About the same time Thranduil is attacked, and Gollum escapes.
For the most part we’ve been keeping up with the chronological order of events, but at this point in the year we’re beginning to lap the events in the books. Now we’re back at the beginning of our story.
Today, Sauron begins making moves against the free people’s of Middle-earth. He decides to attack his longtime enemies in Gondor, and he commands an attack against Thranduil. When Sauron had released Gollum he hadn’t expected others having interest in the creature. He was mistaken.
At this point of time in the story, Aragorn and Gandalf had been making moves to learn all they could about the Ring in Frodo’s possession. Aragorn was the one that captured Gollum after his release, he was the one that took Gollum to Thranduil. Yes, Sauron has been bidding his time and setting up his moves, but Gandalf has been busy too.
Thank you for your time, and remember, the crownless again shall be king.
Co-founder, protector, and spiritual leader of the peaceful fortress, Redwall.
Throughout all of the Redwall books, with a few exceptions, Martin the Warrior was the source of motivation, courage, and heroic acts. His spirit has inspired many great heroes to rise up and defend Redwall Abbey. His most noticeable spiritual appearance was in Redwall, as he guided Matthias to be his successor. During his lifetime Martin fought against evil forces, helped innocent slaves, and freed Mossflower from tyranny.
His deeds in life and death are a true testament of what a hero should be.
We hope you join us this week as we celebrate Martin the Warrior with the Character of the Week title.
Thank you for your time and remember, the old that is strong does not whither.
The Host of Rivendell spent very little time in Edoras and set out for Gondor, specifically Minas Tirith.
Arwen, Elrond, Elrohir, and Elladan are amongst this company, you could call this the long wedding march of Arwen Undómiel, and we get excited the closer they get. This will be a huge momentous day for the peoples of Middle-earth, not just because their King is getting married but also because of the symbolic Elven relationship. Arwen and Aragorn’s relationship is very similar to Beren and Lúthien’s. In fact, when Aragorn first met Arwen he called her Tinúviel, because he believed she was Lúthien Tinúviel. There relationship has been going on for a long time, and soon, they’ll be joined in marriage.
Thank you for your time, and remember, the crownless again shall be king.
Understanding the site’s namesake is a part of our journey, the name Of Blades and Kings was derived from Bilbo’s poem in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which you’ve seen throughout the website. The last bit of the poem…
Renewed shall be the blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
…that speaks to me. It’s a reminder for me that now matter how bad things will get, something good is on the horizon. Life obviously doesn’t work so eloquently as Tolkien’s works but through tragedy hope can arise, the broken can be mended, and the crownless again shall be king. The entire poem follows that same message, and for me, it lights a fire in my heart.
Therefore, I was inspired to create a name that paid homage to this poem. As we get further into our goals, we’ll be talking about many blades, kings, characters, and stories throughout the fantasy and science fiction genres. While we were developing names for this site, Of Blades and Kings stuck, mainly due to the fact that blades and kings are foundations for great fantasy epics: Aragorn and Andúril, King Arthur and Excalibur, Bilbo and Sting, Beowulf and Hrunting, Elendil and Narsil, the Sword of Martin the Warrior from Redwall, Anakin Skywalker’s Lightsaber, Eragon and Brisingr, Link and the Master Sword, the Sword of Gryffindor, Sora and the Keyblade, Ned Stark and Ice, Jon Snow and Longclaw, and Arya Stark and Needle. Blades and kings have a history of being paired together.
Thank you for your time and remember, not all those who wander are lost, the crownless again shall be king.
The sons of Elrond meet the escort and bring Arwen to Edoras.
As Arwen and Elrond continue their journey to Minas Tirith, they are met by Elrohir and Elladan. Elrond’s family gets to have a mini-reunion as they discuss the events that have transpired in Middle-earth.
One tidbit of information I’m interested in is that this group is meeting in Edoras. It’s been a long time since Elves and Men interacted with each other this way. The War of the Ring truly created an opportunity for the free peoples to come together again and forge new bonds of fellowship.
Thank you for your time, and remember, not all those who wander are lost.
Well respected Auror turned Minister of Magic, not many wizards or witches in the Ministry could take an interim position and stay full term.
We first meet this talented Auror in The Order of the Phoenix, when he joined other members of the Order to transport Harry from Privet Drive to Grimmauld Place. From there he goes on to become more of a feature character for the Order. He’s apart of the group that goes on to save Dumbledore’s Army in the Department of Mysteries, he’s the Order’s main source inside the Auror’s office, he let the Ministry believe he was working to track down Sirius Black, he stepped in to keep Umbridge from laying hands on a Hogwarts student, he believed Dumbledore when he was told Voldemort returned, he dueled Voldemort alone for a moment when the Order was transporting Harry to the Burrow, he surely risked his life to let the Order know the Ministry had fallen, he’s defended himself against multiple Death Eaters at once, he single-handedly dueled Bellatrix, with the help of McGonagall and Slughorn he dueled Voldemort, he becomes one of the great Minister’s of Magic, and in the end he fought for the right thing.
Through the Harry Potter books we know Kingsley Shaklebolt was a respected Auror with skills in the Moody and Tonks range, but he doesn’t boast. He doesn’t whinge, he fights for good, for truth, and for honor. If anyone deserves their own spin-off Harry Potter story it’s this man right here. Imagine what an Auror story featuring a young Kingsley in his prime. These are the types of stories we should be getting.
This man is deserving of far more than our Character of the Week article, but sadly at Of Blades and Kings this is all we can do for the moment. Thank you for your time we hope you join us as we celebrate Kingsley Shaklebolt this week.
An idea that sounds great during a brainstorming session should be put together better on paper and screen. While there are some positives to the Fantastic Beasts franchise, I was mostly left with negatives after watching the first movie. Too many negatives it seems, I’ve yet to sit myself down and watch the second movie.
Now we’ve spoken about this many times, but it’s the first time we’re sharing our thoughts with you. Maybe, we’ll end up posting our 8 page movie review that was typed up after opening weekend. If we remember correctly, it wasn’t a positive one. Regardless, we don’t want to bash the Fantastic Beasts movies for this post, we just want to talk about how we would’ve made the Fantastic Beasts movies.
How Many Movies Should We Make? One Movie, Three Max
Slating Fantastic Beasts up for five movies was way too much of a commitment for a franchise just starting out, even if you’re riding on the Harry Potter swag. Commit to one movie with the possibility of creating a trilogy, if that first one is successful. This, ultimately, would create an organic story with a stronger conclusion. Imagine if you only had one movie to tell a story about Newt Scamander. I believe that movie would look alot different than what we got.
Grab Inspiration from Indiana Jones
I never pictured Newt Scamander as this shy book worm who had a tough time interacting with people. Either way, Eddie Redmayne played that role spot on, and kudos to him, the way he interacts with his magical creatures compared to humans is night and day. His acting in this movie is one of our bright spots. Moving on, Newt Scamander, to me, always seemed like he was an Indiana Jones type character. Someone like, Charlie Weasley, a strong intellectual who could hold their own against dragons, but also be sweet to a bowtruckle.
You could take each Indiana Jones movie individually and they would work as great movies. Each one has it’s own unique problems and adventures. That’s how these movies should be put together.
Newt’s Journeys
Taking Indiana Jones into account, Newt would/could start out his adventures going off to chronicle some exciting or dangerous magical creature, but always ends up caught in some crazy adventure. Indiana Jones isn’t someone who seeks out death defying activities, he’s just capable of handling them.
Newt, shouldn’t be someone who seeks out these crazy events but is still capable of handling them. This was something I felt that the movie got right, however, should these crazy events involve an historic magical event? Probably not, you’d be rewriting your history books if you did that. The book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lists plenty of opportunities for stories that would be unique and separate from each other. We thought we’d try our hand at coming up with some of our own.
While researching the Ukranian Ironbelly, Newt runs into a gang of illegal dragon trappers and traders. Being the good hearted wizard he is, it’s now up to Newt to help these creatures.
Acromantula’s have fallen ill across Europe. While wizards across the continent are celebrating the disappearance of these dangerous creatures Newt senses something more sinister is at play. He decides he will discover and stop whatever is causing this rapid extinction.
Mysterious magical creatures have appeared running amok with reckless abandonment. Magical governances have been worn ragged maintaining the chaos. These creatures are threatening the International Statute of Secrecy and must be contained before the wizarding world is exposed. After making a name for himself, Newt faces his toughest challenge yet.
Not all of them are winners, but there’s some promise here.
