Musings of the Obsessive Kind

I am about to rewatch The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a.k.a. my favorite movies ever. (As a side note, I think Aragorn is my favorite movie character).

So here is my favorite youtube MV ever, a general for the Trilogy. If you don't speak Russian the choice of clips might seem odd but, in fact, they've been picked to reflect the themes and word images of the song, and that song is probably my favorite song ever and freakily appropriate for LOTR.



Btw, what is your favorite LOTR movie? I adore all three (I was the nerd who went to Trilogy Tuesday and ended up in hysterics by the end) but my favorite is, oddly, Two Towers. Maybe because it's the most human-centric or the grimmest? But my favorite scene is in Return of the King: Faramir's doomed charge. It still gives me shivers, even all those years later, to think of it and the way it's intercut.

Mr. Mousie and I ended our already lovely evening by watching Fellowship of the Rings (in all likelihood, Two Towers will follow tomorrow).

No matter how many times I've seen the movie (and it has been entirely too many times in the over six years since its release), I still get the same swoop of the stomach when Aragorn salutes before facing the horde of Orcs at the end, I still get the same lump in my throat when Gandalf falls, and the same feeling of awe when we first see Lothlorien.

I posted about it recently, so only a very few points that stuck with me during the rewatch.

Boromir's death still makes me get all sniffly and girl-like. The whole image of him on his knees, facing death (after fighting even when riddled with arrows) and failure to save the hobbits. And then Aragorn appearing, to give him the gretest gift he can: not even a death in peace, with a friend to close his eyes, not even the promise to save the hobbits or telling him he kept his honor, but...

It's Aragorn's final acceptance of his duty and his role, of his taking the burdens of Gondor on his all-too-human shoulders, that is what the best gift. Because the one thing that kept Boromir going and holding on is care for Gondor, and knowing that if he wasn't there, there would be no one else. But now Aragorn took it on (and such luck, isn't it? Not only is Aragorn a reluctant, disposessed king, his kingdom is in total danger and war and ruin. Some patrimony). And Boromir knows Aragorn's worth, so he can finally let go. I love the way he repeats 'our people' when Aragorn says it, because it means everything to him, that admission. Boromir is a proof of his comment to Aragorn that there is frailty in men but also honor.

That is something Aragorn needs to face not even about humans in general or Boromir, but most of all about himself. That yes, he is flawed and 'frail' but he is also incredible and worthy. So much about LOTR is not about birth destiny at all, but about your inherent worth. If you think, who is Frodo on whom everything depends? A random hobbit from the Shire. There is no prophecy over his cradle. And look at Aragorn. He tells Boromir 'I do not know what strength is in my blood' but that is the thing. Yes, he is King in part because he is the descendant. That is why he can heal, that it why he could summon the Undead Army in ROTK. But. BUT. That is just a platform. The main thing about Aragorn is that he is Aragorn. It's his strength that makes it possible: his skills, his talents. After all, look at his ancestors. They had the same blood, the same 'heir' status, but they did not achieve anything, and Isildur is the one who took the Ring in the first place! What good is the ability to summon the Undead Army, if you have no courage/ability to go where they are and face them.

That whole scene with Boromir's farewell has the feel of a Norse Saga and I love every moment of it. And the vambraces Aragorn takes on have the White Tree of gondor on them. Symbolic much? Side note: I love that LOTR characters can be incredibly strong, but are also allowed to weep or to show affection to each other. They are not macho caricatures from an action flick. Just as I love that everyone (except Legolas and Elves) look like they hurt when they fight and get exhausted by it. Look at Aragorn after the last fight: he looks like everything in his body is sore.

Hmmmm, what else. This is not FOTR specific, but I love the complex bitter-sweetness of ending. No one gets a perfect happy-ever-after, do they? Sam has family and his garden again, but he's lost Frodo. Frodo gets to go with the Elves, but it's because he is too damaged to enjoy the Shire which was the one thing he always wanted. And Aragorn and Arwen: we leave them blindingly happy at his coronation, but the whole is underlaid with the vision of the future, the certainty of Aragorn dying, and Arwen being left forever alone, and wandering in the woods where they first met to fade herself. Because we saw that in TTT all the scenes are underlaid with that foreknowledge. There is no win there. Side note: I love watching the scene with Galadriel and Aragorn in FOTR in retrospect of TTT where we learn that before leaving on the quest, Aragorn broke up with Arwen so she would leave. When he tells Galadriel he wants Arwen to take the ship to the West, he doesn't only mean it and did what he could to achieve that, but he also thinks that is what she will do.

