anyway sorry uh, one of the best descriptions of trauma I know of is that it is a disruption of linear time, or linear narrative by way of the arrangement of and connections between the memories that make up one’s life. It fragments the linear train and also causes loops and curlicues, or eddies, where trying to walk away from the memory leads you right back into it, and trying to plunge into it causes you to circle it unpredictably. It refuses to reintgrate and align with the linear arrow of time, all paths are warped by it like light passing through space invisibly warped by a black hole’s gravitational forces pulling it off course from angles one cannot even fully see or predict, all roads are bent.
The most ubiquitous and common thing that triggers traumatic memory’s capture of the mind (flashbacks, but also a range of other memory effects) is sensory reminder, and that’s the thing Saruman did to Frodo specifically. Not just hurting the Shire because he knew Frodo loved it, but polluting everything about the Shire with miniaturized echoes and mirrors of the horrors Frodo experienced during the quest, basically turning everything in the Shire into a trigger, opening up a untold number of wormhole paths back to Mordor on the memory plane. No edge of the world! No edge to the sea full of nightmares and unknown depths! All roads lead back. That’s not a remotely complete painting of the situation, but I think it’s a facet I don’t see pulled into focus very often.
also I really really do love the sea-bell.
ephal ephalak idon hi-akallabeth 