Sleight of Hand

Stephen Colbert speaking for the people (x)

+ bonus

Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen all taking the piss out of Orlando Bloom for going on about a cracked rib too much, while Orlando Bloom desperately tries to wriggle out of talking about it (special mention to Elijah Wood’s “oh it hurts, babes, and I can’t ride the horse, babes” and Viggo Mortensen’s “they can be very fragile, elves, especially the…Mirkwood strain…”)

Ian McKellen commenting that “they never did find any suitable underwear for Gandalf…”

Dominic Monaghan going on and on about how Viggo Mortensen apparently had a crush on one of the Rohirrim extras (who like a lot of the Rohirrim extras was a woman in a fake beard) while Vigoo Mortensen just mutters “one could perhaps say something about Mr. Monaghan’s…proclivities…”

Dominic Monaghan’s imitation of John Rhys-Davies ordering food at a restaurant for the whole cast. “You have partridge? BRING THE PARTRIDGE!”

John Rhys-Davies talking about an incident with the Lothlorian boats and saying “if an elf and a dwarf are in a boat…and…the boat goes under…let us say that the blame was not placed on the elf” while Orlando Bloom splutters “he’s a big guy, man!” 

Elijah Wood talking about how the hobbit actors shared a trailer with Ian McKellen and sometimes they would hear inarticulate bellows of protest from his side when they played loud music in the mornings

Viggo Mortensen talking about how, while filming with those same boats, Kirin Shaw (Elijah Wood’s scale double) started telling him “if the boat tips over…save yourself…I can’t swim.” 

Elijah Wood describing how Sean Astin would try to direct the helicopters to land while they were on location, while the other three hobbits were screwing around and throwing pinecones at each other

Christopher Lee recounting how he had so much trouble going up some steps in Orthanc with his long robe that he stopped in the middle of the scene and said, “I cannot get up these goddamn steps, Peter.” 

It explains so much…..

Aragorn: Arwen used to call me Aragorn…..

BUT

Aragorn (lying flat on the ground with his face in the dirt): aweralwkerjwae

Legolas: You’re only 87– you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You can find love a second time!

Aragorn: I did. Boromir died.

Hmmm... this is actually quite tricky... especially once you consider the canon for Sauron. Shapeshifting Demi-God, that sometimes spends time as a vampire, a werewolf, is really good at fighting with song but not so much with his fists, thinks it’s funny to call a giant man-eating spider his “cat”, started a human-sacrificing cult dedicated to his dead/banished former boss, which eventually resulted in an entire island civilisation being drowned beneath the sea by a God who was Done With Sauron’s Shit, broke off part of his soul and put it into an extremely powerful piece of jewellery but stupidly made it a piece of jewellery that’s actually quite easy to remove from his person, once yielded an entire fortress because a woman set her dog on him and then scolded him into submission, in one version of the story he is literally a cat with a chef called “Meowle”, appears to be giggling/laughing/chuckling in every scene that he appears in, has a hilarious Skype Palantír call with Pippin of all people, is a major drama queen who stood on top of a temple in the middle of a lightning storm knowing full well that God was Done With His Shit but thought he'd laugh in his face anyway, once thought he was the greatest wolf to ever live that was described in a prophecy and then got his ass handed to him because he was decidedly not the greatest wolf to ever live.

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

(when boromir is thinking of how he can use the ring to defend gondor, when aragorn is thinking of how it brought down proud isildur, when elrond is holding council and gandalf is thinking of how twisted he would become, if he ever dared—)

but then there’s frodo, who desires nothing except what he has already left behind him, and says, I will take the Ring.

it is an offer made out of absolute innocence, utter sincerity. It is made without knowing what it will make of him—and frodo loses everything to the ring, he loses peace and himself and the shire, he loses the ability to be in the world. It’s cruel, the ring is cruel, it searches out every weakness you have and feeds on it, drinks you dry and fills you with its poison instead, the ring is so cruel.

and frodo picks it up willingly. for no other reason except that it has to be done.

(the ring warps boromir into a hopeless grasping dead thing, the power of the palantir turns denethor into an old man, jealous and suspicious, it bends even saruman, once the proudest of the istari, into a mechanised warlord, sitting in his fortress and bent over his perverse creations—all the best of intentions, laid waste)

but there’s a reason gollum exists in the narrative, which is to show—well, to show what frodo might have been. because even as frodo grows mistrustful and wearied, as the burden of this ring grows heavier and heavier, he is never gollum. he is gentle to gollum. he is afraid—god frodo is so afraid for 2/3 of these books he is so tired and afraid, but he keeps moving, he walks though it would pull him into the ground, because he asked for this, he said he would.

someone else could have carried the ring to mordor, I suppose. the idea of a martyr is not dependent on the particular flesh and blood person dying for some greater purpose. but such a thing has to be chosen, lifted onto your shoulders for the right reason, the truest reasons, and followed into the dark, though it would see you burnt through and bled out.

To put it in context, Aragorn is a ridiculously good tracker. He had just been literally lying flat on his belly on the ground, his ear pressed to the dirt, so he could listen for footsteps of the army that was way, way out of sight. We’re talking miles away, here. Aragorn was listening to the ground. And from that, he figured out that there were a lot of riders, on hecka fast horses, heading right towards them, with the intention of fucking their shit up. Pretty badass, right?

Cue Legolas, a.k.a. You Little Shit. Legolas is an elf. His eyesight and hearing is ridiculously good. Like, it puts any human’s to shame.

He literally let Aragorn lie there on the ground and strain to hear footsteps in the distance for no reason. And when Aragorn got up, the little shit drove the point home by saying “Oh yeah, I see them, I’ve seen them this whole time, there’s a hundred and five of them, oh yeah and they’re all blonde and they’re carrying spears nbd”

Cue Aragorn gritting his teeth in frustration and Legolas smirking like the sassy pointy-eared fuck that he is.