#› valor needs first strength‚ then a weapon ❞ ❨meta analysis❩

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Ok before I go to work I want to address something that honestly just is,,, so important and it’s called “Boromir and gender roles”

By this, I mean Boromir is so confident in his masculinity that it completely negates toxic masculinity in the first place in his mind. Anything he does he sees as “what men do”, be it defending his entire ass country from the forces of mordor and blowing up a 3 mile long bridge while being on the wrong side, to walking 110 days to Rivendell because his horse bailed on him, to being mom and dad to his brother who is only 5 years younger than he is- Boromir also grew up in a household where his brother and father could read his mind. if he was hurting, they knew, and lying to Denethor is A Bad Idea. So, Boromir learned quickly to just be open and honest with his feelings.

By Our Awful Societal Standards, “being emotional” is often associated wit femininity, and to that, Boromir says “that’s a load of bullshit,” because he’s emotional and he can be incredibly tender and nurturing, so men are emotional and nurturing and tender. He’s also a defender, so it’s also normal for a man to be a defender, or a breadwinner. And if women do these things? Fantastic! He loves that, too! Boromir also knows a large amount of strong willed women, and he knows gentle and nurturing women. Growing up in Minas Tirith means living among people who have to live with the CONSTANT STRESS of being Right Next To Mordor, and if that doesn’t create strong willed people, I don’t know what would. As in, it wasn’t a place for the faint-hearted to live, because there was the Constant Issue of Mordor Right There. Boromir could look out the window of his room and see Mordor in the distance I’d be willing to bet- haven’t looked at the map in a hot minute, but it’s Not That Far? So to that, he associates strength of mind to the human race, too. 

I should also mention that Boromir spends a fair amount of time wondering why everyone else isn’t on the same page here. As in, he doesn’t see anything wrong with a woman who acts in what society sees as “traditionally masculine” manner, and he will never understand toxic masculinity, but his viewpoint seems to be ... not the majority and that frustrates him to no end.

This also comes with Faramir constantly being seen, quite frankly, as “less of a man” by a Lot of people- and Boromir won’t hesitate to get in a fight about that, because Faramir doesn’t have to be like him to be just as masculine, societal views on “needing to be a certain way to be a man or a woman” can just fuck right off, thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

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tolkien: boromir isn't into romance

me: ok well also he didn't have time and is super dense, but this dude is demiromantic, romance is like nice as a concept but he hasn't really experienced it??? he's so used to war he can't really conceptualize having a spouse or being a dad (until he decides the hobbits are his sons)- and demiromantic is under the aro umbrella so yes, boromir is under the aroace category. romance isn't his first priority, it doesn't mean he couldn't find someone but it's not his focus and that's ok. so, yes mr. tolkien, but also no

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a part of me is like, how absolutely brain soup would boromir have ended up if he’d been ringbearer but the more i think about it the more i feel like actually he’d get some goddamn perspective? boromir is strong & steadfast, he’s a good man & in many ways is a symbol of exactly what human beings should be. while humans want to be like aragorn, in the end, at our best, we’re boromir & that’s a fuckign fantastic person to be. 

but anyway, the ring is so much? but it should also be noted that the only thing it could exploit in boromir was his love for his people & his desire to have the war end. it couldn’t use power or greed or immortality, only love, which says VOLUMES about boromir as a person, doesn’t it. & through that, while it would be jarring, he’d realize he HAS LIMITS. he can’t do everything. he wanted to take the ring to gondor so that the war would be over, but the longer he’s around it, the more he realizes that’s really fucking dumb. it’s just that he was learning this from like secondhand exposure. & also he was dealing with feeling out of place. 

it’s way easier to be like “holy shit of course the ring is a massive burden so it’s ok to need help” when you’re carrying it, but boromir wasn’t ringbearer. he was on the outside & having like the worst existential crisis of his life & so tldr really, no matter what, he was sorta screwed, but it would’ve been a totally different reality check & arguably he would’ve had healthier support from the other members of the fellowship & this makes me really sad??? thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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Anyway dudes I want you all to know that from the Nurse’s Perspective, Boromir's wounds weren’t fatal. He was still alive and breathing when Aragorn finds him, which means that while likely he had a collapsed lung, organs like his heart were missed. And what this points to is the fact that Boromir wanted to die. Or he believed he was unworthy to live. Because yeah, without help he WILL die, and he knows this and all he does is apologize for failing. For letting the fellowship down. 

