The Queer History of The Lord of the Rings
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- čas přidán 22. 02. 2024
- Was Tolkien a big gay? Were Sam and Frodo lovers? Was everyone in The Lord of the Rings transgender?! There is no way of knowing. Except to watch this video.
No cats were harmed in the making of this video. Miško just wants to be included in the fun, he loves to be centre of attention!
Video by Verity Ritchie. Script editor: Ada Černoša
Patreon: / verityritchie
Verity's Twitter: / verilybitchie
Verity's Instagram: / verityritchie
Ada's Twitter: / theliterarybi
Ada's website about bisexual books: theliterarybisexual.neocities...
Thanks for watching! For more juicy (soupy?) content, consider becoming a member on Patreon! www.patreon.com/verityritchie
So when I originally clicked on the video I was expecting a bad faith interpretation used solely as a cudgel in the culture wars, so I clicked off...then thought about it for a few moments to then take a watch in earnest. And safe to say this is one of my favorite video essays that I have seen on the topic and I absolutely enjoyed the jump into the various parallels to fairy stories and the freedom of interpretation found within.
Safe to say you earned a well deserved subscription and I hope you have a very merry rest of you r week enjoying some of the finest literature around.
@@asyouwish6633Was that suppose to represent some kind of imaged validation? I think you should exam where those “bad faith interpretations” come from.
:) So... You're saying that the whole epic centers around travelling to a metaphorical "dark place" to throw off the shackle of hetero-normative conditioning represented by the "One Ring"...? I KNEW it!!!
@@bobbylee_ Wow, hostility for what? I was stating that it was a well formed video essay that I thoroughly enjoyed when I thought that I wouldn't?
And yeah looking at the amount of bs that has been spewing forth since Amazon made the Rings of Power series I can safely say ideologues have been trying to use Middle Earth as a cudgel in the culture war....
So could you chill it with the imagining some sort of slight to the creator that was not there?
Thank you for the great research and presentation! I also want to add that Gimli might be read as a dwarven woman or a trans man... With some help from Terry Pratchett and Dwarf Fortress, at least.
I love your interpretations of LOTR so, so much. I met Sean Astin two weeks ago at a Comic Con, and my friend had him sign a painting of Frodo reading next to a tree. She asked him to put write a message on the tree that said "Sam loves Frodo," and while he did, he smiled and said, "It's true you know." Then at the Q&A, he was talking about how he loves that the queer community has latched on the relationship and there's nothing that says they didn't kiss each other more intimately. Sean Astin is the nicest human, and we need a billion more people like him in this world.
Sean actively ships Frodo and Sam and i love that for him. he's even admitted to reading some fanfic haha
This comment made me so happy, it’s wonderful to know Sean Astin is a nice person
I'm so glad to learn that. I saw an interview where he talked a lot about being a Christian, so I feared the worst. So glad he doesn't use his faith to excuse bigotry. Wish there were more Christians like him.
His Mom is great. A film channel I love who covers mostly historical best actress Oscar races did a big video on her a couple months ago. It's very worthwhile watching. Sean Astin cameo near the end lol.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 what's the channel name?
If Ian McKellen says it's gay, then it's gay.
Who dis Ian McKellen? I just know Gandalf the White! Btw if you shine white light through a prism it becomes a rainbow. If that isn't confirmation Idk what is!
Ian McKellen is the gatekeeper of homosexuality
@@human_plant he sends the draft notices
@@nostalji75 You haven't read the books, have you?
That's literally Gandalf's first indication that Saruman is no longer his friend.
The original gay wizard 😎
"But what about second divorce?" "I don't think he knows about second divorce, Pippin."
Underrated comment 😂
Underrated by far😂❤
Probably invented by one of the Sackvilles...
@@oshkeet hate those guys! (Except Lobelia, she kinda redeems herself at the end.)
This is a religious term about the split with God but ok
When I was ten I was reading and said "Mom what does 'queer' mean?" "uhhhh read me the sentence...... odd, yeah it just means odd." Then later I said queer in front of my dad and he was like "who taught you that word?" "The Hobbit" "it's an old fashioned word, it doesn't mean that anymore. Don't use it, you'll get teased." Oh to be an innocent bookish child in 1993.
I... as a child I only knew "gay" to mean "bright and happy," despite knowing multiple gay people - this is because my child-self who grew up to be pan figured both straight and gay people were just making strategic decisions about dating pools.
Yeah, it's depressing when you know all of the old words but you can't use them because modernity has painted them over and scribbled something different over them.
Someone called me queer when I was 10 (2002) and I, also an innocent bookish child, thought it meant odd or weird. Another child explained to me it meant gay and I was so confused.
@@strawberry.sunshine8-year-old me getting asked if I was gay after having only ever read the word in old books where it meant happy. I knew I was being insulted but I couldn’t under how being happy was supposed to be a bad thing. Turns out I’m both trans and a lesbian. 😅
In elementary school “getting to know you” activities, one of the words I used to describe myself was queer, because the thesaurus told me it was a synonym for odd. No one told me. Happy to say I use queer in the not-straight way now.
I do really appreciate the lack of romance in these books as an aroace person. So many fantasy books now have a giant focus on romance and sex, and it can be hard a lot of the time to find them without. Having this book be largely about platonic relationships is just really nice to me when they are almost always pushed to the side in the favor of romance in every other piece of media.
