I love found family as much as the next girl but the fact that Bilbo goes home at the end of the Hobbit is so fucking funny to me. “Yes, we had a life changing experience together and I’ve saved all your lives. What of it? I miss my arm chair. Good morning.” ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS.

#relatable

Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

~*~earlier~*~

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Frodo: Merry. You’re absolutely right. I’ll wait.

#legolas’ hick accent vs #frodo’s ‘i learned it out of a book’ accent #FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Frodo: :)

Frodo: Hello. My name is Frodo. I am a Hobbit. How are you?

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo, crying: please I can’t understand what you’r saying

Ok, but Frodo didn’t just learn out of a book. He learned like… Chaucerian Elvish. So actually:

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

Aragorn: *laughing too hard to walk*

@ghostriderofthearagon

dYinGggGggg…

i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.

to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!

Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.

Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*

Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y'all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.

Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man

Boromir, from beyond the grave: j e s u s

Tolkien would be SO PROUD of this post

It got better

galadriel narrating the beginning of fellowship

why is it not common knowledge that tolkien and c s lewis once went to a non-costume party dressed as polar bears

tolkien also used to chase his neighbours down the street in full viking warrior gear, and once convinced a class he taught that leprechauns are real

IS THIS TRUE BECAUSE THIS IS GOLD. PURE GOLD

Both facts well documented.  From this bio, for instance:

Just imagine them doing vines.

guys, we need to talk about eowyn

So I get really narky when people pull the whole ‘oh Eowyn’s storyline came to such a sucky ending; she was really cool going around killing orcs and Witch-Kings and then she got shoved into a traditional girly role by marrying Faramir and becoming a healer’ thing, because no. No-no-no-no-no. Not only does that stray dangerously into the territory of ‘women only have worth if they’re doing traditionally blokey things’, but that misses almost the entire point of Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien was in the trenches in the first world war, right? He got all that ‘for death and glory’ shit shoved down his throat, that was the whole point about the war, it was when so many people came to see how awful and misleading all the propaganda about winning glory through violence and death was. And Tolkien’s work completely shows that: it’s why the hobbits, who’ve never craved power or battle the way men do, are the heroes of the book; it’s why strong men like Aragorn and Faramir are shown to be lovers of peace rather than war. It’s why the quote - but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory; I love only that which they defend – is so poignant and beautiful, when seen in the context of all Tolkien had gone through. He’d seen all but one of his closest friends die in an utterly pointless war; the prevalent message in his books is ‘if you’re going to have that many people die, let it be for something worth dying for.’ (Like defending your home from the lord of all darkness, for example.)

And Eowyn might be a fantastic female character, but she’s also got so much development to go through, and she’s by no means perfect. I find it really interesting that when Eowyn talks to Aragorn about wanting to go off and fight she never really actually mentions protecting her people, but speaks about wanting to ‘face peril and battle’, and to do ‘great deeds’. And it’s not that Eowyn doesn’t want to protect her people, because of course she does, but she’s also got such a driving motivation within her to do glorious and fell deeds simply for the sake of valour and renown. It’s one of her defining features, having an attitude that got so many young men killed in the war and which, obviously, Tolkien would have been very wary of.

(Also, I think, there’s so much in Eowyn that wants to prove herself to be more than ‘a mere woman’; because twice in that conversation she asserts that she’s no mere ‘dry-nurse’ or ‘serving-woman’, but a member of the house of Eorl and therefore capable of greater things. There’s almost this slight sense of Eowyn considering herself more than ‘just’ a domesticated woman that I sometimes get from her in the books? Which is very sad - the idea of Eowyn having less regard for others of her sex who do mind the house or raise the children - and why I so love that ‘I am no man’ moment in RotK. Eowyn’s no longer hiding herself, or dismissing fellow women as the weaker sex, but acknowledging and embracing the fact that women in all their forms can fuck you up.)

