#frodo gamgee

[where-our-stories-start]

Well, I'm back.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Unimpressed.

[riotarttherite]

Other minor “family trees” hobbit characters, Sam and Rosie’s children ✌️

Diamond of Long Cleeve and Estella Bolger

commissions | ko-fi

[frodo-with-glasses]

Don’t you hate it when your little siblings go and get tall without your permission?

[frodo-with-glasses]

Tiny hobbit boi, lorge dwarf axe.

[frodo-with-glasses]

More Reading Thoughts: The Epilogue, Version One

The long-awaited sequel!! I’m reading the Epilogue as it appears in “The End of the Third Age”, from The History of The Lord of the Rings as compiled by Christopher Tolkien.

Tagging @lady-merian because she’s been asking for this for a LONG time 🤣

Manuscript A

It’s interesting that “well, I’m back” wasn’t originally supposed to be the end of the story. It’s become something iconic now—the perfect, hauntingly understated ending, harkening back to “there and back again”—but the only reason it seems so abrupt is because Tolkien actually meant to write on.

I like both, honestly. This Epilogue has so much good stuff in it, but it would make an already slow book even slower; “well I’m back” is lovely for what it is. ^-^

“Elanor 15, Frodo 13, Rose 11, Merry 9, Pippin 7.” Just looking at their names and the list of ages gets me in the heart. Argh, I love these kids ;u;

Sam resting by the fire in this study! And he’s surrounded by his kids! And they’re listening to him read the Red Book!! AAAHHHHHH

“…And there was Frodo-lad on the heathrug, in spite of his name as good a copy of Sam as you could wish…” D’aww 8-D Named Frodo, looks like Sam. That’s adorable.

AND THERE’S GOLDILOCKS AND HAM AND BABY DAISIE AND—

*strangled screech*

SAM. CALLS ELANOR. ELLIE.

I’M GONNA HECKIN’ CRY

Confirmed that Merry and Pippin traveled to Gondor and Rohan multiple times in their lives! That’s wonderful!

And now: the Gamgee children being carbon copies of their namesakes begins.

Merry Jr. is inordinately proud of Merry Sr. and wants to grow tall like him.

Pippin Jr. is likewise inordinately proud of Pippin Sr. and insists that Merry isn’t the tallest anyway.

“Is he Prince Peregrin away down in the Stone City, dad?” Oh my word.

First of all: the fact that this little hobbit lad knows Minas Tirith familiarly enough to call it the Stone City.

Secondly: I mean they did call him a prince of the halflings at first—

Frodo Jr. wants to hear about the spider again because he likes the parts where his dad comes in ;u;

And Elanor wants to know about the flower she’s named after!

Elanor: I want to go see my flower! Sam: There’s a prettier one if you look in a mirror. Elanor: Daaaad…

Rose Jr. is worried about the elves going away TT-TT

Sam is secretly very proud of the Mallorn tree in the Party Field LOL

Legolas lives in Ithilien! And Pippin says they’ve made it very lovely, which means he’s seen it! WHICH MEANS PIPPIN GOT TO HANG OUT WITH LEGOLAS AND FARAMIR AND BEREGOND AND BERGIL AGAIN—

Frodo Jr. loves Gimli and wants an axe LOL

Gimli and his dwarves helped to rebuild Minas Tirith! And now they live in the mountains behind it!! And he goes to visit the Glittering Caves every two years! Tolkien thought of EVERYTHING

And nobody knows if anyone’s seen Treebeard lol

ROSE JR. LOOKS FOR THE ENTWIVES WHEN SHE GOES WALKING IN THE WOODS I’M GONNA CRY

Haha Sam shuts down the “its not fair”s so fast, he’s such a dad 🤣

‘Don’t talk like that to me,’ said Sam sternly. ‘If it ain’t fair for Ellie and Fro to sit up after supper it ain’t fair for them to be born sooner, and it ain’t fair that I’m your dad and you’re not mine.’

My dad made up an “it’s not fair” song when I was a kid and this is reminding me of that for the first time in over a DECADE

Le gasp! Sam has a SecretTM!

