#tolkien meta

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

I do think that any fan who believes Tolkien intended readers to view characters as deserving of death, instead of simply meeting death as a consequence of their actions (or that one state-sanctioned execution), is fundamentally missing the ideology conveyed in ‘Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.’

[velvet4510]

Friendly reminder that literally nobody forced Fëanor and his sons to swear an Oath that they would become mass murderers if this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen. They chose of their own free will to make the most violent possible vow. This is why I can’t stand defensive takes from stans that are like “the Oath MADE them do it” because who MADE them swear such an Oath in the first place? Nothing and nobody!!!!

[growingingreenwood]

Here are my thoughts on Elves re-growing their teeth that nobody asked for:

Since Elves can live for literally ever if they're careful enough, I think it's super unlikely that one single set of teeth would be able to make it through all of the ages without even getting knocked out, rotting, or getting eroded overtime until they are flat to the gum. Unless of course Eru made them with invincible teeth (more invisible than any other part of the elves.) 

Personally, I think that it's most likely and the most PRACTICAL that Elves do the same thing as Crocodiles do where their teeth hollow out as they age so that a new tooth can grow into the space and eventually force the old tooth to fall out. Revealing a mostly fully grown tooth underneath. 

I think the FUNNIEST would be if it was like rodents and one single set of teeth slowly grows for eternity, so that if they don’t eat enough or wear them down their teeth get significantly longer than is ‘normal.’ Imagine the weird fashion trends the elves could come up with by purposefully growing out specific teeth.  

However, I think it would be the SCARIEST if it was the same as Sharks where they grow new teeth behind the old ones, and slowly force the older one’s forward until they become loose enough to fall out of their mouths. Could you imagine if elves had 2 - 3 sets of teeth at any given time in their mouths. Fucking terrifying.

[erulasse23]

Frodo & PTSD: Definition of Trauma

As a quick introduction, I recently finished a Lord of the Rings trilogy re-read and as an adult with a psychology background, I am endlessly fascinated with Tolkien’s portrayal of trauma and its affects through Frodo in particular. This is going to be multiple parts, but I want to start with a definition of trauma and what Frodo might have found traumatic about his journey.

A simple google search suggests the following definition of trauma: “A deeply distressing or overwhelming experience that can have lasting negative effects on a person’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being.” Some deeper research highlights certain elements of the causes and effects of trauma.

- Trauma is defined by the way our brains process an experience as highly threatening or dangerous, such that it overwhelms our ability to cope. In this sense, trauma is highly subjective.

- Trauma can be one event, or repeated exposure to stressors.

- Trauma literally re-wires our brain. A prolonged or severe stress response (fight or flight) has significant physical impact on our bodies including our nervous system, hormones, cardiovascular system, etc. PTSD occurs when these systems do not go back to normal after the threat is gone, and we lose the ability to successfully regulate our attention and emotions.

What is unique about Frodo, compared to the rest of the Fellowship, is that he carried the Ring and experienced both its pressures and the presence of the Eye for an extended time. The Eye, referring to Sauron’s metaphysical presence and attention, is described in terms of a threat. Carrying the Ring feels like there is a monster around the corner at every turn, waiting in suspense for a jump scare, constantly being chased and barely staying out of reach. In short, it’s a prolonged, acute stress response happening inside Frodo’s brain for months, exhausting his physical and emotional resources.

Other research about trauma indicates that experiences which significantly alter our self-perception (ideas about who and how we are) are significantly more difficult to process and move past. Frodo giving in to the Ring and claiming it in the end certainly had a huge impact on his self-image. You can see this in how he treats Saruman and the ruffians in ‘The Scouring of the Shire’. Compared to the other hobbits, even kind Sam, Frodo is much more forgiving and empathetic. I believe that is because he identifies with these “bad guys” now. His experience changed him in a way that not even Sam’s did, who was with him to the end.

