#you think of tolkien and the scourging of the shire

[yea-baiyi]

i’m sure people smarter than me have said this, but the odyssey is the sequel to the monomyth actually. in the hero’s journey the hero departs from home, from innocence, from safety, to fulfil his destiny. in homer’s the odyssey, the war is over, the destiny fulfilled. next comes the real fight, the unwinnable fight—to return to everything you left home to fight for.

in the first half of the poem, while odysseus fights tooth and nail to return home, his home fights with its last breath to give odysseus a home to return to. and time is running out. his wife penelope is down to her last desperate excuse. suitors have invaded his home, eating through his household and his wealth. his son, telemachus, almost grown, leaves home for the first time to find out if odysseus is still alive, if there is still a reason to keep fighting. having lost everything he had, over and over, odysseus is finally allowed to arrive in his homeland. at first he doesn’t recognise it. and he is cursed to look old and decrepit, so that none of his loved ones would recognise him.

for the second half of the poem, he has returned and miraculously, he has not been displaced or forgotten. but now he has to reclaim what was his. and removing the rot, restoring this place to the home odysseus remembers, is long and painful. instead of walking through the front door, he must sneak in through the back or risk being thrown out. not a single person knows him by sight; odysseus must prove his identity over and over, to every member of his household. he must retell story after story, share secret after secret, reveal every marking or scar upon his body, to finally be recognised by his own family. and then he destroys every last trace of the intruders—kills the men, kills the servants, wipes the slate clean.

by athena’s magic, he is restored to his former youth and glory as he reunites with his wife. the families of the slain suitors try to seek revenge, but zeus, lord of the skies, intervenes. odysseus, filled with his god-given strength, is home, and ready to fight to protect it.

it’s a complete sequel to the heroes journey, but what makes it part of the monomyth is the horrible truth about odysseus’ tale: that it’s impossible. that you will leave, and your home will change in your absence, and someone might fill your place; your family won’t recognise you, your wife met someone else, intruders have destroyed your home, and you will never be as young as you were. you will return and you will fight with every ounce of your strength and it won’t be enough to turn back the clock. it’s the terrible last chapter to every hero’s story that we don’t like to talk about.

and yet, of course, it’s the same story we tell over and over: we’ve won the war, now all we want is to return home, but home is no longer somewhere we can reach.

[absolutebearings]

after this latest ultimate extended rewatch with @lecampy i can finally say for sure: i like the hobbit movies more than the OT ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

All 6 are more consistent in quality than I remembered so there's less for me to get hung up on that i wasn't already accepting from the first movies -- there's infrequently wonky cgi, weird act 3 pacing, and stupid action sequences in the OT but they didn't get in the way of my enjoyment then, that's still the case for me here

i already like tolkien dwarves so all the focus on them was awesome, i like that they blended in some other tolkien works, i like that there were references to the cartoons and various illustrated editions

it must be said -- the soundtrack fucks! howard shore adds some new great dwarvish themes to the leitmotifs we're already familiar with and it works so well -- in particular its underscoring of thorin's descent is really really good

the biggest thing for me though is the characters. I am incredibly fond of all the dwarves, and bc the movies put effort into differentiating them I was able to quickly learn names. i always come away from a rewatching getting attached to a new character (this time its balin ;__;)

riddles in the dark! the barrel escape! goofy and heartfelt songs! outwitting trolls and bluffing dragons! i think all the best stuff from the novel is a lot of fun in large part bc freeman is the perfect bilbo, he handles this ridiculous, increasingly depressing procession of events with a combination of twitchy insecurity and desperate nerve and its exactly as i imagined

dont even get me started on armitage as thorin jesus christ holy fcuk. I'm still recovering and it's been a decade. his last scene had me in hysterics

in general bilbo is a more interesting and compelling protagonist, (all his little tics are so endearing!! there's like 50 Relatable Bilbo Moments per movie) and thorin's tragic character arc beats the shit out of anything from the OT. i wish i had 10 more hours of them interacting. i wish they had more time together

love the stuff with bard the bowman, he is a much more interesting figure than i initially gave him credit for, especially after laketown is destroyed and he's trying to care for all the refugees who immediately looked to him for guidance because he's the one that killed the dragon. he feels the weight of responsibility for their survival on his shoulders, his dragonslaying wasn't so much a feat as it is a prelude to the real work that is the result of prowess -- those who can, MUST. and that pressure drives his plea for thorin to just honor their prior agreement, and the feeling of betrayal when that plea is callously refused. its just like thorin taking responsibility for his people after erebor was lost (and the deliciousness of thorin treating bard like thranduil treated him, and the way the trauma of being abandoned to starvation and exile ripples out over years)

the critique i agree most with is the execution of the kili/tauriel romantic subplot, it could have been better developed imo, theyre really intense about each other after like one conversation LKJFdsjf

pacing is definitely wonky at times

specifically the pacing of the gandalf subplot was not as good as the main plot, but i think it was better handled in the extended editions

i dont think smaug was killed too quickly, or the confrontation was weirdly positioned astride the 2nd and 3rd movies bc the dragon isn't the most interesting antagonist of this story and there are more important things to explore, like thorin's descent into paranoia, his awful choices as a leader once he steps inside erebor and how theyre connected to his past experiences, and the way infighting leaves all parties vulnerable to destruction. but i'm someone who was bummed they cut scourging of the shire from the OT so i would enjoy stuff like this, those arcs that show the fallout after the Big Final Battle, (or what seemed like it at the time), where you have to reconcile real world shit like diplomacy w/ neighboring polities.

i still love the OT, its a classic for a reason, but the hobbit movies are underrated and i'll die on this (under)hill.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

My assorted thoughts on LotR, both novels and PJ movies.

The Fellowship of the Ring (the novel) felt extraordinarily slow to me up to the council of Elrond. I was told that’s because it makes reference to stuff that happens in The Hobbit, which I haven’t read, but then I think novels should be good stand alones by themselves, so...

In that vein, the movie I liked the most was precisely The Fellowship of the Ring, I think it adapted the novel to screen very well, and it set up some variations in character arcs that, though I didn’t feel were needed, sounded interesting (eg: Aragorn, will go back to this later).

Once Tolkien was done with the worldbuilding, things started to get more dynamic and reach the sensation of serendipity by The Return of the King, which is amazing. The Return of the King is my favorite novel of the trilogy, but then it is clear its awesomeness draws from the hard work of the first two novels.

I also feel like this story is the kind of novel that is best enjoyed once you have finished it and had some time to let it sink in.

I found most characters to be relatable and even endearing. My favourites are Aragorn, Theoden, Eomer and Eowyn. As for the hobbits... I couldn’t grow to care much for Sam and Frodo, or Bilbo, and for Pippin and Merry only when they get separated and each has a story, one in Rohan and the other in Minas Tirith. However, I did enjoy the scourge of the Shire and how it shows how much the quest changed them all.

People talk a lot about the randomness of Tom Bombadil, but, can we stop for a minute and think of how Radagast makes that apparition in The Fellowship of the Ring to disappear into thin air later on?

Middle Earth is amazing, the mythos is amazing, the epic is amazing, the battles are amazing, the songs are amazing, the thing about the languages is just... no words. The romances on the other hand... well...

Arwen and Aragorn. I know it feels very romantic in a metaphoric way to see the beloved as an otherwordly creature filled with superhuman beauty and power and wisdom. On the other hand... You cannot just say that an elven lady fell for a mortal man as if it were par de course. As far as explanations go, Aragorn saw her and fell for her beauty (that side is understandable), and then Arwen fell for him because... Galadriel dressed him up years later in Loth-Lorien? What? Elves are painted as such superior creatures to men that it doesn’t make much sense. 

It does make sense, I accept, structure wise: Aragorn wins the girl’s hand, the races of men and elves are rejoined. But psychologically wise? I don’t get it.

Eowyn and Faramir. I love this couple in theory, the way in which their personal stories mirror each other in many ways, and how they differ (given that Theoden and Denethor are foils to each other). They get few scenes, but they get far more than Arwen and Aragorn, and have some of the most beautiful and emotional lines in those, and yet... it isn’t developed to its full potential. I know, the story is not about romance, I get it. However there’s something that doesn’t sit well with me:

Eowyn changes her mind/heart in... a split second. Yes, Tolkien says that maybe she finally understood her heart better, but I don’t see how “I’m in love with Faramir” can be wrongly read as “I love Aragorn and he doesn’t love me back, I wanna die”. Painted this way, Eowyn is either stupid or fickle. And Tolkien didn’t need to do that. He could have totally let her change her mind through the time she spent with Faramir, warming up to his kindness and loving treatment of her. So...

#Farawynforeva

Regarding the movies... They have become a classic for a reason. The settings are breathtaking, the casting is perfect except for some minor details (Blonde Faramir??? Also, but that’s personal, I cannot for the life of me warm to Elijah Woods Frodo. Gah), the score is extraordinary (I’m gonna say heresy and say that the high parts remind me for some reason of the one for Legends of the Fall, I’m sorry), the undertaking of adapting the source material to fit a trilogy of movies is something we are not likely to see again any time soon, and yet...

My impression is that, as the trilogy goes on, the focus shifts from character to action, and character arcs and plot points are left hanging. For example, Aragorn.

Movie!Aragorn is not as self assured as the character from the novels. PJ decided to give him doubts about reclaiming his right of kingship, and the angle is interesting: Aragorn knows himself man and thus at least somewhat fragile to the temptations of power, just as Faramir and Gandalf are; he fears to repeat Isildur’s mistakes (and given that in the end even Frodo succumbs to the power of the Ring, I don’t blame him). The first movie ends with Boromir’s death (which is at the beginning of The Two Towers in the novels), which moves Aragorn to accept his burden as king and swear to Boromir that he won’t let Gondor fall. 

At this point the audience gets prepared to see the further transformation of the avoidant ranger into the commited king, to see him become a wise judge, a compassionate leader and a healer of his people and then... it doesn’t happen. Aragorn keeps wavering well into The Return of the King, when he needs to be pushed to go face his duty because “Arwen is dying”. Seriously. Aragorn seeing some men are not strong enough to be at the battle of the Black Gate and sending them to Cair Andros where they could be useful? Nah. Aragorn exiling the soldier that committed treason to save Faramir, but at the same time sending him to serve him in Ithilien? Nah. Aragorn healing Faramir, Eowyn and Merry because “the hands of the king are the hands of a healer”? Ain’t no time for that, gotta have a full sequence of will-they-won’t-they with the dead army and Gollum making a plan to separate Sam and Frodo and also let’s just stuff Shelob and Cirith Ungol in The Return of the King too, because there’s so little material to translate on screen for that last movie. GRRRRR.

Gimli stops being a character after The Fellowship of the Ring and turns into Just Comic Relief™. The whole plot of Faramir falling  for the temptation of the Ring in The Two Towers is completely ignored in The Return of the King, as if they were two different characters. The Two Towers spends a lot of time focusing on Eowyn, to later on try to wrap up her story in two tiny scenes in Return of the King. And there are probably other things I cannot recall now that give the same impression. Arcs and plot points are set up and then deflate.

I’ll add more if I remember anything else.

[nenuials]

Tell me about Sidhen? She doesn't have her own page (unless I'm mistaken?), and I am all about them ranger ladies!

I plan on doing her page pretty soon, since the next in queue is Melilot.

With Sidhen’s character, I wanted to explore two aspects of Tolkien’s mythology simultaneously: both the apparent lack of women in military roles, as well one of his favorite themes of “everyone, no matter how big or small has a part in the running of the world”. To understand Sidhen, you have to think strictly about character themes such as Sam and Frodo’s.

As for origins, she hails from Esteldin in the North Downs. Her father is a ranger, just as she is, her mother is a crafts-woman and she also has an older sister who married a scholar that specializes in Angmarim customs. In the fic “By the fire” I briefly mentioned that she hails from an uninterrupted dunedain line, but her family were no nobles, no kings, no politicians. 

The point of Sidhen is to shadow Aragorn’s character. Aragorn has pretty much trained his entire life to become a king, but what about his subjects? The rangers of Eriador were the first people Aragorn had to earn the loyalty of and lead. Some of those people were the likes of Sidhen and her father and her family.

Sidhen’s character arc starts first and foremost with her mentorship by the ranger Maradan and her great friendship with Toram. Together, the trio is usually tasked with guarding the south-eastern border of the Shire, as well as running errands and messages between Sarn Ford-Bree-Esteldin-Taurdal. She also loves all the hobbit friends she has made with the guarding duties. In the fic I also mentioned that even if her ranger duties are not exactly the life she would have completely wanted, her people have to carry on so that others like her sister can have families and futures. The dunedain who become rangers don’t have great life expectancy since the job is incredibly dangerous, but she will carry on. So, I can say in this aspect it is a theme of self-sacrifice.

Her character arc reaches the climax during the War of the Ring, where she is left behind by the Grey Company, while her friend Toram is not. She is in Oatbarton during the scourging of the Shire and fights side by side with the hobbits of Oatbarton against the invading ruffians. I would also have to mention that her character is tied to those of Melilot and Adamanta Hornblower since they were also friends but that requires me to get into even more detail. 

From the 30 rangers that formed the Grey Company, only very few returned and Toram was not one of them. With the death of Halbarad, the steward of the north and her truest friend Toram, Sidhen is left in a vulnerable position. All the experience and knowledge she has acquired in her years of servitude make her an excellent candidate for a position of leadership within the dunedain ranks, but her character has never been about becoming someone from no one, hers has always been about impacting those around you, protecting what you love, sacrifice.

I would like to think that Aragorn rewarded the loyalty and courage she has shown all this years by allowing her to finally retire from being a ranger and settle near the borders of the Shire for good. No more fighting, no more pain. Just abiding by hobbit philosophy of nurturing and loving your home and your surroundings. 

[scriptstructure]

Tips for writing tragedy/stories where the hero loses? Also, somewhat relatedly, for writing stories where the overall theme or question driving the narrative isn't one where you, the author, have an answer so you'd rather just... ask? It's made it difficult for me to know how to end things but I'm still stuck with the fact I don't know the answer to the dilemma my characters are facing. Other than it feels like it has to end badly either for just one character or for all characters involved.

I’m not sure that these things are quite as intrinsically related as you think; you can have a tragedy where the driving question of the story is absolutely answered in the text, and you can have non-tragic stories where the central question is left ambiguous. I don’t think it’s necessary to have a definitive ‘answer’ to the central questions of a story because I don’t think that the function of a story is to provide answers. If anything, it’s to open up the space to consider all options, or to explore things that we are uncertain of, etc.

I think that if stories were only written where the author was setting out a definitive answer to the question the story poses, then there would be a lot more boring books in the world.

In large part, this is because stories deal with many of the same problems that we face in life, and much of life has no easy answers, and while in some cases easy answers can be comforting, that is not what all of literature is there to do, many stories there are no easy answers, or just more questions, sometimes the fact that the question is being asked is enough to drive the story and looking for an answer would be a whole ‘nother deal entirely.

The other other thing, is that you don’t need to have solid answers to start writing. It’s enough to ask. You don’t have to understand the meaning of your own work perfectly before you start on it, you’ll likely develop an understanding of what you’re doing as you do it, and often there will be things that you won’t see in your own work until much later, when you re-read it with new life experiences, or when someone else points things out to you that you hadn’t realised you put there.

Uncertainty and ambiguity aren’t inherently tragic, they’re just a part of life. Difficult to deal with, a lot of times sure, but also funny, interesting, puzzling, entertaining, there’s no tragedy in not being absolutely certain.

So, writing tragedies is pretty difficult, you’ve got the fact that it’s going to be a downer in some way at the end, along with that you’ve got to carry a whole story until that ending, and make it compelling enough that people won’t sit back after reading it and go ‘wow if I wanted to feel that depressed I’d just watch the six-o-clock news’. It’s a challenge, but it’s doable, and when done well it can make for a wrenching, fascinating story.

It’s important to consider why the tragedy occurs, there are many themes that can drive a tragic plot, such as corruption as in Hamlet, personal evil as with Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, natural entropy as in The Lord of the Rings, and as you figure out why the tragedy occurs, it will influence and be influenced by the nature of the world of the story.

Another vital element is character agency, this is the sense that the choices characters make and the actions they take in the story have real impact on the course of the plot, whether for good or for ill. Character agency is important in making the story feel less like ‘a lot of stuff just happens to this person’ and more like ‘this is the story of this person’s role in these events’.

Hamlet is an example that probably most people have read and studied at some point, the tragedy of the story is the decay of Denmark’s royal family, and Hamlet’s agency shows in the play as he makes many decisions that have consequences that change the flow of the story. You’ve probably done this part in school, where we learn that tragic heroes have what is called a ‘fatal flaw’ which means that they will be doomed to tragedy. Hamlet’s is often called his indecision, his unwillingness to kill his uncle. 

In this set-up, the narrative see-saws back and forth as Hamlet wrestles with this decision, and it exposes ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’ which brings the story down to the final moment where the slate has to be wiped clean and a new player steps in to take over. All the Danish royals are dead, and Fortinbras steps in to do a little speech about how there’s a bright future ahead now that he’s in charge.

So in Hamlet, the fuel of the tragedy is corruption of the institution of the monarchy, and Hamlet’s agency is the decisions that he makes during the course of the play (when he refrains from killing his uncle, when he accidentally kills Polonius, when he drives Ophelia mad, etc). There are very few parts of the story which aren’t directly linked to the choices that Hamlet makes, even if he makes bad decisions, is careless, cruel, or shortsighted, he has immense influence over his own story.

In Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, there is a similar thing happening, but instead of the corruption of a system of government, it is the nuclear family. Also, the story is narrated by the villain, and we know from the beginning that he will be dead very soon after the end of the story. The real tragedy is the evil he does along the way, most notably to the title character Lolita, the step-daughter he abuses and who eventually dies. The tragedy here is the gleeful destruction of innocence by a man driven by his own grotesque desires.

But both of these are very people-focussed tragedies. In each of these cases, these tragedies occur even though there are multiple opportunities for something to have been done differently and so change the outcome. The tragedy is in the missed opportunity, or in the decision to do the wrong thing.

The tragic narrative of The Lord of the Rings and the accompanying texts, most notably The Silmarillion is one which stems out of a basic reality of the world of the story. The wold was created imperfect, and is subject to entropic change over time. Even though there is a heroic narrative taking place where many characters will do their best, do the right thing, work for good, stick together, and they will manage to make a significant difference in the course of the story, there are massive, historical underlying forces which mean that the world can never go back or regain the former glory and goodness.

The scourge of Sauron is defeated, but the age of Elves ends, the ring is destroyed, but Frodo never recovers from his injuries, Saruman is defeated, but the Shire is never going to be the same as before the battle. In many ways, The Lord of the Rings is about dealing with the fallout of tragedy, informed by Tolkien’s experiences during and after World War 1, (HERE is an article that touches on that, written by his grandson Simon Tolkien). But it also deals with the premise of a flawed universe.

In the creation myth of Middle-earth, the world is sung into being, but as it forms a ‘discordant note’ enters the song, and the ripples of that fan out through the history of the world, it is linked directly to Morgoth, whose main drive is to corrupt elements of creation and sow discord, and later Sauron, Morgoth’s servant. This represents a sense that there is a force for decay built into the world of the story, and that if it weren’t for the heroes who stand up to face it, then it would be able to spread corruption and decay unchecked. The nature of an entropic universe is to fall into chaos, but that chaos can be mitigated, the form it takes altered.

The tragedy is that all things must end eventually, but the agency of the characters is that they can make a stand and say ‘not today’. They win, but at great cost, they return home and see how it is marked by what has occurred.

So some things to keep in mind when you’re writing a tragedy:

Figure out what kind of tragedy it is, what is the cause of the tragedy?