“A dead hush of expectancy fell on all the children: they watched him as hobbit-children of other times had watched the wizard Gandalf.” Hello yes I will cry

THE KING IS COMING HERE

I love that Aragorn himself won’t enter the Shire according to his own decree

But he has sent! A Fancy ScrollTM!

“Elessar Aragorn Arathornsson the Elfstone King of Gondor and of the Westlands…” Local man has too many names, authorities report

And now Tolkien gives elvish names to all Sam’s kids. Nerd.

“‘Samwise or Halfwise who should rather be called Plainwise.’ So now you know what the King thinks of your dad you’ll maybe give more heed to what he says.” LOL SAM COULD YOU GET ANY MORE DADLY

All Frodo Jr. takes away from this is “MUST INTERROGATE FATHER”

And they’re gonna stay with the King and Queen at the house on the Lake for a few weeks!! HOW EXCITING

Tbh I like the first version of Sam’s conversation with Rosie better. (The one marked with footnote #6, if you have the book.) It gives more character to Rosie, which is in short supply; and I like the idea of her almost prophetically starting to sing on the day Sam is about to return. Something very Elvish and Tolkien about that.

And Sam tells us he is all whole and healed so as to preemptively shut down the angst writers. (But we will survive muahaha >:-D)

“The went in and shut the door. But even as he did so Sam heard suddenly the sigh and murmur of the sea on the shores of Middle-earth.” OHOHOHO NONONO DON’T DO THIS TO ME

Manuscripts B and C

WAIT—in one version of Appendix A Gimli became LORD OF THE GLITTERING CAVES?? HELLO??

EDIT: I have been informed that Gimli being Lord of the Glittering Caves did, in fact, make it into the final version of the book, and I just didn’t pay enough attention LOL

Also “Master Samwise who should be called Fullwise”

“I think maybe the Entwives don’t want to be found” *EYES EMOJI*

Merry Jr. asks too many questions about horses! Carbon copies, I tell ya!

The amount of times Tolkien changed the beginning of Aragorn’s letter to include different names and titles is killing me 🤣🤣

[frodo-with-glasses]

Discord Highlights: Hobbit Babies

This discussion got very chaotic very quickly lol but I've done my best to sort it all by category. Enjoy!

Topic One: Sam's Kids

InvisibleWashboard:

If I’m allowing myself the privilege of indulging in AU where Frodo doesn’t leave, I often imagine Elanor calls him [Fro]. But she is the only one who is allowed to.

meg is me:

"Fwo" Frodo, lifting a cup in his hand: "throw?" "No! Fwo!"

novelmonger:

I've been imagining Elanor calling him "Unca Fodo."

And then there's "Unca Mewwy" and "Pip-Pip." (Pippin tries to get her to call him Uncle too, but it doesn't work. He's not Unc-y enough 😂)

InvisibleWashboard:

Stop it I’m dying from cuteness.

meg is me:

Can you imagine when elanor was born and sam was like all tender and amazed and he was like "lets call him frodo" and rosie was like. She's a girl, Sam And Sam was like..... so excited to name his son frodo that he forgot it might not be a son XD

Me:

I love that he canonically didn’t even consider that she MIGHT be a girl until she came out as one 🤣🤣 “We were all set to name him Frodo! But, well, ah. He’s a she. :-C”

meg is me:

I love sam Bless sam

I desperately hope that Sam's son Bilbo was 10x worthy of the name 😂

Me:

Bilbo Gamgee was an utter gremlin

Writing Valkyrie:

He just recites poetry to get out of punishment. Sometimes it works.

meg is me:

"First he's robbing the pantry. Next he'll be robbing dragons- THAT'S MY WEDDING RING"

Me:

Bilbo Jr. tells his friends about how he, too, won his ring in a game of wits against a nasty, ugly creature while Sam is over there waiting for him to give his wedding band back like >:-C

meg is me:

Better yet His older siblings And they half believe him because quote "Daddy is rather ugly" and Elanor gets SO offended on dear old Sam's behalf

Elanor could be overheard hugging her dad and saying "don't worry you're very handsome" Sam just laughs

Me:

“Well your mother thinks I’m handsome, and that’s all that matters ;-)” Cue the chorus of “EWWW”

Windmill to the Stars:

100% something my dad would say XD

meg is me:

It's split between ewwww and awwww Bby frodo ships his dad and mom so hard and is ecstatic to learn that they have in fact gotten married to each other

Me:

“So you’ll be together?? FOREVER??” “Indeed we will, lad!” “8-D”

Frodo Jr. ships his mom and dad almost as hard as his namesake did

InvisibleWashboard:

So Frodo-lad is not the little boy who is disappointed when he learns he can’t marry Rosie when he grows up, but was baby Elanor initially devastated when Rosie had to tell her, “You can’t marry Sam-dad love, he’s already married to me.”??

