I Love It When I Click On A Recipe Link Because It Sounds Yummy And Instead Of A Recipe I Get A Several

Lord of the Rings was published in the fifties, and largely written in the forties. Tolkien’s opinions on society and morality and technology are at some points genuinely more conservative than what I’m comfortable with. And yet, the more I think about it, the more sure I am that Tolkien actually deconstructs most of the clichéd fantasy tropes he supposedly originates. Some examples.

The long-lost heir is not the hero, he’s a side character who deliberately uses himself as a decoy.

The real hero actually fails in his quest, his goodness and determination and willpower utterly fail in the face of evil, and the world is saved by a series seemingly unrelated good deeds.

The central conflict is not between destroying the world and preserving it. An age of the world will come to an end, and many great and beautiful things will perish, whether the heroes win or lose. The past may have been glorious, but preserving it is impossible, and returning to it is impossible, time has passed and the world has moved on. The king returns, but the elves are gone and magic fades from the very substance of Middle Earth. The goal is not to preserve the status quo, the goal is the chance to rebuild something on the ruins.

Killing the main villain seems to instantly solve the problem, eradicate all enemies and fix the world, except it doesn’t, not wholly, since the scouring of the Shire still has to happen.

Also, the hero gets no real reward, and what he gets, he cannot really enjoy. He is hurt by his ordeal, and never fully recovers.

There is a team of heroes, a classic adventuring party, except the Fellowship is together for less one sixth of the series. The Fellowship is intact from the Council of Elrond to Gandalf’s death, four chapters. The remaining eight are together until Boromir’s death, an additional six chapters. This is nothing compared to LOTR’s length of sixty-one chapters, if I count correctly.

Tolkien is not classic high fantasy. If you actually think about it, there is very little magic. The hobbits’ stealth is not magical, most elven wonders are not unambigously magical, wizards are extremely rare, and even Gandalf hardly uses magic if you compare him to the average DnD wizard. Most magic is indistinguishable from craft, there is no clear difference between a magic armor and a very good armor, between magic bread and very good bread, between magical healing and competent first-aid plus a few kind words.

TLDR: Stop praising recent fantasy for deconstructing Tolkien if they’re “deconstructing” something Tolkien has never actually constructed.

Thank you, Mr. Dalton, you just illustrated the point.

SHE DID THAT!!

This was George. He was a 9 year old Jack Russell who lived in the small town of Manaia, New Zealand. On April 29, 2007 he jumped into a losing fight with two Pit Bulls to protect two young children. According to witnesses he fought as hard as he could, but he never stood a chance and was severely mauled as the children were pulled to safety. George died from his wounds that afternoon at the vet.

reminder to myself about the process of drafting & revising:

first drafts are for making it exist

second drafts are for making it functional

third drafts are for making it effective

what is it about capybaras that attracts groups of small animals to them? Its not just mammals either its like birds and turtles and frogs too

I love you. I’ll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me.

Atonement | 2007 | dir. Joe Wright

isn’t it weird how it’s already february but it’s also only february

The Most Majestic Libraries In The World