#i didn't even know what sauron was so of course i fell for the show's little trick of letting someone suggest adar was sauron

[lordgrimwing]

I'm glad I will be spending all day in the field tomorrow so i can't look at tumblr at all after the Rings of Power season 2 trailer comes out

[pluralwives]

The Failures of Plural Representation

Tw: mental health, abuse, torture, plural vilification, neurotypical shit.

My dad... (I don't want to say 'made me') invited me to watch The Lord of the Rings from a very young age. You know, like any good gen X parent would. And of course I fell in love with it! I was raised a nerd after all.

My favorite scene ofc has to be the part when Eowyn goes all Mulan and bitch slaps the Witch King to death saying "I am no man. I'm a woman!".

For a long time these movies became the gold standard for what good story telling looked liked. It sparked my passion for storytelling, cinema and writing.

Recently I've been rewatching the trilogy, the extended versions on HBO. And I hadn't watched them in so long, they felt like new and yet... they felt like home.

There aren't many things that have made me feel like home ever since I left my body...

But tonight I finished watching the two towers.

Began with a vat full of mousse cake and my wife by my side!

Finished sad... with a bad taste in my mouth that won't leave.

(No, it wasn't the mousse. My Alesha could never make anything that wasn't perfect)

And it's funny. Bc I remember that on the original cut that my dad and I rented from a Block Buster, the story of Smeagol seemed so sad to me.

But what I just saw was far from sad, it was cruel!

And not like some dramatic tragedy or anything like that!

It was a joke!

Smeagol was a joke!

His pain was just some passing slapstick! Sauron tortures him! The humans too! Sam harrasses him! And Frodo betrays him!

"You have shown your quality, sir. The very highest."

"You left out one of the chief characters: Sawise the Brave."

"There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."

Oh! Why don't you go fuck a po-tay-toe, Sam! You bastard half-ling!

Faramir gets the girl!

Sam gets revindicated for misstrusting Smeagol!

And Frodo goes to the eternal shores or some shit!

And Gollum?

To the flames where he fucking belongs, the freak!

"But he was too far gone! The ring had taken control over him! He couldn't be trusted!"

👆

(Windows 10 seeks to censor me)

Yes, obviously. He is a flawed character. Just like almost everyone in the movies.

But you just don't see Boromir getting the same treatment. No, he gets the bitter-sweet flashback with his brother.

And Smeagol proves to get better and get rid of his toxic counterpart and be happy again! (100 times the strength any soldier has ever had in my experience) But still... No.

He's still just a freak.

The creature Gollum.

But alright. So J. R. R. Tolkien sucks at mental health representation. I don't think that's such a hot take if I know the internet.

But here's the catch:

It is worth remembering.

Cuz history has a funny way of tripping you over and kicking you in the gut for the bad memory of others.

(Split 2016)

A bad movie? Yes! But a popular movie? Also yes!

And that's why I'm currently mad enough to write a Tumblr blog at 4 in the morning. Bc popular media seems to mostly just show pural folks as monsters and not people you can empathize with!

And that's fucking scary bc, guess what?

We don't want to be treated like fucking monsters!

Big surprise there!

...

It's just... I sometimes forget how scary it can be.

To think that you can't be who you are in public because people will look at you... and see nothing less than a creature.

I didn't choose to be this way, and yet I'm trying to love myself for what I am...

And then you look at me and... What? Do I matter so little? Do you see me as lesser? ... Am I not even a person? ... Is it even a crime to harm me?

Fuck...

...

It's not all bad news though.

Maybe as part of the recent trend towards mental health acceptance, or maybe just bc of some rando guardian angel writer. or just for the f'ing lols, we're starting to see for the first time the representation of characters with multiple personalities that is not only accurate and sensible, but also effective and heartfelt from a storytelling pov.

I didn't finish Moon Knight, but for what I saw it gives me great hope that this will become the standard for talking abt multiple personalities on popular media from now on... bc that would honestly get rid of so much my daily stress.

...

I just want a family at the end of the day.

I want a stable job, I want my own small business, I want a house for my wife, and I want a child that feels free to become whatever the want to, and need to be. And I want heroes they can look up to.

Bc I'm running out of mine...

I'm really sad I have to leave this part of my childhood behind.

I could start trying to split hairs and defend the movie as something far away from Tolkien's nastyness... but something tells me that it's just not gonna be the same ever again.

I'm not gonna stop my rewatch or ban TLOTR from my home. They're still cool movies. It's just that the same enjoyment is no longer there. And I just don't feel like indoctrinating my family to these movies just like I was, even if some of their lessons are important.

For that I have Moon Girl and Devi Dinosaur!

–Tal