Me:

Oh my word I love that ahaha Elanor is 100% a daddy's girl

Windmill to the Stars:

In the epilogue she calls him "Sam-dad"

InvisibleWashboard:

Sam-dad and Rose-mum just absolutely freaking melts my heart every time I think about it. I don’t know why.

meg is me:

He loves his family so so much

Me:

See I know it says in the epilogue that Frodo Jr. is the spitting image of Sam, but part of me can’t help imagining that he looks like Elijah Wood’s Frodo… Brown curly hair and all that

meg is me:

Speaking of facts disproved by the appendices but true in my bones Merry and Pippin Gamgee are twins

Me:

oh my word I love that

InvisibleWashboard:

I like that this is true in your bones and not in your heart. Because the heart is fickle and can be changed by things like canon. Bones are more stubborn. Sometimes not even canon can break them.

meg is me:

I adore that they aren't named Meriadoc and Peregrin but rather Merry and Pippin Sam took his dad's advice to heart- if you give them a short name you don't need to worry about nicknames Guess old Gaffer learned from needing to shorten his son's names to Ham, Sam, etc

Me:

“I’m not giving my boys those fru-fru gentlehobbit names, they’ll have short names like sensible folk”

meg is me:

Pippin casually mentions to Sam if it's a boy maybe we'll name him Aragorn Strider Elessar, Gorn for short And sam is an inch away from taking custody of Pippin's unborn child

Me:

HAHAHA PIPPIN NO

Topic Two: Merry's Kids

InvisibleWashboard:

I head canon Merry being that way with his kids only he desperately wants a girl so he can name her Eowyn.

meg is me:

Merry has Boromir, Eomer, and like 3 other sons before baby Eowyn comes into the world

Me:

Would Merry even feel worthy of naming a son Theoden?? I feel like he’d want to, but…

meg is me:

Ok but bby Theo With his little curls

InvisibleWashboard:

Theodoc.

meg is me:

Theodocuments

Me:

THEODOC I LOVE IT NO LISTEN I AM 100% ADOPTING THEODOC INTO MY BELIEF SYSTEM ‘CAUSE IT JUST F I T S

Windmill to the Stars:

Part of me wants Merry to half-jokingly ship his daughter Eowyn with Faramir Took. Partially just so he and Pip can share grandkids

Me:

There’s no canon evidence that to disprove that some OTHER pair of their children ended up getting married! X-D

Topic Three: Pippin's Kids

meg is me:

I wrote a fic where Pip had a daughter named Sable because my best friend at the time was named Sable and the only place the word sable was found in lotr was in regards to Pip's tower guard uniform

Me:

That's so sweet oh my word

meg is me:

Pippin in many ways will never mature and I love him for it I'm still stuck on him and diamond naming their kids the most obscure things after Merry stole all the Friend Names besides Faramir The tooks already sound Outlandish

Pippin and diamond would be that couple who wants to choose Unique baby names but their friends keep reining them in "Let's name him TREEBEARD" "hmm and Enta for a girl" Sam: do you HEAR YOURSELVES

Windmill to the Stars:

What nickname would Pippin give to his son Faramir?

Kasey Gondor:

Furry

Me:

Progressively shortened more and more until it’s just “Ra”

InvisibleWashboard:

Faramir refuses any and all nicknames anyone attempts to give him ever.

