khazadaimenu reblogged
Really quick drawing from an AU my friend and I came up with…presenting Captain Fili and Co Captain Kili! (Used references/will do a better one later)
khazadaimenu reblogged
do men know how immensely powerful this single strand of hair can be?
khazadaimenu reblogged
farewell-thorinoakenshield-deac
That pat to Kili’s shoulder *gets* me every time.
he’s my favourite and he will be forever ❤
khazadaimenu reblogged
I finished all commissions, so I had a time to draw you idea, @khazadaimenu. Fili resting from princely duties.
Ahhhhhhhhh thank you!!!!!!!
You finished this so quickly and it’s so good!!!!
He looks completely absorbed in the book and happy! And all the details - the fur, his clothing, his hands, and is that the crown (?!) I love how casual he is about just letting it lie in the corner. Fili deserves his rest.
Thank you a thousand times for taking this silly request on board <3
khazadaimenu reblogged
do men know how immensely powerful this single strand of hair can be?
I swear all the gifs I have of him are literally his hair moving in slow mo 🤣😍
The gorgeousness of strands of hair flowing 🖤 that's probably a kink of mine at this point 🤣🤣🤣
khazadaimenu reblogged
Just reread The Hobbit 😩 and I stand by my opinion:
📣 Bilbo would have stayed in Erebor if Thorin didn’t die 📣
I've often wondered why Tolkien felt he needed to kill off all three Durins and no one else. I'm sure there are all kinds of scholarly papers out there on it. I even thought it might have been tragically poetic for Fili to be left to rule after losing his family just as Thorin had been, but nope.
They all lived in the first drafts. What changed so drastically in moving the battle from Dimrill Dale to Erebor that Tolkien felt he had to kill off this whole family and leave the one female Dwarf he ever named all alone in the world?? I really wonder if he ever thought about how horribly he treated Dis. I'm thinking probably not.
So I did some (very minimal) research, and I'm pretty sure the answer all comes down to Dain.
I just got a shiny new copy of The History of the Hobbit for my birthday, so of course I have to look this up. In the chapter with the aftermath of the battle all that's mentioned is that
In the original story neither Fili nor Kili died fighting alongside their uncle but survived to the end of the tale. The idea that the two most likeable of all Bilbo's companions should also die in battle ... first appears in the continuation of the typescript ... 'Of the twelve companions of Thorin ten remained. Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother's eldest brother...'
But in the version where Fili and Kili live, Dain still becomes king...wtf? In a later section titled *Dain son of Nain* I found:
That Thorin was to die was a late development, not present at all in the Second Phase: there is no hint of it in any of the Plot Notes, and clear indication to the contrary as late as Bilbo's discussion with Thorin after the battle ... Even when Tolkien concluded that Bilbo would be unable to resolve the crisis and lift the siege without a battle ... the idea of bringing a dwarven army to the scene was one of the last plot-points to emerge ...
Dain himself nowhere appears until the Third Phase. Like Bard (or, later, Arwen in The Lord of the Rings), Dain is a character Tolkien introduces abruptly to fill a specific plot-function, in this case to bring a dwarven army to the fight at the Mountain, but with his usual keen eye to potentialities, once the character is present Tolkien makes good use of him. Nothing in fact anticipates Thorin's death scene in the original manuscript until Gandalf actually ushers Bilbo into the dying dwarvenking's tent, but once Tolkien had made the surprising decision to drive home the cost of victory with the tragic but heroic death of the second most important character in the book, he needed someone else to fill Thorin's role as the new King under the Mountain, dealing out treasure and restoring the lost realm so that the prophecies could come true.
Dain is a Mary Sue. No wonder we hate him so much. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Dain as a solid supporter of Thorin and the proper Line of Durin, but man he is easy to make into a slimy usurper for a good reason.
