“He gathered the huge pine-cones from the branches of the tree. Then he set one alight with bright blue fire, and threw it whizzing down among the circle of the wolves.” - The Hobbit, Chapter 6, Out of Frying-Pan into Fire.

People often say LOTR is a story about hope. (I'm reminded of it because someone said it in the notes of my Faramir post.) And that's true, but it's not the whole picture: LOTR is in large part a story about having to go on in the absence of hope.

Frodo has lost hope, as well as the ability to access any positive emotion, by Return. He is already losing it in Towers: he keeps going through duty and determination and of course Sam's constant help.

For most of the story, Sam is fueled by hope, which is why it's such a huge moment when he finally lets go of the hope of surviving and returning home, and focuses on making it to the Mountain. To speed their way and lighten the load, he throws his beloved pots and pans into a pit, accepting that he will never cook, or eat, again.

When Eowyn kills the Witch King, she's beyond hope and seeking for a glorious death in battle. It's possible that in addition to her love and loyalty for Théoden, she's strengthened by her hopelessness, the fear of the Nazgúl cannot touch someone who's already past despair.

Faramir is his father's son, he doesn't have any more hope of Gondor's victory or survival than Denethor does, he says as much to Frodo. What hope have we? It is long since we had any hope. ... We are a failing people, a springless autumn. He knows he's fighting a losing war and it's killing him. When he rejects the ring, he doesn't do it in the hope that his people can survive without it, he has good reason to believe they cannot. He acts correctly in the absence of hope.

Of course LOTR has a (mostly) happy ending, all the unlikely hopes come true, the characters who have lost hope gain what they didn't even hope for, and everyone is rewarded for their bravery and goodness, so on some level the message is that hope was justified. But the book never chastises characters who lost hope, it was completely reasonable of them to do so. Despair pushed Théoden and Denethor into inaction, pushed Saruman into collaboration, but the characters who despaired and held up under the weight of despair are Tolkien's real heroes.

(In an early draft of Return, Frodo and Sam receive honorary titles in Noldorin: Endurance beyond Hope and Hope Unquenchable, respectively. Then he cut it, probably because it was stating the themes of the entire book way too obviously, because this is what Tolkien cared about, really: enduring beyond hope. Without hope.)

Also, people who know more than me about the concept of estel, feel free to @ me.

These were my favourite drawings from that video I made so I decided to post them seperately :)

I know I've said it before but every rewatch I do cements this thought further - elijah wood's performance in LOTR is absolutely insane, they really had a character whose name means "wise by experience", hired an 18-year-old to do it, and he delivered so much that not only is it a beautiful and moving role on its own, it's a performance equal to those of the absolute powerhouses he played side by side with like ian holm and ian mckellen. to name just a few

And speaking of pronouns, flat-out my favorite part of the LOTR Appendices is when it’s revealed that the Gondorian dialect of the Common Speech differentiates between formal and informal second-person pronouns but the distinction’s been lost in the Hobbit’s dialect, so Pippin’s blithely been using familiar terms of address with the Lord of the City, and thus helps to explain both why the Gondorians are so ready to assume he’s a prince and why Denethor finds him so amusing to have around.

While it was a longshot, I do appreciate that Gimli did try chopping the Ring up with an axe first. It was worth a shot, and they'd have all felt like bloody idiots if they took the Ring all the way to Mordor only to find out it could have been chopped up by an axe all along.

These lines (first from the films, thereafter from the books) taught me something profoundly essential about how to be there for a friend, a lover, or a loved one when they are consumed by despair, weighed down by grief, or overwhelmed by the weight of mental torment. It taught me that some burdens are sacredly personal; untransferable tasks that each of us must face in our own time and way.

Yet, while we cannot take their pain or carry their burden for them (no matter how much we wish we could), there is something else we can do. While we cannot lift their burden, we can lift them. We can carry their weary body, their weary heart, as they bear the weight of their pain. In doing so, we offer them a sanctuary — a place of care and safety, where they can begin to confront their hurt without the fear of being alone in its gaze.

While the pain may be theirs to bear, the journey through it need not be traveled in solitude.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, I love you.

Watching lotr twin towers and need everyone to know that my friend just said re: Aragorn and Karl urban confrontation “go off queens out-butch each other”

So I was curious about the Beatles lord of the rings movie that never was. I was wondering about the casting and uh

GOLLUM???