#should be richard rambles at this point lmfao

[rhapsodyinviridescentgold]

Ooh, I want to know more about the ofermod essay!

Oh!!! Welcome!!! Yes, yes let me tell you about the Ofermod essay!!! Sorry it took me so long to respond! I didn't even realize I had a message until I clicked the tab open by accident. Also I loved your post so much, I want to print it out and eat it or paste it on my wall or both. So in case you haven't read it/for those reading THIS post who haven't read it: the Ofermod essay is typically included in "The Tolkien Reader", which is a bunch of stories and essays and commentaries that JRRT wrote, some of which accompany the legendarium, some of which don't. The Ofermod essay is an expansion on JRRT's short play "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth (be-york-noth), Berohthelm's Son" which in turn was inspired by a fragment of Old English poetry commonly called "The Battle of Maldon" and depicts a battle between the people who would become the English and what were essentially Vikings. "The Battle of Maldon" is about an Old English king/earl/noble of some sort, Beorhtnoth, in the perfect position to have the Vikings forced into a bottle neck where it would be very easy to kill them. The Vikings, not liking the idea of being killed, sent a message to Beorhthnoth being like "hey dude, just killing us in a bottleneck is not Heroic. how about you let us get super close and then we can brawl like Real Men, From The Legends of Old" and despite everyone around him saying that was a bad idea, Beorhthnoth is like "oh hell yeah, I love the old hero stories! Let's totally do that!" And long story short the Vikings obliterate the English and it's all Beohthnoth's fault.

The play that Tolkien wrote features two servants who are sent to the bloodied and death-ruled battlefield to find the body of the king and bring it back to the Ely Cathedral for burial. The play is seven pages long, but the general gist is that one is super hyped to be here for the opportunity to even be in the wings of such a grand and heroic battle and the other is...fucking exhausted, because he knows war is nothing but misery and pain and death and that there's nothing heroic about a king who's pride and desire to match up with the legends of old only results in more misery and more pain and more death. Then comes the Ofermod essay! In Old English, the original line describing Beorhtnoth's folly appears "ða se eorl ongan for his ofermode alyfan landes to fela laƿere ðeode" which is translated to "then the earl in his overmastering pride actually yielded ground to the enemy, as he should not have done". As you can see from the English translation, the incredulousness of "actually" and the condemnation of the words "as he should not have done" indicate quite clearly that, even in the era of the writing of the text, Beorhthnoth displayed a completely atrocious amount of overzealous pride and that resulted in the death of everyone in his household, all of his soldiers, and likely a good number of his common people too.

In the essay, Tolkien expands a bit on the myth of the heroic poem and the "northern heroic spirit" and touches on how it influences perceptions of people, and how they become willing to buy into the myth because they want to believe in it. In the case of Beorhthnoth, it's because of "a character, we may surmise, not only formed by nature, but moulded also by 'aristocratic tradition', enshrined in tales and verse of poets". This idea that you must give more than what you are able to give and die upon the idea of heroism because it's part of the messaging you've internalized. Basically, being heroic is so romanticized, that logic flies out the window. Tolkien also states: "Yet this element of pride, in the form of the desire for honor and glory, in life and after death, tends to grow, to become a chief motive, driving man beyond the bleak heroic necessity to excess." Then Tolkien totally rips into him with such phrases like: "he was responsible for all the men under him, not to throw away their lives except (my emphasis) with one object, the defense of the realm" and "It was wholly unfitting that he should treat a desperate battle with this sol real object as a sporting match" and "Why did Beorhthnoth do this? Owing to a defect of character, no doubt" Which is....so incredibly harsh. Totally true! I agree 100%! But my god JRRT the "Owing to a defect of character, no doubt" absolutely kills me. Anyways, I belive it's clear how heartily Tolkien disapproves of this irresponsible "excess" as he calls it.

