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War of the Rohirrim was fucking great.

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The King under the Mountain and the Master Burglar

In honor of the anniversary of the Hobbit trilogy, I'm dropping two arts with my favorite characters from Peter Jackson's films ✨ Ten years have passed - I'm still in shock….

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Hobbit's need lots of naps.

Prove me wrong. ☕

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With The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim coming out, I am interested to see the anime story of a section of Rohan's history. The animation looks good, and I have a personal fondness for hand-drawn animation as opposed to the more computer-generated animation commonly used today.

What I'm not enthused about is looking at some of the comments for the trailer complaining that the protagonist is female rather than her father King Helm Hammerhand being the protagonist. They give the usual dogwhistles of "wokeism" and mocking that it needed to be a female protagonist because Helm was disqualified for being a white male.

Did they miss Théoden's niece Eowyn in the main series, the Rohirric princess who defied her gender norms and fought in the Battle of Pelennor Fields, slaying the Witch-king of Angmar? She also does it while literally announcing that she is a woman, uttering the line "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter" in response to him saying "No living man may hinder me."

Had it been done today, there would be complaints of Eowyn slaying the Witch-king instead of Théoden along with that line, saying she was there for diversity in a disparaging way or "woke" points. It boils down to a contempt for protagonists who aren't white, cis men. If you naturally assume a film or show is going to be bad, because the lead(s) is a woman or a POC you're just revealing your own attitudes towards race and gender.

Female protagonists are not unheard of in anime either, especially with Miyazuki's films like Nausicaa of the Wind Valley, Spirited Away or even films like Ghost in the Shell.

Personally, it's a fresh take that could be good. Going by the trailer, Hera is at the center of it all in not just being a princess of Rohan, but the request for her hand in marriage is what sets off the sequence of events that leads to war. She also personally knows the antagonist Wulf as a childhood friend who may have developed feelings for her, creating a more complicated relationship than simply Frodo and Sauron and adding another layer of drama. It also creates a more complicated villain with motivations that are understandable with regards to the loss of his father.

There's also the relationship Hera has with her father. She notes how he and Wulf's father spoke of her prospect of her marriage "as if I was not even in the room" or no one asks her opinion about her ostensible future. She also wants to defend her kingdom, but her royal father dismisses her. While he does care deeply for his daughter, Helm is still a man blinded by the prejudices of his patriarchal society.

Hera herself sounds like she could be an interesting character with her struggles in both against the gender restrictions, to defend her kingdom and in her personal relationships.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

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THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM (2024) OFFICIAL TRAILER

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Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched the same three movies this year.

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This is how Mordor became what it is.

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An important message for us as we navigate the following years. Remember that some great deeds of good can be carried out by the smallest of people, the least powerful. Even in dark times, we have light together. Stay safe, friends.

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sam and frodo :)

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I love them so much 😭✨

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"Bilbo is an incredibly generous hobbit. My respect for him is boundless. May the hair on his toes never fall out! He always did what was right and I..."

"I hope we would have remained good friends, even after all I did and said."

"I hope he would have forgiven me."

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Happy Hobbit Day lol, here have a tech abomination, definitely in the spirit of wholesome down to earth living

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LOTRWEEK DAY 1 → THE ROAD GOES EVER ON

It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.

The Return of The King, J.R.R. Tolkien

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I have some kind of fixation on them, just like on hankcon.

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Tar-Ancalimë, first Ruling Queen of Númenor.

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