But beyond that, ok. We should also address why Boromir even tried to take the ring. I guarantee every time someone says greed, I lose 10 years of life. because that is the FURTHEST THING from the reason. Boromir’s entire issue is that he loves too deeply. And the ring uses a person’s greatest weakness to get to them. This also happens to be Boromir's greatest strength, so it gets messy. Boromir is a warrior who just was presented with the one thing that could put an end to the war. His whole life, he’s been on the front lines. Guess what’s right next to Mordor, IT’S GONDOR! and Boromir is Gondor's finest soldier. He’s breaking under the weight of the world. 

It’s going to kill him, geis theory aside, the stress of the situation, in general, is killing him. Like a classic tragic hero, he doesn’t care, so long as others live. Boromir is in fact one of the most selfless people probably to ever exist, and I will fight and die on this hill if need be. Because he keeps putting others first. Because he’s fighting so that others can survive. He fights so that other people won’t have to suffer like he’s suffering, and he’s suffering. The ring uses this. 

It gets to a point where Boromir, feeling so horribly isolated and honestly useless, runs out of options that he can come up with. The ring is the ONE chance he has to save everyone, despite its price, and he’s willing to pay that price so long as everyone else lives. So long as everyone else gets a tomorrow, he’s willing to destroy himself. When he believes that he hasn’t been able to, he decides that the only option left now is for him to die, because, in his mind, he can’t do what he was supposed to do. He’s a broken weapon that should be discarded for something better and new and maybe someone else will succeed where he’s failed, but he can’t fathom being any more of a burden on the fellowship than he already feels like he is. He can’t fathom failing and still being loved. Whatever successes he’s had in the past are rendered completely irrelevant, because his mentality is so skewed, and that’s its own problem, but I digress. 

(Mind you, I’m talking about the man who stared down the Balrog and just went toot toot get FUCKED when LEGOLAS is paralyzed with fear.)

Fearless, flawed, selfless, loving Boromir chooses death because the ring did what it wanted to do. It broke not an ideal person like Aragorn, but someone who was one of the best of mortal men, flawed and heroic, and everything that we CAN be as humans (there is a marvelous post about how we’re all Boromir and it’s somewhere on my blog since I reblogged it out of necessity and also the OP is right). Boromir, who would lay down his life for others, does so. Because in the end, to him, the fellowship can use his body as a stepping stone to get ever closer to saving the world and he thinks that they will. He thinks they’ll just move on and forget him because his purpose wasn’t to be some name known forever, but just someone who protected others. Boromir wasn’t after glory, he was after peace. (There’s another argument to be made that Boromir doesn’t know how to function in times of peace, because all he’s ever known is war, but that’s for another post) He was willing at that moment where he could choose to live or die, to put aside the dreams he had, so the rest of the world could live theirs. He died so the rest of the fellowship could live, and he would have it no other way.  

thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[stedefaest]

Ok, here we go. I made a post about Boromir choosing to die, and now I have a medical explanation. Firstly, the arrow in the middle can’t have hit his heart because genuinely he would have just been dead. there would be no talking to Aragorn. the human heart is about the size of a fist and as that diagram shows, if you want to listen to the apex of the heart, put the stethoscope between the 4th and 5th rib right in the center between the sternum and the shoulder. we call this midclavicular. But, this is not a how to listen to heart sounds post, this is a “where was Boromir actually shot” post.

For him to be alive at the time Aragorn finds him, then he cannot have been shot in the heart. Something as large as a black arrow to the heart would shred the tissue. He would be dead almost instantly. So that center arrow had to hit close but also has to miss the abdominal aorta. The arrow at his shoulder may have gone through the top of the lung, thus causing one lung to collapse, and yeah lmao that puts Boromir at a huge disadvantage simply because we humans need oxygen. Have you ever tried doing anything with one lung collapsed? Of course, he goes down fast after that. The fact he fought through 2 more arrows is incredible. Anyway, the third arrow seems to have gotten him in the side, but maybe he was lucky and it didn’t get his small intestine because there’s also a reason abdomen wounds are so deadly.