The other event which causes a PTSD-like response in Frodo (which I’ll get into in another post) is being stabbed by a Nazgûl on Weathertop. Why does this affect him just as much as the Ring and Sauron’s destruction? There are two reasons. One, the Nazgûl have a certain power over despair. We see this later in the Black Breath and particularly Merry and Eowyn’s wounds (which they recover from, perhaps unlike Frodo, but that’s another post too). Two, as soon as Frodo is revived, before he even is tended to by Elrond, he “bitterly regretted his foolishness, and reproached himself for weakness of will” in putting on the Ring. His self-image again plays a large part in his difficulty healing even after Elrond removes the splinter that was left in his shoulder.

In ‘Homeward Bound’ Frodo says to Gandalf, “The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me… Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden.”

Part Two | Part Three

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

I feel like legolas is the kind of elf that, while he absolutely can take the reins of a situation and lead people, is also absolutely chill with being the second in command. Unless it’s needed or the one in charge is gonna do smth stupid, he’s fine letting other people deligate tasks and make decisions and such.

Legolas walks the fine line between being more of a solo act and being a team player

And you can see this pretty clearly in lotr too, like he lets Gandalf and Aragorn take the lead for the most part bc he knows this isn’t his area of expertise, but we also see his initiative and confidence when he volunteers himself for the quest instead of letting someone else take part (like glorfindel).

It’s also really important to me that legolas is someone who follows orders because he chooses to follow orders. He doesn’t follow orders bc he has to or bc it’s what he’s supposed to do, he lets other people tell him what to do only when he trusts them/trusts their decisions/agrees with them.

[edennill-archived]

Obsessed by the implications that by the time kidnap fam is happening, Maglor is dealing with so much responsibility he never asked for. Basically becoming the person on whom the wellbeing of all his remaining family and soldiers depends on.

Like, Maedhros is technically in charge, politically, but he's also depressed and suicidal, perhaps actively so at times. Even if he's capable of managing the remaining Fëanorian forces, he's very much not capable of managing himself, or the twins. Or Maglor. Maglor is not used to this.

And at the same time, I think this is probably him taking small steps towards becoming the kind of person that is capable of throwing away the Silmaril and living on, despite the oath, despite his father's dying wish. The problem with growing up among Fëanorians is that you never learn how to decide without multiple very strong and overbearing wills influencing you, but this here is when Maglor begins to learn.

He will fall back on Maedhros at the crucial juncture once more and give in to his will regarding the Silmarils, but he will not follow him into death next. And then he will be alone, but he will tear off a scrap of linen, wrap the hand holding the Jewel in it and make a step towards the sea, and the step shall be his own.

[glorf1ndel]

I am reading The Fall of Gondolin, and in the prologue, Christopher Tolkien writes that the Noldor were "most beloved... by Aulë (the Smith) and Mandos the Wise." Which raises the question: what does Mandos, Doomsman of the Valar, really think of Fëanor and his people, the subject of his Doom? I have seen some fandom interpretations in which Mandos can't stand Fëanor, and it is entertaining to think of long-suffering Mandos' patience being tested by this one fiery Elf. I have seen other interpretations in which Mandos is quite dispassionate, which is also interesting. Yet I think the truth about Mandos and the Noldor is in what Christopher Tolkien understood from the writings of his father: he loves them. Mandos, known for being the most grim of the Valar, is singled out by Tolkien (alongside Aulë) as caring about Fëanor and his people. Why? Perhaps Mandos cherishes the Noldor for their wisdom, before Fëanor leads them in the Oath. Perhaps he is simply fascinated by these Elves, who are so different from him. But maybe the answer is more complex, because Mandos knows nearly all things that will be. What if Mandos sees the future of the Noldor, in Vairë's tapestries or in his own mind? What if he rages against that future, all the while knowing that it will not change, because that is the Vision of Ilúvatar? Mandos is well-acquainted with destiny, although he cannot see all ends. Still, the Noldor are most beloved by him, in all their good and evil and moral shades of gray. What if Mandos knows what Fëanor and his people will do, and chooses to love them anyway?

