make me choose:  barricadesandfeathers asked: aragorn or strider?

one of my favorite lotr facts is that gondorians speak sindarin as a first language and yet when faramir was talking to frodo and sam about cirith ungol he was like “we don’t know what’s in there.” like faramir. cirith ungol is sindarin for “pass of the spider.” do the math

some of my favorite tags on this post

Don’t forget that Frodo also speaks Sindarin, which makes this even worse.

Faramir: Hey, don’t go up the Spider Stairs.

Frodo: Why? What’s up the Spider Stairs?

Faramir: We don’t know, Frodo. We just don’t know.

to be fair, you’d assume the name means “there’s a lot of spiders here,” not, “there is one spider the size of a draft horse here.” so you go up expecting to have to shoo a lot of skeeter eaters out of your tent, and instead you have to figure out how to rope and shoe godzillarantula.

Hmmm…

They do live in a world where godzillarantulas feature prominently in mythology and history (Ungoliant plunged the world into darkness, scared the crap out of Sauron’s old boss, etc) and existed within the last century in Mirkwood. Assuming they ever talk to anyone who’s been to Mirkwood. They… probably know they were giant spiders in Mirkwood pretty recently? It’s hard to figure out how much anyone in Middle-earth has been talking to anyone else when we didn’t actually see it.

On the other hand – what if it’s the giant evil spiders’ prominence in history/mythology that’s causing trouble? What if lots of evil/nasty things/places get called “spider” just to indicate how nasty and evil they are, rather than any association with literal spiders, and it’s just… overloaded? Maybe the bad part of town in Minas Tirith is the Spider District. Maybe every tavern trying to be edgy calls itself the Spiderweb.

Actually spider/Ungoliant references could be really appealing to Gondorians trying to be edgy. They’re dark and evil! Plunged the world into darkness! But they AREN’T involved in the war they’re actually fighting, they aren’t directly associated with Sauron at all, so getting too interested in them would be creepy without being potentially treasonous. Because no one’s ACTUALLY going to worship those dangerous but not epic spiders up in Mirkwood, and no one’s heard anything from any proper spawn of Ungoliant in ages and ages.

In fact, spider/Ungoliant references might be appealing to ORCS trying to express that something is nasty and creepy! Nobody likes Ungoliant.

Maybe Faramir’s been to fourteen different Spider Caves across Ithilien, and half of them he didn’t even see regular spiders in, they’re just dark and damp and may have had orcs at some point, or something, and at some point in history someone got spooked. So you know, it’s POSSIBLE Spider Pass has something to do with spiders? But really it just means people don’t like it.

(The problem with this theory is we never actually SAW anyone overusing spider references. But it’s plausible they would!)

“The average spider on Middle Earth is the size of a dinner plate” is a statistical error. The average spider on Middle Earth is smaller than a coin. Cirith Ungol (lit: Spiders Gorge), which contains a spider larger than a horse, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

a little end of 2020 spirit

from limmy

I know that Peter’s Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy technically has flaws but also….it doesn’t. It’s perfect.

‘Are these magic cloaks?’ asked Pippin, looking at them. with wonder.

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

When they made that movie, they put all that they loved into all that they made.

#just hundreds of people who went ‘sure let me try this’ #and they made something breathtaking #and then they made it 12 more times in different sizes ( @byjoveimbeinghumble​ )

Wait tell me more about that chainmail thing

“Kaynemaile has worked tirelessly to perfect the material science behind beautiful architectural mesh, collaborating with architects and designers on projects that embolden urban environments with positive buildings. The company’s patented polycarbonate mesh, inspired by 2,000-year-old medieval chainmail, was initially created for the armor and weapons seen in the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy and is now used on major architectural projects around the world.

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

YOU GUYS

they took forced perspective and scaled sets to a new level by adding moving set pieces to create the illusion that the hobbits and dwarves were much smaller than everyone else even when the camera moved.

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

ALSO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON FREAKING HOWARD SHORE AND HIS 100+ HEARTSHATTERINGLY BEAUTIFUL LIETMOTIFS AND BRILLIANT SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN THE FLIPPING 13 HOUR SOUNDTRACK. AND ENYA SINGING IN REAL ELVISH.

I’ve been posting some of my old Tolkien themed watercolor illustrations in my instagram lately so why not here as well, for old times sake. Lil hobbitses heading to adventure! Forests! Ents! The gaiety of the elvish feast!

assessing your dwarf companion’s size to make sure he fits on the secret compartment you built on your ship to Valinor

favorite bits of the cast interviews in the LOTR special features:

#i literally hold every film up to the standard of lotr#including the quality of extras#and literally no other film will ever compare#fucking legends

the lotr cast interviews are literally the real life version of that trope where you cut between characters telling wildly divergent accounts of the same event, each of which paints the other as an incompetent buffoon, and it’s hilarious

Some more wild shit from the extras:

Viggo kissing Billy Boyd square on the mouth during the filming of Sam’s wedding

The whole thing where Viggo and the stunt men would smash their foreheads together as a greeting and then one time Viggo did it to Orlando Bloom and left a giant mark

When he filmed fight scenes Johnathan Rhys-Davies would hit every single stunt man consistently

Viggo would LITERALLY just go and fish in the river while they were filming

That one video where I think Billy and Dominic are comparing their dicks

During the fight with Lurtz at the end of fellowship that knife that gets thrown at Aragorn is a Real Knife and Viggo just fucking hit it away with his Real Sword and the sound that’s in the movie is the actual sound it made

Concerning Hobbits

↳ Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition

l o t r  + on the mountains

This episode brings out the Lord of the Rings nerd in me and I had a wonderful time waxing  rhapsodic with Shania not only about Arwen and Aragorn’s literally epic love story but also many other things we love about Tolkien’s enchanted world.

Show notes on shippingcast.fandomish.net

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Next up: Spot x Race (Newsies) with Savannah

From the Gate of the Kings the North Wind rides, and past the roaring falls,

And clear and cold about the tower its loud horn calls.

‘What news from the North, O mighty wind, do you bring to me today?

What news of Boromir the bold? For he is long away.’

‘Beneath Amon Hen I heard his cry. There many foes he fought,

His cloven shield, his broken sword, they to the water brought.

His head so proud, his face so fair, his limbs they laid to rest,

And Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, bore him upon its breast.

‘O Boromir! The Tower of Guard shall ever northward gaze,

To Rauros, golden Rauros-falls, until the end of days.

First of all, my apologies for being a whole week late!

This episode brings out the Lord of the Rings nerd in me and I had a wonderful time waxing rhapsodic with Shania not only about Arwen and Aragorn’s literally epic love story but also many other things we love about Tolkien’s enchanted world.

Public release on October 31, 2020.

Further important info for ppl who have seen the LOTR films but haven’t read the book

1) I would have followed you my brother… my captain… my king: written for the film

2) Don’t you leave him Samwise Gamgee: written for the film

3) “What’s taters, precious, eh, what’s taters?” “PO-TA-TOES”: verbatim Tolkien

4) There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for: 100% films please stop attributing this to Tolkien I’m begging you

5) I would cut off your head, Master Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground: That one you can attribute to Tolkien

I’m rewatching the movies and gradually beginning to realize that like 70% of the heavy impactful moments were created (or changed to be more dramatic) by the screenwriters while stuff like Legolas and Gimli counting how many enemies they’ve taken down was taken straight out of the book.