#and Aragorn is annoyed

[mithrandirl]

THE LORD OF THE RINGS || THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

[shloodles]

ID: two digital colored illustrations featuring legolas, gimli, and aragorn. 1) legolas and gimli riding a horse together, with gimli sitting behind legolas in the saddle. legolas is a pale, skinny elf with long pale blonde hair, a big pointed nose, and long pointed ears. he wears green layers and a grayish cloak that matches gimli's and aragorn's. he's holding the reins and looking ahead with a deeply flustered and slightly bewildered expression. gimli is a short stout dwarf with ruddy, long curly hair and beard. he's wearing a helmet, red sleeves, matching cloak and an axe on his back. he grips legolas' sides for stability and looks away in the opposite direction with an equally flustered expression. 2) two drawings of aragorn on his horse. he's a slim man with tanned skin, stubble, and dark brown jaw-length hair. he's wearing a matching cloak and silver vambraces. he's holding the reins and looking behind him with narrowed eyes and an expression of annoyance. the second drawing is him in the same position with the same expression but he's rolling his eyes. end ID

re-reading the two towers again and decided to dig up and color these old sketches

[merrysithmas]

when the hunt for gollum comes out and we get more aragorn & legolas content after 20 years what then huh what then

[edennill-archived]

Unpopular opinion, but I don't think Frodo is a messianic figure. He's the Everyman.

A saintly, virtuous one who tries his very best, but still an Everyman.

[anghraine]

It's always intriguing to see content(TM) about Aragorn that's functionally about how extremely Mannish he is (not as in masculine, but as in ultra-human), how he's the ultimate peak mortal Man (at least of his time) rather than Elvish or whatnot.

On the one hand, there's part of me that's always thinking about how Aragorn is a towering, preternaturally strong-willed and long-enduring, beardless (look, I'm me!) Númenórean king with healing powers who was brought up in the home of his half-elven remote uncle who chose immortality thousands of years earlier. Aragorn's Númenórean kingliness is distinct from any other mortal kingships and there are numerous points where his mystical Elvishness and Númenóreanness make him incalculable and remote to normal people. He is the most Elvish mortal man alive.

The easy response is "oh, they must be talking about movie Aragorn." And ... yeah, probably, in some part. But it's pretty noticeable that Aragorn is almost invariably depicted in ways that strongly identify him with Men and contrast him with Elves, not only in the films, and not only after the films.

This is not to deny the active choice to "humanize" Aragorn in the films nor to downplay their inexpressibly long shadow over popular conception of Tolkien, but I do think the emphasis on the humanness (and especially non-Elvishness) of Aragorn is a larger tendency that they participated (heavily) in rather than something simply manufactured by the films.

Aragorn is certainly fundamentally human, as all mortal Men are, but like ... his deal is being the supreme exemplar of the best of the Númenóreans (more than his comparatively recent ancestors were) and of the lingering Elvishness within his people and his house. He's not a representative of normative humanity at all IMO. Tolkien is at pains to continually remind us that Aragorn is special, the most special; other Númenórean men like Denethor and Faramir are elevated by association with Aragorn in addition to their own qualities (but can never be quite as elevated, of course). He's not the best human man of his time in Tolkien's treatment because he's the most archetypally Mannish. He is manifestly extraordinary and unusual.

On the other hand, he is also the most prominent and idealized human character in the book. Maybe that's part of the drive towards identifying him with a more normal humanness. But I don't know, really.

[fangirl-erdariel]

One thing that's jumped at me on my most recent reread (well, i'm listenibg to an audiobook, but either way) of LOTR, is that Aragorn has this... honestly quite specific way he responds to feeling like he has made a mistake (whether or not the audience or even the narrative would blame him for that, which is neither here nor there for my current point), that I feel like a lot of the fandom (myself included) and a lot of fanfics don't really get, and that doesn't really carry over to the movie adaptation either

Like, on one hand, verbally he's going to beat himself up about it, he's going to go "oh i have messed this up!" very much out loud

But then at the same time, he doesn't really let that halt him, like, he's still gonna get back to going and act to salvage the situation as best he can very quickly, possibly even while he is still beating himself up about it

And like we do see him do this a bunch. Most noticeably of course over the stretch from Rauros to Fangorn, Breaking of the Fellowship and Boromir's death to meeting Gandalf the White, but before that too

At Weathertop, we get him going argh i've been too careless and impatient. But there's no way to turn back time, the enemy has now spotted them and some of the signs there might have been about recent goings-on were messed up before he could investigate them, so all that can be done is prepare and stand their ground as best they can, and deal with the consequences when they come

After the Fellowship escapes Moria, as they're making toward Lothlórien, you get the, oh shit i forgot you were injured i'm really sorry about that i was concentrating on getting distance between us and the orcs you should've said something (tbh out of everything, this instance is in my opinion the least amount his fault). But all that can be done is carry Frodo and Sam until they reach a place where they can stop for a bit, and then tend to their injuries, which is what he does without further delay

Those are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head (there's maybe a couple others but those are too vague and dependent on reader's interpretation of tone to feel worth including), but I feel like it is enough to start making a pattern

Interestingly, he doesn't do it when the attempt to cross Caradhras (which in the book was because of Aragorn's insistence to avoid Moria if at all possible; in the movie it's played a bit differently) ends in them all nearly freezing to death. Whether it's because at first he's busy not freezing to death and getting back down from the mountain and not being killed by wargs, and then he's busy acting like he's not fucking terrified of going into Moria because of some past traumatic experience we never get any more information on, or because however much he hates the idea, the back-up plan of going through Moria is already in place, or because he trusts Gandalf to be able to keep things in control, or what, i'm not sure, but it's the one major exception i can think of.

