#but Elrond is not going to do that

[itsmetheabnormalone]

Leave it to the Tolkien adaptation to show a battle of the ages with literally no winning party.

the elves died and lost Eregion

the dwarves lost their king to the ring, with Durin losing (hopefully just) his friendship with Elrond (and not also his wife)

Adar has the ring for now, but he's losing his children - who are literally the one thing he's fighting for - either to death or to broken trust

even fucking Sauron isn't really going out of this (episode) as a satisfied winner, bc he still doesn't have the rings

[pixlatedvampire]

💗

insert "these boots are made for walking" joke

[runawaymun]

Trick or treat! 💙

treat! have a 'please for the love of god can I break out of art block' elrond doodle where I was testing new techniques and brushes <3

[thesummerestsolstice]

What the elves of Lindon think:

Galadriel: Ah, Elrond, you are still young. Allow me, with my endless wisdom and patience, you guide you towards the best course of action.

Elrond: Of course, Lady Galadriel, I yield to your experience.

What actually happens:

Elrond: Galadriel please for the love of Eru stop being so reckless, just because you're borderline unkillable doesn't mean everyone else is.

Galadriel: no <3

[sesamenom]

Various inhabitants of rivendell

(inspired by @thesummerestsolstice here and here)

[braxix]

Elrond: My biggest strength is how quickly I can make a hostile work environment. My biggest weakness is that I love too deeply.

[sakasakiii]

the idea of the peredhel twins having heightened senses due to their maia blood is one of the concepts ive seen floating around that i really like, so here's my take on it combined with the feanorians (+ fingon) lingering about as houseless spirits that i explored some time ago in an old inktober post 😌

houseless spirits see all, but they can't interact with the world around them so i suppose that makes for quite a static existence...but compared to an oathbound eternity in Mandos (sans Fingon??), i like to imagine they'll stay a little longer to watch over those left behind, just to make sure they're doing alright 👍🏻

some more lighthearted bonuses cuz why not:

[sandwichmustbetasty]

I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE THEY PULLED SECRET KHUZDUL NAMES

I-

thank you bagginshield fanfiction, without you i would never know about the secret names before watching rop.

i am forever grateful to all the authors.

[cyanorhis]

Sauron's action of forcefully binding Galadriel to him by stabbing her with the crown has opened a huge can of worms in my head. The episode ends saying some things are lost forever and it got me thinking about how insane it is that he was willing to give up a part of her light in a sense just so he can Keep her, because he is Greedy, because he might lose her otherwise (well, he probably thought he was cooking by taking the "touch the darkness" to another level but that is beyond the point right now).

He marks her because he is desperate. He would rather risk have her completely corrupted than not have her at all, despite her absolute light being one of the factors that drew him in from the beginning.

Also worthy of mention how he literally lost his mind with Celebrimbor. He was pretty intent on going full "I will keep you alive through torture" but as soon as Celebrimbor pulled at his strings (masterfully must I say), Sauron lost his shit. He cried. He was terribly impulsive at that moment and I personally think it shaped their interaction afterwards. Not to add how he simply appeared and killed Adar with theatrics instead of... I don't know? Emotionally manipulating them further? Playing with Galadriel? In any case, it makes sense that he got a perfect payback but then again, he literally came out of nowhere and ruined her date (exchanging armies is kind of Galadriel's love language at this point).

All of this to say... Somewhere in the Future, it is not impossible for me to imagine that Celeborn returns, Galadriel and he have some emotional moment or whatever thinking "Oh let us have a nice life for a little while. Let us forget about your ongoing divorce with the Dark Lord to indulge in married couple affairs" and Sauron is out there watching through his live service wound-webcam feeling repulsed. He says (again) "Touch the darkness once more" so he makes an apparition Rosemary's baby style but worse because he'll be there to weaken her resolve and make her admit she's longing for him instead just for a little moment and then boom! Celebrian. 100 years of delicious denial/hurt/comfort/longing/hating/etc. After the season 2 finale, I wouldn't put it above him tbh. I saw someone say the last ep was for the dead dove enjoyers and I couldn't agree more...

[highfantasy-soul]

My view on the Elrond/Galadriel kiss:

Cultures be different.

