I Was Planning To Take A Small Social Media Break But I Saw The Amazing Headcanon That Argyle And Billy

The thing I love most about the LOTR films is their ability to do storytelling without words. 

Many of my favorite moments in the trilogy are ones that have no dialogue. Wordless storytelling is the one thing the films do that the original books can’t, because books Have to use words.

I argue the vast majority of the films’ depth comes through things that AREN’T the dialogue. So much of the storytelling in LOTR is done through the music, cinematography, visual effects, character/costume designs, prop designs, environment designs, performances, and so on and so on. So some of the most powerful moments in the films are the ones that have minimal/no dialogue  – like the moments after Gandalf’s death, or  the lighting of the beacons, or Boromir dying as he defends Merry and Pippin, or the moment when Frodo wakes up after being rescued from Mount Doom and sees Sam in the doorway, the hobbits in the Green Dragon after their quest ends…..I could go on and on and on. And people joke about how Lord of the Rings is “50 percent landscape shots to pretty music”, because it IS, but I argue those landscape shots are so important and emotional and symbolic and evocative! They convey so much about the world, and the characters, and the tone!  I’ve written essays on it here and here and here –

 One of my favorite moments in the trilogy is the destruction of the Ring. I love how it captures this feeling of like…. relief beyond words. 

There’s just so much beautiful wordless storytelling! The way Sauron’s tower collapses to the musical leitmotif we first heard playing gently at the crossroads when Sam saw the fallen king statue and said “look– the King has got a crown again.” The way that, after Mount Doom explodes, the soundtrack transitions into the musical leitmotif that we last heard at Gandalf’s death.  The elvish in the soundtrack. ;_: And I love Gandalf’s reactions in this scene….the entire trilogy he’s been racked with guilt over “(sending) Frodo to his death.” The villains recognize and torment him over this: Saruman saying “Gandalf does not hesitate to sacrifice those closest to him, those he professes to love” while Gandalf has no response. And then we see that Frodo did it, he actually made it, and Gandalf breaks into tears…;_; and without a single line of dialogue you know exactly what this means for him. I’ve already written an overlong essay on how I love the general “watercolor painting” aesthetic of the films, and I want to add that I love the way the visual effects for Mordor’s collapse are designed– the way broken tower of Barad-Dur BURSTS outward, like a spirit is leaving it– and how initially it seems triumphant until you realize that Mordor is falling apart with Frodo and Sam still trapped there. And then all of the Fellowship breaks down. ;_; And so many scenes in the films are like this….Frodo crawling up the slopes of Mount Doom to a warped broken version of the Shire leitmotif. Eowyn standing on the edge of the Golden Hall as the flag of Rohan symbolically flutters away, and the Rohan theme plays on the Hardanger Fiddle. Frodo waking up in Rivendell and walking out of his room for the first time as the Rivendell leitmotif plays, autumn leaves falling all around him, then reuniting Bilbo to a mature sad verison of the Shire leitmotif. When Gandalf dies, the soundtrack in that scene is the only one in the films where the vocals aren’t in elvish/dwarvish– it’s just cries of pain, wordless grief. 

And I know that’s Basic Film Theory– the vast majority of things viewers will take away are the things that aren’t in the script– but Lord of the Rings does it so well! 

Every element has so much love and care put into it. Every artist gets to add something to the story.

And I don’t actually think it’s because “every artist on Lord of the Rings was uniquely talented in a way no artists have been before or since.”  I actually have….really mixed feelings on LOTR as a franchise, both because there’s so much in them that I think was objectively Bad and wrong (like the horrible lack of diversity/racist use of coding.)But the reason there are so many strong moments in Lord of the Rings despite its inarguable flaws was because the films had an extended pre-production time that a lot of movies don’t get. Howard Shore was given years to work on the soundtrack rather than months. The visual artists were treated like storytellers in their own right.  The difference between the Hobbit and LOTR trilogies wasn’t talent or money– it was time.  

And the problem with a film industry where everyone is trying to churn out as much Content as possible is that time is something you can’t really buy.

I have three modes of reading

Dont read

Read a 500 page book in a day

Read only fanfiction until my eyeballs drop out of my skull from exhaustion

Permanent Damage

If you look long enough into the void, the void begins to look back through you.