[serene-faerie]

I wasn’t going to say anything originally, but I’m still really annoyed with that one reblog on my bingo card post.

So let me make this very clear:

MELIAN IS NOT A SELFISH NARCISSIST FOR ABANDONING DORIATH

I can’t believe this needs to be said, but apparently it must. Not only is it such a bad faith argument, but it’s completely wrong.

Melian was going through a tremendous amount of grief that was completely alien to her as a Maia. First, Lúthien became mortal and left Doriath to live a mortal life, and Melian has to deal with the fact that one day, she’s going to outlive her own daughter. Then she gets a chance to be a mother again when she and Thingol adopt Túrin, but despite her best attempt to raise him well, he runs away and ends up dying by his own sword. Which means she’s lost another child of her own.

She’s going through the kind of grief that no parent deserves to endure. Túrin may not be her biological son, but his death would’ve really hurt her, without a doubt.

Then, Thingol is suddenly murdered by the dwarves after a fight over the Nauglamir. Her beloved husband, the one she gave up Aman for, is dead, and by this point, Lúthien and Beren are both getting old and they’re also going to die in a couple of years. Melian is realizing that she’s going to basically outlive her entire family.

Can you imagine how that must feel for a Maia like Melian? She must’ve been going through so much pain and grief and heartache. I bet that this is when her Girdle around Doriath begins to fail— the Girdle doesn’t fall yet, but the sheer depth of Melian’s grief is enough to start weakening it.

Being in Beleriand would’ve been completely unbearable for her now. It actively starts to hurt her very spirit, and her powers weaken. I think she realized that if she stayed any longer, her powers would fail her, and she would probably fade away.

Melian didn’t abandon Beleriand because she was selfish. She left Beleriand because she realized that she could no longer live there without the one thing that made her powers flourish— her family.

I’m begging you, have some compassion for female characters and read through the book again PLEASE!

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

pretty interesting how curufin tells eol "those who steal the daughters of the noldor and wed them without gift or leave do not gain kinship with their kin," but then later, along with celegorm, does something similar and even more unambiguously nonconsensual to luthien. the phrasing -- specifically "daughters of the noldor," not just "daughters" or something similarly broad -- gives the impression that curufin's issue with eol isn't in the fact that he's a creep who "stole" a woman away, but rather in the fact that it was a noldorin woman, and curufin's own cousin and friend, who was "stolen" by eol. you can certainly make the argument, given that he doesn't mention aredhel by name and given the phrasing of the reprimand, that he's not angry for her sake but purely about the fact that, from his point of view, eol failed to show the noldor proper respect by going through all the formalities expected when marrying one of them -- but my preferred reading of this line is that it's both. yes, he's angry on the more impersonal behalf of the noldor, but he's also angry because aredhel is his cousin and friend and he cares about her. and it's kind of... disturbing, almost, to picture curufin so understandably offended and enraged on aredhel's (and his family's) behalf as he rebukes eol -- only to then, a few decades later, lie to, seize, and detain luthien against her will, the entire time seeing her as just a piece of meat to further his and celegorm's political goals. he doesn't care what a horrific violation of her autonomy he and his brother are committing; he doesn't even think about the fate he's sentencing her to in planning to force thingol to marry her to celegorm. her outrage, her fear, her distress -- all of it means nothing to him. it probably doesn't so much as occur to him that aredhel might have experienced the same thing he and celegorm are putting luthien through

[echo-bleu]

Alright, I've seen a lot of different descriptions and depictions in art, but I don't think this is actually settled in canon, so help me with something:

No "I want to see the results" you cowards, just make up your opinion on the spot if you don't have one.

I used round-shaped fruits but we also don't actually know the shape of the Silmarils, so assume for each answer that we're talking about whatever the largest diameter is in your shape of choice.

[lassieposting]

Oh god do y'all want a sad thought I just had

So. About Annatar's line to Durin in 2x03.

Durin IV: My father and I are no longer on speaking terms. You'd sooner get an orc to sit for a sun-bath than get us in the same room together.