Newt’s Look
You gotta give Newt the rugged Professor look like Indiana Jones, someone who’s clean cut in the classroom and ready for adventure out in the wild. He’s a wizard hunting down and studying magical creatures in their habitat, he could use an extra-protective cloak, sturdy boots, and a magical bag (a la Hermione Granger) with plenty of extra space in it. I liked the premise of Newt carrying around all these magical creatures in a suitcase that includes his own workshop, but the idea of confined animals is never a happy one. He should develop some magical spells to help fortify the creatures’ natural habitats. He can’t keep them confined forever. Maybe, in the end, Newt developes a magical reservation for these animals, a place that’s protected and not interfered with.
Friendships Along the Way
Each movie and story provides Newt with the opportunity to meet new people and create friendships along the way. Who’s to say he couldn’t meet Jacob Kowalski (who’s without a doubt the best part of the movie) in the first movie and develope a long standing friendship with him in the updated version? There’s opportunity for reoccurring characters, but introducing new faces along the way wouldn’t hurt.
While the Fantastic Beasts franchise was certainly an endeavor worthy of admiration, it wasn’t without it’s flaws. Are our ideas gold? Probably not, but we’d enjoy seeing a Fantastic Beasts movie follow our “guidelines.”
Thank you for your time, let us know your thoughts, what’d you think about the Fantastic Beasts franchise, would our changes improve it, or make it worse? Let us know.
Sorry, it’s a little bit of a spoiler to give away his last name because only full fledged Dwarves are given last names. In Tungdil’s case, this scholar turned hero was the furthest thing from a full fledged Dwarf.
Tungdil grew up as an orphan who was taken in by a magi when he was very young. This magic’s name was Lot-Ionan, and he took special care of Tungdil and taught him many things of the world. During his time at Lot-Ionan’s, Tungdil read everything he could on Dwarven culture, unfortunately, there were not any Dwarves in their kingdom and he had yet to meet one during his travels. Tundgil loved to travel and was always hoping he would find other Dwarves along the way.
Tungdil’s sheepish demeanor and novice skill in fighting truly made him a diamond in the rough in Dwarven culture. In fact, during the events of the first book, Tungdil finally runs into other Dwarves but he had no idea how to great these Dwarves, he’d never met any. Needless to say, he made an odd impression. Events turned sour for Tungdil and the darkness in his world quickly began to spread. Orcs were moving further inward and ravaging everything in sight. Quickly, Tungdil was left without a home and his friends were killed. He joined the Dwarves he ran into on their quest as the world around them is trying to stop the spread of Darkness.
The more time Tungdil spends with Dwarves the more he learns about their culture and, in time, they train him into a warrior. Tungdil is a great example of a hero who uses their heads before their brawn. He became the hero Dwarves, Men, and Elves needed by doing the right thing, helping those he could, and listening to others advice who could help him.
The Dwarves books deserve more recognition in the fantasy realm, we hope you join us as we celebrate its main character with the Character of the Week title.
Thank you for your time and remember, renewed shall be blade that was broken.
There’s a topic with The Lord of the Rings that can be glossed over, or not even mentioned. There’s not much diversity. Now before everyone freaks out, let us explain. We’re not suggesting that the story needs to be changed just to fit in diversity, we feel inclusion of diversity should be purposeful and meaningful.
At Of Blades and Kings, we built our foundation on The Lord of the Rings, and we’d like to state that we’ll do nothing to disparage the story, or the work Professor Tolkien put into crafting it. For me, personally, the story holds my strongest passion in life, outside of my family. Therefore, I’m not going to say it needs to be changed, but some stories could be expanded, as long as the people working on them have the same care and passion that Tolkien had.
It’s also important to point out, there’s not a lot of liberty you can take with the story of The Lord of the Rings. The men of the Western regions are going to be predominantly white. That’s the way he wrote it, in his mind he was writing what could be a mythology for the UK. It is what it is, there’s no changing it, and I don’t think anyone should try. I am also not saying a character needs to be rewritten to be diverse, but I do think there are unique and important stories to be told for diverse characters in Middle-earth. Stories where these characters can call them their own. Here’s a few of my ideas.
The Blue Wizards
One of my favorite ideas for expanding on the world that Tolkien wrote is to introduce the Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando.
These wizards were a part of the five Istari tasked by Illuvatar to help the free peoples of Middle-earth. Ultimately, Gandalf was the only one to really succeed this mission; Saruman turned evil, Radagast took to his woodland home and cared more for animals, and the Blue Wizards? Not much is known about the Blue Wizards except they disappeared into the East. In that respect, whatever happened, they seemed to fail their mission too.
