LOTR: The War of the Rohirrim

Earlier this year, the Person and I decided to pay for the AMC A-list. As a result, I've watched way more movies in theaters in the last 8 months than I have in the last six years (minus when we had Moviepass back in 2018... lol). 

I know everyone has been talking about Wicked 2 (which was great), but I really need to talk about...

A friend asked me what I thought of this movie, and my answer was: "I kind of wish I'd watched this in my living room so I could commentate the entire thing." Because it is SO TROPE-Y. So now I am subjecting you, dear reader, to my thoughts. You're welcome. 

To preface this discussion, I do not know my Tolkien lore. I watched the original Peter Jackson trilogy in theaters and have rewatched the movies a couple times since, but not the extended director's cut versions; read the original trilogy in middle school and have not re-read it since; never finished reading the Hobbit; got dragged to the second Hobbit movie (Desolation of Smaug) in theaters and did not understand what was happening. In essence, I entered this movie with the mindset of anticipating a standalone medieval fantasy featuring horse people. I don't know names. I don't know histories. 

The narrative framing of this movie is that of a folktale/ancient oral history being narrated by Eowyn (Princess Horse from the original trilogy). We have our red-headed heroine, Merida Héra, who is your typical plucky, headstrong princess who rides horses like a man and doesn't want to get married. 

Also, friend of giant birds

Of course, this becomes a problem when Freca, a rotund belligerent lord, rolls up to the Rohan court accusing the King plans to marry Héra off to Gondor. He suggests that his son Wulf should marry Héra instead. It becomes clear at this point that Héra and Wulf have history but Héra tells him not to do this. Too bad---he gets down on one knee and asks for her hand. 

OK, he kinda cute tho...?

Some verbal dick-swinging between Freca and the King ensues. King accuses the lord of wanting to usurp the throne by trying to set this marriage up. Freca accuses King of being weak. ROHAN. CANNOT. LET. THIS. STAND! And so they decide to have a brawl with fists outside in the snow. There's a brief moment before the fight where Héra and Wulf are talking in private and where you find out that they were childhood friends, and Wulf says, Would it be so bad to marry me? He even throws in the L-word, which Héra doesn't even acknowledge. They go out to watch the fight where Freca strikes the first blow, but then the King, who is built like a freight train, STRAIGHT UP KILLS THE DUDE WITH ONE PUNCH.  

Wulf loses his shit once he realizes his father is dead and draws his sword, accusing the King of murder. He quickly is overpowered and would be killed except Héra calls out for mercy, and so instead Wulf gets tossed out of the kingdom. For the next few years, he drops off the face of the earth, despite the fact that Héra has been trying to find him. Of course, we all know the tropes and know that Wulf is gonna come back seeking revenge. 

Fast forward, and after an action scene involving an elephant getting devoured by a swamp monster, Héra ends up getting kidnapped and wakes up to find herself in Wulf's fortress. I take back what I said about Wulf being kinda cute, now he looks mangy like he hasn't taken a shower since being banished, and not in a hot Viggo-Mortensen-as-dirty-Aragorn way.

ok nvm

Wulf is now the leader of a bunch of tribes he has united/conquered and their army is advancing towards Rohan. He offers to stop if Héra marries him, but he gets big mad when she doesn't immediately acquiesce, asking why it would be so terrible to marry him. We find out from a flashback that the scar over his left eye was from Héra when they were sword playing as kids. He ends up lashing out, cutting her left cheek. 

At this point, I -- who have read too many romance novels -- was anticipating a childhood friends/enemies to lovers plotline. Now I start to question if we are going down that route, but Wulf hasn't quite done anything completely irredeemable yet...? Also, I totally thought he was going to give her a symmetric slash over her left eye, which I am both relieved and disappointed that he went for the cheek instead. 

Héra ends up being rescued by her travel companions, which includes her hot cousin. I start to wonder if this is an alternate possibility, and then I realize how much Game of Thrones has messed up my sense of whether fictional incest is appropriate. 

If not love interest, why love-interest shaped?

