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@solverne-02 @fargreencountryswiftsunrise @hellofeanor

Fun Random Facts About the LOTR Soundtrack

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT

what happens when two dramatic bitches like Geralt and Aragorn visit the same tavern on the same night and there’s only one corner table for them to brood at in a solitary fashion, would they take turns or share a booth while simply refusing to acknowledge each other’s existence

And there was only one corner table...!

oh my god there was only one corner table...

The hobbits invent a fun game called ‘how close can we get to our friends before they notice us’

easy mode: Gimli (makes a lot of noise himself, very easy to sneak up on)

medium mode: Boromir (challenging enough to be great fun)

hard more: Aragorn (VERY attentive to his surroundings)

expert mode: Legolas

it takes them a LONG time to get Legolas but Frodo eventually manages it and it’s magnificent

Legolas: *sitting around minding his own business*

Frodo: *two inches from his ear* hi Legolas what’s up

Legolas: ANDAGNDOAHGDLKHNKDLFHLKFDANGLKFDAGN????? *backflips to his feet in confusion*

*cue the rest of the fellowship losing their fucking minds*

after that he’s onto them and they never manage it again

from all i can gather this is entirely cannon except the fellowship hobbits didnt invent it, its been a traditional hobbit game on par with humans and ‘tag’ for about 500 plus years to the point the average human will routinely fail to notice an entire picnic of hobbits at ten feet, blanket and potato salad included like hobbits dont realize they legit have a supernatural ability to not be noticed on par with elves physics bending sniper scope vision

okay but is “picnic” the collective noun for hobbits because that’s brilliant

a picnic of hobbits

perfection

So yeah, it’s canon that hobbits are the stealthiest of the races of Middle-Earth, even more so than elves. Which is an amusing trivia fact, until you start realizing how much of the plot of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is based on this.

Why did Gandalf randomly decide that a plump gentle-hobbit was the right person to be a burglar for an adventuring party? It seems like wizardly eccentricity, until you realize Bilbo’s got a racial bonus to Stealth of like +20. Why does he get the Ring? In text, it’s partly coincidence, but also - which party member do you give your Ring of Invisibility to? The Rogue with a crazy Stealth bonus, of course. Bilbo uses his Stealth, boosted by the Ring, constantly, and the dwarves would have been dead a dozen times over without it. He’s able to get the Ring in the first place because he stealthed out of the middle of a horde of goblins. Then he’s sneaking up inches from trolls, secretly living inside the elves’ freakin palace (with Legolas) for months, rescuing a whole pack of dwarves from under the elves’ noses, regularly pick-pocketing people including elves, sneaking past a dragon, sneaking to deliver the Arkenstone.

Then we follow up into Lord of the Rings. Gandalf’s now bred up a second-generation Rogue. Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry have that same massive racial Stealth bonus, and Frodo also has been raised by an adventurer. He speaks Elvish fluently, he’s friends with dwarves, he studies maps obsessively. Then he inherits Bilbo’s Stealth-boosting magic item - now upgraded to cursed McGuffin. When Gandalf decides it’s time, he collects Frodo and assembles a party. Their goal isn’t to march into Mordor, or to battle the Boss: it’s to sneak through enemy lines, past an entire army (or two).

The humans, elf, dwarf, and wizard angel keep drawing too much attention and getting them attacked (plus admittedly Pippin, the low-WIS darling), so eventually Frodo and Sam ditch them and head off on a pure stealth run. They can’t use the Ring of Invisibility anymore, but fortunately Galadriel gave them another Stealth-boosting magic item, the cloaks. They sneak halfway across Middle-Earth, past armies, through miles and miles of enemy territory, while being hunted by every evil being on the planet, particularly a literal giant All-Seeing Eye. Not to mention the Palantiri, extremely powerful divination items which are being actively used by three different groups of enemies/competitors.

The other main canonical Hobbit power is that they’re “very hardy folk”, meaning they have incredibly high resistance to various things from poison to mental influence. So they can survive the literally poisonous air and water of Mordor, which was designed to kill every species but orcs. And they can survive close contact with the Ring for decades or centuries, not only physically but also maintaining some degree of mental independence, when any other race would succumb in minutes to hours. (Note the most “powerful” characters - Elrond, Galadriel, the literal angel Gandalf - refuse to even touch the Ring, as do the most morally sound, Aragorn and Faramir.)

