The strange curse of being a geography major and seeing commentary about “shipping” on this site only to realize it has nothing to do with containerization and the transformation of the global supply chain…
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW PLEASED I AM THAT WE’RE ALL NOW TALKING ABOUT CONTAINER SHIPS
One overlooked thing that really sets the Lord of the Rings films apart from other franchises is how earnest they are-
Most movies are so afraid of being “cheesy” that whenever they say something like “friendship is the most powerful force in the world” they quickly undercut it with a joke to show We Don’t Really Believe That! ;) Even Disney films nowadays have the characters mock their own movie’s tropes (”if you start singing, I’m gonna throw up!”) It’s like winking at the camera: “See, audience? We know this is ridiculous! We’re in on the joke!”
But Lord of the Rings is just 12.5 hours of friendship and love being the most powerful forces in the world, played straight. Characters have conversations about how much their home and family and friends mean to them, how hope is eternal, how there is so much in the world that’s worth living for…. and the film doesn’t apologize for that. There’s no winking at the audience about How Cheesy and Silly All This Is; it’s just. Completely in earnest.
And when Lord of the Rings does “lean on the fourth wall” to talk about storytelling within the film, it’s never to make jokes about How Ridiculous These Storytelling Tropes are (the way most films do)…. but instead to talk about how valuable these stories can be. Like Sam’s Speech at the end of the Two Towers: the greatest stories are ones that give you something to believe in, give you hope, that help you see there are things in a bleak violent world that are worth living for
Ok this is one I’ve been wanting to cover for a while and my cooldown sketches got out of hand, so buckle up and enjoy the picturebook!
The easiest options is exactly what you think, the flop. In a home, thick carpets or tatami-like mats would provide at least some sort of cushion for the horse-half and various sized cushions and pillows to lift and support the top half. And they CAN sleep standing up, like horses, but it does require both a special harness/corset and practice. And it’s not very comfortable for anything deeper than a doze or catnap for most, so it’s mostly reserved for bad situations, naps, or guard duty.
Most common are recliners, or ‘hammocks’. Easy to fold and carry for cultures on the move, or make fancy for the city-folk they are probably the most ubiquitous of centaur furniture. A simple adjustable A-frame supporting some sort of flexible fabric-ish sheet for the top half to lean against and sleep. Usually paired with some sort of large blanket or padding on the ground to lay the horse-half on!
When you don’t have no fancy recliners, your herd will do! The preferred sleeping method of closely bonded herds is to simply rest on your buddies cushy backside! Roaming bands can often form long chains of sleeping centaurs with the unlucky first taur either on guard duty, sleeping sprawled, or with the group’s only hammock.
Mix and match to your character and herd’s personal preference!
Also stretchies!
Omg these are delightful and add so much inspiration to my little centaur culture ideas.
that theory that the Arkenstone is a Silmaril…it’s doubly implausible, but imagine if nobody knew. If the dwarves were guarded enough of their greatest treasure that…you wouldn’t even need to hide it from that many people, honestly. Mostly a few elves, and all wizards.
and then Bilbo sidles up to Gandalf like, “Thorin and all are holed up in the Mountain, but I think they’re being nuts, so I…kind of stole the Arkenstone, I think.” And (it’s been thousands of years since the light of the trees was doused save for the precious brilliance locked away in Feanor’s gems, since oaths and blood and war that raged until the skies cracked and the earth shattered, and the little people of the Shire have no memory of it at all) he pulls out a fucking Silmaril.
Gandalf:*spittake*
Gandalf: *hurriedly glances at Thranduil. the king of Mirkwood’s eyes shine with curiosity and greed, but not recognition, nor the terrible lust that overtook Feanor and his sons. right, right, he was never in Thingol’s court while the jewel that Luthien and Beren took was there. we’re good. we’re good for now*
Gandalf: That’s, uh, nice, Bilbo. Put it away, would you?
Gandalf, telepathically(?): EMERGENCY RINGBEARERS ONLY CONFAB NOW
Gandalf: [mental image of a goddam Silmaril in hobbit hands, labelled “thisfuckingrockagain.jpg”]
Galadriel, who watched 95% of her family slaughter everyone within 100 miles for several thousand years over these things, including each other and themselves: no.
Elrond, who was very nearly one of those people slaughtered, and did watch most of his town be killed before he and his twin were kidnapped for a while: Absolutely Fucking Not.
Gandalf: Apparently fucking yes. The legendary Arkenstone-
Galadriel: You’ve got to be kidding me.
Elrond: Thorin Oakenshield has a Silmaril right now?
I mean, given that Tolkien retconned “The Hobbit” so Bilbo’s little invisibility ring became an ancient piece of jewelry that controls minds and drives the mighty mad, one can at least understand why it seems plausible that the other shiny white gem that destroys empires and makes the mighty go mad with greed could be linked from his kid’s book to his gigantic early mythology in retrospect??
Erebor is known as “The Lonely Mountain” because it doesn’t exist as part of any ranges…and the third Silmaril was prophesied to go into the earth/soil. It was supposedly cast into a fiery pit, but what if the act of casting it down MADE a fiery pit, and the land frothed up into a volcano as the Silmaril sunk further down into it? (Or from the magic involved in forcing it down, or from the science involved when you suddenly drill down far enough to hit magma PLUS the magic introducing an insanely powerful magic artifact into said magma.)
That’d give us a mountain in the middle of nowhere, with a Silmaril deep down in its bowels waiting for a day when it might be uncovered.
There is plenty reason, after all, for anyone who knew the truth about what happened to it to spread a lie about the exact nature (and location) of the third Silmaril’s
“destruction.”
(That’s been my headcanon for like, the last three or four years at this point, and I’m sticking to it.)
I’m glad that Gandalf went out of his way to name files appropriately before dumping them on the groupchat