When they head back to the King to warn him of Wulf's return, Hot Cousin suggests they evacuate as their armies are not ready for war. The King throws a hissy fit, calls Hot Cousin a coward, and tells him to fuck off back to his castle. He decides to listen to the other outspoken dude on his council who is advising for war, which goes terribly because it turns out the other dude is in cahoots with Wulf and has betrayed them. Héra, who was ordered by her father to not join them in the battlefield, realizes this and evacuates their people to their stronghold in the mountains. Her father is wounded by a flurry of arrows, so Héra packs the King up onto her horse and flees. Her older brother who looks like Chris Hemsworth unfortunately is killed.

RIP Chris Hemsworth

Her younger brother, the tender-hearted artiste with a lute, is riding atop a geriatric horse. There's a whole scene before they set off for war where Héra offers him her horse, saying she's faster, and the guy says no. For reasons. As they flee from their pursuers, the old horse starts to wheeze and run out of breath. Instead of hopping onto one of the royal guard's horses to continue his getaway, the brother decides to get off his horse, lets her run away, and then basically allows himself to get captured. Again, for reasons. 

Héra doesn't realize her brother has been captured until she makes it to Helm's Deep and realizes he isn't with them. Wulf shows up with his advisor dude and Liam Hemsworth in chains. King Rohan pleads for the life of his son, saying he will offer his own life in exchange. The advisor tells Wulf he's won and to make the deal. Wulf says NO DEAL and kills Liam Hemsworth, then declares they are going to build a tower to lay siege on Helm's Deep. The advisor warns Wulf that a siege through the winter will be disastrous for both sides, but Wulf says: Great, Imma do the exact opposite of any advice you give me. 

 

A story of how nobody listens to their advisors

In a demonstration of the kingdom's impeccable preparedness and foresight, they take stock of their inventory and discover that the fortress is low on supplies. (Why didn't they keep the stores replenished? Isn't that the whole point of having a fortress to retreat behind???) To make matters worse, the King is bedbound in a grief coma. All of a sudden, he vanishes! Rumors begin to rise in the army camps outside that the King turned into a wraith from his grief and now stalks the camps at nighttime, ripping apart Wulf's soldiers with his bare hands.

Turns out.... the King is not a wraith? But he actually is sneaking outside at nighttime and then ripping people apart with his bare hands? But there are also orcs in the neighborhood doing the same thing? I am unclear. But Héra stumbles upon a secret passage from the King's bedroom into the snowy plains, nearly gets eaten by orcs until her super jacked dad comes along and destroys them with his bare hands. 

But how did he not lose muscle mass while in his coma?

They sprint through the fields and past the army camps while in a middle of a blizzard to try to get to safety, as Wulf's men tries to capture them. The guards can't seem to open the front gate for them. Not to worry, for Super Jacked King is able to open the gate just enough to shove his daughter through to safety, then shuts the gate and basically beats the shit out of all of Wulf's men who try to break in. By morning, he has successfully defended the fortress and frozen to death while in the middle of a fist pump.  Tbh, I think the King could've just singlehandedly won the war if he just kept ripping apart soldiers every night. 

With the siege fast approaching, Héra comes up with a plan to get her people to safety by sending them through the secret passage while she distracts Wulf and his army. She sends her giant bird friend on a secret mission and dresses up in a bridal gown that was abandoned in the fortress--"If Wulf wants a bride so bad, here's the bride"--and rides out on her horse to meet him mid-siege. 

Wulf: WTF you think I'd still WANT you as my bride after all this?

Héra: Ugh, I'm still NOT into you, loser. 

Wulf: Who are you pledged to then?

Héra: DEATH. 

Héra challenges Wulf to one-on-one combat by sword. His advisor warns him that she must be plotting something and to not take the bait. Per usual, he draws his sword and proceeds to do the exact opposite. They fight, she ends up besting him. He has no honor, so he stabs his advisor when the poor dude tries to give him good advice for the last time and orders for the siege to continue. All seems lost until there is the sound of an approaching army, and we see a silhouette of King Rohan astride a horse over the horizon. 

v impressed with how she managed to fight in that flow dress

DING DONG, it's actually Hot Cousin wearing the king's armor and leading an army to save them! Wulf's soldiers abandon the fight, thinking the Wraith King is back to rip their innards. Héra finally kills Wulf by choking him to death with a shield's edge. But not before he says something to her along the lines of: "From the moment I saw you, I knew you would be my doom. " hahahahahahaha

We end with some LOTR cameos/callbacks that are not very exciting, Hot Cousin becomes King, and Héra remains Forever Free. THE END. 

