Can You Tell Me Why Frodo Is So Important In Lotr? Why Can't Someone Else, Anyone Else, Carry The Ring

Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

(when boromir is thinking of how he can use the ring to defend gondor, when aragorn is thinking of how it brought down proud isildur, when elrond is holding council and gandalf is thinking of how twisted he would become, if he ever dared—)

but then there’s frodo, who desires nothing except what he has already left behind him, and says, I will take the Ring.

it is an offer made out of absolute innocence, utter sincerity. It is made without knowing what it will make of him—and frodo loses everything to the ring, he loses peace and himself and the shire, he loses the ability to be in the world. It’s cruel, the ring is cruel, it searches out every weakness you have and feeds on it, drinks you dry and fills you with its poison instead, the ring is so cruel.

and frodo picks it up willingly. for no other reason except that it has to be done.

(the ring warps boromir into a hopeless grasping dead thing, the power of the palantir turns denethor into an old man, jealous and suspicious, it bends even saruman, once the proudest of the istari, into a mechanised warlord, sitting in his fortress and bent over his perverse creations—all the best of intentions, laid waste)

but there’s a reason gollum exists in the narrative, which is to show—well, to show what frodo might have been. because even as frodo grows mistrustful and wearied, as the burden of this ring grows heavier and heavier, he is never gollum. he is gentle to gollum. he is afraid—god frodo is so afraid for 2/3 of these books he is so tired and afraid, but he keeps moving, he walks though it would pull him into the ground, because he asked for this, he said he would.

someone else could have carried the ring to mordor, I suppose. the idea of a martyr is not dependent on the particular flesh and blood person dying for some greater purpose. but such a thing has to be chosen, lifted onto your shoulders for the right reason, the truest reasons, and followed into the dark, though it would see you burnt through and bled out.

I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.

Yup, that’s about twitter

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q587p

4 years ago

The hobbits invent a fun game called ‘how close can we get to our friends before they notice us’

easy mode: Gimli (makes a lot of noise himself, very easy to sneak up on)

medium mode: Boromir (challenging enough to be great fun)

hard more: Aragorn (VERY attentive to his surroundings)

expert mode: Legolas

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q587p

2 years ago

A comic of multi-coloured foxes. In this one, Green fox calmly addresses two grey foxes, who aren't happy with what he's saying.
Green: Please respect my boundaries and be nicer to me, or you won't see me again.
Grey fox: Stop making such childish and unreasonable demands.

Green walks away from the grey foxes, who aren't happy with that, either.
Green: Okay.
Grey fox: Hey!

Green is walking alone.
Narrator: And Green fox lived happily ever after

Green is walking to meet Blue, who is waiting for him. Both of them are full of love.
Narrator: with people who don't think that's unreasonable.

My family just lost their "having me in their lives" privileges!

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q587p

4 years ago

Fruit Dragons by Alexandra Khitrova.

Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #62

Brought to you by a marine biologist who has a pen…and has a pineapple…

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST

Tell me if I’m referencing memes that are too old and watch me not care. Anyway, let’s go over the Sea Pineapple, because I bet you don’t know really what it is, and tbh, I didn’t for a second either. But it turns out it is a type of Sea Squirt, and therefore, of all the invertebrates in the game, we, as vertebrates, are most closely related to this thing. I’ll explain in a minute:

We here on Northern Hemisphere islands are able to dive for this thing all day and night, so if you haven’t caught one yet, just give it some time. Then, when you give your first one to Blathers, it’s put into the big coastal tank underneath the coral reef tank and it just…sits there. Which is totally understandable, considering this animal - yes, it’s an animal - lives a sessile life, meaning it attaches to something and stays there. It also filter feeds, so you see its little siphons opening and closing.

The Sea Pineapple is a real animal, Halocynthia roretzi and it’s eaten primarily in Korea and less so in Japan, despite the fact that a lot people say it tastes like not-food. But, hey, humans will eat anything.