Black arrows are poisoned or something, so that’s not great and introduces the possibility that Boromir may have died because of septic shock. So yes, that is something caused by the black arrows, but also people have magic. Subtle as it may be, people have magic. I’m pretty sure magic beats sepsis. If magic can beat Morgul blade, magic can beat septic shock.

Between Boromir talking to Aragorn before he dies and my ?? guesses at where the arrows landed, Boromir did not die from an arrow through the chest, really, he probably died of sepsis. And actually, he could’ve lived, because if we loop back to the hobbit where Fili is shot with a black arrow and survives long enough to get to Lake-Town from Mirkwood.

Which isn’t a short distance lmao. So yeah. Boromir chose death, because he likely could’ve been treated for his wounds, thanks for coming to my tedtalk 

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Denethor sucks* and puts a geis on his eldest son and Boromir deserves better, the meta

* Denethor II was actually a fantastic steward (this is noted!! “He was proud, tall, wise, far-sighted, and valiant; "more kingly" than any of his predecessors for a long time. He proved a masterful lord and a great ruler, seeing to all things large and small under his command”), and the movies skew this, but the fact still stands that all of the below facts still exist and I don’t have the time to do a full analysis of Why Denethor Is the Way He Is, but know that the movies sure did a number on his character and then subsequently on Boromir and Faramir, and you can be a great ruler but a horrible parent, and there were Some Fundamental Things about Raising Children that Denethor just did not understand and that is VERY obvious

hOGh so Boromir does have problems with his father, and a lot because Denethor is the worst* lmao, while only about 10% of Boromir's list of problems (in his mind) with his father are related to things that have happened to him (the other 90% being Denethor's neglect of Faramir), the things that Denethor did to his eldesst son are, perhaps unintentional, but REALLY AWFUL. 

Boromir knows that so much of his mentality is because of his father pushing him, and his father wanted him to be a certain way and surpRISE!!! Psychology works in a way that rewarded behaviors will be repeated it’s called classical conditioning, but it doesn’t mean that Boromir doesn’t realize that being the way he is and acting the way he does has also denied him a lot of other life experiences, 

I’d like to point out that Boromir's 41 years of life were basically uh. well, what he did was “save people and be a hero,” but in many ways, he wasn’t living. He wasn’t doing things for himself, he was doing them for others — out of a deep love for others, but also out of a deep fear of what would happen if he DIDN’T do those things. Boromir had built his entire self-concept around his successes. And yes, unfortunately, people do have the mentality when looking at someone who does seem so talented and arguably so perfect and think that person can never fail unless it’s for the lols. On that note, when Boromir does struggle, everyone thinks “he just isn’t trying” and this is so toxic and painful? And more to explore than I’m capable of unpacking in a single post.

What I’m getting at here is Denethor II is the main perpetrator of EVERYONE FAILING TO PERCEIVE BOROMIR AS JUST A HUMAN BEING. Denethor calls Boromir the one who will never fail him. Boromir doesn’t want to disappoint his father, but that went very quickly from “I want my dad to be proud of me” to “this behavior is second nature but I fear the isolation of falling to my own humanity and must now avoid situations in which that could cause me to fail because the respect and love of others that I have garnered is conditional on my continued lack of failures” — which is absolutely why he says no at first when asked to go to the council of Elrond. 

Boromir isn’t stupid. He knows himself more than anyone else because no one takes the time to know him. Because his father essentially said that he would never fail and now people believe that and what’s worse is. ok, Denethor also has the ability to read the thoughts of others, he ALSO had a Palantir and Sauron couldn’t take control of him like he did to Saruman, Denethor just got really bitter and aged quickly. Denethor has a massive aptitude for magic with that logic and incredibly strong willpower. those two things combined are a dangerous combination, especially considering how magic works in Tolkien's world. 

Denethor, with his massive magical aptitude, says that Boromir is “the one who will not fail me”. While maybe he didn’t see it, he placed a geis on his own son, and when Boromir does fail, when he falls to the temptation of the one ring (which is, undoubtedly, a massive moment of weakness, of all the moments of weakness, it just had to be that, huh?), guESS WHAT!!! HE DIES!!! HE’S KILLED!!! Guess what happens when you break a geis??? YOU DIE. Now, Denethor didn’t specify a type of death ( and Boromir isn’t the only character who can be said to have been under a geis in Tolkien's legendarium, there’s a brilliant post about how Frodo places a geis on Gollum and that’s why Gollum dies in the method he does ), but to break a geis is to die.  