So overall, what did I think? Honestly, I can't decide if the story was too trope-y or not trope-y enough. The plot was rather predictable, but honestly I probably would've also enjoyed a version where they went dialed the ham up to 11, because the best parts were when things went over-the-top camp. 

I can't believe I just spent my Sunday afternoon writing this nonsense lol, but perhaps someday, Future Me will read this and be amused by how much free time I used to have. 

Lost Skills & Dead Blogs

This is my attempt to get back into any sort of journaling or writing. 

M and I were chatting yesterday in our usual Thursday night video call.

For context, M and I lost touch in the years after we graduated from college. I was burrowed in notes at medical school in New Orleans, while she was in DC scampering after her golden retriever puppy. Around the time that the craze and uncertainty of the pandemic began to peter out, we reconnected. She was now in Seattle, while I was back in California. We finally saw each other in person in October 2023, at a wedding in San Francisco. She asked me if I had ever watched a Chinese drama called "Eternal Love." She then proceeded to dovetail into a ten-minute exaltation about how great it was, which led me to say the fateful words: "You're going to have to watch it with me, because otherwise I am never going to do it."

Since then, we've managed to stick to a near-weekly schedule for almost a year. I've never maintained a long-distance relationship with quite this success, but I suppose it helps to have 8PM on Thursdays physically blocked off on your calendar. Sometimes we watch an episode of Eternal Love, but most of the time, we just end up chatting. The fact that we are on Episode 52 out of 58 should tell you how we've fared. The pleasant bonus to all this is that we now text nearly daily and are extremely up-to-date on each other's lives. 

Going back to last night, we were talking about Daisy, who is currently riding high on the early fumes of an all-consuming romance. I won't betray the details of how pathetically invested we--two old ladies in long-term commitments--have been in regards to their dear friend's unfolding Hallmark movie. But this led to us to reflect on dear friend's romantic history and realizing that neither of us remembered the details of what led to the demise of her last relationship.

I searched Daisy's name in my Gmail account and uncovered a series of e-mail threads that had been completely obliterated from my memory. These were surprisingly quite long e-mails--multiple paragraphs, back-and-forth replies--and I was also shocked by how much deliberation went into what I wrote. There was a certain rhythm to the syntax that I would never even consider for a second when typing up a text.

Here is a snippet from one of my e-mail replies:

 Daisy, 

You've shared a lot with me in the past few weeks, and I feel rather honored that you've opened up so much about this to me. I think, in return, I'll tell you a little bit about what I've gotten out of this whole experience. 

You scoffed at me once when I referred to Jay as your first love. As much as you want to deny it, that's how I will always see it. Some people describe that first love as raw, intense, all-encompassing--and the pain that it leaves behind can be just as consuming. I wasn't physically around for the duration of your relationship, so only you can judge the first part of that statement. But the aftermath of your break-up and the blow it dealt to you is enough to convince me of the latter. 

You once wrote that the six months have changed you. In those six months, I saw a side of you that I didn't know could exist. The break-up consumed you. When we weren't talking about music recommendations or my own drama, everything led back to Jay. Why you couldn't listen to The xx anymore, why that asshole still hadn't returned your things, why you were so much better without him, etc. I didn't mind, obviously--because you know me, I don't mind listening. But I was surprised by the sheer amount of emotional outpouring coming from you--you, who never displayed this sort of emotional chaos in college. By February, when you told me that you'd seen a therapist and you were meeting Jay for the first time, you started documenting your wild mood swings about Jay to me on a daily basis......

I will spare you the rest. But it kind of rattled my brain to see that I used to communicate with a friend in this manner. And this wasn't the only e-mail thread; I used to have sprawling threads with several other friends.

We don't talk like this anymore. Sure, people will still write personal newsletters and maybe write posts on places like Substack or Patreon. But there was a time in my youth when everyone at school was blogging on Livejournal or Xanga. The act of writing in long-form requires reflection; in the act of formulating your words, you need to unspool and examine the chaotic threads swarming in your head. I'm open to listening to dissenting opinions, but I don't believe posting photos or editing videos on Instagram or Tiktok involves this degree of reflection. 

Which led to the question that M and I discussed. Are we even capable of this anymore? I used to be an avid blogger. I've tried to switch over to physical journaling countless times and have left the carcasses of barely scribbled notebooks in my wake. 

Here's to seeing how this goes.