alsethwisson

[alsethwisson]

i wanted to make an oc ask game 😋 things i like to ask people abt their characters:

are they associated with a certain color? what color do they wear the most?

what sort of music would they like? have you thought about what genres or bands do they lean towards? do they have a favorite song?

weapon of choice? any particular reason they chose their weapon?

how crafty/resourceful are they?

how do they typically dress? does their wardrobe lean more towards practicality or aesthetics?

how do they wear their hair? do they care a lot how their hair looks?

favorite animal? why?

do they have a nickname? who gave it to them? if it's not derived from their real name, what's the story behind it?

favorite food? least favorite? are they a picky eater? do they have any dietary restrictions?

if they wear jewelry, what kind? do they prefer silver or gold? do they have a favorite gem?

what do they have in common with you? how are they different? would you get along with them?

how long have they been around? do you know their birthday? is their birthday the day you made them or another day? what do they think of celebrating birthdays?

what languages do they speak? how fluently?

are they any good with numbers?

how big or small is their family? who did they live with growing up? do they live with anyone now?

do they have any pets? what do they call their pets?

how did they spend their summers/free time as a child?

their opinion on lying, stealing, and killing?

are they quick to anger? what sets them off?

if applicable, can they drive? if they have their own, what color is their vehicle? is the inside neat and tidy, or a mess?

their favorite place to be?

do they sleep well at night?

how would you describe their voice? can they sing?

do they have any creative hobbies? (art, writing, music, etc)

how good/bad is their hearing? what about their eyesight?

how do they move? are they clumsy? light on their feet? do they use mobility aids?

if applicable, do they have a favorite sport? do they play any sports or prefer to watch?

how do they show that they care about someone? how do they express that they don't like someone?

are they associated with any particular element (air, earth, fire, water)?

do they smell like anything notable?

do they like receiving gifts? giving gifts? what is their ideal gift?

do they have any habits that aren't particularly self-destructive, just maybe odd?

if applicable, how would your other characters describe them? i mean specifically the people around them.

how would your character describe themselves? it doesn't have to line up with how they really are.

do they ever return home?

[alsethwisson]

That aside, he lost not (solely) because of Alqualonde, and that is important, too.

See, the whole "rap battle" has two rounds, actually.

First round? Finrod wins. He manages to conseal his own and Beren's real names and maybe faces, too. Sauron does not know who they are or what they want.

It's important. He wins. Don't take it from him!

And then he is emboldened by his win, he tries to get them out of the situation entirely, he tries to go on the offensive.

He levies against Sauron that what he thinks the most powerful: the good and the light and everything from his beloved Nargothrond to his beloved Alqualonde.

And Sauron doesn't say "ah-huh, but you're kinslayer, neener neener".

He says "ah-huh, but me and Morgoth, we tainted that all".

He uses Alqualonde on par with Bragollach as evidence of his own and his master's power. He doesn't strike at guilt, he strikes at hope.

And hope is quashed, and Finrod loses.

Him regaining said hope to save Beren is important. As important as other themes of Leithian.

I dislike the "Finrod lost to Sauron because of his hypocrisy and complicity in the Kinslaying" interpretations for many many reasons. I find it personally dissatisfying; I don't think it's the correct reading of the text itself; I think it's plain weird to make it all about how Finrod might have, hypothetically, gotten on a swanship. Like, that's not what the story is about! The Tale of Beren and Luthien isn't about Finrod - he's a prominent character but definitely a supporting one - and it isn't about the Noldor. It's not even about the central conflict of the Quenta proper. Making it all about the Noldor's "sin" - the incorrect framing imo; it's Doom not sin - decenters Morgoth the actual baddie and centers the Noldor even more than the text does.

