The Art of Reading

When Frodo  tries to share the Lembas bread with Gollum, Gollum is physically unable  to eat it. He wants to eat it, but Can’t. Because it’s elvish bread, it  burns Gollum’s throat and “chokes” him.

I mentioned in a previous post that Frodo isn’t just afraid of becoming like Gollum– he’s afraid of becoming like Gollum because he knows that Sam despises Gollum, and he’s paranoid that he’s becoming someone who Sam can no longer love.  

When Gollum says that he can’t eat Lembas bread, Sam coldly responds that he’ll have to “starve then, and good riddance.”

And  then Sam repeatedly worries that Frodo isn’t eating enough, that he  worries Frodo is starving himself. (”You haven’t eating anything all  day, and you’re not sleeping neither– don’t think I haven’t noticed!”  “I’ve seen you– you’re not eating, you barely sleep.”)

I feel  like the reason Frodo is eating less isn’t the horrible emotional  strain of the journey– it’s also because he’s physically losing the  ability to eat. As the Ring takes over his mind eating elvish food is  starting to become painful for him, the way it’s painful for Gollum.  Frodo saying ”I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass” on Mount Doom is a direct callback to Gollum saying that “we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind” in the beginning of the film.

One  thing I think is really compelling about the Ring is that….there is  no clear line between “the emotional toll the journey takes on the  characters” and “the actual physical damage the Ring does to their  minds.” There’s no clear separation between the times when Frodo is not  eating because he’s traumatized and afraid, and the times when Frodo is  not eating because the Ring is warping his mind and making it harder for  him to eat. It’s like the Ring is parasitic, feeding off the guilt and  trauma it creates in people.

—burned by Lady Asha

“A collection of common glyphs of the poorly understood Memeorite civilization of the Second Silicon Age. Memeorite glyphs possess multiple conflicting interpretations and a complexity of meaning impossible to capture in a few short words. These are rough translations only.”

They are fine! They got their guns, they have their weapons, they have the justice system on their side, they have government protection and billions of dollars in funding.

They really don’t need you defending them, like at all.

We the people, are the helpless ones, we have none of those things.

I just wish people could see how fucking stupid they look sticking up for police. Baby they don’t need your help. At all. They’re good.