Tolkien - Blog Posts
I JUST FIGURED OUT WHY HALSIN FELT SO FAMILIAR FOR NO APPARENT REASON
BEORN FROM THE HOBBIT WELCOME BACK KING!!!!!!! (they'd be ABSOLUTE besties oh my god)
silmarillion experiments 1.: Aulë/Mahal, Seven Fathers of the Dwarves and Eru Ilúvatar blessing ♥
the thing about writing fantasy stories is that language is so based on history that it can be hard to decide how far suspension of disbelief can carry you word-choice wise - what do you call a french braid in a world with no france? can a queen ann neckline be described if there was no queen ann? where do you draw the line? can you use the word platonic if plato never existed? can you name a character chris in a land without christianity? can you even say ‘bungalow’ in a world where there was no indian language for the word to originate from? is there a single word in any language that doesn’t have a story behind it? to be accurate a fantasy story would be written in a fantasy language but who has the time for that
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it so sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.”
- The Hobbit: Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party
I’m challenging myself by reading through The Hobbit again and illustrate it in my style as I go along. I fully expect it to take a long time, but I’ll keep posting my progress on here. I’ll be using the movies as reference for some things but I also want to draw it how I see it. So consider this part 1 of… who knows how many. Thank you so much for any and all support!
“I’m a hobbit, I know I can’t save Middle Earth. I just want to help my friends. More than anything I wish I could see them again.” - Merry
Sketch of my favorite Hobbit lad, Merry Brandybuck. I absolutely adore him.
Silmarillion headcanons #2
So yeah, I have some headcanons regarding the races of different tribes of Elves and Men that imo would work if we adapted Silm as a series or anime, as them being all white is... boring
Seriously: boring af and it's not acceptable
I have some reasonings for my decisions, but most of them were made only bc of THE ALMIGHTY VIBES
inb4: I would like to say that I wanted it to be as respectful to all the races as possible (their history and culture), but if I made a mistake of some sort, plz call me out
So let's start from the beginning
ELVES
Noldor
White
I made this decision tbh purely on the fact that the only red heads we know come from the Noldor (Mahtan, Maedhros, unoficially Nerdanel)
Also, let's be honest
They jumped on a ship in order to gain new territories and kingdoms..........
Vanyar
Black
It's not my headcanon and I've seen that one is popular in the fandom as Indis being black makes Fingolfin (&Finarfin, Lalwen and Findis) mixed and therefore allows us to have mixed!Fingon with his beautiful braids ♡
Also, I imagine that the 'golden hair issue' may be solved with:
Vanyar looking black but having golden hair. They are Elves, not human, they don't have to look the same
Ooooor (and I like this hc better)
Putting gold flakes or golden ribbons (ekhem Fingon) just being very fashionable among the Vanyar
Or both tbh
Teleri & Sindar
East Asian
I've put them together as one race in order to show the closeness of these two tribes (as Elwe and Olwe were brothers) to the viewer bc it would make the tragedy of Thingol finding out about Alqualonde even more dramatic
Also, traditional East Asian ships fit the artistry of Telerin ships soooo well
This one is Chinese
On top of that, I LOOOVE the sound of the Chinese bamboo flute and plz Daeron has to play it
Plus, beautiful flowy dresses (a hanfu in the pic)& jewelery from Eastern Asia would be PERFECT for Luthien, you can't disagree bc I'm right
And we can always make their hair white/gray/blond if we need to
MEN
House of Beör
White, cause it's said they resemble the Noldor afaik
Gotta be consequent
more Mediterranean tho to give them their iconic brown hair
House of Hador
Southern Asian
Numenor has to resemble this kind of architecture and give THE VIBES, okay??
Ughhhh the 'blond hair issue' again
Okay, idc how they are described, they can dye their hair I guess, making them white would ruin my concept
House of Haleth
Native Americans
I have one reason & one reason only!!!
