#like Sauron taking over Middle-earth

[gossip-girl-of-middleearth]

Oh my GODS it’s starting guys, Amazon and Warner Bros are beginning to get petty and fight each other over who’s better at LOTR 😂

[glorfindel-of-imladris]

I've mentioned this in passing in this post, but this is hands down my favourite line in The Fellowship of the Ring. The line speaks volumes about Glorfindel, and yet the details are easily missed by a first-time reader travelling along with Frodo and friends, and that's because not once does Glorfindel explain how significant his words and actions were. Yet there is so much to unpack! It is only left to us to appreciate them after learning more about this world.

“There are few even in Rivendell that can ride openly against the Nine…”

Again, Glorfindel only mentioned this in passing and did not explain, but the reason for this is because the only ones Rivendell would send to ride openly against the Nazgûl were special members of the Eldar: the Calaquendi, old Elves from Valinor and who have seen the light of the Two Trees. Gandalf later explains that these Elves “live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and Unseen they have great power”. The Nazgûl, as we learn, were wraiths that reside only in the Unseen world, and so to anyone else, they were invisible.

We know there were very few Calaquendi remaining in Middle-earth by the Third Age, and most of them reside in Rivendell. But even among them, likely only the warriors could be sent to go after the Nagzûl, chief of Sauron's servants. This early, we get a clue that Frodo and company have met someone extraordinary.

“It was my lot to take the Road…”

By “Road”, Glorfindel meant The Great East-West Road, an ancient road that cuts across Eriador from the Grey Havens to Rivendell and the Misty Mountains. This would have been the most perilous of the roads because it would have been the most obvious path passing through the Shire. Later, during the Council of Elrond, it would be mentioned that Sauron would be expecting the Ring to go from the Shire either to the Grey Havens or to Rivendell, both routes reached primarily via the Road.

It was to be expected therefore that this is the one path most guarded by the Enemy. Again, Glorfindel only mentions his task securing the Road in passing, but the fact that he got the most obvious and thus most perilous path speaks volumes of his ability and position in Rivendell. Only a few deemed able to ride openly against the Nine were sent out, and out of them, Glorfindel was the one sent to secure the most dangerous route. What ability and skill must this Elf have to be entrusted with such a task!

"I came to the Bridge of Mitheithel, and left a token there, nigh on seven days ago."

The Bridge of Mitheitel, or The Last Bridge, is the only way to cross the great River Hoarwell (Mitheitel) from Weathertop to Rivendell. Aragorn, as much as he could, avoided the Road, himself knowing the dangers possibly waiting for them there. Later though he tells the Hobbits, "I am afraid we must go back to the Road here for a while, [for we] have now come to the River Hoarwell... There is no way over it below its sources in the Ettenmoors, except by the Last Bridge on which the Road crosses."

Aragorn and the Hobbits therefore went to the Bridge dreading to encounter the Nazgûl, only to find it safe. Instead, Aragorn finds an elf-stone in the middle of the bridge, which gives him hope. We now learn that it was Glorfindel who left it there, for he has secured the Bridge, likely knowing how important it was to do so because unlike all other paths, this was the one path that Frodo and company would inevitably need to take. If the Enemy wanted to lay an ambush, they would have done so at the Bridge; strategically Glorfindel understood this, and coming after them at the Bridge was exactly what the company needed from him for them to stay safe.

“Three of the servants of Sauron were upon the Bridge, but they withdrew and I pursued them westward. I came also upon two others, but they turned away southward.”

Here once again is Glorfindel describing something incredible in the simplest of ways: the Nazgûl actually flee from him! Thus far in the book, the Nazgûl were the first source of terror for Frodo's company as well as for us, the readers, yet here Glorfindel was riding about with bells on his horse, not even trying to hide at all. He is the one hunting the Nazgûl and not the other way around, this was made very clear.

Glorfindel has been my favourite character from the start. He got me from their first meeting because he gave the Hobbits a sense of safety, even though they and we perhaps do not yet fully appreciate who he was and what he was capable of. As we read through the rest of the books, and even beyond through The Silmarillion, The Fall of Gondolin, The Peoples of Middle-earth and all these other books that share his history, I only learned to love him all the more. Years later, having read all these other books, I still sometimes just sit in awe thinking back on this first encounter in this first book, in the Fellowship of the Ring, about how Frodo and his friends met this seemingly humble Elf, who in actuality was literally an Elf of legend. Yet apparently one would not think it, encountering Glorfindel on the road.

[thesummerestsolstice]

How Silm characters would react to meeting their Rings of Power counterparts:

Gil-Galad:

Oh they do not like each other

"I'm sorry, you said what to Elrond?"

RoP!Gil thinks Silm!Gil isn't detached and regal enough

Silm!Gil is trying to figure out the political consequences of decking him

"I'm sorry, you sent Galadriel where??"

