#tolkien characters

[love-from-middle-earth]

It is not a betrayal to be happy while others are suffering. No matter what is going on in the world, in your life, or in the lives of those around you, you are allowed to do things you enjoy. You are allowed to smile. You are allowed to think about other things. Never taking time for yourself is not a sustainable or healthy strategy in any context, but especially not when you’re handling heavy emotional matters or working to make changes in the world. Those things are vital and important, but so are you, and without you, that important work couldn’t get done! So allow yourself to rest. To be joyful. To laugh and have fun. You—and life—are both complex enough to hold dualities.

Love,

Rosie Cotton-Gamgee

[fictionadventurer]

Personally, it's always a bit wild to me to see commentators interact with the Hunger Games franchise as if Collins were writing science fiction stories instead of essays with faces. She's just not that interested in fleshing out side characters or digging into the details of the worldbuilding. These characters are concepts and symbols before they're people. There's an almost mathematical precision to who and what she explores and how deeply she does it. This is a step or two away from pure allegory. If she were writing a couple of centuries ago, she'd have named her characters things like Innocence and Anger and Watch-Carefully-Your-Soul-Lest-Ye-Be-Damned, but since she's writing for modern audiences, she has to settle for puns and allusions. If she has another essay to write, she'll assign some faces to it; she's not going to look into backstories or other eras just for the sake of storytelling, and it's not a failing as a writer that she doesn't.

[allythistle]

‘GET OFF THE ROAD - QUICK!!’

Heylo darlins! This is what I’ve been working on this week.

Next up, Bilbo, as per the results of my last poll :D

[maedictus]

Some unposted Tolkien art I've been collecting over the years 💫

Huan and Lúthien | Yavanna and Aulë | Celeborn and Galadriel | Fingon | Galadriel but Art Nouveau | Vairë, the Weaver | Lórien and Mandos | Some Hobbiteses

[s-u-w-i]

Lent started again and as last year I was drawing all the dogs in clothes (instead of watching dramas and reading fanfics 🙄), this year I'm drawing characters from LOTR (and related fandoms)! Enjoy! 💍🌿

I'm thinking about selling the originals again but haven't yet decided.

[chechula]

Request drawing: Gollum ♥ Being tortured by Mirkwood elves. Brutal creatures.

[suzannahnatters]

So here's one of the coolest things that has happened to me as a Tolkien nut and an amateur medievalist. It's also impacted my view of the way Tolkien writes women. Here's Carl Stephenson in MEDIEVAL FEUDALISM, explaining the roots of the ceremony of knighthood: "In the second century after Christ the Roman historian Tacitus wrote an essay which he called Germania, and which has remained justly famous. He declares that the Germans, though divided into numerous tribes, constitute a single people characterised by common traits and a common mode of life. The typical German is a warrior. [...] Except when armed, they perform no business, either private or public. But it is not their custom that any one should assume arms without the formal approval of the tribe. Before the assembly the youth receives a shield and spear from his father, some other relative, or one of the chief men, and this gift corresponds to the toga virilis among the Romans--making him a citizen rather than a member of a household" (pp 2-3). Got it?

Remember how Tolkien was a medievalist who based his Rohirrim on Anglo-Saxon England, which came from those Germanic tribes Tacitus was talking about? Stephenson argues that the customs described by Tacitus continued into the early middle ages eventually giving rise to the medieval feudal system. One of these customs was the gift of arms, which transformed into the ceremony of knighthood: "Tacitus, it will be remembered, describes the ancient German custom by which a youth was presented with a shield and a spear to mark his attainment of man's estate. What seems to the be same ceremony reappears under the Carolingians. In 791, we are told, Charlemagne caused Prince Louis to be girded with a sword in celebration of his adolescence; and forty-seven years later Louis in turn decorated his fifteen-year-old son Charles "with the arms of manhood, i.e., a sword." Here, obviously, we may see the origin of the later adoubement, which long remained a formal investiture with arms, or with some one of them as a symbol. Thus the Bayeux Tapestry represents the knighting of Earl Harold by William of Normandy under the legend: Hic Willelmus dedit Haroldo arma (Here William gave arms to Harold). [...] Scores of other examples are to be found in the French chronicles and chansons de geste, which, despite much variation of detail, agree on the essentials. And whatever the derivation of the words, the English expression "dubbing to knighthood" must have been closely related to the French adoubement" (pp 47-48.)

In its simplest form, according to Stephenson, the ceremony of knighthood included "at most the presentation of a sword, a few words of admonition, and the accolade." OK. So what does this have to do with Tolkien and his women? AHAHAHAHA I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. First of all, let's agree that Tolkien, a medievalist, undoubtedly was aware of all the above. Second, turn with me in your copy of The Lord of the Rings to chapter 6 of The Two Towers, "The King of the Golden Hall", when Theoden and his councillors agree that Eowyn should lead the people while the men are away at war. (This, of course, was something that medieval noblewomen regularly did: one small example is an 1178 letter from a Hospitaller knight serving in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem which records that before marching out to the battle of Montgisard, "We put the defence of the Tower of David and the whole city in the hands of our women".) But in The Lord of the Rings, there's a little ceremony.

