ok so, for people who have seen the LOTR films but not read the book I’d like to share some things that are 100% canon:
- Sam Gamgee uses the word ‘boner’. In a song. Several times.
- he also writes a poem that contains the phrase ‘golden showers’. (this is actually in the extended cut but they changed it to ‘silver showers’)
- at one point after he’s defeated Saruman steals Merry’s weed & runs away
- Denethor has actual mindreading powers
- so does Faramir (but he’s a nice person so they manifest more as heightened empathy)
- Gandalf ALSO has mindreading powers but for entirely different reasons. he reads Frodo’s mind while he’s sleeping at one point, casually reveals this to Frodo, and Frodo’s just like ‘huh neat’
- rather than bravely drawing the orcs away from Frodo like in the film, in the book Merry and Pippin just kind of, panic, bolt into the woods, and run directly into the orcs’ arms.
- Merry then draws his sword and hacks a bunch of orc hands off
- Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli name themselves ‘the three hunters’ before setting off to rescue Merry and Pippin because they are dorks
- they also improvise a whole song about how much they loved Boromir
- Aragorn does not initially tell the hobbits he’s a friend of Gandalf bcos he wanted them to like him for who he is. im not kidding. he openly admits to this.
- i feel like this is fairly well known but, if you didn’t know Frodo is 50 years old and looks 33
- hobbits PROBABLY age different to humans so looking 33 in practice means he looks about 21
- in accordance with the above Pippin is the equivalent of a 16-17 year old human
- Pippin can pass for a human child and looks like ‘a boy of nine summers’
- this isn’t that weird i just think it’s really cute: Pippin has 3 older sisters and their names are Pearl, Pimpernel and Pervinca.
- Sam & Rosie have 13 children. One of them is called Goldilocks.
- Frodo has another best friend. His name is Fatty. He stayed behind in the Shire to cover for Frodo’s absence and ends up getting jailed for months by Saruman’s forces.
- Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who steals spoons, is also jailed by Saruman. (She whacked one of his goons with an umbrella.)
- Grima Wormtongue MAY have eaten an entire hobbit
- Saruman invades the Shire and turns it into a communist hell police state.
- the whole Tom Bombadil thing is common knowledge but if you haven’t read the book i guarantee you he is weirder than you think.
- to give just 2 examples: 1) the whole tom bombadil arc provides the explanation as to how Eowyn and Merry were able to dispatch the Witch King
- and 2) for unknown reasons sleeping in his house causes everyone to have horrible nightmares… EXCEPT for Sam who has a peaceful and dreamless night. no explanation offered for any of this.
considering that Pippin’s dad is named Paladin, you fucking know he claimed the right to name each and every one of his children and his poor wife just begged him to choose a different letter to start with
also aragorn openly admitting to being fucking lonely and just wanting friends is treated like a weirdly funny joke in the book by the way that some of the hobbits react to it, and frodo also proceeds very soon after to basically tell aragorn that he’s pretty foul-looking but seems a good guy
yes to the above & a small correction + one i forgot:
- Merry does in fact gift Saruman the weed. It’s the bag it’s in that Saruman steals and runs off with. (also give that Merry stole the weed from Saruman’s personal supply in the first place i can’t say i blame him)
- Aragorn literally has magical healing powers. i don’t think they ever explain this in the films but he does very much have healing powers.
- the Ents are able to tear down the entire wall around Isengard, but can for whatever reason not make a single dent in the tower of Orthanc itself
- several riders knew that Merry was there and coming with them to the fields of Pelennor even though he was forbidden to do so, and they just sort of shrug and don’t tell the king
- GOD Merry and the riders: they don’t just shrug they straight up act like he isn’t there. to the point where if he talks they just pretend like they don’t hear him. this hurts his feelings.
- Merry doesn’t recognise Eowyn until she reveals herself to the witch-king. it could be that her disguise is just that good but Eowyn herself seems to be kind of surprised that he doesn’t recognise her so it’s possible he’s just a dumbass.
- Pippin goes all in for a suicide mission at the Black Gate because he thinks that Frodo and Sam are captured and/or dead and everything is lost anyway, so he just decides that if he’s going to die, he’s going to die fighting, and then he almost gets squashed by a troll
- Gimli found Pippin underneath said troll after the battle, only because Pippin’s fucking foot was sticking out, and probably had a bit of a panicky moment while he was MOVING the troll to drag Pippin out of there
- i can’t believe i forgot about the troll: Pippin single-handedly slays a troll & then its body falls on him and he’s just lying there like ‘well i guess this is how i die’
- Gimli 100% thought pippin was dead when he found him and was so distraught he almost ripped his beard out
- There’s also Aragorn making the Mouth of Sauron flee with terror because he glared at him. Not a joke. (An argument can be made here for Aragorn having psychic powers)
Or intimidation proficiency
If I may add…
- Legolas falling out of a tree and screaming.
- Legolas dropping hie bow. And screaming.
- Legolas just screamed. A lot.
- Legolas singing a song that he only knew half of.
- “Do what you will in your madness but I wish to see no eyes!”
- Legolas straight up walking away after a battle and singing
- Legolas sneaking Gimli into Valinor like contraband Twizzlers into the movie theater.
- MERIADOC BRANDYBUCK AND PEREGRIN FUCKIN TOOK charge the fuck back to the desolated Shire with Sam and Frodo trailing and lead a mutiny of tiny people against Saruman’s dirty gross men and strut around like a pair of war-torn knights who have seen some shit and can handle this crap, and they do. THEY TAKE BACK THEIR COUNTRY.
- Sam cries because the horrible people cut down the Party Tree. It’s terrible.
- Then he goes to Rosie’s house and she tells him he looks fine, which really means he looks FINE, DAYUM.
Merry and Pippin get married (separately, to women) have kids and become renowned all around the Shire for being amazing and also tall. And then they get old and give all of their offices to the kids and when their wives die, the live together for decades at Crickhollow, until the King of Gondor asks to see his friends one more time, and they travel back together to see the kings Eomer and Aragorn. And they live together there, in Gondor for the rest of their lives, and when they die, THEY ARE BURIED TOGETHER, NEXT TO THEIR KING.
OH MY GOD. Please read the books if you haven’t. I know they are daunting, and yes, they are slow as molasses in many places, but there is so so so much. I have read them dozens of times and every single time, there is something else that kills me.
Apparently that baseball player on a bucket is named Kiké Hernández, and he and that reporter have an ongoing joke of trying to be taller than the other- she'll wear heels, he'll stand on a couch, etc. That picture was taken pretty out of context. The washington post has a good summary of the issue fwiw
Hey!
Thank you for the update (and sorry for the drastically delayed reply.) Context is always important (though I stand by the sentiment that traditional masculinity is sad and weak)
At that [rehearsal], Tom saw that the production designer had put a giant lobster tank in the center of the restaurant and that was just a true design choice just to make it seem like a fancy restaurant. As soon as Tom sees it, he goes, ‘Well, I’m going to go in the tank.’
Even if you’re Tom Hardy, you don’t just jump in a lobster tank and call it day. “The designer was like, ‘We didn’t build it for somebody to go in!’” Fleischer says. “And, you know, they were all live lobsters.”
Then improvised direction required the rejiggering of major elements to allow for Eddie/Venom to plunge into and feast, and for Hardy to do it all safely. As anyone who witnessed the The Mask-like spectacle, they pulled off the construction and stunt work under the wire. And the lobsters gobbled up by a Venomized Eddie? Marshmallow crustaceans with chocolate syrup blood.
