For the character ask meme: Celeborn and/or Tom Bombadil
Celeborn: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS
ship with: Galadriel I guess. I’m not really invested.
friendship them with: Idk. A friendship with Luthien would be interesting? I mean, you see lots of fic and headcanon and meta about Galadriel knowing/being friendly with Luthien, but Celeborn would have known her longer and no one ever talks about that. One of my Sindar-friends should talk about it.
general opinions: He’s kind of racist and doesn’t really seem interesting to me, but he still doesn’t deserve Stoned Celeborn from the movies. Also props on copping to and apologizing for his anti-Khazad sentiments in LotR, that’s rare and admirable.
Tom Bombadil: hate them | don’t really care | like them | LOVE them | THEY ARE MY PRECIOUS
ship with: I wouldn’t inflict him on anyone other than Goldberry, who doesn’t seem to mind.
friendship them with: I mean, Frodo likes him for some reason.
general opinions: THAT PART OF THE BOOK IS SO BORING AND FRUSTRATING, OKAY????? The only time I ever enjoyed it was when I was reading FotR out loud to @postergirlanachronism, and that was because she’s so well-versed in Celtic mythology that she was convinced he and Goldberry were going to turn out to be both fae and fey, and the hobbits would leave the forest and find out a hundred years had passed.
I’m also SO sick of Dad insisting he’s a Vala, that’s probably what tipped me over from negative indifference to RAEG.
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I've heard the typical critiques of Lewis playing copycat to Tolkien - fantasy epic, magic rings - and I mean, I don't disagree, but I just realized that Aslan is a magical being inspired by Christianity who creates an entire world through song and if that's not the biggest rip-off in the world I don't know what to tell you.
My own thought about Shelob is that she is an actual daughter of Ungoliant, but one of many (like, IDK, tens or hundreds of thousands). That might be enough to account for the power differential between Shelob and, say, a half-Maia like Luthien. There's only one of Luthien, so a whole lot of Melian's power could go into her, while Shelob being the last of Ungoliant's uncountably vast brood would have only a tiny share of Ungoliant's power? IDK, your idea is good too.
I mean, I generally would find that weird, like you don’t lose your power into each child, but that is… kind of exactly how it sometimes works in Middle-earth? XD Like, there’s the Morgoth wasting all his power vs. Manwe conserving his, but there’s also Miriel and Feanor, and the fact that even before it was clear he somehow sapped all of her life energy, she said outright that he scooped his potential (full-)siblings energy as well as his own share. (Why does this never happen to the fathers? Like, Finwe still had enough energy left to have two-to-five more kids.) But yeah, it’s possible. I don’t subscribe to it just because the words hit me differently when I first read them and it stuck, but it’s definitely a good alternate theory. Maybe she survived so long by staying under her more powerful siblings' radar until they'd all killed each other off? :)
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. I only said Maia because that's also a standard fandom thing and it was a 'fight one battle at a time' kind of deal and I didn't want to get off-track. But yeah - Shelob is like... 10% Ungoliant maybe. Several generations down, still scary and horrifying - but not First Age horrifying. Or, to be more precise - not Age of the Trees terrifying. (Because the First Age had some hella terrifying monsters, absolutely, but the Age of the Trees? Eldritch abominations. Which is how I class Ungoliant, btw. And sometimes Tom Bombadil, depending on my mood.)
For what definition of ‘story’ though? :) But I’ll say the cutoff point is the end of LotR.
Short one today I’m afraid, but here goes:
‘Elanor’ becomes a very popular name in the Shire. Not immediately, of course, but after a while it becomes not uncommon to borrow your child’s name from the Mayor’s children (he has so many, after all, and it’s a very respectable connection even if it’s ever so tenuous). And Sam is Mayor for a long time.
And then Elanor Gamgee grows up and marries Fastred, and the names of the Fairbairns enter into the general consciousness, so the name begins being used generally. Later, there are a whole spate of babies named after relatives who were originally named for her.
One hundred years later, ‘Elanor’ stays pretty steady as one of the twenty-five most common names for hobbit girls, although most of the time no one really bothers to remember where it came from unless they’re related to the Gardners.
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*glares cross-eyed at Brandir’s murder* You know what? No.
My least favourite moment or chapter in LotR, depending on how we define favourite, is Boromir’s attempt to take the Ring (no headcanon there, just creys) and In The House Of Tom Bombadil.
Because Bombadil just kind of annoys me and I want to get to the good stuff.
So today’s headcanon exercise will be an attempt to figure out just what the fuck he is.
When I was a kid, my dad always told me he was one of the Valar. My dad was a huge LotR fan and always presented (and was accepted) as a serious Tolkien Authority growing up. Then I read the Silmarillion.
Words cannot describe the depths of my betrayal.