And then we reach the Houses of Healing, and Eowyn yearning for death in battle just like her Uncle Theoden, and basically buying into that whole world war one ethos that Tolkien would have considered so poisonous. Which is why her friendship and courtship with Faramir is so fricking beautiful. Remember that quote I wrote earlier? That’s from Faramir. He’s not backing down from conflict, he’s in no way less of a ‘real man’ than anyone else; he’s just saying there needs to be more to the fight than simply having a fight. There needs to be a reason; something worth fighting for. Eowyn recognises that Faramir is a good man in every sense of the word: he’s strong and valiant, but he doesn’t fight simply to prove himself or for the sake of winning glory, he fights for other people. And Faramir gently challenges Eowyn on her idolisation of battle-glory and encourages her not to scorn gentleness or peace, and he’s so freaking good for her.

(Seriously. Can we just stop for a moment and think about how wonderful Eowyn and Faramir are for each other: Faramir encouraging Eowyn to turn towards life and healing and openness while never denying her strength or courage, and Eowyn giving Faramir the validation and security he never got after so many years of an awful relationship with his father? I honestly don’t know why I don’t get all giddy about these two more often, because they make the very best otp.)

And the result of the departure of the Shadow and her friendship with Faramir is Eowyn’s decision that ‘I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’

I think that last bit is so important because I’m certain that Tolkien doesn’t mean for Eowyn to immediately pack up her sword and shield and become a good girl sitting at home with her knitting and waiting for the men to return home after the fight – after all, she’s going to be the wife of the Steward of Gondor and there’s a lot of mess to clean up after the War of the Ring. Eowyn’s probably still going to find herself defending hearth and home from time to time. But the important thing is that she’s no longer defining herself simply by the doing of valiant deeds; she’ll no longer compare herself to the great warriors of her house and feel lacking simply because she hasn’t killed as many men. Most importantly, she’s not going to take joy only in the songs of the slaying, in destruction and death. Tolkien was all about healers symbolising life and rebirth, and Eowyn’s decision to become one – to aid in the preservation of life rather than the taking of it – is so beautiful. I don’t think Tolkien ever wrote Eowyn’s ending to make her reclaim her ‘lost femininity’; I think it’s a lovely way of adding to the ever-present theme in Lord of the Rings of hope and frailty and healing and friendship over glory and battle and strife.

Yes.

Also, the other really fucking significant healer in the text is Aragorn. He acknowledges his claim to kingship of Gondor not through the sword but by healing the wounds that the Enemy has inflicted – “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.”

So much of what Eowyn does is motivated by her heatwrenchingly awful and unhealthy love for Aragorn. She puts all of her hope in him – and he can’t reciprocate. So she follows him out of a black despair at her perceived loss and a desire to make something of herself through the only avenue she thinks that she has open to her. She’s fighting for Middle Earth because she loves Theoden, because she loves her brother and because she loves Aragorn, but not because she loves herself. She is valiant and brave and she fucking kills a goddamn Nazgul. It’s amazing, but it breaks her because she doesn’t even get the death she was chasing.

Aragorn heals her from her wounds, but it is Faramir who heals her despair. This healing doesn’t just give her a second prize husband; Faramir is better for her, understands her and welcomes her. And with a healthy love in her life, she understands the core of the King. She is able to love Aragorn in a way that Aragorn can return. At the end of Return of the King, Eowyn takes up Aragorn’s standard again, and follows him into battle against death and decay. She does for Ithilien what Sam did for the Shire. That is motherfucking triumphant.

I love Eowyn so much. She got a happy ending, and she had to fight tooth and goddamn claw for it and I will fight you if you want to take it away from her.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

The original first page of The Lord of the Rings.

Not all those who wander are lost

J.R.R. Tolkien  (via mirroir)

J. R. R. Tolkien (via anenlighteningellipses)

in our hearts…

I'm a day late, but ahhh the sentiment's still there

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit