Tag: aragorn

Dori is totally the reason that all the kids call all royalty “mister king” or “mistress queen” or even “honoured sov’rin”. Dori is all “mister ironfoot” and mister Stonehelm and all the kids picked it up. This also extends to foreign royalty? Gimizh keeps calling Thranduil “mister elf-king” and Everyone’s trying to not to look at Thranduil. Also Aragorn is mister king man.

I am imagining Aragorn’s face at being called ‘Mister King Man’ and trying not to cry with laughter. 

He would be so wtffffff gimli why what the actual heck is this name now why are the small Dwarves calling me this weird thing

Gimli would likely shrug a bit and say, well you won’t notice another name, considering how many you’ve already got, will you Laddie?

vardasvapors:

veliseraptor:

okay, this article is really good and I am all about the analysis of the way nk jemisin uses apocalypse in the fifth season but 

Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia provide the blueprint; a just, magical realm is threatened with destruction by dark, corrupting forces, which must be beaten back by chosen hereditary rulers.

no, no, you’re wrong, because a) the force that defeats sauron is not a chosen hereditary ruler, and b) the really cool thing about tolkien’s cosmology is actually that he does this same thing where he uses apocalypse as both a destructive and creative force, the world has to be broken to be created, arda is created flawed and the promise of arda unmarred is a promise eternally deferred, peace in tolkien is fleeting and tends toward decay, I wrote an entire fucking thesis about this

when did I turn into a person who goes “tolkien’s universe is more morally complex than just ‘good vs. evil, chosen one defeats evil, the end’, fight me” because I’m not sure this is the person I want to be

The funniest part of that quote is that the main purpose and usefulness of lotr’s “chosen hereditary ruler” character is that…well, okay, this is a bit of a dubious rabbit hole, but even though Aragorn is not really a subversion of the destiny-driven heir-in-exile heroic trope, his big difference from other straight-played examples of it is that he knows that he’s really, really, not the protagonist of this particular story (not literally, but, like, functionally? When blocking out the in-universe factors that equate to narrative ones, which are abnormally self-aware here due to how meta LOTR is.) And further, he’s genre-savvy enough to realize that Sauron swears by the inevitability of predictable tropes in other people (because this has actually always worked for him – see: the Rings of Power, 2nd Age; Finrod Felagund, 1st Age) and therefore thinks Aragorn is the protagonist of this particular story.

And so, Aragorn’s main function is to take advantage of this misunderstanding by gathering up all the advantages of his chosen-one-hereditary-ruler-destined-hero-prophecy-fulfiller-ness – both personal (all his know-how and bamf-ery and connections acquired through the improbably cool past granted to him due to his membership in this archetype) and narrative (all the military resources and personal authority that are currently at his disposal due to plot events he was allowed to handle due to his membership in this archetype) – bundling it into a giant ball, and fastballing it at Sauron in the style of some kind of “Dark Lord vs Chosen One: which one can overwhelm the other one through superior might?” climactic battle as convincingly and distractingly as he can (not really expecting, but hoping, they will be of some help to Frodo and that Frodo will somehow save everyone). Which eggs on Sauron’s mistaken belief that he’s in a completely different story from the one LOTR actually is, thereby emptying Mordor of soldiers, focusing all the attention on the army outside the gate, and giving Frodo and Sam a clear path to Mount Doom. Weaponized protagonist-vibes used in the role of a supporting character, in order to serve the actual protagonist.

(yeah, ofc, big oversimplification of that B-plot’s many, many secondary meanings for the bigger scheme of things, but I mean, this is its primary meaning for the A-plot that everything else hangs on bc everything else is a lost cause otherwise.)

By “funniest” I mean…funny how so much lotr-inspired sci fi and fantasy tends to ape at face value the bullshit explanation of the plot that Aragorn fed Sauron/allowed Sauron to believe: “Yeah man, I’m totally the protagonist!! I mean, I’m the chosen one, and the heir of the guy who defeated you the first time, and everything, how could I not be the protagonist, and this attack is totally that big damn good vs evil battle that happens at the end of all the stories that’s against-all-odds for the dramatic tension, but which I expect to magically win due to being a protagonist, pay no attention to the hobbit behind the curtain, hahahahaha, hey, over here, keep your eyes on me, uh, remember this sword? Elendil!! Elendil!!”

the-anchorless-moon:

sometimesophie:

argumate:

erai-crabantaure:

Okay, so if you’re only familiar with the movies, then you don’t know this, but in the Lord of the Rings books when Boromir dies, Legolas and Aragorn sing a song at his funeral (no Gimli doesn’t sing). Now when I read the books, I fell in love with this song, because it’s a beautiful poem, and you should go read it. 

Well I was thinking about it again today, and one thing that still impresses me, is that canonically, Aragorn and Legolas come up with this on the spot. There doesn’t appear to be any moment in which they sit down and write this, they just sing. And it can’t be a standard funeral song because it specifically references Boromir and their journey

Now the real reason the poem is so nice is because Tolkien was a poet and loved to fit as much poetry as he logically and illogically could into his works, and naturally he had plenty of time to revise this death-song and made it beautiful, but I came up with an in-text explanation as well.

So I’ve decided that clearly this is a well practiced skill for elves and people raised by elves. They obviously spend evenings sitting in halls coming up with spontaneous poetry which they then recite to the crowds. I am adamantly convinced this happens. Seriously, read up on Tolkien’s elves and tell me I’m being unrealistic.

But to the point, thinking about this, I decided that naturally most of the poetry we see from the elves is beautiful and flowing and elegant because that’s the style they’re familiar with. But if introduced to other styles of poetry, they likely could do quite well

So what I’m saying is, elves would be really good at freestyle rapping

damn, I was yelling Elvish rap battles! before I got halfway through the post

YES. ALL OF THIS. 

I only have two tiny things to contribute to this post: 

  1. If you are like me and love the Lament for Boromir, you absolutely need to go listen to this version by @everywindintheriver. She does a lot of setting Tolkien poetry to music, but this remains one of my absolute favorites; it’s quite beautiful and haunting. 
  2. Elvish rap battles are 100% canon. In Silmarillion version of “The Tale of Beren and Luthien,” there’s a bit where Sauron captures Beren and Finrod Felagund while they’re on a quest, and “Felagund strove with Sauron in songs of power” or, in other words, they literally had a contest where they sang poetry at each other and tried to destroy each other with their words, so. Elvish rap battles definitely definitely happened. 

@determamfidd

HEY THIS IS AWESOME… and i also have a thing to add!

The reason Gimli doesn’t sing? Is because they left him the East wind. So, Aragorn first sings of the West wind, then Legolas sings of the South wind, and then Aragorn sings of the North wind, all asking of news of Boromir. 

But to the East is Mordor, and you can imagine that Mordor is pretty damned pleased about the recent adjustment in Boromir’s breathing conditions.

So Gimli, tactfully, doesn’t sing. 

‘You left the East Wind to me,’ said Gimli, ‘but I will say
naught of it.’

‘That is as it should be,’ said Aragorn. ‘In Minas Tirith
they endure the East Wind, but they do not ask it for tidings.’

– The Departure of Boromir, The Two Towers.

From this, I personally surmise two things. 

a. Book-Aragorn is a tremendous attention-hog. WHAT A SHOWPONY.

b. it’s not uncommon or unusual for Dwarves to be warrior-bards, no less than Elves.