#no idea why we briefly turned into gollum there

[anghraine]

Consolidating (...at considerable length) some of the ideas from the Denethor+Faramir vs most Silm Elves discussion:

A. The basic issue is this: Tolkien depicts or references Denethor’s and Faramir’s special Númenórean abilities (non-exhaustively listed here and discussed here) virtually every time either one of them appears. And some of these abilities seem like they would have been awfully useful to the Elves of the Silmarillion, but for some reason, weren’t actually used by them.

The most notable has to do with lies and deception. Gandalf says it is difficult to deceive Denethor and “dangerous” to try—a statement backed up by Faramir’s interactions with Gollum in TTT, when Gollum squealed in pain when he tried to lie to Faramir, and was unable to wholly prevent Faramir from seeing information “in his mind.” It is clear in the Silm, however, that a good number of Elves can be deceived without setting off similar abilities, with a few exceptions like Galadriel.

So I’ve been wondering why that is, based mostly on LOTR.

B. There is, of course, the potential meta-reason that some of these specific abilities would probably break the plot of the Silmarillion, which is packed full of Elves, while nearly full-throttle Númenóreans like Faramir and Denethor are quite rare in LOTR, only show up infrequently apart from Aragorn, and are thus much less disruptive to the narrative as a whole. But that doesn’t explain anything in-story.

Various ideas came up in the general discussion, but I think they can be roughly divided into two types:

1. Most Elves don’t use these abilities because they choose not to, or

2. Most Elves don’t use these abilities because they don’t have them.

Under #1, it’s possible that Elves prefer not to use these kinds of powers for their own Elvish reasons. It may be that many of them simply don’t care for intrusive telepathy and similar abilities. It may be that there are taboos and protocols around it that fade by the Third Age, especially the later Third Age, but are very much in effect earlier on.

But the underlying assumption here is that they could have used the same abilities if they had chosen to do so, but are not (by and large). One of the questions that arises here is if all abilities of this kind have to be deliberately ‘activated’ to work, or if they naturally just happen and will only stop if controlled or repressed. If it’s the latter case and there are actual methods of control, it may be that Denethor and Faramir never fully turn off their abilities because they don’t know how. Who was going to tell them?

The Faramir-Gollum scenes might support this. Faramir is certainly trying to extract information from Gollum, but it doesn’t seem at all probable that he would deliberately inflict pain on him. It’s possible that some of this is just part of his being as far as he knows. 

Meanwhile, there are also several possibilities involving #2. I think this one is, on the face of it, more difficult to accept (not-quite-full Númenóreans with greater powers than many Elves? bzuh?). But there are probably some ways it could work.

The first is relatively simple. It’s clear that Elves (like Númenóreans!) have different ranges and clusters of ability. An Elf being very powerful doesn’t mean they can do ALL THE THINGS. It means they’re very powerful at the things that they do (which might be many!). And there are some abilities that are very widespread, and some that seem to be less so. It may be that deception detection in particular is something that’s fairly uncommon among Elves as a strong ability. It’s not 100% assured that any given Elf has all the abilities of any given Númenórean.

The second possibility is a little more complicated. LOTR and Middle-earth generally (but esp LOTR) don’t operate on a hard magic system with clearly-defined rules. Galadriel points this out, and that the hobbits aren’t really distinguishing Elvish “magic” from Sauron’s “magic,” but they are in reality very different things. Elvish abilities are byproducts of their inner selves. Even outside of LOTR, Fëanor’s abilities (for instance) are inextricably tied up with his fiery spirit. The link between spirit or will or disposition and outwards ability is much stronger with Elves than with the other peoples of Middle-earth. 

So it would still be the case that Elves aren’t doing some of these because they can’t—but it wouldn’t be a matter of power or arbitrary talent, but because of their underlying characteristics. It may be that things like what we see Denethor and Faramir doing require a temperament that most Elves don’t have (but Galadriel does, lol). 

In that case, I would then wonder if Denethor’s and Faramir’s abilities are outgrowths of their dispositions. Their abilities seem to revolve around gathering information and commanding others; they’re described as “commanding” and they love information, so it makes sense that that’s how their abilities would manifest. Then again, it may be that Númenórean powers, though similar to some Elvish ones in outcome, operate differently.

Tolkien comes up with several ideas for where Númenórean specialness comes from in general. In some places, it was Númenor itself that changed them, and their decay in Middle-earth comes mainly from the loss of Númenor. In some places, their gifts have to do with their mode of living and thinking. In some places, it seems to be entirely hereditary; things run in particular families (like the kingly healing of Elendil’s heirs) and are reinforced by ~pure blood (um). And sometimes it seems like their gifts are, at least in part, literal gifts from the Valar which are gradually being withdrawn by the end of the Third Age. Or some combination thereof.

Regardless, the ancestors of the Dúnedain did not come by their abilities naturally. Either directly or indirectly, their size, their lifespans, their craftsmanship, their mental abilities, and more were given to them by other powers. Perhaps Elvish powers were the template for Númenórean powers, but it doesn’t work the same because Númenórean powers are ultimately coming from a divine source. That might even be why Denethor and Faramir are associated with wizards (i.e. Maiar) much more than Elves, which is pretty astonishing on the face of it. I mean:

“Ah well, sir,” said Sam, “you [Faramir] said my master had an elvish air; and that was good and true. But I can say this: you have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of—well, Gandalf, of wizards.”

He [Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smouldering fire drawn from eye to eye.

???????????????????????????

The first quote is particularly interesting because it contrasts Faramir’s wizardliness with Frodo’s elvishness, as if those things are not quite the same, though Faramir is also briefly associated with Elves later on.

There’s also the issue of Elros; it seems extremely probable that most Númenóreans are descended from Elros at this point (in fact, multiple times over). The Stewards are explicitly so in multiple drafts of the Appendices. While it’s so remote that it wouldn’t make a difference in most cases, maybe part of what goes on with Númenóreans is that some of them inherit a fraction of Elros’s abilities, which ultimately derive from Elves, Edain, and a Maia. Maybe all these Númenórean-??wizardly??? types cropping up in time to fight Sauron is a sort of last hurrah for Melian’s blood among the Dúnedain, and what we see in Denethor and Faramir is the share they got. 

Or not!

Anyway, this is a lot, and it’s not like the possibilities are even mutually exclusive, so maybe two or more are all operating at once, to make things even more complicated. Or maybe something altogether different is. But I think this is everything that’s come up so far wrt the (inverted?) disparity between Númenóreans and most Elves. 

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Silmarillion's Eru vs Athrabeth's Eru. ( complicated but you re the best) Love your blog. Thanks!!!

First off, I want say: thank you so much for all your reblogs! If it wasn’t for reblogging I’d still be sitting here talking to myself.

As for the question: Oh, wow. That’s a lot, and I’m sure there are people in the fandom who are better qualified to answer. I’ll offer some thoughts; please feel free to ask follow-ups if this doesn’t get at what you wanted.

Most of what the Silmarillion shows about Eru relates to the central concept of drawing good out of evil. There can be rebellion against Eru’s good purposes, and changing of the world in ways that Eru did not intend, but that cannot, in the end, finally defeat Eru’s purposes, only transform the way in which they are accomplished, and introduce new forms of good (which yet cannot erase the suffering that evil has caused). The Ainulindalë expresses this idea beautifully: and [Melkor’s theme] essayed to drown [the Third Theme of Ilúvatar] by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.

There are numerous examples of this in the Legendarium. The destruction of the Trees leads to the creation of the Sun and Moon, which bring light to Middle-earth rather than keeping it for Valinor only, and herald/bring about the awakening of Men. The Return of the Noldor, the Kinslaying and rebellion, bring the Calaquendi to Middle-earth; and quite apart from military efforts, this is a boon to the Atani - imagine the difference if they’d shown up in Beleriand and only met Thingol and the hostile Laiquendi. The Downfall of Númenor, terrible as it is, brings the Númenorians back to being a part of Middle-earth and interacting with its people - Men and Dwarves and later Hobbits - (somewhat) more as equals rather than as lords and masters (whether benevolent, as early on, or otherwise, as later in the Second Age). Gollum’s treachery destroys the Ring. Much that is good is lost, but new expressions of good are created.

That is, for the most part, how we see Eru expressed in the Silmarillion.

I will also comment on the Downfall of Númenor, as the most drastic direct intervention by Eru seen in the Silmarillion. It recalls the Biblical flood and the Tower of Babel combined in one, a terrifying response to the evil and hubris of mankind. It really cannot be overstated how terrible the treason of Númenor is; they have taken the beauty and knowledge and ability that was granted them as a free gift and turned it into a weapon in the direct service of evil.

For a long time I read the Change of the World, the removal of Valinor from the physical bounds of Arda, as an in-universe Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, a consequence for the rebellion of Númenor. But more recently I’ve shifted to a different way of thinking about it as less about Men than about the Valar. It forces the Valar to think more creatively about how they engage with the world; removes the capacity for actions of vast power like the War of Wrath and the creation of Númenor, and puts them in a place of finding ways to act with the Eruhini rather than for them. Hence the Istari. The Change of the World is a disaster - a vast departure from Eru’s original plan - I cannot believe that Elves and Men were ever intended to be entirely separated, and the deep signficance of the four elf-man relationships we are shown powerfully indicates that they are not - but it is not irreparable and good can still be brought from it.

I’ve also changed my reading of what it means, in the Akallabêth, for the Valar to have “laid down their government of Arda”. Initially I saw it as a reaction to being attacked en masse by Eruhini - the Valar are horrified and yet not sure if they have the moral right to fight a war against Children of Ilúvatar. [It’s not that the Valar are unable to overpower the Númenorians - they definitely are.] I still think that’s a part of it, but it also feels like a prominent official handing in their resignation, saying I screwed this up very badly. And Eru’s response is not to accept that resignation, but to put them in a position where they need to find a better, and more creative, way of interacting with Arda, via the Istari.