The story is the Leithian, release from bondage, and that's what the rap battle is about. Finrod sings of the prison opening, the chain that snaps, and Sauron counters with captives sad in Angband. Even the kinslaying itself isn't what Sauron begins with, rather the death of the Trees: then the gloom gathered, darkness growing... it's death and darkness and blood even in Elvenesse: we can reach there, evil is there, there's no place in the world that's not marred by Morgoth and Morgoth's Ring. Finrod, whose argument is the beauty of the world, can't counteract it: beautiful things are broken. Arda is marred. And he's set in chains. (And then chains are broken by the power of friendship - another Leithian theme.)

Anyways, making an important and thematic part of Beren and Luthien's story into comeuppance for the Noldorin equivalent of committing adultery in your heart baffles me a bit.

Down with Noldor-centric readings.

[alsethwisson]

Also, grrm writes more women, yes, but his female characters are almost invariably a prop either for his own kinks, or for his male characters.

With Tolkien, if he writes a female character (as opposed to just inventing a name and leaving it at that), he treats her no different than a male character. As in, she will have her own motivation, desires, interests, friend circle, all that stuff. Basically, she will be a person.

With grrm, sadly, that's not what usually happens. His female characters too often have little personhood; too often they exist solely to provide either drama or titillation. His chosen style of closed third-person narration is often used as an excuse ("Jaime has no means to see Amerei as more than a slutty prop" etc) but the thing is, he finds a way to give us insight into episodic male characters.

And the less said about "Fire and blood" the better.

Ioreth is more of a person than all the daughters of Oberin, and that is something to mull over.

What I mean to say, yes, Tolkien is conservative, old-fashioned (though not as old-fashioned as fandom would him be) and all that, but he had more respect for his female characters and their personhood than grrm ever did.

GRRM may write more women than Tolkien, but as a woman I would feel much safer in Tolkien's world, and around the author himself

[alsethwisson]

There is one horrific crime Feanor committed that is rarely, if ever, mentioned by the fandom.

It's the burning of the ships.

Swan Ships are explicitly and repeatedly compared to the Silmarils; they are a pinnacle of a whole nation's creative work, something that cannot be replicated, something that is immensely dear to its creators hearts.

And Feanor? He KNOWS it.

And he sees this work of art only as a means to an end, a vessel to cross the sea - and then be discarded. DESTROYED.

He, himself a creator, he, who denied Silmarils to the Valar on grounds of being unable to destroy his best work.

He destroys a whole nations' best work to spite his brother.

Not even to spite the Teleri; he doesn't even give them this ounce of respect as fellow creators.

That's the lowest point of his character.

It's THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING.

(If you haven't read this tale, here it is: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_and_Other_Stories_(Andersen,_Craigie)/The_Most_Incredible_Thing)

Something I find interesting is that Fëanor's deeds specifically are really blown out of proportion... many fanworks portray him as some bloodthirsty monster that killed everything, and everyone who stood against him. But... that's not actually true at all, is it? The only time he killed was at Alqualondë, and even then, it was something that happened out of an escalated conflict. It wasn't something Fëanor had planned out or even thought of beforehand. His other, non-boat-related crimes? Pointing a sword at his brother. That's it. Unless you count being angry for the injustice done to him and his mother, yelling at people, and refusing to kill yourself because someone asked as crimes.

Like I'm sure he wasn't a pleasant person to be around in his final years of life, and his actions did cause great harm. But damn if it isn't blown out of proportion. Yes, the oath was awful, but Fëanor was delirious with grief, and, if we are to believe his children, borderline suicidal. He wasn't thinking about what his words would mean for others, he never meant to hurt anyone but Morgoth. How did that give him the rep of being The Most Evil Elf Ever?

Also, who came up with the idea that Fëanor or his sons killed children during the kinslayings? There is 0 evidence for that. And yes, I know about E&E¹, but none of them did that.

[alsethwisson]

Ungoliant is Not. She is the negation that exists in contrast with creation. She does not precede the song as some primordial void, only Eru Iluvitar precedes creation - but she is the incarnate Outer Darkness that exists because of the Song.

She would always have existed as the Outer Darkness that is not Arda - but it was the discordant notes of Melkor that gave her access to enter Arda and consume in her endless hunger, for as negation she is endless famine.

