Lúthien V Sauron
Mar. 20th, 2016 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunn[click here if embed does not work for you]
5 minutes 45 seconds of art. Story by Tolkien, music by Tample.ru, Art by me. I recommend putting the sound on. The song is the metal version of a small section of Finrod's Song.
This post brought to you by the phrases 'how hard can it be?' and 'practice makes perfect'.
For non-Tolkien fans: this is a story about a princess who rescues her love with the help of an enormous sighthound. That's really all the context you need. Oh, and that 'Quendi' means 'Elves'. Now you have learned your first word of Quenya*, and the world is an infinitesimally better place. :-D
* one of two available dialects of Elvish.
Why is Sauron's castle white and pointy?
Sauron did not build Minas Tirith (not the same as the one in Gondor) upon the island of Tol Sirion. The tower was originally built by Finrod Felagund, king of Nargothrond, Beren's friend, who died to protect Beren in Sauron's prison. Sauron took the tower from the Elves of Nargothrond, but unlike the Barad Dur in Mordor, he did not design or build it. I decided he probably didn't have the outside re-painted, although clearly a fair bit of remodeling has gone on internally.
Why is Lúthien badly drawn?
Because that's the best that I can manage at the moment, sorry. One day I may be able to draw Luthien as she looks inside my head, but sadly, this is not that day.
Why does Lúthien have short hair? In Tolkien's song, her hair is like a shadow, following.
Luthien had long hair when she met Beren in the woods of Doriath, which is the part of the song that Aragorn sings in Lord of the Rings. But later in the story, she cut off her hair to make a rope, and to weave into a cloak to hide herself from hostile eyes. She used the rope to escape from her father who tried to prevent her going to Beren, and she is still wearing the cloak. (I gave her long hair again in the last scene).
Lúthien is not beautiful enough.
Yes, yes, I know Lúthien was supposed to be the most beautiful woman who ever lived. But in reality, there is no abstract standard for beauty. We know what Tolkien thought Lúthien looked like : she looked like his wife, Edith Tolkien (nee Bratt). Google her, there are photos. I think she was beautiful, but even if six of the world's greatest artists all painted Edith as Lúthien, there would still be people saying 'she's not beautiful enough'.
For me, the exact shape of Lúthien's nose and lips is less important than her story. I am pretty sure that when Tolkien says 'the most beautiful' he does not mean specifically 'never too skinny, nor put on a spare pound' or 'had cheekbones with this specific angle'.
What does Lúthien mean by 'I am with the strongest of all'?
The Neuromancer of kargicq, who helped me with that line, thinks it means Lúthien is relying on Eru, ie, God. I was amused to discover that putting Huan the giant wolfhound into the art adds the strong implication to that line that Anything Can Be Achieved With a Large Enough Sighthound.
Why is Huan a borzoi?
He's a wolfhound. Since the wolf has been extinct in Ireland for 230 years, but is still around in the borzoi's home in Russia, the borzoi is probably the world's most functional wolfhound. It is also definitely the world's most glamorous wolfhound. Borzois are awesome.
Why is Sauron blond?
Why not? Sauron is a shape-shifter. At this point in history, he can look any way he wants to look. I imagine him blond. Only later, after the Downfall of Numenor, is Sauron fixed in a shape that is ugly and terrifying.
Why does Sauron turn into a wolf when an enemy turns up with a wolfhound?
This is an excellent question, to which only Sauron really knows the answer.
My theory is that Sauron, who is canonically a perfectionist in a hurry, sees Huan the giant wolfhound as a specific kind of problem that can only be solved with a large enough wolf. Sauron is not imaginative. His natural response is therefore to just keep throwing larger and larger wolves at the problem. If Sauron had been able to think around the problem of a giant wolfhound, then Sauron might have anticipated that hobbits would sneak into Mordor with the Ring.
Who are the ragged people walking behind Beren and Lúthien across the bridge?
They are the people and garrison of Tol Sirion, who were enslaved when Sauron took the tower. Although Finrod Felagund and his supporters from Nargothrond who went with Beren were all killed by werewolves, captured Noldorin Elves were usually kept as thralls rather than killed. When Lúthien drove Sauron out, they were released and fled to Nargothrond.
I don't know why I made this. I spent waaay more time on it than is sane or justifiable. But it was fun, and I think my pastel drawing is improving, slowly.
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Date: 2016-03-20 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 09:41 pm (UTC)Does this link work : http://bunn.livejournal.com/video/album/491/?mode=view&id=272 ?
That's what I get for thinking 'hey, I'll try this new LJ video hosting'. :-/ Maybe I should have put it on Youtube.
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Date: 2016-03-21 01:05 am (UTC)I'll try it later tonight from different browsers.
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Date: 2016-03-21 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 08:45 am (UTC)Maybe I'll be brave and Youtube it.
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Date: 2016-03-20 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 10:51 pm (UTC)Do you even get were-dogs...?
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Date: 2016-03-21 08:37 am (UTC)Given the choice between turning into a wolf or into a corgi, I think Sauron made the right one.
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Date: 2016-03-21 08:47 am (UTC)Although, if were-dog WAS a thing, it would surely be a brilliant excuse for philanderers everywhere. Wake up naked in the wrong bed? Just shuffle away quickly going 'Were-dog, sorry!'. Nobody will want to get close enough to check in case you bite them. :-D
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Date: 2016-03-21 09:33 am (UTC)"Werecat, sorry!" might be an even better excuse. After the third time the angry duke has had "weredog, sorry!" offered as an explanation for the presence of a naked man in his wife's bed, he might be justified in asking why his wife keeps letting strange dogs in. With a werecat, she can just blame the cat flap.
I'm now imagining the series of pictures entitled "failed animal transformations attempted by Sauron BEFORE he hit on the idea of trying Wolf." Werecorgi... Werekitten... Wereweasel...