So, Sea Pineapples are a kind of Sea Squirt, aka a Tunicate, a soft, squishy that sits on the seafloor and filter feeds. But despite this thing not having a face or an interesting lifestyle, the fact remains we’re more closely related to it than we are to the cooler invertebrates, like insects, worms, or octopuses. They belong in the Phylum Chordata with us, the even-more-interesting vertebrates. Now, I’m gonna try REAL HARD not to go off on a nerd-tastic tangent, but this is one of my favorite topics - chordate phylogeny.

So, what’s a Chordate? It is not synonymous with “vertebrate” although lots of us in the phylum are vertebrates. All animals in this phylum have 5 very distinct features that no other group has, either during our whole lives or part of our lives (that includes larval or embryonic stages). They are:

A post-anal tail, meaning our bodies extend past our anus.

We have a notochord, aka what my professor called “the stiffening rod of the body”. In humans, this is our spine.

A dorsal neural tube that, in us vertebrates, is the spinal cord, the main communication highway of the nervous system.

An endostyle/thyroid gland.

Pharyngeal slits, which often become gills in adult stages of chordates.

Although the Sea Pineapple doesn’t look like it has any of these features, its larvae do, which puts them in the same phylum as us vertebrates. Wild, huh?And this list of features puts us together with some weird stuff, the weirdest has to be tunicates, as shown by this phylogenetic tree:

^From this site. This should look kind of familiar since a stylized one is on the floor of the fossil section of the museum. I’ll do a special fish-explained to talk about that and how to read one of these. But basically, every node, or intersection of the branches represents the last common ancestor of the groups at the end of the branches. Once you can read these, you start to find out some very interesting, and mind-blowing facts, like, we’re all just derived fish and that birds evolved from dinosaurs and whales are most closely related with hoofed mammals and we’re related to boring tunicates instead of cooler things, like horseshoe crabs.

And there you have it. Fascinating stuff, no?

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q587p

5 years ago

Help me translate my GOnalytics!

Guys, as some of you know, I’ve written an analytical text on Good Omens TV Show by Amazon Prime. It’s in Russian, as it’s my native tongue, and I would like to have it translated, so English-speaking part of Good Omens fandom could also read it. I truly think it’s worth it: it’s the biggest and the most important text project of mine so far, and I would really like to reach as many people as possible. I do speak English myself, but it is definitely not enough to make the text sound as smooth as it (hopefully) does in Russian. So, I’m looking for a pro translator, fluent Russian, native English. Being Good Omens fan might be a plus, but naturally it’s a regular paid job anyway, so, the skill is way more important.

It’s not often when I ask for repost, but now’s the time. Even if you don’t know me, but somebody you know might be interested in the job, or maybe some of their followers might want it - PLEASE REPOST! I’m a nice guy to work with, and I will provide any possible assistance with the translation.

You can also share this post on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomash_beran/status/1229714449801543680

Thanks to all of you who decide to share!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b1ZyorUrm2_v6IEsMK3THZbRZQ5QpGY7Vt9ZV6_hEUI/

Ребята, я страстно мечтаю перевести свою аналитику по сериалу Good Omens на английский, чтобы иметь возможность расшарить ее в англо-фандоме. Это изначально был план, мне кажется, она того стоит, и мне хотелось бы донести ее везде и всем, кому может быть интересно. Сам я с переводом не справлюсь: английский все-таки не родной, мне не хватит легкости, а также английских идиом и слэнга, а терять эти штуки не хотелось бы. Поэтому - ищу профессионального переводчика со свободным русским и родным английским. Было бы здорово, если бы человек любил GO, но это не обязательно - в любом случае, это оплачиваемая работа, так что качество важнее фанатизма)

Я крайне редко прошу о репосте, но сейчас настал тот самый момент. Даже если вы не знаете меня и не знаете никого в своем окружении, кому могло бы быть это интересно, возможно, среди друзей ваших друзей найдется кто-то, кто захочет взяться. Поэтому - ПОЖАЛУЙСТА, РАСШАРЬТЕ! Кто знает меня, подтвердит: со мной приятно работать, я помогу с русским слэнгом и с чем угодно еще и смогу адекватно оценить перевод.

У кого есть твиттер, можно также расшарить этот пост: https://twitter.com/tomash_beran/status/1229714449801543680

Заранее спасибо всем, кто решит поделиться!