The opposite of the Outer Darkness is Arda. The opposite of negation is creation (NOT Creator, Eru Iluvitar has no opposite, Tolkien’s cosmology is firmly monotheistic not dualistic). As she is incarnate Nothing, her opposite is the incarnate existence who has existed in Song since its beginning. A being whose very existence is simply an expression of the state of “Being”.

Ring a dong dillo

[alsethwisson]

Great points here!

I'd add that Tolkien loves showing personal through ecological.

Numenorians destroy Eriador forests by careless logging, while carefully planting trees in their homeland: just as they enrich said homeland by brutally subjugating Middle-Earth peoples.

Orthanc was a city of gardens. We see it turned into polluted wasteland by Saruman and then gardens regrown by the Ents.

Ravaged Ithilien forests are counterbalanced by the heart-rending moment of a broken statue "crowned" with spring blossom.

He pays as much heed to natural world as he does to his human characters, and it's interesting.

I want to make a longer post about this but to me, just as interesting as the ecological destruction of The Silmarillion is the renewal and growth.

Dorthonion is devastated by fires, its forests overgrown and dark. The grasses of Ard Galen and Lothlann are burnt, dust choking the skies, heat scorching a mild climate, birds and other animals fleeing which in turn effects other ecosystems. Then there is the destruction of the region of Nargothrond by Glaurung; entire rivers poisoned, livestock killed, forests trampled.

Glaurung as a singular monster can inflict the damage of an entire war itself*

But there is also survival and restoration. Green breaks out across Tol Sirion again. Even in the devastating aftermath of the Nírnaeth, grass grows over rusted swords and broken bodies.

Mentally drawing a connection between the restoring of Tol Sirion to green and alive after the death of Finrod and the grass that grows only after the Haudh en Nírnaeth amid the desecration of Ard Galen; not only does this cover the bodies of the warriors but besides it lies Rían, a survivor of the Bragollach which brought the destruction that turned Ard Galen into some place desolate

*the parallels between the interpersonal damage he inflicts and the ecological damage is a really interesting one that I will make yet another post on

[alsethwisson]

I think this stems from the fact that PJ movies are in a way more classist than Tolkien books. He sees common people only as a fodder for Very Sad Scenes, giving them no voice and no agency.

It's not an accident that movies excise all the LotR commoner characters: from farmer Maggot to Ioreth and my blorbo Beregond, leaving only the hobbits (who are turned into very obvious viewer-insert characters).

PJ's Aragorn, conversely, cannot consider his kingship dependent on the opinion of those common people. I'm not really sure if PJ thinks they even have a personal opinion or if they have that this opinion matters.

But since PJ basically made Aragorn into his main character, and main character needs conflict, he's forced into tried and tired reluctant whatever role.

Personally I find the "I need to prove my people I'm worthy of leading them" way more interesting and, dare I say, progressive conflict.

But then, I adore book Aragorn and don't find him idealised at all, I'm biased.

I do understand the argument that Aragorn's original characterization is too idealized into perfection for film, even if I personally disagree.

(I don't think he is as perfect as all that in the book, and even if he were, I also don't think idealized characters are antithetical to film as a medium. Antithetical to the ethos of these films, sure, and to norms of modern storytelling in any medium, but not to film itself.)

I also think it's rather strange that the argument often seems to be that Aragorn's reluctant king schtick is needed to make him a worse person than the supposedly perfect Aragorn of the book, but simultaneously that his reluctance also makes him a better person than book Aragorn, who is actively seeking power.

I mean ... I'm biased, absolutely. There's a lot I don't care for in the LOTR movies in general. More significantly, I do not like the trope of a leader's reluctance making them all the more qualified for the role, which the movies themselves may or may not be saying, but which defenders of them sometimes do. I know it's a popular concept/formulation, but I disagree strongly. I have a lot more respect for reasonably principled ambition in political leaders that leads them to make preparations for the future and work towards goals than ... idk, reluctant entitlement.