This brings us to the Athrabeth, and the central idea revealed in it, as Tolkien integrates Christianity into his wider Legendarium: [Those of the Old Hope] say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. And this is a key contrast to the errors of the Valar. The Valar sought to preserve first Elves (through the invitation to Valinor) and then the Edain (through the creation of Númenor) from the suffering of the world, and in both cases their good intentions went badly wrong. Because the Eruhini have a role in the world; they were meant to be the partners of the Valar and Maiar in its shaping, not their charges. So Eru’s great intervention is not, in the medium term, to preserve the Children from suffering, but to enter into their suffering, to share and participate in and experience it by becoming one of them. This relates to my earlier post on brokenness: without ceasing to be perfectly Good, Eru allows himself to be broken, because in that brokenness He can meet His children where they are. And through His death and resurrection he redeems them so that they can fulfill their role in the shaping and healing of the world that they were always meant to have. This draws us back to the idea of the Third Theme in the Ainulindalë and the drawing of good from evil: what briefly looks like the triumph of evil is in fact the great Victory that will lead to the healing of all things.

[marta-bee]

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Sherlockians, I want to talk about Mary. Or not about Mary the character, because enough words have been spent on that topic and I’m nowhere near brave enough to wade into that one on a snowy Sunday afternoon, but rather on the way we as readers can (perhaps should) relate to her. At some level what follows is about this Tumblr post, where an anonymous commenter asked for “any fics where Mary’s not the bad guy” and noticed that a lot of the evil-Mary fanworks “gets a bit misogynistic in my opinion”; but I’m also using that as something of a springboard, and don’t mean this as a direct reply to that post. (Which is why I’m not replying in a reblog; please everyone go check out that post and comment on it as well.)

Anyway, let me start with two basic points that I hope are pretty noncontroversial.

Mary is an antagonist, at least some of the time.

Mary has at least some aspects of her character that are bad-making (more on what I mean by “bad-making” in a moment), or at least would be if she were a real person.

The devil’s in the details here, as it is with most things worth talking about, so let’s unpack that a bit.

(Long post is long, and so continued under the cut.)

When I say someone’s an antagonist, I’m not really making a value-judgment. I’m purposefully avoiding that word, “villain,” which calls to mind “villainous” as a description of their personality and character. An antagonist is just someone who plot-wise stands in opposition to the character. They’re wrapped up in the conflict our hero has to overcome.

Let’s take a pretty straightforward (and unrelated to our fandom, so hopefully less emotionally charged for a lot of us) example: the first “Hunger Games” book. Katniss is thrown into a gladiatorial fight to the death with twenty-three other teenagers. With the exception of Rue and (later in the games) Peeta, everyone else is an antagonist in relation to Katniss. She has to hope for their death and be prepared to kill them because their continued existence stands in the way of her surviving the games. Most are reduced to numbers with s knowing precious little about them – certainly not enough to think they deserve death. But they’re still antagonists because they’re obstacles the hero has to work past if she hopes to succeed.

Or take Draco Malfoy, in the early Harry Potter books. He’s a thoroughly unpleasant boy, spoiled and sniveling certainly, but I’d be hard-pressed to call him bad. His biggest defining characteristic is he stands up and tries to fight Harry; but often as not this comes down to inter-house squabbling and the only reason he and Harry are on opposite sides is how they were sorted. As we learn, given the way he was raised and the political situation he was raised in, it’s actually pretty admirable how on the periphery of the Death Eaters he stays. But he’s still the antagonist, he’s the one Harry has to outsmart or outperform or otherwise get around.

It's only natural we cheer when the antagonists fail. We’re primed to identify with the protagonist, after all, and their failure means the protagonist gets to win. Even if objectively know the antagonist doesn’t actually deserve to fail, well. That’s just kind of how stories work.

Getting back to Sherlock, I said it’s pretty noncontroversial that Mary’s an antagonist. So when I say that I don’t mean she’s evil, or even that she’s only an antagonist. But the woman shoots our star character in the chest. It’s her secrets and her very presence that drive Sherlock into exile (and drive Sherlock and John apart) for a second time, undoing whatever victory  Sherlock achieved when he defeated Moriarty’s web. She’s certainly a problem to be addressed and worked past in HLV. In terms of canon and parallels with the Doyle stories, there’s quite a lot about her actions (particular in Leinster Gardens) that all but screams “Sebastian Moran.” Ergo: antagonist.

There’s also a quieter, more ordinary sense that I suspect will be more controversial but is worth talking about anyway. Like a lot of Sherlockians and Johnlockers, I’m a big fan of making space for John/Mary/Sherlock in happy OT3 land. I think Sherlock and John at least want some version of that in canon; maybe not romantically, but they like to imagine their being room in their lives for these different relationships to not be in conflict. But in BBC-canon that hope’s not really borne out. This deserves a full meta on its own, but briefly: when Mary observes that neither she nor Sherlock were “the first” (talking about Sholto), she situates them in competition for the same position in John’s life, rather than in distinct, complementary ones (which an OT3 seems to require); and when Sherlock notes at the end of TSOT episode that “we can’t all three dance,” he seems to come to a similar conclusion. I do love me some good Johnlockary fic, but I don’t think this is where the show was heading

At a more basic level, I’d actually argue it almost has to be this way with these three- at least if we’re to hold on to John and Sherlock being “the two of us against the world.” In the 1800s men and women had such different roles in society, a man would do very different things and relate in very different ways to his close (male) friends than he would to his (female) wife. So Watson could run off with Holmes and have adventure, then return home to Mary for the peaceful, even loving family life, without one really being in tension with the other. But by the twenty-first century those spheres aren’t nearly so different. Even if you don’t imagine them as lovers, it’s hard not to imagine a self-respecting woman today saying as Mary did in TAB, “I don’t mind you going; I mind you leaving me behind.” One of the biggest challenges for a modern Holmes adaptation (or indeed, for a modern consumer of the original Doyle stories) is how to balance Holmes’ and Watson’s private “intimate partnership” – however we understand that term – against (John) Watson’s marriage to Mary with all we moderns expect of that relationship in terms of emotional fidelity, equal partnership, shared future, etc.

Put more simply: Mary should throw a monkey-wrench in the mix; she should be something that must be accounted for and whose presence should affect how Holmes and Watson can interact. Not to mean her presence is incompatible with Holmes and Watson’s close and exclusive relationship, but at a minimum she’s a factor in need of an explanation. She can’t help but be antagonistic, at least to some interpretations of Holmes’s and (John) Watson’s relationship.

As I said, with antagonists, it’s only natural to cheer for the protagonists, which almost inevitably means rooting for the protagonists’ failure. At least we root for them being de-antagonized, converted into some other relationship to the main character. But if you’ve spent any time on AO3, you’ve probably come across fanfic focusing on the antagonists (*cough* Loki *cough**cough* Drary *hacks up a longue* Silm-fandom-this-one’s-for-you *cough*’s). We can be a thirsty bunch when it comes to our antagonists, for characters we by all rights should be primed to hate. And even at the level of primary-canon, one of the biggest ways the primary creator shows their emotional growth is by realizing their antagonists aren’t truly their enemy. Like most readers I had a tear in my eye as Cato suffered through the night, begging for death; and certainly I would have been outraged if Harry hadn’t saved Draco from the Room of Requirements in “Deathly Hallows.” Gollum’s treachery is explained and he is given his own completion; Darth Vader is spared by Luke and allowed to look on his son with his own eyes; and the Klingons, Cardassians, and Borg are given their own sort of redemption in Worf, Garak, and Seven of Nine.

All of which is to say: it’s understandable, even natural, why people would have a hard time rooting for the antagonist, but there’s a long history of fandom peoples steering into the curve on this one. So it’s also understandable, even natural, that people want to hear stories with them at the center, both new stories about them and also versions of the original canon narrative that don’t need them to wear the black hat all the time. Some folks want Mary, Sherlock, and John to all go crime-solving together. I personally think there’s sometimes a danger of turning an antagonist – especially one who is at least morally gray (and I promise we’re getting there) like Mary is – into a protagonist without wrestling with what turned them into an antagonist in the first place; so if you want to bring Mary back to the side of John and Sherlock you need to grapple with what pushed them into opposing roles in the first place, or else risk your plot feeling “cheap” and unearned. (In fairness, this warning could as easily be directed to Mofftiss as anyone in fandom!)

But at an absolute minimum, I think it’s pretty obvious that lots of fans want to imagine the antagonists as at the heart of their own stories, and lots of fan-creators have done a really good job of providing those stories. Just as a lot of fans will almost instinctively be drawn to hate them, well, if you want to go a different path you’re in good company.

Enough about protagonist/antagonist, which as I said is more about the role the character fills in the story than about their morality or character. This, for me at least, is where it really gets interesting.

Before we get started, though, I know a lot of people struggle against this idea of morality when it applies to fictional characters and fictional stories. They’ll point out (rightly) that just because they enjoy a non-con PWP doesn’t mean they approve of rape in real life; that their reading preferences come from a different place entirely than their moral judgments. But at the same time, a lot of people (equally rightly) struggle to enjoy stories that glorify things we don’t consider worth glorifying. It’s one thing to enjoy a story about Draco rejecting the Death Eaters, returning to mainstream wizarding society and joining the Aurors; quite another to imagine him dating Harry while he’s still walking around calling Hermione a mudblood.

Or getting back to the Sherlock fandom, a lot of people are most comfortable with stories with Mary’s the antagonist because she’s got a character history and just personality traits where, if we met someone like her in real-life, we’d consider her morally bad. Or on the flip slide, those fans who want a not-evil!Mary in their stories often like to imagine her as the kind of person we’d describe as good or redeemed or some such thing, if she were an actual person. Mary’s morality, at least the morality of a similar person operating in the real world (because --speaking as a former philosophy Ph.D. student who taught philosophical ethics for years-- let me tell you: talking about the morality of fictional constructs gets very messy, very quickly), seems to matter to a great number of fans. So let’s talk about that.

I said above I thought most people would agree, Mary had parts o her character that were bad-making. What I mean is there are aspects about her that tend to make a person bad, unless they’re explained by some other factor. I’ve got in mind something vaguely similar to W.D. Ross’s theories of prima facie duties (if any of you studied this in your Ethics 101 courses- you would have in mine). Basically, the idea is we have all these duties that apply to us, but they can seem to conflict, and we may decide (rightly) in any given situation that one or the other is the more important one for us to follow. The classic example is the duty to keep our promises and prevent suffering when we can. You can imagine situations where you can’t do both- for instance, if I promised to meet you for lunch and on my way to the restaurant came across a man who fell into a ditch and twisted his ankle along a deserted road, where it’s unlikely someone else would come upon him. If I stop to help him I’ll miss our lunch date and break my promise; and while I still have a duty to keep that promise, I think most people would agree it’s more important to stop and help the person. We’d all be hard-pressed to say if I helped the stranger, I’d failed at my duty to keep a promise; at least not in the same way as if I could have kept that promise and just chose not to. That’s Ross’s idea of prima facie duties: that we have all these general obligations on us, but which actually should govern our choices in any particular instance comes down to the details of that situation.

