Ereborian Power Couple™

riz and his bloody hands. his white-knuckle grip on control. little freakazoid insomniac wound too tight. “i’m a harsh guy,” he says, but he’s got so much of a heart in him that he leaps into hell to save his father and charges blindly off into the nightmare king’s forest to save the world. he’s a harsh guy, but his greatest fear in the world is being left behind by his friends. 

i love watching brennan and murph. because brennan is truly an extraordinary dm, and murph is THE plot-hound player. his characters move forward, ever forward, only ever onward. riz cannot sit still, he cannot lay fallow. the three days they’re aboard a ship in the open ocean, he wigs out and spends it spiraling below deck. he cannot relax. not even for a second, not even to sleep. because if he does–what? what will happen to him? what will happen to the teenage goblin kid with no father? 

riz and his bloody hands. 

and brennan knows murph well enough that he knows how to turn that into a character beat. he pits riz’s drive for knowledge against him. you love the truth. you seek it so much that you cut your hands upon the insides of crystals. what a metal and underrated line. because riz would destroy himself for the truth. he can’t handle anything less. he’s like one of those dogs that chews its own paws to shreds if it doesn’t have a job to do. it’s always the next mission and the next job and the next adventure. no time for slowing down because the world is perpetually ending and there’s only so much one little goblin can do on his own–even if he never sleeps. there’s no time for slowing down because if he has a moment - even a moment! - to breathe, to rest, what would he do with it? what does riz have, if it isn’t the mission? what does he offer the world, if it isn’t his brain and his bullets and his bloody hands? 

at the end of the day, riz gukgak is just an empty little kid in a room full of empty mirrors. he’s just the kid who sleeps clutching his sword. that’s why kalina preys on him the way that she does. she’s the queen of masks and reflections. she sees right through to the fear inside of riz–that he isn’t good enough, that he is nothing more than some kid playing detective who gets his friends hurt. she toys with him, but i imagine she also sees some of herself inside of him. they are both in their own ways, empty shells. 

and of course, the ironic truth is that riz is far from empty. truth-seeker, paranoid, whip-smart and frantic, riz tries so hard. he tries so hard that he dies for it. he’s the reason for their little team you know, he’s the instigator. he went after penny, and he went after the nightmare king, and he will keep going and going and going, tearing his hands open again and again and again until he gives out. the ironic truth is that riz has one hell of a heart on him, and it beats him bloody. it drives him forward, ever and onward. it will not let him rest, and so he will never feel how big it is. how much space it takes up inside him. how un-empty he truly is. 

Absolutely obsessed with the parallels between these two, and how Gerard is so much more aware of them than Ylfa is. Because Gerard is the only adult in the group besides Timothy, and his interactions with kids in general are making me insane, but especially with Ylfa because. She is. His fuckin. FOIL. 

Gerard, the self-proclaimed coward, terrified of the animalistic nature that has been forced upon him meets this little girl in the exact same situation and she is so unfailingly brave. And that makes him want to be brave too. BUT ALSO! She is a LITTLE GIRL! She shouldn’t HAVE to be brave! She is a KID! 

And now that we have seen Gerard’s story, it’s like…. HE WAS A KID TOO! And he still blames himself for getting cursed, says it was justified because he was being a prick, which frankly is on theme for Ylfa and Pinocchio both because all these kids are being horribly mistreated just to be conduits for morals when really none of that responsibility should have been on their shoulders in the first place, but like… now he’s an adult, and while there is part of him still blaming himself for it all he also has this subconscious understanding of FUCK that actually! Kids don’t deserve all that shit! I deserved to be happy (which feeds into his original not wanting to join the fight) and these kids DEFINITELY deserve to be happy!

And there is something so important to me about how Gerard is the ONLY person to be really paying attention to Ylfa, because everyone is like… sort of concerned about her, watching her do crazy things and that being all “aw, no!!!” when she says something insecure and self-deprecating, but the thing about Ylfa is that she is so SO good and powerful as the party’s tank and so everyone is sort of like, addressing when she talks about being a monster but NOT addressing the fact that she is literally breaking her own bones and letting herself get beat to shit! 

And from the very first fight Gerard has been watching her take all the damage, and watching her believe she DESERVES it, and he keeps getting cut off or having her brush him off, but he keeps trying to say something to her about how she is a kid, and she doesn’t deserve any of the shit that has happened to her. 

I don’t know, there is just something so important to me about how Gerard is an adult who already went through suffering and character development as a child. Because we are watching him have more character development through the times of shadow, learning to be brave. Because you need to be brave when the world is on fire. You can’t hide and let the children burn. 

