Boromir Speaks the Truth!

This has been scientifically proven to be impossible. Of course, it's cheese. Who can resist? Not even when the Auditors of Reality describe it as 'rotted bovine lactation' in Discworld does its appeal abate.

Praise cheese!

Furthermore:

In Boromir's world, nothing is simply done. Cue the song of, "It simply isn't done, it simply isn't doooone, it simply isn't done," from Cinderella 2.

I now must take one of my Gandalf minifigures and place it in the hallway. My main concern, however, is that someone will not notice him and step on him. My concern in such an occurrence, however incongruous, is for the harm that might befall LEGO Gandalf and not for the harm that might befall said careless person's foot, although I know firsthand how painful stepping on a small hard plastic object can be.

Fortunately, I have several LEGO Gandalfs.

Oh, yes. Most certainly, precious. I am so very happy when someone gets the joke I made. The other day in lab we were watching our compounds boil for an hour and a half. To alleviate the boredom, I randomly stated, "My bubbles." So happy to have that quote from Finding Nemo recognized and appreciated!

It's also good to have occasions in which to make fandom references! XD

Are they ever! XD Table manners and Elves are so last year. Wait... is that Ori holding a knife? Or is that Kili? Scary circumstance in either case. The silly boys... the precious noodles have obviously never been away from home before. Sometimes you think they still need their mother to look after them...

Cannot wait for the epic food fight and Bofur's song and dance in Rivendell!

If only we had more used bookstores around here. *sigh* The subject reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote: "Used bookstores are just genteel black holes that know how to read." There's also the theory of L-space, but I shall not expound on that here. XD It's for your own sanity.

Beautiful illustration by Ted Nasmith. I don't always love the guy's Tolkien artwork, but this one is simply lovely. I also love the quote, spoken by Elrond at the Grey Havens in ROTK.

Speaking of which...

Where I found this picture, someone had commented: People hate Elrond?! My comment is along the lines of: How can you possibly hate Elrond? He's amazing, and for many reasons. Let's take a look.

If all you value about characters is their ability to kick butt, Elrond is no slouch in this department. Let's just peek at his genealogy, shall we? His mother's father's mother was a demigoddess (half-Maia, if you prefer.) His father is Earendil. Earendil killed SHELOB'S MOTHER, also known as Ungoliant, the monstrous spider Radagast refers to in TH:AUJ ("It's the spiders, Gandalf." "Spiders?" "Some kind of spawn of Ungoliant, or I am no wizard."). Earendil also killed the biggest dragon to ever live, Ancalagon the Black. And THEN Earendil became the Morning Star. And Earendil's family on both his father's and his mother's side is composed of pure awesomeness.

You see Gandalf's sword? That belonged to Elrond's great-grandfather, Turgon, King of Gondolin.

Now, if your beef with Elrond is the fact that he's 'mean' to Aragorn and Arwen, you obviously haven't read The Silmarillion. When Beren, a mortal man, wishes to marry Luthien, an Elven-Maia princess (yes, the demigoddess ancestress referred to earlier), her father, King Thingol, demanded that Beren steal a Silmaril as the bride-price. For a little context: the three Silmarils had been stolen by Morgoth, a.k.a., the Satan of Middle-earth, and he continually wore them on his crown so that no one would ever be able to recover them. Thingol basically signed Beren's death warrant in the most painful, humiliating way with that. (Of course, Beren, Luthien, and their talking dog go on to win a Silmaril and beat up Sauron himself, but whatever.)

Elrond, on the other hand, has been fostering the young chieftains of the Dunedain for generations. He treats Aragorn like a son; in fact, at one point in the LOTR Appendices, long before Aragorn and Arwen actually marry, he does call Aragorn 'my son'. When he learns Aragorn wishes to marry Arwen, all he basically says is that, "Go and prove that you are worthy enough to marry her by becoming King of Gondor and Arnor." Aragorn was already (mostly) the legal heir to both positions (it's a long story) and wanted to do this anyway. It wasn't a death sentence, just more of, "I want to make sure my daughter is taken care of properly when I leave."

I'm not sure why else people would have a problem with Elrond. Maybe they don't like his eyebrows. I dunno. Apparently, ugly people must be evil and his eyebrows give him a sinister appearance. To counteract that, I submit Elrond in armor.

Exhibit I:

Exhibit II:

 

I mean, really...

ELROND FOR THE WIN!!!

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of the least-appreciated Catholic philosophers, I sometimes think. His Catholicism is very much underappreciated. It needs to be spread and appreciated. Such greatness could have only come from the wealth of truth and beauty that is our Catholic faith.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

No one wants to believe in evil, really, and above all not in an evil being, an evil spirit. Everyone wants to abolish the idea. To admit the existence of evil means a responsibility, and no one wants that responsibility. That is the opening through which the evil spirit crawls, stilling all suspicions, making everything seem normal and natural.