Draco Malfoy will never be able to hold anything for long. Constant crucios over 3 years has damaged his nerves.Voldemort was most displeased with his inability to finish his task, the Carrow’s annoyed with his refusal to torture students for their detentions. His hands shake and shiver, nerves constantly shaking with invisible, imaginary pain that stopped years ago. He yells in frustration as his shaking body repeatedly clinks his teacup loudly against its saucer, another futile attempt to keep his hands steady, and smashes it against the floor, a thousand white shards glittering against the black tile.

Harry Potter breaks down every time he gets a headache. Hand clapping to his forehead as the pain sets on, muttering to himself that ‘hes not back.’ ‘I killed him.’ ‘Its over’ as he scans the room; flinching at too pale skin, hand twitching towards his wand as brown eyes reflect red in the flickering, fluorescent light. The cold tile beneath his fingers grounds him as he tries to convince himself that he’s okay. The feeling that some part of him died that day in the forest, surrendering before Voldemort’s wand never leaves, the hollow feeling leaving an aching, painful hole in its wake.

Ron Weasley finds himself scanning rooms over and over again. Planning exit strategies and ways to take out everyone in the room in order to escape. He imagines everyone as an enemy in disguise, subconsciously moving people like chess pieces and picking his small flat, not because it was cheap or because the neighborhood was good (its dismal really) but because it had the best strategic advantage in regards to the city and places around him, in order to hide in case of attacks. He once again comes to his senses after a nightmare and sighs as he realizes that in his delirium he once again had filled pages upon pages of his notebook with battle tactics and the floor plans of places hes been and fought (Hogwarts, the Ministry, the Burrow...). He rips them out and adds them to a growing folder before making a cup of tea.

Hermione Granger finds herself hording food, slipping apples into pockets and bread into her purse. She comes home to find herself with pockets of tarts and a bag of crackers, handfuls of berries slipped between pages of paperwork and cereal bars snuck into file folders. The months of hiding and foraging have made her paranoid and hyper aware of how much food she’ll need to get through the day. She’ll find herself counting calories and balancing proteins, carbs and fats before she can stop herself and measuring how much she eats, intuitively leaving some over for Harry and Ron, forgetting that they are no longer on the run, having to ration food.

Luna is no longer as carefree and dreamy as she was. Her creatures turn from whimsical and delicate to horrifying. Claws and teeth grow to protect and attack. She won’t leave the house for days, wandering around inside with closed eyes to avoid Blibbering Humdingers who now have poisonous spines and Nargles with razor teeth, her mind having twisted them from cures for loneliness to share with her father, to weapons of destruction to protect her from the outside world. They are real enough to her that she convinces herself they’ve locked her inside her house and won’t let her leave, she thinks they’ve kidnapped and hurt her friends because ‘It’s  to protect you’ ‘They are spies’ ‘It’s not real Luna’ ‘They only want to hurt you’. The whispers follow everywhere and consume her, dragging her into the void. It’s when she locks Hermione in her basement under the influence of her broken mind, twisted by false images and under the guise of Hermione being someone else using polyjuice, that she gets a room in the Janus Thickney ward of St Mungos. She has moments of clarity but they are few and far between. her mind crumbled, her spirit broken, a twisted shadow of the young, bright girl who hummed happily as she waltzed barefoot through the halls.

Dennis Creevey perpetually has a broken, cracked, dirty camera on a shelf in his bedroom, never to be touched.

George Weasley has smashed every mirror in his flat and refuses to repair them

Percy Weasley takes to straight vodka and tequila out of the bottle because his guilt over Fred.

Kreacher forever wears a cracked and blood stained locket till the day he dies.

Teddy Lupin spends hours staring at pictures of his parents, shifting into one or the other or trying for the perfect mixture of both, never getting it quite right.

Minerva McGonnagal finds a dusty box under Severus Snape’s bed filled with cracked records; a flaky leather jacket; old Polaroids of a girl with a head of flames and eyes of shattered emerald, smiling, arms wrapped tight around a boy with inky hair and sharp, onyx eyes; a fractured glass figurine of a lily lying carefully on top of the pile; folded within an old letter. She sobs over a life spent hating and being hated as she pats the scratched lacquer on a string-less bass guitar

There will always be an empty seat at many tables all over the country as people mourn lives lost unfairly.

You can take people out of the war, but can you take the war out of people?

Also, lets just keep the 100s of gigantic man eating spiders in a forest right next to a school full of students who are obviously going to take the name ‘forbidden forest’ as a challenge.