Annatar: [...]perhaps bringing your father a means of saving his kingdom might be just the way to earn back his respect."

I'm side-eyeing this *massively*. This isn't just a manipulation. This man is projecting.

Aulë is, essentially, Mairon's father figure - the closest thing a Maia has. And, like Durin III and Durin IV, Aulë and Mairon are no longer on speaking terms: Aulë laid down a painfully obvious rejection during the First Age(?) when he sent Uinen to retrieve Ossë (Ulmo's Maia), but made no attempt to retrieve Mairon (his own). Regardless of whether Aulë intended to disown Mairon or whether it was a bluff to make him come home/an attempt to respect his choices, Mairon understood it as a complete and utter severing of ties and, as a result, made choices based on the belief that he could never go home to Valinor, because Aulë wouldn't have him back or advocate for him, and so he'd have no one to shield him from worse punishment than he'd get from Melkor.

Here, he tells Durin that saving Khazad-Dum will repair the fracture in his relationship with his father. And what did Sauron decide he needed to do after Morgoth fell?

Halbrand: I knew if ever I was to be forgiven, I had to heal everything that I helped ruin...together, we can save this Middle Earth.

He thinks that if he can go home to Valinor having "fixed" Middle Earth and put everything back in order, Aulë will forgive him.

[alsethwisson]

I have THOUGHTS about how Tolkien, despite being very conservative, made deliberate choices to correct his earlier works into less sexist and racist direction...and how it all is thrown out of the window by ostensibly progressive Tumblr fandom.

It's mostly the female characters, of course. Haleth is the worst victim, but oh my what they do to poor Nerdanel.

Again, they take a female character deliberately written as her own person independent of her spouse - a character based at least in part on Christopher's wife Tolkien was good friends with... and turn her into an accessory for a male character.

Honestly when have you last seen a fic where she is allowed to keep her own views and not run to Feanor at first call?

[erulasse23]

Frodo & PTSD: Healing

At the end of Frodo’s journey, he is left feeling isolated, alone, and without joy. It says in “The Grey Havens” that he withdrew from Shire life. When he becomes “ill” on the anniversary of being stabbed (by the Nazgul and Shelob), he hides it from Sam and says nothing. We know that his self-concept has been irreversibly changed. He set out from the Shire as a kind gentle-hobbit, with the idea of adventure being exciting and fun, only to be confronted with suffering, the reality of evil, and his own perceived failures. 

In the end, he cannot conceive of a life outside of his trauma and how he has been changed by his journey. He decides to sail to Valinor. Now what is interesting is that while the fandom (at least recently) has interpreted this as Frodo going to find healing in Valinor since he could not in Middle Earth, Tolkien never says that he is going for the purpose of healing. Rather, you get the impression that he has given up on healing. That his wounds are too deep and his joy too far lost. Sailing does indeed mark an end to his suffering, but not necessarily because he has healed. 

I want to interject a bit of historical context here. While Tolkien was writing the Lord of the Rings, post World War II, research on mental health was lightyears behind where it is today. The diagnosis of PTSD would not be added to the DSM until 1980, after wide study in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. In Tolkien’s time, it was called “battle fatigue” or “combat stress reaction”. Treatments ranged from electroshock therapy, to sedatives, to psychotherapy. The field of psychotherapy was a bit chaotic then, with the emergence of several new styles such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), still widely practiced today. 

The problem with these treatments, including CBT, is that they do not address the actual cause of PTSD. As previously discussed, PTSD occurs when the body’s stress response is overwhelmed and becomes “stuck”. CBT aims to change our rational thoughts and ideas, which then change the resultant emotions. This is a “top-down” approach. People who have experienced trauma do not necessarily respond to this because symptoms don’t come from a thought or belief from our rational brain, they come from our subconscious brain being stuck in crisis mode. Therefore, a “bottom-up” approach works much better.