Me too! I appreciate the gay readings of LOTR, but I always felt it was an amazing portrayal of a queer platonic relationship - the best one I've ever come across.
we love some uptight religiousness
@@moth1560 what has that got to do with anything?
there is definitely a aroace reading of lotr
That’s one of the things I love about LOTR on my first reading. It just goes to show us the reader the multiple ways of how we share intimacy. And that platonic relationships are just special as romantic ones:)
I love when video essays suddenly become good pieces of investigative journalism
💯
I need someone to make a playlist of specifically this so I can find more of them
@@TindraSan"I rated places with 0 reviews" isn't really a video essay but it sure does change partway through!
Thank you Tommy!
@@TindraSan hbomberguy's 2 latest videos also come to mind 😅
An interesting fact to note about the Andrew Lang books is that he was primarily the editor.
Leonora Blanche Alleyne, his wife, did most of the work. Lang himself writes in a preface: “The fairy books have been almost wholly the work of Mrs Lang, who has translated and adapted them from the French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and other languages.”
She and a team of other writers, mostly women, did the translations and wrote the adaptations.
Iteressting a lot of the fairytales collected by the Brothers Grimm were told by women.
"Soup: the food that is juice" is now my favorite phrase, thank you.
goodsoup is food
fun fact: there is a 13th century old french version of the 'girl who pretended to be a boy' narrative (Yde et Olive)
funner fact: they end up with a son called Croissant
disappointing fact: Croissant does not necessarily mean the pastry product. It can also mean the crescent shape, such as that of a new moon.
embarassing fact: I remember in the translation section of a French exam I interpreted the clashing of "eclaire" against "la fenetre" as cakes banging on a window. Eclaire is French for lightning.
!!!!
@@thumper8684in our version it's cakes
@@thumper8684Cakes banging on a window :'D That's a wonderful world where it rains cakes.
Lmaooooo like the moon crescent (le croissant de lune)
In defense of Eowyn and Faramir as a couple, and in defense of Eowyn’s story arc, I think you may have discounted Tolkein’s perspective in writing her and Faramir. I am someone who as a cis woman absolutely idolizes Eowyn and I have since I was a very young child. To me, her character never read as woman who wanted to be a warrior, but someone who wanted the freedom to do things that would make a difference and protect her loved ones. It’s not that she dislikes what is expected of her as a woman, it’s that in this time of crisis and war, she wants to ride out with her brother and uncle and protect the country and people she loves so dearly. I read her crush on Aragorn as not real love, but first as a desire to be like him and then as appreciation because he values and validates her bravery and desire to fight. In her life, hes the only person who thinks she’s capable of it and that endears him to her.
Faramir is a scholar who deeply loves learning and a peaceful life. But with war looming, he was expected to be the perfect warrior archetype like his brother. So he puts aside his desires and dedicated himself to becoming that. Despite not being a natural warrior, Faramir still takes great pride in serving to protect his people and does so without complaint. Even if it wasn’t expected of him, I still think he would have chosen to do so anyway. When asked which character is the most like himself, Tolkien always said Faramir. Like Faramir, Tolkien is a scholar and bookworm with passion for peace, nature, and learning. But as a young man, he left his studies to fight in a horrendous war. When that war ended, he put down his proverbial sword and resumed as a scholar, as did Faramir.
I think Eowyn finding her true happiness by also putting down her sword and becoming a healer is meant to mirror The characters with each other. It also has a parallel with many women of the time that served as military medics and nurses returning from war and resuming their lives and finding husbands. Some went on to continue in a medical profession, others not but they did not go back to war because that was never what joining up was about for them. When Eowyn and Faramir get together and become healers, it’s because it’s what they want to do in a world now free of war, they have the freedom to do so. Middle Earth doesn’t need warriors to serve and protect it anymore. It needs scholars and healers to help it recover from war. Tolkien wrote an ending for her that he himself desired idealized beyond all else for himself and he thought she was the soulmate of the character he identifies most with. I really love this ending for her because I live in a world where cataclysmic climate change and dozens of systems of brutal oppression threaten the life and freedom of myself and everyone else. In the year 2024 I find myself marching and protesting for rights my grandmother had. It’s not with a sword, but I fight as an activist against the proverbial hoards of orcs actively destroying my country. I cannot imagine a happier future than one where I don’t have to fight anymore and I can live in peace with my partner and not have to worry about climate change or my right to autonomy or my country’s military committing more war crimes or our prisons acting as slave labor camps or billions of animals being needlessly slaughtered every year. The fact that Eowyn’s character is rewarded with such peace and happiness in the end shows an Tolkein’s admiration and respect for her bravery and demand for freedom of choice in her life.
@@nourriadh6976 yeah especially since so many instances of women cross dressing in history have been motivated by either trying to keep themselves safe (traveling dressed as a man) or because they were trying to do something women weren’t legally allowed to do. Eowyn seems perfectly happy as a woman. She keeps her long hair, enjoys domestic life, and she pursues romances with men. The reason she cross dresses as a man is because she’s desperate to fight with her king. As a woman now, I don’t need to cross dress to join the army or learn martial arts. And I still enjoy typically feminine things like sewing, cooking, makeup, dresses, and having a male partner.
thank you for sharing
Yeah, I think that's one significant reading Verity kind of skims over and just summarizes as Tolkien valorizing/idealizing peace. The impact of this ideal on all the characters is very consistent and informs their motivations throughout the story.
Brilliant and I agree 100%
100% my thinking as well, i was hoping i wasn’t the only one who’s taken to reading eowyn that way
If I may speak honestly. LOTR is one of my favorite books partially because it doesn't talk about sex very much. It's more comfortable for me to read stories that don't bring it up that much.
Me too. I don't know why and I don't know what is wrong with me but I've never liked romance in books and I like a VERY FEW romance movies. I don't know, it's just sooo boring for me.
But, I do like a lot of romantic songs in Spanish. I'm starting to think that maybe I'm more of a musical romantic person.