So if you'll allow me to throw my hat into the ring on LOTR analysis, I also want to support your side in agreeing that the idea of "self appointed hero" vs "doing what you can" is an important detail to bring up! I think in Middle Earth, which is so haunted by the past, but specifically haunted by songs of the past and old heroic endeavors of those of Túrin Turambar, Lúthien and Beren, Tuor, Eärendil, etc., then it only follows that the races of that world are constantly inundated with what has come before, of when times were greater and acts of heroism grander and this likely shapes the heroic aspirations many of the incredibly compelling characters in Middle Earth. The myth of heroics builds on itself, becomes more powerful as the stories grow and are handed down (which, I believe, may be influenced by the Power of the Word in Arda, but we don't have time for that right now) and ends up affecting the tragic heroes all across the timeline. If we use Boromir as an example, most of us already know and accept that there was lots of pressure on him to be of service to Gondor and to help his city, but I believe this was compounded by the influence of the heroes who came before. He was constantly being pushed and prodded by Denethor to be stronger, greater, more. Gondor itself is also defined by What It Was and the Good Old Days, which definitely doesn't help. And I believe it's basically impossible for a young man to not internalize some of those messages. And now, on the quest, he's in the company with elves and dwarves, doing things that you hear of in legends like fighting Balrogs. He's literally with Aragorn! A prophesied king! Is it any wonder he felt the weight of legend like a noose around his throat? Is it any wonder why he wouldn't have tried to do what songs had told him to do, and make a place for himself in the annals of heroic legend? Which is, of course, an ambition and a weakness the Ring leveraged.

I hope that isn't too much speculation at the end there. I just think this concept of Ofermod that Tolkien explores ties in really well with your extremely well verbalized analysis! In addition, I think the Ofermod essay can also allow some insight into character motivations and how they're influenced by the culture surrounding them, and also in investigating the importance of song and history in the context of it's influence over Arda, and how the reverberations can shape even distant events. But that's an essay for another time, haha. This got super long but I just got so excited!!

[eyesteeth]

alt dynamic nonsense rambling

thinking about how if things had "gone how they were supposed to" (aka proper following of roles), richard and carpenter could've ended up in an extremely codependent prince/knight master/dog dynamic

cause she had been put into the role of attack dog, someone who kills for her faith without question, and he had been gunning for the role of prophet, the face of a faith, so he couldve been the little king on the throne with his favorite guard dog. but behind closed doors they're scheming and clutching and crying and trying to figure this out in a way that won't kill them both

cause carpenter's need to be useful is a deep complex. it's not as apparent as faulkner's because hers is more "positive" (ie useful) but it's still something deep that didn't just pop up overnight. it's a bit of guilt and repentance, making up for past sins by being helpful to someone else. and that could bounce off richard really well. he's such a sopping wet rag in s3, he Needs support (both in his goals and emotionally), and given carpenter's helper complex she could definitely accommodate that by helping him here. she still cares about him, and by keeping an eye on him she's protecting him from outside threats (and making sure he doesn't kill himself) and she also gets to help the greater population by making sure he doesn't do anything brash. like getting peer pressured into leaking the nuclear launch codes. lmfao

n meanwhile i could see this feeding a little bit into richard's ego? a bit of "wow the most powerful and specialest person here is My Dog And No One Else's aren't you jealous?? you should be! bleeh!!" but inwardly it starts to twist a bit into "she won't leave me!! my sister won't ever leave me!! she'll always be here to protect me and keep me safe because she's so perfect and awesome and cool" and whoops we have reached The Double Dog Wraparound where his dependence upon her ends up with him thinking "i'll do anything for her" and next thing you know they've entered into an extremely unhealthy dynamic because carpenter starts becoming aware that richard would Actually Kill Himself if she left him and Also would probably do something really stupid without her there to give him advice and keep him emotionally stable (canon) so she's further incentivized to Not leave, which just reinforces his believe that she won't ever leave him, and so round and round the vicious cycle goes

and also a side order of like. "it's not my job to fix him. but he's right there and he's broken and i really want to"

truly in this hell scenario the closest they'd get to a win is events similar to s3 occurring in which richard gets the push from his dad towards the realization that he shouldn't pretend to be a prophet anymore and should focus on what he really needs, and because carpenter's physically there when it happens and by this point in the plot it'd be really easy for them to disappear as causalities that they just. fuck off somewhere.

maybe they'd die unremarkably in a bombing or maybe they'd cross paths with hayward and end up in the tree camp or maybe they'd just live in a random house somewhere. but they'd be so codependent from the whole thing that they'd just never let the other out of their sight for too long. incredibly unhealthy but honestly the healthiest option for them at this point. always someone to help within arm's reach. always gonna be a hand reaching out to help. 4ever and ever and ever... sighs dreamily