#LOTR TROP critical

[vorbarrsultana]

unfortunately you can't convince me that t//rop gil-galad is a good adaptation of tolkien's gil-galad. he wasn't a politician with no qualms about concealing important information from his subjects and allies. he was a warrior king who grew up during the most devastating war middle-earth has ever seen. he was the elven ideal of knightly valour, the second verse of a lay about him has a description of his lance, and sword, and silver shield with countless stars of heaven's field. he was called gil-galad, the star of radiance, because of the starlight caught in his silver hair and it's bright reflection in his eyes. he was also called ereinion, the scion of kings, and artanaro, the noble flame, and finellach, the last spark of finwë's line on mortal shores. he was courageous, and wise, and unflinchingly honest with friends and enemies alike. he was the one who found out about the evil stirring beyond the sea of rhûn & warned the númenoreans about sauron's growing might more than 300 years before annatar even came to eriador, and had foresight to prepare for war in time of false peace.

tv series gil-galad is not fiery enough, not brave enough, not wise enough, not noble enough, simply not enough to be a good adaptation of the book character. and he wears the ugliest shade of gold for some reason, when his signature color is silver

[lunamond]

I really hope that the lotr fandom will soon move on from discussions about Rop's legitimacy as a Tolkien adaptation.

The current climate of people either fully dismissing the whole show or declaring it a full-on masterpiece needs to stop. I (for the most part) enjoy watching the show and therefore find myself more often than not on the side of the latter. But, I really wish we could have more productive discussions about the actual content of the show other than just how well it lines up with the lore, including calling out some major issues that I haven’t seen discussed at all.

In all the discussions about orc families, short vs. long-haired elves, ring mechanics, etc, It's definitely noticeable that nobody (neither fans nor antis) seem to have called out the super racist orientalist elements in the Rhun storyline.

[starsoftheeye]

it's absolutely wild that after outright hearing that the king is manipulating his daughter into believing her father hates her and accidentally confirming that to his daughter, elendil not only didn't attempt to reassure his daughter at all or ask her about this, but also just did not react to that piece of information whatsoever?

elendil ily you're great but you're not beating the emotionally neglectful father allegations my guy!! talk to your daughter!!!

[galadriel-blue]

VENTING

Rant under the cut (people telling me to change things about my blog [like the way I tag things???] and just general Rings of Power hate towards me

Hey just so you know, it's not my job to cater my personal blog (that I made for fun) to your personal preferences. This is a Rings of Power & LOTR blog. I am going to post about both because it's my blog. If you only follow me for my Rings of Power stuff, great! If you only follow me for my LOTR stuff? Also great! follow me for both? Awesome! Spectacular even! but like, If you don't like one of the fandoms I post about, then block the tags or just ignore it instead of going onto MULTIPLE OF MY POSTS and messaging me, telling me what to change about MY BLOG.

This is all because I tagged something Rings of Power related with a LOTR tag and a few people got mad at me (comments and messages) saying that "The Rings of Power isn't LOTR??? Can you not tag it like that I don't want to see Rings of Power stuff. I follow for LOTR" like what???

They exist in the same universe whether you like it or not?? And lots of people tag TROP stuff with LOTR tags too. Plus, sometimes I am talking about both in the same post (like comparing and contrasting things that are the same or different from the show and movies) so I am going to use both tags for that. Besides, why are you telling a complete stranger who posts her stuff for fun to make her blog okay for YOU? I make my blog and posts for me so... Maybe just block me and move on if you don't like how I post things, or tag things.

Also, it's not my problem if you don't like Rings of Power?? Don't interact with it then?? Like, you can control that? My blog is pretty clearly a Rings of Power blog. I literally have Morfydd Clark's Galadriel as my pfp lol

If you don't like it don't interact with it. I could care less if somebody hates the show I genuinely enjoy because it doesn't affect my enjoyment if someone dislikes it. Just don't be a bully and don't tell me how to run my blog because it's upsetting when the only comments I get are "I don't like this show can you stop posting about it," and "Don't use those tags pls I don't like seeing Rings of Power on my feed."

Cater your experience to you and I'll cater my experience to me. If you are going to be entitled and tell me how to run my blog, I am just going to block you <3

If you read this to the end, you deserve a The Rings of Power Galadriel for your troubles.

[thegreatzombieartisan]

Since the beginning, Amazon has been gaslighting the audience about Galadriel and Sauron. It includes dropping hints that Sauron played Galadriel like a glockenspiel from day one in effort to infiltrate Eregion.

Now Amazon made it clear story incoherence is no obstacle to the story it wishes to tell. But it if they chose this route, it would break considerable believability. It works best that Sauron was still on his repentance shtick when he meets Galadriel.

Any ways, here’s my catastrophizing rant:

If Sauron played Galadriel, it’s kinda meh and predictable

As an Galadriel x Sauron enthusiast, I admit this complaint is largely self-serving. However, even if the pair were inarguably platonic, showing Sauron on the knife’s edge of repentance and darkness makes for a far more interesting character arc, mutual arc, and storyline. It gives us a glimpse of his personality beyond “Muahaha I’m eeevil and oh so cunning!”

If Sauron played Galadriel, why would he think a banished Elf would be his golden ticket?

Would you seek a referral from a friend who got fired at the job you want? Me neither because they lack the necessary social capital.

But that’s essentially what Sauron would be doing if he planned to use Galadriel to infuriate Eregion. After all, she told him that Gil-Galad and bestie Elrond conspired to banish her from ME. Pretty serious stuff.

How would Sauron know Galadriel didn’t burn bridges with Eregion? Is it believable that Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion, wouldn’t know about her mutiny and banishment? He attended the High-King’s super secret “Elf lords only”-council meeting; and he rules the nearest Elven enclave to the occupied Southlands. It follows that over a millennium of war, Celebrimbor and Galadriel would have collaborated considerably to protect the realm. Her triumphs and follies would be known to him.

He should at least be surprised and skeptical about a banished commander showing up with yet more claims about Sauron. But since Galadriel enters the city without Celebrimbor batting an eye, it can only mean the showrunners didn’t consider the worldbuilding politics.

Therefore, to Amazon, if Sauron played Galadriel all along, she did have the social status for Sauron to exploit and infiltrate Eregion. And I suppose it couldn’t hurt his plans. But still…

If Sauron played Galadriel, wouldn’t it make him less cunning and powerful?

By accessing people’s minds and memory, RoP!Sauron can influence them into doing his bidding. Fair enough. Yet such a capability elicits unresolved questions on usage and potency. Therefore it’s reasonable to ask: if Sauron can mindfuck people, why does he need Galadriel to infiltrate Eregion? Why go on this nearly three month adventure with her, leaving so much left open to chance? Also couldn’t he even just mindfuck Celebrimbor from afar?

In lore, Sauron simply dons his fair Annatar form and rolls up to Eregion like, “Yo, I got gifts” then kikis with Celebrimbro and his crew. Tolkien tells us Sauron possesses great cunning and deceptiveness. By seizing control of Celebrimbor’s guild, even expelling Galadriel and Celeborn, we’re shown just how much.

So if RoP!Sauron needed a disgraced Elf and mind woo-woo to cozy up to Celebrimbor, it diminishes his prowess. And you know, c’mon, man. He’s Sauron.

If Sauron played Galadriel, pray tell— where is his repentance phase?

Tolkien explicitly said post-war Sauron was improving and even performing “fair works”. This is crucial because his second fell into darkness precipitates two other falls: the Elves (second one) and Numenor.

According to Adar, Sauron’s “repentance phase” included cruel experimentation on orcs in Forodwaith. Catholic or not, torturing sentient beings does not qualify as moral improvement. We would need to be shown a true repentance phase sometime before Sauron met Galadriel or it’s dishonest writing.

But since the showrunners don’t recognize the Harefoots as (inadvertently) evil for abandoning people to die over arbitrary reasons like a sprained ankle, it’s wholly possible they also consider Sauron’s torture of the orcs for Very Good Reasons as “fair works.”

But why does Sauron really torture the orcs? For Amazon to invent Adar with a revenge motive against him. But good writing could achieve this AND maintain Sauron’s repentance arc. So if Sauron played Galadriel, then Amazon fumbled over disordered morality or sacrificed a poignant lore arc in service to their own desires.

Hopefully I’m just catastrophizing. We shall see.

