#isildur-elessar

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

QUALIFYING ROUND: 74th Tilt

Isildur, Son of Elendil, The Rings of Power (2022-) VS. Aragorn Elessar, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

Propaganda

Isildur, Son of Elendil, The Rings of Power (2022-) Portrayed by: Maxim Baldry

No Text Propaganda Submitted

Aragorn Elessar, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) Portrayed by: Viggo Mortensen

“I don't even know where to start with Aragorn because everything about him just makes him so ridiculously hot. He's brooding and mysterious, but he has a great smile, he's an incredible fighter but also recites Elvish like the most beautiful love poetry, he looks great all grimy but also very fine when he's all cleaned up, his voice is sexy when he's whispering gently to those he loves and when he's barking out an impassioned speech on the battle field. He's brave, loyal, humble, selfless, intelligent, compassionate. And then just look at his face and his hair and his hands. All so hot.”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Isildur:

For Aragorn:

“Does this guy really need propaganda? Is it not enough that he led an entire generation into having unrealistic hopes in their choice of partners? Does he not just drip hotness out of every pore of his being? Well. Let’s sum it up: - mysterious ranger with cool hood - loves his wife - wears cool jewelry - sharp humor - hair - cool sword - opens doors like no one - can and will sing - horse girl at heart - king - do I need to continue?”

“He looks great scruffy, he looks great cleaned up. He's kind and smart and caring and also really good at fighting. He's everything.”

[idontcarecarebear]

‘He will never love me, I fear; for he bit me, and I was not gentle’

Aragorn saying this about Gollum reminds me of every cat owner including myself.

[velvet4510]

Everyone please never forget that his Second Age defeat by itself is not the only reason why Sauron hated Isildur and his descendants including Aragorn - he hated them even more so because they were the descendants of Lúthien, the very first being in all of Arda to defeat him, which she did so completely that he literally hid away for the rest of the First Age. In the Palantír, Sauron looked into Aragorn’s face, and in him he didn’t just see the eyes of Isildur who defeated him so long ago. He saw even further back. He saw in Aragorn’s face the eyes of Lúthien. And he hated Aragorn for it because he was terrified. Though she had long passed beyond the circles of the world, through her descendants, Lúthien continued to come back to haunt him and destroy him.

If anyone ever dares to even consider the notion that Lúthien was somehow not a badass in each and every single possible capacity, make sure they remember this. Lúthien was such a badass in each and every single possible capacity that Sauron - the literal Lord of the Rings - never stopped being afraid of her, long after she was gone.

[autistook]

On this day in Middle-Earth, March 1st

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Heir of Isildur, is born.

[glorfindelridesagain]

Legolas talking of the Paths of the Dead: They say many years ago Isildur cursed these mountains.

[A long time ago]

Isildur: Fuck these mountains!

[theworldsoftolkein]

[yeet-me-out-tonight]

so there's this 87 year old strider...

[infjpaladin]

[aramblingjay]

I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnedan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. (insp)

[mirkwood]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARAGORN SON OF ARATHORN, ELESSAR, THE ELFSTONE, DÚNADAN, HEIR OF ISILDUR, WIELDER OF ANDURIL AND KING OF GONDOR

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

FIRST ROUND: 37th Tilt

Ahmad, Marco Polo (2014-2016) VS. Aragorn Elessar, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

Propaganda

Ahmad, Marco Polo (2014-2016) Portrayed by: Mahesh Jadu Defeated Opponents: - Glenstorm [Cornell John], The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

“1) Nails, hair, hips, heels, treason, fat, beard real, purse full, big bills, BITCH! He’s a BIG deal!! 2) Get yourself a man who is an evil vizier AND gets pegged. 3) Ahmad your hair is too luscious. Your plots to overthrow the khan are too farfetched. Ahmad the murder mural in your office is too detailed. Ahmad they’ll kill you!”

