Mechtild's

Note: Contains extended reflection on scene, not really a rant, but expressing complaints. Also has nice caps, book excerpt and great poem.

I don't like the turn the scene takes in its second half and that's a fact. It's not that the scene doesn't work well as drama. It does. But I don't like how it affects the "character arcs" of the two hobbits, and I don't like how it alters a favourite feature in Tolkien's story.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Winter is flying, as if to put the lie to my complaints that it is never-ending. I had hoped to post this series before Christmas, when the Fellowship is still in Rivendell, but here we are in February. Well, I will pretend it is yet December.

Bilbo's Gifts Pt. 1
( Read more... )

( Read more... )

An Announcement for jan-u-wine fans...
( Read more... )

I really love Elrond’s speech to Frodo after he volunteers to take the Ring. It's so gratifying to hear someone as wise and respected and powerful as Elrond say, for all to hear, that in taking up the Quest Frodo has chosen to do that which puts him in the company of the great. ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Reading the book scene again, I realise how much I miss the presence of Bilbo in the film’s Council of Elrond. I can see why they struck him from the scene, and it worked, since it served to accentuate Frodo’s relationship with Gandalf. ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

~*~( Read more... )

The FOTR sequence screencapped below, the scene in which Sam argues persuasively that they ought to be heading home, is original to the film. It has no direct book equivalent. I decided to use a book scene from the opening of the Ring Goes South to go with it, even though the film scene takes place before the Council, not after it.

The connection I see between the book scene and the film scene is a strong sense of Frodo’s reluctance. ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

A significant difference, to me, between the book and film versions of the Rivendell sequence, is the way Bilbo is portrayed. He is far more frail in the films. In the book, Bilbo still feels fit enough to volunteer to take the Ring to Mt. Doom. (He does it, incidentally—as will be seen in the book texts for the Council of Elrond series—in order to spare Frodo, not to get his hands on the Ring.) Even after he has become doddery when the Fellowship returns, Bilbo is strong enough to make the journey from the Misty Mountains to the Grey Havens on horseback.
( Read more... )

( Read more... )

To celebrate the birthdays of Frodo and Bilbo, this year’s mathom is a [rather silly] manip. Also presented are two poems by jan-u-wine, which are not silly at all. I am hoping her poems will dignify the manip, which is meant to be charming more than convincing. In it the illustrious cousins are wearing party crowns. Or, one could think of it as a portrait of the Halfling Prince and the, um, Halfling Regent.
( Read more... )

When jan-u-wine first showed me this poem (which imagines Elijah Wood’s last take playing Frodo, finishing the Red Book), I had already posted my screencaps for that moment in the RotK EE extras. I thought, "What a shame I hadn’t seen this poem before!" I had already presented caps for the writing desk scene, too (see links for those below).
( Read more... )

( Read more... )