I think there’s something similar going on with Mary’s character. This is actually a good way to evaluate most of us morally, in my opinion, but it’s doubly useful when it comes to Mary because she’s simultaneously got so many troubling aspects about her that just demand some sort of justification, but at the same time, because Mofftiss really screwed the pooch here, we don’t really have the information we need to give a definitive answer. So it’s useful to say: here’s something about Mary that needs accounting for, even if we don’t have enough information to evaluate her definitively.

Let’s take Magnussen’s biggest accusation against her: “All those wet jobs.” Mary killed people on her own prerogative, and she left behind a lot of grieving relatives who would love their revenge – both a testament to the suffering she caused, and a real risk for John, the baby that will become Rosie, and everyone else in their orbit. But if that’s all there is to it, it’s not wholly dissimilar to John’s decision to shoot the cabbie. It may have been different, but we don’t have the information to know that; it feels different, but most because John was saving Sherlock (who we know), whereas if Mary was saving anyone, it’s not someone we the viewer have an emotional connection to. Still, to borrow a phrase from Ricky Ricardo, Mary, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.

Or to take an even more serious charge, Mary shot Sherlock, was prepared to make John watch him die all over again and force him to go through that grief that so nearly destroyed him the first time around. Unforgiveable, yeah? The best shot at justification here is that Mary had somehow got herself cornered, so that shooting Sherlock was somehow an attempt to escape an even worse sitation. This really demands a full meta to dive in to, but very briefly, I think Mary never intended to kill Magnussen and was instead trying to intimidate him; meaning she couldn’t let Sherlock undercut her power, but equally she couldn’t leave Magnussen with the impression that John and Sherlock were somehow her partners; so shooting Sherlock was the best way to keep him from becoming a full target of Magnussen’s. If that’s the case, the whole showdown in Magnussen’s office becomes markedly similar to Sherlock’s decision to “kill” himself on the roof of St. Bart’s. Mary is willing to cause a lot of pain to avoid even greater destruction, but at the same time, the whole situation that compels this choice was fed by her limiting her options when she decided to intimidate Magnussen. Similar to how Sherlock, once he’s on the roof of St. Bart’s, has no better option than to fake his own death and leave John to grieve; but how he does have some degree of culpability for engaging Moriarty in the first place and egging on Moriarty’s destructive obsession with Sherlock.

My point isn’t that any of these parallels really hold up to scrutiny. Sherlock risked his own life in TRF (and John’s pain) while Mary was prepared to kill another. John was ready to kill “a bad man” to save our hero while whatever murders Mary committed were against unnamed people in undetermined circumstances, and narratively certainly don’t pull at or heart strings in the same way John’s heroic killing of Jefferson Hope does. But the point is, with Mary, so much of what a lot of fans object to involve these vaguely-told stories where whatever factors would excuse her actions just are left untold. What we can say definitively is “all those wet jobs” require justification. Mary’s willingness to shoot Sherlock require justification. These things are prima facie wrong (or bad-making, the kind of things that tend to make something bad in the absence of other explanations) and demand an accounting for.

I’m focusing on Mary’s violence more than what a lot of fans have identified as her abuse toward John. Partly, this is personal: I have my own experience with abusive relationships and don’t entirely trust my ability to parse similar dynamics in fiction; certainly I don’t want to tie that part of my past to public debate, and I’ve not worked out how to talk about Mary and John without over-personalizing it. But I will say, there’s a lot to be considered on that front as well, and people interested in thinking through Mary’s im/morality shouldn’t ignore it. As a starting point, inevity-johnlocked pointed to several of her old posts making the case that Mary was an emotional abuser. silentauroriamthereal’s fic “Rebuilding Rome” looks at a lot of these issues in a really powerful way if you’re looking for an exploration in fic form. I’ll just add, even if I thought Mary was justified and so “good” in some sense (and my internal compass is so screwed up, I’m not really qualified to tell at this point), the way she chose or had to lie about her past to John seems a particularly bad match for a man like him with his trust issues. So even if you think Mary is good, there’s a lot of justification for saying she’s still not good for him.

So what does this mean for reading fics involving a kinder, gentler Mary? First, I’d emphasize there’s no shame or judgment in reading what you want. Much as writers may choose to write about all kinds of things they’d disapprove of in real life, readers have that same freedom to scratch whatever readerly itch they like, with no need to defend that to anyone else. Kinktomato and all that. On the other hand, I know I personally enjoy stories more when I can lose myself in them, and – again, for me personally – it helps me do that if my values are at least compatible with what’s presented as praiseworthy. I don’t have to guard myself as I enter the story. So it’s definitely worth thinking about how comfortable you are with fiction that vilifies Mary or pardons her or something in between, because it may make it easier or harder to really immerse yourself in a fic.

Then again, maybe that’s just me. I am a rather persnickety chickadee with things like this.

I do know that many fandoms have an unfortunate history of coming down hard on the female competition to a popular slash ship. While I’m reluctant to apply “should”s to our consumption of fiction, I think there are genuine feminist concerns here. Not with thinking Mary’s bad/evil or even hating her, but hating her for the wrong. For me, it helps to imagine another character doing something similar, and think about why I would react differently if it was someone other than Mary doing the deed. Also to be aware of the details canon doesn’t answer decisively or answers different ways in different episodes.

(More than most characters, Mary does suffer from a really inconsistent characterization. I’ve often wondered if everything since HLV was Sherlock or whomever trying on different frameworks for her personality/psychology/what-have-you, to see which could account for what she did to him. First she’s a badass villain, then a Mycroftian operative, then a martyr, then a worldclass manipulator, and finally a sanctifier whose own personality was irrelevant, giving her imprimatur from beyond the grave. And that’s without throwing veteran/maths genius and happy homemaker into the bunch. Maybe the showrunners simply weren’t sure what they wanted to do with her. Whatever the situation, I do think we need to be careful about taking any one canon detail at face-value, especially with her.)

I’m also a little discomfited by this trend I’ve seen among Johnlockers, to write Mary as a monster as a way to lessen John’s pain at her… betrayal, I guess? Or just the loss at her death? I remember when a lot of fanfic authors back between S3 & S4 wrote about the baby being fake; or even after S4, as part of John’s “alibi” rather than a true detail. Or even just deciding the baby was David’s or some such. By itself, that could have been really interesting, but what I saw so often happening was people used that as a way to remove the complication of the baby. Or to let John skip the grief he’d feel if the baby wasn’t born healthy- for instance, if it didn’t exist, or died, or if Mary was killed or ran while she was still pregnant. The basic theme was if Mary didn’t deserve John’s pain, John didn’t have to hurt for so long or as deeply.

Complicated grief is a thing, though, and for a lot of people, grieving the loss of someone who hurt them and aren’t “worth” their pain seem to suffer worse and for longer, particularly if they also have to grieve the lost opportunity to make their peace with the person while they were alive. This doesn’t mean fanfic writers or readers have to give us some kind of sanitized Mary; certainly she has the potential to be a true east wind of a character. But I do think there’s a tendency to prefer a more evil Mary because this lets the story move past her or spares John some suffering often won’t feel true. It also runs the risk of disrespecting the suffering of people impacted by these kinds of losses. So while I think this kind of characterization can be really interesting and compelling, it also takes a lot of skill and thoughtfulness to do it well. Here be dragons.

For me, though, the point isn’t to be proscriptive, to say Sherlock fic writers and readers need to limit themselves to a particular read of Mary. Her character has such potential to give birth to such a wide range of fic. As a viewer of the show I wish the writers and other creators had given us more of a sense of who she was because I think it really contributes to my frustration with not understanding the story they were trying to tell. But as a (kinda-sorta-someday-once-again) fic writer, it’s a true embarrassment of riches. The trick, for those of us concerned about Mary’s ethics were she a real person, is to be aware of the dangers of reading her character certain ways and to be cautious around them if we want to play with those interpretations.

[lj-writes]

Against a Kylo Ren Redemption: He’s not Zuko, he’s Gollum

I believe a Kylo Ren redemption would be a bad story and a bad continuation of TFA and TLJ. Why? Because the best redemption arcs are ones where the character stays consistent. The character grows in the sense that they come to realize better ways for them to reach their desires, but those desires themselves stay constant.

Here’s one example of a good redemption from The Lord of the Rings, brought up by @dylanyonah in the thread this post is spun off from (link): Boromir of Gondor fell briefly for the temptation of the Ring precisely because his love of his family and homeland, and his pride in himself as a hero and warrior, opened him up to the lure of power. Those same qualities led him to sacrifice his life once he realized, almost immediately after trying to take the Ring from Frodo, that wielding the Enemy’s power was only playing into his hands. Boromir then died a hero and warrior as he lived, giving his life for his friends and for Gondor.

What about the most prominent example of “redemption” in the Star Wars franchise, Darth Vader? His story through the six saga movies he appeared in was about family, fearing losing them, actually losing them, and regaining one of them. The despair of losing his mother Shmi opened him up to the terror of losing Padmé, and he fell to Palpatine’s temptation. Once he had burned every possible bridge Palpatine was the only one he thought he could turn to. When he realized Luke was his son his yearning for a connection expressed itself in violent control tactics, which Luke rejected in a spectacular fashion, as in “I’d literally rather die.” Afterward you can see Vader start to question himself and his methods when he doesn’t choke his subordinate at the end of ESB, before he finally realizes at the end of RotJ that he can only have a connection with his son by renouncing evil. The same motivation that propelled Vader to darkness, his love of family, led to his doing one good thing before he croaked as all fascist murderers should.

Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, often cited as the gold standard of redemption arcs and frequently compared to Ben Solo, was struggling to recover from abuse for years. He thought he could get his honor back by regaining the love of the father who scarred and banished him, only to realize once he was in his father’s good graces that a) there was no honor in his country’s war and planned genocide and b) his father had never loved him and never would. His motivation to heal stayed constant, he just realized the true path to healing lay in a different path.