At some point RoP!Gil, who can't believe this is another version of him, asks Silm!Gil what his royal lineage is

Silm!Gil gets real quiet after that lmao

If they ended up physically fighting Silm!Gil would win RoP!Gil fights like a normal elf and Silm!Gil bites

I think the Elronds have to pull them apart eventually

Elrond:

The Elronds get along very well I think

Silm!Elrond teaches RoP!Elrond some eldritchry

RoP!Elrond tells Silm!Elrond all about his speech craft

I think Silm!Elrond would be very into animal-carcass-related metaphors, he's a weird little guy

I feel like Silm!Elrond would feel bad for RoP!Elrond, who clearly deals with a lot of disrespect in Lindon, and would try to teach him how to be a bit more assertive

They bond over having to deal with everyone else's bullshit

Galadriel:

See this is bad for Middle-Earth

Silm!Galadriel is less openly angry but just as much of a force of nature as RoP!Galadriel

And Silm!Galadriel is also a lot better at the more subtle conniving stuff so between them they do, in fact, possess all the skills needed to take over Middle-Earth

They're busy scheming up plans to wipe Sauron off the face of the planet and frankly good for them

Celebrimbor:

They also get along very well

They talk for 15 straight hours about forge stuff

Silm!Cel talks about Annatar and RoP!Cel is like "lovely! no red flags here!"

RoP!Cel talks about how the idea for the rings came from some random, very suspicious "human" and Silm!Cel is like "haha yeah inspiration comes from the strangest places sometimes'

They're a little bit stupid but they're also beefy and kind so we can forgive them

Sauron:

Halbrand and Annatar immediatly start viciously insulting each other

They both accuse each other of having terrible taste (in Finweans and incarnate forms)

"Useless sparkly twink!" "Filthy mortal!" "I can't believe you tried to seduce Celebrimbor!" "At least I didn't try and fail to seduce Galadriel!"

Annatar finds out about the situation with Adar and the orcs and bullys Halbrand relentlessly about it

Sauron's ego can't take there being more than one version of him

Hopefully they keep each other busy until the Galadriels smite them

[teh-tj]

17 Reasons

1 Because the eagles would have been spotted by Sauron.

2 Controlling the eagles is very difficult and requires a great intellect and soul to accomplish. Gandalf was the only one like that, and still he had to find the eagles since you can’t simply tame them.

3 The eagles live mostly in the Misty Mountains, meaning the take off point would have been spotted by Sauron’s army.

4 Mount Doom is too hot for the eagles to fly directly above, it's also a volcano which emits toxic fumes.

5 Eagles are very smart and powerful creatures, they developed concepts like greed and language. The ring would have corrupted them after long exposure. Remember, the ring must be handled by a weak race who wouldn’t be corrupted by it, and Hobbits are the only intelligent race this applies to and even then it’s not 100%. (look at Gollum)

6 Eagles are massive, and since they’re strong enough to carry two full-grown human men we know they’re exceptionally strong. Because of this, they require a lot of energy, eg calories. If they rode the eagles from their natural habitat to Mount Doom they’d have to stop for food breaks constantly. IRL Eagles have to eat a pound (450 grams) of food a day, with the eagles themselves weighing around 14 lbs (6kg). Let’s say if the eagles weigh as much as a small horse, or 700lbs (318kg), that would mean they’d need 50 pounds of food a day.

7 To add to the last point, they’d be very prone to physical exhaustion. Due to their size and dietary needs we’d have to assume the eagles would need a lot of breaks in general.

8 If the eagles are shot down, a very real risk given the size of Sauron’s army, the fall would surely kill a significant portion of the Fellowship of the Rings. A risk Gandalf is too smart to take.

9 The eagles, weighing over 700lbs (318kg) would produce humongous poops, and birds don’t have sphincters. Imagine a dump the size of a large microwave falling on you from the sky, the fellowship is comprised of people too good to risk harming someone like that.

10 Since the eagles are so big they’d be too loud and noticeable. Sauron didn’t know about the plan to destroy the ring until it was too late. If he saw the eagles flying straight for Mount Doom he’d know something was up.

11 Gandalf isn’t the only being that can control the eagles, since eagles live so close to Mordor Sauron’s army would, upon realizing the Fellowship was coming, get their most powerful people to fly eagles to fight them. As cool as that sounds, I doubt the fellowship would want that.

12 The eagles might eat the hobbits, and perhaps the dwarves if they’re ballsy enough. Hobbits are around 3-4 feet (91-121cm) each and are said to be plump, so assuming they weigh as much as an overweight child they’re around 50lbs (23kg) which is around as much as the eagles should eat daily if you remember, and the dwarves and slightly taller and vastly more muscular so they’d be around 75lbs (34kg). That’s already a slight majority of the party which, in a pinch, would make for a great eagle feast.

13 If this feast were to happen all hope would be lost, and no other hobbit (almost the only race trusted with this mission) would even want to attempt to destroy the ring with Gandalf.

14 The eagles are too preoccupied with having their own lives. They might do Gandalf a favor and take a day to fly the fellowship to Mordor, but the journey would have taken days without the journey (the Shire and Mordor are practically on the opposite ends of Middle Earth) and I’m not sure most eagles would care enough to do that.