Lets also keep a three headed dog, who is locked in a tiny room unable to run around or go for walks (and other things, this is animal abuse), in a castle of teenagers, who again will take ‘third floor corridor is out of bounds to anyone who does not wish to die a very painful death’ as a challenge. And then lets only keep it behind a first year spell!!!!

Oh! we can add having literal teenagers face their deepest darkest fears on the spot in front of their classmates. “oh they’re just children it cant be that bad!” you say! Disregarding that children can also have trauma. Harry was abused (which no one knew) his fear could’ve revealed that to the whole class!!! And Lupin was expecting Voldemort to show up, WHY WOULD HE HAVE THEM FACE THE BOGGART IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CLASS WHEN HE WAS EXPECTING THE PERSON WHO KILLED THESE CHILDRENS FAMILY MEMBERS AND FAMILY FRIENDS TO SHOW UP IN A CLASSROOM. This was the war generation!!! They grew up on horror stories and nightmare fuel by just hearing what happened to relatives and friends!!! It would have made perfect sense for Bellatrix Lestrange to show up for Neville, and he knew what happened to his parents!!!! Common sense oh my god!!!! Don’t have teenagers possibly face serial killers, genocidal maniacs, abusive relatives, monsters, and warlords!!!! 

Yes, we also give no counseling to students who were petrified, or the students whos friends and classmates were basically dying.

Ginny was possessed, forced to kill roosters and try to murder her classmates, mind controlled, violated on the deepest level, and had her soul drained??? Let’s warm her up and send her on her merry way, of course there’s no aftereffects!! She’s fine.

Harry: Bitten by as Basilisk and literally feels his life force draining away before being healed by Fawkes Harry: *on his way to the hospital wing because he just had the most deadly venom in the world coursing through his veins* Dumbledore: Harry stay behind will you? Harry: NEVER ENDS UP GOING TO THE HOSPITAL AFTER BEING BITTEN BY THE MOST DEADLY CREATURE IN THE WORLD WHICH NO ONE HAS SURVIVED BEFORE

No one tells the parents their children are Petrified and students are almost dying because of something that has KILLED A STUDENT BEFORE

Lets also keep a mirror with obsessive powers so strong its had ‘grown men waste away before it’ in an empty classroom with no protection in a school of students!!!!

We also keep murder magic, and mind control magic in our library that is easy to break into!!!! And we teach students how to make date rape drugs in our potions classes!!!! And its very easy to get books on illegal identity theft potions and steal the ingredients and brew it in secret!!! And we completely condone drugging your classmates and locking them in a broom cupboard after stealing some of their hair and clothes!!!

We also give powerful magical artifacts of invisibility to 11 year olds in a school full of terrifying dangers!!!

The mediwitch will never report you for things, not to the teachers or authorities!!! Weather that be an obvious venomous dragon bite, or the obvious effects of an illegal identity theft potion gone wrong, or if you (a teacher) vanished a students bones!!!

ALSO THERE WAS A DRAGON IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! How did Dumbledore not know???!!!! He had to’ve.

Did anyone report Lockhart to the Aurors and have all those poor peoples memories fixed??? He had to have wiped/altered the memories of whole cities and villages!!!!

On top of the who Werewolf thing, Lupin was completely negligent with his potion just saying

And i don’t think this is Dumbledore’s fault (and i’m trying to keep this list to things him and the staff did in the first 3 books) but Hagrid got take to Azkaban without a trial or so much as a by you leave

And also!!!! Once exonerated he was never given his wand and education back!!!!

Also McGonnagal didn’t even check on the students concerns with the stone, they may be children but they’re not stupid

Serial killer slashed a portrait?? its fine!!! Serial killer hovers over a student with a knife??? Its fine!!! Also McGonnagal says he’s being ridiculous for claiming such.

Does the whole school/whole house shun select students because: a) you took a ridiculous amount of points for a minor infraction and thus targeted them and did nothing about it? b) they displayed an ability with a lot of stigma and you did nothing about it?

A student was constantly harassed by a teacher (lockhart) and used for demonstrations and manhandled and slammed/dragged around and no one did anything!!!

He released creatures that hung a student from a chandelier and he fled!!!!

Filch choke-slammed Harry into a wall, feet not touching the ground. in front of the whole school!!! And no one did anything!!!!

Students constantly use slurs without punishment and bullying is ignored!!!!

DEMENTORS!!!! DEMENTORS AT A SCHOOL!!! A SCHOOL WITH CHILDREN WHO COME FROM THE WAR GENERATIONS!!! A SCHOOL WITH CHILDREN WHO HAVE THEIR OWN MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES!!! A SCHOOL THAT DEFINITELY HAS CHILDREN WHO WER ABUSED OR OTHERWISE HURT!!!! AND ONLY HARRY GETS TAUGHT THE DEFENSIVE SPELL AGAINST THEM!!!! worst reaction my ass he isnt the only one with trauma, nor is he probably not the only one who saw his parents die, there was a war and older students probably watched their parents die or get torture too and probably remember it better as well. That just plain favoritism.

Okay i cant thing of anything else, ill add things if i remember

harry potter and the year a literal teenager was blamed for not noticing his new boss was acting weird and was given loads of shit and was held responsible but staff of the safest place and the best school in wizarding world and the best wizard failed to notice the man they knew very well was actually a death eater in disguise and got away without a single complaint aka the year nobody got a haircut.

the isolation of still being in christian spaces (without a choice) and knowing you do not believe is... insane, honestly, something i wish more people knew about. because its not just being in church that feels isolating, it extends to the outside world.

anyone you talk to in your church obviously doesnt understand you. you constantly need to police your words around them to avoid saying something "sinful" or anything that can be read as liberal in any way. the mask must stay on at all times, and then when you're away from that space, you need to slowly adjust and become yourself again, somehow.

and in secular spaces, people just dont get it. which isnt always their fault! its just hard to explain to people who mean well, why "ill pray for you" sets you off and makes your heart race and makes you shudder. "why dont you love your family?? not even your sibling? damn." you see a coworker wearing a shirt with a bible verse on it, and run through several calculations in your head, none of them ending up anywhere because you distance yourself from said coworker, even though you know you should be talking to them before coming to conclusions. "hey, please stop talking about (criticizing) religion, its a bit of a controversial topic here. hope all that church stuff gets better soon though!" your friends do not understand what you are venting about, though they try their hardest.

you try so hard to find people who have left religions and/or cults in the real world. all you seem to be finding are people who are still in them, or people who have never come close to having an experience you have.

not to mention this all becomes approximately 100 times worse if you're queer.

oh my god i have a post exactly like this!!!! Great minds thing alike, eh?????

Dark Academia + Percy

Hear me out here, but Percy Weasley’s fashion sense would definitely be dark academia. 

- He’d like the muted palate of the colours and the sophistication of the style. It makes him look powerful, makes him feel intellectually superior. For him, it’s a fashion style, yes, but it’s also a lifestyle. 

- Imagine him also being into muggle stationary, he learns all about if from his father, that’s their way of bonding. 

- He substitutes parchment for notebooks with paper, it looks crisper and it saves money. He substitutes ink and quill for pens, it saves money and they don’t run out nearly as quickly. 

- It starts a craze among the academic kids in the school, using muggle stationary was the new cool amongst them, the new practical.

Just, Percy Weasley and dark academia. It went off track, but I’m satisfied with this. 

So this song fits them so very well right?

Writing Advice Posts: A Handy Reference Guide

(Updated 12/25/20) Hey all, I’ve got quite a few writing advice posts & answered Asks on my blog at this point, so I’m making this reference guide to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. Hope it helps!

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8 Ways to Improve Your Writing

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How to Spot Bad Writing Advice: 6 Red Flags to Look For

“Show Don’t Tell”? Not Always. Here’s When to Use Summary

How to start a story

More about starting stories

The first sentence

Weak words

Why Just About Every Published Book in the World Does 57 Things That Just About Every Book About Writing Tells You Not to Do

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How to Read Like a Writer

How to Write During a Pandemic

The Writing Process, Writer’s Block, & Inspiration

To all the Writers Suffering from Depression

How to Train Yourself to Write Faster

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Quick Writing Tip: Make a Note to Your Future Self in Your WIP

Quick Writing Tip: Take Notes!

Just a friendly reminder that writing is not always a linear process.

Quick Cure for Writer’s Block: Lower Your Expectations

Set Realistic Goals

Your Skills May Need Time to Catch Up to Your Vision

It’s Okay to Experiment and Be Weird As Fuck

Surround Yourself With Supporters

It’s okay to take a break.

