Fuck It, Posting The Glass Eye Fic I’ve Been Sitting On For A Few Months

Concerning Hobbits (of Color)

Okay it’s been a whole day and I’m still angry about that hobbit casting thing, so let’s lay down some Tolkien canon here.

Fact 1: Per Tolkien, there were originally three races of hobbit. The Stoors were a small group, they were broad and stocky, they grew facial hair, they liked rivers, and their skin color is not specified, so Tolkien probably meant them to be white (but there’s no reason they have to be, since again, not specified). The Fallohides were a tiny group, they were thin, pale and tall, they were bold and good with languages, and they like trees. The Harfoots were the distinct majority, they lived in holes, they had hairy feet, and they were brown. Tolkien is super clear on this. He explicitly calls out Harfoots as having browner skin than other hobbits when describing the races and he uses phrases like “nut-brown skin” and “long brown fingers” when describing specific hobbits to back it up.

Fact 2: Britain planted its ravenous imperial flag firmly in the soil of India three centuries before Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. He knew what a brown person looked like. He would know he was not evoking a slightly darker shade of Caucasian when he said a person had brown skin.

Fact 3: Bilbo, Frodo, and all of their friends are aristocracy. Sam is the only hobbit we ever meet who is an actual laborer. In Tolkien’s time, laborers worked in the sun and middle class and aristocracy stayed inside where there was something resembling temperature control. Apart from Sam and Aragorn, no one in the Fellowship (or Company) ever voluntarily got a sunburn. If Tolkien talks about brown skin he’s talking about brown skin, not a farmer’s tan.

Where does this leave us?

Well, Tolkien says that after colonizing the Shire, the three hobbit races mingled more closely and became one. This leaves us with two options.

Option A: He’s talking about that thing that sci-fi writers sometimes do where “everyone is mixed race.” So all three races would have smeared together into a single uniform color. What color? Mostly Harfoot, aka brown. The “strong strain of Fallohide” in the Tookish and Brandybuck lines means maybe they’re white-passing, but in this scenario all hobbits are brown.

Option B: He’s talking about a more melting-pot scenario where visual racial distinctions still exist but everyone lives side-by-side in a fairly uniform culure. The Tooks/Brandybucks having a “strong strain of Fallohide” means that they are themselves remaining strains of Fallohide, and are straight-up white. Merry, half Took and half Brandybuck, is thus white (possibly part Stoor, given Brandybuck comfort with water); Pippin, half Took and half Banks, is either white or biracial. The Baggins family, sensible owners of the oldest and most venerable hobbit-hole anyone knows of, are blatantly Harfoot, making Bilbo and Frodo (half Took and half Brandybuck respectively) also biracial. Fallohides being exclusively adventurous high-class types, and the Gamgees being staid low-class homebodies with a distrust of moving water, Sam is obviously Harfoot and thus completely brown. (Smeagol, a Stoor, is probably white, but as discussed above, doesn’t have to be.) In this scenario, a minimum of three of five heroic hobbits are various shades of brown, four out of five of them could be, and most background hobbits are brown.

In conclusion, if you think all hobbits are white, you are canonically wrong. If you geek out over Aragorn wearing the Ring of Barahir, rage about Faramir trying to take the Ring, and do not even notice, much less complain, that Sam, Bilbo and Frodo are being erroneously portrayed by white guys, you need to reexamine the focus of your nerdery.

If you allow me to add to your Celebrimbor post... I think something that gets underestimate in just how effective Annatar was as a disguise is the fact that in any other occasion in which we see Sauron being his manipulative lying bastard self, he is up against people who EXPECT him to be just that. Clear example is in Numenor, where he has to start from the position of "dangerous captive enemy". But as Annatar, he starts as a blank slate, only thing going against him is a general mistrust in Demigods Walking Out Of The Woods. So I imagine him just starting by being nice, and observing, and then morphing his all mask in the perfect tool to manipulate Celebrimbor. This isn't a question of being stupid, it's a very experienced manipulator making himself into the perfect disguise (probably even including enough defects not to be TOO perfect). Incidentally, i also headcanon this as the reason why everybody else (Gil-Galad, galadriel...) mistrust him immediately: the disguise is tailor made to bypass all the defences of one specific person, cannot be one size fits all. So, yeah, our Feanorian boy is everything but stupid for not managing to see what is going on, and it's actually impressive he eventually manages to catch up with enough to decide to make the three in secret...

You are totally welcome to add anon!! 

ajfsjfd anon I just love this SO much, I don’t know where to start. Especially the part about Galadriel and Gil-Galad because I think you are so right. Annatar doesn’t need to fool them in the way he has to fool Celebrimbor. They can be suspicious, it won’t ruin his plan. 

And I completely agree. I love that you bring up Númenor because it is an excellent example of Mairon being Mairon since that is who he is supposed to be as you said. 

Anon everything you said here, I agree with so much. Especially the part about Annatar’s beginnings. He has to gain Celebrimbor’s trust so of course he’s going to be tailor-made to be someone who can be friends with Celebrimbor. I also don’t believe there is an exact date for this (please correct me if there is) but I can’t help but wonder if Celebrimbor had recently (recently for an elf) lost Narvi. I see them as being incredibly good friends and I think it would seriously hurt him, leaving him in a state of vulnerability. Annatar fills that void. Not completely, he’s not Narvi, but it’s something that soothes the rough edges and makes him feel less empty inside. 