Kisses on the lips are not always sexual/romantic. (I, as an American, have kissed certain friends on the lips in completely platonic ways)

In many cultures, closed-mouthed kisses on the lips are a sign of love and emotional connection in a platonic/familial way.

Specifically American aversion to affection in any form is rotting people's brains - here, a lot of men won't even HUG each other because they think it's 'too intimate'. Other cultures kiss on the hand, cheek, forehead, nose, and yes, lips too, in completely platonic ways. [And we're not even going to get into the large portion of the population who thinks that men and women literally CANNOT be just friends, if a man and woman are close, it HAS to be romantic/sexual.]

Just because YOUR culture/personal preference reserves lip kisses for romantic/sexual feelings only doesn't mean everyone else is wrong for feeling differently.

I didn't read the kiss as Elrond secretly having romantic feelings for Galadriel at all - to me it was clear it was a platonic show of how much he cared for her and how sorry he was that they had been at odds all season (and largely in S1 too) and was afraid it was really going to be the last time he saw her. He wanted to show her just how much she meant to him - PLATONICALLY - and a tender kiss (while also using it as a distraction to slip her a lock-pick) was the way he did it.

Obviously it's ok for people to interpret it as romantic if they ship Galadriel and Elrond, but to say that's the ONLY interpretation based on your own limited cultural understanding of what a kiss could mean is just frustrating.

[highly-flammable]

If they make Tolkien nerd Rob Aramayo play Elrond and then make him kiss his future mother-in-law Galadriel, that will be a straight up crime against that poor man.

[queerofthedagger]

One thing I think about a lot is that when Nargothrond falls, it is heavily implied that as good as everyone perished or, if not, got captured. Like, unlike with the Fall of Doriath, there is no mention at all of any refugees removing to the Mouth of Sirion - and yet, I assume that is very likely where Celebrimbor, at least, went? I definitely think he would have fought, but clearly he survived and neither Doriath nor Gondolin really were an option for him, and I doubt even more that he would have gone back to his family.

And there are a lot of implications to all that, but maybe the one that keeps me up most is that this means he would have likely been there when the refugees of Doriath arrived, when they told of what his family did. That his father is dead. What would he have been thinking? What would the survivors of Doriath been thinking? Like, I know there were technically several different camps to some extent, but I doubt they would have been wholly separate, especially upon arrival. What kind of horror to find someone who looks just like one of those guys who just slaughtered your friends and family. What kind of horror to look like someone who just committed such horrors.

He also would have been there when the third kinslaying occurred, or at least very close to it. What an experience, to end up on the other side of it. To see exactly what might have become of him had he not foresworn his father years ago, and also to see yet again what became of his family. Like yeah, everything before/during the Nargothrond Disaster would have already been formative for him and his future choices, but I do feel even being in the vicinity of all of that would have been such a dire reinforcement of all those convictions and reasons that made him disavow them in the first place. And especially in terms of the third kinslaying, it's also why I personally really doubt that there is a chance at any kind of reconciliation with any of the brothers, whether it's his father or I don't know, Maedhros or Maglor. Like, I just don't think there is any coming back fromt hat, really, if there ever was.

[briony-tallis]

hey i know that no one seems to want to address this and we’ve got way bigger fish to fry right now but what the fuck is going on with these two

[tathrin]

Gonna rant a bit, feel free to skip. I just have to say this to someone, even if it's just the empty void of the internet lol.

So, Rings of Power Season Two. I'm quite enjoying their Annatar, and the way they've wrought his influences on Eregion's people (even if it is all very truncated and consequently without any real subtlety haha), and the Celebrimbor-pulls-a-Maedhros moment was utterly fantastic. 10/10 screaming on the couch, no notes.

But ughhh I wish Celebrimbor looked like Celebrimbor.

By which I mean, I wish he looked at least a little bit like Fëanor.

Instead he looks more like Bilbo than anything else. I look at this dude and I don't see somebody who seems like they're on the brink of getting caught-up in a massive forging project or about to start spouting some epic song he learned in the First Age; I see someone who looks like he wants to pour me a cup of tea and settle down by the fireside to tell me a pleasant little story.

Which is a lovely vibe, but not very Celebrimbor-ish imo.

