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prunesquallormdI'm going to do a proper post some time soon, honest. You know, with words and stuff. But this whole writer's block thing is really kicking my arse, and it's not just with fiction, either. I'm sure I have stuff to say on, well, lots of things, but I just have no energy, inspiration or motivation to say it. Hey ho.
So, in place of that, I think you should take a few minutes to take a look at this! It was posted at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
steamfashion a few days ago, and it's just gorgeous. It's just a deserted building - an old finishing school, apparently, possibly in the US - but, well, there's something about deserted buildings. They're equal parts creepy, beautiful, atmospheric, and just plain sad. So much history, so many lives and stories, all gone to ruin and decay.
More than anything else, this makes me think of Session 9, which is one of my favourite horror films. It's set in a deserted asylum (with the guy who plays Horatio Caine in CSI Miami, but he's far less annoying in this, thank god!), and it's utterly terrifying, but in a good way! Anyway, although the vid gives every impression that you're going to see something appalling around the next corner, I'm glad to say nothing ever comes of it. It's just a rather creepy but beautiful vid, with a lovely soundtrack. Give it a look!
In other news, it's been a few weeks since I finished season 2 of Battle Star Galactica, and I really need to embark on season 3, otherwise the same thing's going to happen as last time, and I'll just stall for so long that I'll forget everything and have to start over again. But it's just so stressful. I do love it, but yeah, it can be rather hard work!
Instead, I'm watching The Return of the King, for the 4th (5th? IDK) time.
Mostly, I love Theoden and the Rohirrim in this, because they illustrate more clearly than anything else in the entire book (and the film, and The Two Towers before it, more than does it justice) Tolkien's love of Anglo Saxon/Old English epic poetry and history.
Here, for example, Theoden's speech at the Pellenor Fields:
Theoden: Eomer. Take your Èored down the left flank. Gamling, follow the King's banner down the center. Grimbold, take your company right, after you pass the wall. Forth, and fear no darkness! Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A sword day... a red day... ere the sun rises!
[the King rides past his men, hitting their spears with his sword as he goes]
Theoden: Ride now!... Ride now!... Ride! Ride to ruin and the world's ending!
[He stops and faces Sauron's army]
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: DEATH!
Eowyn, Merry: Death!
Theoden: Forth, Eorlingas!
http://youtu.be/98MtWe2nCS4
And these, from The Two Towers:
"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this? "
http://youtu.be/Tzx6d5h-5Mg
and
"Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath. Now for Ruin. And a red dawn..."
http://youtu.be/ZpwsKRpKS_M
Hee. Theoden gets all the best speeches :)
More than anything else, all of Theoden's inspirational speeches recall (to me, at least) the poem of The Battle of Maldon, of which Tolkien made a rather close study (and which, coincidentally, remains the only literary claim to fame of my home town).
So, for example, the most famous couplet, which has been variously interpreted, but in my favourite translation goes:
"Mind must be the stronger, heart the bolder,
courage must be the greater, as our might lessens."
and continuing:
"Here lies our prince all hewn,
good one on grit. He may always mourn
who from this war-play thinks now to turn.
My life is old: I will not away;
but I myself beside my lord,
by so loved a man, think to lie."
So Aethelgar's son emboldened them all,
Godric to battle. Often he let spear,
slaughter-spear, speed into those Vikings;
so among folk he went first,
hewed and humbled, until he in fight fell."
It's that rare thing, a poem of a battle written from the point of view of the losing side, and, after Beowulf, it's the most famous poem in Old English we have. The civilisation it illuminates was eventually subsumed (although not destroyed) by the Norman invasion less than a century later, and that sense of the end of an era, and the facing off of an oncoming doom, bloodied but unbowed, is at the bottom of Theoden's character, and that's why I love him so much. Unlike all the other characters, he actually seems real to me.
(Also, and this will probably come as no surprise, I ship Eomer/Eowyn like it's my job. LOLForever at my ridiculous love of fictional incest XD)
So, in place of that, I think you should take a few minutes to take a look at this! It was posted at
steamfashion a few days ago, and it's just gorgeous. It's just a deserted building - an old finishing school, apparently, possibly in the US - but, well, there's something about deserted buildings. They're equal parts creepy, beautiful, atmospheric, and just plain sad. So much history, so many lives and stories, all gone to ruin and decay.More than anything else, this makes me think of Session 9, which is one of my favourite horror films. It's set in a deserted asylum (with the guy who plays Horatio Caine in CSI Miami, but he's far less annoying in this, thank god!), and it's utterly terrifying, but in a good way! Anyway, although the vid gives every impression that you're going to see something appalling around the next corner, I'm glad to say nothing ever comes of it. It's just a rather creepy but beautiful vid, with a lovely soundtrack. Give it a look!
