Aaaaaaaand I am pretty sure everyone who stumbles across this tiny little blog knows exactly who this is. If not, there is a helpful caption in the top right corner of the poster that spells his name out for you, and a helpful caption in the bottom right corner of the poster that tells you in what movie he shall be appearing soon.

In other news, my piano teacher (who is not much of a LOTR fan herself but whose husband is) knows Gollum as "that creepy little man", which I find hilarious for some reason. I am willing to bet that a large percentage of the American population knows Gollum only as 'the Precious guy' or some permutation thereof. "My Precious!" is, after all, his iconic line.

*sniffle* I am getting close to the end of rereading The Hobbit. The Battle of Five Armies has just concluded, with all its drama and loss. I won't spoil the ending for you, since I urge you all to go read it yourself. But I will say that I felt like crying since, in rereading it, I have picked up on a lot more nuances that I missed in the past. A children's book? Children can read it, yes, but no adult who picks it up will find it stale. The Hobbit does not deal with sentimentality; it has true emotional depth. And then there's The Lord of the Rings...

I had a literature test today, and two of the passages I analyzed were from Beowulf, both illustrating very well the prevalent theme of loss in said poem. So I went at them from that angle. The theme of loss is a very beautiful, tragic, and poignant theme if done rightly (if not done rightly, it ends up being mostly snark bait... like, say, Hamlet). There are few things in my opinion that can rival the end of the timeline in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings for sheer heart-breaking capability: "Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien and sailed over the sea, and it is said that with him went Gimli, son of Gloin. And at that was truly come the end of the Fellowship in Middle-earth."

Now pardon me while I go bawl my eyes out.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse