#denethor tomato

[gandalf-the-fool]

[so-very-small]

you wake up to find tiny me furiously clicking your mouse and yelling at your computer, fully invested in my task. coming up to look at the screen, you see that I’m photoshopping Elrond into a Wal-mart, with increasing levels of anger

[pumpomulos]

[to-fall-or-not-to-fall]

ok so i was thinking about stuff

and imo denethor latches onto how much better boromir is mostly after he dies

like yes the palantir has def been influencing him and he's been slipping into general hopelessness but we see that even in merry and pippin

and i make no claims regarding his parenting while he still has two living sons

but it really seems like some of his behavior towards faramir is centered around how boromir SACRIFICED HIMSELF, faramir, do you see how much better your brother is than you? now go measure up by doing that and see if you're worth something after all

and thats that he literally sends faramir off on a suicide mission to prove he's just as good

to clarify i am NOT making excuses for denethor here im just mentioning smth i noticed about how much of his character esp in the movie revolves around boromir's death rather than really boromir himself

he's forgotten that even his elder son was only human

raised him on a pedestal in his mind that no one, least of all faramir who dared to live when boromir died, can ever measure up too

essentially sainthood

in life a human, in death seen as a god

or something close

[heckate-hexx]

Haha! I will never get tired of the tomato thing!

[definegodliness]

As the abundance of ingredients

Slowly depleted

The sizes of the spring rolls became

Arguably human

[iftadwascool]

[letsallgotothelobby]

Denethor's hot date

[bookdragonquotes]

[thranduilofsmirkwood]

ƊƖƇƘӇЄƛƊ ƊЄƝЄƬӇƠƦ

ƤƠƠƦ ƑƛƦƛMƖƦ

ԼƠƦƊ ƠƑƬӇЄ ƦƖƝƓƧ MЄMЄƧ

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

🝊❧❊❧❉❧❊❧🝊

[moonchild-in-blue]

Live Darya reaction seeing those Vessel pics:

[obsessive-clusterfuck]

Really traumatised by denethor eating rn. Can’t keep that disgusting image out of my mind. That tomato squirt. Crying.

[trailerparktombombadil]

Tomato Turmoil

I've been growing 'maters all 5 years I've been living here. I'm very... bad at growing tomatoes. I want to be better, it's just... *ambivalent whiny noise*

More tomatoes drop and rot than get harvested and eaten/processed. Setting aside all the self loathing, this means there are tons of tomato seeds in the ground.

THESE are the NOT on-purpose tomatoes.

Unfortunately two of my on-purpose specimens aren't doing great. So I think two of these little unplanned tomato pregnancies will transplanted and allowed to grow, while the rest will be aborted in a mass baby-tomato-plant slaughtering.

This is not a weird way to talk about this, right? 👁️👄👁️ 🍅

[rarepairnation]

i've gotten so mad about the tomato scene to such an irrational level that i've actually come all the way around the other side and decided that in a vacuum removed completely from the rest of the film denethor portrayal, that i can make it good. now i know i sound crazy but i promise i haven't been replaced with a pod person just hear me out for a moment. i just think that it COULD be the image of a father who cannot bear to think about the fact that he has lost one son already and must now send the other back out onto the field because there is no other captain who could even halfway hold the line. it isn't, but it could be. i think what i really mean is that i think adding a scene in that specific location in the narrative, structured around some of the same motifs, could add a lot to the denethor despair arc (that doesn't even exist in the film, but that is neither here nor there).

think of it as a precursor to "i have sent my son out unthanked unblessed onto the field of battle and now here he lies with poison in his veins." like it acts kind of as a midpoint between point A, them parting with harsh words/"then faramir's restraint gave way"/faramir forcing denethor into ordering him to his very possible doom and denethor not having any other choice but to do it, and point C, when faramir returns wounded/dying and he completely crumbles. where he is perhaps regretting the harshness of his words, regretting the things he has done, but in this moment he cannot allow himself to feel any of that regret at all because he has done what he needed to and that was the only choice he possible could have made, as the steward, and he has ever been only the steward with his sons. he sits here with his bread and cheese (and, fine, tomatoes) and eats because it is what he is meant to do. he is the lord of gondor; he is the one person who is indispensable to gondor (and his son(s), no matter how harsh it is, are not) and it is his duty to go on while they fight and so what else can he do but. have the afternoon meal.

and pippin is here, too, and he asks him for a song. please make it so that i do not need to think about the thing i have just done. and pippin sings edge of night, because pippin loves denethor, too, and he wants him to realize that faramir also loves him, and would not do this if he didn't love him, at least as gondor, if not as his father. he doesn't let him not think about it, but perhaps it is a plea for him to recognize the sacrifice faramir is making, and to reconcile with him, if he still can. and it could also be an honouring of his despair. that he wishes things could be different, but if they are not, at least pippin will sing of it, so that it can be remembered. he understood poor denethor a bit better or something.

and as he sings it's interspersed with scenes, rather than faramir riding towards certain doom and sacrifice, of him fighting, and winning, until he no longer can. home is behind, the world ahead - him at the rearguard of the retreating company, minas tirith so far away, fighting like hell to see at least some of his men all the way home. and there are many paths to tread - denethor, eating, but we can tell the food is the very last thing on his mind, we can tell all his mind is bent towards the retreat, that if he could carry faramir through this himself he could. through shadow, to the edge of night, until the stars are all alight - faramir turning his horse to ride back towards the nazgul even as we see the rest of the company scatter, until he faces at last a foe he cannot surmount. mist and shadow, cloud and shade - and we see that maybe denethor knows somewhere in himself what his son faces; it is the fortitude of his mind, after all, and his mastery of his horse, and the blood of numenor, that let him even think of challenging the nazgul. all shall fade - and the black breath takes him at last. all shall fade.

i think i want it to be able to be read as a condemnation of leading from the rear/sacrificing your own son for a battle you would not fight/even of just being unwilling to confront the reality of the consequences of your decisions. the very real consequences of valuing duty over love. to act as a setup for when he himself has that realization, and the way in which it breaks him. without being a complete villainization of the choices he made. this all is under the assumption of literally everything else going along with book canon denethor and faramir and inserting this into all of that. What If It Were In Character.

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

Good night!