesh, collaborating with architects and designers on projects that embolden urban environments with positive buildings. The company’s patented polycarbonate mesh, inspired by 2,000-year-old medieval chainmail, was initially created for the armor and weapons seen in the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy and is now used on major architectural projects around the world.

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

Kaynemaile's patented mesh façade systems are incredibly lightweight and easy to install while bringing a bold look to any scale building.

byjoveimbeinghumble

YOU GUYS

ohifonlyx33

they took forced perspective and scaled sets to a new level by adding moving set pieces to create the illusion that the hobbits and dwarves were much smaller than everyone else even when the camera moved.

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

ALSO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON FREAKING HOWARD SHORE AND HIS 100+ HEARTSHATTERINGLY BEAUTIFUL LIETMOTIFS AND BRILLIANT SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN THE FLIPPING 13 HOUR SOUNDTRACK. AND ENYA SINGING IN REAL ELVISH.

amuseoffyre

There’s so much detail in the costuming that we can’t even see, it’s wild. One of my favourite things I saw on a tour of the WETA collection was seeing a Gondorian sword and on the pommel of the grip, there were concentric rings with a triangle wedge raised about them. They had a representation of frigging Minas Tirith as a part of the sword.

Also, here are a few close-up costume/prop details from the costumes they had on display in the shop and at sites around Wellington:

healerqueen

They poured so much love and effort into these films, and it shows. They treated the world of Middle-earth as if it was real, from the buildings to the armor to the creatures to the locations. Everyone who worked on this movie did it with passion and excellence and dedication.

nohomo-mrfrodo

Gandalf in The Hobbit: You are Took and that makes you absolutely suited for adventure!

Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring: Who the FUCK let the Took come on this adventure?

maironsmaid

He learned his lesson

golwenlothlindel

Nah you guys don’t get it. For all that Gandalf complained about Pippin, he better than anyone else knew that Pippin was absolutely crucial. Pippin accomplishes a very impressive feat: not only does he manage to see something in the palantír (most hobbits would perceive nothing, as these stones were designed for use by high elves), but he manages to close his mind against Sauron. That is a seriously impressive feat of ósanwë given Pippin’s youth and almost total inexperience. The only clue Sauron manages to glean from the meeting with Pippin is that he is in Meduseld: which Pippin probably did not even directly give to him. Pippin did not tell Sauron his name, so Sauron is led to believe that Pippin is Frodo. I remind you, in the books, the Good Guys manage to trick Sauron, by making him believe that Aragorn has claimed the One Ring. They can only do that because of Pippin’s ridiculous feat of ósanwë. Far from sabotaging the mission, he is the one who allows it to succeed (albeit, not on purpose). This is why Sauron doesn’t think anything is fishy when Aragorn wins the Battle of the Pelennor Fields by controlling ghosts: that would be consistent with the idea that he is using the One Ring. Which Sauron believes that Pippin brought to him. This is why Sauron pulls out his old “play nice and weak” card from his Númenor days. He first of all believes that Aragorn is a lot more powerful than he actually is, and secondly thinks that the Ring is beginning to affect him.

He should perhaps have remembered that Aragorn is named for Fingolfin. Fingolfin’s mother-name, Arakáno, would properly be translated to Sindarin as “Aragorn”. Most people would not show up to an enemy fortress with an army they knew was far too small, and start a battle they knew they would lose. But Fingolfin famously did exactly that.

When you read the line “fool of a Took!” It is important to understand that in the context of Gandalf calling himself a fool on several occasions. Galadriel too sees beyond the veneer of foolish naivety in Pippin. She gives him and Merry belts that almost definitely were once her brothers’. A golden flower on a gift from Galadriel can only be a golden lily, the sigil of the House of Finarfin. Galadriel, while all hell was breaking loose in Tirion, raided her brothers’ rooms and took their belts from when they were little kiddos, hauled them across the Helcaraxë, and then held onto them for three Ages before giving them to two hobbits she just met. Merry, of course, is comparable to Angrod and Aegnor: his great deed is done in a moment of beserk rage, and it is a feat of strength. This then implies that she is comparing Pippin to Finrod. That’s one hell of a complement coming from Galadriel: but as I just pointed out, entirely warranted. Pippin manages to reproduce Finrod’s feat of radio silence, in the face of torture by Sauron. Which again, is extremely impressive given that Pippin is far younger and less experienced than Finrod was.