15 They needed to gather intelligence and protect Rohan from Sauron’s invasion along with destroying the ring.

16 If Gollum, the crazy mf, snuck onto one of the eagles somehow he would have destroyed the entire operation.

17 Tolkien himself confronted this. Tolkien said that the eagles are some of the most powerful creatures in Middle Earth and that any good writer would use them sparingly.

[overthinkinglotr]

I was watching LOTR with friends the other day and someone pointed out that a major reason film!Elrond is upset about Arwen being in love with Aragorn is because of Elrond's own broken relationship with Isildur.

In the films Isildur and Elrond are kind of set up as....a broken failed parallel to Aragorn and Arwen?

Arwen reassures Aragorn that "he is Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself," and "is not bound to his fate"-- but Elrond disagrees, confident that Aragorn will be just like Isildur.

Film!Elrond is so certain that trusting in mankind is a mistake that will only lead Arwen to misery because he once trusted in mankind, and the man he trusted ended up failing him. His ally from the line of Elendil ended up falling to the power of the Ring and dying; he believes Aragorn may do the same thing. He doesn't just want to save Arwen's life and keep his daughter by his side; he wants to prevent Arwen from experiencing the same betrayal/heartbreak he experienced. Film!Elrond is very stoic and unsentimental, but there are all these hints at Elrond and Isildur's past relationship throughout the series. Everyone likes to make the joke "why didn't Elrond just toss Isildur into the fire?" but to me the answer is, partially, because he cared about Isildur. They were allies who fought side-by-side. After describing what happened in Mount Doom all those years ago, Elrond tells Gandalf that "It should've ended that day, but evil was allowed to endure." And I think it's interesting that he goes into passive voice for a moment, instead of saying that Isildur specifically allowed to evil to endure--because he's also blaming himself for allowing evil to endure, blaming his own failure to be harsh with Isildur and take the Ring from him by force. He's regretting that he was merciful and didn't "just toss Isildur into the fire."

His complicated emotions about Isildur also appear again in the Two Towers. After insisting that Arwen needs to give up Aragorn as a lost cause and travel into the West, Elrond has a conversation with Galadriel where she guilt-trips him for abandoning Middle Earth/mankind. When she asks him "do we let them stand alone?" Elrond walks into the study, and spends a long moment looking at his mural of Isildur.

He then, in the film's canon, agrees to send military support to one of Isildur's descendants."I don't care about Isildur anymore, men are weak," Elrond says, standing in front of his elaborate mural of Isildur and his shrine dedicated to Isildur's sword.

And yes this is all, again, a drastic departure from his characterization in the book-- most of the Aragorn-Arwen-Elrond stuff in the films is a drastic departure from the book. The films radically alter their dynamics, including eliminating stuff like Elrond being Aragorn's adopted father and all the "their bloodlines are related" stuff and etc etc etc etc etc. But honestly, now that I see it, this interpretation makes the film!Elrond-Arwen dynamic engaging in a way I hadn't recognized before? In some ways it puts Isildur into the role that Elrond's mortal brother Elros played for him in the books, because Elros is cut from the films entirely. Isildur is the reason film!Elrond knows what it's like to have some kind of close relationship with a mortal and then watch them die. When Elrond angrily speaks about the folly of trusting men, or insists to Arwen that Aragorn "is not coming back" so she should just get over him, he's speaking from experience--he's projecting his own weird failed broken betrayal-ridden Thing with Isildur onto Arwen and Aragorn. And in this context, his hopeless monologue about how Arwen will regret staying by Aragorn's side also feels like it's partially from his own experience. "If Sauron is defeated, and Aragorn is made king, and all that you hope for comes true, you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality." When he fought three thousand years ago Sauron was defeated, and Isildur did become King, and yet... TL;DR : Film!Elrond had a nasty kind-of breakup with a mortal man 3000 years ago and instead of dealing with it he decided "Men Are trash Weak" and began projecting all of his drama onto Arwen

[notreallystars]

I've read a lot of fics that show elves being reborn into bodies that retain evidence of the things that happened to them in Middle Earth - like Maedhros being reborn with only one hand - and this makes sense. Their bodies are sites of trauma, and this will change them and they way they relate to their bodies so it makes perfect sense that they might return scarred or missing limbs.

But consider: the Valar do not understand Eru's children. They do not understand what it is to inhabit a body rather than simply wear one, do not understand the interrelation of body and self.

Finrod returns. There is joy, there is sorrow, there is confusion. He looks well enough but he keeps rubbing his hands over his wrists (he had pulled so hard against Sauron's shackles that there had been little skin left), over his throat (the memory of teeth sinking into his flesh screams at him, more vivid at times than the faces of his parents as they sit before him), over his face (claws drag through his cheek daily in his memory so where are the scars). Eventually he paints onto his body the scars he knows would have existed, and this at least stops him rubbing at them for fear of smearing paint all over himself. It is not enough, but at least he is still.