In a sense, Dain is to Thorin as Faramir is to Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: the close kinsman who avoids the fall from grace of his elder ... It is easy, in retrospect, to forget Thorin's or Boromir's virtues even after their heroic deaths ... but an unprejudiced reading ... shows Thorin as a capable leader, fair in his judgements, determined to leave none behind, and courageous ... Dain is all this and more: Thorin as he is meant to be, who either because of the example of Thorin's fall ... or more likely because of an unshakeable bedrock of good sense ... is able to resist the dragon-sickness. Dain deals out the treasure fairly, keeps his bargains, and establishes good relations with his neighbors - all the things Thorin should have done and that we, like Bilbo, expected him to do based on our experience of him prior to his glimpsing the dragon-gold.
That Thorin's heir proves to be a new character, Dain ... might have surprised some readers among whom Tolkien circulated the original version of the story ... But the two young dwarves' descent is through the female line, being the sons of Thorin's sister, whereas the patriarchal dwarves obviously trace the kingship through the male line; it is indeed possible that the deaths of Fili and Kili were added to the story during the typescript stage precisely to avoid such confusion. ... in the 'heroic' cultures that preceded feudalism a closely-related capable adult male (brother, uncle, nephew) often succeeded instead of a son. As Thorin's first cousin, the battle-hardened Dain, who proved himself a loyal kinsman by coming at once to Thorin's aid and who had already accomplished heroic deeds in killing Bolg's father in the goblin war, is obviously an eminently suitable candidate to re-establish the Kingdom under the Mountain.
There's a lot more Dain fawning in that section that I don't even want to bother with. He also says something rather nasty about the fact that Dain had an army but Thorin could only raise a group of 12 🤮
"Patriarchal Dwarves obviously" 🖕...Yes, it's probably right, but still, 🖕
Oh and I think this is kind of bullshit, imo:
At first Thorin's sudden death – shocking within the traditions of classic British children's fantasy – would seem to reverse Tolkien's theory of eucatastrophe, the sudden unexpected happy ending to the tale, but in fact the eagles' arrival that turns the tide serves as the eucatastrophe that makes The Hobbit a successful fairy-story within Tolkien's own conception of the genre. Thorin's death, and the later addition of those of Fili and Kili, serve rather to ground the eucatastrophe and prevent the book from being 'escapist' in a negative sense: in Tolkien's terms they confirm 'the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; [eucatastrophe] denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat'.
TL;DR - Did Tolkien really need to abruptly kill off a primary character just to give the story the proper gravitas, then invent the perfect character simply to fit the hole he made, then kill off a couple more to avoid any confusion about the new character's legitimacy!? 🙄 I guess so, because that appears to be what he did? 🤷🏼♀️
Yeah sorry this turned into another Ted Talk. Thanks for sticking it out to the end lol 🥰
I read this great post a bunch of times since it was released.
And this time this bit jumped out at me.
Funny how the book (The History of The Hobbit) justifies killing off Fili and Kili to avoid confusion in who inherits the throne, because heroic cultures of the past didn’t strictly follow the lineage (so, theoretically, they had a claim), and then in the same breath uses that as justification for Dain to rule as a capable male relative.
Like, yes, i get it, Dain is legitimate both in terms of lineage and in terms of personal capacity, but still… I mourn the boys.
And I think Fili capable of leading his people. In fact, being called to it early is a great plot to explore. And Kili would be there to help. And they didn’t hold the grudges and would distribute the gold fairly. And they didn’t succumb to gold sickness. And, and…
In some other Tolkien-related reading I encountered a thought that he was inspired by Anglo-Saxon stories of the past, where sister-sons would often fall in battle to defend their uncle/older male relative.
Great for you, JRRT, but that doesn’t make me abhor their deaths any less.