Windmill to the Stars:

Faramir is "Me, an Intellectual" from an early age XD

meg is me:

He started "courting" lil Goldilocks at age 7 and Sam wants to be mad but it reminds him so much of him and Rosie that he lets Faramir Took pick the flowers from his garden to give to his daughter

Goldilocks: daddy fair-meer picked MY flowers! 😄 Sam: ....we planted those together, sweetheart Sam: beyond pleased for you, lass

Me:

Sam sitting down with little Faramir Took and having a Very Serious Talk that if he intends to court sweet little Goldilocks he’ll have to be very kind and good and generous to her and always look out for her good above his own even if it’s hard and it hurts

Faramir was like 9, and all Sam was concerned about was Faramir pushing her and pulling her hair and stealing the berries out of her picnic basket, but it stuck

Years later, after the wedding, Faramir tells Sam that he’s never forgotten that talk and it absolutely changed his life and Sam is like “wot” cuz he’d forgotten all about it

InvisibleWashboard:

NO STOP IT THAT IS TOO CUTE

Windmill to the Stars (re: nicknames):

Ferry to rhyme with Merry, and lil Faramir HATES it

meg is me:

THIS IS CANON TO ME STARTING NOW

InvisibleWashboard:

That is so good I adore it!

meg is me:

Pippin: "hop in the cart fam we're going to Buckland" everyone looks at faramir Faramir: "don't" Pippin: "We're gonna go on the FERRY"

Me:

EYYYYYY

Merry, meanwhile, calls him Master Faramir, and this is why Merry is his favorite uncle

meg is me:

perfection

InvisibleWashboard is @invisiblewashboard, novelmonger is @novelmonger, Writing Valkyrie is @writingvalkyrie, Windmill to the Stars is @windmilltothestars, Kasey Gondor is @captaingondor, and meg is me does not have tumblr :-3

[frodo-with-glasses]

Discord Highlights: Headcanon Marathon

Meg suggested I write this all as a bullet point list instead of copying the chat this time; which is probably a good idea considering the workload here LOL

On the night of 5/4/23, we here at the Fig Tree Discord Server got together and headcanoned:

Primrose Gamgee is a redhead like her mother

Prim was born deaf

Prim and her brother Bilbo are thick as thieves

Signing doesn't come naturally to Bilbo, but he tries his hardest, and Prim understands him anyway

Goldilocks may or may not be named the way she is because Sam wanted to name a daughter Galadriel but Rosie wanted the hobbit version so they compromised

For the first like four years of her life Goldi thought she was named after a flower like her big sisters and was very confused why her parents laughed when she asked to plant goldilocks in the garden

Frodo later comforts her like "it's okay they can't plant Frodo either" and that got her giggling like crazy

She decides dandelions are goldilockses and is delighted when they show up in the yard

Sam is not

Actually Sam is just fine with this because hobbit lawns encourage natural biodiversity and also dandelions are good in salads

The Gamgee family is a big loud singing household

The Sound of Music, but it's Bag End

Fatty Bolger has three daughters and no other kids

One is Athelas, nicknamed Addie

Addie got sick when she was young and lost most of her hearing

Addie is best friends with Prim Gamgee

Addie and Prim hang out all the time and, in addition to being fluent in SSL (Shire Sign Language), they also constantly make up their own nonsense signs so that no one else can understand them

Another Bolger daughter is Azalea, nicknamed Azzie

Azzie and Addie are very close in age

(Not sure if we reached a consensus on who's older, but I feel like Azzie is older)

Azzie is a natural storyteller; she gets it from her dad

Since she tells her stories with both her voice and her hands it's somehow more spellbinding

She discovered puppet shows at the age of 3 and a half and was instantly hooked

When she's older, she makes her own puppets

Puts on puppet shows for her family

They don't have any talking, just Action, and Addie loves the action best

She used to put on shows for Baby Heather before she was ambulatory and got quite offended once Heather was old enough to crawl away

The youngest Bolger daughter is Heather

Heather is a good deal younger than her sisters and is spoiled rotten but she's the sweetest thing

Heather is constantly hungry and always eating, and yet she stays Very Short

She's perfectly healthy and round, just Smol

Mental image: Four girl hobbits (Prim, Addie, Azzie, and Heather) in a blanket tent, signing rapidly to each other, and no words can be heard but an unending stream of giggles

They're having a sleepover and Fatty has to keep coming in to tell them to be quiet. Heather and Azzie promise they'll hush, but Prim and Addie don't realize how loud they're being and it just sets the other two off all over again.