nohomo-mrfrodo

You see me <3

cowboyhatesithere

Daily gratitude

I don’t have kids

I don’t spend money on nicotine

I don’t gamble my money away on sports

I’m not reliant on a chat bot for all my life functions

My books/CDs/DVDs collection is plentiful

macklesufficient

i’m just saying aragorn son of arathorn oh im sorry STRIDER (one of them rangers what his right name is i never heard etc etc) didn’t need to be that sexy at the prancing pony. like ostensibly he’s trying to lay low but even dipshit little [relatively] eighteen y/o frodo is like hey what’s the deal with that extremely ostentatiously sexy man in the corner

macklesufficient

“you draw far too much attention to yourself ‘mister underhill’” if i were frodo i wouldve snapped. jesus christ. i can’t help that i’m two feet shorter than everyone else in this definitely definitely 100% a gay bar but at least i didn’t lurk in a sexy corner making eyes at everybody from under my cloak at least im TRYING to pretend i’m not a protagonist you fine ass idiot. i KNOW i’m being pursued by the black riders which is why i didn’t SERVE CUNT from the SHADOWS. the fellowship of the nerve of this bitch

warrioreowynofrohan

I was looking for a Lord of the Rings walking app that tracked my walking against Frodo’s journey to Mordor. I couldn’t find one under an LOTR name, but I found an offbrand one that changed all the names to steer clear of trademarks (“Mr. Underhill,” “Halfling Country”, “Mount Fire”), and it is ridiculously detailed and accurate to the books. It shows your distance walked and displays changing captions as you walk, as I’m going to show the app captions next to the comparable passages from Fellowship of the Ring just to show how closely it’s following the text.

0 metres: A wave goodbye and the adventure has started

26m: Walking down the garden path

[Frodo] waved his hand, and then turned and (following Bilbo, if he had known it) hurried after Peregrin down the garden-path. They jumped over a low place in the hedge at the bottom and took to the fields, passing into the darkness like a rustle in the grasses. At the bottom of the Hill on its western side they came to the gate opening on to a narrow lane.

126m: Following the lane westwards

[Sam joins them.] For a short way they followed the lane westwards.

500m: Leaving the lane, turning southwards

1.6km: Walking quietly over the fields

Then leaving it they turned left and took quietly to the fields again. They went in single file along hedgerows and the borders of coppices, and night fell dark about them. In their dark cloaks they were as invisible as if they all had magic rings. Since they were all hobbits, and were trying to be silent, they made no noise that even hobbits would hear. Even the wild things in the fields and woods hardly noticed their passing

4.8km: Crossed a stream on a narrow plank-bridge

After some time they crossed the Water, west of Hobbiton, by a narrow plank-bridge. The stream was there no more than a winding black ribbon, bordered with leaning alder-trees.

8.1km: Crossed the Great East Road

A mile or two further south they hastily crossed the great road from the Brandywine Bridge;

10.0km: Beginning to climb the slopes of the Green Hills

13.3km: The lights of Halflington are visible far off, twinkling in the gentle valley

they were now in the Tookland and bending south-eastwards they made for the Green Hill Country. As they began to climb its first slopes they looked back and saw the lamps in Hobbiton far off twinkling in the gentle valley of the Water. Soon it disappeared in the folds of the darkened land, and was followed by Bywater beside its grey pool.

15.0km: Waving a final goodbye to the valley

When the light of the last farm was far behind, peeping among the trees, Frodo turned and waved a hand in farewell.

“I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again,” he said quietly.

15.7km: The stars shine bright in the clear and cool night

When they had walked for about three hours they rested. The night was cool, clear, and starry…

I’m impressed!

There’s also simple little scenery graphics showing your progress, and it changes between day and night based on when the hobbits were walking in the book.

And it really is motivating for walking. I can’t move at anything close to Frodo’s pace, but I’m hoping if I can bank some time by reaching Bree by the start of September, I can make it to Rivendell at the same time of year that the hobbits do.

shurikthereject

It was my birthday two days ago and in typical hobbit fashion, i thought id give you guys a gift! I wanted to draw something sweet and came up with a scene featuring uncleshield (this time with pets) and a movie night! Hope you guys are doing great <33

thethirdromana

Today's LOTR thoughts are on the theme of storytelling.

About a decade ago, I used to help run an open mic storytelling night in Dublin. (If you ever went to any Milk and Cookie Stories events back then - hi! Do make yourself known!).

We had some people who came who were expert storytellers, some of whom did it professionally or semi-professionally. We had some people who had a background in creative writing or stand-up comedy. And we had some people whose sole experience of storytelling was telling stories for their kids or younger siblings, or for friends down the pub. They were often extremely good at it.

In fact, the people who found it hardest were the people who were trying to translate a story that had been written for the page into something that could be told aloud. What makes for a good story written down can be very different from what makes for good storytelling. There are some short stories that work in both contexts (I bet the Nine Billion Names of God would be great either way) but most just don't - Hills Like White Elephants might be a great story, but it's not storytelling.

A great written story might include a lot of dialogue (a lot of modern mass-market fiction is 60%+ dialogue). Storytelling usually uses reported speech - if there is dialogue, it's often in repeated phrases, and doesn't do much to advance the narrative.

A good written story usually has rounded, realistic characters. Storytelling uses archetypes - whether that's the good king or the grumpy taxi driver - and when a character doesn't match an archetype, they're usually the opposite (the cowardly lion).

Written stories don't need to be told in chronological order. Storytelling usually requires chronology. On the other hand, written stories usually need more of a point than storytelling does; in storytelling, you can get away with a story that's a series of interesting things happening to a character, without there needing to be something that ties them all together neatly.

Written stories often benefit from unexpected or interesting imagery. Storytelling often benefits from familiar imagery - in part because it makes it easier to remember the story, in part because it makes it easier for the audience to follow along.

These aren't hard-and-fast rules, but they're generally true in my experience. And of course, there's a difference between modern people telling stories at an open mic night and people - ancient or modern - telling stories as part of an established tradition of oral literature.

Where I'm going with this is that for a written novel, the Lord of the Rings is rooted in storytelling. I guess it's unsurprising - Tolkien is drawing on mythology and ancient literature, which come from oral traditions, and the story began as a bedtime story for his son. But it's surprising to me how much the Lord of the Rings, read in chunks, comes to resemble storytelling.

I feel like, at a push, if I had to tell the Lord of the Rings as a story (stuck in a cave? On a 3-month Mars mission? who knows), I could probably do a reasonable job. I can't think of many other series of half a million words for which that's true.

sapphoismymuse

sam, reading bilbo’s book: “well now, i’m sure he had a very nice voice, but that’s hardly a reason to go on an adventure with someone you just met”

sam: turns page to an illustration of thorin, with his dark hair and blue eyes

sam: “understandable, good for you mister bilbo”

nohomo-mrfrodo

I don't know what this is from, but I thought it was Sam and Frodo.

nohomo-mrfrodo

I don't know what this is from, but I thought it was Sam and Frodo.

ode-on-a-grecian-butt

Gollum watching like

overthinkinglotr

It's ironic how a major part of Lord of the Rings is that storytellers always overlook hobbits in their legends because their simple lives are "less important" than the lives of Great Royals & Grand Warriors--- since that's ultimately been reflected in the current state of the Tolkien franchise itself! After the LOTR films, big-budget Tolkien franchise installments (and copycats) overwhelmingly focus on their Aragorn analogues, with hobbit-like characters shoved to the sidelines. The Lord of the Rings films may be flawed, but they succeeded because they had a strong central story-- the relationship between Frodo and Sam, and the fairytale-themes about small overlooked people who save the day while the villains are distracted by Great Heroes from Noble Bloodlines, are what give the story the deep lasting emotional impact that it has. But the franchise(tm) quickly decided that the royal warrior elves/men were the far more exciting marketable characters, and their battle skills could allow for more flashy spectacle. The Hobbit films gradually focused more heavily on the warrior characters, with Bilbo being a glorified extra by the last movie; The Amazon LOTR show focuses on a noble warrior elf of royal blood as its main character and political intrigue among the royalty of different kingdoms as its main plot; the recent animated film focuses on a noble hero of royal blood involved in epic battles. I've mentioned before that it's fascinating how all the new "Tolkien franchise" installments (as well as media inspired by LOTR) continue to center their stories on the Aragorn archetype-- a Destined Noble Hero/Warrior from a Royal Bloodline etc etc. The entire premise of Lord of the Rings is that Aragorn represents the hero of a typical generic fantasy epic, while the ordinary Hobbits are the heroes of this one. Aragorn is interesting not in spite of the fact that he is a side character, but because of it. If he were the central character of the story, Lord of the Rings would be very bland and generic. "Let's do a new version of Lord of the Rings but focus on powerful grand royal hero characters instead" is a lot like saying "let's do a retelling of Wicked from Dorothy's point of view." It's like, "congrats! you've successfully reinvented the exact type of story the original writer was commenting on and subverting." XD

silverskulltula

listen hobbit pussy could be mediocre (doubtful) but even if it was it's still followed by a 17 course homecooked meal and the kind of weed that would make sauron scared. lithe beautiful immortal elven pussy has no power compared to the simple, hardworking hobbit. and it goes without saying that you cannot handle dwarven pussy.

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