HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

after losing control of the signal fire there’s a FUCKING TIMESKIP and when the next chapter starts everyone’s hair is several inches longer and their clothes have rotted to shreds and they’re still just kind of chilling!!!!

IT TAKES THE TERRIBLE IMPERIALISM MIND-POISONED EXCESSIVELY BRITISH BOYS IN THE ACTUAL BOOK SEVERAL MONTHS TO COMMIT A SINGLE ACT OF INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE, EVEN THE ONE (1) CHILD WRITTEN AS AN ACTUAL SOCIOPATH

AND then when they DO turn on each other it is because

THERE’S AN UNSPECIFIED WORLD WAR HAPPENING

AND A PILOT’S CORPSE CRASH LANDS ON THE ISLAND POST-DOGFIGHT AND THE CHILDREN MISTAKE THE PARACHUTE FOR A MONSTER AND SPIRAL INTO PARANOIA

BECAUSE CHILDREN INHERIT THE LEGACY AND TRAUMA OF VIOLENCE FROM THE ADULTS WAGING WAR AROUND THEM

HURR DURR IN THE REAL WORLD IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LIKE IN LORD OF THE FLIES -

yes. yes he did. i’m also gonna direct you to the real life ‘lord of the flies’ which occured in the 1960s, when six tongan schoolboys got stranded on a desert island for over a year before being rescued by an australian fisherman (who, it should be noted, later took on all six as crewmembers because the reason they were out in the first place was because they wanted to see the world, and named his ship the Ata after the island they were stranded on). nobody died. the only injuries that occurred were accidental, and when one of the boys broke his leg falling down a cliff, the others braced it and looked after him so well that it healed perfectly. if they argued, then they would literally go to opposite sides of the island until they’d cooled off. after leaving the island, they remained friends for the rest of their lives. here’s a photo of them as adults, with their rescuer (who is third from the left) and other members of his crew.

humidity

oh alas, you say. oh papa, whatever shall i do, it is ever so hotte and drye in california. the very air hath been sucked of all its moisturey droplets and whatnot.* one hundredy and tennith desiccated degrees!

*(yo, drought is serious. i am pretty obviously not making fun of that.)

alright. let’s check it out. here’s a random california city, right about now:

thirty-two percent. and here’s a random mid-atlantic city located somewhere in the wet fleshy crease behind a demon’s knee*:

*(confession: i do not live in dc, but several years ago i spent three weeks steaming like a tinned ham in arlington in august. none of the pants i took with me could ever keep a crease again.)

huh! funny thing! “see, dc’s actually seven degrees COOLER,” you say, because you’ve obviously never gone outside and taken a deep lungful of wet sock trash air in your life. and now for added bliss, here’s what early wednesday morning’s gonna be like for these poor clowns:

that’s right! eighty-two percent humidity! the point at which showers no longer matter, because you’re all caught in God’s grease trap! just stressed human eels miserably slip slidin’ their way through a damp melty bathwater-flavored hellscape that feels like it’s actively sous viding their top layer of skin! a hundred thousand people packed into public transit breathing air that feels like deepthroating swamp thing! and you wanna talk to me about fuckin california!

[cue science voice]: human bodies cool through evaporation, a process by which the body sweats and sweet invisible angels towel us off, whisking away our unwanted moisture into the air and literally chilling us out. (it’s also why air conditioned air feels so fucking deliciously refreshing: it’s not just being cooled, it’s being conditioned, aka, dehumidified. it’s cool dry air.) but. if the air is already made out of fucking chowder and can’t absorb shit then guess what the fuck our bodies can’t do.

Faramir: Hey, don’t go up the Spider Stairs.

Frodo: Why? What’s up the Spider Stairs?

They do live in a world where godzillarantulas feature prominently in mythology and history (Ungoliant plunged the world into darkness, scared the crap out of Sauron’s old boss, etc) and existed within the last century in Mirkwood. Assuming they ever talk to anyone who’s been to Mirkwood. They… probably know they were giant spiders in Mirkwood pretty recently? It’s hard to figure out how much anyone in Middle-earth has been talking to anyone else when we didn’t actually see it.

On the other hand – what if it’s the giant evil spiders’ prominence in history/mythology that’s causing trouble? What if lots of evil/nasty things/places get called “spider” just to indicate how nasty and evil they are, rather than any association with literal spiders, and it’s just… overloaded? Maybe the bad part of town in Minas Tirith is the Spider District. Maybe every tavern trying to be edgy calls itself the Spiderweb.

Actually spider/Ungoliant references could be really appealing to Gondorians trying to be edgy. They’re dark and evil! Plunged the world into darkness! But they AREN’T involved in the war they’re actually fighting, they aren’t directly associated with Sauron at all, so getting too interested in them would be creepy without being potentially treasonous. Because no one’s ACTUALLY going to worship those dangerous but not epic spiders up in Mirkwood, and no one’s heard anything from any proper spawn of Ungoliant in ages and ages.

In fact, spider/Ungoliant references might be appealing to ORCS trying to express that something is nasty and creepy! Nobody likes Ungoliant.

Maybe Faramir’s been to fourteen different Spider Caves across Ithilien, and half of them he didn’t even see regular spiders in, they’re just dark and damp and may have had orcs at some point, or something, and at some point in history someone got spooked. So you know, it’s POSSIBLE Spider Pass has something to do with spiders? But really it just means people don’t like it.

middle earth isn’t saved because no one faltered or came close to despairing or who sank to their knees in weary defeat. it’s not saved by pride or conviction or even strength. it’s saved because enough people do what they have to do even if they have to do it in the darkness. in the dust. with the ashes of hopelessness and bitterness in their mouths. because enough people took another step. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Theoden, Boromir, Faramir, Merry, Pippin. And many don’t. For every hero there is someone who gives into the “reasonableness” of despair—Saruman, Denethor, Grima, even Gollum—but enough. Enough people said “it doesn’t matter if we lose, I will keep fighting” and then they do.