Azzie hears the story of Beren and Luthien from Prim's dad (very important he is, he's the mayor, you know!), and she sews her own puppets and puts on a show of it

The Beren puppet has a hand that's held on by a button

Once (don't ask me how) Aragorn and Arwen get to watch Azzie's Beren and Luthien show

They have nothing but positive reviews

(Even if Baby Heather tried to eat the wolf puppet halfway through)

Arwen is delighted and wants to help Azzie make some beautiful blinged out elvish puppets with gems sewn into them

Azzie never uses them but they are kept in a glass box and TreasuredTM

Fatty likes to wrestle with his friends' sons, since he has no boys of his own

Addie, however, is a tomboy and WILL go at it with her father if given the chance

Addie and Frodo Gamgee got in a fight once. For fun. She's four years younger than Frodo, and bby Frodo had to suffer a lecture from his no-nonsense dad, but Addie got off easy and Frodo still holds a bit of a grudge lol

He still thinks she's cool tho

(To which I suggested: "ship??" and got at least one eyes emoji, so there's that)

Prim is neither the best friend who's always talking Addie down, nor the best friend who's constantly hyping her up, but the best friend who hangs back like "I won't stop you but you should NOT"

Secretly Prim likes tending wounds

She has a makeshift vet office in the backyard

Bby Bilbo brings her his dragon (it's a lizard named Smaug)

(I suggested the lizard actually be a skink but the jury's still out on that one)

The Gamgees do not have pets, as a rule, but many animals and pet bugs are either smuggled or wander in

Rosie like "where's my best pot??" too bad now it's the home of Pippin's grasshopper

The Tooks, on the other hand, have lots of pets and very absurd ones too

Real conversation between Goldilocks and Rosie: "But Ma, why can't I play with the snake?" "Because it's poisonous. If it bites you, you will die." "But Faramir has a pet snake." "Faramir has a what now"

When they're older, Faramir and Goldie end up being that super weird couple with exotic pets and no kids for a very long time

"Ma when we get married we'll have snakes" "No Goldi" "Ma Faramir said so" "SAM call off the marriage" "They're seven, love—" "Call it off"

Mental Image: Estella is a fantastic baker. She's in the kitchen at Crickhollow or Brandyhall with a mess of little girls—her nieces and daughter(s)—all around her, talking and signing instructions, and no one is listening to her, and there's flour EVERYWHERE, and she's getting exasperated but simultaneously loving it

Elanor, being the oldest of a TON of younger cousins/relatives, is sort of the de facto leader on play dates

Get all the Gamgees, Brandybucks, Tooks, and Bolgers together, and Elanor can be seen holding a stick over her head like a general's baton and leading this veritable army of hobbit children down to the Party Field

Elanor was pretty uninterested in romance when she was young—too busy doing other things to get fussed about boys, and her standards were too high for most of them anyway—until one day she met Fastred and she came home and said, "Ma, I've found him", and whaddya know she had

(Still undecided whether they met because Elanor was in Greenholm for some reason or Fastred came to Hobbiton on business with his father, but either way Elanor and Fastred didn't meet until towards the end of their tweens)

When Sam tells stories he adjusts them for the ears of kids

Merry does not

Not even a little bit

(Unless Estella is nearby in which case he's gonna get an earful)

"Hey, kids, wanna hear about the time I killed a demon??"

Estella from the other room: "MERRY NO"

He's a bad judge of what's too scary for kids

He tells the story of their adventure with no filter at all

Sam tries to teach the kids lessons through the stories and that love conquers all

Pippin adds his own little bits and pieces every time he tells it until his version and the OG are nothing alike

At one point Legolas had wings (when Gandalf asked him to bring down the sun on Caradhras) and Gimli ate rocks

Gimli has actually eaten rocks

It was on a dare and he doesn't want anyone to know

Pippin had no idea; it was just a lucky guess

One time the kids asked Gimli if he actually ate rocks and he's just nervously sweating and wondering how the heck they know that

Pippin is shocked to find out he was actually right about this when he was just talking out his butt

