bedlamsbard | Hobbit thoughts, art recs

Realized today that one of my favorite fictional character types just maaaaaaaay be kings in exile trying to get home, and I think it's pretty damn likely that I can probably trace that back to my first literary crush, Odysseus. (ODYSSEUS. I suspect a lot of favorite character traits come from him.) Odysseus, Peter and Edmund Pevensie, Simba, Thorin...I'd assume there are others, but I don't think it's actually a terribly common trope. (I wouldn't count Aragorn; for one thing, Gondor isn't exactly "home" and for another he doesn't seem terribly keen on getting there until he doesn't have much choice in the matter.)

(Realization brought to you by a remark that I've got Simba on one end of my desk and Thorin at the other, that must mean something, and

burntcopper suggesting "exile issues?" OH GOD IT EXPLAINS SO MUCH.)

I know there are quite a few historical kings that fit into the category, but I don't think any of them actually do that much for me. But to be fair, the only historical personage that I actively swoon over is Hannibal (BARCA, okay, HANNIBAL BARCA, not the fictional cannibal), who actually has some exile issues of his own.

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Watched AUJ again tonight. PJ's doing something really interesting here with fire and darkness; the movie literally begins with fire flaring out of darkness -- Bilbo striking a light -- and every major fight scene in the movie takes place by firelight, even the flashback Battle of Azanulbizar, which takes place in daylight; there are fires burning even when there clearly don't need to be. Trollshaws takes place by firelight, the goblin caves are in firelight, the confrontation with the orcs is illuminated by the trees burning. And of course, Smaug's arrival at the beginning might have a fire here and there.

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Tonight's Hobbit art rec is: Durin family feels (or: Thorin with Fili and Kili over the years, in roughly chronological order).

First Meeting by