Khan to Elessar

LOTRWEEK 2024 Day 4 — Gifts, Burdens and Choices

MODERN LOTR | SAM

TOLKIEN WEEK Day 2 - favorite hero

TOLKIEN WEEK Day 2 - favorite hero

20 YEARS OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (18 DEC 2002)

I wonder if we’ll ever be put into songs or tales?

Between the Arkenstone, the One Ring, and that cache of magic swords Bilbo uncovered during Thorin and company’s confrontation with the trolls that just happened to be the former property of the High King of the Noldor, Bilbo and Gandalf’s relationship is just a constant process of Bilbo showing up with some random artifact of world-changing significance and Gandalf sagely stroking his beard and making a pithy remark while internally screaming “WHERE DO YOU KEEP FINDING THESE THINGS”.

Alternately, this is why Gandalf always brings/sends hobbits on adventures. Because if you take a hobbit out of their nice safe holding-pen in the Shire, it will take them approximately ten minutes to stumble across whatever item of world-shaking importance is currently knocking around the vicinity. You take a hobbit out and set them loose and they will find ancient weapons of a godly age, ancient beings that pre-date the world, the one treasure in the middle of a hoard of treasure that you actually need, the single most deadly magic item in the world in the middle of a river, the same magic item in the middle of a cave centuries later, the local magic rock with a direct link to the current villain’s mind (which, in this case, was not necessarily a blessing, Pippin) …

If you put a hobbit down, basically, and there is an item of plot importance within a fifty mile radius, they will put their hand down and pick it up. Guaranteed. (Again, as with Pippin and the Palantir, this is not necessarily a good thing, but at least you’ll know where shit is)

The other reason he always brings/sends hobbits on adventures is that they will also kickstart world-shaking actions if left unattended for more than five minutes. See also: Merry and Pippin toppling Isengard the minute they were left alone near people they could trick into war-slash-mischief. See also: Bilbo giving Bard and Thranduil the Arkenstone in an attempt to negotiate because the dwarves left him unsupervised and somebody needed to at least try and keep the peace. See also: Pippin suborning a Gondorian guard into outright treason in the place of the dead to save Faramir and the Gondorian Stewardship from Denethor’s madness. See also: Frodo, Sam and Gollum royally mucking up Sauron’s everything while entirely alone and unsupervised under his very nose.

Like, it’s a gamble. Taking hobbits out into the wider world and letting them loose unsupervised is not an action for the risk-adverse or the faint of heart. But if you want results in a relatively short time-frame, by the Valar it’s effective.

See also Bandobras “Bullroarer” Took who defeated the Goblins at the Battle of Greenfields and invented Golf at the same time.

MODERN LOTR | SAM

we make fun of thorin getting lost in the shire but you know the nazgul also had to keep asking for directions to find bag end so maybe hobbits’ city planning is just wack

The Hobbits have spent generations making their roads complex af to keep Gandalf out

Theory accepted 

#which is why they’re always so sulky whenever he shows up………….#oh………….you found ur way back………………how nice…………….. (via @thisbrilliantsky)

Which is also why Gandalf is always late

but of course this is the absolute Least successful way to keep GANDALF of all people out, because-

which is really in short supply lately.

so while the hobbits think they are being hostile. what they are actually saying in Gandalf-speak is “please come back. we love you.”

Gandalf needs environmental enrichment

The best pipe weed in middle earth is at the end of the maze, he also has a reward for completing it.

Add in the fact that there’s always a really good hobbit there right when you need them to save everybody. Geronitus Took, Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee? I’m sure there’s a LOT more. We just don’t know about them.

MODERN LOTR | SAM

I love those lines. 

Snarky Faramir, saucy Samwise.

frodo baggins the iconic reluctant hero who saved the entirety of arda deserves so much better than “sam gamgee is the real hero” i said what i said

#yes!!!!!! its not that sam’s contributions shouldn’t be appreciated #but frodo bore like impossible psychological torment and despair #and yet clowns still act like this because #he does actually crack and struggle under the stress #and he doesn’t have some aragorn style battle scene #but GO OFF i guess

“Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far.” –J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 192

Let’s be real, at least half the reason people refuse to see Frodo as the “real hero” of the story is because he actively chooses non-violence and mercy. 

I remember some YouTube commenter writing “Frodo is so overrated, he never even kills anyone” and if that doesn’t win the award for Most Impressive Failure to Get the Point, I’m not sure what does. 

#tbh I adore sam gamgee#but he would throw hands if he knew people were praising him by putting frodo down via @the-artifice-of-eternity

some little hobbit child listening to a story: geez did Frodo even do anything

all the adults in the room: no doN’T

samwise gamgee vaulting in through the window: FIRST OF ALL

Hot Take time:

Neither of them is a hero.

They are two halves of a single hero. (No, this is not a joke about being hobbit-sized.)

Frodo is the one who has to bear the mental torture and hardship of the Ring–but without Sam, he couldn’t have. Who is there to offer a joke, a smile, a hug, an unjudging ear, an extra bite of bread when Frodo looks peaky and ill, a doubled-up bedroll when it’s too cold for a small hobbit used to a good hole with a warm fire? Frodo would have failed long before he reached Mount Doom without Sam to cheer him on.

Likewise: Sam could never have made the journey alone. He doesn’t have Frodo’s mental strength. But he’s a gardener: his job is to make things grow, to nurture them and make them flourish. Who is there to give him a purpose as he travels across a land so big, so far, hoping to save his home?

Separate the pair of them, and neither would have made it. Frodo needed the shelter of Sam’s heart in order to find his way–and Sam needed a leader.

It’s literally love and friendship and camaraderie that save Middle Earth. Neither could be the chosen one alone.

And that was, in fact, Tolkien’s entire point.

Exactly!

Frodo wouldn’t have gotten far without Sam.

Gildor and the Hobbits by Alan Lee

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: The Return of the King (2003) dir. Peter Jackson