Your First Draft is Raw Material

Getting into “The Zone”

Vomit Brain

Writing from Your Imagination vs. Reality

Dealing with Criticism

Getting Bored with Your Own Writing

Getting past a block

Doing research on topics you don’t have first-hand experience with

Journalling about your writing

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Advice for Getting Over a Writing Slump

Dealing with Procrastination

How to Write Like You Used to, Before You Learned Stuff that Fucked Up Your Natural Creative Flow and Turned Your Writing into Boring, Stilted Garbage

Concept: Maybe Your First Draft DOESN’T Suck

How to Deal with Post-Writing Depression

Character Development

Creating Character Arcs with the DCAST Method

What Does Your Main Character Want?

How to Activate Your Passive Characters, One Verb at a Time

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

The “It Depends” Post

Shifting internal goals

When to identify your character’s goal

Writing about normal people with normal problems

If you’re worried about your character being too similar to someone else’s character 

Describing your characters without messing up your pacing

Story, Plot, & Pacing

Quick Plotting Tip: Write Your Story Backwards

Pause at the Threshold

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Slowing Down the Pace of Your Story Without Boring Your Reader

Time Transitions

How to Create a Non-Cliched First-Meeting Scene

Creating Conflict

When & how to cut a scene

If you’re good at creating characters but awful at creating plot

When you’ve plotted your story but can’t get started

En Media Res

Writing to Your Ideal Reader

Deus Ex Machina

Foreshadowing

Finding an Ending

What to write between moments of conflict

Starting a story with waking-up scene

How to Know When You’re Done Outlining

Doing a Structural Overhaul on Your Story

How to Find an Ending from a Beginning

Editing Tip: How to Speed Up or Slow Down Your Pacing

Description, Setting, & Worldbuilding

How to Make Your Descriptions Less Boring

How to Spot an “Info-dump”

Adding Descriptions to Intense Scenes Without Messing Up Your Story’s Flow

How to Use Description to Show Character Development

Worldbuilding: How much is too much?

Modeling your fantasy world from stuff in the real world

Internal Consistency

Utilizing Sound

How to Do World-Building Research

Point of View

How to Choose the Right Point of View for Your Story

A Beginner’s Guide to Multiple Point of View

6 Questions to Ask About Your Point of View

How to decide if you should use first person or third person

More point of view basics

Head hopping

How to Head Hop without Head Hopping

What to Do When You’re Halfway Through Your Story and Realize Your POV Isn’t Working

3 Tips to Avoid Overusing “I” in a First Person Story

Dialogue

How to Improve Your Dialogue

3 Ways to Make Your Dialogue More Interesting

Starting a story with dialogue

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Which is Better: Exposition or Expository Dialogue?

Publishing & Sharing Your Work

7 Tips to Build an Audience for Your Writing

Pros and Cons of Self Publishing

Quick Publishing Tip: Don’t Bury Your Gold

How to Properly Format Your Manuscript for Publication

A warning about posting writing online that you intend to publish later

Advice for writers who are worried about people stealing their work or ideas

Getting feedback on your writing

How to Create a Cover Letter for a Literary Magazine or Journal

How to Make a 3D Mockup of Your Book for Free

Editing

10 Questions to Ask an Editor Before Hiring Them

Quick Revision Tip: Read Your Writing Out Loud

How to Keep Yourself From Editing As You Write

Cut the fidgeting

Are you suffering from -ing disease?

Are you Using Too Much Stage Direction?

What “Editing” Really Means

Quick Editing Tip: “That”

Quick Revision Tip: Read Faster

Editing Tip: Dialogue

Tips for Editing a Story

Should You Use a Contract When Hiring an Editor?

Quick Tip: Up & Down

Pre-Editing Checklist

Miscellaneous

The Difference Between a Semi-Colon and an Em-Dash

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The Literary Architect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler. For more writing help, get my FREE Fiction Writing Toolkit or The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. xoxo

arthur is such a tragic character and at the same time the most optimistic fiction podcast protagonist i've ever known. and i think those two things correlate. because his specific brand of tragedy has left him with absolutely nothing except hope to hold on to. his will is the only thing he hasn't lost, and that in itself is also a tragedy. he cannot give up, not even when going forward will only hurt him more. there is mercy in death, there is peace in giving up. there's no mercy in putting one foot in front of the other, bracing yourself and moving forward, again and again and again, not to get somewhere safe enough to rest, but just because you cannot stay still. there is no peace in moving forward when you know the world is not done punishing you. the only reason you'd ever keep going is if you believed you deserved it, and believed that by putting yourself through this hell you will eventually have earned your peace.