(Sorry if my English is bad).
Me too! I like how it had its romances but never delved into the vulgar, it demonstrated HOW to love rather than Pollock painting the bedsheets.
Men and women like sex. Aragorn had kids. Womp womp
I always thought the way males were portrayed in their relationships to each other was just a reflection of the normal interactions between male friends of the time. It seems (and ( could be wrong) that its only been in the last century that (the Western world at least) have made masculinity very toxic. The LOTR always felt like seeing good, positive examples of masculinity. Hugging, holding hands or expressing love for your friends doesn't have to be inherently romantic or sexual, except to the Western mindset, apparently.
Or it just means Hobbits act differently.
Yeah in Pakistan that kind of physical contact between men is pretty standard. You walk down the street and you're likely to see men holding hands.
@@Safiyahalishah Also in Morocco
Exactly. Lets view this from a female point. Imagine the characters weren't male but female. Would people still perceive their actions and mannerisms as gay? I don't think so. For girls and women it is more normalized to be touchy and lovey with one another without being sexually attracted/interested.
Wait wait wait wait wait, you did not just call Faramir “bootleg Aragorn”
Which Ytuber was it who called Halbrand in Rings of Power "Kmart Aragorn" or something like that?? 😆 LOL
surely he is knock off Boromir if anything...
@@littlemissevel3607he's quite a different charachter than Boromir, so I wouldn't say that.
literally thank you!!!!!! faramir slander is so not it fam 😩 of anything the chapter about eowyn and faramir is imo the best and really only in depth example of textual heterosexual romanctic love they’re so healing babes !!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Shout out to Leonora Blanche Lang, Andrew Lang’s wife, for actually doing most of the work compiling “his” Fairy Books. (Along with a team of other women.)
ooooh!
Figures :D
Tolkien was most proud of his translation of Beowulf to modern English, he didn't take credit for other stories. He was a linguist first of all, and a medievalist.
@Hypogean7 this comment isn't about Tolkien
Quoting aother comment:
[...] Andrew Lang books is that he was primarily the editor. [...] Lang himself writes in a preface: “The fairy books have been almost wholly the work of Mrs Lang, who has translated and adapted them from the French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan and other languages."
One of the things that drives me crazy about the polygon article is that we actually know how 1950s novelists wrote about queerness. Giovanni's room was published in the same decade; The City and the Pillar was published in 1948; the Pied Piper of Lovers was published in 1935; The Western Shore in 1925 and Death in Venice in 1912.
I... don't get the same vibes from LoTR
It reveals a rather shallow view of humanity, if every loving relationship between men must inevitably be reduced to a homosexual one. Clearly a lack of emotional education is prevalent in our modern world. Too much social media, perhaps?
@12022 There is definitely erasure of platonic male affection in culture, but just from the jump in this video I think it's fair to call the scene of Sam reuniting with Frodo in Rivendell something more than that (the blushing and all). The issue is that so much of media has also buried queer affection in so much coding and inneundo, that many queer audiences are understandably eager to spot moments of it anywhere we can.
@@nomanisanisland117 The first thing Gandalf does with Frodo is to stifle any of the Hobbit's feelings of self-pity. And honestly interpreting scenes according to a fair and wholistic analysis of the work is one thing. Shoehorning one's own perspective into the text as a matter of self-validation is entirely another.
@@nomanisanisland117 You know whats worse? The word "queer" being co opted to be put under a banner of sexuality. So queer no longer means being strange or odd but it means being a weird sexual deviant and how thats totally okay. It's disgusting.
Uhh no we don't? What do those have to do with anything
I'm glad we aren't accusing tolking of meaning to write it like that. Why can't men just be affectionate with each other.
I thought like that too, once. Then it turned out I was gay.
But all jokes aside, cis-masculine western culture is defined by what it is, but... mostly by what it isn't. Men are so afraid to be perceived as unmanly, that they'll lash out against any and all real or imagined slights against their gender/sexuality. Particularly when it comes to being likened to any effeminite or gay quality. As a result, masculinity has crystallized into a toxic cyst, and it's not going to improve until men (among others. Women are also actors that can reinforce what is and isn't considered masculine) can divest themselves from this fear. Learning how to accept that masculinity need not be a rigid thing requiring a ring of spears to defend. What it means to be a man can truly be defined however you wish. Be the change you want to see, and be unafraid of detractors.
@@DreamersOfRealitywell said.
I must be on the internet too much, because when you started talking about food in the middle of the video, I assumed it was a segue to a sponsorship from HelloFresh
I actually went to skip ahead lol
@@pinkajou656 same hahaha
I had a terrible time rewinding because I couldn’t find the „ad read“ again after skipping forward 😅
idk if i've ever been this excited for a video essay before
same my friend
Same. I'm living for this.
I gasped in excitement when it came up
right?! immediate click.
Ohmygod, I am literally constantly pausing it to repeat bits every few seconds because I'm enjoying it so much 😂
Seriously doubt Tolkien wrote anything gay in his stuff, you know cuz he was a “devout catholic”
You didn't watch the video did you?
@@CloneCaptainRex7567 He did. And there are so many reaches here.
@@CloneCaptainRex7567 This video isn't about a queer history of LOTR, it's about the history of LOTR if you view it with a queer lens. There is no queer history of LOTR because it isn't queer, and neither is it's creator or it's inspirations. Queer is a modern concept refined over decades of theory and cultural development into what it is now. Anything queer about Tolkien or his creations is purely a product of modern interpretation.
Here's my take on Eowyn. Eowyn is a badass feminist hero who proves everybody (including Gandalf) wrong about what women can and should be expected to do. Eowyn is also desperately depressed and trying to die at the end of a sword just so that she can feel like she's done something worthwhile. Two things can be true. Her relationship with Faramir is not about Faramir, a man, convincing Eowyn, a woman, to know her place; it is about Faramir, a pacifist, convincing Eowyn, a warrior, that the war is over and she should find peace with that instead of continuing to chase death. It works for me. Faramir is pretty much the only guy in the book who really gets what's going on, so it feels true to his character.
Agreed! I always found them finding each other to be a sign of healing and her making an intentional choice to release her trauma and realize she had nothing left to “prove”-she could just become herself, along with someone else who’d always been striving to be Other than he truly was.
I completely agree. Éowyn rocks.
That was always my read on her as well. Trapped, hemmed in by others' expectations, constantly disregarded by everyone around her, and unable to do anything as her uncle's senility erodes the safety of her home.
I was my partner's full time carer for several years (he's recovered now, thanks to some incredible doctors) and the constant need to make things better in the face of something that you have so little ability to affect is soul destroying. I never got to that point, but I'm very sympathetic to her desire to do something impactful and then stop existing.
Her arc in the houses of healing with Faramir always reminds me of the end of Princess Mononoke, when Ashitaka tells San that the forest spirit isn't dead, and "He is here with us now, telling us: it's time for both of us to live."
This! Thank you! Everytime, I'm astonished anew if people don't seem to get that Eowyn going to war isn't bravery or the wish to be a warrior - but a s****de attempt, because she is severely depressed.
I have been depressed and the only possibility to creatively depict this, for me, was Eowyn fanfiction. There is not much realistic depiction of depression around, and I very much felt Eowyn's struggles. Also, as a pacifist myself, I never got why being a healer is so disregarded and well... ki***ng people sooo much cooler and better.
I think Faramir and Eowyn are perfect for each other, they very much understand each other and have a lot of similarities. This has been and will be my OTP. :)
@@elektra121 Yeah thank you ... I'm also a pacifist and society's rampant glorification of violence, both in real life and in fiction, has always disturbed me. I also love that Frodo explicitly becomes a pacifist by the end of the story, but predictably the movies cut the scenes that make this clear. Well, at least they didn't add any action scenes for him! (But they did make him seem less mentally resilient, which isn't good either.)
I liked learning about the Violet Fairy Book. I think Eowyn also kills the Witch King because Tolkien didn't enjoy how some of the prophecy works out in MacBeth. He liked the idea of a woman killing the one no man born of a woman can kill better than using a c-section as a work around for the term born. He also has the ents move the forest to Isengard to get the orcs rather than having guys in disguise like when Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane. Tolkien never said the Eowyn part straight out, but he did say MacBeth made him want to “devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.” and he is on record being very critical of Shakespeare throughout his life.
Interesting 👍
i always assumed as well that eowyns i am no man line was directly inspired by macbeth, maybe due to me reading lotr at the same time i had to read the play for school 🤣
I also read that somewhere, though I can't remember where! It resonated with me because I felt the same when I first read Macbeth in high school (about no man born of women anyway, I don't remember what I thought of the trees)
It's funny because I had always assumed, whether he professed to liking Shakespeare or no, that he was tapping that literary tradition of girls cross dressing that's so prominent in Shakespeare's work. But thinking of him doing it more in a "fix-it-fic" kind of way is hysterical
I've heard a lot of people recognize the Shakespeare references, but rarely do I hear anyone note the nod to the tale of Theseus in ROTK.
"'...she was inspired by this Valkyrie because......they were both women.......and both...had hair."'
I LOLed out loud
It's a funny joke, but someone who sees no other similarity between Eowyn and medieval shield-maiden (including valkyrie) characters clearly has very limited knowledge and understanding of medieval (Norse, especially) literature
@@dr.metalhead5452 besides having a shield and being a maiden? And Valkyries are basicly reaper, so what exactly are those similarities? Those are pretty superficial similarities. After speaking so patronizingly: Please enlighten us wtfdym?!
One thing I would add to the bit about the intimacy of WW1 soldiers, the world wars were the first time a LOT of people found out they weren't the only gay people on earth, which was a big catalyst for the queer liberation movement that followed. Sometimes two boys in the trench who love each other IS gay
That last sentence is really funny!! Good job :)
Two boys, cowering in a trench, five feet apart 'cause they're not gay (except they are and the daily brushes with mass death will soon precipitate them into each other's arms)
That's kinda sad ngl, two guys falling in love in a ww1 trench but most of them not making it out of the war alive to continue their relationship, most of them dying together
the hypothesis that WW1 sparked a fight for equal human rights says it's because those gay man had to fight, suffer and die in the war just like straight men, but had less rights. not because "they found out other gays exist" lol
I don't question the part about the violet fairy book, that was probably one of his inspirations, but the "I am a man" bit of Eowynn is usually accepted as coming from Macbeth, where the witches tell Macbeth no man born from a woman would kill him, and Tolkien thought after reading the scene, that making his killer a man born by caesarean was not elegant and he could do better ^^
It's also where the Ents came from, in that same prophecy, the witches tell Macbeth he would only be dethroned when the woods would walk to his castle. Tolkien was very upset that the woods walking were dudes hiding behing treebranches and not literally trees walking XD
Ummm, just, I thought that Eowyns whole thing was just that Tolkien was upset at Macbeth and was like “I’LL FIX IT!”
It can be more than one thing.