It seems grotesque to the Eldar of Aman who see only an obsession with past hurts, a playacting of injury, but Finrod is loved and so his eccentricity is tolerated. As more elves return, however, it becomes clear that this is not Finrod's trouble alone. Many take Finrod's lead, painting on their bodies the patterns of scars they remember and those they know they should have borne had they survived the attacks that killed them. Some wore eyepatches over eyes that had once been injured. Some walked with limps their new bodies did not need.

When Fingon returns he paints his whole body red. It is long before he speaks at all (his voice ought to be hoarse from shouting, scratchy and painful to use but no! - how does one reconcile the memory of being beaten to a bloody pulp in the mud with the perfect, unharmed body of one's youth?), and even then he will not sing.

Much, much later when Maedhros returns, he begs Fingon to cut his hand off again.

[cottoncandiescupcakes]

Elf lords! What do you bring to the team

Elrond: Intelligence

Thranduil: Fighting skills

Gil-Galad: Leadership

Celeborn: .... ?

Galadriel: He's just kind of like my pet. He stands there and shuts up and looks pretty. I love him

Celeborn: :) Oh.... my....

Sauron: I'm so jealous fuck if I had known that was all it took I wouldn't have tried to take over Middle Earth FML I would have just let an orc give me a lobotomy this sucks

[aracaranelentari]

Here's another Nature of Middle-Earth quote that I keep thinking about:

"[Years of the Trees:] 2223. The "Ambassadors" return. Great Debate of the Quendi. A few refuse even to attend. Imin, Tata, and Enel are ill-pleased, and regard the affair as a revolt on the part of the youngest Quendi, to escape their authority. None of the First Elves (144) accept the invitation. Hence the Avari called and still call themselves "the Seniors"." (NoME 96)

I think that's super interesting! Tolkien gives multiple potential versions of this whole sequence, when the Three Ambassadors return to Cuiviénen, so this is only one of them, but it's kind of my favorite. I like the idea that the Three Ambassadors sort of usurped the leadership of the Three Fathers, and that Imin, Tata, and Enel are potentially still out there, and may have a grudge against those three descendants of theirs.

Imin especially is a pretentious asshole, as he claims to be the "Father of all Quendi", and seems to want control over all the Elves. I want to write a fic where Morgoth or Sauron ally with Imin, maybe they tell him they can help him regain his authority over the Elves? It would certainly be an interesting premise if the Three Fathers showed up at Valinor or Beleriand one day, with the intent of taking back their kingship.

It's also always been bizarre to me that Fëanor was so worried about Fingolfin usurping the throne when Finwë was king in a place where kings do not die, and do not really need heirs (theoretically). But if Finwë was a usurper before Fingolfin was, then Fëanor's fears have a bit more ground, I think, especially if Fingolfin had the greater love from their people. It's happened before, Fëanor would think, therefore it could happen again. Elves seem to follow who they prefer as a king rather than who technically has the most claim, which is shown both in the Three Ambassadors vs the Three Fathers, and also with Fëanor vs Fingolfin during the Flight.

[anghraine]

Hi! Can you explain what really the power of foresight was with Faramir? I read the books earlier this year and I don't really quite understand it. He could predict the future? Like he would see it in his dreams? But how did he found out from Gollum that he was taking frodo and sam to cirith ungol and that he had committed murder before?

No problem, it's one of my favorite topics!

The concise explanation: I think Faramir's foresight/aftersight in terms of visions is a largely separate "power" from his ability to bring his strength of mind and will to bear on other people and animals, and to resist outside influence. The visions seem more a matter of broad sensitivity, something Faramir doesn't appear to have much if any control over. The second power is (in our terms) essentially a form of direct telepathy, limited in some ways but still very powerful, and I think this second ability is what Faramir is using with Gollum.

The really long version:

In my opinion, Faramir (or Denethor, Aragorn, etc) doesn't necessarily read thoughts like a book, particularly not with a mind as resistant as Gollum's. Faramir describes Gollum's mind in particular as dark and closed, it seems unusually so—

"There are locked doors and closed windows in your mind, and dark rooms behind them," said Faramir.

Still, Gollum is unable to entirely block Faramir's abilities. In LOTR, it does not seem that Gollum can fully block powerful mental abilities such as Faramir's, though his toughness and hostility does limit what Faramir can see. (Unfinished Tales, incidentally, suggests iirc that Denethor's combination of "great mental powers" and his right to use the Anor-stone allowed him to telepathically get the better of Saruman through their palantíri, a similar but greater feat.) I imagine that this is roughly similar to, but scaled down from, Galadriel's telepathic inquiries of even someone as reluctant to have her in his mind as Boromir, given that Faramir is able to still see some things in Gollum's mind, if with more difficulty than usual.

(WRT Boromir ... ngl, if I was the human buffer between Denethor and Faramir, I would also not be thrilled about sudden telepathic intrusions from basically anyone, much less someone I had little reason to trust.)