And seriously, the fact that Zuko stepped away in horror from the attempted genocide of the Earth Kingdom while Kylo Ren not only stayed but implored Gramps for strength should disqualify all comparisons between them.

In contrast to the above characters, Ben Solo’s motivation is not heroism, family or recovery. He is not standing against evil like Boromir was, he IS the evil the heroes stand against. He does not have a desire to connect with his family, he killed or did his level best to kill his loving parents for the sake of power. Snoke was abusive to him, but unlike Zuko Ben has no desire to win Snoke’s love or otherwise heal from the abuse; he did everything in his power to ascend to Snoke’s position and tried to drag Rey into the same abusive dynamics, only with himself as the abuser this time (link).

Ben’s one consistent motivation is power, and keeping this motivation is not compatible with redemption. To return to LotR, it would be as though Sauron or Gollum became “good” because they could keep the Ring and use it for good purposes. Such a development destroys all dramatic tension and undercuts the central conflict, not to mention it becomes terrifying when “the Ring” in this case is fascism. The idea that Ben can be a “benevolent” fascist leader also directly contradicts director JJ Abrams’s timely reminder that Star Wars is about the fight against oppression and for freedom (link). Ben stans’ increasingly disturbing apologia notwithstanding, we’re not going to find out that fascism was the right path for the galaxy all along. Get over it.

So no, Ben cannot be redeemed while his motivation remains consistent with the two prior films. If his motivation were to change all of a sudden, on the other hand, for instance if he suddenly decided his family or Rey were more important to him than power after spending two movies sacrificing and using them for power, it would be an abrupt turnaround in the character and a thoroughly unsatisfying, contrived kumbaya.

For these reasons, barring some late-stage gamechanger of a reveal there is no path to a satisfying redemption for Kylo Ren/Ben Solo that keeps the premise and character consistent. I can see him push back against an attempted takeover by Palpatine, for instance, because the two want the same thing, absolute power. That is not redemption, though, any more than Gollum redeemed himself by bringing about Sauron’s downfall.

In fact I think Gollum is a pretty apt parallel to Ben. They are both twisted by their powerlust, are creepy as hell but have occasional flashes of sympathy and depth, and were briefly befriended by compassionate heroes who spared their lives despite the inevitable betrayal. I believe that, much like Gollum, Ben Solo could end up inadvertently doing some good before his death/defeat. I also believe it won’t be a redemption, even in the lukewarm “one good thing before death” sense like Vader, but rather yet another selfish power grab. That is the Kylo Ren we know and love to hate, after all.

[caps-lockdown]

Operation: Man Flu Part Two

Thank you to everyone for such kind comments and reblogs on my first part of this new series, it’s been so heartwarming hearing how much you guys love this idea! Without further ado here is part two!

This fic is going to jump time a lot, so just make sure to pay attention to the military time. Also the past will be in italic, forgot to put that in the first part. Thanks so much for reading!

Pairings: Steve x Shield Agent Female Reader!

Words: 4,198

SMALL WARNING: There is a couple of crude adult jokes in this chapter, just letting you know. Also mentions of family death in here too.

Ratings/Warnings: I’m going to put hard R here for the whole thing because there’s going to be cussing, mentions of sickness, alcohol consumption, physical fights, mental breakdowns. Jealousy, love triangles (sort of), angst, drama, and lots of crude humor. Just strap in.

Also no Beta so my mistakes are my only thing to claim, I don’t own any characters either, with the exception of the reader, a doctor, and some random characters here and there.

It is in Y/N (Your Name) L/N (Last Name) format. Enjoy!

Part Two

1100 hours

You sat in the secluded darkness of an unused office, slightly away from all of the current noise of quarantine. These men were tap dancing on your last good nerve in soccer cleats. Rubbing your right temple you tore into the wrapper of a protein bar, your stomach sounding like it was trying to demand Han Solo and the wookie be brought to it.

“Easy Jabba, it’s been a long morning.” You pleaded with your stomach, chewing into the bar without mercy. This was the first moment of silence you had truly to yourself since this morning when Steve Rogers had dragged a near dead Tony Stark off the Quinjet and turned your life into pure hell within a matter of hours. It took sheer skill to sneak away from the chaos, but you’d be damned if you let the circumstances keep you from eating anything.

Right as you were about to enjoy another large bite of your semi-decent protein bar however, the office door was flung open and the lights were turned on. Your eyes squinted to adjust to the bright light, a small hiss leaving your lips as you recognized the looming figure standing in the door way.

“Well look at what I found here. Hungry?” Steve’s blue eyes danced with amusement as he looked you over in your current state. You had crumbs all over you, shoved in the corner of the office and hunched in a chair looking nothing short of some kind of Gollum creature. Your eyes slanted into a mock glare.

“Shut it Rogers, it’s been a shit last few hours and I’m out of coffee.” You sighed, standing up from the chair and straightening out your clothes.

“Easy L/W, I understand.” He chuckled, watching you with a smirk while you made your way over to him.

“When are you going to start calling me by my first name?” You huffed, placing a hand on your hip and taking another bite.

“When you start calling me by mine.” Steve said nonchalantly and you nearly choked, bringing up your free hand to hit your chest a few times to help the food continue down your throat.

“That’s different Rogers,” You tried to brush it off as if it were nothing, noticing he now had a smile on his features, clearly trying not to laugh at you. “It’s a respect thing.”

“So I can’t respect you as much as you respect me then?”

The high pitch squeak of annoyance left you as you processed what he said, pushing past him and stalking away in response. His loud laugh carried through the hallway and although you loved hearing it, you didn’t need him throwing your words from earlier back in your face like that.

~~After the meeting with Dr. Hooper, approximately 0800 hours~~

“Awh hell I knew I should have stayed in bed today.” Sam muttered angrily as he dramatically leaned back in his chair.

“It’s not like Tony thought to get sick Sam, cut the guy a break.”

“Oh I’ll cut something alright. We had plans! All of us did! I don’t want to spend one of the only three day weekends in the year sicker than a dog Y/N!”

“Stop being so dramatic Wilson, we’re in the same boat.” Bucky countered, only earning another glare from Sam.

“I’m sorry I must have forgotten the part where Hooper said that super soldiers, demi gods, and hell even BANNER would all be affected differently and most likely WOULDN’T have the same symptoms or nearly the same intensity!” Sam spat, Clint looking at him with a sad expression. You had to feel sorry for them, knowing what fate awaited them was just down the hall.

They had turned the large conference hall into a quarantined area. The hospital beds and some of the machines had been moved from the small medical bay that Stark Tower had, and by the sounds of Tony’s sneezing fits you’d confirm he was moved in and as comfortable as he could be. It was also easier to lock down this whole floor as opposed to anywhere else, as it didn’t have nearly as much traffic as other parts of the tower.

“Hey at least you don’t have to worry about dropping like a fly within the next couple hours!” Bucky barked back, you looking to Steve with an annoyed expression.

Doctor Hooper had informed your group that those exposed to Tony the longest would be the first to develop symptoms, but due to their “special” genetics she couldn’t tell them exactly what they would experience. Clint and Sam were obviously the most upset, being the fact that even with the arc reactor in place Tony seemed to be going through absolute hell. At least you didn’t have to worry about spending the weekend sick or stuck with these guys.

Or so you thought.

“Don’t worry Buck, I’ll be here to make sure you all survive the weekend.” Steve stated calmly and you bit back a swoon. He was always so collected in dire situations, always kept his head on his shoulders. You envied that in a lot of ways, your temper usually getting the better of you.

“Oh great. You’ll look terrible in a Nurse’s uniform Rogers.” Bucky scoffed, folding his arms over his chest as the table chuckled in response.

“I don’t know, I think he has great legs. Wouldn’t you agree Y/N?” Sam looked at you pointedly, your face heating up as you directed your gaze back to the table top in embarrassment.

“I hope you croak Wilson.” You muttered darkly to him, choosing to ignore his snicker and Steve’s raised eyebrow in your direction.

“Nah you like me too much but hey that gives me an idea! Why doesn’t Y/N help us out this weekend? She doesn’t have to worry about catching anything and she makes really good chicken noodle soup!”

You had never given murder much thought until this very moment in time. Your eyebrows shot up to your scalp as everyone started agreeing with him.

“I don’t think so guys…I like all of you…but um…ah…” You started to stammer, Steve’s laughter ringing in your ears as you slowly brought your gaze to his.

“Not up to the challenge L/N? You don’t want to spend the whole weekend with me?”

“It’s not that at all!” You quickly interjected, letting out a deep sigh and staring back at the table. You said that too fast, you knew for sure he would probably think you’re a creep. Composing yourself, you took your turn looking around at the other faces that made up the table.

“I don’t know if I can handle seeing all of you sick. You’re the Avengers. You save the world sometimes on a daily basis. I’m just a nobody. I don’t have any experience in the medical field, I don’t like blood…” You trailed off, ignoring Sam clucking his tongue at you in disagreement.

“Come on Y/N, you’re not a nobody.”

“Sam I’m literally on a team of agents who are called ghosts.”

“Yea well you’re our favorite ghost!” Bucky tried, earning a small half smile from you in response.

“We respect you a lot here.” Steve’s words caused your heartstrings to bow out and his blue eyes just seemed to suck you in.

“So I can’t respect you as much as you respect me then?” You raised an eyebrow as Steve’s face fell just as you continued,

“What if something happens? What if you don’t get better? What if one of you doesn’t…make it? You can’t ask me to be there for that Rogers. After all, you will probably get sick too.”

“Pepper is going to help out too when she can, and we have Doctor Hooper until late tonight. It’s only a few days and a few sick guys, how awful could it be?” Sam pleaded as he gave you giant puppy dog eyes and you only had to look at him briefly to lose all of your resolve.

1130

Turns out it could be pretty damn awful.

It didn’t take long for the sickness to start claiming victims. Clint dropped first with a one hundred and two degree fever about ten a.m. Bruce had a coughing fit that nearly knocked him out at ten forty-five. It was spreading fast, and you couldn’t keep up with it.

“Y/N I need you to keep calm. We’re going to be alright.” Steve uttered as you watched Doctor Hooper and the couple nurses run tests on Clint, the only noise that could be heard was Tony heaving his guts up a few beds down.

“How can you be so damn sure Rogers? Aren’t you worried for when it hits you?”