Fair
"A woman?! Now there's a plot twist"
That one moment clip of Eowyn telling Theodin that she was going to save him, and him responding with "You already have" hit me so hard
Calling Faramir an "offbrand Aragorn" is the biggest insult to his character 👎
Verity how DARE you insinuate that bit about finding the paper trail back to the Violet Fairy Book was weird and no one would want to watch it, that is exactly MY SHIT
Well done with this one, this was super fun ❤
So that's what he meant we he said Frodo destroyed Sauron's ring...
No wonder the ring was written about so sensually.
The ring that could change its size to fit perfectly.
Sauron was just “frustrated” who knew one so small could please him finally, its about how you use it just as frodo did UwU
@@pisscvre69 After all daddy Morgoth had long since been banished into the void. Last time Sauron enjoyed himself was in Numenor and well, Frodo had experience with being the master in the relationship
Here's my contribution to this discussion:
"...'How long is your rope, I wonder?' Sam paid it out slowly, measuring it with his arms: 'Five, ten, twenty, thirty ells, more or less,' he said. 'Who’d have thought it!' Frodo exclaimed. 'Ah! Who would?’ said Sam. '...It looks a bit thin, but it’s tough; and soft as milk to the hand’" (Two Towers, 595)
OH MY
LMAO
🤣🤣🤣🤣
That's just having your brain in the gutter.
@@Hypogean7 But it's a funny gutter
This was brilliant, I appreciate the effort behind producing such a thoroughly researched, thoughtful and entertaining video. Thank you!
loved the vid!! this channel is definitely my favourite place to go for video essays, the way they're written and how you present them is immensely engaging as well as being informative! thanks for making what you make :)
Oh my god, this is actually huge if the coloured Fairy Books connection hasn't been discovered before! With the amount of Tolkien research that exists, it's crazy that this kind of thing has remained hidden for so long - because I think the similarities with the invisibility ring especially are way too big to be just coincidences. And it makes so much sense that he'd include ideas from these books he loved as a kid! Also, I wonder why seemingly no-one had suggested the legend of Hua Mulan as an inspiration for Éowyn, that's probably the most well-known iteration of the 'woman disguised as a man in order to go to war' theme.
(Also, as a Finn, I take strange pride in the fact that the version of the story where the girl gets an enormous schlong seems to be Finnish :D)
Very much this.
She just whiped the table with a litany of Tolkien scholars 😀
Hahaaa god I love that, have there been many discussions about its likeness to the kalevala? It’s fascinating
@xEloiseKerryx Tolkien LOVED the Kalevala, from what I recall - both the stories and the language - Finnish being one of his biggest inspirations for Elvish.
There are plenty of stories and historical events from ancient China about women disguising themselves as men to do men-only things like pursing education or fight in war. Mulan is just one of them.
It's so common as a literature trope and in history for China that I don't even specifically think about Mulan- it's normal to us. I don't know if Mulan was even that known in the West before Disney for Tolkien to have taken inspiration.
Why would an Englishman mostly in love with the history of Europe have a copy of the Ballad of Mulan?
the obsessed "weird" part is exactly the content I love ;) It very much feels like the way I am obsessed about where some samples come from.
This popped up in my recommended and I am so happy, entranced and enthralled by your interpretations. It's clear that you have put a lot of research and thought into these readings and I love your delivery too. Fantastic work, thank you for your service 🙏
I believe "They're not gay! They're hobbits!" Is a quote from Clerks 2
“You there I see you sit down”
Me slowly taking my hands off the keyboard. I’ve never felt so called out 😂
like the eye of sauron illuminating you
It was ever so slightly hypocritical of Verily though, to discount us fans of the extended edition by citing PJ’s intent that the theatricals be considered the definitive version, when a large part of her point relies on the death of the author.
MEEEE TOOOO
@@UidorAlso always remember that PJ made The Hobbit as well, not just LotR. So he is not beyond questioning and second-guessing. 😁
"The princess suddenly felt she was the man she had been pretending to be"
Literally me 🎀
Good on ya!
"They're not gay, they're hobbits!" is a line from Clerks 2.
Actually, the line originally came from Clerks -10, in which the line was re-appropriated. The original line is "They're not cum, it's SEMEN!"
Also thank you for making some of my favorite video essays on CZcams! Your work is always well researched and thought provoking as well as funny. Horse spice had me cracking up. I look forward to the next video
I have no citation to back this up, but I can't help but feel like, master linguist, JRR Tolkien just fell in so much love with the "I am no man" pun that he was willing to twist both the logic of his world, and his worldview, just not to spoil it.
i wonder if it's also kind of a macb*th reference since he was notoriously opinionated about how that play ended lol, and it kind of has something similar with the witches' prophecy about who can kill him
@@Envy_Maywhy did you censor Macbeth?
@@ygslyn6732 UR NOT SUPPOSED TO SAY THAT
@@Envy_May I’m confused
@@ygslyn6732 it's cursed !
Exceptional video!!!!
When someone asked Sean Astin whether Sam and Frodo should have kissed, he said, "First of all, how do you know they didn't?"
I am 77 and avidly read fairy stories as a young boy, including Andrew Lang's books. As with the Grimm brothers, these were oral traditions from several centuries earlier. Indeed. Tolkien, like many English Lit adcademics taught Beowulf and Norse folk tales. Well done on delving the connections, which I had overlooked when I first read LOTR. As a queer old fart (though not Catholic or any other religious persuasion) I have seen love between men (or between women) as fraternal, idealistic or heroic, in addition to being romantic or erotic. I often say "Love is love is love - and comes in many forms and varieties". Excellent video, my dear.
you have an incredible skill for researching and I am always SO amazed by your work my goodness
Great essay as always!!