I should probably stop, though I could go on for hours. This is pretty Aragorn centric, but what can I say? He is my favorite character.

Mr. Mousie and I ended our already lovely evening by watching Fellowship of the Rings (in all likelihood, Two Towers will follow tomorrow).

No matter how many times I've seen the movie (and it has been entirely too many times in the over six years since its release), I still get the same swoop of the stomach when Aragorn salutes before facing the horde of Orcs at the end, I still get the same lump in my throat when Gandalf falls, and the same feeling of awe when we first see Lothlorien.

I posted about it recently, so only a very few points that stuck with me during the rewatch.

Boromir's death still makes me get all sniffly and girl-like. The whole image of him on his knees, facing death (after fighting even when riddled with arrows) and failure to save the hobbits. And then Aragorn appearing, to give him the gretest gift he can: not even a death in peace, with a friend to close his eyes, not even the promise to save the hobbits or telling him he kept his honor, but...

It's Aragorn's final acceptance of his duty and his role, of his taking the burdens of Gondor on his all-too-human shoulders, that is what the best gift. Because the one thing that kept Boromir going and holding on is care for Gondor, and knowing that if he wasn't there, there would be no one else. But now Aragorn took it on (and such luck, isn't it? Not only is Aragorn a reluctant, disposessed king, his kingdom is in total danger and war and ruin. Some patrimony). And Boromir knows Aragorn's worth, so he can finally let go. I love the way he repeats 'our people' when Aragorn says it, because it means everything to him, that admission. Boromir is a proof of his comment to Aragorn that there is frailty in men but also honor.

That is something Aragorn needs to face not even about humans in general or Boromir, but most of all about himself. That yes, he is flawed and 'frail' but he is also incredible and worthy. So much about LOTR is not about birth destiny at all, but about your inherent worth. If you think, who is Frodo on whom everything depends? A random hobbit from the Shire. There is no prophecy over his cradle. And look at Aragorn. He tells Boromir 'I do not know what strength is in my blood' but that is the thing. Yes, he is King in part because he is the descendant. That is why he can heal, that it why he could summon the Undead Army in ROTK. But. BUT. That is just a platform. The main thing about Aragorn is that he is Aragorn. It's his strength that makes it possible: his skills, his talents. After all, look at his ancestors. They had the same blood, the same 'heir' status, but they did not achieve anything, and Isildur is the one who took the Ring in the first place! What good is the ability to summon the Undead Army, if you have no courage/ability to go where they are and face them.

That whole scene with Boromir's farewell has the feel of a Norse Saga and I love every moment of it. And the vambraces Aragorn takes on have the White Tree of gondor on them. Symbolic much? Side note: I love that LOTR characters can be incredibly strong, but are also allowed to weep or to show affection to each other. They are not macho caricatures from an action flick. Just as I love that everyone (except Legolas and Elves) look like they hurt when they fight and get exhausted by it. Look at Aragorn after the last fight: he looks like everything in his body is sore.

Hmmmm, what else. This is not FOTR specific, but I love the complex bitter-sweetness of ending. No one gets a perfect happy-ever-after, do they? Sam has family and his garden again, but he's lost Frodo. Frodo gets to go with the Elves, but it's because he is too damaged to enjoy the Shire which was the one thing he always wanted. And Aragorn and Arwen: we leave them blindingly happy at his coronation, but the whole is underlaid with the vision of the future, the certainty of Aragorn dying, and Arwen being left forever alone, and wandering in the woods where they first met to fade herself. Because we saw that in TTT all the scenes are underlaid with that foreknowledge. There is no win there. Side note: I love watching the scene with Galadriel and Aragorn in FOTR in retrospect of TTT where we learn that before leaving on the quest, Aragorn broke up with Arwen so she would leave. When he tells Galadriel he wants Arwen to take the ship to the West, he doesn't only mean it and did what he could to achieve that, but he also thinks that is what she will do.

I should probably stop, though I could go on for hours. This is pretty Aragorn centric, but what can I say? He is my favorite character.

OMG. I am now reading По Ту Сторону Рассвета ("On the other side of the dawn," the Beren/Luthien fic I mentioned earlier) and it just might be the best fic I ever read.

I wonder if the author of this is some sort of Russian BNF, sort of like Cassandra Claire was in Harry Potter fandom, only as far as I am aware, this author didn't plagiarize.

OMG.