“I’ll worry when the time comes. Isn’t going to help them or anyone else if I start now.”

“You are such a damn boy scout.” You scoffed, looking at him with both respect and exasperation.

“So I’ve been told.” He shrugged and you could see why women fell all over him. He was always in control of a situation. It was maddening how he could even find a way to calm you down in all of this mess. You didn’t know if you wanted to smack him or kiss him.

“Steve! Y/N!” Sam’s voice brought you back to earth and quickly your day went from bad to worse as you ran to help him with Bucky, who looked like he had been hit by a truck.

“Can’t..breathe…throat…burning...”

“Jesus Barnes you sound like you just finished giving a cheese grater a blow job.” You said matter of factly, causing both Sam and Steve to look at you with a shocked expression before Sam dissolved into a fit of laughter.

“Y/N where did that come from?” Bucky managed to get out when you sat him on the bed next to Tony, pouring out some nasty looking throat coating medicine into a small plastic shot glass.

“Y/N has always been like this, you clowns just never get to see this side of her.” Sam countered as Bucky took to drinking the dark purple colored liquid, his face contorting in disgust as he swallowed it.

“This….this is disgusting!”

“Sorry Bucky, I should have warned you.” You apologized, looking over to a sedated Clint and sighing at the finally lowered body temperature.

“It’s ok at least you’re pretty. If Stevie here had made me drink that I would have spat it out in his face.”

“Gee thanks buddy.” Steve rolled his eyes as you let out a giggle.

“Don’t mention it pal.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” Steve stated plainly before leaving to talk with the Doctor about Tony, who hadn’t seem to be letting up on purging his whole body of everything he had eaten in the last five years. Your eyes wandered over to Bruce, who was sitting upright in his bed and reading a novel. Besides the coughing fit he had been pretty much fine, his body temperature only slightly higher than normal. They had hooked him up to an I.V just to be on the safe side.

Thor, although completely fine, had gone ahead and put himself in the bed next to Clint, leaving a vacant bed in between Bruce and Bucky. Then there was the empty one on the other side of Tony, which you had no doubt was for Steve, whenever he would finally fall ill. Within a mere five hours, three of The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had gotten sick with varying symptoms. You found yourself hoping no one would decide to try for world domination this weekend. Your world currently didn’t have the man power to stop it.

This was going to be a long weekend.

1500

“Y/N, can you bring me some more water?” You heard Tony ask for the tenth time in the past thirty minutes.

“Can’t Rogers bring it to you? I’m fluffing Bucky’s pillows.” Again. You huffed as you attempted to readjust the blue plaid covered pillows you specifically brought from Bucky’s room for his bed. You had never even considered going in to the winter soldier’s room prior to the request, but found it surprisingly clean and organized for a guy who had his personality.

“But I want you to do it!” Tony whined, you shooting a glare in his direction.

“Listen mister. You have three perfectly good and mostly full water bottles right there on your table. Why do you need a new one?”

“They aren’t cold anymore. And I need cold water.” You let out another exasperated sigh as he looked at you innocently, “Doc’s orders.”

“Ohmygod. Hang on a second then.” You finished Bucky’s request and watched him lay back down on his bed, nodding in appreciation.

“Thanks sweetheart, you’re the best.” You smiled at Bucky before running over to the refrigerator Steve had set up in one of the offices nearby, grabbing a couple water bottles and walking back out into the hallway.

“Here Stark, don’t choke.” Your voice dripped with sarcasm as you placed the bottles on the small table next to his bed. He only gave out a muffled grunt in response bringing the bottle to his lips and chugging half of it.

“Right behind you Doll.” Steve whispered, stepping behind you to grab the half empty bottles, his hand touching your shoulder while he used his other to collect them.

Your breath caught in your throat as your senses were assaulted by his touch and amazing scent. Goosebumps appeared on the back of your neck and you were certain your face was the shade of a tomato. You were completely frozen, your face distant and you didn’t notice Sam’s huge shit eating grin while he stood on the opposite side of Tony’s bed. You were certain this was the first time you had been this close, let alone having the blonde touch you in a way that wasn’t the typical “Good Job” handshake or short pat on the back after a mission.

“I’m going to put these in the fridge so Tony can have them later.” Steve removed his hand from your shoulder and immediately you felt saddened from the loss of warmth from him.

“Uh,…ya…you…youdothatRogers.” You stuttered watching him walk away, Sam shaking his head. Tony spared no time rolling his head up to look at you and calling you out.

“Was that even English Y/N? Sure you’re not coming down with something?”

“She has a different kind of sickness Tony,” Sam cut in, Tony rolling his head to give him his attention. “Don’t worry, nothing a shot of penis-ilin won’t cure. I’m sure Ste..”

“You finish that sentence and I will end you Wilson.” The icy look you had given was enough to send Sam backing away in fear, something you were quite proud of.

“Yes ma’am.”

“You know somethin? I see it now..” Tony mused, your eyes darting to his in a mix of embarrassment and anger. Looking for a way out, you were more than ecstatic to hear Thor mention something about stomach pains.

“I’m on it!” You exclaimed far too happily, rushing away from Tony’s bedside, a very confused Steve returning to stand at the foot of the bed.

“Did I miss something? L/W was off like a bullet.”

“My dear Capsicle, I’d wager you’ve missed a great deal.” Tony coughed out, Bucky nodding to their bewildered friend.

1900

”Well I wouldn’t have to puke if I didn’t have to keep looking at your ugly mug!”

“You want to say that again rich boy? Sick or not I can still kick your ass!”

“Ladies please, you’re both pretty. Can we stop this childish fighting for two seconds?” You interrupted Tony’s and Bucky’s arguing, which they had been doing off and on since Bucky had taken the bed next to him.

“Yea guys, Y/N made us soup the least you could is be a little appreciative. She doesn’t have to help either of your sorry asses. You’re sick, not dead.” Sam tried, beaming over at you from across the sick Stark’s bed.

“Sam’s right. Let ME take the high road and apologize for my terrible behavior.” Tony puffed his chest out proudly before coughing up a lung, earning a grimace from everyone in attendance.

“You are high Stark, those meds they have you are potent. But we can agree that your behavior has been a thorn in my side all day.” Bucky shot back, Tony sticking his tongue out at the other brunette.

“Do you two want soup or not?” You asked the two squabblers before they could get into another row. Instantly the two idiots shut up and looked at you expectedly. Giggling to yourself at how fast you were able to silence them with the promise of food, you made a mental note for later. Should the need arise again that is.

You passed out the paper bowls you had been carrying to the three men. Your laughter escaped you, Sam going to town on his portion like he had been starving all day.

“Man I love this soup!” Sam exclaimed as he dug in, Tony and Bucky giving mumbled thanks and appreciative groans as they took on their soup. You looked on as Steve passed out bowls to Clint, Bruce, and Thor.

“Make sure Clint doesn’t fall asleep into his bowl and drown Rogers!” You called out, causing Clint to frown at you.

“I’m not that drowsy!” The archer shouted back crankily.

“Please. You fell asleep while the nurse was drawing your blood.” You quipped, Clint’s eyes shooting down into his paper soup bowl guiltily.

“Okay…I might be a bit tired.”

“Uh huh.” Rogers nodded as he handed him a spoon, watching him carefully as he began to eat.

“This soup really is amazing Y/N.” Thor complimented, causing a large smile to break over your face.

“Thank you Thor, I’m glad you like it. My mom used to make it for me when I was sick, and my Grams used to make it for her. My Grams taught me everything I know about cooking.”

“Lucky for us.” Bruce commented and the rest of the men eagerly agreed.

A brief moment of sadness hit you as you recalled fond memories of your Grams in the kitchen. She often times would set you up on the counter top so you could watch her work. You usually made a huge mess while trying to “help” but your Grams never got mad at you. Not once. Your mind slipped away from you as you wandered your way back into the office that was slowly becoming cluttered. Medicine bottles, water bottles, a refrigerator, and now a giant pot that had been put on a portable induction cook top to keep the soup warm sat on the desk.

“Do you miss her?” You blinked as Steve walked into the office, looking at you closely as you poured two more bowls of soup.

“Every day Rogers. She was my person, someone who helped shaped who I am. I honestly feel like part of me is missing some days. If she could hear some of the stories I have from working here…” You chuckled as you grabbed a couple spoons, handing a bowl to Steve before taking a seat in one of the many chairs strewn about.

“I bet you probably have some real dirt on us.” The blonde smirked at you while he took a seat in the vacant chair next to you.

“Don’t worry Rogers, you’re safe. Actually my Grams was a huge fan of yours.”

“Really?” He mumbled, slurping into his soup which caused you to giggle.

“Oh yea. Pretty sure she was the president of your fan club. She was always telling me “Y/N, why don’t you find a nice wholesome man like Steve Rogers to date? I’m not getting any younger.” Both of you chuckled at the memory, the soup warming your soul as you started eating.

“Well I’m sorry I never got to meet her.”

“You say that now, but if you had I doubt a crow bar and seventeen firemen could have detached her from you. She always thought you were so handsome.” He nudged your shoulder.

“Quit it L/N I’m blushing.”

“I mean she isn’t wrong but still..” The sentence fell out of your mouth before you could think about it. He had stopped chewing and was staring at you with a soft expression, his beautiful blue eyes intently focused on yours.

“What was that?”

“Nothing at all!” You hurriedly shoved the last few spoonfuls of soup into your mouth to keep anything else from coming out and quickly stood, making a bee line to throw away your paper bowl and rushing out to check on the sick crew. Steve only stared down into his bowl and chuckled, wheels beginning to turn.

2100

“Alright, you two are on your own.” Doctor Hooper’s hand shook yours as you left the hall.

“We really can’t thank you enough for staying and helping as much as you could. I hope your family can understand, please send them my apologies for keeping you from them today.” Walking to the elevator with her, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for the doctor losing precious time with them.

“Oh it’s nothing Y/N, my daughter would kill me herself if anything happened to this bunch. She’s the one who threatened to disown me if I didn’t take the job when Stark offered it. But Pepper should be here tomorrow, so she can handle her husband then. They’ve all been given sedatives to help them sleep so you should be free of them until morning.” The two of you looked back where the men were passed out, your eyes rolling hearing the loud snores that echoed after them.

