Since I need fannish joy in my life and since apparently February is the month for ship posts: my recent return to Middle Earth has also reassured me regarding my inner slasher. More recently, there has been many a ship, both m/m and f/f, which I either couldn’t see or which didn’t appeal to me. But say what you want about the Tolkien & Jackson cinematic combination, they bring on the homoeroticism. (Also unexpected het couples, see Gandalf/Galadriel. Plus I’m fascinated by Tauriel & Thranduil both as an ampersand and a /, the later if it’s a slow burn.) When I was a young reader, I loved various of the friendships and was fine with, say, Eowyn/Faramir (yes, it happened fast, but he was Worthy), but it wouldn’t have occured to me to ship in the sense of seeking out fanfic, or wanting the characters to have more romance in between the platonic handholding. Fast forward a few decades, and not only did Sean Bean as Boromir plus the Philippa Boyens/Fran Walsh scriptwriting suddenly make me love a character whom I had been indifferent to, but I suddenly shipped him in every sense of the word with Aragon. (Whom I also felt much stronger about on screen than I had on the page.) The hobbits I loved in either incarnation, though I thought that maybe they were too, hm, cute for jaded old me to ship them?

The Hobbit movies a decade later proved me wrong in this regard. (And I’m even older now!) I fell for Thorin/Bilbo, hard, and, going by my Middle Earthian expeditions in recent weeks, am staying smitten. This, mind you, is a movieverse only thing, since both Thorin in general and the relationship Bilbo has with him have been significantly altered from the novel.

Again, part of it is certainly the actor: as with Sean Bean, so with Richard Armitage. But it’s also the writing. Overall, if a relationship appeals to me so strongly I need to see both parties getting something from it that is unique in their lives. Doesn’t mean they don’t care for other people and/or causes, strongly, too, but for me to root for a pairing, they more often than not need to challenge each other in a particular way.


( Cut for length of ramblings about a hobbit and a dwarf )

Still in a mood for Middle Earth, not least because the craziest twist in either book or movie verse makes more sense than British politics right now. (Yep, it’s still that painful „watching a friend commit a long, drawn out suicide by drinking themselves to death“ feeling.)

So, on to fiction, where people behave in less lethally farcical ways. You know, just a trivial matter but I couldn’t help but notice: in fanfiction, Kili and Fili address Thorin with „Uncle“ all the time and refer to him as „Uncle Thorin“, ditto with Frodo and „Uncle“, „Uncle Bilbo“ etc. Whereas in canon: the movies have use Frodo „Uncle“ as an address precisely once (in the „Unexpected Journey“ opening flashfoward) , versus „Bilbo“ at all other occasions (Fellowship and Return of the King), and he never refers to him as „Uncle Bilbo“. (Nor does anyone else. Sam says „Mr. Bilbo“, Merry and Pippin mention him as „Bilbo“ or „the old Hobbit“.) In the books, it’s „Bilbo“ all the way. As for Kili and Fili, as far as I recall in the book their biological relation to Thorin is only mentioned in the paragraph that brings up their deaths; in the movies, Fili uses „Uncle“ once – when pleading that Kili should not be left behind in Laketown – but it’s „Thorin“ otherwise from both brothers. (Fili calls „Thorin“ before the wounded Thorin regains consciousness near the end of „An Unexpected Journey“, Kili addresses him as „Thorin“ in his „what the hell, hero!“ speech in „Battle of the Five Armies“.

Now, at a guess, the reason for Frodo’s fanon constant „Uncle“ use is that Frodo, no matter at which point the story is set, tends to be written as younger than he is anyway, and definitely in pre-quest stories. (If you’re the woobie, you get infantilized.) As for Kili and Fili – maybe there’s a subconscious assumption that calling their uncle by his name is too informal for a hierarchical society? Too modern? Whereas yours truly sees the constant „Uncle“-ing as the modern touch.

Now, some recs:

I measured out my life in tea spoons: lovely Bilbo character portrait from childhood to Valinor, using tea as the Macguffin

The well-travelled soul: and another excellent character portrait of Bilbo through the ages via short vignettes

Sunshine and Rain : this one has Elrond and Bilbo talk about Arwen and mortality; it’s a hurt/comfort & friendship story with Bilbo doing the comforting

Splintes and Bruises: more but less serious h/c, this one set after the first movie, when both Thorin and Bilbo have to be covered in bruises due to the state Unexpected Journey left them in.

Five Times Lindir Was Stressed By Dwarves and One Time He Smiled: to finish my recs on a light note, poor Lindir. (Elrond’s steward at Rivendell, previously known as Figwit in fandom. *g*) Also a good look at Bilbo in this early stage of the quest.

In a hole in a ground, there lived a hobbit.