Disclaimer: a few years after LOTR's publication, Tolkien tried to systematize how this vague mystical telepathy stuff really works. One idea he had among many, iirc, was that no unwilling person's mind could be "read" the ways that Gollum's is throughout LOTR. IMO that can't really be reconciled w/ numerous significant interactions in LOTR where resistance to mental intrusion or domination is clearly variable between individuals and affected by personal qualities like strength of will, basic resilience, the effort put into opposition, supernatural powers, etc. And these attempts at resistance are unsuccessful or only partially successful on many occasions in LOTR (the Mouth of Sauron, for one example, is a Númenórean sorcerer in the book who can't really contend with Aragorn on a telepathic level). So I, personally, tend to avoid using the terminology and rationales from that later systematized explanation when discussing LOTR. And in general, I think Tolkien's later attempts to convert the mystical, mysterious wonder of Middle-earth into something more "hard magic" or even scientific was a failed idea on a par with Teleporno. Others differ!

In any case, when Gollum "unwillingly" looks at Faramir while being questioned, the creepy light drains from his eyes and he shrinks back while Faramir concludes he's being honest on that specific occasion. Gollum experiences physical pain when he does try to lie to Faramir—

"It is called Cirith Ungol." Gollum hissed sharply and began muttering to himself. "Is not that its name?" said Faramir turning to him. "No!" said Gollum, and then he squealed, as if something had stabbed him.

I don't think this is a deliberate punishment from Faramir—that wouldn't be like him at all—and I don't think it's the Ring, but simply a natural consequence of what Faramir is. Later, Gandalf says of Faramir's father:

"He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men ... It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try."

So, IMO, Faramir's quick realization that Gollum is a murderer doesn't come from any vision of the future or past involving Gollum—that is, it's not a deduction from some event he's seen. Faramir does not literally foresee Gollum's trick at Cirith Ungol. His warning would be more specific in that case, I think. What he sees seems to be less detailed but more direct and, well, mystical. Faramir likely doesn't know who exactly Gollum murdered or why or what any of the circumstances were. Rather, Gollum's murderousness and malice are visible conditions of his soul to Faramir's sight. Faramir doesn't foresee the particulars of Gollum's betrayal—but he can see in Gollum's mind that he is keeping something back. Faramir says of Gollum:

"I do not think you are holden to go to Cirith Ungol, of which he has told you less than he knows. That much I perceived clearly in his mind."

Meanwhile, in a letter written shortly before the publication of LOTR, Tolkien said of Faramir's ancestors:

They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves

So these abilities aren't that strange in that context. Faramir by chance (or "chance") is, like his father, almost purely an ancient Númenórean type despite living millennia after the destruction of Númenor (that destruction is the main reason "Númenóreanness" is fading throughout the age Faramir lives in). Even less ultra-Númenórean members of Denethor's family are still consistently inheriting characteristics from their distant ancestor Elros, Elrond's brother, while Faramir and Denethor independently strike Sam and Pippin as peculiarly akin to Gandalf, a literal Maia like their ancestress Melian:

“Ah well, sir,” said Sam, “you [Faramir] said my master had an elvish air; and that was good and true. But I can say this: you have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of—well, Gandalf, of wizards.”

He [Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smouldering fire drawn from eye to eye, that might suddenly burst into flame.

Meanwhile, Faramir's mother's family is believed to be part Elvish, a belief immediately confirmed when Legolas meets Faramir's maternal uncle:

At length they came to the Prince Imrahil, and Legolas looked at him and bowed low; for he saw that here indeed was one who had elven-blood in his veins. "Hail, lord!" he [Legolas] said. "It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth’s haven west over water."

In addition to that, Faramir's men believe he's under some specific personal blessing or charm as well as the Númenórean/Elvish/Maia throwback qualities. It's also mentioned by different groups of soldiers that Faramir can exercise some power of command over animals as well as people. Beregond describes Faramir getting his horse to run towards five Nazgûl in real time:

"They will make the Gate. No! the horses are running mad. Look! the men are thrown; they are running on foot. No, one is still up, but he rides back to the others. That will be the Captain [Faramir]: he can master both beasts and men."

Then, during the later retreat of Faramir's men across the Pelennor:

At last, less than a mile from the City, a more ordered mass of men came into view, marching not running, still holding together. The watchers held their breath. "Faramir must be there," they said. "He can govern man and beast."

Tolkien said of the ancient Númenóreans:

But nearly all women could ride horses, treating them honourably, and housing them more nobly than any other of their domestic animals. The stables of a great man were often as large and as fair to look upon as his own house. Both men and women rode horses for pleasure … and in ceremony of state both men and women of rank, even queens, would ride, on horseback amid their escorts or retinues … The Númenóreans trained their horses to hear and understand calls (by voice or whistling) from great distances; and also, where there was great love between men or women and their favorite steeds, they could (or so it is said in ancient tales) summon them at need by their thought alone. So it was also with their dogs.

Likely the same Númenórean abilities were used for evil by Queen Berúthiel against her cats. In an interview with Daphne Castell, Tolkien said:

She [Berúthiel] was one of these people who loathe cats, but cats will jump on them and follow them about—you know how sometimes they pursue people who hate them? I have a friend like that. I’m afraid she took to torturing them for amusement, but she kept some and used them—trained them to go on evil errands by night, to spy on her enemies or terrify them.