"'Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.' 'It shall be so,' said Theoden. 'Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Eowyn will lead them!' Then the king sat upon a seat before his doors and Eowyn knelt before him and received from him a sword and a fair corselet."

I YELLED when I realised what I was reading right there. You see, the king doesn't just have the heralds announce that Eowyn is in charge. He gives her weapons.

Theoden makes Eowyn a knight of the Riddermark.

Not only that, but I think this is a huge deal for several reasons. That is, Tolkien knew what he was doing here.

From my reading in medieval history, I'm aware of women choosing to fight and bear arms, as well as becoming military leaders while the men are away at some war or as prisoners. What I haven't seen is women actually receiving knighthood. Anyone could fight as a knight if they could afford the (very pricy) horse and armour, and anyone could lead a nation as long as they were accepted by the leaders. But you just don't see women getting knighted like this.

Tolkien therefore chose to write a medieval-coded society, Rohan, where women arguably had greater equality with men than they did in actual medieval societies.

I think that should tell us something about who Tolkien was as a person and how he viewed women - perhaps he didn't write them with equal parity to men (there are undeniably more prominent male characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, at least, than female) but compared to the medieval societies that were his life's work, and arguably even compared to the society he lived in, he was remarkably egalitarian.

I think it should also tell us something about the craft of writing fantasy.

No, you don't have to include gut wrenching misogyny and violence against women in order to write "realistic" medieval-inspired fantasy.

Tolkien's fantasy worlds are DEEPLY informed by medieval history to an extent most laypeople will never fully appreciate. The attitudes, the language, the ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS use of medieval military tactics...heck, even just the way that people travel long distances on foot...all of it is brilliantly medieval.

The fact that Theoden bestows arms on Eowyn is just one tiny detail that is deeply rooted in medieval history. Even though he's giving those arms to a woman in a fantasy land full of elves and hobbits and wizards, it's still a wonderfully historically accurate detail.

Of course, I've ranted before about how misogyny and sexism wasn't actually as bad in medieval times as a lot of people today think. But from the way SOME fantasy authors talk, you'd think that historical accuracy will disappear in a puff of smoke if every woman in the dragon-infested fantasy land isn't being traumatised on the regular.

Tolkien did better. Be like Tolkien.

[love-from-middle-earth]

Hi omg I just found your account and I love it so much, whether or not you complete this request I'll still love and adore the joy you spread :') I've been struggling recently with living with my abusive father, he's been ignoring me for weeks and it's bringing back loads of bad memories from the poor way he treated me when I was younger. I was hoping to get some encouragement from Elrond on how I can still be happy and think well of myself despite my own father not caring, or just general kindness. Thank you so much, your blog is so lovely and I'm really lucky to have found it :')

I'm sorry to hear you've been put in this situation, anon. I'm proud of you for being brave enough to reach out for support. It's extremely hard to have to spend time with someone who has hurt you in the past, especially a family member. While it's painful that your father has ignored his responsibility to protect and take care of you, his lack of affection does not reflect anything about who you are or what you're worth personally. His actions have no bearing on you deserving love, support, empathy, and safety. Just because he doesn't treat you the way you should be treated doesn't mean there aren't other people who will give you the respect and affection you deserve. Having an unloving presence in your home can be isolating, but please know that you are not alone in your experience and there are many, many people out there who see and value you for who you are. And even in moments where you can't feel that, you can still give yourself that validation and love. No individual's treatment of you can change the fact that you are a strong, resilient, kind, intelligent, valuable person with so much to offer to the world, and that you deserve more than anyone to know and recognize your own worth.

I hope that you're able to be in a safer environment soon. Please keep going and remember that you're loved no matter what. ♡

Yours sincerely,

Elrond

[daeneryssansa]

It's only a passing thing, this shadow.

[winepresswrath]

one thing I like about tazmuir as an author is that at any given time she will be like "here is a character," and I will think "that's nice, but I don't care. please return me to my beautiful Gideon" and then she'll be like "no. look at this other character under a microscope. they are so fucked up and full of love in such specific ways. probably they are bad at sex also." and I make a shocked face and welcome them into the pantheon in my heart, still waiting to hear from my beautiful gideon, at which point tazmuir will show me another character. and then.

[echo-bleu]

Eärendil the Mariner

Who deserves a pirate outfit more than Eärendil?

The background is largely inspired by one of Philip Sue's paintings. It was fun to draw a flat earth!

In other news, I love drawing ships but that was the worst angle possible to figure out. In my head, the Silmaril is at the prow in some kind of glass/mirror lantern that amplifies its light.

I wanted him to look soft, and little wry maybe, rather than fierce. I'm sure he's fierce aplenty but I mostly headcanon him as tired. His fate breaks my heart. Also, it doesn't really show here but my Eärendil is blind from overexposure to the Silmaril (and half-human fragile eyes).

I always waver between giving him locs or a shorter Mannish haircut, but his hair is really too kinky for the shoulder-length, Aragorn-style cut, so locs it is!

IDs in alt text.

[maedictus]

More House of Durin doddles!

[s-u-w-i]

Thorin and Company collab with @chechula for our 2025 calendar! ✨🎺🎻🥁 My sketches, her lines. Thorin, Bilbo, Kili, Fili, Bifur, Oin

[elyksina]

Have Orodreth and his valinorean unicorn before the year ends!