Ensure that your characters have agency, they must be able to take an active role in the events of the story.

Work out the scale of the tragedy, is this a personal, intimate story, or is it a metaphysical story? (could be both, most likely somewhere in the middle)

It could help to think of what the ‘happy’ version of the story might be, and that can help you visualise the tragedy as ‘what went wrong’--what made Hamlet go from a teen comedy about a couple of bros at college into the gorefest it ends up being?

I hope that helps, this is a pretty broad question though, so if I’ve missed the mark here, please do send a more specific question.

[septembersung]

What do you think of Jackson's decision to leave Saruman's takeover of the Shire out of the films? Honestly I preferred it to the books but I'm coming from a perspective of having seen the films first and read the books after so I'd like the opposite perspective too. Thanks and praying you guys are starting to feel better!

Thanks for the prayers, we are just beginning to struggle towards recovery.

I think cutting it makes sense for the movies. Given the constraints of the medium, it was a good call. The theatrical cut barely got the bare essentials in as it was, and even the extended version (the only version as far as I’m concerned) couldn’t tell that story in the same film without starting to be less of a film. Now... if it had been a miniseries.....

The Scouring of the Shire is absolutely necessary to the story, though. The book could not be complete without it. Gandalf tells the hobbits explicitly that sorting out the Shire is their job now:

“I am with you at present,” said Gandalf, “but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.”

So healing the Shire is a big part of their personal development; nowhere else but in the scourging of the Shire do we see quite so clearly how they’ve changed and grown and matured. Remember how young Pippin was! He was only in his late twenties, which for hobbits was the irresponsible teen years. 

Also, nowhere else do we see the evil spreading from Mordor hit them so hard. That’s important for solid storytelling. It illustrates on a big scale what he had been telling about hobbits for a while and showing on a small scale in the four Travelers: that underneath their apparent softness, hobbits are fierce. In LotR, races and kingdoms and places are as much characters as individual beings; the Scourging of the Shire closed that particular circle of The-Hobbits-as-a-character story.

But it’s also part of the hobbits’ national development, the Shire coming into the world scene, not isolated as it has believed (and never was in practice, as it was secluded by the ceaseless vigilance of the Rangers.) It’s also part of the turning of the Age: the third age, the time of many races and of the hobbits’ isolation, is over, and the fourth age is the age of Men. Good and bad alike.

It’s also essential to 100% defeating the Enemy. Sauron’s power was broken when the Ring was destroyed, but his servants are still abroad, working evil; they have to be found out and stopped. A major theme in the book is that even if victory can be achieved, much that is good will pass away, and much evil will never be undone, or only healed after more long struggle. It’s not quite a Pyrrhic victory, but it is victory at a high cost. It would have undermined that, been too “neat” in the old sense of the word, for the hobbits, untouched by evil, to sally forth, save the day, and return home to a Shire so removed from the change and fate of Middle Earth that it was exempted from what was felt in every other corner. 

That’s is a huge part of the loss and hope that underscore the whole book, and Tolkien’s own worldview: that history is but a ‘Long Defeat with only occasional glimpses of the final victory.” The Shire was ravaged and that is a defeat; but before and after, it remains a glimpse of that final victory. The Shire is not just scourged of its enemies, but regrown and made better, thanks to Galadriel’s gift. The glory of the Elves faded and passed, but a little of it lives on in the Shire. And it is all the more precious in their eyes - not just the Travelers, but all the hobbits - because of the (near) loss. As Tolkien wrote in “On Fairy Stories”: “The Recovered Thing is not quite the same as the Thing-never-lost. It is often more precious.”

And as a final thought, it allows for Sam and Rosie’s romance its moment to shine; instead of a footnote, by the way he got married, we get to see it in action before the wedding. (The movies, of course, dealt with this and the death of Saruman in other ways, as they had to.) I supposed by contemporary storytelling standards Rosie might be just “thrown in” at the end, but really its very clever - Sam’s focus at the beginning is on the big job he had to do, and only when the big stuff is over, can he think about himself. And the reader, once the big stuff is over, can again see the smaller scale and stakes of the Shire in their proper place, and still love them, and enter into them as they deserve. 

tl;dr I have strong feelings about every single page of The Lord of the Rings, but especially the ending, including the Scouring of the Shire.