BEREEEEEEEEEEEN.

Now I am frustrated that so few people on my flist read Russian....

egelantier, you might have to hold my hand through all the angst and h/c.

Yesterday, I restarted my Lord of the Rings rewatch, and before I passed out, Mr. Mousie and I got as far as the Nazgul attack on the hobbits at Weathertop (where Frodo gets stabbed with the Nazgul blade).

Oh God. I still love this movie to bits: the dreamy lushness of the shire, the menace of the Nine (I was grabbing Mr. Mousie’s arm), the fluid camera moves, and the characters all perfectly stepping out of my imagination, from Frodo’s big-eyed wonder and Sam’s sturdy sense, to Aragorn’s intensity and quiet voice. And Merry and Pippin. Oh, I’ve forgotten how I loved the two. Merry is definitely the pragmatic, ‘thinky’ one even so early on, and Pippin is the baby of the group.

Mmmmm. Aragorn. Still awesome (My favorite character, I admit). I get the same sense of security when he first appears (especially when the hobbits are lost as to their course of action) as I did in the book: knowing nothing truly horrible can happen as someone so capable is there. Of course, horrible things can happen still, but you forget for a moment.

A few things really get me on rewatch:

1. Bilbo telling Gandalf that Frodo is still in love with the Shire and so shouldn’t leave. That just makes it incredibly heart-breaking, as you know after his journey the Shire will be forever poisoned to him. It’s not as if he is Bilbo, wanderlust hobbit who is bored and on to the next thing after Shire. He saved the Shire and he loved it, but he never got to enjoy it at all. (Just as Bilbo’s comment of there always being a Baggins in Bag End makes me tear up a little).

2. The hobbits are such civilians at this point: lighting a fire at Weathertop etc etc. And why should they know any better, have any other instincts like that? It’s sad that they learn.

3. The passing of the Elves fills me with sadness as well. You get the sense of something more special than every day world leaving forever, the connection with living myth. But Sam’s comment about never being able to sleep in the wilderness..oh yeah, bittersweet.

4. When Aragorn tells the hobbits of the Nazgul and says ‘they were once men’…he is thinking again of being bound by the common guilt of his ancestors, isn’t he? Even though he shouldn’t as it isn’t his fault. And some of these are literally his ancestors probably.

5. Aragorn singing the song of Beren and Luthien. I am so struck that his answer to Frodo’s question as to who was Luthien and what happened to her is ‘She died.’ Because Luthien was and did many many things, including prying a jewel from the crown of the current Big Bad’s Boss (!!!) but all Aragorn is consumed by is the thought that an Elf Maiden loving a mortal made her mortal as well. That is the only thing he can see. No wonder Elrond convinces him to give up Arwen, he is consumed with guilt.

6. Gandalf the Grey has so much hope, and humanity, and despair in him (you can’t tell whether he is devastated or relieved when for a second it looks as if the Ring isn’t the One Ring). I am never as in love with Gandalf the White, more remote.

7. Attention to detail point 1,458: when they leave the inn at Bree, Aragorn has clean hair. Because he’s stayed in a town, after all. But not so later, when they are out in the wild: his hair gets matted a bit, and his fingernails have grass and dirt stains. And he is STLL hot. Ummm, slipped out…

Btw, I love the story of Beren and Luthien. It would probably make a neat movie (or a really horrible one). There is this super long Russian-language fanfic about them which I had book-marked ages ago but haven’t read (По Ту Сторону Рассвета, Ольга Брилева). Time to pull it out.

Yesterday, I restarted my Lord of the Rings rewatch, and before I passed out, Mr. Mousie and I got as far as the Nazgul attack on the hobbits at Weathertop (where Frodo gets stabbed with the Nazgul blade).

Oh God. I still love this movie to bits: the dreamy lushness of the shire, the menace of the Nine (I was grabbing Mr. Mousie’s arm), the fluid camera moves, and the characters all perfectly stepping out of my imagination, from Frodo’s big-eyed wonder and Sam’s sturdy sense, to Aragorn’s intensity and quiet voice. And Merry and Pippin. Oh, I’ve forgotten how I loved the two. Merry is definitely the pragmatic, ‘thinky’ one even so early on, and Pippin is the baby of the group.

Mmmmm. Aragorn. Still awesome (My favorite character, I admit). I get the same sense of security when he first appears (especially when the hobbits are lost as to their course of action) as I did in the book: knowing nothing truly horrible can happen as someone so capable is there. Of course, horrible things can happen still, but you forget for a moment.