One thing I will say about the discussion at 4:24 is that the context of the word "mate" matters. Speaking in terms of "creatures" and animals, the word mate is generally meant as a life companion. The other example you pull out of Tolkien using the word mate definitely reads as the very casual British/Australian use, as in friends or comrades. They're not really equivalent examples of the word imo.
One is a dramatic scene comparing Sam to a small creature defending its mate. The other is referring to a "ruffian" and his "mates". Very different tone and context. The ruffians are kind of written as simple, working class blokes, they speak a lot more colloquially than the majority of the book's characters so it makes sense to use the word mate in that casual way for them. It makes for a less impactful simile if you talk about a small creature fighting fiercely to defend its "mate" in that context. It's too casual a use of the word, I don't think Tolkien would have chosen that for such a dramatic scene. But an animal (creature) fighting for their life partner, their whole world, evokes a much more intense emotion to the scene.
Obsessed with this essay though, it couldn't have come at a better time for me. Thanks again for another great piece!
Completely agree, I don't think her counterargument to this particular point was very solid. The full quote is:
"No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts; where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate."
To me, this is very clearly an animal kingdom analogy, with Sam as a small creature (probably a rodent), Frodo as his mate and Shelob as a bigger animal (I imagined a warthog).
This on its own doesn't "prove" that Tolkien intended their relationship to be romantic, only that he wanted the reader to understand Sam fought for Frodo with the same amount of passion that would be expected of an animal protecting their mate. After all, we may put different labels on it, but love is love and comes in many forms. Also, even if it wasn't specifically intended to be romantic love, Frodo is obviously one of the most important persons in Sam's life, making the "life partner" comparison appropriate in either case.
i love the acknowledgement of, yes, putting the words as written in their original context while also understanding our modern interpretation is its own context that can be appreciated. love your videos
This is amazing!! very very glad I got to witness your investigations- you did an absolutely thorough and fantastic job that I highly doubt anyone else would have ever thought up
Honestly it's so refreshing to see how much time and effort you put into researching your topics so as to present as accurately as possible the historical, societal and individual contexts at play that define the original intent behind the work, as well as the reasons why the work can be interpreted so differently as language and contexts have changed over time. So many people I see talking about LOTR (and other works similarly widely read/enjoyed) seem to confuse their interpretation of art as the original intent of the art and can sometimes get very hung up on/defensive about their interpretations being 'the only realistic way to view the work!'.
It's important to understand an artist's intent, and it's also important to interpret works through your own lens, especially if it allows you to connect more strongly to that work. The two are not mutually exclusive, and it's great to see more people educating about this.
ok so: hearing “horse spice” sent me to the grave but “the elf barbara” brought me back to life, tysm 💕🙏✨
I love the idea of elves named Debbie + Keith.
@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 ok YES: i initially read this as “toby + keith” but either way - YES
As a kid watching the behind the scenes for the movies, the parts where viggo mortensen is kissing billy boyd and talking about how he’d been wanting to do that is largely what made me first start coming to terms with my own sexuality. It was really the first time in my life i’d seen men kissing and it wasn’t played off as a joke or anything. Sure they joked about it, but in those interviews everyone felt safe to talk about how often they had all kissed each other without feeling ashamed at all
Just in general how the whole cast (especially ian mckellen) and even the characters within the story were so open about their feelings about themselves and each other really resonated with a timid me who was scared of how i felt. Never been able to see the series in the same way since
I HAD TO GO WATCH THAT BECAUSE YOU SAID THIS! it was very gay
i had completely forgotten about this in the behind the scenes. gayer than the books somehow... they were very confident and full of love for one another. apart from orlando who they rightly took the mic out of.
wha orlando bloom do
I'm not really sure why this video ended up in my feed, but this was one of the best videos I've ever listened to on this website, unironically. Ty for this.
As a librarian I was surprised to hear that the library had released Tolkien's borrowing history. Confidentiality is one of the core values of the profession - if people are worried about others finding out about what they've been reading, they might not feel comfortable borrowing the books they really want to read. In my province it's the law that public libraries can't share this information, and in the US libraries went to court over the Patriot Act when it would have required them to release people's borrowing history.
Anyways, that has very little to do with this excellent video.
In fairness, Tolkien has been dead for decades and is a significant historical figure. There is a legitimate accademic/public interest in his reading activities.
@@jadewhite766 that's true but it still rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn't want my borrowing history publicized, even after my death, even if I were a public figure. Which is a moot point because none of the libraries I use even save that information once the books have been returned.
@@kdmwI’m wondering what would be considered “fair game” in terms of bookmarks/personal artifacts and pre-digital checkout cards? I understand what you’re saying and am very glad of those privacy standards, but it’s only been within the past two decades that the last ~10 borrowers weren’t listed in the inner cover pocket for anyone to see
A superb exploration of the nature of the relationships. Particularly good about framing the portrayal of platonic male relationships in terms of the First World War, something too often overlooked. Thankfully you left open Legolas and Gimli. Don't even try to deny it. In the undying lands theirs is the undying love.
The compounding stamina and duration of love as expressed between a dwarf and elf ♥
@@rakbungwould gimli be the top or the bottom
As someone who was working at The Story Museum in Oxford in 2017 I'm shocked I didn't hear about what you reveal toward the end of this video at the time! I did get to speak to Priscilla once or twice tho!
I cannot overstate how much I appreciate your curiosity and attention to detail throughout your videos but ooooooooh my did I LOVE THIS ONE!!! THANK YOU!!
obsessed with your video essays!!! so well made ❤
i’ve been absolutely obsessed with lord of the rings lately and i’m just so grateful for another one of your videos because they are so funny and smart and perfect!! i love everything you have to say-especially about this series.
