I'm Thalia! I run a book blog called Pictures in the Words and I hope to be an editor for YA fiction. I'm a GoodReads refugee!
"But upon all whom you love my thought shall weight as a cloud of Doom, and it shall bring them down into darkness and despair. Wherever they go, evil shall arise. Whenever they speak, their words shall bring ill counsel. Whatsoever they do shall turn against them. They shall die without hope, cursing both life and death."
HOLY CRAP.
Sometimes, I feel like I know a lot about Lord of the Rings, and in my arrogance, I feel like a little bit like an expert. However, the more I learn about Tolkien's world, the more I realize I know basically nothing.
Middle-earth's lore and legend is SO DETAILED. It's so precise, so seamless, and I can't even comprehend the depth of Tolkien's genius. Additionally, as someone who is religious, I keep seeing crazy parallels to Christianity that are so perfect.
I'm still searching for my thesis, but I've been playing with the idea of east vs. west because that has been a consistent theme through both Lord of the Rings and this. East is the direction of danger, fear, and adventure, while safety, protection, and divinity lie in the West. This is a pretty good reflection of orientalism in literature, but I don't know what it means yet.
Onward!