“God willing Doctor Hooper. I’m going to need to put myself in a quarantine away from them for a few days when this is all over.” She laughed, the three of you stepping inside.

“We’ll manage the best we can Doc.” The super soldier smiled, pulling you into a side hug that left you dizzy.

“I know you will, you two make a great team.” Her knowing smirk ruffled you a bit as you stepped off to your floor leading to your room, jumping slightly when you noticed the large man next to you had stepped off as well.

“Goodnight you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” The Doctor called out as the doors shut, heat rushing to your face as you tried to conceal your embarrassment by looking at the wall opposite the tall blonde drink of water.

“I just wanted to make sure you got to your room okay Doll, I’m sorry she has the wrong idea.”

“No, no it’s totally fine! I appreciate that.” You waved dismissively, “Besides I know we don’t know each other that well, and that I’m not someone that someone like you would consider dating. Which again I totally understand and don’t blame you at all and did I mention how much I love this color of paint?” You rambled on, silently counting the number of doors until you would reach your room and shut yourself away forever. Twelve.

“Don’t sell yourself short Y/N. I think you’re a wonderful person.” His bright smile was disarming so you began to study the floor in great detail.

Eight

“In fact, anyone that manages to sweep you off your feet will be really lucky to have you.” Steve’s compliment had you internally screaming, your pace picking up a little.

Five

“That’s going to be a bit difficult Rogers. I’m pretty sure the guy I like wouldn’t know I do even if I stood right in front of him with a giant flag that proclaimed my feelings in huge red, white, and blue letters.”

Three

“I can only hope he comes around and realizes how special you are.” Steve gave you a pat on the shoulder and you found yourself wanting to hit your head against a wall.  Oh sweet lord how dense can you be? You thought bitterly as you came to stand in front of your door.

“Well this is me. Thanks for walking me back.” You forced a smile, disappointment bubbling inside you and you wanted nothing more than to throw yourself onto your bed dramatically and cry until your lungs gave out.

“Not a problem at all. Thanks for all of your help today. And in case I don’t say it, thanks for tomorrow and Sunday too.” Your heart broke as he gave you another dazzling smile, you opening your door and looking at him for the final time that night.

“Goodnight Rogers. Sleep well.” It took everything in you to shut the door, not wanting to hear anything else from your crush that would just end up crushing you further.

“Goodnight Y/N.” Steve sighed, turning to head back to the elevator so he could keep an eye on everyone.

It wasn’t until he was headed back down the hallway towards the sick and still snoring men when your words about waving a flag containing your feelings hit him like a ton of bricks, causing him to stop dead in his tracks.

“Son of a…”

Tag List (I couldn’t find all of the recent people for some reason so just shoot me an ask or comment here!): @kaytizzle @cuffski @giggleberts

[hocats-blog]

7 Lord of the Rings Fan Theories to Rule Them All

As you probably remember, Gollum wasn't always Gollum. For a time he was Smeagol, a Hobbit quickly corrupted by the power of the One Ring. It was his "precious" that afforded him an extraordinarily long life, and warped him into the scrappy half-naked mangoblin that becomes the bane of Frodo and Sam. Though he's been Gollum far longer than he was Smeagol, at times there seems to be a war of identities going on within the sad creature. We assume that the centuries he's spent under the ring's influence has created this rift within the character, but that might not be the case at all. One intriguing fan theory claims that Gollum is actually a personality inside the ring, an entity that can possess anyone. The identity isn't unique to Smeagol, meaning that if someone like Aragorn held it long enough, he'd turn into a pasty diaper-wearing wretch just the same as you would. Think about those we know who have held the ring for an extended period of time. Right off the bat, there's Bilbo Baggins. He seemed relatively chill about the ring and managed to hold onto it for years without going nanners, but we definitely saw some cracks forming in his psyche when Gandalf came to town. Bilbo was less than thrilled about having his "precious" taken away. That, right there -- Bilbo unconsciously "gollum'd." That's the "Gollum personality" breaking through, its infection spreading within Bilbo. The possession gets a bit more overt later on during a conversation with Frodo, at which point Bilbo's face makes a hellish transformation. Looks a lot like Gollum, doesn't it? Bilbo doesn't just call the ring his "precious" just because he heard Gollum say that -- that's actually Gollum talking through Bilbo. For more proof, we have to look no further than Isildur. Remember Isildur is the one who lopped Sauron's fingers off and took the ring? Isildur is also the same shitbrick who, given the chance, didn't toss the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Instead, he wore it around his neck, which is more or less the Middle-earth equivalent of treating a nuclear warhead like a piece of bling. The corrosive power eventually killed Isildur, but not before he wrote about the ring in a series of creepy journals. Gandalf discovered these writings, and found one particularly disturbing passage. Could it really be a coincidence that a dude who lived thousands of years before Smeagol would used the same word to describe the One Ring? Probably not. It seems a lot more likely that Gollum is a personality inside the ring that infects its host and possesses them to protect the ring and do Sauron's bidding. If Isildur's hubris hadn't ended him, it may well have been his wispy form that Bilbo came across on his initial adventure in The Hobbit. Now, the name "Gollum" is merely the name given to Smeagol after his neighors kept seeing him hacking up a lung every day, so it's probably not the actual title of the deity inside the ring. But the name "Gollum" has significance, in that it's pretty close to "golem," the mythological creature which is made of inanimate materials, but given life from an outside force. It's a compelling theory not because it dramatically changes the story, but because it gives you a new perspective on what the ringbearers must have been going through. That, and it's fun imagining a crazed Viggo Mortensen wearing a diaper.

This is a stupid idea. No one's going to actually come out and say that J.R.R. Tolkien created Albus Dumbledore and the world of Harry Potter. But it's a testament to the strength of fan theories that some beautiful bastard could come up with a convincing explanation that links Hogwarts and Middle-earth. It all relies on the fact that there are five Istari -- better known as "wizards" to people who have seen the sun in the last two weeks -- in the realm of this fiction. You probably already know three of them: Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and Radagast "That Forest Hippie Who Refuses to Clean the Birdshit Out of His Beard" the Brown. The missing pieces of this magical grandpa pie are the two "Blue Wizards," which Tolkien glossed over briefly but never really followed up on. Last we heard, they were sent into Mordor to quell the threat of Sauron. They weren't seen again, but there's also no explicit mention of their deaths. The two blue wizards could be anyone, which is why it's entirely possible that they are in fact Albus Dumbledore and his nemesis/boytoy Gellen Grindelwald. All it would take is a temporal or multidimensional mishap, and they'd be in the modern world of muggles. How they got to Earth from Middle-earth isn't as important as the thematical connections. Dumbledore says that "It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated." Meaning that he wasn't going to give up once Sauron was down for the count. Though Grindelwald fell to the "dark side" like Saruman before him, Dumbledore kept up the fight and was eventually upgraded from "Dumbledore the Blue" to "Dumbledore the White." It fits, especially because in Latin, "Albus" literally translates to "white." It makes sense that Dumbledore took the job at Hogwarts, as that was the place he could best mount his defense of the world. Once there, he builds an army of wizards to do just that. And yet, he still remembers where he came from, which explains why there's a portrait of Gandalf the Grey hanging in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore had already assembled his wizard defense force, so he passed off into the undying lands in the most fantastical way possible. The entire theory sheds new light on Dumbledore's words: "Ah, music. A magic far beyond all we do here!" As it so happens, the world of Middle-earth was created via song by the Illuvatar. Did J.K. Rowling write Dumbledore with Tolkien's lost wizards in mind? It's not impossible, but it's probably unlikely. It doesn't matter, because veracity isn't the point of this fan theory. The real strength of this tangled yarn is just how creative it is in weaving two disparate but similar fictions together. These two worlds don't exist anyway, so why can't they they exist in the same place?

Though it's not featured in a big way in the films, the books go into a little more detail about the death of Frodo's parents. Drogo and Primula Baggins drowning during a freak boating accident is tragic, but storywise, it gives Frodo less of a reason to be tied down to the Shire. But one fan theory suggests there's a darker undercurrent to this story, that Frodo's parents were in fact murdered. The culprit: Gollum. We all know that creepazoid is capable of murder. It's arguably the first thing Smeagol ever did as Gollum. After the events of the Hobbit, Gollum set about finding the his precious stolen ring. Problem was, Gollum really only had two things to go on when it came to finding the ring: "Baggins" and "Shire." It's not out of the question that he might come across the Brandywine River on his quest, and he would certainly kill any Bagginses he found there. The theory is propped up by the questionable circumstances of the deaths. There seems to be a question among the Hobbits as to just how Frodo's parents passed. Whatever the case, both Drogo and Primula were pretty experienced boaters, so it's more than a little surprising that they would just fall in the water and die. No, it makes more sense that an angry Gollum murdered them straight out, giving up on his mission once he found nothing on their person. The only real damper on this theory is Gandalf, who claims that Gollum never made it to the Brandywine. That would seem to put an end to this theory, but put yourself in Gandalf's old man shoes for a minute. You're talking to Frodo, the guy who is going to lug the world's most dangerous weapon across a continent, and he's pretty fragile as it is. Now imagine if Gandalf decided to tell Frodo that the same guy who guides him through Mordor is the one that deprived him of his parents -- he'd undoubtedly lose himself to rage at some point, and as a result succumb to the power of the ring itself. If Gandalf hadn't pulled off an Obi-Wan-tier lie, our story would be over before it began. To be fair, at least that one ending is preferable to like seventy.

This almost feels like cheating. This "fan theory" is so perfect, fits so well into the mythos of the series that it's basically canon. But that's exactly the reason it can't be ignored. Just after the Fellowship is formed, the angelic Lady Galadriel offers each member of the group a special gift. Legolas got a rad new bow, Pippin and Merry each received sweet daggers, and Boromir was bestowed with a tacky gold belt that did not go with his bracers. The most interesting gift was that given to Gimli, the dwarf. While most others just took what was handed to them, Galadriel actually asked Gimli what he wanted from the elves. After a bit of stammering, Gimli gave in and requested his greatest desire. Others were naturally curious about this mystery gift. Asking for (and actually GETTING) a strand of Galadriel's hair might sound creepy, but it's really a huge deal. To explain why, we have to rewind a few thousand years. Several millennia before the War of the Ring, there was this shitbird named Feanor. Now, Feanor is a grade-A dickweed, but even he can see how lovely Galadriel is. As the legend has it, Feanor too asked for a single strand of Galadriel's hair, but he was denied. Twice more Feanor made the same request, and twice more he was shut down. Dude wasn't worthy of Galadriel's crusty toenail clippings, much less her luscious locks. Flash forward to the Fellowship, and Gimli's wish for a strand of Galadriel's flawless hair is granted threefold. Though Gimli is likely oblivious to the significance of the gesture, Legolas' smile tells us he understands. Up to this point, dwarves and elves had an uneasy relationship, like co-workers that hate each other but stay cool because they have to be in close proximity every day. But Galadriel saw the innate goodness in Gimli, and rewarded him thrice over. You can almost hear Feanor grumbling "It still only counts as one."