Goosebumps ....! I absolutely love your essays. They're some of the best things on CZcams. Thank you, thank you. Please keep researching and making stuff
Loved this video! Equal parts serious literary scholarship and saucy humor, best part of my day so far. Breathy "Hello Aragorn, I luv you so mutch" had me crying
I love your Lord of the Rings videos! Your examinations of the history and themes indirectly featured throughout Tolkien's works and how they read today is very eye opening. You are a huge inspiration for what I what I want to do in my CZcams videos and I look forward to every video you make!
well now I'm just gonna have to read through all these fairy books and be the equivalent of "Is this a Jojo reference" every time I see something clearly inspiring Tolkien's own writing. Loved this video, it's so wonderful seeing potential inspirations for people's works and seeing how it leads to a tapestry of appreciation for these stories and where they come from!
“The girl who pretended to be a boy“ description made me think of Mulan
No way the story was popular in England by the time Tolkien wrote everything.
@@Hypogean7Doesn’t really matter if it was “popular.” Tolkien was a scholar and a researcher of mythology. The trope is one that occurs in mythology all over the world. He didn’t have to be inspired by that particular story (Mulan) for it to have been a theme that he was familiar with. It’s like how there are only so many basic stories in folk songs. Child - of the Child Ballads - literally numbers them, and you can trace the lineage of a ballad and understand its relationship to other ballads as a result. This is similar.
@@DawnDavidson My point was that the inspiration coming directly from the Ballad of Mulan was a stretch.
@@Hypogean7your point was unnecessary
Loved this video so much I watched it twice!! I laughed out loud multiple times. This was delightful. Thank you Verilybitchie!
This is probably the most thoroughly researched video essay I have ever watched. This is like dissertation level depth.
As a Barbora who was in love with Viggo's Aragorn as a child - thank you 😂
I love all of your essays on Tolkien so much!
Fans often have the urge to downplay how catholic and old-fashioned Tolkien was but that itself is also an interesting point of analysis. It is so telling about the Victorians, modernity and contemporary views on masculinity that Tolkien's male friendships can be read as very gay. I have seen people try to dismiss the queerness of these relationships on that account but I think there is much more ambiguity in these 'romantic friendships' than Tolkien might have noticed himself.
Your deep-dive into the Andrew Lang Fairy Books is very fascinating and seems a much more plausible inspiration than Hervör or any other random woman from Old Norse stories. Tolkien also uses Éowyn defeating the Witchking to give his twist on the "no man of woman born shall harm me"-prophecy from Macbeth, so that seems a similar approach to me.
Éowyn is much more nuanced than people often make her out to be. Her story might not be one of feminist liberation, but I also don't think that her becoming a healer and tending to a garden is meant to be just a return to a traditional role but her overcoming her desperation and very unhealthy obsession with dying a glorious heroic death. Tolkien loved gardens after all. Faramir is not just off-brand Aragorn but a thoughtful history-nerd character that Tolkien himself heavily identified with, so I don't think he is meant to be a downgrade at all :D
Verily, this video is so fascinating and entertaining, I'm falling in love with your Tolkien essays!
The research that went into this is mind boggling. Like i struggle to understand how you came over all this stuff, and everything so genouine and interesting. Never really seen anything just like it, and ive seen quite alot of content on tolkien. Like, a lot. And you approach it so uniquely, so freshly. It is a delight to listen to. Saying "well done", wouldnt do it justice. Just breathtaking
No mention of Legolas and Gimli living the rest of their lives together.
But they didn't. Gimli would eventually die and Legolas would then live the rest of his alone...
@@user-jt1js5mr3f Gimli is literally the only dwarf to be in Valinor tho
@@RbDaP yes, which is awesome. It doesn't change that Valinor doesn't grant eternal life, so Gimli will eventually die.
@@RbDaPValinor is only called the “Undying Lands” because all of it’s residents (prior to Bilbo, Frodo, and Gimli) happen to be immortal. Going there does not grant one eternal life in the world of Arda. The name “the Undying Lands” seems to have originated among Men who envied the immortality of Elves, and had been tricked by Sauron into thinking they could wrestle that immortality from them by going to Aman. (“Arda” being an Elvish name for the Earth, which Middle-Earth is a part of, and “Aman” being the continent which the country of Valinor is placed in.)
@@user-jt1js5mr3f the dwarves go to the halls of Aulë when they die and Aulë lives in Valinor so I like to think that there's still a way for them to hang out ✌🏾☺️
One of your best videos ever, I laughed, I cried, it has the best sponsor. Also it's ridiculous but that 'I am no man' was so formative for 12 year old me in the cinema that even just a repeated clip 20 years later gives me chills, and it's so great to know so much more about all that there is behind it.
Wow, that would have blown me away as a little baby-queer feminist at 12! When I saw it in the theatre at 22 I cheered out loud, and decided that I wanted to marry Eowyn even more than I already did, thanks to the books.
@@thing_under_the_stairs yeah exactly, it rocked me to my core!!
@@arielvittori8570 I mean, it was already one of my favourite parts of the books, because strong, beautiful woman with sword kills monster = awesome, but onscreen it was possibly even more amazing! It's just so powerful.
(And also so hot.)
What I find really interesting about the topic is the fact that i’ve always admired LotR as one of the few pieces of media that actually represents positive masculinity in a thoughtless, genuine way. It was really surprising to me when I realized most people just interpreted it as somewhat gay or affeminate.
Really made me think about how easily people accredit whatever isn’t “traditionally masculine” to homosexuality. It is so insane we have been conditioned (as a culture) to react this way whenever we see a different display of love and affection between men.
I think LotR unintentionally became a highly progressive artpiece and a slight moral test,; the way you decide to interpret the message defies much of how you view the world imo, which is what all great art should do.
edit: I just finished this video and, ohmyghodddddd, the way you so carefully worded an extremely complex web of topics, That was beautiful. What an amazing script i am shocked.
Proves that art really goes beyond the creator. Amazing, I needed to see this, thank you
Love your videos btw! banger as always, Love from México.
Finally someone gets it.
It's more that people these days- particularly women, but also a certain kind of man- are deeply afraid of platonic male friendship, which is opaque to them.
@@sambeckett2428 Yes, they aim for the atomization of society. Friends together are strong - and this is bad for the Marxists. They want only individuals, who are alone, and are weak without strong connections, like friendship. They hate strong traditional communities, like family and the nation.
I have to say, this is my new favorite of your videos. Definitely feels like a breath of fresh air.
I love the video and the analysis of LoTR, makes me wanna revisit the books and movies again 😊
I agree that the polygon article is probably wrong that Tolkien intended anything gay, but it’s broader point was that there is space for queer readings of Frodo and Sam. On the one hand because the faux Red Book translation gives us space to make our own reading of the story as it ‘really happened, and on the other because there is something queer, something radical, about the mere fact of structuring the entire saga around the transcendental love between two men. The unpublished epilogue demonstrates the primacy of their relationship. You touched on this a bit but I think you could have explained/explored it further
A fantastic video essay, a much needed bright spot in a rough month
That sucks, I'm sorry. I hope the rest of your year is smooth sailing + restorative for you.
I hope your march is going better :)
You earned this subscription 100 times over! I’m so excited to listen to you again!
Excellent video essay, thank you for serving juicy Le Guin's quotes as always
Honestly your recap of the discovery of Tolkien's bookmark gave me CHILLS
Wow, this video is amazing, great work! I enjoyed going down the rabbit hole with you!
thank you for making this video. i appreciate your dedication to researching these topics, your findings are incredible!
About the war analogy, I'll quote Sir Ian McKellen in the film Gods & Monsters "there may be no atheists in the foxholes, but there are occasionally lovers". That film was based on the true life story of gay WWI veteran, director James Whale...
"Galadriel just hooks up with a bootleg aragorn she hardly know." 😂
the absolute joy and excitement you had from your detective work re: tolkien and the fairy books was SO wonderful to watch. you absolutely lit up. all that work paid off!!!
Immediately going into my best video essays of 2024🥰 absolutely amazing with the research you did!
As you started talking about the faerie books by Andrew Lang, I was dusting my poetry and collectors shelf. I realized I had the very books you were talking about. I had no idea of their connection to Toilken, despite my wife being a huge LoTR fan. Life is very strange.
Ursula K. Le Guin mentioned!!!! I love her writing and her ideas about storytelling
I have only just discovered your channel through this video, and you are now one of my absolute favorite CZcamsrs 😂❤
FAVORITE VIDEO FROM YOU SO FAR, SO WELL-RESEARCHED, SO INSIGHTFUL, I LOVE LOTR AND I LOVE YOU VERILY, YOU ARE A LITERARY DETECTIVE (too excited not to use all-caps)
I wonder if The Violet Fairy book’s author (or Tolkien) read Ovid- and if the story of Iphis and Ianthe influenced the stories at all. It’s the earliest “woman pretends to be a man and then is magically transformed into a man” story that I know of.
Hand holding is very cultural. American soldiers in Vietnam saw men holding hands as they walked down the street and assumed they were gay when often they were brothers or cousins.
I’ve no opinion on Frodo’s sexuality, but I’ve always seen Sam as completely straight, considering his attention to his future wife.
I love your video especially because you do ACTUAL research on what you are talking about. This is a video essay, this is how you talk about a topic
WOW. Thank you for this brillant video! I didn't intend to watch all of it at first but you really caught my attention. Brillant, brillant. 💫
As an old lady Catholic woman myself.
When I first read the book. Years before your parents were even dating.
I never saw it as sexual. This coming from a women who saw 70s rock bands live.
Your are right. If anything was sexual. It was the ring.
Loved this!! What a ride. Thought provoking, and I laughed out loud many, many times
Ugh, I just love a really long video about some niche thing. You are so amazing!
This is an absolutely fascinating take! I'm so glad you got obsessive and shared it with all of us.
This was so delightful, truly lifted my spirits after a few days of not-great personal stuff and too much really bad rest-of-the-world stuff. I’d never heard about the connection to the Lang fairy books before, and I love those collections! It makes so much sense though. And the soup bit was a scream-including the part during the credits (yes, I watch to the very end, sometimes you see stuff when you do that, like a TARDIS mug being dropped in a soup pot!). My personal favorite queer reading bit of the books (from other folks, I didn’t come up with it) is that Frodo, Sam and Rosie (and the kids, I presume) all live together for a while in a happy little polycule before Frodo leaves for good.
I won’t even comment on that whole “theatrical version” nonsense, that’s how joyful this video made me! 😏 Thank you!!
Oh, and your hair looks magnificent!
Tolkien is rolling in his grave from that reading.
Wow, wonderful work! I was audibly gasping and surprised when you found the connection to The Girl Who Pretended to be Boy and Eowyn.
I have such a wildly different interpretation of Eowyn's story, probably due to when I watched the movies. It's so interesting and insightful to hear it from someone else, and I learned some new fun facts to pester my friends with. "A video no one wants to watch" my ass! I ate this up lol
Of all your video essays this is the one I enjoyed the most! Please keep getting "weird" and researching!
Your research floored me! Your dedication is utterly amazing and nothing if not admirable.