- Pope Benedict XVI

In semi-related news, I finally looked up the German for something I've been meaning to for a while now:

"What is this new devilry?"

I now need an opportunity to say this. I have already used, "Das hat dir der Teufel gesagt!" once or twice, to general incomprehension. It was mostly for the lolz, though; I would never really mean something like that. The lolz comes from the fact that I found the quote in a German version of Rumpelstiltskin.

...You know, I'm not actually sure how you do spell 'Rumpelstiltskin'. Weird. O.o

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

I'm Back To LOTR Funnies

As a matter of fact, I know who Tom Bombadil and his wife, Goldberry, are. People who have only seen the movies are likely to go, "What the blank?!" when they start the books and get to the three chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring that Tom Bombadil is in.

"But this isn't in the movie!" they'll wail.

Now, intense fan debate rages over who and what, precisely, Tom Bombadil is. My best guess is that he is some sort of Maia, the spirit of the vanishing English countryside, as J. R. R. Tolkien himself put it. (An attractive fan theory also holds that he is Aule himself, the creator of the Dwarves. However, upon further consideration, that is unlikely.)

I used to intensely dislike Tom Bombadil and was glad that the movies kept him out. Now, however, my temper has cooled. I won't say that Tom Bombadil is a favorite character, but I don't mind him. I still see why he wasn't in the movie, but I regret that the "Fog on the Barrow-Downs" chapter didn't make its way into the movie. It explains so much, like, for example, how Merry's sword was able to defeat the Witch-king.

Um, that's Dwarves, thank you very much. The capitalized D is optional, as the Professor was never very consistent himself on whether or not 'Elf' and 'Dwarf' and even 'Hobbit' should be capitalized. I prefer to capitalize them myself, but my fingers may occasionally slip.

I always, however, spell the plurals with a 'v'. It is ELVES and DWARVES, not elfs and dwarfs. The 'f' makes one think of tiny stupid fairy tale characters, and the races belonging to the Professor's Middle-earth deserve more dignity than that.

I am totally doing this the next time I find myself in the middle of an argument. I doubt, somehow, that I shall end up doing this in class.

Although there is a possibility...

One of my favorite lines from the book (I have very many favorite lines, too many to ever list in one post), and Meriadoc Brandybuck is my favorite hobbit from LOTR.

Reasons?

He's the smart one. In the book, he is the only other hobbit than Frodo who was sneaky enough to catch Bilbo using his Ring and to steal a glimpse of his book. Realizing that Frodo is planning to leave the Shire, he forms a conspiracy to plan ahead and go with him, along with Pippin and Sam.

In Rivendell he looked at maps and things, while Frodo was off talking to Bilbo and Pippin was fooling around. After they escape from the Uruk-hai, he is able to confidently navigate them to and through Fangorn Forest.

He gladly swears allegiance to Theoden King (later he speaks of Theoden as a father to him) and wants to ride off to war - in fact, at one point he wishes that he were a tall Rider like Eomer and could blow a horn and go riding to the rescue. Despite the terror of the Witch-king, he rallied himself and stabbed him in the knee with his Barrow-blade, allowing Eowyn to finish him off. Despite killing the Lord of the Nazgul, he didn't pride himself on that accomplishment, only saying, "It's not always a bad thing, being overlooked."

Meriadoc Brandybuck for the win.

Note to self: Stay away from Firefoot.

The resemblance is undeniable.

'SR' stands for Shire Reckoning, one of the calendar systems the Professor devised for Middle-earth. He was thorough, that great and wonderful man. He devised tons of languages, calendar systems, alphabets, maps, and more for his fantasy world. Is it any wonder that, 75 years later (precisely! The Hobbit came out on September 21, 1937), this fandom is stronger than ever? There is so much depth to Middle-earth that we shall never grow tired of it.

And, yes... that last line in Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings never fails to make me tear up: "And at last was come to an end in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring."

Hahahahaha.

There is a reason I am not on Facebook.

 

The Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

It was.

(Now, you may try to argue that there is a love triangle between Aragorn, Arwen, and Eowyn. There is not. Eowyn only crushes on Aragorn. It is not reciprocated. There was never any danger, at least in the book, of Aragorn defaulting on his promise to Arwen. Frankly, it got annoying to watch Eowyn keep going after Aragorn even AFTER she knows he has an Elvish girlfriend. I mean, seriously.)

Oh, look: I found pic I was thinking of as I typed that:

Where can I buy these?

You may all go and have nightmares for the rest of your life. *cackles insanely*

Apparently, Sauron rules AT&T. Given our experience with it, this may indeed be accurate.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Fellowship Tribute

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater."

-- Haldir, The Fellowship of the Ring

In Pace Christi,

Elyse