[fixing-bad-posts]

From your tags: "if anyone wants to ask me about rings of power please do because i have thoughts™" This is me asking. (Also love your blog!)

i love you for asking, thank you 💛💛💛 this will be part three: parting thoughts & the funniest details from rings of power (part one; part two).

some parting thoughts:

i absolutely hate that all critics of the show are labelled as racists, misogynists, and anti-progressives, especially when the show’s treatment of women is tokenizing and pitiful, and it does nothing revolutionary nor makes a meaningful statement on issues of marginalized race. they don’t get to position themselves as champions of diversity just by doing the bare minimum and casting poc in side-roles, and having one original-character black elf whose plotline is tragically underwritten. they’re already taking vast liberties with the source material—why not a black galadriel? why not an asian elrond?

with that out of the way, some of my favourite* parts from rings of power:

* when i say "favourite" i mean i'm about to make fun of the show.

i love the part in the show where galadriel spends years of her life tracking down the ‘mark of sauron’—which looks like a little stylized pitchfork—only to discover it’s actually not a sigil. it’s a map, turned sideways, and sketched in modern minimalist style with the least helpful, least detailed, least interpretable shapes because apparently morgoth was really really bad at drawing mountains. and sauron, for some reason, is so forgetful that he carves this “map” into dead bodies and his tables and weapons and gloves so that he? won’t forget which mountain range he’s trying to conquer? wants to give his enemies fun clues about his favourite piece of real estate? unclear.

i love that one scene where galadriel and halbrand are on a raft and the set designers/director did not give morfydd clark enough stage business so she spends the whole scene pulling the same piece of rope tight, and then loosening it, and then pulling it tight again, on a random piece of wood.

in the same vein, i love the part where a conversation between nori and her mom happens except the stage business they were given for the scene was apparently… rub a rock on a piece of wood. and they just have to do that for the entire scene as if it’s normal.

i love the part where the writers seemingly forgot to actually go in and edit their placeholder dialogue and they have gandalf yell, “i’m good!” when he’s mistaken for sauron in the finale.

i love the part where galadriel discovers who sauron is and then goes inside and does not tell anyone what she learned for some reason. and elrond asks her what’s up and she’s just like, there’s no time to explain. and then never explains ever.

i think it’s really funny that the writers want sauron to be “like walter white, tony soprano and the joker,” when these characters have nothing in common except being well-written characters. i like to imagine they sit around the writers’ room examining every single piece of well-written television, marvelling over the very idea of multifaceted characters—a concept completely foreign to them.

and, for posterity—i have fun criticizing rings of power. i like to think i gave rop a fair shot—when i started watching it, i was fully hoping it would be well-done. when i heard the show was coming out, it gave me an excuse to re-read the silmarillion for the first time in years, and has connected me with the tolkien fandom on tumblr. i’m also a script writer irl and, so it’s been a fun exercise to pick apart why the show didn’t work for me both from a fan’s perspective and a writer’s perspective. a lot of tolkien fans are deeply hurt by this show and hate its existence and its fans—that’s not me. i would not be engaging with this material if i wasn’t having a good time doing it.

that's all for me, folks—thanks for tuning in; i'll shut up about this now haha.

[lonesomedreamer]

The Rings of Power Liveblog: “The Great Wave” and “Partings” (Episodes 4 & 5)

“The Great Wave”

As always, I appreciate this show’s commitment to being gorgeous!

The foreshadowing of Tar-Míriel’s dream is fine as a narrative device, but it feels…deceptive? Númenor was destroyed because they deliberately broke the Valar’s Ban by sailing to Valinor, not because one Elf showed up. (To be fair, they did so due to the influence of [redacted], so…)

Yeah, the whole “the Elves are gonna come take our jobs!” thing is, um…it’s too much.

Love that Al-Pharazôn is using their descent from Elros, the son of two half-Elves who both chose to live as Elves, to pump these people up…bc the Númenóreans had come to resent “the choice of their ancestor” by this time! They don’t fear the Elves. They envy them—resent them. They enjoy life and want to keep on living it. They want to be immortal. That really shouldn’t be a difficult idea to get across on screen!

I initially appreciated the obvious Mediterranean influences in this design, but now it seems over-the-top and doesn’t fit in well with the aesthetics of the rest of the universe.

It’s really dumb—and rude—that the queen keeps calling Galadriel “Elf”

It’s a shame they’ve stripped her of all her wisdom.

Unsure if it’s the fault of the writing or the acting, but Tar-Míriel is not doing it for me at all. Alternating between widening your eyes and smirking does not a compelling performance make.

Cheap comic relief from Elendil—thanks for nothing, writers!

“Isildur” continues to provide this show with unnecessary, meaningless teen angst/drama. No thanks.

More grimdark Orc stuff. At least Arondir’s finally getting out.

Oh, the horror movie nonsense, bad CG, and bad costumes that make up the Southlands subplot…I didn’t miss it.

The actor playing Celebrimbor looks more like someone you’d cast as a Hobbit than an Elf. I’m getting way more “old Bilbo” vibes from him than “master smith of the Noldor”…

WHAT is going on with the timeline? Most of Episode 3 took place over a few days in Númenor. In that time, Bronwyn’s village has run out of food at their watchtower refuge—believable enough—and the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm a) decided to help build forges in Eregion after all and b) already partially completed said forges! Make it make sense.

“Are you suggesting Durin’s got himself a wee girlfriend?” “These wee’uns are turning my mind to much.” I did Shakespeare in high school, and once, after our director asked us to project for the umpteenth time, she shouted, “You do not mic the Bard!” That’s how I feel about these line. I’m so sorry, Professor.

Elrond just wandering around in the mines of Khazad-dûm, alone, like it ain’t no thing, lmao.

Mithril!

Not them making me care about this made-up friendship between Durin and Elrond a tiny bit.

Huh, a Palantír. I didn’t see that coming.

“Palantíri show many visions. Some that will never come to pass.” Cribbing directly from Galadriel’s actual canon dialogue!

“I will not second-guess the gods.” This is so funny to me, bc like…Galadriel lived among the Valar! It’s giving “do not cite the Deep Magic to me…I was there when it was written.”

Arondir saving Theo and then holding his own against like a bazillion Orcs while also trying to defend him…as if!

We just saw the Orcs running around a village in broad daylight, but suddenly they can’t keep chasing Theo and Arondir because the sun’s coming up??

The power of music…now that’s very Tolkien. ♥ This scene also gives the Dwarves, with their exaggerated Scottish accents and bad dialogue, a few all-too-rare moments of dignity.

Which is quickly destroyed by Durin angrily screaming about his “old goat” of a father.

I’m grudgingly going to admit that I kind of like Elrond. Though I still think the actor is wrong for the part, he does have a certain gravitas when a scene calls for it.

“For ever am I with you, my son.” Oh…oh, it’s a good scene. And King Durin also has dignity and gravitas! I didn’t think these writers had it in them.

As surprisingly compelling as the Khazad-dûm stuff is, the Southlands subplot is dull. I’m not interested in Theo at all, and I’m barely interested in Bronwyn—and since they’re not going to bother to develop her character properly (there are just too many characters at this point), it doesn’t matter.

Also: the exchange between Theo and the guy in whose barn he found the Sauron sword about the return of their “king” is really heavy-handed foreshadowing.

Númenor is lowkey a narrative disaster. Aesthetically pleasing, though!

Wait, how did Halbrand get out of prison…? Did I miss that??

“I’ve decided to personally escort the Elf back to Middle-earth to aid our mortal brethren who are now besieged in the Southlands.” Again “the Elf” instead of her name…also, how is Tar-Míriel accompanying her going to make a difference? Sending troops, sure—but having the reigning monarch leave Númenor???

“Brave sons and daughters.” Do we think there were Númenórean shield-maidens? Genuinely asking. Yes or no, an absurd number of women volunteer to serve. I’m genuinely all for gender parity/equality, even in fantasy. However… a) it seems unrealistic in this setting/the style of combat they’d be training for, and b) women can be valuable and valued beyond being soldiers (Tolkien knew this—just look at Éowyn)!

Okay, this one was a doozy!

The Good:

Visually stunning, as anyone who’s gotten this far should now expect. I’m going to say that every time. (Tbh it’s why I’m even still watching.)

It’s nice to return to an Elven location (with the promise of more next time!) They gave a magical, ethereal atmosphere to the first episode that’s been missing ever since, and they feel a lot more escapist than Númenor and the Southlands.

Elendil continues to be hot

Some really touching, well-acted moments in Khazad-dûm*…I even thought Elrond was solid. And mithril!

The stuff with the Palantír was kind of cool.

Tar-Míriel is almost a real character rather than a Cersei Lannister knockoff. The acting’s still meh, but an improvement from the previous episode. And her headpieces/crowns are to die for.

Numerous references to Eärendil, most of them cheesy, but still…the little things.

The Bad:

Everything else.

The entire Southlands plot is spiraling into absurdity. I’m not invested in any of the characters involved, and since this is the halfway point of Season 1, I don’t expect that to change. It’s ridiculous that Theo and Arondir are even still alive after that forest chase scene.

Most of the dialogue is mediocre to Bad. *I think the Dwarves might be the worst offenders…poor Disa, the actress and the character both deserve to do more than spouting stereotypical “Scottish” sounding lines!

Even if the Númenóreans were less sympathetic if they openly yearned for immortality, their perspective and hostility towards Elves would make a lot more sense than “the Elves are gonna take our jobs” or whatever…

Isildur, his OC sister and her OC maybe-love interest are all wasting my time with their personal drama and angst. @ the writers: please stop wasting screentime on this!!!

Time passes differently depending on where you are in Arda, I guess? That, or the Dwarvish craftsmen in Eregion have superpowers.

No Nori at all. :(

I know it’s nitpicky af, but as a history lover, there’s something too historical/not fantastical enough about this Númenor. The design borrows heavily from classical Greece with a helping of Byzantine aesthetics and, confusingly, some generic “medieval” elements thrown in as well…overall, it just doesn’t mesh convincingly with the rest of show. It’s beautiful but imo it feels too grounded real-world motifs.

“Partings”

“I’m peril.” Sadface! Nori and I love you, not-Gandalf.

Listen, I understand exactly why people don’t like the Harfoots. I just do like them, contradictions, clumsy dialogue and all.

Poppy’s song is a real treat! It feels like something Bilbo might have written. No Tolkien adaptation other than the Rankin-Bass films has ever featured enough singing. As anyone who’s read LOTR knows, songs are ubiquitous and inescapable in Middle-earth.

Maps!

Why in the world do the Harfoots migrate THIS far every year? No wonder so many of them keep dying! And the Brandyfoots have definitely become separated from the rest of their village by now…

Overall, a delightful opening five minutes.

Weird “witch” (?) characters, Orc subplot… I’m using the fast-forward option liberally.

Who nominated Bronwyn to be in charge of the Southlanders?

Nitpick alert: We see some other women wearing the same spaghetti-strap style dress that Bronwyn has—good consistency—but why is hers the only one with any color? Some are black, and it’s not like black dye is easier/less expensive to get than blue…

The conniving tavernkeep guy instantly wins over half of the people who were willing to “stand and fight” with Bronwyn thirty seconds earlier. Lol.

I just like to look at him.

Oh no! Mean Daddy Elendil is Disappointed in poor Isildur. It’s a good thing Elendil’s easy on the eyes, because this is dismal. (Maybe it’s supposed to echo Denethor and Faramir, but to me it’s just giving teen drama.)

I don’t buy Halbrand’s Jon Snow “I don’t want it” routine, and neither should Galadriel.

It makes no sense that the Harfoots are willing to leave five or six of their own to die to avoid “making a widow or an orphan” of someone else. Sure, the needs of the many—but there’s no real evidence that the Brandyfoots are endangering anyone.

Not-Gandalf coming to Nori’s rescue…my heart…

Galadriel’s definitely into Elendil. (And who can blame her?)

The swordfighting scene was a little silly. That’s okay, though. I don’t hate fun, and it’s not unreasonable that a millennia-old Elf would be able to show up some overconfident human teenagers.

“When all this is over, the Elves will take orders from us.” How does Al-Pharazôn figure that? Yes, he will eventually take power and lead Númenor to ruin, but someone needs to tell the writers that this is not Game of Thrones.

Too bad the dialogue is leaving something to be desired.

People who haven’t read the Silmarillion are still wondering who tf Aulë is (and now Manwë, too).

How does Durin, a future king, expect to find out what the Elves are “up to” if he can’t be a little more tactful/diplomatic than accusing them of thievery?

“The ore containing the light of the lost Silmaril.” lmfao, WHAT. That’s…ridiculous.

Why and how would mithril—even if it did contain the light of a Silmaril—help heal the blighted tree in Lindon?! Be serious, writers…

More teen drama and hijinks with Isildur…you can go to the bathroom or get a snack without pausing any of this and miss almost nothing.

“This mithril is our only salvation?” It sure fucking isn’t! Why would the Elves even think so? The thing about the Elven-warrior-and-the-Balrog story is that most of these Elves would’ve been alive when it supposedly happened and should therefore know whether or not it’s just mythical nonsense (which it is lol)!

“We believe that if we can secure vast quantities of it quickly, enough to saturate every last Elf in the light of the Valar once more—” Except that doesn’t make any sense. What are they even talking about!!!

I’ve been coming around to this Elrond, but he’s leaning way too hard on the whole “sad puppy eyes brimming with tears” shtick this episode.

Me, currently rereading the Silmarillion: actually, Galadriel had more than one brother (sorry, Orodreth, Angrod, and Aegnor…none of you matter ig).

“They could not longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting.” ??? ? ? ????? What?

Whether it’s the lighting, the direction, the writing, or Morfydd herself (most likely, a combination of all of them), the delivery and facial acting in this scene…ain’t doing it for me.

“We’re bowing down to the evil bloodthirsty orcs we just fled from because we’re scared and it’s obviously the only way to save ourselves” is a cop out and lazy writing! So is the idea that the Southlanders might somehow be more susceptible to evil by nature.

“Without [mithril], my kind must either abandon these shores by next spring or perish.” This is such utter, arbitrary bullshit. By next spring?!? Five episodes in, I’m coming to a full understanding of why this show pissed people off at last. To me, this is almost worse than the Halbrand subplot.

“Our immortal souls will dwindle into nothing.” And they believe this why? Based on what???

So pretty, and for what?

oh my GOD, they really did everything in their power to make him look like Viggo Mortensen!Aragorn here and I SCREAMED (not in a good way).

Don’t worry, Isildur’s OC sister: your dad and insufferable brother both have impenetrable plot armor.

Speaking of armor, this is truly hideous.

It’s great that the opening five minutes of this episode were so enjoyable, because the rest of it was a HOT MESS.

The Good:

Visuals: some gorgeous landscapes + the beauty of the Lindon set design is still breathtaking. A couple of really good costumes, though fewer standouts than in previous episodes.

Poppy’s walking song ♥

I admit it: the banter between Durin and Elrond is charming.

Not-Gandalf and Nori’s scenes (until the last one) are very sweet. I love that, for her, he’s the hero she sees in him.

I like Elendil and Galadriel’s faces.

The Bad:

Everything else!!!

Al-Pharazôn’s political scheming/machinations and Tar-Míriel second-guessing herself are just pointless filler, as is almost everything that we see in Númenor (though the teen angst plotlines of Elendil’s children are still the worst).

The Southlands subplot(s) are almost unwatchable. They’re boring and depressing—so, the opposite of why I love Tolkien. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what happens to Brownyn, her kid, Arondir, or any of them at this point.

Halbrand. I wish they’d reveal the twist already instead of trying to make him seem like this dangerous but sympathetic dude with amnesia who just wants to start over in Númenor or whatever.

The unexplained three witches/priestesses/whatever they were supposed to be

What the HELL is going on with the Lindon/Khazad-dûm subplot?! Mithril contains the light of a Silmaril and therefore of the Trees and therefore of the Valar? And that residual light will then heal all the Elves, all of whom are suddenly sick/fading??? WHAT were they thinking?! This is not based in any kind of lore or even any internal logic informed by the lore. It’s awful nonsense inspired by the fact that the Elves were indeed fading—at the end of the Third Age, i.e., thousands of years after the events of this series! TROP features not only legacy characters, but also legacy character dynamics (i.e., an odd couple Elf/Dwarf friendship, not-Gandalf and the Harfoots, a disapproving father and the son trying to impress him) and now legacy subplots, because why not?

More bad dialogue, and the acting is leaving a lot to be desired. Good-to-great acting can elevate mediocre writing; the combination of mediocre acting and mediocre writing is a lot less enjoyable.

This was the worst episode so far by a significant margin and the first one to make me actually upset with the changes they’ve made. Unfortunately, I don’t expect it to be the last.

[kenobihater]

amazon execs after the gollum game came out and drew the collective ire of the tolkien fandom away from their garbage show for a moment

[sun-snatcher]

( credits to the incredible @goodsirs for this beautiful gifset ! )

✵ — OF HALF-WITS & FOOLS !

summ.  You & Elrond have been at odds for as long as you both can remember. So when did it all start to change? or: Everyone’s sick & tired of Elrond’s lovesick denial. pairing.  elrond peredhel / f!reader w.count.  5.5k (oops) a/n.   pre-s1 (implied AU) , time-jumps galore , established elven name , loose neo-Quenya translations , childhood rivals-to-lovers , Elrond is less serious here & more of a little shit , ‘unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object’ trope, but it's literally just stubborn!reader & bratty!Elrond update: I drew fanart for this fic!

PERHAPS, ELROND SUPPOSES, it had started when he’d accidentally bucked you off your horse on a race. 

That would come to be centuries ago by now, when you were both children; and he can even recall your face still— drenched in lake water, tangled in a bramble he couldn’t quite pull you out of because he’d allowed the most unbecoming laugh to ever grace himself first before bothering to help you.

You’d been humiliated, and you never allowed it again since.

Payback comes tenfold just a season after, however. (Spring had yet to be in full swing— Elrond should have known better than to trust your claim of rare Niphredil blooming early by Lindon’s border.)

“Was it worth it?” he snorts, letting the rain wash the muck from his hair and wincing at the crumple of his scrolls under the hooves of your horse. “Your petty endeavour for retribution?” 

“Indeed.”

“...You say this, after having fallen in the same bog you yourself have led me to. Incredible. Your pride rivals that of Man.”

A beat. You huff.

“...I admit, I had imagined this to go far more smoothly on my end—”

Elrond rolls his eyes.

“—But it is satisfying, nonetheless.”

“How childish.”

“You’re one to talk,” you snap, narrowly dodging a dirty pebble thrown your way.

“You ought to apologise!” Elrond hisses.

“Apologise to the likes of you? Never.”

“Fool!”

“Half-wit!”

And so was sown early the seed of a rivalry between you both.

The High Elves watch it bloom through centuries of the Age.

The Valiant-hearted Maiden against the Vault of Stars; Locking horns by every way of competition and prowess— be it academic brain or athletic brawn, or in inanities of conversation, where every answer is met with a petty counter or a provoked jab. 

A constant dance of bickering, bantering, barbing. 

“Of us two, I’m the better scholar,” Elrond states once upon a time, during a practised-combat, amid one of your shared tiffs. 