(Legolas has also eaten rocks on a dare but we all knew that already)

The oldest kids get together sometimes—Elanor, Frodo, Boromir, and Faramir—to talk about their parents and try to understand what they went through

Faramir Took talks about how sometimes his father refuses that he get near any sort of fire

He'll be playing in his home by firelight while Pippin watches from the doorway, muttering to himself I'd never, I'd never, so fiercely that little Faramir looks up in innocent surprise and asks what he's talking about

And Pippin has to leave the room before he starts to cry

(Deep down, Pippin is sure Denethor loved his son too)

(And the Palantir haunts him to this day)

Boromir Brandybuck confesses that he's heard his dad cry out in his sleep some nights and he's scared to ask his parents about it

Boromir: "My father is a Knight of Rohan and Master of Buckland, a brave Traveller. He's never afraid." Elanor: "...He might be." Boromir: "No."

Merry's laughing in the face of fear mentality has an unintended effect on Boromir in particular. He wants to be his father; he wants to be fearless; Dad makes it look so easy!

Estella overhears once and has to explain the difference between fear and cowardice

The first time young Faramir goes to Gondor with this family, and poor little Goldi doesn't go, Rosie is struck with the sense of waiting her baby must be feeling

"He's my best friend ma" "I know, love" "It's far"

Rosie thinks, well, at least Goldi knows where he's going and when he's coming home again

When Theodoc's AccidentTM happened—the one that broke his feet and crippled him—the doctors were all telling Merry that Theodoc will live. All the pony did when it fell on him was crush his legs.

But Merry thinks they're lying. No, he is SURE that they are lying, because that's just how Theoden died. Crushed beneath his horse. They were both destined to die this way.

He cursed his son the moment he decided to honor the king who was like a father to him.

There he is, having a panic attack right there while the doctor is in with Theo, like "I killed him, I killed him, I killed my son—"

(And Pippin is the one who comforts him; Pippin, the one who has nightmares sometimes about burning with his Faramir)

The Travellers all talk about Gandalf differently

Sam waxes eloquent about his fireworks

That's all he talks about

Pippin laughingly and affectionately exaggerates how cranky Gandalf always was

"Once I rode on a horse with him" "Ooooooo"

"Didn't he call you a fool of a Took?" "NO that is what he called Merry but he is always caught up in his wizardry that he sometimes forgets that Merry unfortunately isn't a Took"

(Cue the distant, insulted Brandybuck noises)

Merry is the only reliable source of information, but only if you catch him in the right mood; otherwise he'll only mention the smoke rings Gandalf would blow

Merry has a killer Gandalf impression. Chomping on the pipe and everything

Bby Bilbo gets all his Gandalf info from Merry and Sam is Very Offended

(However, Sam owns Bilbo Sr.'s book, so that earns Bilbo Jr.'s trust back)

Frodo has had it up to HERE with fireworks, so he flees with his little brother to listen to Uncle Merry

They ask about Gandalf, and Uncle Merry goes "ah yes, brilliant fellow, a real grump. gorgeous fireworks—" and Frodo about tears his own hair out

(Merry is doing this on purpose. He knows how Sam gets about the darn fireworks.)

Frodo: "We have one last option. We have to go to Uncle Pippin."

Bilbo: "Do you trust everything he says? He once said that Mr. Legolas had wings."

Bilbo: "Mr. Legolas doesn't have wings."

Frodo: "How do you know that?"

Bilbo: "I don't want to talk about it"

(Legolas loves being called Mr. Legolas, but only by little hobbits)

And then there's the one about the lullaby Sam uses for his kids, but I'm saving that for a future fanfic ;-)

CURRENT ROLL CALL

Brandybuck Kids: Theodoc (Theo/Trotter), Periadoc (Perry), Eomer (Merry?), Juniper, Madoc, Boromir (Rory), Eowyn (Wyn)

Took Kids: Faramir (Ferry), Simbelmyne (Minnie), Beregond (Berry), Sable

Bolger Kids: Athelas (Addie), Azalea (Azzie), Heather

General credits to @invisiblewashboard, @writingvalkyrie, @grondds-and-roses, and the illustrious Meg, you absolute madlasses X'-D