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that Bombadil’s not one of the Valar. I mean, not only do they generally come across as far more serious than he is, there’s also the issue of context. The Valar might not understand mortal motivations and mortal psychology, and they may occasionally do things like forget that Elves need a physical means to cross an ocean, but they do understand the broader context of the world – they would definitely understand the problem of the Ring. Tom doesn’t, from what we see, and Elrond also says flat out that he simply wouldn’t understand the implications of being asked to keep it. So the idea seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Stepping even further back, during the Silm read one of my parents (I’m not sure who) suggested that Iluvatar was a possibility. Now, it definitely makes more sense than one of the Valar, but… well, leaving aside the personality dissonance and the fact that Iluvatar would probably also understand the Ring issue, I’ve always perceived Iluvatar as inherently asexual and aromantic – not even as an orientation, just as part of what he is. And Bombadil is, presumably, neither; at the very least he’s alloromantic.
So that leaves the idea that he’s a Maia, or that he’s some other sort of creature we don’t know anything about.
Now, Goldberry definitely fits the ‘Maia’ mold, right down to the Hobbits’ reactions to her, but Tom... Again, Maiar who take on human or humanesque forms usually understand human and Elvish politics and customs and so on perfectly well – Melian, for one, but also the Istari.
So here is my theory: Tom is descended from a Maia or Maiar. We know they can have children if they stick to a physical shape – and not only with humans, because Ungoliant has descendants still living at the end of the Third Age. He’s some variety of Maia-humanoid, possibly with other things mixed in. In this case, of course, he wouldn’t be as old as he says he is, unless one of his parents is a Maia who later abandoned their physical form (a la Melian) and another was one of the Avari, but he could be a later descendant of that sort of match, and talk about his predecessors experience as his own.
It’s not a perfect idea and I have wrinkles I need to iron out, but I think it fits more than any others I’ve heard and it’s more satisfying than a shrug.
//Hullo! Occasional blog-lurker here (love your CoH meta, and all your Brandir love) with an idea on why Melian might have condemned Gurthang without a great deal of reason. Well, what if she was warning Beleg off it because she got a sense that bad things would happen to the people that wielded it? Accidentally blaming the item as a conduit of those things rather than just warning him that Bad Things Will Happen? Perhaps Gurthang's degree of sentience had some bearing on her phrasing too?
Yeah, that’s a definite possibility - she sensed ‘bad things will happen’ plus ‘semi-sentience’ and assumed they were related. Which was wrong, but not an unreasonable assumption. That makes so much more sense! Ugh, I couldn’t reconcile that bit at all so that’s a relief. You’re smart. :)
I recognize your name, actually. It's always nice to see in my alerts, although it's made me a bit nervous sometimes, because I occasionally have… concerns, that Turin-friendly people will get upset by my not-at-all-Turin-friendly blog - so it’s nice (well, extra nice) to hear you haven’t been! I will add your words to my compliment horde.
Hobbit Rant, Part Thirteen: Miscellaneous Rage Inducers
A bunch of other things that make me mad. (And I'm super exhausted so I'll update the links later.)
Introduction and Table of Contents
And here is where I go to town on everything that I couldn’t justify an entire rant for.
Things that piss me off – I was really annoyed when it turned out Azog survived when he wasn’t really supposed to in An Unexpected Journey, because here was something that I knew! I knew who Azog was! Ooh, ooh, and then there was his son, right, Bolg’s going to be hunting Thorin for revenge, this is so exciting and it’s semi-canonical and
No, he’s just still alive.
Oh, well. I got over it.
But then BOLG SHOWS UP ANYWAY IN THIS MOVIE WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT WHY ARE YOU PLAYING BAIT AND SWITCH WITH THE ANTAGONISTS WHAT THE FUCK. It’s not as if Bolg would have done just as well as the villain from the beginning, or anything. It’s not as if it was completely pointless to swap them like that when Azog wasn’t doing anything necessary to the plot. It’s not as if a son avenging his father would be more interesting and less superficial than someone trying to get revenge on the guy who cut his arm off OH MY GOD WHAT IS HE CAPTAIN HOOK????
Another thing that pisses me off is BEORN.
I talked about how they rushed his scenes and his plot didn’t make any sense. I know. I won’t go into that with too much depth. (Though allow me to reiterate that he is WILD, not RABID.)
This is about his character design.
Beorn… is a bear. He turns into a bear. He turns into a BEAR.
HE LOOKS LIKE A BEAR.
HE’S SUPPOSED TO HAVE A PHYSICAL RESEMBLANCE TO A BEAR, IT FUCKING SAYS SO.
It’s not in so many words, but he’s a big man. He’s brawny. He’s got beefy, muscled arms. He’s got thick hair and beard. HE’S A BEAR. He’s supposed to be built like a Viking, or a body-builder. He’s grumpy, dark-haired Thor with a long beard and no hairbrush or sleeves. He’s not skinny. He’s not tall and long, he’s broad because he’s a fucking bear!