The more formal version of the Berúthiel lore recurs in Unfinished Tales:

She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things "that men wish most to keep hidden," setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them.

Faramir, by contrast, has a strong aversion to harming/killing animals for any reason other than genuine need, but apparently quite similar basic abilities. He typically uses these abilities to try to compassionately understand other people or gather necessary information, rather than for domination or provoking fear. Even so, Faramir does seem to use his mental powers pretty much all the time with no attempt to conceal what he's doing—he says some pretty outlandish things to Frodo and Sam as if they're very ordinary, but it doesn't seem that most people he knows can do all these things. This stuff is ordinary to him because it flows out of his fundamental being, not because it's common.

It's not clear how much fine control he has, interestingly. This is more headcanon perhaps, but I don't feel like it's completely under his control, even while it's much more controlled than things like Faramir's vision of Boromir's funeral boat, his frequent, repeated dreams of Númenor's destruction, the Ring riddle dream he received multiple times, or even his suspiciously specific "guess" of what passed between Galadriel and Boromir in Lothlórien. Yet his more everyday mental powers do seem to involve some measure of deliberate effort in a lot of the instances we see, given the differing degrees of difficulty and strain we see with the powers he and Denethor exhibit more frequently and consistently.

This is is also interesting wrt Éowyn, because Tolkien describes Faramir's perception of her as "clear sight" (which I suspect is just Tolkien's preferred parlance for "clairvoyance"). Faramir perceives a lot more of what's going on with Éowyn than I think he had materially observable evidence for—but does not see everything that's going on with her by any means. He seems to understand basically everything about her feelings for Aragorn, more than Éowyn herself does, but does not know if she loves him [Faramir].

I'm guessing that it's more difficult to "see" this way when it's directly personal (one of the tragedies of his and Denethor's relationship is that their shared mental powers do not enable either to realize how much they love each other). But it also doesn't seem like he's trying to overcome Éowyn's mental resistance the way he was with Gollum, and possibly Frodo and Sam—he does handle it a bit differently when it's not a matter of critical military urgency. With Éowyn, he sees what his abilities make clear to him, is interested enough to seek out Merry (and also perceive more than Merry says, because Faramir has never been a normal person one day in his life) but doesn't seem to really push either of them.

So I tend to imagine that with someone like Faramir, Denethor, Aragorn etc, we're usually seeing a relatively passive, natural form of low-grade telepathy that simply derives from their fundamental nature and personalities (as we see in Faramir with Éowyn, possibly Faramir with Aragorn). That can be kicked up to more powerful, forceful telepathy via active exertion of the will (as described by Gandalf wrt Denethor's ability to "bend[] his will thither" to see what passes in others' minds, and seen with Faramir vs Gollum, Aragorn vs the Mouth of Sauron, more subtly Faramir vs Denethor). At a high point of strain this can be done very aggressively or defensively (Denethor vs Gandalf, Denethor vs Saruman, Denethor vs Sauron seriously is there a Maia that man won't fight, Faramir vs the Black Breath given his completely unique symptoms that Aragorn attributes to his "staunch will", possibly Aragorn vs the Black Breath in a healing capacity...).

Anyway, I hope these massive walls of text are helpful or interesting! Thanks for the ask :)

[liveinfarbe]

I’d like Adar to be Celeborn, however unlikely that seems, and see an arc that takes him on a journey of healing. Contrary to Sauron’s path of increasing self-destruction.

Sauron wanted to bind Galadriel to “power” which virtually means to darkness. He just didn’t say so. He said he wanted to heal Middle-Earth and she should join him as queen, but she rightly assessed that his “healing” meant ruling it in tyranny and it would destroy her life.

Unlike Sauron, her bond with Adar/Celeborn could mean actual healing. Which is what they both need because they’ve both been touched by darkness. Healing Middle-Earth and especially healing themselves within the boundaries of Lórien, with the help of Nenya. Both are trauma bonding and trying to get over it.

[lady-byleth]

Like, listen. Listen, okay. The moment I learned they were making Galadriel's character revolve around needless revenge over a man (her brother who is currently happily traipsing across Valinor because that's how death works for elves) I was already mad enough to never touch RoP with a ten foot pole

But this? Taking one of her most iconic lines and attributing it to Sauron? I am livid.

The real Galadriel, the book Galadriel, was always an ambitious woman. She left Valinor to rule a realm of her own, to shape a land the way she thought right. She watched her male relatives do shit and was like "I can do better" and that's what she did

She was driven, intelligent and gifted, she was one of the greatest things that ever happened to the elves, and it all came from herself.

But now they changed her story. This Galadriel isn't traveling Middle-earth to find a place for herself, she's traveling it to avenge a man who doesn't need avenging. And then Sauron pops up and tells her she could be a queen "stronger than the foundations of the earth"? The line she originally said about herself?

The way this is all set up makes it look like a man planted the idea in her that she could be a queen, a man tempted her into becoming a queen, and then continued to tempt her until she refused the ring.