In other news, it's been a few weeks since I finished season 2 of Battle Star Galactica, and I really need to embark on season 3, otherwise the same thing's going to happen as last time, and I'll just stall for so long that I'll forget everything and have to start over again. But it's just so stressful. I do love it, but yeah, it can be rather hard work!
Instead, I'm watching The Return of the King, for the 4th (5th? IDK) time.
Mostly, I love Theoden and the Rohirrim in this, because they illustrate more clearly than anything else in the entire book (and the film, and The Two Towers before it, more than does it justice) Tolkien's love of Anglo Saxon/Old English epic poetry and history.
Here, for example, Theoden's speech at the Pellenor Fields:
Theoden: Eomer. Take your Èored down the left flank. Gamling, follow the King's banner down the center. Grimbold, take your company right, after you pass the wall. Forth, and fear no darkness! Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A sword day... a red day... ere the sun rises!
[the King rides past his men, hitting their spears with his sword as he goes]
Theoden: Ride now!... Ride now!... Ride! Ride to ruin and the world's ending!
[He stops and faces Sauron's army]
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: Death!
Rohirrim: [echoing] Death!
Theoden: DEATH!
Eowyn, Merry: Death!
Theoden: Forth, Eorlingas!
http://youtu.be/98MtWe2nCS4
And these, from The Two Towers:
"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this? "
http://youtu.be/Tzx6d5h-5Mg
and
"Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath. Now for Ruin. And a red dawn..."
http://youtu.be/ZpwsKRpKS_M
Hee. Theoden gets all the best speeches :)
More than anything else, all of Theoden's inspirational speeches recall (to me, at least) the poem of The Battle of Maldon, of which Tolkien made a rather close study (and which, coincidentally, remains the only literary claim to fame of my home town).
So, for example, the most famous couplet, which has been variously interpreted, but in my favourite translation goes:
"Mind must be the stronger, heart the bolder,
courage must be the greater, as our might lessens."
and continuing:
"Here lies our prince all hewn,
good one on grit. He may always mourn
who from this war-play thinks now to turn.
My life is old: I will not away;
but I myself beside my lord,
by so loved a man, think to lie."
So Aethelgar's son emboldened them all,
Godric to battle. Often he let spear,
slaughter-spear, speed into those Vikings;
so among folk he went first,
hewed and humbled, until he in fight fell."
It's that rare thing, a poem of a battle written from the point of view of the losing side, and, after Beowulf, it's the most famous poem in Old English we have. The civilisation it illuminates was eventually subsumed (although not destroyed) by the Norman invasion less than a century later, and that sense of the end of an era, and the facing off of an oncoming doom, bloodied but unbowed, is at the bottom of Theoden's character, and that's why I love him so much. Unlike all the other characters, he actually seems real to me.
(Also, and this will probably come as no surprise, I ship Eomer/Eowyn like it's my job. LOLForever at my ridiculous love of fictional incest XD)
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-23 01:26 am (UTC)And I have always loved those poems of the Rohirrim, Tolkein's genius for language really showed through there.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 07:38 pm (UTC)I love Eowyn too, and she and Faramir are rather a good match. I still have a major weakness for Eomer/Eowyn though. We don't really get to see what happens with Eomer, and he certainly deserves someone :)
Over the years, I've wavered back and forth on Tolkien's writing. There's certainly beauty there, and the Rohirrim especially are blessed with some wonderful words. I've had a few issues with the writing in the past, but I've finally come to the conclusion that it's just that his literary influences date back to Beowulf and the like, so he's just several hundred years late XD. Once I realised that, I actually started to fully appreciate the writing. I guess you could think of the whole thing as his homage to the Old English epics. It makes more sense if you look at it like that :)
I owe you an email!
But first of all *prod*prod*LITTL
EBANG!*prod*prod*
I think you're scheduled to post in 6 days. How's it looking? Is it coming together?
I hope things are good with you :)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-25 12:26 am (UTC)Yeah, Tolkein's style is a little too dense and ancient sometimes, but I do still love the stories.
It's almost done, I swear! I'm working on the last of it now, hopefully I can send it off to tomorrow. Thanks for the gentle prodding ♥♥
no subject
Date: 2011-07-23 01:30 am (UTC)> and I really need to embark on season 3
Saaaaave yoooour seeeeelf....
> LOLForever at my ridiculous love of fictional incest XD
And still, *cough*, ew. :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 07:47 pm (UTC)I think we've established that I don't share your feeling that a bad ending retrospectively ruins what went before (I even still like a goodly amount of Twin Peaks, even though it had the worst ending ever!)
And it's possible that I may not share you thoughts on the ending either! :D
And still, *cough*, ew. :-)
The squick factor is part of the fun ;P
no subject
Date: 2011-07-23 07:41 pm (UTC)Its harsh though, prepare yourself!
Don't listen to Dave on the ending, see it yourself and make your own mind up! :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 07:51 pm (UTC)Hee, when did I ever not make up my own mind? :D