In conclusion, because Denethor couldn’t see Boromir as anything but this unfailing, everlasting pillar of strength, Boromir ended up dead and people couldn’t see him as what he was, a strong human, but also only human until it was too late thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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hey, i'm curious... from your perspective or portrayal; what would boromir's role looked like had he survived?

HELLO U ENABLE ME TO GET REALLY, REALLY EMOTIONAL!!! because straight up i decided to read some boromir things & cried this morning that was the first thing i did so HERE WE GO

first, i’ve gotta address the lead-up to boromir getting absolutely wrecked, which is the relationship strain between himself & mostly aragorn. boromir saw aragorn as the person who could get shit done in the offchance he couldn’t do it himself, which very clearly he COULDN’T. aragorn finding boromir dying was also a massive turning point & for boromir to survive & then function still as a member of the fellowship, a few things have to happen. 

the rest of the fellowship has to straight up not listen to boromir when he basically all but tells them to leave him to die

they have to understand that boromir isn’t going to be super happy to be alive & likely he’ll be a little mad that they chose to save him when there are way more important things like hIS SONS ARE MISSING ( aragorn vc the hobbits are not your sons!!! ) 

in general, the fellowship has to learn to communicate, which i think is one of its main flaws, the nine walkers just didn’t hecking communicate well & that’s what ultimately fucked them over & a great deal of trouble could’ve been avoided if they all just used basic communication ( that’s for another post, though )

boromir surviving also makes things a lot easier for the rest of the cast. they keep another strong fighter on their side, our triple threat of aragorn, legolas, & gimli becomes the fantastic four. faramir wouldn’t be in so much shit, & denethor sure as hell wouldn’t be able to be a whole fuckwit to pippin. 

sure, boromir also wouldn’t be able to do as much as he’d like, because he’s gotta recover from his injuries, but this is also a man who consistently held off the forces of mordor & managed to blow up a 3 mile long bridge like??? i’m sorry the anduin is 3 miles in width there holy shit? 

what i’m saying in probably the most scattered way is that boromir’s role would be, well, a very traumatized war hero. much more aware of the even harsher realities of the outside world & understanding his reason for fighting goes beyond the safety of gondor; while there would be some mending to be done, boromir is a good man & the movie choice of aragorn wearing boromir’s bracers for the rest of the goddamn series wouldn’t have happened if boromir wasn’t as huge of an impact as he was. boromir is a hero, & honestly surviving would’ve been a lot for him, but at least he’d be able to actually feel clear-headed enough to actually function, because it’s at his death where aragorn shows him that he doesn’t have to be perfect to have people who love him, & that was the first step to his emotional healing, which was unfortunately stunted by his physical death i hope this answered the question in at least some coherent manner, thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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anyway !!! i keep talkin to @edhelgund about boromir & aaaaaa gOD look boromir grew up in a place where his father could . uh . read minds & hearts , he could hide NOTHING from his father . denethor smashed down all of boromir’s emotional & mental barriers & boromir learned to live life wearing his heart on his sleeve & presenting himself as who he was . nothing to hide , because he COULDN’T . 

& even though he hid nothing ever , people loved him . boromir was loved by the people of gondor , & he never pretended to be anything he wasn’t . he’s a genuine hero , he wholeheartedly follows his moral compass , because he can’t pretend . he’s really bad at lying when he tries , & it makes him feel like a cat being petted backward anyway , so he really would rather just say the truth , or say nothing . but probably the truth , because before being part of the fellowship , he still basically lived under his father’s thumb & you know . he could hide nothing from denethor , so his mentality is “might as well say it lmao” . 

when he says to frodo that he wants the ring to save his people , that’s all he wants it for . not for himself . not to be a king , not for whatever else it could do . simply to save his people . but the point is , everything boromir does is genuine . his joy , his sorrow , his love , so on so forth , & it would do us all great to be more like that , being genuine . thanks for coming to my tedtalk 

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All I’m doing today is metas but at least the ones I’m churning out heckin SLAP so onto the next one! being the whole. Denethor and Faramir are described as having that westernesse blood, but Boromir evidently doesn’t? Denethor can read minds and hearts? Faramir also is shown to have visions and he dreamwalks lmao. Boromir has a vision all of once that he recognizes as a vision and it’s the one about the fellowship. 