Bears, by the way, don’t have manes. HE SHOULDN’T HAVE A MANE! HE’S NOT A LION, ASSHOLE!
He also wouldn’t have a mane because (previous ranting aside) when he’s human-shaped, he’s human. Humans don’t have manes. He’s a man with the physical proportions of a bear, with facial hair reminiscent of a bear, with incredible strength – like a bear.
HE’S STILL A MAN, SO HE WOULDN’T HAVE A GODDAMN MANE!
And what the hell is with his accent? Or his tragic, maudlin backstory? Beorn has a long and fierce enmity with orcs and wargs, but he’s ferocious and lively; he doesn’t mope. Angry Beorn is vicious and furry. Ordinary Beorn is rude and blunt-speaking. Happy Beorn is rude and jovial. He’s coarse and hearty, you DUMBASS, how could you fail so hard in so many directions??
Kay. What the fuck ever, that wasn’t even Beorn in the movie. 0% Beorn. No resemblance. Worse accuracy than Elrond. Worse accuracy than Faramir is that even possible.
Moving on.
This. Freaking. Prophecy.
There is no prophecy. This is not destined. It’s not foretold. Let me break it down:
-Outright foresight is not common in Arda. If you’re not Elrond or Gandalf or Malbeth the Seer the most you’re likely to get is a really bad feeling in the pit of your stomach at the mention of a certain place/person/plan. You don’t get multiple lines of poetry.
-The whole point of the scenes in Laketown was basically the exact opposite of this prophecy nonsense. It says that men were singing songs about the return of the King Under The Mountain, and they weren’t overly concerned about the fact that it was Thror’s grandson and not Thror who had come back – because the songs were about Thror. They sang the old ‘what we hope will happen’ songs and ignored the parts that didn’t fit – and then they made up new songs with plenty of lines about how the gold would flow from the mountain into Laketown. The point was that people will believe what they want to believe, and that crowd sentiment is fickle. THERE WAS NO PROPHECY. THERE WAS NO DESTINY. NO.
-Who made this supposed prophecy? Why did they make the prophecy? Why did anyone take them seriously? Why does no one except Bard know this prophecy? HOW ABOUT THORIN, WHY HAS THORIN NEVER HEARD THIS PROPHECY? Seeing as it’s apparently an inevitable, Greek-myths style prophecy, what is the point in trying to stop them, Bard, JFC?! STOP WITH THE FUCKING PLOTHOLES ALREADY!!!
It’s also really annoying that Bard is basing most of his opposition to the Dwarves’ mission on some stupid foretelling of dubious worth – instead of on ACTUAL GOOD SENSE AND THE POTENTIAL NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS, you know, like he did in the book. In the book, where it was plausible he could be a halfway decent king.
Speaking of Laketown (again)… What the fuck is up with their names?
Alfred. Oh, no, I’m sorry… Alfrid. And Percy.
‘ALFRID’ AND ‘PERCY’ DO NOT BELONG IN MIDDLE-EARTH. YOU COULDN’T EVEN GET AWAY WITH ALFRED OR PERCIVAL, SO WHAT THE FUCK MAKES YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE ALFRID AND PERCY???? THIS ISN’T NARNIA, YOU ASSHAT! IT’S NOT ‘EVERYTHING-BUT-THE-KITCHEN-SINK’ FANTASY! IT’S TOLKIEN! THERE ARE FUCKING RULES!
Here is a comprehensive list of all the names we know of canonical Dale/Laketown names: Bard, Brand, Girion, Bain.
Yes, some of these are semi-English names. But they’re not Middle English. They’re not Shakespearian. Bard, Brand… they don’t go hand-in-hand with Charles or William. Or Percy.
The names in Dale are Germanic – Norse or maybe Old English – or Sindarin. Brand son of Bain son of Bard… They belong next to names like Beow or Beorhtnoth or Scyld. They’re explicitly stated to have a kinship with the Rohirrim, who have Old English names. There’s some leeway – but not enough to jump forward eight hundred years to names from an entirely different culture. Percy is a freaking steam engine, or a Weasley – he doesn’t belong in Middle Earth. You wouldn’t have a Charlotte or an Elizabeth; you don’t get Percival and Alfred. Maybe you could get away with Alfred in Bree, although I highly doubt that Bill and Harry are actually short for William and Harold. But not in fucking Laketown. THEY DO NOT BELONG IN LAKETOWN. GO BOIL YOUR HEAD, YOU JACKASS, CAN’T YOU TELL THEY SOUND WRONG EVEN WITHOUT RESEARCH? IT’S NOT LIKE I HAD TO REREAD BEOWULF FOR THIS, IT’S KIND OF SELF-EVIDENT! WOULD IT HAVE BEEN SO FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO CALL THE MASTER’S SIDEKICK ‘UNFERTH’ INSTEAD?????
And. Why does Tauriel have red hair? Tauriel shouldn’t have red hair. She is not related to Mahtan.
