#morgul vale

Reading "The Lord of the Rings", the original text, is quite fascinating because you see the big gap between the original material and the big adaptations-that-became-pop-culture, aka the Jackson movie trilogy. Not "bad" or "significant" gaps, but still very noticeable gaps. And the passage by Minas Morgul is one.

In the movie there is the famous deleted scene, added in the extended version of the movies, where we see Minas Morgul and I was always disappointed by this scene because it lacked one of the features I enjoyed about the land of the Nazgul. It was the "ghostly garden" feel of it. In the movie it is just harsh metal spikes and lot of rocks and brutal stuff in the middle of desolate cliffs and all that... But in the books, when you get to Minas Morgul and its vale, you actually find a creepy distortion of the countryside-ideal that Tolkien expressed with The Shire, for example. You arrive by this pleasant meadow-like landscape that is however deeply, deeply wrong. There's light of course, but it is the "corpse-light" bathing everything ; and there are pretty flowers but they have this off-color and weird smell, and there's a babbling brook but it is very obviously poisoned, all of this creating this spectral, eerie countryside that seems to be a mockery of the "nature paradises" Tolkien wrote about earlier.

Faramir teaching her how to read

Eowyn teaching him the speech of the Rohirrim

Their bilingual babies

Eowyn teaching their children riding before they can walk

Faramir reading to them in the womb

Bedtime stories split between tales of Gondor and songs of the Mark

Faramir making sure they know about their brave uncle Boromir

Eowyn taking them to the tomb of Theoden on a trip to see their uncle in Rohan and telling them of their brave grandfather and of his son Theodred who fell before the war

Eowyn and Faramir making sure their children never feel neglected like they had to

The restoration of Ithilien and cleansing of the Morgul Vale

The chance that maybe by the end of their lives a new fair work had replaced Minas Ithil perhaps a garden since no longer was a tower of guard needed

Faramir outliving Eowyn because he is of almost pure Numenorean descent

Naming works started in her life and finished after her death in her honor

Just all the things that they would achieve together and how beautiful they would make the world and how good of parents they would be.

Minas Morgul (?)

by Michael Green

-

There seemed to be great blackness looming slowly out of the East, eating up the faint blurred stars.

'I am too late. All his lost. I tarried on the way. All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.'

Overcome with weariness he wept.

The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkein

*****

Castiel didn’t die.

He didn’t.

Dean looked up to the sky, face pale, flecked with blood, tears forming in his eyes.  A raindrop fell down and smashed against his forehead.  Just one raindrop, the first of many.

Castiel didn’t die.  He didn’t.  This body, these burned wings, these belong to a double, a false-Castiel, a Castiel from the other timeline.

He didn’t die.  This is a trick.  Lucifer behind it, maybe.  Cruel and heartless and smirking, Lucifer.  ‘How do like that Dean.  How does it feel that I killed your boyfriend?’    

Castiel didn’t die.  He couldn’t have, he couldn’t… He loved you and he told you he loved you and he never knew.  You never told him back, you stupid, sorry, son of a bitch.  The tears in Dean’s eyes start to fall, with the rain.    

This is a shapeshifter, shifted to Castiel’s form to mock Dean, to punish him for the deaths of so many of its kind.  This is a dream, a djinn from another alternate universe that shows not what a heart desires, but what it fears the most.  He only has to wake up.  He only has to…

He shakes his head, face now wet with rain and tears that stream off with the motion.  His hair is heavy and plastered to his forehead.  

It’s not.  It can’t be.  Castiel isn’t dead.  He’s pretending, Gabriel painted his wings on the rock with pop rocks he dyed black, a stupid joke, a ruse.  To draw Lucifer out?  To lull the nephilim?  Just to be a dick, Gabriel would do this, he’s such an asshole, he would...  Castiel’s going to stand up any second now, he’s going to open his eyes and then narrow them; he’s going to stretch his jaw and open his mouth and say “Hello, Dean.”  

And Dean’s going to fall to his knees and take Castiel in his arms, take the back of Castiel’s head in one hand and wrap his other around his waist, underneath that goddamn trenchcoat, where Castiel’s body-- where Castiel will still be warm.  He’ll pull him close, so close that he’ll only have to whisper.  “I love you,” will be the first words that Dean says.  The last words he says for a while.  “I love you goddammit, I love you so goddamn much.”

...And you never told him.

Dean’s hands grasp open and closed on nothing, on air that is too cold, on air that is black.  He died and he never knew and now he never will, you useless, broken…

It’s a witch, it’s a spell, he fucking hates witches.  One somewhere was about to die and she could only survive if she took the life of someone else.  All he has to do is find her, and kill her, and he’ll get Castiel back, Cas, his angel.  

Not yours.  Because you never told him.  Because you were afraid, you were a coward.  He LOVED you, you fucking asshole.  

The tears are coming harder than the rain, now.  Even though it’s not… it can’t be real, it can’t be.  He’s seen visions of the past before, and the future.  The past can’t be changed but the future can; Castiel didn’t have to become a drug addict, Sam didn’t have to say ‘yes’ to Lucifer, Dean didn’t have to become a brittle shell of himself living in an armed encampment and throwing his life away like it didn’t matter. (It doesn’t matter).  This, this must be the future. He can change it.  He has changed the future before.  He can change it, he can, and then he can tell Castiel.  He can say it, he can finally say it.  “I love you Cas,” it will be so easy, and then Castiel will finally know.  

He looks up at the sky again, face contorted into an anguished twist.  Chuck can come back, Chuck is God, he can do anything.  Even if Castiel is dead, even if those really are his wings, his beautiful wings, God, Dean never got to touch them, not even once, but Chuck can come back, he can fix it, he can do anything.  Even Death, or Amara; they could come back, they could fix it.  He could call them, he knows how.  He could take on the Mark again, he could make taquitos again, he could...

His knees hit the dirty, stony ground where Castiel’s wings are burnt out around him.  He didn’t even notice he was falling.  

Morgul Vale - The Undying Lands

Sometimes you can find the best music in the strangest ways, and that’s how it was when I got a copy of the latest album from Louisville, KY black metal band Morgul Vale, 2023’s The Undying Lands. I had never heard of them, but I got this album through The Metalhead Box. I was curious enough to give it a listen, so I’ve been listening to it over the past week, give or take. I didn’t know anything about this album or this band going into it, but this is a very interesting album that I like quite a bit. This band takes black metal, folk metal, and deathcore to make for a very unique sound. I can already imagine a bunch of elitists turning their noses up at the deathcore mention, but I was very surprised at hearing some deathcore riffs and breakdowns.

The Undying Lands is a bit of a rough around the edges listen, because the different sounds and ideas come together in a bit of a jarring way, like it’ll go from black metal to folk metal and then a random deathcore breakdown will pop up. It’s a bit jarring, but it’s pretty cool. The vocals are a bit rough around the edges, too, but there are some really cool angelic vocals that show up throughout the album’s 40-minute runtime. They don’t really add a whole lot, minus some nice atmosphere, but they could be incorporated a bit better. They’re good, though, and they make for something a bit more unique than other bands in the genre. Their black metal sound isn’t anything unique, but it’s done pretty well for what it is, and what sells it for me are the deathcore and folk metal influences.

I want to use it to make a totally Tolkien dedicated page, but, I want to know if my fellow Tolkienites think this is a good url.