#lotrxsilm

[southfarthing]

the hands of the king are the hands of a healer... Aragorn bringing Eowyn back to life from beneath the shadow of the black breath, his hand bearing the ring of Barahir... the ring that Finrod gave to Barahir as an oath to aid him in return after Barahir saved Finrod's life... the ring that played a part in the story of Beren and Luthien, and Elrond and Elros, and Numenor and Gondor, and Arwen and Aragorn himself... the ring of Barahir, kinsman of Andreth... Andreth, to whom Finrod's parting words were, "Whither you go may you find light. Await us there, my brother – and me." ... and then Eowyn, in the houses of healing:

And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. 

'I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,' she said; 'and behold! the Shadow has departed!'

pity and hope and healing... light and love......

[southfarthing]

aragorn's "I would have gone with you to the end, into the very fires of mordor" and frodo's "I know" / andreth's "for one year, one day, of the flame I would have given all: kin, youth, and hope itself" and finrod's "that he knew"

[southfarthing]

as someone finally reading the silmarillion, i really can't get my head around the sheer vastness of space and time between the settings of the silm and of the hobbit/lotr, yet the fact that it's all so interlinked, a palimpsest of sorts: the history, the geography, the language, the culture.

it's genuinely making me feral thinking about how celebrimbor and narvi's work is right there for the fellowship to see! how even though beleriand was flooded, himring/himling still left its mark on the map. it took me so long to figure out those were even the same thing... imagine being an inhabitant of middle earth in the 3rd/4th age and poring over maps and hearing all these myths and legends about the peoples and lands of the past, but it's more than that!!

Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight? / A man may do both !!! a quote that truly means something coming from a man who is wearing a ring worn by beren his forefather and finrod, the og! a man whose grandmother-in-law has been alive nearly since the dawn of time and who has seen and who continues to see the world and how it changes and grows and wilts and is reborn again and again.

I cant even imagine what my next re-read of lord of the rings is going to be like now that I'll actually understand the historical context from the silmarillion...