“but Boromir is Faramir's older brother he’s literally directly related they have the SAME PARENTS ALL AROUND how does he not have these powers too” well, he does. But he doesn’t have like a conscious bond to them. Boromir does have the gift of clairvoyance, it’s led him to victory against the armies of Mordor many times. He simply believes it’s intuition and gut feeling. But, what he’s doing is predicting the enemy’s movements. his clairvoyance makes him a great warrior, it’s why he’s so often the last one standing. 

Does he understand what’s happening? No not at all. Because he doesn’t have the conscious ability to recognize that he HAS this amazing ability, it really is just ... like trusting his gut. He couldn’t decipher a prophecy if he tried, but he’s spot on with what moves his opponent will make next. He’d make a great chess player because he’s ALWAYS at least three steps ahead like that. sometimes even more. I’ll point out here that in no way is Boromir an idiot. He doesn’t need to be into history or philosophy or whatnot to be intelligent. Dude’s next in line to rule over Gondor if there was no Aragorn??? he’s not dumb. Anyway though,

Boromir has always believed that he doesn’t have anything really special, about himself, so he works hard to compensate for the lack of “gift” that his brother and father have. But he does have it. He just can’t see it and maybe that’s for the best. because he keeps working hard and he proves how amazing human beings are, thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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“And seated a little apart was a tall man with a fair and noble face, dark-haired and grey-eyed, proud and stern of glance . 

He was cloaked and booted as if for a journey on horseback, and indeed though his garments were rich, and his cloak was lined with fur, they were stained with long travel. On a baldric he wore a great horn tipped with silver that now was laid upon his knees. He gazed at Frodo and Bilbo with sudden wonder. 

‘Here,’ said Elrond, turning to Gandalf, ‘is Boromir, a man from the South. He arrived in the grey morning, and seeks counsel. I have bidden him to be present, for here his questions will be answered.’” — The Fellowship of the Ring p. 269

I love how it’s like. Oh. Boromir came here seeking HELP and Elrond is like lmao join this meeting and you put him in a position where he’s going to be exposed to the very thing that will spell his doom. Elrond is an elf, one who fought in the first war of the ring and would be able to tell that Boromir had a geis placed on him, which, while never actually confirmed in canon in books or movies, still has enough evidence to back it up. And with how everyone treats Boromir, he’s likely at least a name that people associate with heroism and strength. 

But here he is, and he’s being condemned to death by the subtle nature of magic within Tolkien's world. Because to be seen as something ( unfailing hero ), to have it always asked of him is just a bunch of primordial magic at work, and it still boils down to a geas that if Boromir succumbs to the temptation of the ring, thus breaking the condition of not failing. It should be noted that Denethor II, the caster of the geis, who can read minds like super long distance or something, said that he believed that Boromir would resist the ring. thus, Boromir failing to do so is breaking the geas and that means death. 

Anyway, the point being, Boromir wasn’t seeking to be part of a group to destroy the ring, he was likely asking for aid, much as that damaged his pride, but he’s one of four fucking survivors that jumped into the Anduin ( his brother and two others survived ) after fighting in Osgiliath, and he can’t do it alone, and instead of getting the help he came for, he was condemned to die and this makes me very, very sad thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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anyway as much as i meme about boromir being completely feral in everything from possibly wrestling a bear or going toot toot get fucked to durin’s bane, or essentially any fighting he seems to do where it ends in a really dramatic, extra fashion (read: blowing up the rest of the bridge at osgiliath while he was on tHE WRONG SIDE OF IT), it certainly doesn’t mean he’s just completely ready to fight.

tolkien lays it out that boromir likes fighting, cares little for lore or for love unless its also battle? that he’s close to faramir & clearly his relationship with the other members of the fellowship is strained. damn the council of elrond more like the council where everyone basically said the race of men is shit & boromir was like what the FUCK. but, beyond that, it’s laid out that boromir is a respected warrior not only in gondor, but rohan, & even the armies of mordor know how legit this dude is. to the point where it’s like their badge of honor for the uruk-hai to have been the ones to kill boromir?? 

