Meta excerpts
May. 23rd, 2021 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roselightfairyI have decided to write an extensive meta post about Legolas and Gimli and the parallels/contrasts between them and how they experience grief, the past, memory, the future - and the tragedy of their intertwined fates as it relates to those things. Instead of dashing off something quick and emotional, as I usually do when it comes to these things, I've decided to try writing it as an essay with like, actual quotes and stuff - so for a first step I went through the books and identified any quotes I could find that related to what I wanted to say and rambled about them as a way of taking notes.
And, well, my document is eight pages/almost 4k words long, I've encountered a whole set of trends, and I'm absolutely drowning in my feelings about them.
Some excerpts below the cut, in case you want to have feelings also:
“They are coming!” cried Legolas.
“We cannot get out,” said Gimli.
-yet another example of the two of them using parallel dialogue, in this case something echoed in Ori’s words, Legolas the one observing the present and Gimli the one delivering the doom pronouncement
He talks about how the song is "long and sad, for it tells how sorrow came upon Lothlorien . . . Then many of the Elves of Nimrodel's kindred left their dwellings and departed, and she was lost far in the South . . . and she came not to the ship where Amroth her lover waited for her . . . But neither Nimrodel nor Amroth ever came back"
-Gimli's grief in Khazad-dum is about the people he's lost, his people's traditions that were destroyed – and yet nd Gimli's destiny on Middle-earth is to found a new dwarf civilization that will thrive and find beauty. In contrast, Legolas's sad song is about people leaving never to return, lovers being separated – and both of those are what will happen to him.
“While Gimli lives I shall not come to Fangorn alone.” – This is Legolas’s first acknowledgment that his future is tied to Gimli’s, that their paths lie together. This will make his eventual grief that much stronger – perhaps he is understanding now that his fate is tied to a mortal’s fate; perhaps his doom is starting to take shape in his own mind. Even as Gimli begins to see the future as something full of glitter and promise, Legolas begins to see that his future is intertwined with his friend’s future.
...And so many more...
And, well, my document is eight pages/almost 4k words long, I've encountered a whole set of trends, and I'm absolutely drowning in my feelings about them.
Some excerpts below the cut, in case you want to have feelings also:
“They are coming!” cried Legolas.
“We cannot get out,” said Gimli.
-yet another example of the two of them using parallel dialogue, in this case something echoed in Ori’s words, Legolas the one observing the present and Gimli the one delivering the doom pronouncement
He talks about how the song is "long and sad, for it tells how sorrow came upon Lothlorien . . . Then many of the Elves of Nimrodel's kindred left their dwellings and departed, and she was lost far in the South . . . and she came not to the ship where Amroth her lover waited for her . . . But neither Nimrodel nor Amroth ever came back"
-Gimli's grief in Khazad-dum is about the people he's lost, his people's traditions that were destroyed – and yet nd Gimli's destiny on Middle-earth is to found a new dwarf civilization that will thrive and find beauty. In contrast, Legolas's sad song is about people leaving never to return, lovers being separated – and both of those are what will happen to him.
“While Gimli lives I shall not come to Fangorn alone.” – This is Legolas’s first acknowledgment that his future is tied to Gimli’s, that their paths lie together. This will make his eventual grief that much stronger – perhaps he is understanding now that his fate is tied to a mortal’s fate; perhaps his doom is starting to take shape in his own mind. Even as Gimli begins to see the future as something full of glitter and promise, Legolas begins to see that his future is intertwined with his friend’s future.
...And so many more...
no subject
Date: 2021-05-25 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-25 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-25 09:34 pm (UTC)But. But "While Gimli lives" et cetera. Because I only just realised that this scene is before sea-longing in the timeline.
And that is significant because at this point, Legolas might yet entertain the idea that since "while Gimli lives" will only encompass a relatively brief - though important - part of his long life, there would eventually come a time when he might come to Fangorn alone.
It's only later that "while Gimli lives" comes to mean the entirety of his remaining years in Middle-earth - and by consequence, he will never go to Fangorn alone.
(And therefore, for Legolas Greenleaf, there will forever be one forest he won't be able to remember without it having a dwarf in it.)
no subject
Date: 2021-05-25 11:29 pm (UTC)...And, because he acknowledged it, you have to wonder what he thinks will come after. Does he envision Fangorn being one of the places he will come to mourn? Or has he refused to even consider the after?
I love them so much I can’t handle it...