#third age

[inthehouseoffinwe]

If you're still doing the sketches, may I request a brown haired Legolas and blond haired Legolas interacting? (Cause I'm a brown haired Legolas truther, and I'm so alone. ;_;)

“Wait… you have Ada’s hair!!”

“And you have Nana’s!”

- - - - -

Nooo don’t be sad! Look, they’re friends!

Ok so I took a few liberties with brown haired Legolas’ design, incorporating some of my own ideas too.

I really like the idea of central heterochromia for his eyes, a real blend of traditional Sindar blue and the wilder Wood Elves’ brown. His mixed heritage visible in his eyes. When his weapons are away, you can feel a gentleness about him, a spiritual connection to the land unique to the elves who never left these shores. But especially to the Green Elves.

Warmer but more patchy tones to really blend into the trees of Mirkwood and beyond. A more broken up silhouette with the wilder hair so it’s harder to spot him in foliage. I kinda wanted to add some beads too, but I feel like they’d have to be spaced out to avoid making any sound. Elves of Mirkwood rely on silence when hunting spiders.

Regarding *why* Legolas has much more earthy vibes and generally plain clothing compared to many others, Thranduil rules over an amalgamation of wood elves, not just Sindar. This leads to a lot of shared culture over the centuries, ans Legolas’ own mother was of the ‘wildest’ folk. A people who answer to no King but are offered shelter and protection when they need it.

They are there for the marriage and Legolas’ birth. Then do not return until Greenwood becomes Mirkwood and spiders overrun the forest. Thranduil doesn’t ask for their allegiance in the traditional sense out of respect - everyone deserves a safe space. But he does ask that they teach Legolas their ways now his mother is dead.

Which is why Mr Greenleaf Greenleaf here is so connected to the trees.

[velvet4510]

It took the Ring two seconds to make both Isildur and Gollum claim it as their own.

It didn’t take much longer for it to make Bilbo do the same, as he kept it as the key “trick up his sleeve” during the Quest for Erebor and never considered harming it.

But in 17 full years and 6 months, it couldn’t make Frodo claim it. It took being inside Mt. Doom, the place where its power was absolute and drowned out all othere, to get Frodo to claim it.

Inside Mt. Doom, no bearer can resist the Ring. They will inevitably claim it there. But literally ALL of the other Ring-bearers who ever claimed it did so outside of Mt. Doom.

The Ring never needed to apply its utmost, Cracks-of-Doom-level pressure to make any previous Ring-bearer claim it. Frodo was the only one who resisted it so long and so well that it had to force itself upon him and break him just to get him to regard it as his own.

Frodo Baggins is the strongest mortal in the Third Age of Middle-Earth and no, I am not accepting questions at this time.

(Remember our beloved Samwise Gamgee never claimed the Ring, and didn’t have it long enough for it to really sink its teeth into him as deeply as it did into everyone else. I’m talking about those who actually claimed the Ring at some point in their lives.)

[jackimer]

Being an elfling in third-age middle earth must be so annoying. You mention that it's a little chilly out only for one of those first-age elves to pop up and say you think this is cold? back in my day we spent thirty years of torment crossing the Grinding Ice with naught but Varda's stars to provide light in the evil darkness. i lost 3 toes.

Or you mention that your arms are sore and a guy that is more scar than elf screams across the training ground that Maedhros The Tall was hung by his wrist from the peak of Thangorodrim for thirty long years and you never heard HIM complaining.

[sakasakiii]

started off as me redrawing some of my initial mairon designs and ended up going on an rpg tangent 😭 i really wish i could have done the portraits in a pixel art style to better fit the aesthetic but my canvas wasnt the right size!!! i ended up changing annatar completely (im still contemplating how much i prefer this one compared to his old one however...!) and adjusting post-numenor sauron a bit when compared to their old 2022 sketches! im probably gonna do more redraws in the months to come cause of all the stuff i wanna change when i look back to some of my old designs haha 😳

bonus: void delusions (nebula background designed by Freepik)

i like to think each 'form' sauron takes eventually has different mannerisms and likes/dislikes the longer he stays in them without shapeshifting into something else, but one thing they all have in common is being predisposed to nagging melkor 😎

[thetiredprometheus]

Elrond introduces Crablor to Galadriel

Galadriel: where’s this new pet I keep hearing about?