Why did Gandalf choose a minor member of the country gentry, the size of a toddler, with no combat training, to save Middle-Earth? Because absolutely no other creature on the planet could have done the task. Frodo was all but created as a weapon against Sauron. He, and he alone (with Sam), was capable of saving Middle-Earth.

TL;DR: Legolas would get jump-scared by Frodo every single time, because Frodo is the greatest Rogue in Middle-Earth, and the plot of the entire series depends on that fact.

I just finished LOTR

Men of Rohan: The glories of war are only a means to an end. All I desire is the saftey of my people and peace for my country.

Eowyn: I want to murder orcs so badly it is making me physically ill.

Eowyn, while holding Faramir’s hand and making eye contact with him: I am in love with a noble, strong, wise, but most of all kind man.

Faramir, nodding: Who wouldnt fall in love with Aragorn.

Also, this isnt like a fun headcannon this is damn near a quotation. Eowyn was literally holding the dudes hands and staring into his eyes professing her love and the dumbass thought she was talking about Aragorn. He responded along the lines of “But Aragorn wont be back from the black gate for like a week, so in the meantime its nice to hang out and just look at how pretty you are”

I know its a meme but they really are the epitome of “Couple that shares one collective brain cell”

He learned his lesson

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

Aragorns ranked based on how funny they are

5.Rankin-Bass Aragorn:

Shows up late in the movie with little explanation. Gandalf’s like “you should do a suicide-mission march on the Black Gate” and Aragorn’s like “eh sure I guess I wasn’t planning on doing anything else today.”

All in all he’s not as funny as the other Aragorns, but he gets points for Just Rolling With It and for that sick helmet.

Funniness Level: 7/10 love how his fashion sense is the polar opposite of Bakshi Aragorn

4.Musical Aragorn:

The musical in general is a hilariously amazing mess and I love it. It was also drastically rewritten many times over its run, so Aragorn’s characterization varies depending on the version.

In the the bootleg I listened to, I *think* what they were going for was. 

Aragorn hides his true identity from everyone until the second act. Then he finally reveals he’s the Lost King of Gondor to Boromir, as Boromir is dying. And while that’s a compelling idea it’s also funny bc Boromir’s just like:

“Dude–”

“You couldn’t have told me this sooner???????”

If I remember right the musical implies that Arwen is also one of the few people Aragorn has told about his true heritage? I think this means Musical!Aragorn apparently only reveals he’s the Lost King to a) the pretty girl he’s crushing on and b) the handsome man he has homoerotic subtext with. VALID

Funniness Level: 9/10 your crush would probably be more impressed to hear you were the Lost King of Gondor if they weren’t busy dying from multiple arrow wounds

3. Book Aragorn:

FUN FACT: Aragorn sings more in the books than he does in the actual musical. The musical cut all of Aragorn’s songs. The cowards.

He’s only a “loner” for the Aesthetic……. He makes the hobbits feel sorry for him by saying “a hunted man often wearies of mistrust and longs for friendship” right before introducing them to his friend Glorfindel, and his friend Elrond, and his friend Arwen, and oh yeah he’s friends with Bilbo too, and—

Also. There’s a moment in the “Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” where Aragorn’s like “I’m in love with Arwen” and Aragorn’s mom says “well she’s out of your league” and Aragorn responds “so I have to be sad and alone for all my life???” and his mom is like “yup.” Iconic

Aragorn has way too many names and way too many of them have to do with his long legs. Strider, Wingfoot, Longshanks, Telcontar (Strider in Elvish, the last name he takes as King.) He’s got 50 names and half of them are variations on “Daddy Long Legs”

Funniness Level: 100/10 would be a lot higher but I deducted points bc I’m kinkshaming his obsession with legs

2.Peter Jackson Aragorn: 

PJ Aragorn is so terrified of the burden of being king that he tries to hide from it. He just wants to be free.

In the Two Towers Aragorn and Eowyn discuss what to do with an unruly battle-scarred horse. Aragorn tells Eowyn that the horse should be set free.

It doesn’t matter if the horse is kingly. It doesn’t matter if, as Eowyn says, he’s a  royal horse that once belonged to the king’s son. Because the horse is sad.

Even if he’s a kingly royal horse, he is very sad.  

People are expecting too much from the horse and it’s making him scared!!!! He’s not a bad horse, he’s just panicking because he feels trapped!!!! So they should set him free, Aragorn insists. He just wants to be free.

