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The Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape, in Guangxi, southern China.

The Helan Kou Valley carvings, north of China.

Kakadu National Park, Australia.

Saimaluu Tash, Kyrgyzstan.

Gobustan, Azerbaijan.

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

TLOTR has some of the type of valorization of war that you find in the Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature that JRRT loved and studied and taught because he loved that style and it’s deeply fitting for cultures like the Rohirrim, but it’s also full of the slog of war, the waste and tragedy, and the irrevocable damage that even victorious survivors carry for the rest of their lives. Frodo’s symbolic “death” is also resonant for survivors of what was called “shell-shock” then and PTSD now.

He pulled off playing a younger, dashing, more physically active version of his character really well in the Hobbit while he was actually like 20 years older LMAO

People can hate on my man Hugo but he was the only one who genuinely looked younger and more handsome somehow, all the others looked visibly older, even Cate who is so beautiful and aged extremely will did look older than in LOTR but he didn't. I need some respect for him

Man is theatrical as FUCK, makes unhinged faces every five seconds, and aland it very much works — Elrond being a weird little freak (affectionately) is imo an absolutely perfect portrayal: Also, canon Elrond is clearly quite eccentric, just in a different way to Gandalf! Aka Gandalf is the "take your meds, grandpa" brand of eccentric, while Elrond is the "the king of england likes to walk around with a rubber duck on his head but nobody says anything because he's the king of england" kind of eccentric.

And lest everyone forget, he fucking BODIED the Arwen storyline — that narrative could have so easily turned into a cliche "overprotective dad shows his daughter's prom date his gun collection" deal but the total mastery of microexpressions (to the point that to this day idk whether he's meant to be laughing or crying at the coronation) made it such a deeper, richer storyline, because you could see the slow war of attrition against his heart!

Basically, I wouldn't find Elrond as compelling a character as I do had he been played as an archetypal sage, instead of a guy who rightly looks fucking miserable 24/7 because he spent 6000 years saying "I told you so".

Also, I'm not going to contribute to elrond hairline discourse but imo if any elf was to develop male pattern baldness as a result of stress, it would be Elrond "Murphy's Law in action" Peredhel.

And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”

“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”

In lord of the rings lore, there are three tiers of deities. The highest tier and most dangerous includes Morgoth - Sauron’s master, and Ungoliant, Shelob’s master. The middle tier includes Shelob, Sauron. Then there’s the lowest tier, which includes the wizards Gandalf and Saruman as well as the Balrog (this is why Gandalf couldn’t 1v1 the Balrog). It also explains why Gandalf doesn’t take the ring, the magic of a tier 2 deity would absolutely corrupt him. We even see that happen with Saruman and the Palantir.

This leads to the start of the answer to some interesting questions. Why does Sauron tolerate Shelob being in his territory, and why does Sauron tolerate there being a secret back door into Mordor?

On the surface, he does it because he might not be able to beat Shelob in a fight, after all they’re the same tier of deity. And since Shelob’s domain is the secret way into Mordor, he can’t close it off, and he seriously doubts anyone can use it to get in. He doesn’t monitor the path with guards either - Shelob would eat them.

It gets more detailed than that though. Sauron’s boss, Morgoth, and Shelob’s boss, Ungoliant, made a deal. They’d attack the tree of life together. Morgoth would drink the nectar, and Ungoliant would keep all of the jewels and magic they earned along the way. Morgoth broke this deal because there was a particularly powerful gem he wanted (the gem in Sauron’s helmet), and as a result Ungoliant went to war with Morgoth.

Ungoliant won, Morgoth barely escaped with his life.

So not only does Sauron maybe lose if he attacks Shelob. Even if he were to win, it might provoke Ungoliant into attacking Morgoth again, and Ungoliant wins that fight, she’s already done it once.

With all of that established, how the hell does Sam hurt a deity that powerful?

Well, to start, it’s impossible. Shelob’s hide is so tough Sam could never pierce it with all his might. However, Shelob had grown old and arrogant. During the fight, Sam winds up directly underneath Shelob, and Shelob decides to crush Sam with all her strength.

Unfortunately, Sam is pointing sting straight up.

While Sam lacks the strength to hurt Shelob, Shelob herself is plenty strong. She accidentally impales herself on sting, finding herself injured for the first time in thousands of years. Which is the sort of poetry I really appreciate about Tolkien’s writing.

No matter how powerful or evil or ancient or indestructible your foe, if you stand for what is right and hold your sword out, they will impale themselves upon it.

Most importantly, for all I know there are only two tiers of "deities" (bad word in a way, because above them is one sole creator-god, Eru), valar and maiar. The two lower Tiers mentioned above are all maiar.

There are substantial differences in power levels, though. No way would Sauron lose to Shelob, but Sauron is not exactly walking around in corporeal form anymore, so the point is moot.

I think Holocaust survivors living in Israel need to be rescued from Israel because the amount of abuse and systemic failure they go through from Israelis and the Israel government is heartbreaking

Maria Theresa, Actually in Charge of the Holy Roman Empire: that goddamn Prussian twink is still trying to conquer all of Europe

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor: Aww… I know what might cheer you up, do you want to see this cool rock I found? :)

Maria Theresa, Actually in Charge of the Holy Roman Empire: I cherish you more than the air I breathe and if you ever cheated on me then I would probably snap and kill thousands of people

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor: yaaaay :)

Their Son Joseph II: Hungarians are genetically incapable of self-governance

Maria Theresa, Actually in Charge of the Holy Roman Empire: that goddamn Prussian twink is still trying to conquer all of Europe

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor: Aww… I know what might cheer you up, do you want to see this cool rock I found? :)

Maria Theresa, Actually in Charge of the Holy Roman Empire: I cherish you more than the air I breathe and if you ever cheated on me then I would probably snap and kill thousands of people

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor: yaaaay :)

Their Son Joseph II: Hungarians are genetically incapable of self-governance