Her whole thing in the books was overcoming the temptation of power and choosing what was right and good. But it wasn't the ring that she needed to beat, she needed to overcome the desires and ambitions inside herself that the ring was using against her

She was her own greatest enemy and she won.

But now they made it all revolve around a man. A man gave her the idea, a man tried to tempt her, a man is who she quotes when she's overcoming temptation...

Do I really need to spell out why the story of a woman whose biggest enemy is herself being changed to so heavily focus on a man's effect is bad? Do I really??

[elmendea]

SO. This piece of work.

I honestly thought Halbrand being Sauron would have been so on the nose, but somehow, they managed to make it absolutely fucking terrifying.

Think about it. He was pulling every single thread from the very beginning, with deadly purpose and terrifying precision. He knew exactly was he was doing at every step, the whole time. 

Yes, even if he was feeling repentant at any point, as published canon tells us he was -- I’ll be damned if he didn’t always have the option to completely drop the repentant ordinary life in Númenor the minute he ran into something that forced his hand, like Galadriel did, in the back of his mind. Or, even if she hadn’t -- the minute he got bored of playing ordinary smith.

And he would have. Yes, yes, he would -- he has a mind like a subtle knife. The very second he got bored...

He let Galadriel learn the truth about him. He had no reason to keep playing peaceful king -- he’d seen Celebrimbor at work, seen the elves’ panic first hand, seen Mordor take shape, seen all the key pieces having been moved into the right places.

He could have spun an actual, spoken lie, this time: that the line of the kings hadn’t been broken, that he was the very last survivor of a bloodline that had hidden itself for centuries. It would have been as easy to him as breathing.

But where’s the fun in that? Where’s the conquest? Why reign over an insignificant little mortal kingdom when you can have all of Middle-earth gripped in an iron fist?

Who wants mere subjects when you can have worshippers? 

Fuck repentance. Let the true king finally take what’s his. Tell Galadriel the truth.

Again.

That’s all he ever did. Not one lie, not once.

He is so horrifically good at what he does that he doesn’t even need to lie to deceive people.

He’s Sauron the Deceiver, after all.

[rey-jake-therapist]

Sometimes I like to read anti shippers rhetoric, just to have a good laugh because... It's often funny.

Last one in date: someone on Twitter said that Saurondriel was "twisted" and that anyone who takes the ship "seriously" should stay away from Tolkien.

There are only two instances where I remember shippers taking their ship way too seriously, and indeed it was scary, "throw tantrums because their ship didn't become canon and/or get the happy ending they believed they were owed" type of scary. I won't name them. And in both cases it was only a few individuals.

But really, most of the time shippers don't take their ship seriously 😂 The point of shipping is to have fun! Not to mention that everybody knows how the story ends, everybody knows that Galadriel and Sauron isn't a love story that will end with them happily ruling over the Middle Earth. The best we can hope for is for an emotional and heartbreaking closure.

And as for "getting away from Tolkien"... Who is he for them, their father? It's just a story Tolkien wrote. No one's disrespecting Tolkien by wanting Galadriel and Sauron to share a passionate cosmic connection or even by wanting them to kiss once. This is just ridiculous. And funny 😂

[sillylotrpolls]

Tolkien's drawing of the crown (from Tolkien Gateway):

The description in Return of the King:

Then the guards stepped forward, and Faramir opened the casket, and he held up an ancient crown. It was shaped like the helms of the Guards of the Citadel, save that it was loftier, and it was all white, and the wings at either side were wrought of pearl and silver in the likeness of the wings of a sea-bird, for it was the emblem of kings who came over the Sea; and seven gems of adamant were set in the circlet, and upon its summit was set a single jewel the light of which went up like a flame.

Excerpt from a letter from Rhona Beare:

Question 4: What clothes did the peoples of Middle-earth wear? Was the winged crown of Gondor like that of a Valkyrie, or as depicted on a Gauloise cigarette packet?

Tolkien's response in Letter 211:

The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled 'Egyptians' – the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. (But not of course in 'theology' : in which respect they were Hebraic and even more puritan – but this would take long to set out: to explain indeed why there is practically no oven 'religion',* or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the 'good' or anti-Sauron peoples in The Lord of the Rings.) I think the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle. The N. Kingdom had only a diadem (III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. kingdoms of Egypt.

What Peter Jackson chose instead:

[sesamenom]

Ringlord High King of Everything Elrond, inspired here

(@the-writing-goblin)

I imagine in this situation elrond would have been partially tempted by boromir's declaration, but instead of trying to fight sauron with it (because even in the weirdest crack au i can think of elrond is still too genre-aware to try that) he tried to use it to supercharge his use of vilya and protect everyone.

basically Ringlord!Elrond turned the entirety of Eriador into a mega-gondolin situation: massive walls (courtesy of numenorean/eregion tech) around the regions bordering the north or Mordor, fortresses along the mountain range and several layers of gates along every road in or out. Everybody goes in; nobody goes out; everyone is safe.

and he ended up claiming the kingship to give him more authority in the process - he's High King of the Noldor and Sindar and King of the Edain (given that there are like three half-vanyar in middle-earth, he's more or less king of all children of iluvatar) and so he can have command over the entirety of the West.

and with the help of the Ring, this actually works! but the corruption starts to show eventually

he uses his kinship to Gondor to forcefully drag them into his neo-gondolin-empire-creation so he can ensure none of his great-nephews will ever have to face sauron. he extends the walls to encompass Mirkwood, because he's the high king of the sindar and has a duty to protect thranduil's realm, and unleashes the full might of his melian-lite powers to purge Sauron's Shadow and the spawn of Ungoliant from the now-Greenwood.

