@witchking-jr / witchking-jr.tumblr.com
Have I ever shown you guys these weird late 80s Soviet Lord Of The Rings illustrations?
They were made by Sergei Iukhimov, who’s virtually unknown otherwise.
More from where that came from
Holy fuck this is absolutely perfect
I hated them as a kid, but I can appreciate them now.
Okay, so we all know that iconic scene in Two Towers where Gimli and Legolas compare their kill counts from the battle (THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE). But in my not so humble opinion, the book to movie transfer just did not capture some of their best moments in this saga and I am here to rectify this tragedy.
So naturally, Gimli’s the one who starts it:
Legolas responds dramatically and patronizing, as usual “Two? Sure, not bad. I mean, I’ve got 20, but who’s counting, right?” Oh Legolas
Gimli comes back later with exactly one kill count over Legolas’ previous score and you cannot convince me that that was not out of sheer pettiness. Meanwhile, Legolas has been racking up points fruit ninja style but…he’s only killed like 4 more? Two dozen is 24 right? And he had at least 20 earlier? I really want him to just have thought that there was no way Gimli could’ve caught up to him, then he saw that Gimli was definitely catching up and oh shit better kills some more to stay in the lead and he barely scraps by 21-24, but of course acts a though that was the plan all along.
After this there’s a break, until Legolas comes looking for Aragorn because he can’t find Gimli to brag about his new high score (39). I love that Aragorn thinks Legolas is looking for Gimli because he’s worried about him and tries to reassure him that Gimli is a strong dwarf and probably find wherever he is, and Legolas is just, woah, what, no, I just wanted to brag. Who cares that they are in the middle of a battle right now. Nope, Legolas is just like gotta find Gimli and tell him I am KICKING HIS ASS.
honestly these two
AND THE IRONY when he DOES find Gimli, Gimli’s in the lead 42-39. I like that Legolas has killed two more in this time. I can’t help but hope they were ‘Grrrr I can’t find my dwarf where is he’ passive aggressive killings, like two orcs who just happened to get in his way mid-rant. Because of course, we all know that he actually was worried about Gimli in all of this.
So, Gimli wins.
BUT THEN
We get THIS GEM
When Treebeard isn’t sure about letting Gimli into Fangorn, Legolas freaking uses Gimli’s high score to brag about his dwarf to impress Treebeard and it works.
Legolas just proudly proclaiming Gimli’s victory to Treebeard to validate his presence in Fangorn feeds my soul and I love this so much
So there’s my take on the REAL reasons behind their friendly casualty count. God I love these two so much
I think Legolas’ early lead is because he was shooting at the orcs before they had actually entered the Hornburg, and then he slowed down and eventually fell behind because he was doing “knife-work” whereas Gimli had a battle-ax.
Yeah ‘now I must grope for spent arrows’ and ‘it has been knife-work up here’ are underappreciated gems of lines for the amount of realism they casually infuse into the story. He’s out of ammo and reduced to shooting their own arrows back at them! Then they’re up on the walls enough he’s stabbing them individually, and they don’t make it easy! This is more effective immersion in the experience and practical realities of holding off a siege of overwhelming numbers than several lengthy POV paragraphs would have been. Tolkien routinely did this kind of detail work in dialogue rather than narration and it ironically helps his pace be quite rapid sometimes.
Redraw of my lotr triptych from 2022
Can't quite cope with how much this looks like me and my dad
It begins
Photo credit to the exceeding bemused sound technician we bribed with two cans of Carlsberg to permit us access to his gazebo.
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), dir. Peter Jackson
rip Aragorn, you would've loved carabiners
there’s some snippet I gotta find where Tolkien says he pictured Legolas as like a big beefy hunter tracker elf 😂👀. love that.
MIDDLE-EARTH + Weapons
look at my orb boy
Sonic the Hedgehog (sustained speed of 767 MPH) could have made the journey from the Shire to Mount Doom (1718.5 miles) in just over two hours. But also he famously loves rings, so he almost assuredly would have found the thrall of the Ring far too powerful to resist. Tails would have had to shoot him
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2002 • dir. Peter Jackson
Am I the only person who thought this was really fucking funny
A lot of the really funny moments in Lord of the Rings come from Tolkien playing with language like this, where we have relatively formal, archaic, “high” language responded to with informal, modern, “low” language.
another hilarious example:
my absolute favorite example of tolkien switching registers in this way is
to the uneducated it may seem like hobbits are the only funny bitches, and gandalf just picked it up from them.
to the learned, it is known that gandalf is the first ever funny bitch, and he has taught generations of hobbits every petty snark they’ve ever known because theyre the only motherfuckers who can keep up with him
“what if, LOTR but little animated animals.” by jessica a. m
Sword, bow, & axe.
LOTR has such a special place in my heart and I’m honestly astonished and slightly embarrassed its taken me this long to draw fanart. 😭😭