You side-step and knock him to his feet; catch the stroke of his blade with a hard swipe of your own. It sings— metal against metal— and pierces into the earth a pace away where Elrond crumbled defeated.

The smile you wear is triumphant as the tip of your steel hovers at his throat. “And I, the better swordsman.”

A curl of his hair falls between his eyes, and he blows it with a scoff. “Even if the High King blesses you one day as Marshal of your own Cavalry,” Elrond narrows his gaze up towards you. “I hazard I could fell more damage than you ever could, with a quill and my tongue alone.”

“Bold. Why ever need an army, then?”

“Betimes, a sword must still be drawn.”

“Or not drawn,” you counter. 

As if in emphasis, you sheathe your sword and bent to offer him a teasing, albeit, helpful hand. “Hard to tell with ‘just a quill and your tongue’, I imagine. No?”

Quick-witted shrew you are, he thinks to bite. But you are right, after all, and Elrond is clever enough to know when to yield.

“The maiden thinks herself o�� so wise,” Elrond bristles, after you’d steadied him to his feet. 

You laugh. 

It’s bright and resonant— startles something deep in his heart far, far more than the kind hand you’d offered him. Elrond struggles to shake it off.

“Fool,” he gripes.

“Half-wit,” you volley.

And the familiar exchange follows again, wherever forth you go throughout the Age. Between field and fallow, lake and stream, and Kingdom to Kingdom.

Oaf to dullard. Troll-headed to lame-brained. Runt to mooncalf. Dimwit to—

“Aulë’s beard!” Durin cries aloud, following a stormy aftermath of you and Elrond’s brief visit to Khazad-dûm. “I’ve never seen his patience crumble as swift as soapstone! They despise each other, Disa!”

“On the contrary,” she dissents, amused. “Why would Elrond allow it, that his so-called ‘bane of his existence’ meet you, Durin— one of his greatest friends— if he didn’t trust her at least one bit?”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean he cares for the girl.”

“Aye, ‘til you remember trust is the naked stone of love.” There’s a twinkle in Disa’s eyes like that of pure quartz. “And I wager that Elf hasn’t the slightest idea of that yet.”

She’s right, of course. Elrond hasn’t.

Not even a decade later.

Or the one after that.

And to the next.

Until, slowly, something begins to gives way.

“Elmendëa,” Elrond hears you swear, exasperated. “Ává tuluvanyë! I know you are a fool, but even an idea as rash as this is beyond you.” *

“That has to be the kindest words I have ever heard you utter in regards to me,” he muses, unable to stop from grinning.

Elrond is intelligent. Cunningly so. He’s gleaned exactly how to push your buttons because he’s the only one well-versed to your short temper, buried somewhere under the sunshine of your adoring face, and the bell-like sound of your laughter he’s grown to—

“Remind me what it is your name stands for, again?”

The grip on your horse’s reins tighten. “Beríniel. Maiden of Valiant heart.”

A terrible move, in hindsight. You should have never entertained his question. 

“Hm. I always admired it. A mighty name,” he agrees, shrugging lazily. “For a coward, that is.”

You scowl, fight a scathing remark. Elrond always gets childishly riled up whenever he tests your nerve; you’ve known him long enough to know it would not do to satisfy him with a reaction.

“Five stone-trolls against one lone elf in the blackest of night is not cowardice, it’s folly.”

“These creatures have eluded us too many seasons long, laying waste to these lands. The General said this himself,” he says, spurring his horse with excitement. “Now’s our only chance! Besides, I am far from alone, no? Come now; I have you, and you have me!”

Your heart stutters.

You might’ve had the time to mull that last line of his comment over, including that unexpected bloom of something in your chest, even, had he not bolted off straight into his demise.

“Elrond! Valyë—!” You snarl out a curse. “Wait!” *

You’re drenched.

So is Elrond.

You may have laughed at the sight if you weren’t so busy with being humbly contrite at the wrath of your Cavalry General. 

And maybe if you weren’t drenched in literal troll-blood.

“Taking on five of those foul creatures,” comes the disapproving hiss. “At the height of the night!” 

“General—”

“You are lucky, thick-headed colt that you are, Belírien, that I have decided only to suspend you of your rank.”

You flinch. 

Elrond snaps his bowed head up in surprise.

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, General,” he defies, much to your absolute horror, “But if you wish to exorcise your anger, I beg of you to do so against me—”

“No,” you override, furious. Call it competition if you must— but Elrond will not take a punishment from and for you. You had far more honour in you than to let anyone take your blame, even if it comes in the form of your childhood nemesis.

The glare you shoot that reads, Quit attempting to be a damn hero, goes unnoticed, however. (Or perhaps, more likely, now that you remember this is Elrond Peredhel, wilfully ignored.)

“—Belírien defied your order, but she did so only to protect me from my own folly. It was I who went after the trolls, and in doing so forced her hand—”

“I made my decision, you fool,” you protest. “Of all people you should know best that you could never force my hand to do anyth—

“If you would just let me speak, you half—”

“Dínen!” The General snarls. *

Both of you snap to attention. 

“Must you two always argue like whelps?” he thunders. “I will speak with Elrond myself. Meno!” *

You practically deflate in your armour. “General, please, lá asanyë a—” *

“Every second you tally standing before me thins my patience, Belírien,” he says, voice strained with finality. “Do not test it.”

You grit your teeth, your breath a sharp exhale.

“Dúro di,” Elrond whispers, before you can say anything rash. He can recognise all too well that tide of stubbornness in you— the same one that always rises ashore towards trouble. Then, gently: “Ilqua nauva mára.” *

You relent, only to surmise much, much later that evening, when the sun bled dusk over Lindon’s citadel, that it had not, in fact, gone ‘okay’.

“Manan nîn rehtanë tye, Elrond?” *

You can imagine the cheeky smile in his face for yourself, from where he’s peering up the gleaming stars, “Must there be rhyme or reason?”

“I’ve been informed that my rank as Marshal still stands,” you say, sidling to his side on the stone allure. “Was that your doing?”

“Yes.”

It’s said so easily. Sometimes you wish you could curse that slippery, literary tongue of Elrond’s.

“Then why is it I hear they’ve withheld yours as Herald?”

“Merely an abeyance,” he dismisses, but you can hear the disappointment in his voice nevertheless, even if his eyes are cast away from you.

It pains you more than you’d expected it would have— Elrond has spent centuries working towards the role, and just when it’s come within reach, he’d chosen to let it slip to defend you instead. 

“Save your despair. In time, h—”

“Ánin apsene.” *

Elrond blinks in surprise.

Unbidden, an old memory resurfaces: of mud, and crumpled scrolls, and a pebble thrown your way, after which you’d claimed: I would never apologise to the likes of you!

You’d both been children then. Has so much time passed already? What a gift, he finds he couldn’t stop himself, That you are still by my side.

“There is nothing to forgive. I defended you, because I—” he falters. Something passes in his eyes you cannot decipher. “—I believed it just. On this I am certain.”

“You need not have, regardless,” you retort. “Especially with the price you pay now.”

“I know,” he shrugs. Shrugs. As if you hadn’t just been the potential end-all to his hard work. “But, alas.”

Alas? How stubborn you are, you resist. You silver-tongued, nonchalant, handsome little—

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” he adds, pointedly. “Marshal.”

“I don’t,” you say. “I would never.” There is no way to turn back time nor the decree, afterall, so you settle with, “Just don’t get used to it. Defending me, I mean.” 

Or, in plain: Thank you.

The corner of his lips tug closely akin to a smile. 

“I would never,” he parrots.

That is to say: You’re welcome.

--- C R A C K !

Deep in another pass of Summer, in the fields of Lindon west where the capital towers stand, an arrowshaft splits perfectly down its middle, from the shot of another.

A bullseye on a bullseye.

You ready; take aim to fire, again—

“I gathered you would be here,” comes Elrond’s voice. “You always found solace in target practice.”

—and miss your mark.

The arrow splinters wood off the edge.

With a scowl, you turn to where Elrond sits by the root of an old tree, fidgeting with something in his hand.

“Endë intyë,” he recites Rúmil. “You draw your bowstring with anger. It needs conviction, to fly true.” *

The familiar sound of a nocked arrow reaches his tipped ears. Elrond lifts his head, meets your steel gaze behind your loaded bow, set dead-straight towards him. 

“And would you like to test my conviction, Elrond?”

I would, is his instinctive jab of a response, for I’d wager you’ll miss. 

But he can spot the slightest of tremor in your hands; the unseen waver in your voice. You’ve been gravely unsteadied— he recognises the suffocating weight of grief, rolling from you in waves.

“No,” he says, sincerely. “Not today.”

“So you’ve come to patronise me for one erred shot, then. Charming.”

“You know why I’m here,” he says, watching you patiently as you pluck your arrows and tidy the target. “Don’t—”

“Be a fool?” You finish for him, annoyed. 

A breeze passes. It’s silent.

There’s no caustic remark, no spiteful words. It’s almost unsettling to not hear half-wit being said in reply. Even then, though, you find way to fault him even for that.

You curse him for his… his inherent patience. For bothering you here and now. For his damn face; that always makes it so hard to stay mad, and so easy to forgive.