Galadriel and Glorfindel very much see where this is going and are very very worried. galadriel won't let him build walls around lothlorien (because she lives next door to a balrog and knows exactly what happened to gondolin) but celeborn thinks it's a good idea, since after all Doriath wouldn't have fallen if Melian's girdle had still been up. glorfindel tries to talk him out of it but the ring has taken hold

the Ring's power also enhances all his natural weirdness and powers - he has his wings and maia markings permanently activated now, with or without finwean anger. he can fully shapeshift, and he goes from raising waves in the bruinen to raising tsunamis in the great sea.

except the finwean anger seems to be permanently activated now, too, and anyone who harms someone he's deemed under his protection finds themselves the target of a rather ironic vengeance quest. the shapeshifting is looking weird now - his teeth are always sharp now, and his eyes have gone fully inhuman. sometimes he has claws and his wings look more like bats than eagles. and his water powers are more like osse's- he can't calm the waters now (goldberry is the first to notice something's up) and can only stir them into massive ship-sinking storms and tsunamis.

this progresses until he's basically Evil Luthien ruling over a continent-wide Mega-Gondolin, slaughtering orc-hordes before they even reach the white walls and sinking any naval fleet Sauron tries to send around the coast. Everybody is brought in; nobody leaves; everyone is safe...?

he figures out that the dwarven legend of "Durin's Bane" has to be one of the few first age balrogs thats still unaccounted for. and well, it's living right on his border, and he can't risk another fall of gondolin, right? so he leads a small force in there to clear moria, and they shove the balrog off the edge, but it takes one of his captains (except glorfindel) with it (maybe erestor?) and he uses the ring and saves erestor, (and maybe floods the balrog for good measure), and glorfindel is sure he saw elrond's eyes go yellow for a moment.

and even fully corrupted, he knows he can't take the ring directly into mordor. but he can wipe out sauron's armies outside the walls, to protect his kingdom - because turgon's mistake was thinking he was safe even when there were balrogs and dragons and orcs outside, right?

somewhere along the way, arwen realizes what's happening and goes to live with galadriel. one of the twins goes with her; the other stays out of loyalty but eventually follows.

elrond's kingdom has become a cross between doriath and gondolin now, with all the surrounding lands warped by ring-magic to hide it, and layers of stone walls and iron gates preventing anyone from leaving. because everyone is here; nobody leaves; everyone is... safe?

[thesummerestsolstice]

Faustian Bargain 👀

I don’t think I’ve seen many fics that fix things in a way that keeps both Gil Galad and Celebrimbor alive before and now I’m very curious.

Alright, this is a prompt from my Unwritten Fic ask game! If you'd like more details on this story, or any of the others there, my inbox is open. This also got pretty long, so I'll post this today and put up a part two for this ask in a couple days.

So the Faustian Bargain AU starts with slight canon divergence– Gil-Galad is in Eregion when it falls, and gets captured along with Celebrimbor. Elrond, who is in Lindon, is suddenly the de-facto High King of the Noldor, while dealing with the fact that two of the people he cares about most in the world are currently in Sauron's clutches.

(And Elrond grew up with Maedhros and the former thralls who followed him. He knows what Sauron is capable of.)

Now, Elrond knows it would be a fool's errand to try and rescue them. No one even knows where Sauron is keeping them. So, instead, he uses a captured orc general to send a message to Sauron. Elrond Peredhel wishes to make a deal.

The terms are simple: Sauron will let Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor free without further harm, and in return, Elrond will become his prisoner. Sauron is not allowed to torture Elrond. Any attempt to rescue Elrond or escape attempts will result in his execution– to prevent Elrond from backing down from his end of the deal. And– and this is the reason Sauron agrees to hand two high-ranking prisoners over for someone he can't even torture– Elrond will help Sauron with his real goal, breaking into the void to free Morgoth. Elrond, who's well acquainted with the scholarship of magic and (in this AU) has been to the void with Earendil before, is maybe the only person in Middle-Earth who can help Sauron do this. And Sauron is desperate enough to take that deal.

So, Elrond and Sauron forge their contract– it's not quite an oath, but an agreement between Maia is still very serious business– Gil and Brim are let go, and Elrond begins his stay as Sauron's prisoner/research partner. Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor, notably, are not told about the "no-torturing" clause of the deal. It is not a great time for them.

Sauron is delighted, but of course, Elrond has his own plans. He knows that Morgoth rising again will be the end of Middle-Earth, and he doesn't intend to let that happen.