Graaaace

Using the popular braiding-customs trope for my own nefarious purposes [putting two principled men with ptsd into Situations]

Part II

Part III

Part IV

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Boromir Lives: Helm's Deep

Boromir Lives: Whump-Time After Pelennor

Boromir Lives: GO TO SLEEP

Boromir Lives: Aragorn's Coronation

Boromir Lives: Faramir and Eowyn's Wedding

Boromir Lives: Panic! At the Ballroom

Boromir Lives: It's a BABY

Boromir Lives: High Uncle of the White Tower

Boromir Lives: We Didn't Have a Choice

Part I

Part II

Part III

You know how in Sharpe when Sean's accent goes so far into the Sheffield gutter that the generated captions go ["unintelligible"]? That's how you should read panel 13.

---16 HOURS LATER---

Both mugs are for Boromir and they're both full of neat gin because Legolas still doesn't quite grasp mortal rituals

[Sindarin panel 1.2: "Hey! What are you doing? Go away! Go away!" Sindarin panel 2.1: "Greetings my lord!"]

OKAY even though this has inspired at least two other chapters, I have to stop now and go back to drafting and hope my editor never finds out why my break into act II is written so poorly

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Boromir Lives: Helm's Deep

Boromir Lives: Whump-Time After Pelennor

Boromir Lives: GO TO SLEEP

Boromir Lives: Aragorn's Coronation

Boromir Lives: Braiding Customs

Boromir Lives: Braiding Customs Part II

Boromir Lives: Braiding Customs Part III

Boromir Lives: Faramir and Eowyn's Wedding

Boromir Lives: Panic! At the Ballroom

Boromir Lives: It's a BABY

Boromir Lives: High Uncle of the White Tower

Boromir Lives: We Didn't Have a Choice

My shoulder is still really loose after its most recent dislocation, so I haven't been able to work on any of the bigger pieces in my queue. So here's a sketchdump of some of my favorite movie and book moments when Boromir figures somebody has to be the dad of this operation. From top left:

-Teaching Pippin swordplay

-Emerging from the snowdrift after ploughing a route down from Caradhras to find a smartass Legolas while a fed-up Aragorn shouts from behind

-That moment in FotR when Boromir the military strategist is the first to run to the door of Balin's tomb when the Orcs show up

-When he realizes Frodo is slowly and quietly succumbing to hypothermia on Caradhras and shakes him out of it.

Have I

ever drawn

Richard Sharpe

Is it the tragedy of it all, is it Boromir’s contributions to dooming himself, his being raised to die for his country, or anything else not listed?

(Also, congratulations on the manuscript! Interaction with the publishing industry as an observer is exhausting, I can’t image the amount of work you’ve put into it. You’re one of my favorite writer-illustrators that I know of, and I’m so glad you put your stuff into the world)

Thank you thank you! That’s very kind!

There are so many great doomed factors for Boromir, but lately I’ve been really loving the fact that the Valar super duper wanted Faramir, not Boromir. Faramir was supposed to be the one to go to Rivendell, recognize the legitimacy of Aragorn, and bring him back to gracefully install him on the throne of Gondor. Boromir was supposed to stay behind and continue defending against the onslaught of Mordor. It’s what they each were cut out for.

And it’s all down to that one tiny line at the Council, “For on the eve of the sudden assault a dream came to my brother in a troubled sleep; and afterwards a like dream came oft to him again, and once to me.” Maybe it’s because I’ve been deep in writing mechanics lately, but I love that Tolkien made this choice—I love that he purposefully let this mistake be made. He could have easily left Faramir out of the equation and only sent the dream to Boromir, making Boromir more of a plot device, somebody to contrast Aragorn, provide opportunities for history- and world-building, and underline the Fellowships’ dire stakes via his death. But by sending the dream multiple times to Faramir and only once to Boromir, Tolkien tells us so much about these two characters, their relationship to each other, their roles in their country, and their specific tragedies. Boromir and Faramir never actually interact on the page, and yet it shows us this immense emotional thread connecting them together and to the greater story. It also brings a beautiful, tragic, mortal messiness to Aragorn’s coronation. Things didn't happen the way they were supposed to happen! Victory was achieved, but at needless cost! I don’t know man, it’s so subtle and so effective. I love it.

Here, I drew a picture:

Gondor Week day 1: the line of kings, Minas Tirith

Aragorn climbing Mount Mindolluin to reach the sapling of the White Tree. Gandalf is somewhere below shouting "you're doing great sweetie!"

Gondor Week day 2: The line of Stewards, artifacts

Boromir trying to cross the Greyflood (get ready to simply walk to Rivendell babe!)

Gondor Week day 4: Osgiliath, grief and conflict

Sometimes I stray so far into the "I'm surrounded by freaks" nature of Boromir's experience among the cryptid Fellowship that I forget he was confronted by an ACTUAL NAZGUL in the defense of Osgiliath.

Hi hello! I have not become a missing person; I'm just in the middle of my ranger season and haven't had reliable access to WiFi. Daily activities have included! Night hiking, hunting for aquatic macroinvertebrates, quilting, mimicking gray-cheeked salamanders, mimicking fireflies, inadvertently attracting owls, avoiding elk, wrangling chickens, dressing in 19th century garb and baking cornbread on the hearth of a 126-year old house, other duties as assigned. A standard season!

Anyway, I saw this ren faire photo from user Shakespeare922 on reddit and had to turn it into twentysomething Boromir suited up for tournament. HAD to.