“Don’t push me away,” he corrects. “Is what I intended to say.”

A piece of you cracks. For someone who’s claimed to be irked by the very sight of you, Elrond could be frustratingly gentle to you when need be.

“What does it matter to you?” 

You reach for your quiver. Focus, you tell yourself. Focus. If you looked in his eyes again you might just shatter.

“The village sent word,” he begins, striding towards you and standing by your side. “They plead for you to come and plant a seed in their land, in Îdhendiel’s name. A token of gratitude to her memory, and to you, the Marshal, who led the cavalry to save their lives.”

Something potent roars in your veins. A flame; A fire— burning white-hot behind your eyes, kindling them with tears; stoking a bloodthirsty anger in your heart.

“What worth is their gratitude? The person they ought to thank is dead,” you say, vicious. “It’s because of their recklessness that they roused the wrath of the beasts sleeping in that forsaken cavern. Îdhendiel’s life was—”

Wasted, you couldn’t bring yourself to say, as you draw and take aim.

But your vision is swimming, blurred by memory and unshed tears, taking the heart of the target along with it. 

“They are innocent, you know this.”

Your shot will be poor. Likely, it would embed the stand. Maybe you should shoot Elrond, instead.

(You could never.)

“If you are here to argue with me, Elrond,” you whisper, a pained breath escaping you as you lower your bow. “Please, leave.”

“I am here to convince you.”

“And I will not be convinced,” you grit.

“Do not let your grief blind y—”

“Please!” 

Your voice cracks. The arrowshaft in your grip snaps.

Elrond seizes.

“Please, just… Just go.”

You wait for it. For one last reproach from him. But instead, he unravels something with his fingers.

“I will not tell you your anger is misplaced,” he says, gently, stepping forward to place the object in your palm. “For that, I have no right. But I am certain of one thing—”

It’s a seed. An acorn. Cradled in threadbare cloth, weathered and worn. 

“—Îdhendiel would have wished only for peace.”

It would grow to be an oak tree that can outlive mortal men by a thousand years. Elrond had been purposeful with where he’d placed the seed: right next to the broken arrowhead in your palm.

A proverbial choice. Grief, he seems to say, or peace? 

“I hate you,” you answer, uselessly. 

But a Herald's very art is to read between words, and better yet— Elrond has come to learn every lilt and cadence in your voice. It’s hollow. There is no malice meant in what you’ve said.

“This is but one seed, and yet it feels the heaviest thing in all of Middle-Earth.”

He softens at that. “Such is the weight of grief.”

Something knots in your throat. Stricken. You’re stricken. It’s the kind that reminds you of all your other, untreated hurts; of everything you’ve lost and can never forget, and would never be reunited with again until the Undying Lands.

“You—” Your hesitant voice calls out. 

(You are the only one I trust. Would you bear this weight with me?)

“Would you accompany me? To the village?”

Your words are small. Almost fearful. As if he could ever possibly be so cold as to forsake you at a time like this. 

He reaches out, settles his hand atop yours. It may very well be the kindest, most tender thing you’ve ever felt from him your entire life. 

“I would never abandon you,” comes Elrond’s answer. 

Then, to himself, candidly: I’d go anywhere with you by my side. He’d thought it. Realised. Swore. It had brought no surprise, no hesitation. My place is with you.

Elrond Peredhel had never been so sure of anything.

And he stays true to his word.

He journeys with you for a sennight North, with the acorn in his hold; had kept you steadfast all the way to the tilled grounds of the village.

And alas when the time had come: If your fingers didn’t shake neath the earth; if you didn’t falter your grip on seed and soil as you planted— 

It was because Elrond was there, standing with you.

“I was a fool to think I can escape without Herald Elrond himself having one last word in.”

“That you are,” he huffs, breathless from the full gallop ride he’d taken downwind to the kingdom gates. The Winter season means the Northern air blows colder from the snow-capped mountains of Ered Luin. 

It means more time between you two has passed, yet— 

“And a half-wit,” he finishes.

—nothing’s changed. Or so it seems.

Astride the saddle of your own steed, you cock your head at him. “Well, what did you come here to say? Let me guess, you’ll enjoy the silence while I’m gone?”

Elrond almost grimaces. If you’d noticed, though, you didn’t appear to show it.

“No.”

“Or perhaps—”

“Why did you not tell me you were leaving?”

(He says, instead of something unforgiveably sentimental, that is: Do I matter to you so little?)

And. Well. If his tone hadn’t startled you, the flash of betrayal in his eyes certainly did. 

“I…” You blink. “I assumed you knew.”

“I didn’t,” he says, uncharacteristically sharp.

Your brows furrow. “Well, I’ll be gone a mere blink. At best only six Sun-years, not an entire yén. Galadriel sent me to scout aways to the South before reporting my findings back to Lindon for our archives. I will not apologise for serv—” *

“I seek neither an explanation nor an apology,” he says, curt enough that your company sneaks a wary look from the gates; enough that his own very horse shifts uneasy.

“Then be plain. Why have you come here?”

The fight leaves his body. 

“I…” He trails off. Blinks as his gaze darts across your face. 

(I think— ) 

“…To bid you farewell.”

A lie. Blatant. Plain as daylight and as clear as the stars in their courses to your discerning eye, borne from the long years endured beside him. Dúath whinnies below you. He must have sensed the unseen discord, too.

Elrond purses his lips to smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“And to you too, Dúath. Keep h— Yourselves— safe.”

Then, with only a nod and a fleeting glance, as if the effort to watch you depart might cut too deep—

“Elrond—”

—he steers his horse away and spurs into a leaping gallop before your sentence could take shape.

And he doesn’t speak of that day, not a word; not until Galadriel had brought it up herself.

“I have noticed,” Galadriel begins, after the season had finally ended, and the last of the snowflakes had come to fall. “You have never been more distant since the company left. If my sending them away has offended you someh—” 

“No. Never,” Elrond says, cut to the quick. His gaze tears from the forests to his best friend. “I am merely… pensive.”   

It’s the truth, and yet somehow he’d delivered it embarrassingly unconvincingly. So much so that Galadriel raises her brows him. 

“Over?”

He flounders.

“...Lore.”

Galadriel deadpans. “Ah, of course. Lore. Then why have you been—” She’s careful to pick her words. “—Sulking?”

“I am not,” he insists, and manages to swallow back the instinctiveness of saying fool, or half-wit. (These are… words reserved solely for you.)

“It is unlike you to lie, Elrond,” she says, levelling her stare. “Was it not Rúmil who said absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“Speak plain, Galadriel.”

“Your Marshal. You miss her,” she states. “You like her.”

“You are delusio—”

Galadriel pins him with a look.

“—Mistaken,” Elrond amends.

She tilts her head. “Your brooding says otherwise.”

“First and foremost, she is not my anything. Secondly, I do not brood,” he says, turning up his nose. “And lastly, I am confident I do not harbour anything but simple courtesy for her. She is insufferable.”

She hums, amused. “I see.” 

“Truly!” he insists. (Too hasty, almost, to hide the obvious lie.) “Unbearably prideful, too.”

“And terribly impulsive?” 

“As a colt in full gallop.”

“And distracting?” offers Galadriel.

“Endlessly.”

“Because she’s beautiful, yes?”

“Frustratingly so.”

A beat.

Elrond blinks, aghast.

“No, wait—”

Galadriel’s laugh is bright. 

Reunion aligns perfectly with Mereth-nuin-Giliath.

The celebratory feast has the verdant halls and forest of Lindon’s Kingdom alive with moonlight and lantern; laughter and song. Elves alike are clad in their best: silver wreaths braided into hair; golden trims embroidered into robe.

And— you.

There’s you. 

Donned in the finest cloths and the brightest garlands, seated at a small table spread with some of your closest companions, where Elrond quietly watches you laugh— Singing something of soldiers, poets and kings; how you’d been taught it from a migration of halflings you happened across during your time in the wilds. 

But then there is Glórieldir. 

Golden-one. Shouldered next to you, with his yellow hair and his glinting smile and his gilded garments. Everything that could possibly live up to his name, even in attitude. A perfect soldier. A perfect friend. A perfect Second-in-command. 

Specifically, your Second-in-command.

“Any longer and you might burn a hole through his head,” comes a voice. It’s Gil-Galad, ever the omnipresent gravitas that comes with him. “Do be more merciful. Glórieldir has quite the talent for bowmanship.”

Elrond straightens in an instant. “High King.”

“At ease,” he waves, behind a sip— no, a gulp— of wine. “I am trying to escape from Círdan and his frivolous attempts to pester me so. Do humour me, why the withering glare? Glórieldir is no threat to your rather peculiar bond with Beríniel. Despair not.” 

It’s said with such casual precision Elrond nearly buckles. He couldn’t have possibly been measured that swiftly?

“I do not— despair.”

A snort. 

“Do you know why Glórieldir is only Second-in-command?” Gil-Galad says. “Because he bends too easily to higher authority. Much unlike your Marshal, who would not hesitate to question anyone and anything even under duress. I hazard maybe even toward myself.” 

“She is not my— anything,” he blusters, recalling his conversation with Galadriel those winters ago.

“Ach. She is the only elf in Middle-earth who could shake the very foundation of your being free from conviction,” he says, nonchalant, “Do you think me blind to your longing gaze and clandestine trysts—”

Elrond chokes. “Trysts?!” 

