I've Moved Houses

please remember us when talking about neurodiversity. ocd, dyslexia, dyscaculia, personality disorders, tourettes, intellectual disabilities, schizo-spec disorders, etc. all fall under neurodiversity.

please stop saying neurodivergent when you mean "autism and adhd."

we need pansexual vampire rep.

we need asexual vampire rep.

EWAN MCGREGOR + HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN + 🍕

A key example of this is the interactions of Faramir with Frodo and Sam in Ithilien. In the book Faramir is a strong-willed character guided primarily by his own morality, who cares little for what his father Denethor thinks, for him to reject the ring after being tempted by it makes sense and is coherent as a plotline. Film!Faramir is much weaker, lacks his book counterpart’s morality and is desperate for his father’s affection. I dislike this change, but it isn’t inherently bad. What is bad is not following it through to it’s logical conclusion, Film!Faramir does decide to take the ring and takes the Hobbits with him to Osgiliath (all well and good), and then decides after seeing Frodo try to hand the ring to a ringwraith to then reject the ring and send the Hobbits away (absurd!) coupled with a nonsensical line from Mablung about Faramir’s life being forfeit (I can only assume a garbled version of book!Faramir saying that if he makes a choice that goes poorly for Gondor his life will be forfeit, but it makes no sense here). This plotline could work if they followed through on Faramir trying to take the ring, and the hobbits escaping in the chaos of battle at Osgiliath. Faramir would remain a coherent character, and the plotline would even follow more cleanly into ROTK, where it is obvious that Denethor hates Faramir for his perceived incompetence, (rather than for opposing him in terms of worldview and putting morality before realpolitik as with their book counterparts). Faramir attempting to contest Osgiliath might then make more sense as an attempt to get into his father’s good graces, with Faramir being wounded in a desperate (but not suicidal) attempt to contest the crossing of Anduin for example. The only reason for including Faramir rejecting the ring is because it happens in the book, the film tries to be both transformational and faithful and suffers for it.  

The same issue crops up elsewhere, Arwen is made into a more prominent character (an actual good choice both because of her importance and to counter the lack of women in the books) but this is nullified in the last two films with Arwen being almost ‘killed off’ with nonsense about her dying because of the ring (why not have her take the place of her brothers?). Elves turn up at Helm’s Deep but are all killed so we don’t have to worry about consequences going forward. Theoden hating Gondor for some reason and refusing to help until all of a sudden he does when the plot requires it. Aragorn not wanting to be king of Gondor, but still accepting the crown after the threat to Gondor has passed. He legitimately could have seen his part as over and wandered into the wilderness never to be seen again, which seems more in character of reluctant hero film!Aragorn. Including the pyre of Denethor, a scene that only works in the book because of the tragedy of Denethor’s character in an adaptation where Denethor is not a tragic character. Even more minor changes which only serve to pad runtime (in already absurdly long films) while having no consequence or sense to them such as Frodo sending Sam away near Minas Morgul weaken the films as a whole.

A more minor aspect of this is in dialogue, Jackson seemingly doesn’t rate himself as a writer of dialogue, and so will often use dialogue from the books. This is not a problem in scenes which are mostly faithful to their book counterpart, but quickly becomes one where changes have been made. Sometimes this comes across as simply nonsense, i.e. Theoden’s orders before the ride of the Rohirrim where he makes reference to the Rammas Echor (not present in the films) and gives his marshals orders to head in different directions before these are all completely ignored and the Rohirrim charge as a block. At other times the dialogue is altered, but in a way which shows Jackson did not understand the original and really should have dropped it entirely. Gollum swearing his oath to Frodo fits this category, with the distinction between swearing on or by the ring removed, and then Gollum not swearing any oath at all. This plot point should have been dropped anyway as the pay off, Frodo cursing Gollum on the slopes of Mt. Doom is not present in the film, leaving it an unfired Chekov’s gun.

we need pansexual vampire rep.

we need asexual vampire rep.

We need queer platonic vampire rep