Aragorn Elessar, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) Portrayed by: Viggo Mortensen Defeated Opponents: - Isildur, Son of Elendil [Maxim Baldry], The Rings of Power (2022-)

“I don't even know where to start with Aragorn because everything about him just makes him so ridiculously hot. He's brooding and mysterious, but he has a great smile, he's an incredible fighter but also recites Elvish like the most beautiful love poetry, he looks great all grimy but also very fine when he's all cleaned up, his voice is sexy when he's whispering gently to those he loves and when he's barking out an impassioned speech on the battle field. He's brave, loyal, humble, selfless, intelligent, compassionate. And then just look at his face and his hair and his hands. All so hot.”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Ahmad:

For Aragorn:

“Does this guy really need propaganda? Is it not enough that he led an entire generation into having unrealistic hopes in their choice of partners? Does he not just drip hotness out of every pore of his being? Well. Let’s sum it up: - mysterious ranger with cool hood - loves his wife - wears cool jewelry - sharp humor - hair - cool sword - opens doors like no one - can and will sing - horse girl at heart - king - do I need to continue?”

“He looks great scruffy, he looks great cleaned up. He's kind and smart and caring and also really good at fighting. He's everything.”

[three-smiles-and-a-unicorn]

Happy birthday to Aragorn II Ellessar Edhelarn Estel Thorongil Envinyatar Dunadhan Telcontar, Son of Arathorn, Chieftain and High King of the Dunedain, Isildurs Heir, King of the West and the reunited Kingdoms Gondor and Arnor, Lord of the West, Captain of the forces of the West, bearer of the star of the north, wielder of the sword reforged, victorious in battle, whose hands bring healing, the elfstone, Elessar of the line of Valandil, Strider, Wingfoot, Longshanks! I didn’t even notice until I scrolled Tumblr today, I’m such a disappointment :/

[searchingforserendipity25]

Plentiful as Sand is Plentiful. LoTR. on ao3.

There was for many years an hourglass upon Elrond’s desk, a tall ivory-and-glass thing from sunken Númenor. 

As a little child Estel liked to turn it and turn it, and would sit for hours upon his foster father’s lap following the mother-of-pearl etchings on the handle with his fingertips and watching the sand shift softly. 

For a time it was too heavy for his small wrists to turn; but Elrond with his keen hearing would know when the last grains came with an end, and knew when to turn it without lifting his eyes from his papers.

 Elrond had given it for him to hold, when he told him the truth of his name: Aragon, son of Arathorn, heir to Isildur’s line and Isildur’s grim failure. 

“Yet also to the courage of his people, and their skill,” Elrond told him. “Your forefather it was who made this time piece as a gift to me. From the glass-rooms of Armenelos it came, the last of Isildur’s works of beauty. It has been of good use to me, and good memory; I give it to you, that you should remember him with gratitude, as well as bitterness.”

“Yet bitter is it what you say to me,” said Estel, who was Aragorn. He was startled still, and yet not surprised entirely; for the blood of kings ran in him, and had at times left an uneasy premonition upon him. 

Still he would have remained been Estel, and no lost kingdom’s wayward heir; least of all in this century, this Age of the world, with an evil reckoning brewing in the distance. 

He turned the hourglass in his hands; a Mannish means of counting time, not to be found in other elvish kingdoms, but common enough in the house of Elrond Peredhel. “Keep it, Master Elrond. I cannot have it as my own, ere I am Isildur’s heir truly. These hurrying moments that are my lifetime shall be a heavy load to carry, I judge, and my course too rough for such a delicate thing.”

“Then keep it I shall, until you wish to reclaim it, or your score of years are run to their course,” said Elrond; and laid upon Estel’s shoulder the heavy comfort of his healer’s hands, which he felt for a time like a yoke as well as a kindness. 

It rested between a tall orchid Celebrían had found once in her expeditions in the wilds of Ennor, a narrow and tall and very orange creature, the last of its kind on these shore - and on the other side was his pile of used quills, which he tended to keep until they were worn through into stumps, too blunt to be sharpened.

He used it little, after that day; but at times Arwen his daughter came, and stood by the chair where Aragorn had sat with bent shoulders to her his name. 