(Had he not been burdened with the crown and its status, Gil-Galad may have allowed his Kingly demeanour to crack for a moment, just to laugh at Elrond’s scandalised look.) 

“There have never been trysts. We are furthest from lovers. She is my— friend, at best. You are mistaken.”

“Of course,” Gil-Galad hums, wholly unimpressed, after which he sets his goblet down a passing tray and grabs two fresh cups, and hands them both to him, much to his confusion. “I whole-heartedly believe you.”

Then, to Elrond’s horror: the High King beckons Glórieldir from the table, and Elrond pieces together the cunning scheme too late as Gil-Galad sweeps the Second-in-command away for an oh-so-interesting discussion over archery.

That sly fox of a—

“Thank you,” you say, once the both of you are alone, out of sight and earshot from the festivities, and Elrond had handed you one of the cups of red wine.

You should thank Gil-Galad, he thinks. And his horribly wicked sense of humour.

“Seems you enjoyed your adventures to the South,” he says instead.

“I did. It gave me plenty of time to… think.” Of you. Of us.

“Must have been peaceable without me around,” Elrond muses.

You set your cup to the stone wall of the parapet overlooking the rivers. “Quite the contrary,” you say, and Elrond has to try to convince himself he’s only imagining that tone of wistfulness in your voice out of self-indulgence. Surely.

“The seasons ran surprisingly long. Summers less kind, less sweet. Oftentimes, it was too quiet. And I’d seek for your voice in conversation.” You pick idly at the filigree of the goblet. “…But no one in my company tests my nerve like you do.”

A sense of pride curls around his heart. “Is this your long-winded way—” 

“Oh, here we go again.”

“—of saying you missed me?” he taunts, lips cut into a genuine smile. (Because I did. I missed you so; Never thought it possible that my heart could sing so longingly when I saw light upon your face again.)

You roll your eyes, but your laugh betrays you. It’s musical, dizzying. Has him stirring into another smile as he watches you muffle it into your palm, and the moonlight catches the jewels of your crescent eyes; the shining tresses of your hair he’s been fighting the urge to tuck behind your ear.

You’ve always been so beautiful. He couldn’t think of any other grand prose or way to describe it. You’re the only one who’s ever rendered the Herald speechless.

Elrond hadn’t known what to do with himself, really, when he first faced this revelation unravelling before him. He’d spent his days reflecting when exactly the tides had changed; at what hour he came to love, instead despise, the prick of every thorn and thistle that came with the flower that you are.

He’d thought perhaps something else was sown the day Îdhendiel’s seed was planted in the earth. Something between you two that was more gentler. Kinder. Fonder.

Or perhaps, Elrond supposes, it has always been there.

Yes, had come the realisation. Foolish of him, indeed. To have been remiss. To have been blind. To have tarried so long. 

“You’re right, I missed you,” you finally relent, sighing theatrically. “I owe you that much, after… after the way I left things before. I suppose it’s high time I ask for your forgiveness.” 

It’s said so sheepishly, he has to bend to chase your timid gaze. 

“Elmendëa. The journey truly has changed you… I hazard this is the second time I’ve ever heard you apologise in my life, Berílien, you should be quite proud—”

“The audacity!” you bat at him, bursting into a laugh. “Thick of you to keep tally. You and Glórieldir are irritatingly alike.”

Elrond’s mouth clicks shut. He tries to hide the hard press of his tongue against his cheek; the sudden bout of sour and ire. “Ah. Right. Your knight in golden, shining armour. Tell me, has he plucked the courage to court you yet?”

You’re almost winded. “What?”

He shrugs. “Word goes he’s head over heels for you.”

“Word is word. We— I— We’re not, no. He is more my charge, if anything,” you wrinkle your nose, disapproving. 

He tries to tamp down the relief secretly bleeding through him. “Oh? Why, you’ll break his golden heart.”

(This time, it’s you trying to convince yourself that you’re imagining that note of jealousy in his voice out of self-indulgence.)

“Besides," you wave, "I’ve been told he’ll be settling all the ways to Eregion, by the end of the season. I imagine we would hardly ever be feasible. ”

And then, in a slip of his tongue, or in new-found confidence (foolishness?), or perhaps because Elrond simply cannot help it anymore—

“Why not? I have loved you from further.”

A beat.

The world stills. 

Your heart stutters. 

Even the stars seem to hold their breath to bear witness.

Manwë help me, he freezes. This is not how I meant for this to go. 

Your eyes flicker to his lips. He catches it in a glimmer of hope. Was that confession? he wonders. Admission? Concession? 

“Your wine is… speaking, Elrond.”

“I have had but a quarter of a cup.” 

“It is First Age wine.”

“I digress. It would take more than that to master the tongue of an elf. Especially mine.” 

“You're half-elve—”

“Must we dance this age-old dance?” he blurts, half-desperate, half-terrified. Elrond isn’t like Galadriel, who could probably make flowers grow by sheer dint of belief. He doesn’t have it in him to pretend. Not anymore. “Just. Tell me I am wrong. That I’m mistaken. Tell me if— Tell me I have overstepped.”

Eärendil’s star is blinding in the momentary silence. 

The wind blows bated with white-winged birds. It breathes a strand to your cheek, compelling, almost. Reach for her.

He does. Slowly. Elrond gathers, finally, the conviction, to reach for that stray tress of hair, to tuck it behind the high-tip of your ear. 

Then he lingers. In one hand his wine, and the other ghosting across your cheek; As if he fears this an illusion, as if he’d touch you and you’d fade into a ripple.

“Tell me to walk away,” he says from where he stands a foot from you, voice so quiet it nearly fell into nothing. “And I will.”

I will do anything for you.

Your answer is barely a whisper, and drowned in affection. “Stay.”

(Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her.)

“And is your wine speaking?” he dares.

You shake your head honestly. 

Concession. “I’ve not had even a taste, yet, this whole night.”

A taste? “I see.”

And then, as swift and smooth as a breeze, Elrond moves to finish the last swallow of his wine, and let slip the goblet to clatter onto the floor, so he could hold you wholly in both hands— 

And ducks his head to kiss you.

It’s like the world sighs in song. 

You’re melting as he kisses you, urgent— a talisman of a kiss; fierce and unhesitating and like a wick lit aflame. It’s sweet, cloyingly so, laden either from the red wine or the weight of all the unsaids between you two, or maybe both.

“Melin tye,” he pants, when he pulls for a chaste breath. "I've always—" *

But then you’re leaning up to him again, running your hand up his nape and into the locks of his curly hair, and tugging him back down to meet him halfway. Words can come later. There’ll be time. You’ll weave it into existence, if you must. 

Right now you’re content with this. With seeing his eyes slide shut and feeling the press of his palms and thumbs on your cheeks; with letting him fold you tight into his arms, and kissing you so desperately it feels as if he’s cleaving his very soul apart so he could tuck you into it forever. 

You exhale his name. A thin, reedy sound, when he sidles you to a plinth. “I thought me the ‘bane of your existence’?”

He bumps nose and forehead to yours, eyes half-mast and pupils blown in naked admiration. “You misquote me, surely.”

“Oh?” you murmur, low and close.

He doesn’t bother with an answer. Just dips to kiss you, slower this time, relaxed— Like a tender apology for the wasted centuries, like he wanted to carve into memory the seam of your lips and the slope of it; trace every crack, crevice and curve of your face; memorise the warmth of your skin and the shuddering feel of you in his searing touch.

It’s slow and steady and careful and painfully endearing. You have half the mind to just stay like this with him forever, eclipsed by Elrond's lips, hands and shadow; and translate everything you’ve ever held back from saying into this one fervid kiss alone—

“High King?” comes an approaching call. 

Both of you fly back from each other in alarm, just as a figure turns the corner.

(The sound produced from the both of you pulling apart that ardent, sealing kiss is damning.)

“Círdan!” Elrond greets just in time, voice a strangled, breathless rasp. 

He clears his throat to try again. “Ah, I’m— afraid the High King is not here.”

You pray to the Valar Círdan doesn’t notice the harried way both of your chests rise and fall, or the way the circlet on your head has gone distinctly off-kilter, or the windswept tousle of Elrond’s curls.

He does, however, notice the empty goblet that’d been rolled to a stop, right at his foot. “…Are you two alright?”

“Very,” Elrond drags, and shoots you a there-and-away glance that leaves your cheeks hot. “We were just—”

Círdan toes the cup. “Having another petty row, I assume?”

“Yes,” you agree hastily. “Arguing.”

“As always,” the shipwright assents. “Right, well, don’t let me interrupt.”

Then, Círdan turns to face you and narrows his eyes curiously. Your lips are glaringly stained red. 

“Do go easy on the First Age wine, Marshal,” he suggests, before finally disappearing around the corner.

Elrond fights back from barking out a laugh.

“Yes, go easy,” Elrond croons your way, once you sink in relief. “Tell me, was I enough of a taste for you?”

“Snide little—” You swat with a laugh, but he catches you easily by the wrist, wearing that tight-lipped, boyish smile, and bends down to nudge you into another kiss once more.

You give in, ofcourse. 

“Fool,” you whisper somewhere inbetween.