[the-seas-song]

Tolkien Gen Week Day 5

DAY FIVE: diversity How does diversity affect Tolkien’s characters and your interpretations of them? Does a disability or orientation affect relationships with other characters? Have you lost sleep thinking about hobbit race relations? This is the day to consider all the other factors that go into a character’s life.

Work has been insane lately, so unfortunately I wasn't able to write everything I wanted to for this amazing week, but I really wanted to make sure I got this one done.

This is mainly a thank you post. First, I want to give a big thank you to @starlightwalking for creating and running this week. A lot of time must have gone into it, and I've had a great time.

I love all forms of love, and one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is that he highlights a large variety of emotionally intimate platonic relationships. Thank you Tolkien. And also thank you to everyone who worked on the films, for not only portraying those in the texts, but actually adding and expanding the amount of deep platonic relationships.

As someone who is gray aro/ace, another one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is the diversity in racial sexualities.

Elves only fall in love once in their life (technically it is possible for them to fall in love a second time, but we are only given two cases in all of Tolkien’s works, and both times there was a greater power at work). The foundation of elven-kind is memory and emotion. Their souls control their bodies. Elvish memories remain crystal clear, no matter how many decades or centuries pass. They never fade, even the slightest bit. Connected to memory is emotion. Elves feel things in a clearer way. They are ruled by emotion. They can literally just lie down and kill themselves with their mind, if they wish. Also, because of this clarity, they know from the beginning if they are feeling romantic-love or friendship-love for someone. There is nothing more important to an elf than their relationships, of any kind. Their anti-possessiveness goes so far that they will not even say 'I have two children’.

Tolkien says in LACE that almost all elves marry, and marry young. However, the entire legendarium contradicts that. Over half the elves we meet very marry/are never said to be married, and almost all of those that do marry do so well into their centuries and millenniums. Feanor and Nerdanel are literally the only elven couple that we are told married young.

Also, who could ever forget the tragedy of Beleg's death? “Thus ended Beleg Strongbow, truest of friends, greatest in skill of all that harboured in the woods of Beleriand in the Elder Days, at the hand of him whom he most loved; and that grief was graven on the face of Túrin and never faded.” - The Silmarillion

We are also given a tantalizing hint of one deep female friendship: “Fingolfin’s wife Anaire refused to leave Aman, largely because of her friendship with Earwen wife of Arafinwe (though she was a Noldo and not one of the Teleri). But all her children went with their father.” - The Shibboleth of Feanor

Another thing I rarely see people mention is Tolkien explicitly separating sex and gender:

According to the Eldar, the only 'character' of any person that was not subject to change was the difference of sex. For this they held to belong not only to the body but also to the mind equally: that is, to the person as a whole. [cut] Those who returned from Mandos, therefore, after the death of their first body, returned always to the same name and to the same sex as formerly.

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For the [souls] of the Elves are of their nature male and female, and not their [bodies] only. - LACE

Because their souls control their bodies, there are no trans elves. However, the fact that Tolkien took pains to explicitly say this for elves, throws the door wide open for all of the other races!

We're also told that about two thirds of dwarves are naturally aromantic, and those who aren’t only fall in love once. So, another gray aro/ace race!

There are so many amazing fanworks out there that diversify Tolkien's works even more.

Throughout my years of being a fan I've met a fair amount of purists, and there's nothing wrong with being a purist. Most of them are lovely people. I am, however, a firm believer in Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author (found here) theory. The great thing is Tolkien was too:

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.

As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.