Her fingers, long broideress fingers, touched the waves and leviathans Isildur had carved, with careful deliberation, in the last days of his youth, the dying of his empire. Her eyes grew clouded, then; not with the memory of the past, but her own designs, a future seen with the force of her want. Her own lord of man, his dear face not like any other’s; her own cities crowded with the smell of stone dust and salt.

She left it there, warmed by her skin, and went away from it but for rare and secret visits; but Elrond at times looked heavily upon it, as once he had not. 

That was another Age of the world. There is now an hourglass amidst Tar-Elessar’s instruments - behind the inkwell of Gondorin silver, besides the whittling of an eagle in flight his eldest daughter has wrought him. 

Many gifts have been to him, the king well-returned; but none quite as ancient. Elessar turns it in his hands, when a heavy ruling keeps him at work long into the night; Isildur’s hourglass, grown light with the strength of his manhood, feels always a little terrible to hold.

[aspenrockymountainhigh]

⚜Aragorn⚜

He was Aragorn son of Arathorn, the nine and thirtieth heir in the right line from Isildur, and yet more like Elendil than any before him.THE SILMARILLION, OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE

Estel, Thorongil, Elessar (Edhelharn), Telcontar, Envinyatar, Strider, the Dúnadan, Wingfoot

Chieftain of the Dúnedain, Heir of Isildur,

High King of the Dúnedain, King of Arnor, King of Gondor,

Captain of the Host of the West, Bearer of the Star of the North,

Wielder of the Sword Reforged, Victorious in Battle, Whose Hands Bring Healing, Elessar of the Line of Valandil

[tanoraqui]

I COMPLETELY FORGOT A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF CROWNLESS (the Young Aragorn show that lives in my, and apparently many of your, hearts): Each season opens with the framing device of middle-aged Sam Gamgee sitting by the fire in Bag End, telling his kids stories about the King. If you don’t have a (historical inaccuracy-excusing) narrative frame in a Middle Earth story, wtf are you even doing?

Also, the theme song in my mind is "All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter" by Clamavi de Profundis, but I'm open to some other group doing their own arrangement of the poem.

so, key elements of season 3 (s1 and 2 here):

A couple times in s2, including notably in the season finale?, Rohirrim were involved…so at the very end of that season, King Thengel invited Aragorn to come serve in his court/armed forces. That’s right, it’s time for UNMITIGATED HORSE GIRL!ARAGORN HOURS!

(confession: I could be persuaded to combine s2 and s3, with some elements of s3 going into s4)

(and clarification: Aragorn isn't deliberately using a false name, but he's also not presenting himself as anything more than a random northern Dúnedain ranger, son of nobody in particular.)

The show starts to shift in this season: in addition to/in place of some monster of the week episodes, we get political drama of the week, and more ongoing plotlines. Also, I realized it’s as much ‘location of the week’ as ‘monster of the week’—that continues, centered around Rohan (which means we’ll retread some locations from s2)

First trip to Minas Tirith, on some diplomatic excursion!

fun canon LotR info: Thengel, Theoden's father, was a total Gondor stan - he lived there from his teens until he had to come home to take up the crown, he married a woman from Lossarnach, as King of Rohan he spoke Sindarin and Westernesse and not Rohirric...

so I'm gonna say that teenage Theoden is kind of resentful of that? He was born in Lossarnach, came to Rohan at age 5...but Rohan is his home and he loves it, and he wonders if his father is too enamored of Gondor to be the best king of Rohan. He's skeptical of Thengel recruiting this random Ranger to be a captain of the Riders. On the flip side, Aragorn is SO COOL, and superb with horses. and Theoden wants to be him when he grows up. It's hard, being a teenager and a prince, with 4 sisters. It's hard and nobody understands

Sauruman is there for an episode, being genuinely helpful but his vibes are faintly rancid. He's about to start building up Isengard as an armed power. If the season finale involves something like a proper battle again, he might pitch in.