And that GETS me. It is the most hopeful thing about the lord of the rings to me. There is so much that sums up its spirit, so many beautiful quotes and moments, but to me it’s never been the most famous of the quotes about hope and love that hit me hardest but a line from the films. Before the battle for minas tirith, one of the soldiers says “we cannot defeat the armies of Mordor” and Theoden answers “no. but we will meet them in battle nonetheless.”

Estel is the alias Elrond gave to Aragorn in the books when he was a child to protect him until he came of age. It’s Sindarin Elvish for hope. But it’s a specific kind of hope. I don’t have my linguistic notes handy, so I can’t remember where Tolkien wrote out the full definition in his own notes, but it’s basically:

estel, n. hope, faith, trust, belief.

But there’s another Elvish word for hope.

amdir, n. hope, expectation, extrapolation. from prefix am to, toward + verb tiro look. Same root as in palantir, far-seer.

amdir is rational hope: you look at present circumstances, and look ahead to see what’s coming. It means calculating likely possibilities, outcomes. What’s the best you can expect to happen?

estel is irrational hope. You know there’s just no way to win. Amdir says you’re screwed, and you say, “I know, but I’ll keep going anyway.”

estel is a FOOL’s HOPE.

Ring any bells? Because you’re absolutely right. There are a lot of people who fail in LOTR because they only had amdir. Saruman was entrapped because he saw no hope of victory, so he threw in his lot with Sauron.

Boromir had been fighting a losing battle of defense against the forces of Mordor and knew there was no chance of defeating the overwhelming forces of Sauron save by some extraordinary means. He saw in the Ring a hope of saving his city by using it as a weapon. He knew “one does not simply walk into Mordor”… it’s too well-defended. Deep down, he wanted to try the amdir option, not the estel option.

And then there’s Denethor. Denethor, most of all, is the epitome of amdir. In the books he is a proud man, but rational. He’s the Steward of Gondor, and he takes the job damn seriously. His people are the bulwark defending Middle-Earth from being crushed by Mordor, which is visible from his window. He’s done a good job of marshalling forces and stockpiling resources for this battle — in the books, he does light the beacons to summon Théoden – and he actually has a palantir he uses to spy on Sauron.

His mind is strong enough to resist Sauron controlling him. So instead, Sauron controls the palantir, making sure it only shows off the greatness of Mordor’s armies, allies and weapons, and every last loss and setback of Denethor’s side. He knew very well Théoden had been held up at Helm’s Deep and would arrive too late. He knew Aragorn was coming to claim the throne, which didn’t thrill him: he thought Aragorn was just Gandalf’s puppet. And when he finds out Faramir had done what Gandalf wanted and sent the Ring into Mordor with a hobbit instead of bringing it to him flr safekeeping, he rails at Gandalf for risking everything on a “fool’s hope.”

The final straw is that, after Faramir is injured, Denethor looks into the palantir one more time to see if there’s any hope left… and he sees the fleet of black ships coming up the river. He thinks it’s more armies from Mordor. In fact, it’s Aragorn bringing a spare army to save the day. But Denethor thinks to himself, “checkmate. We’re toast.” And he decides to kill himself and his dying son rather than let them be seized as trophies by Sauron (or in his case, as a prisoner.)

Denethor gives into despair, but he is not a total madman in the books. He just has a meltdown because he only has amdir, not estel, and only a fool’s hope could win against impossible odds.

Also? Samwise is basically old English for “half wit.” He’s a wise Fool. Théoden and Aragorn do what they can to help, and in the and Aragorn leads his armies to the gates of Mordor to divert Sauron’s attention from Frodo and Sam as much as he can. But it’s Sam’s dogged determination to keep going even if it’s hopeless (amdir-less) that saves them all.

Note that I think Tolkien may have come up with the Elvish word amdir and written out its definition after LOTR was published. But the concept was obviously burbling around in his subconscious already. The more you look, the more you’ll see how the different flavors of hope show up in his writing

It’s the sort of hope that goes along with Tolkein’s concept of despair, which is that despair should be the product of nothing less than absolute certainty that everything is fucked, categorically, forever. But because no one can know that with any real certainty, by definition there is always hope. Not the hope of planning, or the hope of dedication, but the hope of “we don’t know how this is gonna shake out, but if we don’t know for sure then we can’t despair, and if we’re not despairing then we must still have hope left.”

Though here at journey’s end I lie In darkness buried deep, Beyond all towers strong and high, Beyond all mountains steep, Above all shadows rides the sun, And stars forever dwell; I will not say the day is done, Nor bid the stars farewell.

At the moment that he sings that, he has almost given up; he decided that finding Frodo was more important than taking the ring to Mount Doom himself, but now he has searched the whole tower and he can’t find Frodo. He’s determined not to leave without Frodo, but he doesn’t know where he is; he knows the orcs are coming back, and that if he’s still there at that point, he’ll be killed or tortured (or both), the Ring will be taken from him, and all will be lost.

So what does he do?

He sits down at the top of the tower, and he sings. He sings about how even though he is “buried in darkness”, beyond all hope of aid, he will not say the day is done. For even if he fails, he realizes that “in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” It’s such a very hobbit-y moment of courage and faith, where, faced with defeat and the loss of all he holds dear, he sings of the beauty that will still exist in the world, even should he fail.