[ a light in the dark ]

Made some Gandalf big naturals art :)

[ID: art of Gandalf in his LOTR outfit, but in muted trans flag colors and with the neckline lowered to show his cleavage. He is holding up a large sign that says “It does not matter whether you pass or not.” /End ID]

Coolest thing about lord of the rings? The king of horses shows up. It appears he is no different from all other horses

King of the eagles shows up later. He can talk. Horse king couldn't talk.

He didn't want to talk to you.

Uh.

Point of order.

King of Horses ran 450 fucking miles at almost entirely a gallop, without more than a few minutes rest, in 4 nights and basically was like "wait why are we stopping?" when Gandalf took him into the city and he ended up in a stable.

This was not his top speed, nor did it push any limits on his endurance.

King of horses is very different from other horses, actually.

He just doesn’t do much about his administrative duties

But he didn't need to - his rule was stable, after all.

Omg @darkwizardtheorist look it’s us

🤣 it was a pleasure being immortalized in a post with you. 😁

Thinking of the larger context of LOTR and like, the fellowship swapping old war stories and shit and Sam just says “Yeah I killed a huge spider…Shelob, I think?”

And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”

“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”

Gandalf elects not to tell Sam that he killed the spawn of a primordial demon.

the daughter of the embodiment of darkness which ate the original sun and moon and almost ate the devil.

That's not important. What is important is that it was a danger to Mister Frodo.

Time for me to info dump about Sam and Shelob.

In lord of the rings lore, there are three tiers of deities. The highest tier and most dangerous includes Morgoth - Sauron’s master, and Ungoliant, Shelob’s master. The middle tier includes Shelob, Sauron. Then there’s the lowest tier, which includes the wizards Gandalf and Saruman as well as the Balrog (this is why Gandalf couldn’t 1v1 the Balrog). It also explains why Gandalf doesn’t take the ring, the magic of a tier 2 deity would absolutely corrupt him. We even see that happen with Saruman and the Palantir.

This leads to the start of the answer to some interesting questions. Why does Sauron tolerate Shelob being in his territory, and why does Sauron tolerate there being a secret back door into Mordor?

On the surface, he does it because he might not be able to beat Shelob in a fight, after all they’re the same tier of deity. And since Shelob’s domain is the secret way into Mordor, he can’t close it off, and he seriously doubts anyone can use it to get in. He doesn’t monitor the path with guards either - Shelob would eat them.

It gets more detailed than that though. Sauron’s boss, Morgoth, and Shelob’s boss, Ungoliant, made a deal. They’d attack the tree of life together. Morgoth would drink the nectar, and Ungoliant would keep all of the jewels and magic they earned along the way. Morgoth broke this deal because there was a particularly powerful gem he wanted (the gem in Sauron’s helmet), and as a result Ungoliant went to war with Morgoth.

Ungoliant won, Morgoth barely escaped with his life.

So not only does Sauron maybe lose if he attacks Shelob. Even if he were to win, it might provoke Ungoliant into attacking Morgoth again, and Ungoliant wins that fight, she’s already done it once.

With all of that established, how the hell does Sam hurt a deity that powerful?

Well, to start, it’s impossible. Shelob’s hide is so tough Sam could never pierce it with all his might. However, Shelob had grown old and arrogant. During the fight, Sam winds up directly underneath Shelob, and Shelob decides to crush Sam with all her strength.

Unfortunately, Sam is pointing sting straight up.

While Sam lacks the strength to hurt Shelob, Shelob herself is plenty strong. She accidentally impales herself on sting, finding herself injured for the first time in thousands of years. Which is the sort of poetry I really appreciate about Tolkien’s writing.

No matter how powerful or evil or ancient or indestructible your foe, if you stand for what is right and hold your sword out, they will impale themselves upon it.

Sam’s backstory in this scene is much simpler. He has to save Frodo.

I love it when tolkien fans reblog posts with the deep lore receipts. Thank you

Tolkien is 1000% done.

Out of all of Tolkien’s descriptions of Smaug… this one is probably my favorite.

The Shire ♡

this is so fucking funny

Its Hobbit Day! So I decided to draw Gandalf because that makes sense.

Susy B. Anderson. 2020

i love how Gandalf invested in Hobbits in year one and has been pushing them ever since. Thorin, i hear you need help with a breaking and entering. Can I recommend one of these little cunts? Silent as fuck, trust me. Elrond my dude i know you're skeptical but these four chucklefucks just transported a weapon of mass destruction all the way here. Theoden, you've gotta get yourself a hobbit man, I've got a spare one here. Denathor you big prick, take a hobbit - literally this is the bottom of the range but listen to him sing. Beautiful little bastard.

The full set of all of my LOTR pieces! they are currently available at Gallery Nucleus!

put those awesome boobs away dude now isn't the time

Viggo Mortenson does not get enough credit for delivering lines like "not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall" with a complete sincerity and gravitas

The whole lotr trilogy works because every single person on set and behind the scenes treated it seriously and with gravitas. It was completely earnest and I don't know if anyone making movies today has that in them anymore.

one of my favorite parts of the director's commentary is Jackson talking about Sam's "that there is some good in this world" speech. he talks about how when they were writing it, it was like "is this too much? is this too sentimental? are people going to be cringing in the theater?" but at the same time, it was necessary to keep the audience emotionally invested bc TTT was ending on such a dark note. and he knew, KNEW, it was all going to come down to Sean Astin's delivery; there was no wiggle room, he had to nail it. and then, of course, he did.

Tonight, we remember one who lent his enormous talent to telling the story we have all come to love. Hail, the victorious dead!

May the Simbelmynë cover his tomb as it did the tomb of the one he so accurately portrayed.

Bernard Hill Dec 17, 1944 - May 5, 2024

No one show marcille the lord of the rings okay. She wouldn't fucking survive it without being so Aragorn x arwen pilled shed go crazy