NATIVE AMERICAN HALETH
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk
Okay, that's it, hope you liked it, I don't have any ideas for the Elven Avari or Sylvan tribes, so gimme your hcs if u have any ♡
Silm headcanon #1
feanorians's oath was a pinky promise
maglor made it look more dramatic in his songs so the future generations don't laugh at them
elrond knows what it really looked like only bc maedhros talks in his sleep, is silent about it out of mercy
galadriel had no mercy
And this is why you can't write a grimdark LOTR that has ANY resemblance to the original - if you don't tell a story that's about kindness and light and love, no number of epic battles can save you
I'm reading the lord of the rings and I'm once again amazed at how... good most characters are. Like, they are genuinely good people. They are a bunch of kindhearted, gracious, caring people, coming together under adverse circumstances and trying to figure things out and find a solution and support each other through it all. Like Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and Faramir is a bit suspicious at first and kind of implies Frodo may be a spy, and then when he hears his story and he's like Frodo, I pressed you so hard at first. Forgive me! It was unwise in such an hour and place. And this blows.my.mind. He wasn't even particularly mean or threatening to him in the beginning, he's just such a kind, considerate man, recognizing the kindness and honesty of another man. And they're all like that. Even Gollum starts slowly changing (for a short while) when he encounters Frodo because that's the thing about kindness and humility and grace, they are contagious. They transform people, even a creature like Gollum cannot be immune to that. Like, you may consider all this simple and basic and I get it but, hear me out. It is quite rare to see that in modern media and it is also pretty difficult to pull off in a way that is not corny and simplistic. It is mind blowing that you actually don't have to present the entire palette of human cruelty and vice in order to tell a compelling story, contrary to popular belief. Lotr does the exact opposite, and it is just beautiful and it warms my heart. Especially taking into consideration tolkien's pretty grim growing-up experience, him being a double orphan without a home, raised between an orphanage and a priest and having no family apart from his brother and then the war and then he almost dies and then he's poor as hell and then a second war and it all makes sense somehow. He writes to his wife who is also an orphan two days before the marriage "the next few years will bring us joy and content and love and sweetness such as could not be if we hadn't first been two homeless children and had found one another after long waiting" and, yes, yes! The love and sweetness just radiate from his work, the entire lotr series is a little radiant bubble of hope and love and grace that he imagined in his head to deal with a dismal reality and then he just gave that to the world, and isn't that what imagination and art is all about after all?
my favorite scene in LotR as a kid was when Sam started miserably freestyling in the tower of Cirith Ungol and the only reason he ever found Frodo was because he deliriously tried to join in
Some sketches of Thranduil and his father; Oropher (in my design)
I'm tired (...)
Filianore visually reminds me of Míriel Serindë.
"Miriel's hair was described as being silver in appearance, an unusual colour for one of the Noldor."
That's it thats the post.
my dearest bestie just made me a personalized Inkto- - oh wait #mayron art challenge prompt list (which stands for May + Sauron, or May + Mairon, or else, yknow)
feel free to use! I gonna post pics once or twice a week
currently making a witch king plushie
the body is finished and so are most of the clothes, and im working on making the crown out of the wire I normally use for jewelry, and next I'll figure out how to make him a sword ! with a gemstone on it preferably
(he's very small so I can take him with me easily when I move bc it'll have to be in a plane suitcase for now)
the red thing in the background is a plushia btw lol
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” 🌿
so... a little change of tone but i make clay pins now?? i’m actually really excited about it and these are going to be available when i open my etsy store next month! 👀
When you’re a witch blog but you do fandoms like drugs, lol.
"A legendary black dragon said to have prowled these lands from the days of old. Many skilled hunters have sought to challenge it, but none ever return. A monster shrouded in mystery..." Fatalis description from Monster Hunter Freedom 2/Unite --- "My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!" -Smaug from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tolkien writing kingdoms' moral decay and eventual decline: they exploited nature, destroyed forests and cut down trees
Tolkien writing male characters' moral decay and eventual decline: he stopped listening to his wife
Jedi stans do not know Tolkien lore
It's so funny, cause... it's literally what Tolkien actually wrote in his opus magnum Silmarillion! It happened when Valar, despite having almost angelic powers, practically abandoned Middlearth and Beleriand and allowed Morgoth and his cronies to kill and enslave Elves and Dwarves and lead part of Humans away from them(enslaving others too). They allowed everything built and created by Elves to be destroyed, for a huge part of Noldor elves to die in horrible ways, for Eru's children to suffer. No matter how narrative attempts to frame this, Valar are accompliced by their inaction. Even before the First Kinslaying, they had practically forgotten about Sindar and Nandor Elves living under Morgoth's feet, about Dwarves and yet-to-be-awakened-Humans.