You can practically feel him smiling against you.

“Half-wit.”

Fanart by yours truly!

Footnotes:

Under the suspended belief that the spoken English is translated from Sindarin, any Elvish dialogue in the story is Quenya unless stated otherwise.

*Rough translations as followed:

Elmendëa  =  Wonder/Amazement. Ává tuluvanyë!  =  I will not follow you! Valyë—!  =  Don’t—! Dínen!  =  Silence!  [a/n. Sindarin] Meno!  =  Go! Lá asanyë a—  =  I do not wish for— Dúro di  =  Obey him.  [a/n. I believe this is Sindarin] Ilqua nauva mára  =  It’ll be okay. (Lit: All will be well.) Manan nîn rehtanë tye  =  why did you defend me? Ánin apsene  =  I’m sorry/Forgive me. Endë intyë  =  Center your heart. (Lit: Center yourself.) Melin tye = I love you. Yén:  an Elven unit of time, amounting 144 solar years.

Sindarin names:

Beren — Valiant/Bold Ind — Will/Heart Wen — maiden (alternatively: -iel/-il/-el) Therefore, Beríniel > Valiant-hearted Maiden Îdh — Peace -(n)dil — Friend/Lover Therefore, Îdhendiel > Lover of Peace.  Glóriel — Golden -dir — name suffix Therefore, Glórieldir > Golden one Dû —  night Gwath —  shadow Therefore, Dûath > Night shadow Mereth Nuin Giliath > Feast Under Stars. (As lifted from the Mirkwood Elves in The Hobbit movies)

[valar-did-me-wrong]

Thankyou thankyou for voicing that about the symmetry thing!! You've written this perfectly!!

That rushed death might be symmetrical but its such a small way of achieving that.. there were a thousand better ways of giving his character justice along the way of achieving cinematic symmetry!

It was lazy, it did not give closure and BOTH Adar & Sam; but mostly Adar, deserved way better!

As I've said often.. Adar became grander than the narrative; a narrative that was created by writers who do not know how to work with such grand characters without one or the other Tolkien's words guiding them.

Quoting myself pre episode 8 here:

But who knows maybe show runners are gaslighting viewers here and he’ll be killed off just like that next episode Mirdania-style (hoping against hope she survived). But Sam Hazeldine’s interviews sound like he’ll be in it for a bit longer. Good🤞

Whatever you hope they do it’s not going to be innovative, but the road most traveled.

Sam’s interviews sounded like that because he had integrated into the cast so well and would’ve liked to stay.

If you ask me it was a capital mistake. Adar outshone all other characters in season 2. But the course was set. Simon Tolkien apparently intervened to keep him longer. I suppose because he saw his incredible potential. And yet they offed their outstanding original character, carelessly, unsympathetically. It sucked big time because it left most fans struggling emotionally. I did not need that.

I’m venting…

Yeah, it mirrored the first episode, a thematic frame, cool visuals, full circle blah blah - a clichéd way of doing this to establish symmetry and a means to get rid of him fast and visually pleasurable and still make it look oh so meaningful.

There could’ve been another outcome of course. Adar wasn’t alike Sauron, he was not a monster. Adar was superior in heart and mind, a large part of him untainted from dark poison.

He should have had a better end because this show is all about symbolic messages and this one sends a message that he was not deserving, although he had suffered the most of all characters and was truly repenting - he apparently deserved something far worse.

Ironically it wasn’t even an end to Sauron what Adar did to him in the beginning. Sauron was goo for a thousand years then quickly bounced back eating worms and people and is fine now. Adar though looks terminally dead. He’s gone. Can you imagine he resurrects in a cheesy painting like Galadriel? He’s the vaguely queer coded villain, he’ll stay buried (you wish he was buried), it’s the law.

And shouldn’t have Sauron ended him, if it was meant to be symmetrical, shouldn’t there have been a fight?

Shouldn’t there have been a fight with Arondir?

Shouldn’t Galadriel have at least voiced her disapproval of the murder? I’ll give it to her that Adar’s death gave her the wrath to withstand Sauron finally. She fought him with anger in her heart, totally over him, but not over her twin flame Adar.

What happened to Adar was worse than what happened to Sauron. Adar was betrayed of his final hope to get better, betrayed by his children whom he loved and thought loved him back, knowing his aim to prevent enslavement for them has been futile. You can shoehorn a symmetry with Sauron’s situation in the beginning but it substantially isn’t. Adar’s actions always came from a place of love, care and solidarity, of accountability.

It should’ve been Sauron dealing him the final blow, not Glûg. It was never shown why Glûg would suddenly want to murder him brutally and in cold blood. It was just for shock value and done with the intention to show how irredeemable Uruk truly are, even the most humanized ones. As if Adar was delusional about them deserving dignity. Probably the story needs them to be bad again, after all the Third Age hasn’t improved concerning the othering of Orcs. One dilemma less for the show, it seems…

He may be in Valinor now, perhaps, who knows with these writers… The thing is, I don’t care because I won’t see it on screen.

Nothing will come of anything Adar has done and fought for, he is erased from the narrative and I hate it.

It lowers expectations for season 3 and, not gonna lie, I kinda resent the show for doing that.

[shelleysmary]

gotta laugh at everyone who has ever said that "~unLiKE tHe pEtEr jACkSoN fILmS~ the trop people don't care about tolkien, don't care about middle-earth, it's a soulless adaptation for the money just because amazon is behind it" because (and i say this while also saying fuck amazon, fuck jeff bezos. it goes without saying - two things can be true at the same time, i can't believe it bears repeating)

how do you think films and television get made?? hate to break it to you, but it's all for the money. new line cinema didn't say "we love tolkien, pj, let's do this for free!" they were literally looking for a franchise hit when they decided to take the films over from miramax - which is exactly what every studio and their mom is trying to do now!!! it's movie business, baby! to say the people behind trop - the actors, the casting directors, the production designers, the vfx artists, the art directors, the armorers, the costume designers, the set decorators, the makeup artists, the ADs, the carpenters, painters, prop-makers, steelworkers, laborers, animal handlers, sound editors, miniature builders, stuntpeople, craftspeople, movement and dialect coaches, trainers, lighting techs, jewelers, etc. - don't care about the story they're telling???? is a wild reach. obviously they work for the showrunners who work for amazon who care the most about making a profit, but so did peter jackson and new line!! wanting your project to be financially and critically successful is not an inherently evil thing, come on guys, are you still buying into the starving artist fallacy 😭

there are tons of little nods to the silmarillion and other parts of the legendarium in the rings of power. yes, there are also changes and goofs, but lotr and the hobbit film trilogies also had their fair share of changes and goofs. i just think that "these people didn't read the books/this is just a money grab/pj & co. cared about the source material while these losers clearly don't" are tired arguments used to justify subjective opinions, not to mention the way it reeks of revisionist history considering the way tolkien purists initially took great issue with deviations made in lotr and especially the hobbit.

it's almost like...the most hated tolkien adaptation is ever the current one.

[rey-jake-therapist]

The “no sex scenes” policy is what’s hurting the show. I’m sorry but someone has to say it. Amazon wanted ROP to be the next GOT as a pop culture phenomenon but can’t and won’t get there. What made GOT attract non fantasy fans was the sex and the violence. It’s true. Fantasy is not that popular of a genre, overall.

Respectfully anon, I completely disagree with you. TROP should have turned mainstream because it was a LOTR prequels. The LOTR movies didn't have a single scene of sex and no gratuitous violence and yet, they're some of the most popular movies of all time.

I'm actually glad that the Tolkien estate was adamant that there should be no sex scene in TROP, because doing it like GoT would have been an insult to Tolkien's work, more than any change they would bring to the lore. There was no sex in LOTR or in any of Tolkien's work, no gratuitous violence either.

And regarding GOT's success : yeah maybe a huge part of its success was due to these elements being present but I'll tell you what : everybody I speak to, especially women, either refuse to watch GoT because of the gratuitous sex scenes and the general objectification of women that this show constantly promotes, and also because of the gratuitous violence that they deem unnecessary, either they watch the show despite this stuff (include me into that group), because the story itself is actually great, and because most of the characters are complex and brilliantly developed.

So yeah, you may be right that with sex scenes and gratuitous violence, TROP would attract all the morons who watch GoT only because they want to see boobs and ass and useless bloodshed, but they would also suffer even more criticism than they do now imho (because the show would be no more than a travesty of Tolkien's work), and many people who love this show would probably not even consider watching it. So what they'd gain on one side, they'd lose on another.

No, the real problem imho is that they aimed too big and put too much money into it since the start. And also the fact that the audience has to wait for more than two years between each season. It's too much !! How many new shows are out every month ? It's not the 90s anymore, the choice is so vast there's not even time to watch half of the shows that are currently produced. This is ridiculous at this point. In two years, the casual audience will have forgotten about TROP and won't be there the first day of streaming of season 3, like they had forgotten about it after season 1. That's what they need to think about it, and not about including gratuitous sex and violence scenes imho.

[sunnyshinesunshine]

Okay so I’ve finally solidified my opinion on The Rings of Power and given that it is my opinion it is therefore very important and I’m sure everyone is dying to hear it (this is sarcasm)

I’ll start by saying I’m not a critical person when it comes to things. I consume media to enjoy myself, not to pick apart its literary or thematic flaws. It’s fine if you do, but that’s just not me.