And it's not really uncertainty or indecisiveness or self-doubt, even though I can see how it would easily read that way, especially if the only example that's ever caught your eye is the bit after Rauros (like, at that point, he does genuinely doubt himself a bit, and it does mix together with his beating himself up over his mistakes, but the source of the self-doubt still is not in his general way of reacting to his mistakes, but rather because he's been forced two choose between two roads that both felt to him like his duty, and he's still not certain he chose the right one).

Really, it seems like it's just... well, just his way of reacting. Maybe it's venting his frustrations, maybe it's reminding himself how careful he must be, how little he can afford mistakes, that he can't allow himself to make this mistake in the future. Maybe just generally being harsh on himself. But whatever it is, it's not, I think, doubt or uncertainty, it's a separate thing.

Anyway yeah idk what my conclusion here actually is but. Just an observation I've made recently aboyt the ways Aragorn tends to act

[mountkennedie]

whenever Eowyn is reduced to a love intrest or even worse, "Aragorn obsessed" I feel the need to tear off my skin and then theirs

[withinycu]

Aragorn definetly brought some annoying younger sibling energy to Elladan and Elrohir especially.

[lesbiansforboromir]

oh OH hO spicey ohhh having a spicey little tantrum about the boromir tag don't listen to me at all do NOT listen I mean it I mean it this is so petty

[three-smiles-and-a-unicorn]

Yes I did it.

[tragedykery]

it’s sooo fucked up that boromir’s last words were “I’ve failed.” literally sooososo fucked up

[justpostsyeet]

Why you all are sleeping on Celebrimbor!?

Even when TROP has dilf-ied him 🤨!?

[homoerotisch]

aragorn's introduction in a knife in the dark... so sexey

[demimonde-semigoddess]

Elanor Fairbairn, from Lord of the Rings

Welcome!

Are you tired of your fav characters losing polls seemingly due to their obscurity? Well we here aim to fix that.

And the way we do that is simple, for each poll, if you know one character but not the other, vote for the character you DON'T know. If you both or neither character then vote for whoever you like more.

Submissions for character will close March 18th. (This used to be WAY LONGER but then this post got big) And the bracket itself will start as soon as I can after that.

To submit a character simply do the following:

Think of a character that you like, but think is obscure

Reblog this post with the characters name, and what franchise they are from

Now one thing to note: if I see a lot of the same character being submitted that will lessen their chances of getting in, so if you see this post being reblogged because it had a character or series tag that you follow, consider submitting a different character.

[feanors-mom]

As a follow-up to my prior post, I present:

Top 10 Characters in the Tolkien Legendarium who are so psychologically healthy my broken ass finds them difficult to relate to but nonetheless is inspired by.

10) Gandalf: if it weren’t for the pipe-weed dependency he’d rank higher. But he’s late for Council meetings and annoys Galadriel, who has better things to do. Yeah I know he’s on the other list too, but I am large, I contain multitudes.

9) Celeborn: not a jealous bone in his body, content to be a background wifeguy who somehow wasn’t even a little bit annoying. Utterly unrelatable

8) Nerdanel: Literally the only reason Fëanor didn’t go off the rails sooner. If those 7 little shits were still minors you can BET she would’ve been granted full custody.

7) Sam: only crime was loving too much (see: Frodo, potatoes)

6) Legolas: a literal prince content to risk his life for a cause bigger than himself. Also a silly boy.

5) Fingon: did what even Maedhros’ nuclear family couldn’t (or wouldn’t), now he soaks in Bubble Bath and sips miruvor in the Undying Lands

4) Glorfindel: could have rested on his Balrog Blaster laurels but willingly went back to a shitstorm. Sort of regretted it as soon as he landed but shrugged and just did what needed to be done.

3) Miriel: the human one (the elf one is as broken as they come, but damn I love her for it) . She tried her best but just couldn’t win against Tar-Patriarchy.

2) Aragorn: head on straight. But yeah, completely unrelatable

1) Finrod: so good Mandos just fist-bumped him back into a body

[thesummerestsolstice]

There is a fierce debate about whether Elrond is technically an "elf" or an "elf-friend."

Galadriel thinks Elrond should be an elf because sure flowers bloom where he steps and sometimes he has feathers and too many eyes but really who doesn't sometimes? (Note: Galadriel uses her own experiences to decide what's normal for an elf. She has no idea what a normal elf is like.)

Aragorn thinks Elrond should be an elf-friend because Aragorn is schooled in the history of the Dunedain and Numenor and recognizes Elrond as one of the first Numenorians– more akin to a man than an elf.

Glorfindel thinks Elrond should be an elf because he is not going to sit there and let anyone tell him that his lord, the great-grandchild of noble King Turgon, is not an elf. It's just not right.

Bilbo thinks Elrond should be an elf-friend. This is because he insists that Elrond is just like him, and since Bilbo is an elf-friend, Elrond should be too. What does that mean? Well, Bilbo pretends that he thinks halflings and half-elves are the same thing. They both have 'half' in the name, after all. He knows full-well that's not true but everyone else keeps trying to explain things to him or thinking that he's started to go senile in his old age and that's funny enough to keep the charade going

Gandalf takes whatever side will annoy the person he's talking to the most.

Elrond leans towards elf-friend, for reasons similar to Aragorn, but mostly he just wants everyone to stop arguing with each other.