“He has seen enough of war,” Aragorn says as he walks away. And you wonder if he’s talking about the horse…………... or himself.

Because PJ-Aragon just wants to be free! Free, like the horses! He relates to the horses! The horses are like him, because they too feel trapped and they’re rebellious and unruly and desperately long for freedom!!!!!!!!! 

“You just don’t understand me, mom Elrond!!!!!”

Funniness Level: 20000000/10, he’s the protagonist of a Horse Girl Movie who somehow stumbled into a fantasy epic

Ralph Bakshi Aragorn:

Ralph Bakshi Aragorn is serious, sober, noble, and regal. 

John Hurt voices him, and his performance is honestly one of the best parts of the movie. He’s legitimately a good Aragorn!!! And on paper, he seems like he would be the least funny Aragorn. 

But just.

Just.

He’s a Very Serious Aragorn but he dresses like:

The hobbits walk into the Prancing Pony and Aragorn’s sitting in the corner, no pants, with his bare legs stretched out like he’s trying to seduce them.

And no one ever comments on this!!!! Aragorn is always Rolling to Seduce but none of the other characters acknowledge it!!!!!

Then there’s the animation. The Bakshi film was made by a team of inexperienced animators who relied on tracing over live-action footage as a crutch, which is why the animation looks Like That™. The character’s faces float around their heads and their movements, especially in the battle scenes where the live-action reference wasn’t that good, are always…….hmmmmmm. 

 Aragorn vs Ringwraith WHO WOULD WIN???

Funniness Level: 3000000000000/10 sparks joy

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds] 

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder). 

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss). 

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

also that whole tale of aragorn and arwen thing where he saw her in the woods at twenty and fell instantly in love and it’s very beren and luthien? lies.

aragorn decided he was going to marry arwen when he was like, six.

and everyone thought it was just the cutest thing, baby estel with his little crush on the great immortal evenstar, and everyone would tease him about it relentlessly and he would get so mad, and pout, because how dare they doubt his word.

(arwen spent a lot of time biting back smiles and nodding very seriously when aragorn brings this up with her. no, estel, I do not know why they are laughing perhaps they have remembered a particularly funny joke.)

and then aragorn grows into this gangly teen and oh my god can you imagine being a pimply greasy teenager around fucking elves it’s a wonder he has any self-image left. His voice breaks every other word and the laundresses are beginning to wonder if something is wrong with the sheets because estel keeps washing them himself and aragorn wants to die, god, arwen is never going to marry him if he stays all elbows and skinny knees and he can’t even look her in the eye anymore without blushing, eye contact is probably something to look for in a husband—

(arwen, who never had to go through puberty because elves don’t do anything so undignified, tries to comfort him by saying she likes his blemishes. aragorn gives her a look of such utter, miserable despair that she starts laughing.)

(this is a mistake. he spends the next three weeks nursing his wounded ego and refusing to see her.)

estel is twenty when he asks for her hand. he is lean, slender and fair as a new tree, and so arwen does not feel guilt in kissing his cheek and gently refusing. he is still green, he will weather greater storms than this—and he takes it as he should, clasping her hand and swearing to ever be her loyal friend.

they write to each other—when she is in lorien, when he wanders with the rangers of the north, fights alongside gondor, travels to distant lands. it is an inconstant tie—he is rarely afforded time enough to put pen to paper; she is reserved so as not to encourage what may not be. (she signs her letters always, your friend. She likes him too well to be cruel in this.)

the years pass. his weariness and strife creeps onto the page, and she sends him tokens to fend off the darkness—leaves from lothlorien, the ribbon from her hair, snippets of poems. it is not enough it is never enough I am sorry, she writes.

his reply is gentle: you are enough. do not stop writing.

(she carries that letter tucked inside her sleeve for a long while, like a talisman—though against what evil, she does not know.)

she is in the house of her grandmother when a familiar voice calls out to her: my lady luthien!

this is when arwen looks up, sees aragorn—broad of chest and rugged, still wearing his battered mail, with one hand balanced lazily on the pommel of his sword. All the trees of caras galadhon are gold but he is shadow and silver, kingliness resting lightly on his shoulders—

and arwen thinks, oh fuck

Like. The quote “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 such an integral quote/concept to LOTR that I just cannot for the life of me comprehend how people come away from LOTR inspired to write the grimdark i-love-war-and-suffering stories that populate fantasy

literally JRR TOLD us that if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But did we listen? No of course not! More angsting about redeeming our rightful throne by slaughtering hundreds!!!