Funny, my eye was caught by the same irony when I reposted it last night!! If it was acceptable for indirect heirs to inherit, you'd think Fili and Kili would have still been viable options, but the key here is that they are Thorin's SISTER sons, so their claim would have been seen as less legitimate in the patriarchal society Tolkien seems to have envisioned for the dwarves. (Again, I say, 🖕)
What I really don't understand is why he didn't just change them to his brother's son's (or his own...why really did he make both Thorin and Bilbo confirmed bachelors with no children??)...he was changing so many other details! If he really *really* just had to kill off Thorin (which is still think was a sloppy fix for breaking him so badly in the first place), when he made the decision to have the boys die defending him Tolkien could have just as easily made Fili his brother's son and leave him alive to inherit the throne just as Thorin was left to become king in the wake of losing so much of his family. And Dain could have been available as a Regent or advisor, so he'd still get his unsullied dwarf lord. Fili could become the tragic noble hope for the future, with solid guidance and support, and it wouldn't have been such an overt insert of a shiny new character who had not been previously even mentioned.
Really, the themes of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, or this eucatastrophy that so many Tolkien scholars seem to praise, would have been just as realized with Thorin redeeming himself, overcoming the sickness and showing the error of his ways by doing all the right things Dain is being praised for here. If anything, it's a greater triumph for a broken character to be redeemed than for him to die and his mantle passed to one who had not been tested as fiercely.
The author of the History of the Hobbit praises Dain as a paragon of a dwarf, but what challenges did he face after he slew Azog? He was, they all were, dreadfully young and forced to step onto a throne he was not prepared for, but he had a mountain to return to, and a people who were stable and safe.
Thorin was ten times the dwarf Dain was, because of all the tragedy and pressure he endured and thrived under, because he fell to gold sickness, but he was the only dwarf in history to have thrown it off and come back to be of sound mind after. It would have been ten times the triumph for him to have nearly died and then had a chance to redeem himself. It's one of the reasons the fanfiction about him is so very satisfying!!
Unsullied dwarf lol
I fully agree, coming back from dragon sickness is a ten times better story than “this perfect lord steps in to save the day”
It’s not like Dain was unwilling to slaughter a bunch of elves and a few fishermen. Thorin was under the influence of gold. What excuse did Dain have?! Loyalty? If he’s so perfect, he should’ve known not to answer the call to arms, but negotiate instead. And yes, he had a mountain to go back to and a people. Why then didn’t he help the Company when they first set out on the quest, huh? HUH?
I guess it’s poetic to realise one’s greatest mistake on deathbed, like Thorin did. Or young lives lost valiantly, like the ones of Fili and Kili.
But on a rainy November day all I want is for them to be safely ensconced in their mountain, alive and well, drinking hot beverages and having the time of their lives. As they deserve. On to fix-it fics!
khazadaimenu reblogged
Just reread The Hobbit 😩 and I stand by my opinion:
📣 Bilbo would have stayed in Erebor if Thorin didn’t die 📣
I've often wondered why Tolkien felt he needed to kill off all three Durins and no one else. I'm sure there are all kinds of scholarly papers out there on it. I even thought it might have been tragically poetic for Fili to be left to rule after losing his family just as Thorin had been, but nope.
They all lived in the first drafts. What changed so drastically in moving the battle from Dimrill Dale to Erebor that Tolkien felt he had to kill off this whole family and leave the one female Dwarf he ever named all alone in the world?? I really wonder if he ever thought about how horribly he treated Dis. I'm thinking probably not.
So I did some (very minimal) research, and I'm pretty sure the answer all comes down to Dain.
I just got a shiny new copy of The History of the Hobbit for my birthday, so of course I have to look this up. In the chapter with the aftermath of the battle all that's mentioned is that
In the original story neither Fili nor Kili died fighting alongside their uncle but survived to the end of the tale. The idea that the two most likeable of all Bilbo's companions should also die in battle ... first appears in the continuation of the typescript ... 'Of the twelve companions of Thorin ten remained. Fili and Kili had fallen defending him with shield and body, for he was their mother's eldest brother...'
But in the version where Fili and Kili live, Dain still becomes king...wtf? In a later section titled *Dain son of Nain* I found:
That Thorin was to die was a late development, not present at all in the Second Phase: there is no hint of it in any of the Plot Notes, and clear indication to the contrary as late as Bilbo's discussion with Thorin after the battle ... Even when Tolkien concluded that Bilbo would be unable to resolve the crisis and lift the siege without a battle ... the idea of bringing a dwarven army to the scene was one of the last plot-points to emerge ...