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Date: 2016-03-20 09:51 pm (UTC)It took me a little while to realise the pictures were changing, not just the lighting :-)
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Date: 2016-03-20 11:03 pm (UTC)But then I liked it. :-)
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Date: 2016-03-20 10:08 pm (UTC)I really like some of those effects you achieved here, those trees and so on!
And it complements the music very well and vice versa.
I also agree with you on the wolf theory.
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Date: 2016-03-20 11:54 pm (UTC)It made me notice a little inconsistency in the published Silmarillion! When Luthien arrives, she sings, and Beren sings back, so clearly he knows she's there. Only when she gets inside, she finds him so deep in despair he doesn't even notice her. Clearly two stories that have come together again incongruously, having been transmitted via two alternative traditions. :-)
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Date: 2016-03-20 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-20 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 04:34 am (UTC)- Sauron
- Luthien with short hair (I am fairly adamant on the point that she's have had short hair during the quest, after cutting it off...who has time/energy to magically regrow hair when there are more pressing things to be done?)
- The shadows/lighting and slight changes over time on the Beren picture
- Borzoi!Huan
- The whole fight scene on the bridge
(I've been noting пусть in pretty much every Russian song I listen to, now...)
I do feel I must defend Sauron's reasoning behind his gigantic wolf tactic. Here's a couple bits from the Silmarillion chapter "Of Beren and Luthien":
...it was decreed that he [Huan] should meet death, but not until he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world.
and
Now Sauron knew well, as did all in that land, the fate that was decreed for the hound of Valinor, and it came into his thought that he himself would accomplish it.
So Sauron's actions were actually reasonable, if one believes the prophecy. Whether it was reasonable for Sauron to believe the prophecy in the first place (or not to guess that Carcharoth existed and was the mightier) might be questionable, though.
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Date: 2016-03-21 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 03:26 pm (UTC)Prophecies always have a twist of course
Too true. Like that person in The Left Hand of Darkness who simply had to know when they would die...
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Date: 2016-03-21 09:14 am (UTC)See, that prophecy makes me think 'let us fling all the Feanor-killing Balrogs at this dog and see if it dies or not' but it seems that Sauron and Morgoth only consider the problem in terms of NEEDS MORE WOLF.
пусть is a word I never realised we were lacking in English, but now I know about it, I feel we are missing out! :-D
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Date: 2016-03-21 03:30 pm (UTC)Thuringwethil: Don't we have any balrogs?
Sauron: Nope. I don't hold with that sort of thing here.
Thuringwethil: Well, what if we, say, catapult a bunch of flaming manure at it?
Sauron: Nope. Prophecy.
Thuringwethil: How about a raging bear? Surely you can change into that, and it's bigger than a w-
Sauron: PROPHECY.
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Date: 2016-03-21 03:45 pm (UTC)Working with orcs must have been terribly uncomfortable for him, but he would always try to make a better kind of orc, rather than simply accepting that his concept and methodology was fundamentally flawed.
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Date: 2016-03-22 02:33 am (UTC)Definitely. :D
And yet Saruman DID manage to improve upon the orcs...no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 10:11 pm (UTC)This may be my new answer to difficult customers :-D
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Date: 2016-03-21 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 09:02 am (UTC)I think drawing (and casting) Exceedingly Beautiful Women is always fraught, because everyone's idea of beautiful is SO different.
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Date: 2016-03-21 02:20 pm (UTC)I dug out my copy of Tolkien's collected letters, because I vaguely remembered this from his letter to Christopher:
'I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave. . . . The inscription I should like is:
Edith Mary Tolkien
1891-1971
Lúthien
brief and jejeune, except for Lúthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien.'
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Date: 2016-03-21 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-21 03:53 pm (UTC)He's buried in the same grave, and under his name it says 'Beren'. Says it all, really.
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Date: 2016-03-21 10:02 pm (UTC)It had never occurred to me that Luthien would have short hair at this point, but it makes perfect sense. I do have to say my favourite picture is the one with Huan attacking the stylised Sauron werewolf at about 3.50 or so - it's really beautiful in its own right.
(If you do decide to put it on YouTube, I don't know if you are aware there's a setting to only make a video accessible if you have the direct link? - it won't turn up in searches etc. Obviously it won't stop it spreading if people are really determined, but it does at least give less exposure.)
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Date: 2016-03-21 10:33 pm (UTC)Also, the one by the gate commemmorates the epic moment when an enormous and very rude labrador was harassing Brythen back when he was a Big Puppy, and I was flapping uselessly at this enormous rude humping dog - then, suddenly, out of the undergrowth, came launching ancient wobbly heroic lurcher Az, took the lab by the throat, rolled him right over and sent him off whimpering. :-D
If it were all mine (or, me adapting Tolkien, you know what I mean!), I would share it with enthusiasm, for I love it dearly despite its imperfections. But since the music is not mine, and falls into that slightly uncomfortable gap between fanwork and professional production, and I don't have permission to use it, I am a little hesitant. It is only a segment of a larger work... But.
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Date: 2016-03-21 10:55 pm (UTC)Yes, I understand what you mean about wanting permission, though given the apparent Russian norms for these things, I suspect the original artists wouldn't expect you to worry. It's a tricky one.
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Date: 2016-03-22 11:13 am (UTC)But I am aware that many people don't feel that way, and since I don't *know*...
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Date: 2016-03-22 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-22 04:26 pm (UTC)It looks like the LJ video hosting works if you have the link, anyway. I'll probably just let it stew for a bit.
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Date: 2016-03-22 09:40 pm (UTC)I can't say that I like the song but it is going in my head all day.
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Date: 2016-03-23 08:06 am (UTC)