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There are two points in Two Towers that make me cry:

1) After Boromir died and Aragorn and Legolas sing That Song,

2) When Gollum comes across Sam and Frodo sleeping and Frodo's head is in Sam's lap and they're both so at peace and then Gollum has feelings and briefly he looks like "an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing."

I mean... 😭😭😭

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“Even Gollum was not wholly ruined. He had proved tougher than even one of the Wise would have guessed - as a hobbit might. There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and a light came through it, as through a chink in the dark; light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice again, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things. But that, of course, would only make the evil part of him angrier in the end - unless it could be conquered. Unless it could be cured.”

— Gandalf the Grey (J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, page 86)

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If [Gollum’s repentance wasn’t interrupted], what could then have happened? The course of the entry into Mordor and the struggle to reach Mount Doom would have been different, and so would the ending. The interest would have shifted to Gollum, I think, and the battle that would have gone on between his repentance and his new love on one side and the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily, it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring. I think that in some queer twisted and pitiable way Gollum would have tried (not maybe with conscious design) to satisfy both. Certainly at some point not long before the end he would have stolen the Ring or taken it by violence (as he does in the actual Tale). But ‘possession’ satisfied, I think he would then have sacrificed himself for Frodo’s sake and have voluntarily cast himself into the fiery abyss.

- From Letter 246 of J.R.R. Tolkien

sobbing now byyyeeeeeeeee

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No more debate about the real hero of LoTR please. The Ring was destroyed because:

1. Frodo selflessly volunteered and never gave up + he had mercy on Gollum

2. Sam’s loyalty and support

3. The Fellowship, Aragorn’s idea to distract the Eye of Sauron

4. Gollum’s obsession with the Ring

5. Faramir let Frodo and Sam go instead of taking the Ring to Gondor

Honorable mention: Bilbo gave Frodo his mithril coat and Sting

Finally, Tolkien did not say that Sam is the “true hero;” rather, he said Sam is the chief hero while Frodo is the central hero.

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So we had time for a scene of Frodo banishing Sam away, but not a scene of Gollum’s prison break from the elves?

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one of the most bonkers things in the Lord of the Rings appendices is the fact that the whole of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is supposedly a translation of the original Red Book of Westmarch from the original Westron (the common tongue of Middle Earth) to English and names like Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee are actually anglicizations of Westron names and so the two hobbits that you just spent three books getting to know were actually called Maura Labingi and Banazîr Galbasi the whole time

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Had he not gone on the quest to destroy the ring, Frodo Baggins would have been a trope from a Victorian novel.

Observe:

Orphaned at an early age due to a tragic accident

Adopted by an eccentric relative who brought him to live at the family home, which is the prime real estate of the neighborhood, thereby making him a new member of the landed gentry

Named as sole heir to said real estate, after his eccentric uncle disappears under mysterious circumstances at a garden party

Inherited strange, likely cursed “family heirloom” jewelry from eccentric uncle after the disappearance

Has scheming unlikable distant relatives who repeatedly attempt to gain control of the family home

Reclusive Scholar(™) who journals and studies ancient languages

Generally well-regarded by the neighbors but seen as distant and “queer”

Eligible bachelor with minimal interest in marrying any time soon

Exclusively associates with a close circle of drinking companions and passing travelers of strange lands

Having an affair with the gardener

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continued here

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) Dir. Peter Jackson “You are one of the Dúnedain. A descendant of Númenór blessed with long life.”

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Samwise Gamgee, The Gardener 

“Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!” he shouted, and then burst into tears.

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Also if you ever feel down, please, I beg of you, go read the extended hobbit family trees in the back of Return of the King, you will not be disappointed by what you find there. There will never be another human being as good at naming hobbits as Tolkien was. If you thought “Bilbo Baggins” was an endearingly silly name, know that he has nothing on “Gorbulas [who is the son of Orbulas] Brandybuck.” Merry and Pippin both share an ancestor named, I swear to god, “Mimosa Bunce”

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need me a t-shirt that says “THE TOOKS SHOT FIRST”

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Elijah Wood selling turnips on a twitter followers island is really great

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One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

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sometimes a family is two men, a wizard, an elf, four hobbits, and a dwarf

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