Godwottery Shenanigans

Eighteen feet long when fully unrolled, the medieval Ripley Scroll presented here offers a seemingly endless series of alchemical enigmas. Attributed to fifteenth-century English monk George Ripley, the scroll is thought to describe the so-called black, white and red stages of the alchemist’s work, but any and all further details remain open to interpretation. Despite this mystery, or perhaps because of it, the scroll was so popular that at least twenty illuminated copies are known.

I was there,Gandalf…

”-Isildur, we need to destroy it!

-You gonna drag this shit on the top of the mountain?

-ISILDUR!!!”

If I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.

…if “stories old white men say are true to keep people subjugated” is your impression of religion, I think you’ve misunderstood what religion is, its ancientness, its importance, its universality, and its essential humanity.

I mean, is Islam not a religion? Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism—are these also not religions? The indigenous faiths of people like the Yoruba, the Igbo, the Khosian; the practice of Vodou in the African diaspora—shall we throw them out too? What about the extraordinary diversity of practice and belief among Native Americans, among the Australian and Polynesian peoples, should we just take all those off the table?  Religion is only the stories of white people, after all.

And hey, while we’re at it, let’s get rid of all those pesky women that keep cropping up in our nice, male-dominated Christianity. There’s 188 named women in the Christian Bible, but I’m sure that we don’t need all of them—not the mother of mankind; not the queens, judges, prophetesses, priestesses, wives and daughters that followed after her; not the mother of the guy our religion was named after; not the women who followed and supported him during his life, or the ones who led his followers after his death and resurrection. All those Middle Eastern Jewish and Gentile women, let’s get rid of them. Done.

(Get rid of all the female saints too, and women who were theological leaders—because who cares if you die, or write, or accomplish something in the name of a fairytale?)

Religion is only the stories of white men, after all.

But maybe this isn’t enough because religion is really meant to keep people subjugated right? Doesn’t matter who’s doing the subjugating. And it’s not like religion has ever been used by oppressed people as a weapon against oppression, as a network for mobilization, or to sustain a cultural identity in the face of assimilation.

Nope. Never. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Not ever. Not at any point. Not historically. Not ever.

The Easterlings are cruel and wild, but they live in a cruel wild land.  The Haradhrim are proud and dour, but they wouldn’t be if you did not treat them as sub-human.  The Dunlendings set fire to your homes because their own homes were there, once, before you threw them out into the cold.  When Isildur fails to throw the Ring into the Crack of Doom, when Ar-Pharazôn disavows his Eldarin heritage, it is not because they are Men.  When Gondor is gnawed by greed and corruption, when Westernesse lives in fear and the blood of its people, it is not because God skimped on the ethics when building Men.

The blood that is at fault here is not Beren’s; it is Lúthien’s.  The weakness is not Barahir’s; it is Melian’s.  Melian’s blood, which remembers being great and powerful, is now trapped in mortal bodies.  Melian’s light, once bright, is now dimmed in smaller vessels.  It is this blood which once knew the might of Valinor, and now lives far from it.  It is this blood which was torn from an endless light and cast into the darkness.  It is this blood which boils in the bodies of Edain, from Elros to Aragorn, calling for a world it used to know, for a grandness it used to have.  Númenor  reaches ever West because part of it knows that the West is whence it came of old; the kings who become the Ring-wraiths accept the Rings because part of them is empty of the magic of the Maiar and knows it.

It is the Ainur part of Men which howling reaches ever out towards power, towards darkness.  It is the ghost of Melian which lives in them and pines for the skies of Nan Elmoth, lit only by cold and distant stars, so long ago.  It is the bit of Maiar the line of Elros has that drives them mad with longing and ambition, that drives them to seek those stars again.