So I personally prefer an Aragorn who has a goal and is actively working towards it against steep obstacles and has to prove himself to the people he wants to rule rather than futilely resisting his right to the kingship by birth. And I don't think an "Aragorn has to prove his worth" kingship arc is particularly non-cinematic in itself; if anything, I think leaning into it even more than the book would be particularly interesting on film and in some ways easier on modern sensibilities.

This is personal preference, etc etc, but yeah—it's like Aragorn had to be made worse, but also better, through the same mechanism, but it's in a way I can't buy into and don't like as a trope. And I think there's this idea (like with the issues around Faramir, actually) that because this is the way they addressed the difficulties perceived around book Aragorn, it's the only way they could be addressed. And I just don't think so. There are plenty of options that are way less birthright-obsessed.

[alsethwisson]

Just a thought about Valar.

Fandom envisions Varda as this epitome of delicate femininity but she was incredibly badass and more importantly very combative.

I really want some "war goddess Varda" fics/arts to exist.

And disciples of Varda as female warrior-mages.

[alsethwisson]

I have THOUGHTS about how Tolkien, despite being very conservative, made deliberate choices to correct his earlier works into less sexist and racist direction...and how it all is thrown out of the window by ostensibly progressive Tumblr fandom.

It's mostly the female characters, of course. Haleth is the worst victim, but oh my what they do to poor Nerdanel.

Again, they take a female character deliberately written as her own person independent of her spouse - a character based at least in part on Christopher's wife Tolkien was good friends with... and turn her into an accessory for a male character.

Honestly when have you last seen a fic where she is allowed to keep her own views and not run to Feanor at first call?

[alsethwisson]

Unpopular opinion: I HATE Haleth/Caranthir discourse with a passion.

Not because it operates on the frankly crazy heterosexist assumption that if a man and a woman met once and didn't hate each other they are contractually obligated to fuck.

That's its own can of shipping worms, I won't go there.

But. (Warning: very long read.)

Tolkien - that crusty old white extremely catholic man - has written us a female character whose most defining trait was refusing to be seen as anything but her own independent person.

She was no vassal of elves, she was no wife of any man. She was Haleth.

It was a conscious choice on Tolkien's part, rewriting his early male "Haleth the Hunter" into Lady Haleth and giving her exactly this defining traits. She was a part of a wider revision of Arda's female characters and their roles he undertook as his understanding of real-life roles women could and would take widened.

(Which is a fascinating story in its own right, by the way, and people who indiscriminately cite some earlier letters as if they were end-all be-all of Tolkien's inner thought are extremely wrong. While conservative to a fault, Tolkien was not unable to correct his beliefs. Cf: Nerdanel and generally the explicit denial of earlier "elven women channel creativity into childbearing" idea in Shibboleth.)

It's very deliberate - and very important - that Caranthir is barely a footnote in Haleth's story. He was interchangeable. It could have been any elven lord. It could have been an Edain lord, as well.

Haleth was not going to let herself or her people be dependent, it's important.

And then fandom came and turned it upside down, and Haleth became a footnote in Caranthir's story. One of a few characters (of both genders to be fair) to have neither marriage nor romance subplot and to be solely defined by her political actions becomes defined by fandom-invented romance with a dashing man.

Yikes.

[alsethwisson]

That the fandom reads this and gets all "see, VisIII was irredeemable from the start" is a mystery to me.

It's just so, like, obviously if not Barry's attempt at justifying himself, then at the very least his attempt to butter up to Dany? Not to mention, it's simply absurd.

Yes, I'm proud VisIII apologist (of the "grrm really messed up the characterisation to the point it's two radically different people and one of them I really like" sort) but here it's not about "my meow meow isn't evil", it's all about Barry and Dany.

The whole scene is, to be honest, about them and their attempts to live up or at least pretend to live up to their delusions of themselves.

Rhaegar: a grown ass man who's melancholy and obsessed with prophecy and whose actions lead to war and the subsequent fall of his house.