I will also say I’ve never read the Fall of Númenor as its own story, so any Tolkien primary sources I’m vaguely alluding to (this isn’t a research paper been there done that got the high school diploma I bake cookies for a living I ain’t citing shit thanks <3) are the Silmarillion, LoTR, and The Hobbit.

I didn’t like TROP for the first season, but after catching up on S2, I’ve come to enjoy it.

S1 is the full of world building, setting up the political stage and the relationships between the characters that lead to the creation of the rings and all the other bad hullabaloo that ends in the Last Alliance.

Safe to say, I spent the whole time going ‘what? why is he/she/them saying/believing/acting like this? why is it/this portrayed like this???’ and felt very irked by the whole thing.

S2, the rings are being created, familiar events start happening, the puzzle pieces from S1 that were so unfamiliar and bothersome to me then come together to create a picture that I knew.

Once I got to thinking I realized I actually know a whole lot less about the fall of numenor and the creation of the rings than I thought I did.

When Tolkien writes about those events, he gives the broad strokes in a very history-book way. Celebrimbor creates the rings because he is deceived by Sauron. Tar-Míriel is overthrown by Ar-Pharazôn and marries him against his will. Elrond is with Gil-Galad as his herald.

These are the things, amongst others, that we know. Unlike in the Hobbit or LoTR, we aren’t given any glimpses into the heads or relationships of the characters in anything other than what amounts to almost a timeline of events.

This, of course, leaves a lot of room for Tolkien fans to ask questions. Questions that can be answered through imagination. Imagination becomes ideas, ideas become discussions, discussions become a collective understanding of what happened (fanon*. I’m talking fanon. please read the note at the end because I think fanon is awesome and deserves to be defended)

For example. We know Celebrimbor and Narvi built the Doors of Durin together and added possibly the most ridiculous riddle password possible.

When the Doors are first introduced in LoTR, it is also in the middle of Gimli and Legolas’ semi feuding, and before both of them have some serious moments regarding their histories and cultures (Khazad-Dûm and Lothlórien respectively).

All of this to conclude that at some point between Gigolas’s inter-species feuding and the password to the damn doors being ‘mellon’, as Tolkien fans, we came to the conclusion that Celebrimbor and Narvi were close friends.

Celebrimbor and Narvi are not really much more than acquaintances in TROP. And that isn’t inaccurate. The source material doesn’t have an opinion on it really.

Fanon says Celebrimbor and Narvi were pals. TROP says they weren’t. Canon doesn’t care either way.

I mention this example to explain why TROP felt so wrong especially at the beginning. Essentially we, or at least I, had this idea of how things should be, and when TROP diverged from that I felt lost and annoyed.

Now, I find watching TROP to be honestly kind of fascinating, like watching someone else painting using a model and comparing it to the painting I had already created of that same model.

It’s kind of fun. And every Elrond deserves all of us cheering him on.

*about Fanon:

I love fanon it’s awesome and great and it’s fucking collective story telling in a way that hasn’t really existed in modern times. Thousands of people from all over the world create and agree and discuss and add on to stories. The marauders fandom is almost completely fanon and that’s wonderful. Every single one of you who share your ideas about characters or settings or clothes or even (especially) who create the elleths who exist in the Silmarillion but don’t at the same time, you are awesome.

You’ve created a story and world together. Without being paid. You’ve agreed and created simply for the love of creation. And that’s so amazing.

Fanon is awesome and I don’t care for anyone who calls it cringe.

[farosdaughter]

yeah as a reformed GOT veteran seeing a show receive a severe downgrade as an attempt to please as many fans as possible and ending up as a watered down version of what it could’ve been isn’t at all surprising, but the disappointment is real.

Some fan theories definitely seemed too interesting to be true, but I was still confident the finale would deliver at least some emotional resolution to season 1’s most discussed arc, and the fact that there was barely any of that seemed like a very intentional choice on their part. They decided to close the door on what was carefully and painstakingly developed throughout S1 by rushing to the finish line (Sauron and Galadriel as enemies) and the payoff is nonexistent.

I’m sorry but TROP season 2 as a whole was stale fast food fare compared to S1’s organic homemade feast and I’ll die on this hill lol

[fatcatlittlebox]

Why do I always see people saying that armored Galadriel is not faithful to Tolkien when in fact she is ?

In memories Galadriel is described as very tall, very strong in battle, extremely wise, of great beauty, etc.

Then who on the other side criticizes Galadriel for being a fucking Mary Sue in ROP... ?

The same girl who is stubborn, never thinks, who the characters yell at and who literally gave hope to SAURON ?! Has an inclination for power ! Like, if it's for her enormous, extraordinary abilities... she's a fucking elf ?!

Oh, and that Galadriel is good at fighting is no surprise if you look at Tolkien's writings...

If it was adapted to the letter of what Tolkien had written for Galadriel people would also cry mary sue ! From @motziedapul : "he described Galadriel as Amazonian, "man-maiden" and excellent in athleticism on top of generally being one of the most powerful Elves in Middle Earth and being the favorite of an angel [Maia] who she lived with for a while."

Also, the only one who seems to me to have understood that Sauron was a first-rate scammer when he was among the elves.

Galadriel was around 2 meters tall, much taller than the other Noldor women. (Which gave her the name Nerwen meaning young girl man by her mother. Her father had first named her Artanis which meant noble ladies. Galadriel was the name Celeborn gave her) She was vigorous in body as well as in spirit, capable of standing up to anyone in terms of knowledge as well as physical skills. She also always had the gift of clairvoyance, allowing her to read the hearts and minds of others. Her great beauty was recognized by all the Eldar and her hair was considered a wonder of this world. It would also be the gold and silver reflection of Galadriel's hair which would have inspired Feaonor for the creation of the Silmarils. For all these reasons, she was quickly considered the most illustrious of the Noldor. She had also quickly learned everything the Valar had been willing to teach her.

Don't make me believe that if we had an adaptation of the character of Galadriel including all of this, people wouldn't be also screaming at the mary sue ?! Dare to say it ! Because it’s just obvious they would have done it !

Which does not mean that Galadriel is a mary sue in the original story, since she has her defaults in the canon of Tolkien too, notably once again an inclination for power, which is expressed by the desire to have one's own kingdom and its temptation almost until the very end of Sauron's Ring, etc.

The antis Galadriel people are ridiculous. To say that she's a mary sue and that that makes her unbearable is stupid. They clearly don't know what a mary sue is for say she is one... Then there are those who complain that Galadriel has too many flaws, so please confirm that you just can't stand women who are perfect saints. I'm really fucking tired of the Galadriel critical.

They don't understand the character of Galadriel.

For them, the canon Galadriel is simply a sort of figure of purity like the Virgin Mary, but a powerful magician in addition.

And sorry, but Galadriel is not that. Oh at least she's not just that.

This. Honestly, I’ve seen all matter of hateful shit written and vlogged about TROP’s Gal and even worse about Miv. These assholes have called her too ugly, a bad actress, accused her of blaspheming their own (incorrect as you point out) ideas of Galadriel. And this misogyny goes back awhile. Let’s not forget that PJ’s FOTR had some leaks early on that Arwen would be a fighter and….the purist dudes lost their EVERLOVING MINDS. Bear in mind, this was just based on set pictures. So PJ scrapped that altogether and it was written out. And that was one of the earliest examples of writers and producers changing their course due to hateful fan feedback (*cough*Star Wars*). PJ had had a free pass ever since.

To your point, not only is Gal all of those things you listed but she’s also ALOT older than Legolas was in LOTR so yeah, she’s fucking good at fighting. And when Legolas parkoured down an oliphaunt’s trunk none of them said shit.

[the1northlanderprincess]

Adaptations

I've always been a bookworm, especially of fantasy, and romantasy as of late. As such, I always look forward to live-action adaptations of my favorite series. Now, I admit to being somewhat of a purist, and tend to be critical of some of these adaptations, like the majority of the later Harry Potter movies, and the travesty that was the Peacock version of Vampire Academy.

On terms of The Lord of the Rings, I've only read The Hobbit, Fellowship, and half of Two Towers. I was introduced to the world of Tolkien at 13 when I went to the first movie, which funnily enough, I may never have gone to. Short story, my younger brother received the trilogy for Christmas in a special movie version case featuring the Ringwraiths. It freaked me out. But, my dad convinced me to go, as all of my family (except my little brother) and extended family were going. My mom was going, even. It ended up being the best theater experience ever. Still is.

ANYWAY, getting back to the point, I only have knowledge of LOTR from watching the movies, a couple of books, and two of my brothers (who LOVE the lore) filling in the blanks. So, I don't know a lot about the First and Second age.

I watched TROP Season 1 a couple years ago, and while clunky at times, I enjoyed being able to relive Middle-earth for the first time since The Battle of the Five Armies. However, my brothers (and my dad), being purists, had no desire to watch it, especially after being burned by The Wheel of Time series.

With TROP season 2 potentially going toward a brief Haladriel route (back in season 1, I was more into the prospect of Elendriel, but alas...), I'm excited, but I find myself questioning if I'm a hypocrite for liking it and wondering why big Tolkien fans might be upset by the lore being stretched?