Dain himself nowhere appears until the Third Phase. Like Bard (or, later, Arwen in The Lord of the Rings), Dain is a character Tolkien introduces abruptly to fill a specific plot-function, in this case to bring a dwarven army to the fight at the Mountain, but with his usual keen eye to potentialities, once the character is present Tolkien makes good use of him. Nothing in fact anticipates Thorin's death scene in the original manuscript until Gandalf actually ushers Bilbo into the dying dwarvenking's tent, but once Tolkien had made the surprising decision to drive home the cost of victory with the tragic but heroic death of the second most important character in the book, he needed someone else to fill Thorin's role as the new King under the Mountain, dealing out treasure and restoring the lost realm so that the prophecies could come true.
Dain is a Mary Sue. No wonder we hate him so much. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Dain as a solid supporter of Thorin and the proper Line of Durin, but man he is easy to make into a slimy usurper for a good reason.
In a sense, Dain is to Thorin as Faramir is to Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: the close kinsman who avoids the fall from grace of his elder ... It is easy, in retrospect, to forget Thorin's or Boromir's virtues even after their heroic deaths ... but an unprejudiced reading ... shows Thorin as a capable leader, fair in his judgements, determined to leave none behind, and courageous ... Dain is all this and more: Thorin as he is meant to be, who either because of the example of Thorin's fall ... or more likely because of an unshakeable bedrock of good sense ... is able to resist the dragon-sickness. Dain deals out the treasure fairly, keeps his bargains, and establishes good relations with his neighbors - all the things Thorin should have done and that we, like Bilbo, expected him to do based on our experience of him prior to his glimpsing the dragon-gold.
That Thorin's heir proves to be a new character, Dain ... might have surprised some readers among whom Tolkien circulated the original version of the story ... But the two young dwarves' descent is through the female line, being the sons of Thorin's sister, whereas the patriarchal dwarves obviously trace the kingship through the male line; it is indeed possible that the deaths of Fili and Kili were added to the story during the typescript stage precisely to avoid such confusion. ... in the 'heroic' cultures that preceded feudalism a closely-related capable adult male (brother, uncle, nephew) often succeeded instead of a son. As Thorin's first cousin, the battle-hardened Dain, who proved himself a loyal kinsman by coming at once to Thorin's aid and who had already accomplished heroic deeds in killing Bolg's father in the goblin war, is obviously an eminently suitable candidate to re-establish the Kingdom under the Mountain.
There's a lot more Dain fawning in that section that I don't even want to bother with. He also says something rather nasty about the fact that Dain had an army but Thorin could only raise a group of 12 🤮
"Patriarchal Dwarves obviously" 🖕...Yes, it's probably right, but still, 🖕
Oh and I think this is kind of bullshit, imo:
At first Thorin's sudden death – shocking within the traditions of classic British children's fantasy – would seem to reverse Tolkien's theory of eucatastrophe, the sudden unexpected happy ending to the tale, but in fact the eagles' arrival that turns the tide serves as the eucatastrophe that makes The Hobbit a successful fairy-story within Tolkien's own conception of the genre. Thorin's death, and the later addition of those of Fili and Kili, serve rather to ground the eucatastrophe and prevent the book from being 'escapist' in a negative sense: in Tolkien's terms they confirm 'the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; [eucatastrophe] denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat'.
TL;DR - Did Tolkien really need to abruptly kill off a primary character just to give the story the proper gravitas, then invent the perfect character simply to fit the hole he made, then kill off a couple more to avoid any confusion about the new character's legitimacy!? 🙄 I guess so, because that appears to be what he did? 🤷🏼♀️
Yeah sorry this turned into another Ted Talk. Thanks for sticking it out to the end lol 🥰
I read this great post a bunch of times since it was released.
And this time this bit jumped out at me.