Barristan: my man! What a good guy he'll be the greatest king there ever was.

Viserys: an extremely sheltered but otherwise normal little boy.

Barristan: evil! He's a lost cause, he's too tainted by madness to save!

See, he served that one guy and wasn't fired by him before he died so he's 100% awesome. But he chose not to desert after Robert's pardon to go serve Viserys, so he needs to believe he had a good reason for that. So Viserys was always a monster even as a 2nd grader.

I swear to mango, I lose more respect for Barry every time I think about him. He is such a hypocritical prejudiced lump of vanity. I am honestly impressed how many flavors of fail!knight GRRM can come up with that are all reasonably distinct.

[alsethwisson]

I'd say, finding other people who appreciate LotR not as "Silmarillion for kids" or "that book adaptation of PJ movies" is just...so rare.

I'm really happy, and though I'm Rohan person myself, Gondor deserves all the love in the world.

finding someone who shares your unpopular/niche opinions on Special Interest is literally like finding water in the desert. like thank fucking christ someone else has actually thought through this thing

[alsethwisson]

*wearing her fanwank hat* well, it may be a later assumption that he did die, while in actuality he just passed on the sceptre and moved to Middle-Earth.

Not to Valinor, because his sphere of interest seemed to be unearthing the history of the First Age, and there's little to be unearthed in Valinor. Though, of course, eyewitness accounts were quite succint.

On an unrelated note, do you think Vardamir and Manwendil could've been twins?

Switching fandoms for today's poll because I feel like it: in Nature of Middle-earth, Tolkien drops the absolute bombshell (for me!!) that Elros's children did get to choose between mortality and immortality, just like Elrond's. Elros's firstborn definitely chose mortality (he died of old age at over 400 years old), but we have no death dates for any of his other children.

If you were going to headcanon that one of Elros's three younger children did choose immortality (and is either keeping a low profile or in Valinor by the Third Age), which child of Elros would it be?

If you want to headcanon that more than one of them chose to be counted among Elves, pick the one you care about the most and tell me who the other one is. If you still don't headcanon that any of them chose immortality, this poll is not for you!

[alsethwisson]

Vardamir himself. He was a quintessential scholar, and if anything can be a scholar's dream, it's having unlimited time for research.

(And now that I think of it, it seems fun to hc him into fandom-fave Erestor the Librarian, lol. Living his best life in the best and most full library in their whole world.)

Switching fandoms for today's poll because I feel like it: in Nature of Middle-earth, Tolkien drops the absolute bombshell (for me!!) that Elros's children did get to choose between mortality and immortality, just like Elrond's. Elros's firstborn definitely chose mortality (he died of old age at over 400 years old), but we have no death dates for any of his other children.

If you were going to headcanon that one of Elros's three younger children did choose immortality (and is either keeping a low profile or in Valinor by the Third Age), which child of Elros would it be?

If you want to headcanon that more than one of them chose to be counted among Elves, pick the one you care about the most and tell me who the other one is. If you still don't headcanon that any of them chose immortality, this poll is not for you!

[alsethwisson]

Awesome stuff, really! Just wanted to add a little, hope you forgive my impertinence.

The generational trauma of Avari/Kalaquendi divide and exploration thereof. We know that Imin, Tata and Enel and their spouses (or rather, the figures that in later ages became known as such - it's pretty explicit those are not real names) were against moving to Valinor. In fact, most of the older generation elfs were.

And the divide was far from, well, peaceful - if such a dry source as Nature of ME says there were heated discussions, they were really HEATED. We see later that Avari detest Kalaquendi and are met with distrust and condescension in turn.

All of this is material enough for any kind of serious artistic exploration, but we also have the Great March itself! Crossing untold distance, meeting stuff they've never seen. Losing people, it's canon there were many who didn't survive The March.

Mandos. I mean, death and rebirth are such fascinating themes! And they have people who've experienced it!

The Teleri have half of their nation stuck on the other side. Maybe they learn of Elwe's real fate, and are happy for him, but maybe not. Either way it's a great source of inspiration, I think?

