Friendly Neighbourhood Reblogger

Me: Saruman’s takeover of the Shire collapses the boundary between “home” and “the world” that the characters have taken for granted for most of the novel. It forces them to confront the fact that evil isn’t a high and distant force that can be defeated and done away with forever; it comes home to you in the most intimate ways imaginable, and its effects take time and work to truly heal. And all this reflects Frodo’s own internal state, as he realizes that he can never fully leave behind and return from the things he did.

Also me:

The person killed by the orb seemed completely random, with almost fifty years of studying it we've been able to find no rhythm or reason to who it kills. It kills the old, the young, the rich, the poor, the urban, the rural, anyone. Every human on earth seems to have an equal chance of being killed by the orb. It's a headline the few times someone of note is killed by the orb: Britain famously lost a Parliament member to the orb, Brazil to this day remains the only country where a head of state was killed by the orb while in office, there was a short lived sitcom in the 1990s called Freinds that ended halfway through its first season due to the orb killing one of the main actors on set. However, these are outliers, on any given day the person who dies via orb is very likely to be someone you never heard of. There are billions of people on earth, and only one is killed by the orb every day. In almost fifty years only a little over 18000 have died because of the orb, which is nothing in the face of the sheer amount of humans that exist.

When the orb first appeared people were horrified. Both the US and USSR thought it was a weapon from the other side. Almost every religion made some claim of it being proof of their beliefs, oftentimes claiming it was divine punishment. Atheists claimed it was proof no loving God could exist. People were so very apocalyptic and horrified by it, they thought of it as part of the end times, because when it was new that's really how it looked.

However, it's been long enough so that's changed. Most people have lived their entire lives in a world where the orb exists. The orb isn't that scary a concept. People know their odds of being killed by it are low and that it's not going to end the world or anything. The orb has become normal, and we've accepted that the orb is just something that kills people the same way cancer, or heart attacks, or natrual disasters, or car crashes kill people. In the nineteen eighties there were efforts to find a way to stop the orb, but it's since proven to be extremely difficult, and it's as distant and nebulous as finding a cure for cancer. When a community is struck by the orb you'll see that community in mourning, but it's not a global thing anymore.

So people grow up learning about the orb, as part of science, like anything else. A lot of gen z remembers learning about the orb from Magic School Bus. It's just something normal. There are a few people with an orb hyperfixation, and a few cults that give the orb importance but it's not most people's concern. The orb is how we first confirmed that interdimensional objects existed and are possible. A lot of people theorize dimensional studies wouldn't exist without it, meaning without the orb we might not have thermitizers or grand drives, we might not even have a moon base without the orb. Some have even rather tastelessly claimed that the orb has saved more lives at this point that its taken with all the knowledge it's given us.

Fredegar Bolger trying to pretend to have ANY idea how the poly geometry works there.

Meanwhile in Hobbiton Hamfast Gamgee is inconsolable because there are no good possibilities here. His poor son has married into the gentry and it doesn’t matter which one what kind of husband is that for such a promising lad?

And as she fell, and as the water filled her lungs, the ducks saw her, but they had no pitty on her, saying to eachother: "this girl was killed under the laws of humanity, and we cannot interfere with the law. It is sad what happened, but it was her father's right."

And as she went further down, and closer to death, the schools of fish saw her, but they had no pitty on her, saying to eachother: "this girl is reacting far too violently. If only she was more calm when they thrust her down, then mabye we would spare her. She's too old too, and too masculine, and not even a virgin. We must find a better looking victim to spare."

And she fell so far down that the rays could see her, but the rays didn't spare her, and told eachother: "this girl is weak. Can she not swim, not pull herself up, is water in her lungs enough to hurt her? If she was just a child perhaps we would spare her, but she's old enough to be able to swim out of this herself, even if ropes bind her hands. We cannot spare her."

And eventually she floated down to the sea with no sun, where only the sharks could see her, and the sharks said to one another: "this being has tasted blood in her mouth, yet has no fins to swim with, we must help her."

And the sharks took her, and swarmed her body yet did not eat her. And her skin became grey and rough, and her bones became as soft as the tip of her nose, and her teeth became sharp and plentiful, and her eyes became white and cold. And she could breath as gills grew on her sides. And she could swim, as fins grew on her arms and legs, and a tail grew on her back.

Like Gandalf and Bilbo both seem to have a lot of fire symbolism that follows them around. Gandalf uses light and fire as kind of his two go to weapons and he's the keeper of the ring of Narya which is the fire one. And of course Gandalf the White is forged out of flame. And then Bilbo's introduced in the middle of smoking, and he spends a lot of time hanging around campfires and hearths, like the campfire storyteller he is. He seems to like hanging out in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, and his conflict with Smaug obviously also involves a lot of fire. He's also arguably the character who is closest to Gandalf.

Frodo on the other hand is like all water imagery. One of the first things we learn about Frodo is his parents were weirdos who hung out in boats and then drowned, and he's introduced filling drinks at Bilbo's party. He makes his stand against the Nazgul at the river. He himself nearly drowns like three times in the story, and spends a lot of time in boats, being haunted by dark waters, and the sound of the ocean (and of course ends the story going over the sea). Like the water symbolism with Frodo is nonstop and he shares that in common with Gollum, who specifically is characterized by pools, rivers, and lakes, as well as fish, worms, mud and roots and caves—very wet and slimy compared to Frodo's more mariner/wayfinder imagery. But they're still kind of two sides of the same coin.

Pippin and Merry get a lot of plant and tree symbolism. Besides hanging out with ents and drinking tree wine and that time they both got eaten by a tree, it's clear Merry grew up wandering forests and knows a lot about wild plants (and writes a book on it later) and Pippin gets a ton of association with Gondor, y'know, that place that is represented by a big ol' tree. Their tobacco leaves too actually kinda play a pivotal role, and are again, very plant focused.

You'd think Sam would also be more earth oriented, being he's a gardener, but not really? Unlike Merry who's out here spitting plant facts 24/7 and working on his plant book, Sam's interest in plants seems like to only be around when he's on the clock. His symbolism is all very celestial. He's the guy who ends up using the Star of Earendil. He sees Earendil while he and Frodo are walking through Mordor. He evokes Elbereth, the Star Goddess like multiple times. He names his daughter after the star-sun shaped flower Elanor which literally means "Sun and Stars." And if you think about it, Gardener is actually kind of a perfect role for a star-guy when you remember how dependent plants are on the sun. He also seems to share some kind of connection with Galadriel who is also caked in a lot of star imagery. It also tracks he'd be paired with Frodo thematically as he serves as a guiding light to a mariner, in contrast to how Gollum represents the depths.