eclogues:

“What kind of person was Lancelot? I know about half the kind of person he was, because Malory contented himself with sharing the obvious half. He was more interested in the plot than the characters, and, as soon as he had laid down the broad lines of the latter, he left it at that. Malory’s Lancelot is:
1. Intensely sensitive to moral issues.
2. Ambitious of true – not current – distinction.
3. Probably sadistic or he would not have taken such frightful care to be gentle.
4. Superstitious or totemistic or whatever the word is. He connects his martial luck with virginity, like the schoolboy who thinks he will only bowl well in the march tomorrow if he does not abuse himself today.
5. Fastidious, monogamous, serious.
6. Ferociously punitive to his own body. He denies it and slave-drives it.
7. Devoted to ‘honour,’ which he regards as keeping promises and ‘having a Word.’ He tries to be consistent.
8. Curiously tolerant of other people who do not follow his own standards. He was nor shocked by the lady who was naked as a needle.
9. Not without a sense of humour. It was a good joke dressing up as Kay. And he often says amusing things.
10. Fond of being alone.
11. Humble about his athleticism: not false modesty.
12. Self-critical. Aware of some big lack in himself. What was it?
13. Subject to pity, cf. no. 3.
14. Emotional. He is the only person Mallory mentions as crying from
relief.
15. Highly strung: subject to nervous breakdowns.
16. Yet practical. He ends by dealing with the Guenever situation pretty well. He is a good man to have with you in a tight corner.
17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual – bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and his feeling for Arthur profound. Yet I do so want not to have to write a ‘modern’ novel about him. I could only bring myself to mention this trait, if it is a trait, in the most oblique way.
18. Human. He firmly believes that for him it is a choice between God and Guenever, and he takes Guenever. He says: This is wrong and against my will, but I can’t help it. It seems to me that no 17 is the operative number in this list. What was the lack? On first inspection one would be inclined to link it up with no 17, but I don’t understand about bisexuality, so can’t write about it. There was definitely something ‘wrong’ with Lancelot, in the common sense, and this was what turned him into a genius. It is very troublesome. People he was like:
1. Lawrence of Arabia,
2. A nice captain of the cricket,
3. Parnell,
4. Sir W Raleigh,
5. Hamlet,
6. me,
7. Prince Rufant,
8. Montros,
9. Tony Ireland or Von Simm […] or whatever,
10. Any mad man,
11. Adam.”

— T.H. White’s notes on the character of Lancelot. (via the-library-and-step-on-it)

undercat-overdog:

Turgon is an
interesting figure. I think in some ways he’s the most like Feanor
out of their entire family.

Love not too well the work of thy hands.

That’s
not something said to Feanor: it’s what Ulmo says to Turgon.
Turgon makes exactly
the same choice that Feanor did: Feanor refused to destroy the
Silmarils at the urging of the Valar, and Turgon refuses to forsake
Gondolin. Turgon is an artist,
and he loves the city he built.

 Feanor went a bit crazy when Morgoth killed
Finwe and stole the Silmarils, and Turgon doesn’t seem much saner
when he dies (“Great is the might of the Noldolie,” he shouts as his city is burning, right before death by architecture.)

Turgon
is also, I think, the most acutely aware of all his family, save
Feanor, of the possibility of loss. Feanor
was driven by a deep seated fear that things could be taken from him.
It’s ultimately what drives his feud with Fingolfin (you would
take my father’s love from me?). And it seems to drive Turgon too (yes, let’s make a hidden city where I can keep everyone safe!). In
Feanor’s case, it was triggered by the death of his mother and the
remarriage of his father (I can be replaced);
in Turgon’s by Elenwe’s death and then Aredhel’s.

Anyways,
I need to think about this more.

Sam and Thingol

thearrogantemu:

So Old Mayor Gardner left the Shire for good, and sailed to
the land beyond the sunset where all the stories are true. There he met the Man
in the Moon, they say, and the King Under the Mountain, and the Great White Dog
who saved the Princess Lucy. But one night he met the Fairy King himself, tall
as a hill and just as grey. I am sure you would be shaking in your boots, but
nothing scared Old Mayor Gardner.

But the Fairy King smiled at him, and shook his hand. “I also
am a gardener,” he said.  

I can’t wait until i finish utena so i can backread the utena tags of all the ppl i follow who post utena content, and revel in my newfound ability to comprehend them. if u have an utena tag i can trawl pls tell me so i can make triumphant connectioms and also read multiple thematic analyses of gender/incest/death/lesbianism/memory/hair/the patriarchy/whatever. no spoilers of this ‘90s(?) anime pls, i was born in the ‘90s and this offends me.