Thinking Again About TvTropes And How It’s Genuinely Such An Amazing Resource For Learning The Mechanics

Fëanor: I put the “war” in “Tengwar”

Curufin: I put the “goth” in “Nargothrond”

Elros: I put the “men” in “Numenor”

Galadriel: I put a frog in Fingolfin’s boot once. They don’t even know it was me

my sister said to me that she doesn’t think Azula would’ve killed Aang if not to bring Zuko home, and that made me realize something very interesting.

Azula doesn’t have a reason to want to capture Aang.

Not anymore than the rest of the Fire Nation. She wasn’t ordered to, but she was ordered to bring Zuko (and Iroh) home. Which she does, by killing Aang and giving Zuko the credit.

And you know what’s interesting? During the main four interactions Azula has with Aang during the second season, she sends Mai and Ty Lee away. She leaves them to fight Katara and Sokka, she leaves them to chase the bison she knows doesn’t have the Avatar, she fights him solo on the Drill and she leaves them to guard a bear and an empty throne while she takes on the Avatar in the catacombs.

She separates herself from them to fight Aang four different times.

From anyone else, it could be a pride thing. But Azula has shown on multiple occasions that she does not value pride above all else. She is insanely strategic, and she’s fine with making it look like someone else is winning if it means she has the upperhand. She admits when she needs help, hence having Mai and Ty Lee in the first place and Zuko in Ba Sing Se. She even apologizes to Ty Lee that one time. Azula does not value pride over results.

She doesn’t celebrate prematurely, either— during the Drill episode, she’s practically the only one who isn’t celebrating the victory. Azula doesn’t celebrate a victory until it’s final. Whereas Iroh in his flashback, a prideful man, had been boasting about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground.

Pride. It’s the food of the wise man, but the liquor of the fool.

It’s as if Azula is trying to capture/eliminate Aang specifically just to give Zuko the credit. The lack of witnesses, the way she seems to pursue the mission as a personal one. She intends to bring Zuko back to the Fire Nation as Ozai requested, but she intends to bring him back her way and get him unbanished.

You can't go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.

— C.S. Lewis

The Power of Showing Up refrigerator sheets on the 4 S’s of secure attachment and strategies for parents (Source)

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I try not to post about real life serious stuff, but there’s been a lot of… unfortunate essays written about how it is Zuko’s duty to help Azula because Iroh helped him.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it is never your ‘duty’ to stick around and help someone through person through their mental illness. That is redoubled when they are abusive or put you in physical danger.

I think most people realize that cartoons do not equal real life and liberties can and SHOULD be taken for fiction, but this trope seems to be gaining traction so I gotta put it out there. When the cabin pressure drops and someone you love is going through a mental breakdown, make sure you put the oxygen mask over your own face first before you help them with theirs. If you know what I mean.

The Valar as a collective (not necessarily each individual, such as Ulmo) seem to find it difficult to empathize with beings of lesser power than they who are tied to time, especially beings who can be killed and aren’t willing to wait around for millennia for the Valar to come up with a solution when things are bad and people are dying right now. Like op said, they aren’t used to being told, “I don’t agree with any of y’all, and I’m going to pursue this goal my own way, whether y’all like it or not.” They’re not used to having more than two sides to a conflict, and throughout the Silmarillion they consistently underestimate the determination of the Children, especially the Noldor and the Numenoreans. 

So, do the Valar know the elves aren’t  just fleshy-Maiar?

(I’m tired so this might be ramble-y but oh well)

So, Pre-elves the Valar only really interact with Maiar, who basically do whatever they want and are kind of just fancy servants. The only times we actually see a Maia rebel- e.g. Mairon- it’s basically just a switch in who they listen too and not a bid for independence.

So has anyone except Melkor actually flat out told the Valar No?

Because if not that sort of explains how they have no idea how to deal with the elves.

Specifically the Noldor.

Because the Noldor, even though they are favoured by Aule, strive to create independently and without oversight from the Valar, and it’s with them the Valar screw up the most. Literally most of the problems in the first age would have been less catastrophic if the Valar had just let them leave. No first kinslaying because Olwe could just let the borrow the boats, no Helcaraxe, someone could have slapped Feanor upside the head before he got himself killed ect. But instead the Valar just…thought they’d be listened to when they told them to not go after the guy who murdered their dearly beloved king and stay put in Valinor forever, even when it’s implied Namo already knew Finwe is dead and should probably have told his son as soon as he found out but didn’t and the Valar immediately mourned the loss of the Silmarils rather than the elf who died in a place they promised would be safe.

And not knowing how elves work would kind of explain why they thought Feanor would be okay with Finwe remarrying. No Maiar had ever been unhappy with their decisions, so why would an elf be different?

It also explains the…weirder aspects of LaCE. Because some of LaCE reads like it was invented purely for population control (see sex as an act purely to create children), and that would make sense if it was put down by a race that just didn’t do sex as the ainur are implied to be. And everyone is expected to follow it and be happy, because no-one had ever told the Valar they weren’t.

Any way, idk. I’m probably reading too much into this, and this probably wasn’t articulated very well.

Tl:dr- The Valar got too used to dealing with people that do everything they tell them too and elves don’t like being told what to do Thank You Very Much

oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”

Thinking about a re-embodied Maeglin looking up at the night sky and realising that it contains a star he never saw before he died. And one day he asks about it and hears how it's Eärendil and how he ended up up there

[ID: a digital painting of Finduilas, princess of Nargothrond. She is facing towards the viewer, standing by a floor to ceiling window through which golden light is flowing into the room. Finduilas's head is tilted down and to her left, as she looks away from the window at something below her eye level in the interior of the room. Her left hand rests below her jaw and her right at her waist; her expression is pensive. She is dressed in a floor-length, light yellow dress with light blue embroidery at the neckline, bottom hem, and ends of the short sleeves. The dress is belted about her waist with a thin, tassled ribbon of the same light blue. She also wears a purple shawl draped over her right shoulder and arm, a golden or bronze bracelet on her left wrist, and white gemstone earrings. Her golden hair is pulled back from her face but left loose and curling down past her waist. End ID.]

Finduilas for moynal ⭐