Elrond: oh he’s right here

Galadriel: ...that’s a grown ass man

Elrond: yeah he’s a little old but hey, who said you can’t teach old crabs new tricks! Ready, watch this, speak!

Maglor: what’s up Artanis

Galadriel: yeah he just spoke Quenya, that’s definitely my kinslaying cousin

Elrond: yeah I guess you can kinda feel that family-like kinship with him

Galadriel: because it’s my fucking cousin. I feel like we’re drastically overlooking the fact that this is my cousin, a kinslayer, that you ...keep in your house?

Elrond: he’s actually a rescue, did I mention that?

Galadriel: what does that even mean in this context??

Elrond: I found him out wandering the beach all by himself one night, so I took him in :)

Maglor: I was walking on the seaside one day and he just grabbed me

Galadriel:

[the-spirit-of-yore]

Erebor par Alan Lee

[unavidas]

are there any Glorestor truthers still in the building??

[immorally-ambiguous]

After Númenór, he wore a countenance of crackled glory and cusped and burnt edges. Drowned, destroyed, mangled by Eru, and he still came out glorious.

Sauron post Númenórean Flood

[samchambersart]

“Then Boromir raised his horn and blew. Loud the challenge rang and bellowed, like the shout of many throats under the cavernous roof. For a moment the orcs quailed and the fiery shadow halted”

The third part of my LOTR illustration series: Boromir, Mary & Pippin

Every time I rewatch The Fellowship of the Ring, I find myself rooting for Boromir more and more.

One of my favorite moments in the books that doesn’t make it in the films is he and Aragorn going back to face the Balrog with Gandalf.

Thank you so much for looking at my art!

[nerds-yearbook]

What became known as the Fellowship of the Ring (Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir, Gimili, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin) departed from Rivendell on the evening of December 25, 3018 TA (Third Age) on their quest to destroy the One Ring. ("Fellowship of the Ring" J.R.R. Tolkien, Novel)

[theaskywalker]

Imagine being Fili and Kili's younger sister and joining them and your uncle Thorin on the Quest despite their disapproval

Masterlist

[inthehouseoffinwe]

Hc that elves of the Third Age might appreciate the deeds of those of the First, but they have little respect for them.

It’s one of those things where you look in history and are like ‘cool.’ But you know if you saw these guys irl you’d punch them in the face.

Like these elves of the Third Age, especially those who stuck around at the beginning of the Fourth, are so done with all the drama, prejudices, and feuds. They were never meant to fight this war, it should’ve been over long before their time. The last generations born in ME can’t believe the First Age elves were so self-centred that they put personal feuds over banding together and taking out Morgoth.

This ties into another hc I have of Thranduil and Elrond being the ones to essentially say ‘that’s enough.’ They actively send elves to each other’s realms to end the division as much as they can. Internally Thranduil bridges the Sindar and Silvan etc, whilst Elrond deals with the ten factions of Noldor and ensures their kids get to play together as they grow up, stopping these 6000 year old arguments leaking into the next generation.

They’ve all lost too much to it.

It really starts with Elladan, Elrohir, and Legolas at the beginning of the Third Age being taught together as often as they can, groups of Sindar and Noldor being sent with them in an exchange of skills and knowledge. And the focus is forever on:

One day Sauron will return. Are we going to make the same mistake our parents did and let him use our divisions against us?

Galadriel gets involved too. She’s grown in wisdom, has lost more than anyone else. She lies as the final authority on the most problematic of elves who bring up the past for no reason but to go back to the ‘old ways.’ She’s older than most, or close enough in age that even those who refuse to listen to these ‘naive young leaders’ (Elrond and Thranduil) have to listen to her.