But Gerard also represents the knowledge that none of the rest of the heroes seem to have caught up on, which is that even if you need to be brave sometimes, it still isn’t fucking fair. None of them deserve what they have been put through. 

That seems like such a small, unheroic understanding, but the way things are going it seems like it might be the most important realization of all actually. Cause like… what is bravery for if not to spare the innocent from things that should not have been fucking done to them? The knowledge that kids should be allowed to be angry when they are hurt, and should not have the morals and trials of adults shoved onto their shoulders is so fucking important. 

I know this was played for laughs, but like… imagine being in Pinocchio’s place, and this older male figure that has been uncomfortably-makeshift-dadding his way through this adventure with you comes back, and he’s now just a giant frog without a name. Just a big-ass frog. Wears a crown. Probably dragging the Sword of Truth through the snow behind him with his tongue.

No more yelling about dragging him to Toy Island. No more snowball fights. No more whiskey and bubble gum.

Thorin saving Bilbo ♡

“We created this scene with Bilbo in jeopardy and endangering Thorin because we wanted to build up the relationship between Bilbo and Thorin”.

“He’s heroic, Thorin. He’s naturally heroic”.

“He finds Bilbo an incredibly irksome burden and yet he doesn’t hesitate, when necessary, to jump down a cliff and pull him to safety. That’s just who Thorin is. It’s innate”.

“Thorin is coming over a little queer”- Martin Freeman

https://thistie.tumblr.com/post/109111445881/martin-being-43-years-old-during-botfa-press

“It’s a way of seducing Bilbo to come on the quest with us”- Richard Armitage about the Misty Mountain song. 

“And that’s how I see it. And they sit in harmony with each other, I think, and are changed by each other.”- Richard Armitage 

https://thefantasy.news/2012/12/11/dreaming-of-thorin-an-interview-with-richard-armitage/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAvfcgIzfiY

And there was an interview where Ken Stotts (Balin’s actor) was asked about the face Balin makes when Bilbo can’t say what Thorin is for him 

Ken said “Well, Balin knew how Thorin felt about Bilbo, so he wanted Bilbo to know how special he was for him… I think that’s what he wanted”

He never even knows how valuable the armour truly is, how it was worth. And the FACT that Gandalf never told him probably leans to the idea that it would only remind Bilbo of what happened on the adventure. (We see how Bilbo’s way of grief is denial, he never tells the true story, only child-versions of it so it doesn’t feel real). Many years later, he gives it to Frodo, in hopes it would protect him, in a way that it didn’t for him. Bilbo sent him off to a perilous journey and prayed that his wouldn’t end in tragedy like his. 

 But It saves Frodo’s life, and god the PARRELS of Thorin failing to save his nephews, but saved Bilbo’s nephew.  In the the Tower of Cirith Ungol, the mithril shirt causes the orcs to fight over it. Remember, it was borne out of an act love, and orcs hate everything about light, so it was almost like an act of vengeance that they only saw the value in the mithril, and not how Bilbo saw it (love) which causes them to kill each other. This allows Sam to save Frodo and THIS is the most emotional scene about the mithril shirt for me. Thorin and Bilbo’s story ended but it allows Sam and Frodo’s to continue.

The mouth of Sauron takes possession of it, and mocks the remaining fellowship. Imagine how Gandalf must have felt in that moment. He knew what it meant already. How he would have to tell Bilbo that the mithril shirt, the one that already invoked his mourning now held the only thing left of his beloved nephew, who he loved like a son. The regret he must feel, for the both of them. No wonder in his wrath, he retrieves the mithril shirt.

Of course, Frodo is alive and the chain mail is returned to his possession. By then the shirt has saved his life twice. I think that Bilbo’s thoughts on the shirt shifted, no longer a reminder of what he lost, but what has been saved. Now we dont know if it goes to Valinor with them, I’d like to think it did, but another idea is that Frodo gave it to Sam. It goes in full circle like Thorin giving it Bilbo then Frodo giving it to someone he loved.

it becomes a family heirloom and is passed down through the family, through the Gamgee’s descendants. A final act of love.

bilbo knows they will be separated eventually (though the circumstances of that separation seem less dire than how they actually pan out) so he needs something, some part of thorin to return with him to the shire. just a little token or a reminder before he returns to his deeply missed but deeply mundane (and dwarfless) old life.

not gold, not jewels. all the gold under erebor wouldn’t suffice for thorin’s memory. gold is cold. it’s dead. this gold in particular is riddled with a sickness that is already beginning to take thorin away from him. fighting for it is what brought them here to begin with. but an oak tree? it’s alive. it grows slowly. it’s a reminder of thorin’s steadfastness, loyalty, and bravery.