(Actually the lack of elves-being-elf-like overall is one of my biggest irritants with this show. And yes I will forever be irritated over the stupid hair, but right now I'm talking mainly body language. Some of them are doing it—Galadriel, Arondir, Gil-galad, etc—but for the most part, the elves just move and act like people. Normal, everyday, ordinary human people. Having Sauron around being Annatar instead of doing his Halbrand thing highlights this even more in the second season, because he's acting so delightfully not-human with the way he moves and stands and emotes that their basic total-human-ness is all the more glaring in contrast.)

Where is your vaguely-ethereal grace, your strangely light posture, your ancient-being aura? When you stand still do it like you've got a presence! When you walk give me some spring, or some glide, or something! Put your shoulders back, raise your toes, hold your arms with some deliberation! Do something. Orlando Bloom didn't put all that work into [cat] body-language to have y'all turn around and just move like normal folks.

But I digress.

Back to Celebrimbor! This guy is supposed to evoke the memory of Fëanor, an elf driven by so much fire and passion that he spat in Morgoth's face and nearly set the whole world to ruins in his wrath. And instead they designed his look and attitude to be "friendly non-threatening uncle" I guess? What were they thinking?

I know we don't know much about Celebrimbor as a person, and lots of different interpretations are valid; but come on. They could have given us SOME sort of fire to him, surely!

Where is the Celebrimbor who is always chaffing for more, to prove himself worthy of his lineage? Where is the Celebrimbor who has spent centuries swallowing shame over the blood on his family's hands? Where is the Celebrimbor who refuses to be ashamed, and instead flaunts the Star of his House proudly right there on Durin's Door? Where is the Celebrimbor so passionate about his craft that he'll walk through the distrust of Doriath to befriend dwarves again? Where is the Celebrimbor who is afraid of his own power and passion, having seen where those things led his forebears? Where is the Celebrimbor determined to prove himself equal to Fëanor and Curufin; or even their better? Where is the Celebrimbor who wants, so badly, to make the world better that he ends up falling headfirst into Annatar's schemes like a silmaril scorching the hand of a kinslayer?

Where is the Celebrimbor who burns so brightly that he'll go to his death with his last secret unspilled?

I think the actor is a good actor, don't get me wrong. And I think he's doing a very good job of playing the character he's been given. (I think Charles Edwards would do a good job playing an elf, too, if this show had bothered to have all their elves be elves, and not just the few whose actors I guess decided to play it that way on their own or something???) I just wish the character they'd given him had been a little bit more Celebrimbor, scion of the House of Fëanor. Both in looks and in attitude.

Seriously why was Benjamin Walker the only male elf in the whole damn first season they managed to put some damn elf-hair on? Why does Celebrimbor have Hobbit curls? I was genuinely so confused when he walked on screen because he looks like a Hobbit! That is Hobbit-styling going on there, you have established that as Hobbit styling, what are you doing costumers???

When I look at Annatar, or Galadriel, or Arondir, etc, I feel like I'm looking at the character. I buy it! I'm on board! I'm invested. When I look at Celebrimbor, I just feel like I'm looking at an actor.

A good one, mind you! His emotional journey has been magnificent. But I still feel like I'm watching an actor perform a role, rather than seeing the actor as the character.

And I really wish it was otherwise.

Because this has been such a delightful surprise of a season, the Eregion bits especially. (Which is not to discount the dwarves, who are my other favorite storyline, but not really on-topic for discussions of elves and elvish-smiths haha.) But whenever I see guy-playing-Celebrimbor, the illusion breaks.

And that's a fucking bummer.

[braxix]

Thranduil: Elrond, can you watch Legolas for a few hours? I need to do something without him following me around like a duckling.

Elrond: Sure, but you'll regret it.

Thranduil: Elrond, I hardly think you would let him get hurt.

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Trying to transliterate Leara's name into Quenya, and it somehow becomes, uh,

Lëarra

Which basically means "You Sealion!"

And I'm just, "Oh yes, this is That Sealion Woman, and she can breathe fire, as all sealions do."

If Leara, for any reason at all, needed an actual Quenya or Sindarin name for any fun Elvish shenanigans, we'll just use Calairie/Calearil, which is "Light of the Sea" in Quenya and Sindarin, and what Leara actually means.