Halbarad and Dúnawen might actually stay in Ithilien? Or they come along to Rohan but they just join the Riders without getting involved in court stuff at all. Aragorn is going to start doing more things on his own. They presumably have their own B/C-plot character arcs btw, I just don't know what

Roddis definitely stayed behind in Ithilien/Gondor. New in the cast, however, not from quite the start but maybe like ep7/22, or the midseason onward? Is a perfectly normal human woman with dark hair and grey eyes...

Arwen. It's Arwen.

Aragorn: Why are you here? Arwen: I am the daughter of Elrond Half-Elven. My grandparents include the Evening Star, White-Winged Elwing, and Galadriel, student of Melian who on separate occasions told both Fëanor and Eonwë to fuck off. Everyone who met her agrees that I look just like my great-great-grandmother Lúthien Tinúviel. The distant echo of the Doom of the Exiles runs in my veins, as do the Songs of Lúthien and the Light of a Silmaril. I know the weight of Fate when it settles on my shoulders like a mantle, as it did when you called me 'Tinúviel' beneath Imladris's twilit trees—but the Choice of the Peredhel remains mine and mine alone. So I have come, Elessar, Isildur's heir, to see if I actually like you. Arwen: Curiosity. Aragorn: [vividly remembering how in s1 his mom said, "She's way out of your league" and Elrond said, "You won't get married until you're king." (Aragorn: "...married to your daughter?" Elrond: "To anyone. Period.")] Aragorn: Cool. Curiosity is cool. I'm gonna be so normal about this.

(Spoilers: he was not entirely normal about this.)

(Spoilers: they super do like each other, though)

Idk what the backup rangers are doing overall, but I do want Aragorn and Dúnawen to still have some sort of romantic Thing in s2, maybe off and on again, as Aragorn thought Arwen wasn't interested and was trying not to just be moping about it... Then Arwen arrives and Aragorn is So Conflicted for like 1 episode, before Dúnawen comes to him like, "Aragorn, I love you as a friend and comrade-in-arms and I love you as my chieftain and king-to-be, and I could probably love you as a wife if we really tried...but you clearly have not just a crush but some sort of Destiny thing with Lady Arwen, so I'm going to go back to Ithilien for a bit, maybe get drunk and laid with a handsome barmaid, and get over you. While I'm gone, you should try, like, talking to her."

A thing that Aragorn and Arwen...do bond over, but more it's there to demonstrate their compatibility to the audience, is: ...So, we (the writers/producers) don't have the rights to The Silmarillion, right, just The Lord of the Rings and its Appendices, and The Hobbit. These do periodically namedrop people, however, with dashes of elaboration mostly in the Appendices...and Aragorn is established from the start to be a bit of a history nerd, because that's what happens when you're raised by Elrond...so periodically, Aragorn and his friends will be in a Situation and Aragorn will whisper, like, "This is just like when [Fëanor/Túrin/Tar-Minastir/etc...]—" and Halbarad or Dúnawen hisses, "Does that actually help us right now?" and Aragorn will say, "Sure!" and start doing something that Silmarillion nerds can recognize is inspired by whatever the person in question did in a similar situation (note: sometimes Aragorn deliberately does the opposite of what the historical figure did, and it works much better.) The writers very carefully do not explicitly reference anything not explicitly in the permitted texts. If they need/get to elaborate on a historical figure, they'll toe a careful line of Silmarillion canon and blatantly made-up things.

That happened more in s1, when the show needed to make good with the old fans, but also in s2. Aragorn remains the only one referencing this stuff. Then in s3, he and Arwen are...let's say captured by bandits, and Arwen murmurs in his ear, "I have an idea. You know in the Lay of Lúthien..." Aragorn's eyes widen. "Beren and Lúthien or Beren and Finrod?" Arwen: "Finrod." Aragorn nods, and they proceed to bullshit their way out of being captive with flawless teamwork and yes-and-ing (and maybe fight a wolf on their way out, just to be thorough).

No idea what this season finale is. Like I said, you could probably weave parts of most of this season into s2 and s4? But that would ruin the "a different significant geographical area every season" thing we've got going on.

[s4 here!]

[theworldsoftolkein]