HBO do not interact

Ok, so, as most know hobbits LOVE mushrooms, but what if they love ALL mushrooms, even the poisonous ones. What if a hobbit’s body is able to handle more of the poison and it doesn’t affect them at all. And they love it!

And then they nearly give Aragorn a heart-attack when they’re heading to Rivendell. 

Pippin, just being pippin: Look, MUSHROoms!!

The other three, running at full speed: MUSHROOMS!

Aragorn, who is a skilled ranger who knows every plant, tree, and flower to survive: No those are poisonous!

Frodo, who’s mouth is stuffed full: No they’re not. We eat these all the time back in the shire.

Merry, speaking with his mouth full, spitting mushroom everywhere: Yeah, they’re definitely not poisonous. Do you want one?

Aragorn, now having an existential crisis: No, n-no. I’m good.

Sam, mumbling under his breath: Well I wasn’t gonna share anyways.

@penny-anna this seems like your kind of hobbit lore

… OKAY NO WAIT THIS IS IMPORTANT

What if that’s the reason Sam and Frodo survived in Mordor? 

What if all those references to noxious fumes and tainted water and everything were completely literal? They avoided eating anything made there, but they had to keep drinking and breathing. 

What if part of Mordor’s defenses was that it’s literally poisonous to any creature not specifically bred to live in those conditions? What if Faramir was so careful about warning them about drinking the water because he knew it was fatal? What if Sauron’s general lack of concern about shit going down inside his own borders (aside from treachery, which apparently happened a lot) was knowing that any Mortal Man or Elf or Whatever that wandered in was gonna be stone dead in a few days, and his desire to catch any infiltrators on the borders was to keep them alive long enough for questioning?

And then these two hobbits who have spent their entire lives merrily ingesting enough poisonous fungi for breakfast to give Shelob a stomach-ache trot into Mordor and drink the poisonous waters and breath the poisonous fumes and scratch themselves on the poisonous thorns and feel mildly unwell.

Years later Sam gets a pained note from Faramir asking him how the hell he and Frodo survived when all the water is tainted with arsenic according to the survivors of the exploratory party and Sam writes back confused ‘What’s arsenic, it tasted bad and a bit metallic, that’s all I know honestly’ and Faramir goes to rant at Aragorn about how bizarre this is and is really confused when Aragorn goes into full-on flashbacks of watching those four tiny dumbasses STUFFING DEATH CAPS INTO THEIR MOUTHS LIKE GODDAMN CANDY. 

Oooooo, I like that!! And it would make sense after Boromir went on and on about how impossible it was to be able to breathe in Mordor.

This dovetails both with the idea that Fourth Age humans are a mixture of Men and Hobbits and with what we know about cuisine and evolutionary biology.  Lots of the things we consider spices, like cinnamon and capsaisin, are actually poisons that plants produce to deter insects and other herbivores.  The fact that they taste good to us is a fluke.

So if a modern human traveled back in time to Numenor or even Minas Tirith, they’d be wowed by the architecture but the food would be bland.

Years ago I saw a Lord of the Rings display at Barnes and Noble that included a Hallmark-style greeting card with Frodo on the front and inside text that read: “We set out to save the Shire, Sam. And it has been saved. But not for me.”

And I have been thinking about that card ever since, desperately wishing I had bought it, and wondering what the fuck kind of occasion would warrant a card featuring that sentiment.

weirdly enough, i have actually been the recipient of that exact card. it was a birthday card from someone who knew i loved lotr but didn’t really know much about the actual movie, but i feel like she should’ve been clued into the ‘wtf’ vibe from the incredibly agonized face frodo is making on the front of the card. 

If you still have that card… I would do anything to see a photo of it. You can cover up the personalized message, but I really, really, really want to see proof that this card existed and was not the product of my overactive imagination.

@glumshoe I FOUND IT!!

I’d forgotten just how close to death Frodo looks on the front, not to mention Sam’s agonized face and the very odd stylistic choice of including the Ring inscription and the Eye of Sauron in the background. who the hell is the target audience for this?

When I tell you I snorted!

legolas:

gimli:

aragorn:

gandalf:

BLEASE

Gollum

Eomer:

Boromir:

Elrond:

Eowyn:

Arwen:

Merry:

Pippin: