Melaina’s Art @melaina-art - Tumblr Blog

Lúthien and the Hound of Valinor, Huan

Look, it’s a weird hill to die on, especially when I don’t really explain, but children deserve to experience fear, disgust, and discomfort in safe scenarios where they can process those sensations.

Media for children used to be scary and that’s important.

mysharona1987

The Nightmare

#art #concept art #watercolor #faerie #fairy #artists on tumblr #gouache #one dark window #the shepherd king duology #two twisted crowns #the nightmare #creature #cryptid #fantasy art #gothic fantasy

grendel-menz

people will always love people

maglorslostsilmaril

hate people who have only read the lord of the rings and the hobbit and love to bitch about tolkien barely having any strong female characters

melaina-art

I think that the problem is that The Silmarillion is a difficult text and many people don't actually read it. Arwen and Eowyn are wonderful but ultimately Arwen is half a character in Lord of the Rings--relegated almost completely to the appendix herself. When LotR has more cultural relevance and saturation than The Silmarillion does, which was published long after LotR. Tolkien writes some incredible female characters but he underserves them in his most popular stories. His children deserved a female role model in The Hobbit, especially because he had a daughter!

Arwen is descended from Luthien one of this best female characters with some of the most impact in the Silmarillion through her love story with Beren and her defeat of Sauron, but Arwen has little character past sharing in Luthien's fate when she falls in love with Aragorn. She's very much a prize for the King of Gondor to win when he takes his rightful throne. She doesn't help her love on his quest like Luthien does--she didn't necessarily have to, but Arwen should have clearly had more love for Middle-earth than she is shown. Arwen is more defined by her comparison to Luthien than who she truly is as a person in LotR

Eowyn is a great character and definitely representative of strong women in Tolkien's writing but she's practically alone in her complexity and her part in the story. Her arc could be wonderful if it didn't rely so heavily on her relationship with Faramir, if she had come to her conclusions about wishing to be a healer from her own musings. It's a fantastic story that Tolkien clearly approves of for even his male characters like Aragorn as the True King also being a healer.

Women should have been more involved in Lord of the Rings, there were opportunities to make the women of Middle-earth have more presence in the world. Tolkien also had the unfortunate habit of following the lead of Medieval lineages as a Medievalist and he left out the names of the daughters of important Human families especially. Aragorn has two daughters and we never learn their names.

He also had a habit of putting the women of Middle-earth on a pedestal. He flipped constantly on the character of Galadriel before making her essentially the Virgin Mary, her exile being of no fault of her own. We see that he did it with the women of his own life as well, his mother and his wife, Edith. He didn't have very many women friends and deep relationships past his wife and it's shown in how he approaches many of his side women characters.

Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's Legendarium can both be wonderful and expansive and have some stand out women characters while also leaving them out in a lot of unfortunate ways.

wildermouse

why cant I just be a cute little forest faerie and spend my mornings in misty forests and be friends with all the woodland creatures and climb trees and swim in natural pools and explore and be happy

justsomeguycore

legitimately my first feminist awakening as a ten year old child was realizing that girls were expected to respect “boy stuff” but boys were never expected to respect “girl stuff”

justsomeguycore

my science fair project in fifth grade was basically i had this printout of a bunch of toys that were stereotypically boy toys and girl toys, and i would have my classmates study the sheet for some short period of time, idr if it was like 30 seconds or a minute or whatever, then put it away and had them recall to me as many toys as they could remember. my hypothesis was officially that boys would remember more boy toys and girls would remember more girl toys, but secretly in my head i knew that girls would probably remember boy toys and girl toys relatively equally but boys would still remember mostly boy toys. and that ended up being the case. and i still remember this 20 years later because it hasn’t fucking stopped. and you know what they didn’t even like my project. participation ribbon. i was a fifth grade feminist theorist and no one cared

apoloadonisandnarcissus

I love being a wild card in this fandom.

What I love about Sauron/Mairon x Galadriel is that their dynamic isn’t some basic Light vs. Dark nonsense. Because this is Tolkien, not some Hollywood digested cr*p, as the professor says himself:

Some reviewers have called the whole thing simple-minded, just a plain fight between Good and Evil, with all the good just good, and the bad just bad. Pardonable, perhaps (though at least Boromir has been overlooked) in people in a hurry, and with only a fragment to read, and, of course, without the earlier written but unpublished Elvish histories. But the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasaunce, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' – and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret. Tolkien, Letter 154

This is what I've been telling you guys. The Elves are not hopeless victims of Sauron, nor are they the "heroes" of the story. Tolkien lore is complex, it's not "pure Good vs. pure Evil" like the "lorebros" or the Peter Jackson fanboys claim. Stop believing their nonsense, they don't know what they are talking about. The battle of “good vs. evil”, in Tolkien legendarium, ultimately, happens within each character.

When they first met, Mairon and Galadriel both turned their backs on literal heaven (Valinor) because of their pride: Galadriel wanted the glory of seeking and destroying Sauron for herself; Mairon couldn’t bring himself to face judgement from the Valar. Mairon was the repentant sinner, while Galadriel was on her way to become one.

Galadriel is a literal ticking bomb, ready to explode and turn Dark at any moment, in "Rings of Power". Mairon was drawn to the darkness within her, and not to her “light” (this is another way he self-deceives himself). Her “light” (= Two Trees of Valinor) is merely aesthetic. She doesn’t have that light, and that’s why she’ll use Nenya, and her Mirror and her Phial to harvest purest Light, and become the “Lady of Light”.

In “Rings of Power” there is a clue that Mairon might be blood bound to Morgoth, and, so, he’s always unconsciously seeking his former master, and that’s why he wanted to serve Galadriel. Because he's a Maia, he was created to be a servant to a Vala. The deal, wasn't her becoming his servant, but the other way around.

And we are talking about Sauron, here: his whole character arc is not one of redemption, so he the interest he believes he has on "Light" is not real, it's one of his self-deceptions. And for Sauron to never stop grouping Galadriel’s mind, thousands of years into the future, when he’s already officially the “shadow of Morgoth” it’s because he recognizes her potential for darkness, not her light.

This doesn’t mean that he’s unredeemable, mind you. Tolkien’s work is infused with Christian doctrine (mainly Catholicism), and in this religion one can always find redemption and forgiveness if one actually repents for their sins, and makes amends for them (which will be Galadriel's case). And this is also present in Tolkien lore: no character is unredeemable on his world. But in the legendarium, after refusing to stand trial before the Valar, Sauron never truly repents, and becomes the "a reincarnation of Evil" aka Morgoth come again.

And there is Sauron. In the Silmarillion and Tales of the First Age Sauron was a being of Valinor perverted to the service of the Enemy and becoming his chief captain and servant. He repents in fear when the First Enemy is utterly defeated, but in the end does not do as was commanded, return to the judgement of the gods. He lingers in Middle-earth [Halbrand]. Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, neglected by the gods', he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power – and so consumed ever more fiercely with hate (especially of gods and Elves). All through the twilight of the Second Age the Shadow is growing in the East of Middle-earth, spreading its sway more and more over Men – who multiply as the Elves begin to fade. Tolkien Letter 131

Sauron was of course not 'evil' in origin. He was a 'spirit' corrupted by the Prime Dark Lord (the Prime sub-creative Rebel) Morgoth. He was given an opportunity of repentance, when Morgoth was overcome, but could not face the humiliation of recantation, and suing for pardon; and so his temporary turn to good and 'benevolence' ended in a greater relapse, until he became the main representative of Evil of later ages. But at the beginning of the Second Age he was still beautiful to look at, or could still assume a beautiful visible shape – and was not indeed wholly evil, not unless all 'reformers' who want to hurry up with 'reconstruction' and 'reorganization' are wholly evil, even before pride and the lust to exert their will eat them up. The particular branch of the High-Elves concerned, the Noldor or Loremasters, were always on the side of 'science and technology', as we should call it: they wanted to have the knowledge that Sauron genuinely had, and those of Eregion refused the warnings of Gil-galad and Elrond. Tolkien Letter 153

Halbrand was repentant Mairon. Annatar is Mairon falling back into evil.

Galadriel is not yet the “repentant sinner” Tolkien described her to be, in his legendarium, either. In Season 2, she doesn’t own up to her actions, and is still making excuses for them: “I was deceived”; “Sauron used me”; “Under his harp I was played to a melody not of my choosing”, bla bla bla.

She’s still in self-denial about her actions in Season 1: she’s the one who tempted Mairon with promises of power and, pretty much directly, caused him to choose deception over redemption, and condemned Middle-earth to Sauron’s tyranny (this is also somewhat compatible to what Tolkien wrote, because in the lore the Elves are also to blame).

And I’m almost certain she’ll have to f*ck up even harder in order to have a “eye opening” moment. Because one can’t really be a “penitent” (using Tolkien’s words) unless one takes ownership of one's actions, and makes the conscious decision to atone for them.

Came to check on your art, but your blog... so nakey......

I know…. I’ve been meaning to make tumblr my platform…. but I used this blog for other things for so long I should probably just make another

mushroomates

the fellowship at fancy restaurants:

aragorn: literally would not care if he ate gas station sushi at a truckstop, does not see the appeal of fancy but appreciates the atmosphere. likes taking arwen out for fancy food, great at scouting out the genuinely good places, not just the expensive ones.

boromir: will fight you over paying the check. his current move is pretend to go to the bathroom, stop by the concierge’s desk and drop off his credit card there. always gets some sort of steak.

merry: deceptively well mannered. is polite and well spoken. offers to foot the bill (rich parents) but it’s an empty gesture cuz my man doesn’t carry a wallet on him 90% of the time.

pippin: gets like 80 appetizers and dessert. eats a little off of everyone’s plate. likes to order of the “secret menu” and enjoys french fries at every fine dining establishment regardless if they are offered to begin with.

frodo: very polite, has a hard time deciding what he wants. ends up getting several things and either sharing it with sam or giving the rest of it to pippin. all hobbits are incapable of bringing home leftovers.

sam: makes frodo order for him cuz he’s worried he will mess up the fancy names. fuckin loves him some fancy potatoes. takes a pic of the menu and tries to re-create it at home, 9/10 times it’s better than what the restaurant has.

legolas: eats the garnish. orders fancy cocktails and then will lick the salt rim off, eat the lemon, or the entire whole cherry, stem and all. likes to get pretty salads and sometimes will requests dressing on the side but not even use the dressing.

gimli: fantastic tipper. will fight with boromir about who pays the bill. has great table manners. will ask staff for recommendations and just order what they tell him to. not a picky eater, even if he hates it he will finish it all.

gandalf: shows up an hour, hour and a half, late. asks for servers to “surprise him” pays in cash, leaves whatever number feels right of hundreds on the table and heads out before the bill comes. he has been known to both dine and dash as well as tip 80%.

atlas-coolbean

GET. AI. OUT. OF. FANDOM. Stop making headcanons with it, stop making fanfic with it, stop making fanart with it. If I see one more "asking chatgpt *blank* about *character/characters in a fandom* I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. Use your own fucking brain, stop asking AI to do everything. You could even ask other real people what they think. Just. Stop. Using. AI. In. Creative. Spaces.