But yes, Annatar is honestly a tribute to Mairon’s genius. It’s his greatest scheme. However, Celebrimbor, like you said, was still too smart for him in the end. Or smart enough. Either way, Annatar isn’t able to get what he wants and Celebrimbor has one small victory in the end. 

I just love the way you summarize all of this since I think it hits the nail on the head for all of this. Thank you so much for sharing!

“Keep descriptions short and don’t use poetic/flowery language in a novel” “if a scene doesn’t advance the plot cut it” “avoid complicated symbolism and hinting at things, just say what you mean” “too much worldbuilding is distracting” bites you bites you bites you bites you bites y

It sure is convenient that all these songs that ostensibly weren’t written in English all rhyme when translated into English, isn’t it, Mr. Tolkien?

finally got around to paint my favorite golden haired boy

I did some more fantasy archery trope testing. This time the arrow stabby thing!

Every so often I think that I really need to get back to writing because I really enjoyed writing and, very excitingly, other people seemed to enjoy my writing too

Westron names that are Anglicized instead of translated 

Bilba - Bilbo 

Bophîn = Boffin

Bunga = Bungo

Tûk = Took

Westron names that are translated instead of Anglicized 

Banazîr/Ban= Samwise/Sam

Galbasi = Gamgee

Hamanullas = Lobelia

Hlothran = Cotton

Kalimac/Kali = Mariadoc/Merry

Labingi = Baggins

Maura = Frodo

Ranugad = Hamfast

Razanur/Razar = Peregrin/Pippin 

Zilbirâpha = Butterburr

A combination of the two

Brandagamba = Brandybuck 

So my friends and i came up with a sort of AU where people sprout flowers in their hair when they feel any sort of love. So anyways, ahklut crew teases Zuko about how many blue family flowers have been growing in his hair the longer he stays on the ship.

This puts his Season One hair into a whole new perspective.

---

Uncle's hair has dried flowers: his wife's panda lily, Lu Ten's dragon ivy. Everyone knows that dead flowers aren't as fragile as they seem, but he has the crewmen carry an umbrella over him when it rains, anyway. Carefully, he combs around them every morning. Leaves from the vine, Zuko hears him crooning sometimes, even though Lu Ten won't ever lose his leaves. He won't grow any new ones, either.

(Tucked away under his greying strands, still too close to the scalp to be easily seen, a bud has been growing for years. Iroh does not pressure it to bloom, but he does look forward to the occasion.)

(And then a storm, and the Dragon of the West realizes there is no way to tell a dead bloom from a live one without prying its petals open, and this he cannot do. A dead bloom can never heal.)

The Akhlut's crew find the Fire Prince's shaved head profane. When he's caught stealing razors, they crack down. Stubble grows around the black ponytail. Flowers don't.

(At thirteen, the Fire Lord set a hand on Zuko's face, and burned Ursa's sheltering rose bramble away. It would have grown back if she was alive.)

("It would have grown back if she still loved you," Azula corrects him, and he's never sure it if was a fever dream that placed her next to his sick bed, or if she really was there, her precise flames as good as any garden shears as she burned his fire lily from above her ear.)

"Whose is that?" Toklo asks, delighted and too loud, when he catches sight of the little sprig of blue flowers that are only visible when the Fire Prince lets his hair down to wash.

"No one," Zuko says, loudly. "My little sister," he says, more quietly.

Uncle's white jade flower is too large, too showy, it sticks out as it curls above his head. He snips it off between his fingers each morning, but it never stops trying to come back.

The crewmen, their own heads in ruckus and unashamed bloom, watch his daily pruning with distaste. No one ever catches what the Fire Lord's flower looks like; they can never catch him pruning it.

(They assume it's there to be pruned.)

(Zuko would like to know what his father's love looks like, too.)

His outrage at Toklo's snowdrops peaking their way through his black fuzz is as hilarious as it is worrying.

("Don't get attached, Toklo," they warn.

"But warm water," says their younger crewmen, who has never seen a reason to be stingy with his love.)

The Fire Prince shouts and steams. The snowdrops shake quite merrily in his rage. He doesn't pluck them.

He doesn't pluck Kustaa's grudging little cloudberry flowers, either.

"Are you loving me to spite me?" the Fire Prince accuses.

"Yes," says Kustaa, who parted his hair specifically to show off the new little bud trying so hard to hide.

They don't give the boy to the Earth Kingdom. They forget to scowl while they teach him how to do new things. They stop threatening him, mostly. That shouldn't be all it takes for those little buds to start spreading among the crew.

(The Wani's crew had them, too. Back when the prince was a shouty little thirteen year old monster, they'd taken it as a sign that things would soon get better. Things did not get better. Most of them forgot about those under-developed buds, except on the odd occasion when their combs would jar against them.)

Then they fight a Fire Navy ship, and find the prince curled up as far as he can get from the man he's killed. Kustaa holds him as he shakes, a fire lily in full bloom on his head. It would look ridiculous, if it didn't look so much like blood.

He's not the prince for long after that.

His hair isn't so barren of flowers for long after that, either. Eventually, he even lets his real uncle's bloom find its place among the rest. It doesn't look so overbearing, when it's not so alone.

"I miss him," The boy admits, as they sit on the main mast (as one does).

Somewhere far, but not too far, a tired old man passes his mirror, and catches the impossible flash of something new. A red fire lily, finally unfurled into bloom.

"Zuko," he says.

This neatly accelerates his plans for active treason.