The Fact That Tolkien Realized He’d Created Inconsistency For LotR With The First Published Version

My favorite Lord of the Rings headcannon is just that the hobbits spent the entire trip to Rivendell, badgering Aragorn to eat like four annoying grandmothers. Like, Aragorn is a ranger who's been living off pine needles and power of will for the last decade, and these are the guys who are having eight square meals a day.

"Well now, Strider what would you have ol' Sam whip you up?"

"Nothing. I'm good."

"So just some toast and eggs then?"

"No. Nothing."

"You have to have *something*, here I'll make you some porridge."

"No! I'm not hungry."

"...Should I just reheat the leftovers then?"

And Aragorn is like "What's a leftover?" And all four of the hobbits just gasp in horror, and start muttering about no wonder he's so thin.

the fellowship of the ring as jellycats

Frodo

Sam

Merry

Pippin

Gandalf

Aragorn

Boromir

Gimli

Legolas

winter art compilation ❄ ✦ prints and patreon ✦

Earth Tones

(c) gif by riverwindphotography, October 2024

Every duo be like : an ice cube on legs, and a volcano

they are so cute i can’t handle it

aragorn needs to be 10x weirder in all tolkien content. he’s too manly for elves. he’s too elvish for men. he roleplayed his crush’s grandpa, and then married her even though they were kinda siblings by adoption. he deals with his feelings by singing. he’s a horse girl. he was raised by elrond peredhel. he had the weight of the world placed on his shoulders when he was still an emo teen. everywhere he goes people think he’s lowkey a freak. let him own it.

EVERYONE STAY CALM BUT I THINK I JUST SOLVED A PLOT HOLE AND NOW I’M FEELING UNSTOPPABLE

Some of y’all are not appreciating Bilbo Baggins enough. I am here to remedy that. This guy has:

• somehow managed to establish himself as a respectable, staid hobbit by the time he was fifty, despite being both a grandson of Bullroarer Took and the Shire champion of pretty much every aiming-game known to hobbitkind

• had an in-depth debate on pleasantries with a random guy passing by in the street, who turned out to be GANDALF

• collapsed in front of his own fire shaking and muttering “struck by lightning” over and over again in response to hearing about dragons and danger

• mind you, this was after he screamed loud enough to startle a roomful of Dwarves

• signed up for a dangerous quest completely outside of his league out of spite

• when told to scout out a mysterious light, saw some trolls, and instead of reporting back with the information, decided to PICK THE TROLLS POCKET

• arrived in Rivendell for the first time and said it “smelled like elves”

• upon meeting a strange creature that visibly wanted to eat him, he decided to play a riddle game with him- and guessed pretty much every one, and made up his own riddles, afraid and alone, that not only were good and full of linguistic puns, but actually stumped the other guy- AND THEN CHEATED AND WON WITH A QUESTION

• showed mercy to said strange creature who wanted to kill him, and was now standing between him and freedom

• eavesdropped on the dwarves arguing over whether to try to save him, then popped up casually smack in the middle of them just as they were debating

• somehow managed to sleep like a log at the really really high eyrie full of wild predators

• found himself in a bad situation, said eff it, and turned around and antagonized and fought off an insane amount of man eating spiders, like enough of them that fifty was a small portion, by singing at them with incredibly complex and punny insulting songs composed on the spot, while simultaneously slaying them in multitudes despite having zero combat training. Seriously, we don’t discuss enough how epic the spider scene is.

• broke a company of dwarves out of the very secure prison of the Elvenking by inventing white water rafting with barrels

• charmed his way out of being eaten by a dragon

• stole the frickin Arkenstone from the guys who employed him, one of whom was a king

• took part in an epic battle, only to be knocked out in the first ten minutes and miss the entire thing

• was named elf-friend by the guy who’s prisoners he sprung

• wrote his own autobiography, complete with all the narrative recognition of his own heroics

• spent 60 years writing said autobiography

• taught his lower class neighbor’s kid how to read

• taught his nephew Elvish- not only Sindarin, but Quenya too

• spent decades telling his cousins his own story as fairy tales, complete with character impressions accurate enough that one of them was able to fool a servant of the Enemy with a second hand impression

• used the One Ring of Power to hide from his neighbors

• planned an elaborate feast with multiple social faux pas to mess with his neighbors, complete with a purposefully bewildering speech and culminating in him vanishing into thin air in front of everyone

• left his cousins and neighbors very unsubtle passive aggressive gifts in his will

• settled into Rivendell, randomly befriended the heir to the throne of like half of Middle Earth, and apparently spent his time writing very personal poems about his hosts and reciting them to crowds of elves

• after being invited to a Council of basically every major kingdom in the continent, spent a quarter of the time reciting vague poems about his friends, a quarter of the time telling anyone who would listen about his heroic past, and half the time interrupting to ask when lunch would be

• volunteered to bring the ring to Mordor

• became one of only four or five mortals in history to live in Valinor

Seriously, Bilbo Baggins may well be the most chaotic, insane person in the entire legendarium, and that includes the likes of people like Finrod “bit a werewolf to death to save the life of guy who he just met and gave up his kingdom for” Felagund.

accidentally bought a copy of sir gawain and the green knight marked up by a middle schooler