Ok so I’m rotating ideas about elves and mythology and decided to drop some ramblings in your ask box because of all the wonderful theatre-related thoughts you’ve been sharing!! The thing is that the silm is a mythology right. Like it’s written in that style, and the heroes of LoTR and the later Ages in general are always explicitly looking back to the stories of the First Age (see: Aragorn wanting to cosplay Beren and Lúthien with Arwen). But what were the myths, the cultural stories, of the Elves of the First Age? In Tirion what were the stories that Maglor might write a play retelling or subverting, that Elemmírë might make a new song about, that Míriel might have woven into a tapestry? All cultures have ancient myths – but these characters are a) living at the very dawn of the world, and b) are all going to become mythological figures themselves! It makes me a bit insane. My thoughts are that they told a lot of stories about the war the Valar made on Melkor, and also about Cuivienen and the awakening of the elves, but honestly I don’t KNOW. What do you think? (No pressure to answer this is very random I realise) ❤️❤️

NO I love these thoughts!!! My thoughts generally go along the same vein as yours in terms of the general themes of elven myths. Here are some possibilities I imagine:

Whichever continent the elves in question are not seeing is often the center of the stories. The Sindar and Avari in middle-earth myth-make a lot about the lands in the west; the Eldar in Valinor myth-make about middle-earth. Since we're talking about Elemmírë, Míriel, and Maglor I'll stick to the latter.

I imagine there's aways the pervasive idea of secret Ainur no one has discovered yet. No matter how many times the Valar go "no we promise we're all here in Valinor, there's no other Valar left" there's 100% an elf somewhere going "have you heard about the Vala of bogs? yeah they live in middle earth and they're in charge of all the bogs there and if you aren't careful you'll be stuck serving in their bog court"

Not to mention elves who know Aulë and have heard that his people sleep under the earth, waiting for their time to awake. I'm sure for some elves tell it as simply that, but over time another pervasive myth develops -- stories of great dwarven kingdoms under the earth, kingdoms they're barred from seeing, stories of seven great dwarven kings, each much like Aule in face, each possessing a specific sort of magic.

Imin, Tata, Enel, etc! Not only do we canonically get them as a counting story, I imagine their fates are also something that ends up being talked about? They do not seem like they ever ended up in Valinor -- what happened to them? I feel like elven stories can tend to go along the lines of "and then he turned into a tree" or "he still dwells by the sea where he was born" or "he fell into the cracks of the mountains during the war and became one with the earth."

Myth as a way to explore cultural taboos! Elves coming to Valinor, a land with no pain or crime, with the shadows of war and suffering behind them -- I imagine they must explore taboo and pain through storytelling. What happens to an elf that leaves his wife for another? What happens to an elf who poisons her sister? I imagine there's some gruesome/creepy stories that come out there, but are told with a naïveté to the actual truth of what violence looks like. Something along the lines of "and then the servants of Melkor hacked the elven king into bits, so his wife had to go looking for each piece of him in every corner of the world and sew them back together"

The sea!! Must I say more. The elves emerged from the sea, and they long for it -- yet they cannot go too far into the waves without drowning, and they do not know what lurks under the waves. I imagine myths centering around sea-creatures, around the souls of the drowned, around elves (mer-elves?) who never left the sea and make their kingdoms underneath the waters, etc.

Just some ideas!! If anyone else wants to contribute headcanons for early elf myths to his post, please do!

[alsethwisson]

Given my hc that Finrod was married to Beor...even more painful.

... and he was eager moreover to discover all that he could concerning Mankind. He it was that first met Men in Beleriand and befriended them; and for this reason he was often called by the Eldar Edennil, 'the Friend of Men'. (Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth)

[alsethwisson]

It's complicated. She, above all, knew what exactly it could bring on, just as Thingol did.

And while she was understandably "for" her daughter finding love and happiness, she had to be... not against, maybe, but really tormented about losing said daughter forever.