Gandalf: “Oh, that? That’s my friend Gwaihir, the Lord of the Eagles.” Gandalf: “And this is my friend Shadowfax, Lord of All Horses.” Gandalf: “And here’s my buddy GIlbert, Lord of Nematodes.”
Gandalf: “Now that is Sauron, the Lord of the Rings. He is not my friend.”
Gandalf:This is my friend Pippin.
Beregond: Is he the Lord of the Hobbits?
Gandalf: No.
Gandalf: “But he is Thain of the Shire, so actually… in a way, he sort of is Lord of the Hobbits…”
1) Pippin professes atheism, argues so persuasively he somehow manages to get GANDALF to second guess himself for a split second
2) “what if we put the Ring in a catapult & launched it into Mount Doom from a distance”: dismissed as a serious plan very quickly due to high margin for error but the argument simmers for several days as Gandalf refuses to concede that it would work in theory. (Pippin also started this one.)
3) Who Started It: Legolas or Gimli edition
4) Who Started It: Merry or Pippin edition
5) Who ate the last *insert food item here* I know it was one of your four FESS UP (one time it was actually Gandalf, he never fessed up)
6) Legolas is mad at Gimli but whenever anyone asks why he just says ‘the dwarf knows what he did’ (Gimli hasn’t a clue)
Somebody made Sam cry one (1) time early on & after that every time he cries the entire company starts slinging accusations like there’s no tomorrow
Further thoughts:
1) although Pippin started the catapult argument the ppl who keep it going are Frodo and Boromir (both of whom were momentarily 100% down with it until they realised what a horrible idea it would be in practice, ie miss & the Ring is just lying about in Mordor for any orc to grab)
it’s all fun and games till one of the hobbits calls beards ‘unsightly’ and Gimi shoots back ‘that’s a bit rich coming from someone with that much fOOT HAIR’ and after that it is fucking ON and once the dust settles certain people don’t speak to certain other people for like 3 days
Sam: *bursts into tears because idk he just does that sometimes*
Frodo: For fuck’s sake Sam just yesterday you were crying about snakes.
So (according to the concept art book) as the Fellowship travels deeper into Middle Earth, the places they pass through become inspired by progressively older periods of history. The farther along you are in the story, the more ancient the design influences
We begin in The Shire: which feels so familiar because, with its tea-kettles and cozy fireplaces, it’s inspired by the relatively recent era of rural England in the 1800s
But when we leave Hobbiton, we also leave that familiar 1800s-England aesthetic behind and start going farther back in time.
Bree is based on late 1600s English architecture
Rohan is even farther back, based on old anglo-saxon era architecture (400s-700s? ce)
Gondor is way back, and no longer the familiar English or Anglo-Saxon: its design comes from classical Greek and Roman architecture
And far far FAR back is Mordor. It’s a land of tents and huts: prehistoric, primitive, primeval. Cavemen times
And the heart of Mordor is a barren lifeless hellscape of volcanic rock…like a relic from the ages when the world was still being formed, and life didn’t yet exist
And then they finally reach Mount Doom, which one artist described as
“where the ring was made, which represents, in a sense, the moment of creation itself”
I’ve watched the movies a few times and love them so much so I can’t believe I actually missed this!