( Et in Hobbiton Ego )

Meanwhile, in New Zealand: Bilbo and the thirteen dwarves, i.e. the actors for the Hobbit film, out of costume for a group shot. Looking at this I again thought Martin Freeman for a younger Bilbo was an inspired choice on Peter Jackson's part. Also it's amusing to see Aidan Turner with the dwarvish beard. (And spot the Richard Armitage!)

(I wonder whether the casting will accomplish for dwarves what the LotR films did for hobbits and elves? I.e. turn a whole new brigade of slashers loose on an unsuspecting bunch of Tolkien characters whose sex lives were never the same again...)

There were a lot of fandom-themed funny valentines yesterday. Some favourites spotted:

A Very Special Battlestar Galactica Valentine Card (spoilers for the third season)

A hysterical bunch of Lost-themed Valentine Cards (naturally, the Ben one and the Locke one are my favourites, but the others are great as well; spoilers only for Kate's backstory)

I have the precious! Well, the theatrical release version of same. Again I couldn't resist and wait till November for the special edition. (Of which there is no trailer on this one, so see me pout a bit.)

Anyway, I just watched the film again and am full of the love for everyone concerned, from PJ, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (the most adorable trio of scriptwriting geeks ever - as proof I offer their audio commentaries on FotR and TTT) to the absolutely perfect cast to Howard Shore for the music to Ngila Dickson for the costumes to WETA for the effects... you get the picture. No, it's not that I think this film, or the other two, don't put a step wrong. In each installments, there were some things that rubbed me the wrong way. But these were never enough to distract me from the overall fannish devotion.

One the major achievements of the LotR film trilogy is, imo, the intensity of emotion it conveys. For which I credit the direction, the script and the performances equally. No matter whether it's a quiet moment, like Pippin's conversations with Gandalf on the balcony in Gondor or Theoden saying "I would have you smile again" to Eowyn, or one of those fierce outbursts, like Sam's "I will carry you" or Aragorn's "For Frodo", the sincerity and intensity of the feeling always carries me with it. And it's not just the major relationships which get the attention from script, direction and performances.

For example, a lesser director might have given us Frodo and Sam, but would not have bothered with Frodo and everyone else. In RotK, we have the poignant, tender and sad scene between Frodo and a very aged Bilbo, which reminds us of the affection we saw between them in FotR - and the fact that Bilbo's brief "Gollum" moment early in the adventure was the first time Frodo could see what the Ring was capable of doing to people. (And to someone he loved, no less.) When Bilbo asks Frodo about the Ring in RotK and Frodo replies "I lost it", Elijah Wood's face conveys the entire story - Frodo's realisation that the longing for the Ring really never does stop, despite its destruction, and that he and Bilbo both are damaged by it and can't remain in Middle Earth.

Each time I watch the brilliant intercutting between Faramir's suicidal charge, Denethor gorging himself and Pippin singing, I'm tempted to quote Wilfried Owen, because this is such a WWI moment, complete with the visual Saturn-eating-his-children/Abraham sacrificing his son associations Owen was so fond of. It's fascinating how Jackson manages to convey a very different emotion when Theoden leads his equally suicidal charge later. (Mainly, methinks, because Theoden tries to save lives and wasn't ordered to do this.)

A single illustration on the different way books and films work to achieve the same thing: in RotK of the novel, we have the "praise them with great praise" scene in which everyone celebrates the Hobbits' deeds with songs. Which is fine in a book, but if you did that on screen it would look inadvertantly funny. Whereas the equivalent in RotK the movie, the "my friends, you bow to no one" scene in which Aragorn kneels down in front of the Hobbits, with everyone following suit, does the same thing but does it cinematically. And again the perfect mixture of epic and intimate - the scene lives both from the effect that we see a great many people kneel, and from the expressions on the faces of our Hobbits - each one of the four takes this differently.

Speaking of facial expressions and cinematic shorthand - Sam drinking his beer determinedly, then standing up and the cut to Merry's, Pippin's and Frodos' amused and approving looks work better than an actual longer depiction of a scene between Sam and Rosie would have done.

Details, details:
- The hall in which Denethor resides reminds me of a chess board, both because of the floor and because of the statues. Which fits with the Denethor and Gandalf situation.
- The camera showing us Frodo writing in the Red Book near the end is the visual repetition of the scene introducing Bilbo in the special edition of FotR, but whereas the study in Bilbo's time looks clustered and homely, full of warm colours, it's spartan and empty in Frodo's case, symbolizing his ongoing devastation.
- Frodo smiling at his friends, the last image we see of him, repeats his first close-up from FotR as well, and both the similarity and difference between the smiles is heartbreaking
- and speaking of smiles: Theoden does see Eowyn smile again, after all, during those brief moments before he dies. Go forth, purists, and complain that it's Eomer in the book. I don't care. It has a rightness to it here.