How about don’t assume all mean are sweaty horny jerks.
It’s hard to set yourself apart when you’re dismissed right from the start because of your identity. That’s why lonely men kind comfort in the company of other men, cause men are less prejudiced towards men.
I welcome the ban. Equality means equal respect. I die on this hill proudly
This type of relationship is pretty common in war. You and the squad end up “in the shit” and now you have all crossed the boundaries of what civilians call “manliness”. You are free, unimpeachable, the manliest thing, a real warrior, a soldier in battle. The things you do now define manliness, you are writing the rules. They can call you whatever, you will reply with the sort of laughter that silences fools.
People die around you. The sound of another man’s voice becomes poetry to you. How much longer will you hear his voice? Who knows, tell him a shitty joke. Sit on his lap for a gag, do whatever. Drink in his presence, press his flesh against yours, be alive together, try to keep him in your memory, tomorrow we all may die. Has anybody seen those pictures of soldiers from the American Civil War all hanging out and mugging for the camera? Acting all “gay” with each other? That’s what war does to men, sometimes, probably not that often, I fear.
Somebody online with a military background once remarked about the safest he’s ever felt, including in civilian life, was when he was in some tent in a war zone with the rest of the platoon, everyone in their sleeping bags, crammed in the tent together like a litter of kittens in a box. Sure, they were in the death zone, for real, but he was warm and snug, surrounded by armed badasses who would come to his aid at once if anything nasty went down. He said he slept like a baby, that he’s never felt that sense of security since, not even safe in bed as a civilian, later.
It means a lot to me that this book, TLOR, was pretty much written by the Great War. Tolkien went to that war, against his own will, compelled by shame campaigns, not even the law, in spite of his own convictions, and he did not have some safe posting at the base, no, he was at the Somme. He saw the worst of it, probably missed death by inches several times, saw mud and blood, was deafened and battered, only to survive at last, coming home as changed as Frodo.
He watched men charge into machine guns like mice into a blender, watched them die of trench foot and the stupid ways war kills you without even glory or honor to show for it, saw that sometimes courage is just hiding in your little hole and not screaming when the tanks roll over. He saw Mordor in person. No man’s land.
Then he came home, and did he write some edgy darkness? No. He wrote this thing, this fantasy, with its message of hope that evil can be vanquished, and that men can be good, yes, even when they seem utterly lost to goodness. This is somehow the lesson that the War to End All Wars had taught him. He had nothing left to prove, so he made a pretty, frivolous thing, for children, but couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help making something bigger than that. He knew how intimate men become with each other under fire, and it ended up in the book.
That is the only thing he wanted to remember, that unexpected love when suffering and death are right on top of you. I wonder who Legolas was to him? Somebody young and beautiful, who deserved to live a thousand years, but didn’t, probably. They shall not grow old.
We shouldn’t need the machine guns coming at us to hug our friends, that’s probably what he wanted the world to know.
Paraphrased from the last thread I saw about this: Women always want these types of men from LotR, but they never want to be like women from LotR: Strong, gentle, soft and loyal.
@ogmios @The_Picard_Maneuver women in LotR stab people, argue with their dads all day, and waffle about kingsfoil.
Which is the soft one?
So by your logic is the OP a femcel, or are you just embracing double standards? I encourage you to like whatever type you like, but try to understand that certain personality types “click” with certain personality types. If you want a specific type, then you ought to put in the effort to make yourself into the type of person who can support that type.
In the meme it is a request, be more like this, you are implying that no woman is what you’re saying.
Some women are strong, gentle, soft, and loyal. You can prefer that, but to say they never want to be or aren’t already, that is the incel shit.
The fellowship, especially the human members were made up of aristocrats doing things for honor and Valor. But most humans in 4th age me were living in squalor, a shell of a former great empire and people. Even the movies did a decent job of showing the distrust, violence and squalor and curruptability of average men.
All that said yes show less toxicity and more role model responses to hard situations is a good idea. But drama sells.
Excuse me? Doing it for honor and valor?
They were doing it to save middle earth from a tyrant who would have enslaved everyone under his rule.
That was one of Tolkien’s concepts, that a king should protect his people and lead by example. There is no battle in which Aragorn didn’t lead from the front.
The 4th age was one of peace and prosperity. Please share the source for the peoples of middle earth living in squalor.
Well you definitely right about the motivation. I guess my thoughts were 1. all the elves could have just bailed on ME but some stuck around. 2. Aragon in the books always intended on being king and was further motivated by elronds requirement to marry his daughter so as much as he may have done it to lead from the front it was still a game of houses. 3. Overall you absolutely right about the forth being prosperous i had the industrialisation of bag end in mind in particular. Yes sams family fixes it over 3 generations and it was 1 town trading with sauromon, but it def was the exploitative example I thought of. 4.Other than the wizard and hobbits it was all nobility in the fellowship etc… last is the “height of humanity” were the early numenorians so what was left of civilization by the lotr saga anyway was diminished
Thanks for checking my generalization I should be more careful not to twist tokens intent
No worries. I appreciate you coming back to reiterate and elaborate on your thoughts. And having a civil discourse on Tolkien.
I just want to add on some details about Aragorn for those coming to know more.
That whilst he did intend to reclaim the throne, the way he went about it was about as noble and selflessly as possible. He didn’t do it by conquering or by force. He did it by proving he was worthy of being king. He rescued Gondor from certain destruction. He healed people " the hands of the king are the hands of a healer. " Then when he finally does reclaim it, he ruled in a way basically the opposite of the last millennium of rulership. And worked to undo a thousand years or more of gradual decay.
“Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons.”
You get to express yourself in a healthier masculine way in Middle Earth because you’re not worried about fucking driving an hour to work and back to make some asshole rich while you worry about if you’re going to eat next week, all the while trying to numb your senses with substances and stave off the fear that at any time, an illness could ruin you and your family financially and put you on the street. At least in ME, the existential problems men face are quantifiable: there’s an orc that wants to kill me, etc.
Capitalism makes you emotionally unavailable? What?
My dear, I don’t think that’s the problem here
Okay, I’ll admit, in a 2 sentence blurb, the connection might not seem “all there” but yes. Yes, the toxic world that is based in capitalism, our current paradigm and the one we’re comparing to LOTR, dividing and conquering people along arbitrary lines all the while we’re scrambling to get as much money as possible in order to fulfill some 60 year old notion about what being a man or what being a woman means, yes that turns people toxic and we express ourselves in toxic manners because of it.
Identify a problem you see with modern men and I can probably boil that point down to how it’s capitalism motivated.
Side note: certain places in LOTR resemble real world medieval feudalism, such as Gondor. You’ll note how toxic men from Gondor are. The economic system that drives us influences our behavior.
Try reading “The Way We Never Were”. While capitalism isn’t the cause, it’s certainly a contributor in the whole idea of men not needing anyone, men being sole provider, separating men from the tribes that gave them that emotional or physical support…not just men but women too.