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #199 - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) According to IMDb:

New Line Cinema wanted Peter Jackson to start the film with a prologue done by Cate Blanchett, something that Jackson didn't want to do. Ironically, a year earlier, New Line Cinema had been opposed to opening the first film with a prologue narrated by Blanchett, something, of which, Jackson was in favor.

2) Beginning this film by revisiting such an iconic moment from the first (The Bridge of Khazad Dum) and continuing to push said moment past where it ended in Fellowship helps to make the film unique. It won’t just be a retread of familiar material but instead something which continues to push the story forward as all the best sequels do. It also sets the bar high for all ensuing action, as this was one of the (if not the) best moments from the original.

3) This film really doubles down on deepening the relationships introduced in Fellowship, with the romance kinship between Sam and Frodo. It is their relationship which the audience invests in, it’s something personal we can attach to. Sure Frodo losing his life or soul to the ring would be awful, but seeing how it effects Sam just ups the pain.

4) Andy Serkis as Gollum.

Holy shit, Andy Serkis as Gollum. Don’t let the fact that this is a CG role fool you, this is pretty much ALL Andy Serkis. Gollum’s facial features were based on his performance by the animator. All the physicality, all the vocals, the emotion, the heart, the character is Andy Serkis. He is so freaking otherworldly as the iconic character, blending completely into the role in a way only the best actors can. You don’t SEE Serkis in the part because he casts anything that is him aside to embrace the devious Gollum. And while I cannot possible undersell the importance and absolutely stellar work Serkis put into the part, a motion capture role is either limited or supported by the animators behind it. The character of Gollum is a perfect marriage between animation and performance, making you not doubt for one second that this is a real living character. Stealing pretty much every scene he’s in if not the entire film, Serkis should have been nominated for an Oscar because of his role in these films but wasn’t because it was motion capture. But this does not undermine the fact that Serkis by far gives the best performance in the entire trilogy.

5) The fact that the Fellowship was broken up in the last film allows for much more character development in this one. The heroes are not fitting for screen time or development in a scene with eight other characters. By separating them into the groups of Frodo and Sam; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli; and Merry and Pippin, all the characters get more room to shine and be developed.

6) Karl Urban may not have a lot of room to shine but that doesn’t mean he’s not as good in this movie as he is in others. Urban is a wonderfully gifted character actor, able to blend into any role which comes his way and Éomer is no different. You don’t see Urban so much as you just see the character.

7) One of my favorite things in the entire trilogy really begins to take form in this film and that is the bromance between Legolas and Gimli.

Legolas [after Éomer threatens to cut off Gimli’s head, pointing an arrow at him]: “You would die before your stroke fell.”

8) There’s this wonderful scene in the movie where Aragorn and company are at the site of the orc fight (where Merry and Pippin last were). What makes it work is that we briefly got a glimpse of this moment earlier. The orcs began fighting attackers and it looked like Pippin was going to be crushed by a horse when it just cut away. But by flashing back to what really happened while Aragorn figures it out for himself does two things well. First of all, it follows the rule of show don’t tell. Secondly: it doesn’t waste the audience’s time by showing us what happened THEN having Aragorn realize it himself. By combining it the film’s pacing improves.

9) Treebeard.

I really like Treebeard, he’s a wonderfully multifaceted character. He is able to be slow, paced, patient, but also has some deep anger sometimes. Voiced by John Rhys Davies (who also plays Gimli), the actor does a good job of making Treebeard sympathetic and interesting when (in lesser hands) he could’ve come off as boring. I dig it.

10) As with many parts of the trilogy, the Dead Marshes scene has a wonderful sense of place to it. It’s viscerally creepy and eerie, making your skin crawl and your stomach turn. Peter Jackson’s roots as a horror director really come in handy in these scene as it’s a place you know the characters should leave ASAP.

11) Can I just so: Gandalf is really freaking dramatic.

When he’s revealing to Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas that he’s been RESURRECTED (dramatic enough on its own) he even disguises his voice to make it sounds like he’s Saruman just to screw with them. And then we have this wonderful moment after Aragorn calls him Gandalf:

Gandalf: “Gandalf? Yes, that is what they used to call me.”

Dude! You did NOT forget your name! You remember literally EVERYTHING ELSE! You remember Aragorn and Merry and Pippin and everything. Take a chill pill, Gandalf.

(GIF originally posted by @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer)

12) I really like the whole Merry, Pippin and Treebeard subplot. It’s largely conversation but it brings up a lot of really interesting ideas about why the trees should participate in the war. Not only that, but it very organically develops Merry QUITE well. He and Pippin both started out as pretty immature in the first film, but by the end of this movie (through the subplot with Treebeard) he’s accepted his responsibility and is ready to fight for what’s right.

13) Miranda Otto as Éowyn.

Although Éowyn really gets her shining moment of glory in Return of the King (and the best damn moment in the entire trilogy), I love her from the first moment we meet her in this film. She’s my favorite character in the entire trilogy. I love that she can cry/grieve but still comes off as incredibly strong. She always has the best for her people and king in mind, always looking to fight against those who threaten those she loves and constantly frustrated when others try to get in her way. She is a great leader and a great fighter, as no moment fills me with such joy as seeing this badass royal practicing how to fight with a sword. I just…gah! I fucking love Éowyn.

14) This is one of those lines in a movie which has stuck with me my entire life.

Théoden: “No parent should have to bury their child.”

It really speaks to the grief Théoden is going through and an honest truth. Children are meant to outlive their parents, not the other way around. According to IMDb:

One time while Bernard Hill was in England, a woman came up to him and told him about how one of her children had died shortly before then, and that parents shouldn't have to bury their child. His confrontation with this woman affected him so much, that he asked to have a line put in about it.

15) Cutting between the three groups in the film could have easily dogged down the pacing, but the film knows when to make their cuts. The tension continues to build organically and the structure is never disrupted.

16) The conversations between Gollum and Sméagol.

Mostly I talk about how scenes like this work from a storytelling aspect as opposed to a technical aspect. And while these moments clearly illustrate the conflict and layers within Gollum/Sméagol, I am actually more impressed with the technical aspect of it. The scene works very well with two basic rules of filmmaking: Eye line and the 180 degree rule.

You can probably gleam what eye line means just from the name of it, but it’s making sure that when you cut between two characters looking at each other between shots the eyes match. Not only is that done very well here, but so is the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule is very simple: it means that when two character are in the same scene they should always be on the same side of the frame. Whether the shot is a wide, over the shoulder, or whatever, unless there is movement going on in the scene they should be on the same side of the frame so the continuity matches. In this scene, Gollum is always on the left while Sméagol is always on the right. Even though they’re the same physical person sitting in the same spot, the way the scene is framed just drives home the idea that they’re talking to each other because it follows the 180 degree rule. I just really dig that.

17) One of the most tragic things about Sméagol/Gollum is that for like MOST of this film he’s actually trying to redeem himself. He’s trying to be the good buy, he’s trying to help Frodo and Sam, but it is the harm done to him by fearful men which results in his regression back to a greedy backstabber. The more you sympathize with a villain, the more powerful they are.

18) I like the little update we get on Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship via flashback, but the later extended sequence with her, Elrond, and Galadriel is always something I zone out during. I like that she’s not forgotten but also the 15 minute segment where her arc is developed can feel a little pointless TO ME at times.

19) The Wild Riders attack.

While a little long, the set piece is very well done. It has interesting, well choreographed action which takes advantage of the wide space its in and a wonderful sense of tension. And it has some very real consequences, with Aragorn not being the untouchable hero trope but instead taking a fall off a cliff and being presumed dead. Also, Legolas and Gimli have their first of many competitions of who can kill the most bad guys in it and I love that.

20) A film is a story told in cuts.

Wormtongue [after talking about how it’ll take tens of thousands to take Helm’s Deep]: “But my lord, there is no such force.”

[Saruman shows Wormtongue such a force.]

21) I get that Elrond is Arwen’s dad and he’s worried about her, but she’s an adult who is living her life. Can’t he just respect the choice she’s made to live for Aragorn instead of pressuring her out of it? Please?

22) David Wenham as Faramir.

There’s a lot more patience with Faramir than his brother Boromir had. You can see a far amount of grief in Wenham’s performance. He’s wiser than his brother but not as favored (as we will get a better peek into in Return of the King), which causes a conflict in him. He wants to please his father and make him proud, but he also understands that his father is not always the best decision maker. This conflict shows greatly in Wenham and he’s able to make the character very interesting because of that.

Faramir: “A chance for Faramir, captain of Gondor, to show his quality.”

23) Get friends who react to you not being dead like Gimli and Legolas do with Aragorn.

Gimli: “I’m going to kill him! [Not 30 seconds later] Bless you!”

Legolas [after thinking Aragorn died]: “You look terrible.”

24) I know the source material dates back to 1954, but I HATE the, “get the women and children to safety,” trope. Like, Éowyn proves that women are capable of defending themselves just as well as men can. But they’re constantly infantilized, LITERALLY thought the equivalent of children, needing to be protected and hidden away from danger. If they trusted women to fight in the battle of Helm’s Deep there wouldn’t be all this talk about, “Oh, we don’t have enough men to fight for us.” THEN FIND SOME WOMEN WHO ARE GOOD WITH A SWORD! YOU’RE LITERALLY HAVING TEENAGERS FIGHT, YOU DON’T THINK YOU CAN FIND A WOMAN WHO IS AS SKILLED WITH A SWORD AS TEENAGERS!?

25) Aragorn really gets to go on a great journey throughout the three films. I mean in the first film he’s a loner, a ranger who doesn’t lead men. But in this film he begins to accept his responsibility as a king and lead the fight in the Battle of Helm’s Deep. It’ll only grow in the third film and I appreciate that.