Their inaction was not deemed as something inherently good in any piece of Tolkien's works except the Myths Transformed. In The Book of Lost Tales(which i consider really good for analysis and explaining some plotholes of published Silmarillion and presenting Valar in more or less sympathetic light) the majority of both Maiar and Ainur are so afraid of Morgoth that they practically force Manwe(who is their king) to hide Valinor from the world! It happens despite both Manwe and Ulmo pleas for Noldor's sake and Manwe telling all secrets about Elves and Humans Eru entrusted him! Myths Transformed, on the contrary, present Valar as ultimately morally right no matter what happened - and it is the reason why they seem so unlikable and problematic for many(and may be the reason Christopher never used this concept). Even in the published Silmarillion Valar are presented as misguided and not totally right in the end.
Also, let's adress Tolkien himself. He never considred Lord of the Rings the major book he had written in his life and the book what tells about his views most is actually Silmarillion! And this book actually has more complex take on "good and evil", explaining, why Tolkien viewed his charactres as they are.
What in Tolkien's mind separates morally grey character(like Feanor, his sons, Turin) from the villain(like Morgoth, Sauron, Eol, Saruman)? As it can be seen through the text, it is an ability to love and care about someone while seeing them as persons and loyalty to another person or their people or devotion to a large-scale goal character has. The reasons that his characters are "good" are not because of their service to some institutions or fighting evil, but because they are productive, creative and their major goal is making the world a better place. They are something except the fighters and destroyers and it what made them good. It's evil who reacts on "good characters" doing something, like it was with Sauron's deeds during the Second Age(founding Mordor in response to Numenor's victorious wars against him, falsely giving up to Ar-Pharazon in response to latter nearly destroying his kingdom, attacking Gondor and causing War of the Last Alliance of fear it will take root) and Morgoth's before the First Age(creating Dissonance in responce to the Eru calling him out, manipulating Noldor princes out of envy for their artificial gems, especially the Simarils).
Meanwhile, Jedi are purely the reactive force at the time of Prequels. They do nothing, they create nothing, they only serve a corrupt goverment doing whatever it asks and ignoring it sliding more and more into the autoritarism. They ignore literal and corporal slavery in Canon, and crime syndicats(like Findian syndicat), long-time civil wars, dark cults(like Bando Gora), planets getting attacked and suffering from epidemics and starvation in Legends. They do even less than IRL Templars and Hospitallers did(guarding the piligrims and giving them shelter, which was the primary goal of such institutions except fighting Muslims). We have never seen the Jedi travelling from one planet to another to build or create something(or heal somebody), they does not harbor any global project involving something potentially useful for all of Republic citizens.
In comparison, many Tolkien's favourite characters and nations are something except the warriors and fighters. If we will take hobbits, they are wonderful farmers. Teleri Elves are the shipbuilders and saliors. Noldor Elves and Dwarves are blacksmiths, inventors, artificial gem and jewelry makers. Sindar Elves are singers. Numenorians and Gondor people are scholars, explorers of the world, alchemists and inventors too. Even Rohan people are not only the fighters, they are wonderful horse breeders. I won't even start with master inventor Feanor with his belief that Eru's children's mind can overcome Ainur and Celebrimbor with desire to heal Middlearth from wasting away. Do Jedi present something of themselves except the enforcing and partly dimplomatic organisation?
None. And there is the reason Jedi could not and should not be compared to Tolkien characters. They grew complacent and distant from the people. They only react - while Tolkien heroes act. We never see Jedi "bravely going where no people had gone before" or moving to some planet in order to create a medicine for some illiness, even if they are stated have their own special Service Corps divisions for this. Ironically, that is actually makes them having a lot in commin with Ainur, whom Jedi Stans tend to compare their faves with. Complacency, which in the end lead to the tragedy.
They compare Ainur to the angels, ignoring the textual evidence that their complacency lead to the practical genocide of Elves. And ironically, an actual Tolkien fandom - and the Professor himself - tends to see these "Angels" in more or less critical light.