Currently, some of the most-recommended treatments for PTSD include DBT (dialectical behavior therapy), EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), and neurofeedback therapy, all aiming to create a sense of physical sensation of safety, allow for traumatic memories to be processed appropriately, and to “unstick” our brains. A sense of community and mindfulness, fully inhabiting our bodies but not being alone in them, is essential to recovery. 

So let’s compare Frodo to Eowyn. Eowyn also suffers a grievous blow from the Witch-King himself and is left afterwards with the same symptoms: despair, dark dreams, and she is cold and pale. The difference between the two, however, is that, “Her malady begins far back before this day,” as Aragon says. Eowyn, for a variety of reasons (that’s a whole other post if we’re going to discuss her trauma), rode out with the feeling that her only purpose was to die in battle. She says that she does not want healing, she only wishes to return to the battle and die. Her injury and the Black Shadow of the Nazgul are not a new experience for her, they do not change her self-conception. They only make her more determined. 

Healing for Eowyn begins when Faramir takes the time to listen to her and validate her feelings. He does not tell her she is wrong, or attempt to change her belief. He sits with her, and eventually, he explains that he loves her for herself, fully separate from her trauma or depression and regardless of what emotions she is feeling. He enables her to see that she is more than her grief. He shows her a life where she is not alone and where she may feel happy again, and she allows herself feel that happiness rather than clinging to death. Her character evolution is almost an inverse of Frodo's in this way.

Now this is not at all a criticism of Sam (I love that hobbit to death!!) but Sam does not provide this same sense of community to Frodo. Sam loves Frodo, but his attention is divided between Frodo and Rosie (and the regular Shire goings-on). Sam struggles to understand why Frodo cannot enjoy the Shire as he once did, and he isn’t able to offer the same sort of validation. But I think Sam is the reason that Frodo stayed as long as he did, and the reason that Frodo was able to complete his quest. And I like to think that once Sam arrived in Valinor, he was reunited with a Frodo who, while not the hobbit he was before the Fellowship, has regained a sense of joy and togetherness. 

If you want more information about any of the topics that I briefly touched on here, let me know! I’m always happy to yap about my interests :)

Part One | Part Two

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Wait, how is it that Legolas could walk over snow, yet fingolfin’s host had elves that fell through the ice when they were walking on the grinding ice?

And don’t say “magic” because i’m asking why it’s not consistent. Either elves are light enough or something to not fall into snow, much less ice, or they are heavy enough to fall through snow/ice.

I don’t care about the explanation, but it has to be either/or, or there needs to be a specific reason why one does work and the other doesn’t.

[edennill-archived]

I was talking with Eri about shipping and authorial intent yesterday, and it occurred to me later that the importance even of the platonic bond between Maedhros and Fingon is probably distinctly exaggerated by the fandom (myself included) vis a vis how much attention Tolkien actually pays to it. What do we have in the books, really? The "ancient friendship" spoiled by the lies of Morgoth, the rescue, magnificent as it is, and the short mention of the Elessar (which, I will fight to my dying day, especially in a society where gems are present everywhere, is not in any way undeniably equivalent to courtship). Yes, it is extremely easy to construct their narrative arcs around eachother, but I honestly think that this is more a testament to Tolkien's skill as a writer, than an entirely conscious move on his part, given that it is not at all emphasised within the text.

And no, I'm not in fact saying that the fandom should not focus on this friendship, and most relationships in the Silmarillion are closer to vestigial than not anyway because of the very nature of the book, but I do think that as a fact it bears pointing to.

[symphonyofsilence]

What I find fascinating about Galadriel's story, the story of the rebel Noldo who dreamed of ruling a land of her own, actually survived to rule her own land until the end of the third age, and all the while dreamed of home is that it's the story of someone taking all the risks, paying all the price, forgoing everything she had, going all the way, and getting what she wanted only to find out that that was not actually what she wanted. Only to want to go back to where she was at the beginning. Only to want to go home. Maybe it was as glorious as she imagined, but it wasn't worth the price. Maybe it was exactly what she had in mind, but she's got it years after she's wished for it & her wishes had changed since then. Maybe she was actually good at it, but "there's no place like home".