Funny how the book (The History of The Hobbit) justifies killing off Fili and Kili to avoid confusion in who inherits the throne, because heroic cultures of the past didn’t strictly follow the lineage (so, theoretically, they had a claim), and then in the same breath uses that as justification for Dain to rule as a capable male relative.
Like, yes, i get it, Dain is legitimate both in terms of lineage and in terms of personal capacity, but still… I mourn the boys.
And I think Fili capable of leading his people. In fact, being called to it early is a great plot to explore. And Kili would be there to help. And they didn’t hold the grudges and would distribute the gold fairly. And they didn’t succumb to gold sickness. And, and…
In some other Tolkien-related reading I encountered a thought that he was inspired by Anglo-Saxon stories of the past, where sister-sons would often fall in battle to defend their uncle/older male relative.
Great for you, JRRT, but that doesn’t make me abhor their deaths any less.
khazadaimenu reblogged
Here we go! @brainrotbabe24
#OH THIS IS SO GOOD 😍😍😍#your art is always an immense joy as well as a breath of fresh air and a huge hit of dopamine OP#I love everything about this#Fili my beloved#he always looks exactly right in your art#he looks himself#and the whole premise#i LOVE mischievous Nori and his interactions with Fili#Nori’s in his element#in my head canons he’d serve as a great adviser to the prince because he notices things Fili might not#and Nori sees that side of people others might not necessarily be attuned to#because of his rich ‘life experience’ yes#fili#nori#the hobbit#fili durin#fíli#fíli durin#the hobbit art#the hobbit fili#fili the dwarf
khazadaimenu reblogged
If I could put ANYTHING from the books into the movies my first choice would have to be Thorin’s “we were starving” bit. He gets one (1) moment of comedic genius before going back to being a pissed-off lump covered in spiderwebs.
that and Fili’s “I’m never eating apples again”. More lighthearted fun in place of some of the action scenes, please
khazadaimenu reblogged
why aren’t yall writing dwarf smut anymore do i have to do everything myself around here
khazadaimenu reblogged
My uncle got me into Lotr and the hobbit so now I drew this
Never again it was a pain in my ass
khazadaimenu reblogged
Fili has zero patience for all this romantic crap (︶︹︺)
khazadaimenu reblogged
Kili and Fili playing games!
first time trying with blue light shading
khazadaimenu reblogged
I wanted to see this so much. Not just because it’s more Fili and more brotherly teamwork, but because I have questions:
How did Fili get up there?
How is this working? Yes, he’s a little smaller, but he would still be heavy…would Kili be like, GET OFF! or is this something they do often?
Did this actually accomplish anything?
And, most importantly:
Why is Fili such a nimble little acrobat?
#i love em#yes Fili is a nimble acrobat#he’s been around for decades training#i love my little assassins#and the shenanigans they get up to#how can a character literally be a comfort and like you’ve known them forever#also the guy on the floor holding the rope the unsung heroes of the cinema world#the hobbit#fili#fili durin#fíli#fíli durin#kili#kili durin#kíli durin#kíli#fili and kili#the hobbit fili#the hobbit kili#fili the dwarf#kili the dwarf
khazadaimenu reblogged
Bagginshield- tober day 1: Khuzdel
I posted this on the first but saw a spelling mistake and pulled it down but here it is again!! I’ll probs be a day behind the whole time but hopefully I get as much as I can done!!
What does the pages say? That’s for the Durins to know
khazadaimenu reblogged
‘He’s like the son I might have known, if God had granted me a son. The summers die one by one. How soon they fly, on and on. And I am old, and will be gone. Bring him peace. Bring him joy. He is young. He is only a boy.’
#the best Thorin-Fili moment actually#here it's possible to grasp how much he actually cares#without a single word#just the face#look at him#the sorrow the resignation and yet never even blinking never taking his eyes off Fili#to truly be there for him in his last moment#they will see each other again in the Halls of Mahal#fili#thorin#uncle thorin#thorin oakenshield#fili durin#fíli#fíli durin#the hobbit fili#fili the dwarf#fili my love