By the end of the Third Age it’s common for Sindar, Noldor, Silvan, whatever Cirdan’s lot are, and *insert elf kind here*, to have friends amongst each other’s races. To even have friends amongst men or dwarves, or at least respect and civil relations with them. It’s this mindset that brings Sauron to his knees in the end. He has no one to manipulate. No one to cause internal strife. No one to distract from him.

But back to the arrival in Valinor.

These young elves who have friends crossing cultures and races, have mortal friends they’ve lost over the years to orcs and to Sauron and darkness, find themselves *furious* at the First Age elves.

They lived in so much decadence and luxury that this is what they turned to? Wars and Political Drama for the sake of what. Ambition? What ambition is it to drag your people to the slaughterhouse, unprepared with ideas of glory that will never come to pass?

They lived a life of peace and plenty and never appreciated an ounce of it. Doused themselves in gold paint and heavy embroidered silk and jewellery for the sake of a beauty you couldn’t afford to wear in Middle Earth, no matter how much you wanted to. What if something went wrong? How could you outrun orcs if you were restricted by unwieldy fabric and shone like the sun in the dark. Even children knew better.

These elves of the Third Age would have sacrificed lives and limbs to let their families grow up in such safety.

The worst part is finding out there were older elves who made the Great Journey who warned these veritable children for their lack of life experience, of the horrors that awaited. The foolishness of their decisions. But they were ignored and labelled cowards.

To make matters worse, these glory seeking elves couldn’t even finish the job. Instead it fell to elves and men and dwarves and Hobbits, all of whom had no choice in their circumstances, to fix their ancestors mistakes. All because they’d chosen pride over working together to defeat the evil steadily encroaching and covering their safe havens. 600 years of war, and they learned nothing.

Elwë is not except from this. Aside from his own pride and arrogance, Lady Galadriel and Lord Elrond kept their realms safe, but they never turned away a weary traveller. Never hesitated to give aid and shelter to those who crossed their paths even in the darkest of times. Galadriel knows this best of all. She once lived in Doriath, and is right alongside the younger elves, scorning the King’s false shroud of safety, clinging to a past long gone in his heavy cloak and gilded crown.

How easily it all came crumbling down.

So yes. The elves of the Third Age can appreciate the growth and how their elders learned to adapt to the worsening situation. But they will never lose that flame of anger that so many of their friends, so many mortal friends above all who already had firefly lives, were spent and lost to a force they’d never had a choice but to fight to the end.

They will never respect them.

(They do however hold great respect and sympathy for Celebrimbor. It’s easy to be deceived by Sauron. And between him, Gil Galad, and Oropher, they got the closest to unity that they could with their factions of traditional First Agers and the early next generation learning to see past their history.

Celebrimbor and Idril were born in the golden peace of Aman, but grew up in the harsh lands of Middle Earth. They understand the younger elves’ anger more than anyone ever could, and find themselves sharing it. But now they have a voice for that simmering anger. And the Second and Third Age elves have protectors and allies in the older generations.

Glorfindel ofc is always at their back. He spent too much time seeing the little Dunedain Chieftains he helped raise falling far before their time not to feel pure, unadulterated rage at the past. Not to feel guilt and shame with it.)

[velvet4510]

It blows my mind that by giving the mithril shirt to Bilbo, Thorin indirectly saved Frodo and thus prevented the Ring-bearer from dying and the Quest from failing. The world was ultimately saved because the exiled King Under the Mountain fell in love with a hobbit.

[elronds-library]

The Great Impossible

by timelessutterances (@balrogballs)

"It is three hundred years before Arwen tells Elrond, offhand in a conversation about something else, that on one rainy night two months after Celebrìan sailed, Maglor saved her life without knowing it. She says it in passing, like it's something obvious, something she expects him to already know." On Maglor as a grandfather, and the aftereffects of an impossible choice made on the darkest day in Imladris.

Teen, No Archive Warnings

Words: 6,850

[the-spirit-of-yore]

The Burial of Thorin Oakenshield par Alan Lee