A few things really get me on rewatch:

1. Bilbo telling Gandalf that Frodo is still in love with the Shire and so shouldn’t leave. That just makes it incredibly heart-breaking, as you know after his journey the Shire will be forever poisoned to him. It’s not as if he is Bilbo, wanderlust hobbit who is bored and on to the next thing after Shire. He saved the Shire and he loved it, but he never got to enjoy it at all. (Just as Bilbo’s comment of there always being a Baggins in Bag End makes me tear up a little).

2. The hobbits are such civilians at this point: lighting a fire at Weathertop etc etc. And why should they know any better, have any other instincts like that? It’s sad that they learn.

3. The passing of the Elves fills me with sadness as well. You get the sense of something more special than every day world leaving forever, the connection with living myth. But Sam’s comment about never being able to sleep in the wilderness..oh yeah, bittersweet.

4. When Aragorn tells the hobbits of the Nazgul and says ‘they were once men’…he is thinking again of being bound by the common guilt of his ancestors, isn’t he? Even though he shouldn’t as it isn’t his fault. And some of these are literally his ancestors probably.

5. Aragorn singing the song of Beren and Luthien. I am so struck that his answer to Frodo’s question as to who was Luthien and what happened to her is ‘She died.’ Because Luthien was and did many many things, including prying a jewel from the crown of the current Big Bad’s Boss (!!!) but all Aragorn is consumed by is the thought that an Elf Maiden loving a mortal made her mortal as well. That is the only thing he can see. No wonder Elrond convinces him to give up Arwen, he is consumed with guilt.

6. Gandalf the Grey has so much hope, and humanity, and despair in him (you can’t tell whether he is devastated or relieved when for a second it looks as if the Ring isn’t the One Ring). I am never as in love with Gandalf the White, more remote.

7. Attention to detail point 1,458: when they leave the inn at Bree, Aragorn has clean hair. Because he’s stayed in a town, after all. But not so later, when they are out in the wild: his hair gets matted a bit, and his fingernails have grass and dirt stains. And he is STLL hot. Ummm, slipped out…

Btw, I love the story of Beren and Luthien. It would probably make a neat movie (or a really horrible one). There is this super long Russian-language fanfic about them which I had book-marked ages ago but haven’t read (По Ту Сторону Рассвета, Ольга Брилева). Time to pull it out.

When I come home this evening, the Great Lord of the Rings Rewatch of 2007 is going to start.

So here is the Aragon MV as Aragorn is my favorite movie character ever. Because he is incredibly heroic but incredibly human: he gets exhausted, he bleeds, he doubts and is afraid. His decisions cost him. But he still proceeds.

OK, I posted this a long long time ago (it was one of my very first entries) but seeing some clips of this abomination again made me modify and repost it.

Has anyone else seen the world's biggest abomination? Otherwise known as R. Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" My eyyyyyeeees!

Thought it couldn't possibly be as bad as I've heard. It wasn't. It was worse. It took incredible genius to make something this bad.

Things wrong with it:

1. Aruman the Red. Apparently a hitherto unknown wizard, who narrowly escapes being drowned under his hair.

( The rest of the list under the cut )

Who gave Bakshi the money to make this? And why was most of it spent on booze and drugs?

OK, I posted this a long long time ago (it was one of my very first entries) but seeing some clips of this abomination again made me modify and repost it.

Has anyone else seen the world's biggest abomination? Otherwise known as R. Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" My eyyyyyeeees!

Thought it couldn't possibly be as bad as I've heard. It wasn't. It was worse. It took incredible genius to make something this bad.

Things wrong with it:

1. Aruman the Red. Apparently a hitherto unknown wizard, who narrowly escapes being drowned under his hair.

( The rest of the list under the cut )

Who gave Bakshi the money to make this? And why was most of it spent on booze and drugs?

Courtesy of thelana's links, I have found the penultimate badfic summary:

One night Legolas begins thinking, 'What would happen if I die? Would she know that I loved her?'. He loves Hermione with all his heart. Will he tell her how he feels? Based on the song "If Tomorrow Never Comes" by Ronan Keating.

OK.

I got nothing.

I am done.

The ultimate badfic summary? I am torn between one posted here and the Bible badfic here.

ETA: And then there is this: Charlie Bucket dicovers he is not really a Bucket, but a Wonka. That his parents are really the most unlikely of couples, Willy Wonka and Sirius Black. And that he has a twin sister and he is a wizard.

YEAH.