Introduction!

[roselightfairy]

 Hello! I am starving for fandom communication right now, so forgive me if the number of posts I've made in this group make me appear desperate.  I just am.  So I thought I would do an introduction of my own!

So, to follow Katajainen's mold:

Roselightfairy (she/her), recent college graduate and nerd disaster, lives in the Pacific Northwest (USA) but studied in Canada. (Ferocious critic of the current US government, I promise.) Grew up in a movie-steeped culture, but 100% a book loyalist (and also harshly critical of the personality-ectomy inflicted on nearly every character in the movies).  I read the trilogy in a weekend, two of three books off a computer screen, and came away with one pressing thought: wow, all of these characters are in love.  After awhile I narrowed it down to this ship above all, at least as far as my fic preferences go, and have read most of the fics in the tag on Ao3.  When I ran out of material to read, I started writing my own.

Main fic tendencies: lots of hurt/comfort, angst, and fluff; a relationship that stays truer to the sappy starry-eyes of the book ("you comfort me. where you go I will go") than the antagonistic banter of the movies.  My personal characterization of Legolas is unusual and not everyone's cup of tea, but very dear to my heart, and I've built a world around it that (through a combination of narcissism, inspiration, and desperation for attention) I can't seem to stop adding to.  I'm at Ao3 and Tumblr under the same name, should you be at all interested in checking it out.

Anyway, thanks for listening, and please talk to me!

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

I am Right There With You on "wow, all of these characters are in love"!!!

And +sigh+ movie characterization.

[roselightfairy]

MOVIE CHARACTERIZATION, my gosh. Is there anyone they didn't do massive disservice?

...I guess Gandalf's all right. And I suppose Aragorn's character actually gets kind of improved in some ways by being made not excessively perfect. But everyone else got at least half their personality cut away-- and that's if they were the lucky ones who didn't get warped beyond all recognition.

[katajainen]

I'm with you on Gandalf's characterization, but Aragorn... not so much. The "reluctant king" trope the movies shoehorn into his character arc is so completely at odds with the way he's portrayed in the books. (Also I can't think about the way they mangled the Aragorn/Arwen romance plot without belching fire... just ARGH)

Also "personality-ectomy"is a brilliant way of putting it and still makes me giggle XD

[roselightfairy]

I agree with everything you said. I'm going to try to rephrase my feelings on Aragorn, which is difficult because they're complicated.

As a reader first, Aragorn's arc annoys me because it's unnecessarily inaccurate. It's like they just wanted to make him more of a traditional hero so they stuck a "traditional" hero's journey in there, complete with reluctance to lead, even though it's exactly the opposite of how he is in the book. However, I have to admit, the way he was in the book kind of annoyed me. In the movies alone, taken without the books as a backdrop, Aragorn is portrayed as more of an actual person than this sort of all-knowing superior person who can do everything so why is the rest of the Fellowship even there?

(Though I do like that dynamic in L/G fic, where Legolas and Gimli are fools and Aragorn is frustrated. *cough* A Tangled Web, anyone? I once saw a piece of fanart in which Legolas and Gimli were wearing those couples T-shirts, except they both said, "If found, return to Aragorn" and then Aragorn was wearing a shirt that said, "Keep them." I can't for the life of me find it again and it's terribly sad because it so perfectly illustrates their dynamic.)

But at first when I watched the movies I was like, "THEY EVEN MESSED UP ARAGORN," but then I read the books to my roommate, who had only ever seen the movies before, and she liked movie Aragorn a LOT better than book Aragorn because he had, like, actual flaws. Now my failure to see these may just be a not-close-enough reading of the text, but I confess, the initial portrayal of book Aragorn irks me a bit, and in some ways I like the slight downgrade the movies made to him. I find it makes him more sympathetic, even if I dislike how exactly it was done.

(Except for the Arwen/Eowyn stuff. I have no defense of that. And I'll still entirely and happily nitpick the way Aragorn was portrayed in the movies.)

And I'm happy you appreciated "personality-ectomy." Sometimes I like counting personalities. Like, Frodo has half a personality, Merry and Pippin have about 3/4 of a personality between them, and let's just not even talk about Legolas, Gimli, or Faramir.

[katajainen]

...I knew there was a reason this one was sitting open in my tabs... that is, I meant to reply to it at some point. So here goes.

It's interesting to read your take of books vs. movies, because "Aragorn with actual flaws" is basically how I read him in the books. I think the two most relatable moments are

1) when Frodo and co. meet him at the Prancing Pony, and he confesses he'd hoped they would like them and trust him for his own sake, not solely because he's a friend of Gandalf's (bc it's a lonely life, being a Ranger, and asdfghjkj it still breaks my heart a bit)

2) when him and Legolas and Gimli have been running after the orcs for a day and some, and debate whether to go on through the night and risk losing the trail, and Aragorn's basically throwing his hands in the air and going "don't ask me to choose; all my decisions since the Argonath have gone to shit", and I'm like yeah, I do know how it feels like, having a day like that.

