Tag: dark names

Whispers of course he would never get one (unless Thorin jokingly gave him one, lol) but if you /had/ to make a Dark Name for Bilbo, what would that name be? Feel free to take this as seriously as you wish ofc. I am totally up for Bilbo being called Sassmaster tbh.

LMAO what’s khuzdul for Sassmaster…? XD

Well, I do like that the Hobbits have their own language… it’s not a secret language like Khuzdul, but they have one! Not that it sees much use, mind.

Bilbo’s name, in the hobbit-tongue, is in fact Bilba Labingi.

(Frodo’s is Maura Labingi, Merry is Kalimac Brandagamba, Sam is

Banazîr Galpsi and Pippin is Razanur Tûk!)

A dark-name for Bilbs, though… arrrrrgh, this is a tricky one. Okay, I think I have something…

ararrakidazbur – The Secret Diamond

This would refer to both Bilbo’s rather unexpected heroism and bravery, his brilliant, blazingly bright mind, and his secretiveness (EXCESSIVE SECRECY HELLO). It could also be seen as a reference to his rather… cutting wit (like a diamond, hee!) and his spirit.

dazbur: containing diamond (shape)* (*diamond (stone))
ararraki: continue to keep secret / to keep secret excessively

Hi! I absolutley love Sansukh! I want to read it more than I want to read the actual books half the time. Everything about it kills me and I love it. I was just wondering, how did you come up with Legolas’s brothers? And um will we ever find out everyone’s dark names? (Especially the Ri Brothers and Dwalin cause I love all the dwarves but especially them and I think you already told us Kili’s so I don’t think I need to ask about him.)

Alaksjdfaljshdlasjdhfa THANK YOU SO MUCH NONNIE Oh my goodness, my face is scarlet. 

Ahhhh okay! Well, the idea behind Legolas’ brothers was born out of a half-formed idea from an earlier one-shot fic, From One Age to Another. When I was writing Chapter 16? I think it is? of Sansukh, all of a sudden there they were, nearly fully-formed. 

Plus, Legolas as a character is given some new dimensions when he is given more family members, because it gives him more relationships. And his brothers themselves roughly embody some possible Elven attitudes: Laindawar is aloof, disdainful and martial, a believer in Elven superiority of might. Laerophen is brilliant and learned and introverted, a (former!!!) believer in Elven superiority of intellect. There’s more to them than that, of course, and Legolas shares some of these beliefs at first. It has been interesting to play with how Thranduil’s own attitudes might have been adopted in different ways by THREE different offspring, rather than just the one. Resentment towards the other houses of the Elves, for example, or attitudes towards the other peoples of Middle-Earth. 

It also makes Legolas the youngest of three, and I personally like that dynamic for him. He has a lightness and a recklessness and a… spontaneous gaiety in the books? If you know what I mean? He’s singing all the time, or making ridiculous pronouncements (”I go to find the sun!”) that feels less… responsible? Staid and sober? Than a Crown Prince would seem. 

I feel like I am not putting this well!

I ALSO wanted a representative of the Wood-Elves at each place of battle, to be our Elven focal point. I consciously arranged it so that we would be able to see one of the sons of Thranduil in each location, their attitudes being challenged by whatever they confront. So, Laerophen at Erebor – the bookish, awkward outsider in a realm of Dwarves. Laindawar in Mirkwood – in his element, defending his home guerrilla-warfare style, but having to deal with pesky posh Galadhrim and a bloody Brown Wizard. And of course, Legolas at the epicentre of it all.

IDK, it happened and I ran with it! 🙂

Oh, dark names! I had fun with these! Yes, we have a list of them already! Here’s the list, and here’s the meanings of some of them! And here’s my dark-names tag for you!

(yep, I have done the whole Company, and so Dwalin’s name and the Ri Bros are there!)

Question: I know Oin is somewhat psychic, with the reading portents aspect, but do you think there are other dwarves who can do things like that? Burning chicken bones and reading the answer to questions in the cracks, or messages in the clouds like in ATLA? Or even ones, rare though they are, who can /see/ those who have died and sometimes help counsel those who have lost many loved ones and provide closure?

Hhmmmmmmm, excellent question, Nonnie. I had to put on my thinking-cap. Here’s what I came up with!

I think it’d be tremendously rare, tbh? Dwarven ‘magic’ tends to be far more physical and/or mechanical: invisible doors with super-tricky passwords, that sort of thing.

I haven’t ever seen ATLA, sorry!

The stuff we have on portents (which is film-verse only, and not from the books) is also pretty thin on the ground:

Gloin: “Aye, Oin has read the portents, and the portents say: it is time.”
Oin: “Ravens have been seen flying back to the mountain as it was foretold. When the birds of the old return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end.”

The ravens are mentioned again at the end of AUJ:

Oin:  A raven. The birds are returning to the mountain.
Gandalf: That, my dear Oin, is a thrush.
Thorin: Well, we’ll take it as a sign. A good omen.

Not much to go on!

Using these two bits of info, I guess that Dwarven ‘portents’ are very much based on the actions of the natural world. I also guess that any reading of signs would probably be done by Dwarves who have either been taught familiarity with ravens or other birds, or have spent a LOT of time outdoors, enough to be familiar with the habits and migrations of animals (Oin is very learned and is also an apothecary: he has to collect plants, after all!)

I don’t think that any living Dwarf can see the dead ones except under INCREDIBLY EXCEPTIONAL circumstances – hence, in Sansukh, Gimli only sees Thorin in Galadriel’s mirror or upon the Paths of the Dead.

Mandos rules the Halls of the Dead and has only ever changed his mind once (Beren). The mists between Middle Earth and Aman are impenetrable, and there can be no returning. The Halls of the Dead are even more inaccessible – they’re a world removed within a world removed. None can see the dead, unless they are horribly cursed (the ghouls of the Dwimorberg, the wights of the Dead Marshes, the Nazgul, the Barrow-wights), and thus still residing in Middle-Earth. 

Again, in Sansukh, the only reason Thorin’s Gift works at all is because of a loophole (the

Olórë Mallë), Gimli’s extraordinary perceptiveness, the pool of Gimlin-zaram, and the compassion of a Vala – Aule himself.

When it comes to being comforted, Dwarves would know that after their deaths they are gathered to Mahal’s Halls and cared for there. They have absolute and personal proof of his love for them, after all – their dark names. 

leaving all this aside, though: it has to be said that the idea of a Dwarf medium has a certain Pratchettesque humour about it