26) One thing that these films do really well is they don’t let situations get too dire. This is a story largely about hope and fighting because of that hope, so to have a battle be too depressing goes against that idea. Legolas and Gimli are great of keeping the human heart of a scene.

Gimli: “What’s happening out there?”

Legolas: “Shall I describe it to you? Or would you like me to find you a box?”

[Gimli laughs.]

27) Battle of Helm’s Deep

This is an absolutely incredible climax to the film in the truest sense of the word. While the battle is INCREDIBLY long the filmmakers do a great job of carrying the action and pacing so that it never loses your interest. Legolas and Gimil help with that, but so do the character choices. Théoden gives up, Aragorn is ready to fight. The battle has tides, it changes favor, and it really just does a great job of holding your interest the whole time.

28)

Théoden: “Is this it? Is this all you can conjure, Saruman?”

[Battle starts to get worse]

(GIF originally posted by @welcometoyouredoom)

29) I love this exchange.

Treebeard: “This is not our war.”

Merry: “But you’re part of this world!”

30) While this film does feature a tone of development for Merry, it is Pippin who knows what to do so Treebeard will get invested in the war. So he’ll fight. He’s a tricky one, that hobbit.

31)

Théoden: “What can men doe against such reckless hate?”

Honestly (and Aragorn’s actions prove this): unite. Stand up against hatred and bigotry together and show the world that you will not stand for it.

32) One thing I haven’t talked much about for this film which also plays a much larger factor in Return of the King is Frodo’s continued corruption. The ring is getting to him, it’s darkening him, tempting him, causing him to doubt and fear. Wood plays this VERY well, this development. It feels organic, it makes sense even if it is brought upon by an outward force. It just really works.

33) According to IMDb:

When Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are in Osgiliath, Sam says, "By rights, we shouldn't even be here." This was a nod to the deviation the screenplay had taken from the book's storyline. In the book, Sam and Frodo never passed through Osgiliath.

34) I freaking love this. I forgot about this exchange and honestly it gives me hope.

35) Deciding to end the film on Gollum/Sméagol deciding to betray the hobbits in Return of the King I think works really well. It resolves his crisis of identity that has been featured in this film. He tried to be good and it didn’t work so now he’s going to be bad. I think even when a film ends on a cliffhanger there needs to be some form of resolution to it.

There’s really not a weak link in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Two Towers continues the excellence which began in Fellowship by giving each character more room to shine, continuing the battle of Middle Earth in an epic and investing way, while making sure these films still have a beating human heart to them. It’s just really great.

[tortuga-aak]

How Andy Serkis went from playing Gollum to directing his first movie — and the pressure of making a non-Disney 'Jungle Book'

Astrid Stawiarz/Getty

Known for being the master of the motion-capture performance following his roles as Gollum, King Kong, Caesar (in the “Planet of the Apes” movies), and currently Supreme Leader Snoke (“The Force Awakens,” “The Last Jedi”), Andy Serkis is throwing a major curveball on all of us for his feature directorial debut.

“Breathe,” about the life of Robin Cavendish — who became paralyzed from the neck down from polio — and his wife Robin, is a traditional biopic that is fueled by the performances of its leads Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy (Netflix's "The Queen") as Diana. The intimate love story is a departure from the usual CGI-focused work Serkis is known for. The movie was made through his production company, The Imaginarium, which mostly focuses on mo-cap projects.

But this is only a brief departure.

The opportunity to make “Breathe” came to Serkis while he was in post production on an extremely ambitious project: A live-action “The Jungle Book” movie for Warner Bros. that will feature a lot of big name actors doing mo-cap of the legendary characters that were brought back to the zeitgeist after Disney's CGI blockbuster release of its own "Jungle Book" movie in 2016.

Business Insider chatted with Serkis in New York City about finding the time to make “Breathe,” why he’s completely okay with movies resurrecting deceased actors through CGI, the status of “Jungle Book,” and how he created the Snoke voice.

Jason Guerrasio: You run The Imaginarium with Jonathan Cavendish, the son of the main characters of "Breathe," Robin and Diana. How did you meet him?

Andy Serkis: Jonathan had seen a film I had made called "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" about Ian Dury, who was a polio sufferer, and a punk rocker first and foremost, and he loved it and began telling me the story about his father. And then he told me he had been developing the script for five years. So we started The Imaginarium.

Guerrasio: So basically you were like, good luck with all of that with your family script.

Serkis: Yeah, it wasn't really the idea I was looking for. We were looking for other directors to direct it. And then I took the script home and I was just floored by it. It was just so incredibly powerful and emotional and you never read scripts like this in terms of the emotional content of it. So I was like, "S---, I'm having lunch with him tomorrow and I think I'm going to pitch me directing his parent's life story." So I did.

Guerrasio: At this point it's just script stage, no talent attached.

Serkis: Right. None. And he said, "Yeah, let's do it." So we started developing it and then "Jungle Book" came along and we started working on that and then that became a long preproduction. We shot "Jungle Book," principal photography, worked on it for a year and a half, and then this weird opportunity came up in the long post production we've had. Andrew and Claire became available and we raised the money in seven weeks and we shot the whole thing in seven weeks.

Bleecker Street/Participant MediaGuerrasio: Was that a nice time to shut off the part of your brain that was focused on "Jungle Book" or while making "Breathe" are you juggling that as well?

Serkis: Juggling lots of plates.

Guerrasio: But was it fun to shoot something that wasn't going to be as heavy motion-capture as "Jungle Book" is?

Serkis: I was so looking forward to it. This joy of seeing the performance at the end of the day rather than waiting a year and a half to see how a character is going to turn out eventually was a joy.

Guerrasio: Is that the big difference of directing "Breathe" versus "Jungle Book," the immediacy of it?

Serkis: In many ways it's the least complicated shoot I've ever done. On "The Hobbit" for Pete Jackson I was his second unit director, so that was my first grand scale experience as a director. Stepping onto a set with 150 crew and working for 200 days straight. The technical side of it was a huge education. So I felt prepared when I went into "Jungle Book."

Guerrasio: Was it nice to go back to basics, so to speak, of traditional filmmaking with "Breathe?"

Serkis: The simplicity was tied together with the brief shooting days. On those big projects you have nothing but time, this was like we have to get all of this in seven weeks. There was pressure. I didn't want to just make a film that felt like a drama-documentary that's handheld and not lit well. I always wanted to make it cinematic. It's based on truth but I wanted it to feel like a fairy tale which gradually gets stripped away towards the end of the movie.

Guerrasio: What did Jonathan think of the movie?

Serkis: He was by my side every day.

Guerrasio: But it's one thing if you make a biopic and the person it's based on is still alive, you may meet them briefly and maybe they'll come out and do press. This is the son of the main characters right next to you. Was it more pressure?

Serkis: We're such close friends, it was a joy. And he's so objective about his life. He wanted to see it from the outside. That was a gift.

Guerrasio: So you found the right guy to be your business partner.

Serkis: [Laughs] That's true. It could have gone horribly wrong.

Youtube Embed: http://www.youtube.com/embed/JycCFypvgmI Width: 560px Height: 315px

Guerrasio: What's the latest on "Jungle Book?"

Serkis: We're in a really good place with it. We shot the performance capture, it's live-action, so we shot in South Africa with this amazing young actor named Rohan Chand. Our version is darker in tone to the Disney one. Which I loved.

Guerrasio: So you have seen it?

Serkis: Oh, yeah.

Guerrasio: You didn't feel like, "I can't see it, I have to go in fresh with mine."

Serkis: No. No. Because I just wanted to make sure we weren't covering similar ground and I don't think we are. There was a point where we were neck and neck, these films were potentially going to come out within months of each other.

Guerrasio: Could you sit back and enjoy Jon Favreau's movie and not analyze the heck out of it?

Serkis: When we were shooting at the same time there was a bit of that worry, but I knew our script was for a PG-13 audience. It's a story about identity and we're using performance-capture as opposed to the whole jungle being CG. So, honestly, you can't think about the other one, you focus on what you're doing. I love where it is. We have designed these animals that you can very much see the actors' faces we have — Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch — in them.

Guerrasio: So you're just deep in post right now?

Serkis: Yeah. The animation is flowing. I think it's in good shape.

Guerrasio: I would like your thoughts on motion-capture in general. We've now had CGI versions of living people — Michael Douglas in "Ant-Man," Robert Downey Jr. in "Captain America: Civil War" — but also people who have passed away — Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in "Rogue One" — is there a certain line the industry should not cross in regards to using the tools we have?

Serkis: You mean digital resurrection?

Guerrasio: Exactly.

Serkis: I think if it's handled with taste and it honors actors who have passed and their families are happy, the estates are happy, if it's done in a respectful way, I think that's perfectly fine. But there has to be a good reason for doing it. Dramatically. Storywise. I mean, I think digitally resurrecting any character from history, Abraham Lincoln could have been performance-captured or Winston Churchill for that matter, it's a way of doing it. It's so funny because we love real stories and bringing people back to life through them. Think of how many actors have done an impersonation of somebody else. Wouldn't it be great to have the real Elvis Presley or someone through 3D imagery?

Disney/LucafilmGuerrasio: The recent "The Last Jedi" trailer has Snoke’s voice prominently featured. How did you come up with the voice?

Serkis: When I first worked on it with ["The Force Awakens" director] J.J. [Abrams] there was an evolving design of the character. It was going through lots of changes. But it's all about where a character carries his pain, or aggression, or emotional centers and with Snoke it was very much there [putting his hands to the back of his head]. And his skull has got this big scar in the front, so for me it was a fracturing. He's got this cleft in his head and I think it's very painful for him to speak and yet there's an imperiousness about him. He's severely damaged but there's a vulnerability that's he's trying to cover so that was sort of what I was trying to do.  

Guerrasio: I'd like your thoughts on the recently news about Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment and assault. Weinstein was an executive producer on all the "Lord of the Rings" movies. What's your reaction to the revelations?

Serkis: I think there's no excuse for a culture that allows for any kind of bullying or coercion on predatory behavior and I think we are behoove not just in this industry but across all industries to be vocal about that and to encourage and help and support people who are brave enough to come out and to challenge people who are in positions of authority if they behave badly. That's it. 

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