And here I am, still snickering at your "personality-ectomy", because it's just so perfect way to describe the issue XD

[roselightfairy]

I suppose what gets me about those flaws is that Aragorn is a VASTLY powerful character who can do anything (he knows every language, everything about everyone in ME, he's wise, practical, a good leader, he has the power to command the Dead and the courage to enter their caverns, etc., and then oh he's also an expert healer, and he won the love of one of the most beautiful elves around, Luthien reborn, etc. etc.)... and then the flaws he has basically boil down to insecurity with that power, which is so often a creator's cop-out to giving a character "real" flaws. Of course, I've definitely come to realize that insecurity is absolutely NOT a "cute non-flaw," and that it can be incredibly nuanced and incredibly inconveniencing to other people. But there's something about the way it's played out in Aragorn that too strongly evokes the dreaded "Mary Sue" trope. It's less noticeable in him because he's not a woman, so less liable to be picked apart, but something about it rubs at me a bit. It's probably a reason I struggle to write him when I'm not using him as a wingman, when that intelligence and power can be played for laughs. But I don't know; that's just an emotional reaction to the character that might not be the same for everyone, and I definitely see what you're saying, too. :)

And I'm so glad "personality-ectomy" pleases you still! It's a phrasing I'm particularly proud of ;)

[katajainen]

Okay, I get your reading of Aragorn as Mr. Too-perfect - but what if Tolkien wrote him as a Gary Stu on purpose? Like - what if he's actually a red herring?

Just bear with me for a second, it will make sense (I hope). Like, we know that Aragorn's suicidal march to the Black Gate is a decoy - but what if it's just a part of a bigger scheme? What if Aragorn is meant to distract the reader as well? Because this whole business with a Long-lost Heir to the Throne and Great Perils and Travails and a Big Romance... it's tropey stuff. But the twist is that it's NOT the point. The point is Frodo's journey, which is a much more unconventional thing.

And my theory is solely based on the fact that about 90% of the post-Tolkien fantasy literature has chosen to imitate the red herring storyline, and disregard the true gist of the story. (Well, perhaps maybe not 90%, but I did spend my teenage years reading a LOT of drivel from the library YA Fantasy section. I have since learned better.)

[roselightfairy]

I think you're absolutely right about that. Aragorn is not at all "the real hero" of LOTR-- did you ever see that post that described all the men and armies and whatnot as "a hobbit delivery system"? The hobbits do all the real heroics of the story; the others are just there as a support system, a big distraction, or both.

My struggle, I guess, is that there are two parts of me-- the part that sees the books as Literature, with meaning and theme and important resonance... and the part that sees a story and characters I've fallen in love with. And for anything I fall in love with to the extent that I write fic about it, that latter always has to come first.

That latter is absolutely and obviously the way the movies took the story. In the movies, they take the flashy kingship arc of Aragorn's at face value, and... and maybe that's why they have to make him more fallible, so that he as a character will be more palatable. If they want us to buy him as their Big Hero, they have to make him flawed and give him a Journey and a Destiny that he has to struggle to accept. (As opposed to the books, where he's known for sixty years that "yeah, I'm gonna be king of Gondor. NEXT.")

My thought is that for someone who isn't looking for the thematic significance and resonance of that whole arc, movie!Aragorn is a lot more palatable, and that worked on me as well. And even though I don't agree with the narrative of the movies at all, there's that part of me that's just like "but they're CHARACTERS and they're in LOVE and they should OWN A COFFEE SHOP TOGETHER." That was the part of me that fell in love with characters like Legolas and Gimli and the hobbits in the book (and was scandalized and appalled at their portrayal in the movies), and it's also the part of me that's more drawn to movie Aragorn than to book Aragorn, even though I think his book portrayal is better for the purpose it serves. Does that make sense?

(On the other hand, that commands-absolute-respect-and-devotion part of him is one of the things that's most fun to play with when portraying him as a side character in fic. One of the things the movies got RIGHT is the absolute love and devotion that Legolas and Gimli have for him, and his unquestioned status as leader of their little gang, and I love playing with that in fic-- having him be the Unamused Dad Friend to their shenanigans. It's also fun when fleshing Arwen out as a character-- because she has so little character in either the books or the movies, it's possible to make her someone with a kind of spirit that can both match and check Aragorn, and I like playing with that; it makes for fun dynamics. I got off track, but basically what I mean is that I'm not trying to react with hostility to book!Aragorn-- just that I like to seek ways to subvert the parts of his personality that put me off while staying true to the canon.)

[izilen]

Hello! I recognise your username! I've been enjoying your fic.

[roselightfairy]

Oh, wow, I'm so happy to hear that! Thank you for letting me know! :D