but to have that reputation, there’s more than being feral & having the balls to go toot toot get fucked to a balrog or honestly throw down with a cave troll or blow up a bridge while still on enemy lines. boromir thinks things through. he weighs his options & sometimes all options suck but he picks the one that will hopefully have the best outcome. 

what im saying here is boromir knows when to be feral & when to be calm & collected thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[stedefaest]

ANYWAY speaking of boromir fighting yeah so basically his whole battle style is “if he takes hits he’s up close enough to still kill you” & “the only way to kill him is in fact overwhelming force & long range attacks”. i should note that for all the scars boromir has, in a single fight, he’ll take less injury than like ... 85% of people around him, so those scars are like a timeline of his battles, which also says a lot about how much fighting he does.

he’s far less likely to take a fatal hit in close combat than others who DON’T use the defend-cut-defend sort of style & the injuries on his chest are from early battles where he also didn’t use the defend-cut-defend style, because he LEARNED to do that from living through things. most of his injuries from “recent” battles are on his arms because he got smart & protects his core ( & vital organs ) so uh that’s that 

tl;dr boromir got most of his major scars when he was New to war but now he knows what he’s doing 

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ok & it’s not to say that boromir couldn’t be in touch with his westernesse blood , because of course he could , he just needs like the right environment & he never was given time to . do that . because he was always fighting to keep other people alive , 

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me doing a reply and referencing that Boromir straight up just u know, wanted to save the world first and he could settle down after like genuinely bold of Tolkien to assume ... I’ll be sorta yikes about that forever lmao like he does deserve a fucking break and the good news tho is he did get to be a dad to the hobbits, which I think also showed him that this was something he WANTED. 

A family certainly wasn’t at the forefront of his mind until then, because of his experiences with blatantly superficial hero worship and just a lack of time, but then he met the hobbits and he was the one who tried to get the others to slow down after Gandalf died, he advocated to let the hobbits have time to mourn — they were like his kids and like. for Boromir, that opened up so many possibilities and so many things he wanted to do with his life when this whole disaster was over. 

It also adds another layer of pain on his attempt to try to take the ring from Frodo; not only is he despairing thinking Aragorn won’t help Gondor, in his heart he’s trying to lift a burden from someone he sees as a son, and all he does is end up scaring Frodo. Then, when he defends Merry and Pippin, he’s shot multiple times in the chest and he’s literally dying and not only is it that he feels he failed in General, he’s failed the fellowship, the people of Gondor, but now he’s a father who has failed his sons. 

Boromir's entire death was, yes, a big turning point for everyone, but it’s like. The full tragedy of it really does include that Boromir's own desires, the life he wanted to live FOR HIMSELF was taken away. for his ENTIRE LIFE he lived for others and as relieved as he was to hear that Aragorn wasn’t going to just bail forever on Gondor, as relieved as he was to know that he was cared for despite this, there was also. He says he would’ve followed Aragorn, because he feels like he can’t dwell on the what-ifs of the life he could’ve made for himself, and I'm just very sad 

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tags :) 

 › valor needs first strength‚ then a weapon ❞ ❨meta analysis❩

› the one who would not fail ❞ ❨study❩

› the glory of gondor restored ❞ ❨insp❩

› and that is a sunset‚ sit down‚ boromir ❞ ❨out❩

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I love how J.R.R Tolkien is like “anyway Boromir said ‘fuck romantic love unless it’s battle’” and I’m here like lmao Boromir just loves so profoundly already that between his duty to Gondor ( read: what he had been essentially conditioned into, his belief that he had to be this unfailing hero ) and his oath to the fellowship, he didn’t have TIME. He didn’t have time to experience anything but hero worship or Extreme Stress and concern because he suddenly was dad to four hobbits which was not what he expected for his life, so, Boromir just says that because he hasn’t had romantic love directed at him before, it isn’t that he doesn’t want it, but there are other things that he prioritizes, 

“He took no wife and was more interested in arms and warfare. He cared little for lore, save for the tales of old battles” and with all due respect Mr. Tolkien, you can shove this up your ass, “cared little for love” Boromir's ENTIRE PROBLEM is that he loves too recklessly, too deeply, and it tore him apart. He cared about love a lot, it was just a matter of what sort of love he had the time or experience with so that’s that thanks for coming to my tedtalk