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Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that 'The Scouring of the Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman. - LotR Foreward

And:

The Lord of the Rings as a story was finished so long ago now that I can take a largely impersonal view of it, and find 'interpretations' quite amusing; even those that I might make myself, which are mostly post scriptum: I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point.* Except for a few deliberately disparaging reviews – such as that of Vol. II in the New Statesman,3 in which you and I were both scourged with such terms as 'pubescent' and 'infantilism' – what appreciative readers have got out of the work or seen in it has seemed fair enough, even when I do not agree with it. Always excepting, of course, any 'interpretations' in the mode of simple allegory: that is, the particular and topical. In a larger sense, it is I suppose impossible to write any 'story' that is not allegorical in proportion as it 'comes to life'; since each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life. Anyway most people that have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings have been affected primarily by it as an exciting story; and that is how it was written. Though one does not, of course, escape from the question 'what is it about?' by that back door. That would be like answering an aesthetic question by talking of a point of technique. I suppose that if one makes a good choice in what is 'good narrative' (or 'good theatre') at a given point, it will also be found to be the case that the event described will be the most 'significant'.

* Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life.

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That of course does not mean that the main idea of the story was a war-product. That was arrived at in one of the earliest chapters still surviving (Book I, 2). It is really given, and present in germ, from the beginning, though I had no conscious notion of what the Necromancer stood for (except ever-recurrent evil) in The Hobbit, nor of his connexion with the Ring. But if you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the comer at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.1 knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree. These rhymes and names will crop up; but they do not always explain themselves. I have yet to discover anything about the cats of Queen Berúthiel.8 But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his pan, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child,9 people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath! - Letter 163

Tolkien's loathing of allegory is well known. However, most don't talk about the fact that his fundamental reason for loathing it is because it enforces the domination of the author over the freedom of the reader - “I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

So, as we continue to love these works and create our own, let's never forget that Tolkien himself believed in our agency.

P.S. I have to share this quote from Letter 66. It's too funny!

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the 'catastrophe' by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices — where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone.

[nenuials]

What movie additions to the lord of the rings do you like/dislike?

Probably the first and biggest change I dislike (apart from the “no tom bombadil and the barrow downs etc.) is the attitude elves, mainly Elrond seemed to have during the trilogy. Elrond seemed so keen to simply abandon Middle Earth, stating that men are weak and that Sauron will most likely take over, while book!Elrond would have never done such a thing. Like ok, Isildur failed, but don’t doom an entire line just because of the mistakes of one man. Which brings us to the way movie!Aragorn saw the whole ordeal, as he saw himself as weak “the same blood flows through my veins” and almost not capable of doing the task of retaking Gondor, while book!Aragorn was like super confident and the only way I’d describe it is “sauron what’s good”. The movie also doesn’t portray as gravely as the book does the state of decay and despair Middle Earth is in at the end of the Third Age. The book does have its glimmers of hope and fun but we all know the feeling of rush and urgency of the apparent doom they have upon them.

Also, as a personal preference I’m very, very upset about replacing the Grey Company with Haldir and the Lorien elves. Look PJ fam, I got you. I know you had one of the most monumental tasks in the history of movie-making and I’m not going to be harsh on you. But damn did I want to see my favorite character from the entire tolkien legendarium and his band (aka Halbarad and the Merry Grey Company). (I actually asked Craig Parker, Haldir’s actor, about how does he think canonically the elves could have walked 300 miles+ in such a short time. You know what he told me? “They took the tube”) 

Also, one thing I never see when people discuss content cut from the books is Gildor Inglorion’s company. Actually one of the scenes I was highly interested in seeing (this and the elf merry making in the hobbit). But alas, no luck. I also think Saruman’s death in the movies is cheap, cheapened by the fact that he was not in the Shire to begin with. The scourging of the Shire was such an important chapter in my opinion. It shows us that even after the heroes supposedly won the big battle, not even at home they are safe. And for Saurman to be killed in the Shire of all places, the Shire which is supposed to be green and safe and merry, and by Grima, is monumental. Also, I wish they had the time to portray Pippin’s time in Gondor better and his friendship with Beregond. (sighs) Let’s not even get into Denethor tho.

And about things that I like. Arwen. I love, love so much that the movies gave her such a bigger role that in the book. I’ve seen her so much hated for being turned into an “action-girl” or that she “stole” Glorfindel’s role. But honestly, I’m in love.