elvenmoans

[elvenmoans]

Seattle is like Portland's older sister that was cool before she got a business degree

[elvenmoans]

anybody else hate how much it costs just to literally Eat Food and Stay Alive

[elvenmoans]

I’m obsessed with the bit in the Hobbit films where Thranduil tells Legolas to go find Aragorn— because if you care enough to dive through the layers of obscure knowledge it takes to understand the timeline, then you’re also the exact kind of LOTR Film Nerd who knows why the moment actually doesn’t make sense.

Tiny brain: “oh cool Legolas will find Aragorn”

Small brain: “ummm actually in the first Hobbit film it says that The Hobbit take place 60 years before Bilbo’s 111th birthday in lord of the rings? So wouldn’t Aragorn be a baby?”

Medium brain: “ummm actually if you watched the extended cut of The Two Towers, it’s made clear that Aragorn is a descendant of Numenor who has an abnormally long lifespan. He is 87 at the time of Lord of the Rings; 60 years earlier, he was 27, a very reasonable age for him to have made a name for himself as a ranger.”

Large Brain: “Ummmm actually in the book it’s confirmed that there’s a twenty-year gap between Bilbo’s 111th birthday party disappearance to Frodo leaving the Shire with the Ring. The Hobbit quest happened 60 years before Bilbo’s famous birthday party. 87-60-20=7 years old. Aragorn would be a lil guy. He would not yet be Strider, the timeline makes no sense.”

Giant brain: “ummm actually the screenwriters have confirmed that the 20 year gap is not canon in the film’s universe. First, it’s really not portrayed as a 20-year-gap in the films— it’s written and shot as if it were a couple months. The screenwriters were also aware of the implications of removing it. For example, in a behind the scenes commentary they discussed how their portrayal of Frodo is much younger than the version in the book —because they removed the 20-year gap. Film!Frodo is an innocent youth going out on his own for the first time, in contrast to the book’s more mature adult— and that deeply affects his characterization throughout the trilogy.

We can consider Legolas’s journey to meet Strider an official canon confirmation that the 20-year gap did not happen in the film’s universe. So the timeline makes sense!”

Galaxy brain: “okay, but even if the timeline works with the LOTR films, this new backstory doesn’t work with the LOTR films’ portrayal of Legolas’s character.

In the Hobbit films, it’s retconned that Legolas went to find Aragorn because he was so overwhelmed by all the death he witnessed in the Battle of the Five Armies. It’s retconned that he has a mother who died when he was young, and a grief-stricken father, and that he’s constantly Angsting over both. it’s also retconned that Legolas was in unrequited love with a grieving woman who loved a dwarf tragically killed in battle. Legolas feels he can no longer stay in the Woodland Realm because of all this loss, which is why he decides to find a new purpose with Aragorn.

But in the Lord of the Rings films, part of Legolas’s character arc is that he’s witnessing death and mortality up close *for the first time in his immortal life.* He’s a fae magical immortal who’s not used to death affecting him personally. This character arc is unique to the films. (it is not reallllllly in the books, and doesn’t jive with the way Tolkien writes elves in general— but it is the way the films chose to rewrite Legolas’s storyline. )

film!Legolas reacts to Gandalf’s death with bewilderment, acting lost, as if he’s experiencing emotions that are entirely new to him. This acting decision is discussed explicitly in behind the scenes materials. Legolas has rarely encountered this kind of death, not in a way so close to him personally, so it’s hard for him to even comprehend. Legolas’s unfamiliarity with mortal death continues through Boromir’s death and into the Two Towers, where he gradually grows more worried over the lives of Aragorn/ the people of Rohan. He reacts with bewildered anger when told to leave Aragorn for dead, and then lashes out at Aragorn when he thinks that everyone at Helm’s deep will die (only to receive the response: “then I shall die as one of them.”)

This character arc ends in Return of the King, with a famous bit of dialogue that does not appear in the books. Gimli says he “never thought he’d die side by side with an elf,” and Legolas cheerfully responds “what about side by side with a friend?” Mortal death goes from something Legolas finds distant/unfamiliar, to something he accepts as a natural part of living among mortals.

This is similar to the changes the films make to Arwen’s character, vs the original book. In the films, both of the “young” elves have arcs about encountering death up close, and yet continuing to love the mortal world. The films contrast them with the “older” wearier elves like Elrond and Galadriel. Obviously this theme is more of a focal point in Arwen’s plotline, but it’s also relevant to Legolas. (And! In early drafts of the Two Towers, Arwen joined Aragorn at Helm’s Deep— I have a theory that the scenes where Legolas worries over Aragorn’s death were originally written for Arwen.)

So!

if you care enough about the Lord of the Rings films to understand that “there is no twenty year gap,” that Frodo is a young ingenue instead of middle-aged adult, that the films have their own storyline/characters/timeline separate from the books, and that therefore the timeline of Legolas meeting Strider can make sense …

….then you also probably care that Legolas had a specific character in the LoTR films, and this new backstory contradicts it.

Giving Legolas a new core motivation where “he’s overwhelmed by angst/grief from encountering too much death” undercuts his entire characterization in LOTR, which was meant to be about encountering mortal death up close for the first time. It also cheapens really impactful moments from LOTR— like Orlando Bloom’s performance after the death of Gandalf, where he really captures the idea that this fae immortal is struggling to comprehend the ordinary human emotion of grief.

And that’s why so many critics get that moment in The Hobbit wrong XD. People always try to critique it from a timeline/continuity perspective, when in reality, the timeline continuity makes perfect sense!!! The actual problem is the way it poorly attempts to retcon Legolas’s entire characterization. And IMHO that’s a much more serious flaw than a continuity error. It’s not “making a math mistake,” it’s undercutting the meaning of Legolas’s story in LOTR.

Super Mega Galaxy Brain: “nothing in the hobbit films is canon except the pieces I like”

[elvenmoans]

you have to remember that your icon is who's saying your posts

[elvenmoans]

creature

[elvenmoans]

Even fitting intimate things isn't as sexy as you'd expect. Im just thinking about how I can get a tight fit without stabbing you in the balls.

it's harder to sexualize garak's profession if you ever sewed before. garak on his knees. trying to find a comfortable position to cut fabric in on the floor because it's not really a table thing and also you don't have a table big enough and you can't lean on the fabric bc then it shifts god fucking damn it that was not the line you were supposed to cut at. now everything's fucking ruined

[elvenmoans]

since I've reread the Silmarillion again and the brainrot set in, here's my fave little elf ⚒️💍

[elvenmoans]

someone in the notes on that “stop fetishizing old houses” post commented that builders before the 1970s were too concerned with elegance and grandeur, and that was all really just wastefulness

and I think about my apartment, a duplex from 1912, surely built for a middle- or working-class family. spartan, really; quite basic and no-frills. not much to look at from the outside. just like a thousand buildings of similar provenance in the Boston area.

there are flowers molded in the chunky, cast-iron radiators

there’s a design of concentric circles in the carved door-lintels

many buildings of this type have a little stained-glass window somewhere

 I think about ornate door hinges in the staff wing of a country estate from 1878.  think of patterned wallpaper in a mansion’s kitchen, from 1797. I think about purely functional spaces someone looked at and said, “this needs beauty”

the past was certainly guilty of waste in many ways. but I cannot call making a house more than just a box to live in one of them

[elvenmoans]

someone in the notes on that “stop fetishizing old houses” post commented that builders before the 1970s were too concerned with elegance and grandeur, and that was all really just wastefulness

and I think about my apartment, a duplex from 1912, surely built for a middle- or working-class family. spartan, really; quite basic and no-frills. not much to look at from the outside. just like a thousand buildings of similar provenance in the Boston area.

there are flowers molded in the chunky, cast-iron radiators

there’s a design of concentric circles in the carved door-lintels

many buildings of this type have a little stained-glass window somewhere

 I think about ornate door hinges in the staff wing of a country estate from 1878.  think of patterned wallpaper in a mansion’s kitchen, from 1797. I think about purely functional spaces someone looked at and said, “this needs beauty”

the past was certainly guilty of waste in many ways. but I cannot call making a house more than just a box to live in one of them

[elvenmoans]

My vampires CAN walk into the sunlight but doing so would reveal what they would look like if they aged normally

Younger vampires don’t have much to worry about but older vamps have reason to avoid sunlight as they age. They are still immortal, but their aged, sunlit selves are significantly weaker than their non-sunlit forms. Vamps over 100 years old run the risk of crumpling over, fully immobile, but still conscious

[elvenmoans]

[elvenmoans]

I really wish Tolkien had made Carathir x Haleth explicitly canon because we finally would have gotten a mortal x immortal romance where the immortal character is male and the mortal one is female. Let them be the ultimate power couple. Let Carathir be utterly devastated when she dies. Let his watch over her people for the rest of his life in her honor. Or better yet, let his grief kill him. Yes I know it’s thematically pleasing for all of Fëanor’s sons to die due to his oath, but wouldn’t it also be thematically please for Carathir, the guy who’s literally know for being angry all the time, to die of love? Wouldn’t it be just as much of a statement for his death to have absolutely nothing to do with retrieving the Silmarils, which he was always one of the more enthusiastic participants in, and everything to do with the mortal woman he can’t bear to live without?

[elvenmoans]

Playing Minecraft with friends is the best because one of my friends got us to go on a heavy tech modpack server he'd been on for months, and we decided he was god because he had technology we couldn't grasp.

And then everyone else started bickering about their 'borders' and threatening war but I was just vibing in the woods. So god dropped down with a jetpack and gave me three gold blocks, said I was his Joseph Smith, and now I need god to protect me from all the heathens trying to kill me for being the chosen one. You can't get this shit anywhere else. It's just a group of adults playing pretend

[elvenmoans]

honestly i think im good without that thanks

[elvenmoans]

from that one behind the scene photo 💔💔❤️‍🩹

[elvenmoans]

joining the war on porn on the side of porn