#text: middle earth

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

I was thinking about how I don't ordinarily like large age gaps in fictional relationships, but with an exception for one of my favorite fantasy tropes: unalterably different lifespans.

I actually really enjoy it when an ordinary lifespan forms only a small part of the life of some long-lived being(s), chronologically speaking, yet the comparatively short-lived person has an inexpressibly profound impact on the other person or people that lasts for multiple lifetimes (my group's last D&D campaign culminated in exactly this dynamic and it was great).

I particularly enjoy it when both or all go into the relationship with a solid understanding of what the disparity in lifespans will mean and acceptance of this as part of loving each other for who they truly are rather than wishing them fundamentally different. I do not particularly enjoy it when the disparity is "fixed" for whatever reason; it just de-fangs the whole thing to me and makes it 10x more boring. Give me the bittersweet lifespan angst, I eat it up like bittersweet chocolate.

There is a variant that I also like, which is when the disparity in their potential lifespans is not smoothed over, but through some horrible turn of events, the longer-lived person dies before their partner(s). I don't think I'd like it as "haha, a twist! you didn't see that one coming, did you?" But when it is serious tragedy, it's great.

I was thinking about this because I'm a big Tolkien fan, and some of the relationships work a lot better for me than others. But nothing works quite so well for me as:

Éowyn falling in love with and marrying the ultra-Númenórean Faramir, a man who will live to be 120 years old, likely outliving her by 20-30 years and possibly more if she dies of old age.

Galadriel's brother, Aegnor, falling hard for the mortal woman Andreth but afraid of the ramifications of mortality. He then dies in battle against Morgoth while she's still alive. Elves can be reborn sometimes, but Galadriel and Aegnor's oldest brother tells Andreth:

"he will never take the hand of any bride of his own kindred, but live alone to the end, remembering the morning in the hills of Dorthonion ... I say to thee thou shalt live long in the order of your kind, and he will go before thee and he will not wish to return."

It's sad, but also

[theidlespoon]

nothing, just tolkien originally writing down the hobbit because his son christopher kept complaining that he'd change the details from night to night and then christopher later being so crucial in taking tolkien's notes and turning them into fully written novels of worldbuilding. loving someone to the point of creation and then having them help you finish the job.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was challenged to a game with Yu-Gi-Oh-esque stakes by an elf from Middle Earth and he asked if I was named after Samwise Gamgee.

[dyingroses]

Happy Middle Earth Monday!

[brethilach]

The Silm talks a lot about Morgoth "marring" Arda and mutating the creations of the Valar, but beyond the geography of Arda (including entire continents, the Lamps, The Misty Mountains, Two Trees etc), along with certain vague implications (that may or may not be true) of his "monsters" originating from mutated people or animals (Orcs from Elves, Trolls from Ents, etc), there doesn't seem to be much information about WHAT creations Morgoth actually destroyed and/or changed. So I've been thinking about it

Millions of years ago the tectonic uplift of the Appalachian mountains created a lot of weathering and sequestration of CO2, consequentially changing the entire climate (from a greenhouse climate to an icehouse) and chemistry of the ocean(s) — What if, by raising the Misty Mountains, Morgoth forced Arda into a Glacial Ice Age? (It's already canon that Sauron caused at least one of the Long Winters in Eriador!)

What if Morgoth delving Utumno created volcanic activity and tectonic uplift that triggered a mass extinction event? What if prehistoric animals or plants were alive during the Spring of Arda but were destroyed by Morgoth? Like it would make total sense that the Sleep of Yavanna, "a time of darkness and stillness of nature", is just a poetic way of describing something like that

WHAT IF MORGOTH MADE DRAGONS FROM DINOSAURS AND PTEROSAURS

the possibilites are endless

[fangirl-erdariel]

Sometimes I wonder what Tolkien would think about the fact that his books have been popular for so long that some of the words in it have started to change meaning

[lena-point]

the stone doesn't even do anything...

[erdarieldraws]

Oops, I drew Finrod again

[verkomy]

eurovision but middle earth edition

[winwin17]

Incorrect Quote Poll

[i-dont-know-anything-anymore]

[any huge middle earth conflict]

Gandalf: ima get a baggins

[thatrandombystander]

Mr Bilbo Baggins using his going away presents as an opportunity to insult all of his extended relatives int he first chapter of Fellowship is fucking hilarious.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Middle-Earth by Other Minds Community!

A few months ago I started up a community within tumblr's new beta feature of 'communities'. Essentially a space on the site which can be dedicated to specific topics or ideas.

Mine is a space dedicated to posting or reblogging any tolkien fanwork that diverges from Peter Jackson's film visuals, narratives etc. The idea being to coallate work in there that can then be reblogged out and get a bigger reach. We've been chugging along nicely with about 30 members, but I've finally cleaned it up a bit and added a set of guidelines and such. So I'm seeing if anyone else wants to join up!

Unfortunately the current member cap on communities is 500, but that leaves us with a good number of spaces and if we get full up then I'll post about it again when the cap goes up.

INVITE LINK HERE! Happy to have you! :)

[sixxxer]

trop would've probably been as popular as hotd if they shipbaited silvergifting instead of saurondriel lmao

[brethilach]

this is extremely nitpicky and it doesn't matter but I just wanted to put it out there that people in Middle Earth would be far more likely to use either the Westron names or the names they have in their own languages to refer to the Valar (as opposed to the Quenya terms). And if they WERE to use an Elvish language they'd still be more likely to use Sindarin over Quenya (which was little more than a conversationally dead language by the late Third Age).

People (aside from the Noldor themselves) would be far more likely to call the Valar the Rodyn or Belain, or simply just "the powers" or "the gods" (if they were a human of non-Númenorean descent). There's no other canon term for Maiar (as far as I know), but the Sindarin term would still be preferred for them (whatever that is), or otherwise they'd just be called "the Beautiful" or even just "spirits". Valinor would be called Dor-Rodyn or just "the land of the powers/gods/rulers of the world" (or whatever term they have in their own language) and people would say Ardhon or just simply say "the World" over "Arda". Valar like Oromë and Varda would be MUCH better known as Araw and Elbereth (if not by the name in one's native language) rather than the names the Noldor gave them (Varda is already referred to as "Elbereth" in LOTR!)

I only say this just because I keep on reading fanfics where characters are casually throwing out Quenya terms to refer to these kind of things and it hurts me,, but it's very much a "he would NOT say that" sort of thing. It doesn't truly effect me at the end of the day

Edit: I want to clarify that I totally get that the need to make things understandable for the average reader is far more important than the frivolous semantics of constructed languages and fictional translation conventions. I'm not saying that people NEED or even SHOULD start using these names in their fics, I was just airing it out for people who DO care about this sort of thing (like me). But I don't think it's wrong to use the Quenya terms because that's what most people are familiar with (and I'll never snub someone's fic just because they do, even if it hurts the linguistic nerd inside my heart a little bit)

[vidumavi]

i enjoy thinking about the silmarillion as an in-universe historical text and also building on that it's really fun to think about what other texts (not necessarily limited to writing) might have survived in-universe from the first age or even before. of course a lot of it got destroyed, but as in the real world, there would be copies of copies and fragments and things written down from memory and stories told to children that survived. Even if 95 percent of everything was lost, that still leaves a whole lot! and all of that would be subject to further translation and mythologization and fragmentation and alteration after the first age. there's so much potential in the cultural legacy (& its reception) of first age beleriand