For those not that knowledgeable of Middle-earth, the East is Sauron’s realm. Mordor, Rhûn, Harad, Khand, and Umbar are all in the east/southeast and under his dominion. He’s created a strong foothold in this area and corrupted the races of men who dwell there. This creates a dilemma, how’re the Blue Wizards going to defeat Sauron in a region where he has the most support? I think there’s a great story to be told here. For me, the most logical explanation is that the Blue Wizards got into Rhûn and were ultimately defeated by Sauron, or they forced themselves into exile because they failed. We won’t ever really know for sure because Tolkien never put pen to paper on their story, and I’m sure he had his reasons, I won’t speculate. I think we can change that though, something happened, there’s a story that includes a civil war in the East as the Blue Wizards try to rally an army against the greatest foe. Why wouldn’t this have been written about already? Well, one could argue that since this moment in Middle-earth history happened outside the realm of the free people’s it wasn’t chronicled by them. Therefore, the only ones to really know what happened would be the Blue Wizards and those who were involved.
I think Ben Kingsley and Taika Waititi would be great choices to play the Blue Wizards. Both are incredible actors and great storytellers. They’re perfect choices for two wizards trying to change the world. Here’s my quick sketch of what they could look like.
Haradrim
I have an idea, it’s less thought out, but still interesting, it’s a story that would focus on the Haradrim.
The land of Harad is vast and expansive, after Sauron is defeated Aragorn must spend his time keeping the peace between lands and he creates his new regime in Gondor.
However, in the cruel lands of Harad there are men who do not want to relinquish their rule to anyone from Gondor.
In those same cruel lands, there are those who long for peace and realize that Gondor is offering it.
Thus begins a campaign for peace to spread out from beyond Gondor into the East. Is Gondor trying to set up their own regime in these lands? No, that’s not how Aragorn works, but they are the new chief power in Middle-earth and it’ll be difficult for the Men of the East to give up their warring ways.
Conflict and wars may be waged over it, civil war may breakout as the lands in the East try to figure out what side they want to be on now that Sauron is gone.
A story of a strong culture being forced into a new stance due to political forces shifting power could resonate with audiences.
Ridding the World of Orcs
Even though King Aragorn’s rule has been beyond reproach, there are still Orcs bands in the mountains wreaking havoc and evading his armies. The races of Men are also at a divide, relations with the East have been growing, but Gondor is still a target for attacks. His emissaries have made progress with some individuals, but the change is slow and difficult if these lands are to avoid a civil war. An effort needs to be made to promote unity against the greater enemy and provide peace throughout Middle-earth.
King Aragorn, decides that in the Age of Man, it needs to be men who bring about this peace. He has his emissaries send word to those most friendly with Gondor, “Send us few of your strongest men, for together we will track down and hunt the remaining Orcs. In doing so, man will finally wash the face of evil off of Middle-earth.” These companions will consist of individuals from Gondor, Arnor, Rohan, Dale, Harad, Khand, Umbar, and Rhûn. The time of the Elves is over and the time of Men has begun. These companions will usher in a new age of man and fellowship.
The main plot will focus on discovering the locations of the Orc bases and leading an effort to eliminate their presence. While this is going on, men from the West and East will be forced to work together as they try to accomplish this difficult task. When faced against a larger foe, these companions will have to decide whether they work together or fall apart. The races of Men are watching and waiting to know if unity can truly be achieved.
Thanks everyone for your time, your patience, and your care.
Let us know what you think, are these unique and meaningful stories? What other potential storylines are there that can utilize diversity? Let us know your thoughts.
Thank you, again, for your time and remember, from the ashes a fire shall be woken.
Last week we honored Merry Brandybuck with the Character of the Week title. This week we’re honoring a lesser known Hobbit, but one who was still helpful to Frodo and his journey.
Fredegar Bolger was a good friend of Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Folco. They’d spend a lot of their time together and when Frodo was deciding to leave Bag End, Fatty was there to help. He went ahead early, along with Merry to Crickhollow to get the house situated while Frodo wanted to wait a little longer for Gandalf to arrive.
When Frodo finally made it to Crickhollow, and the Conspirators revealed themselves, Fatty had a role to play as well. He was to stay behind in Crickhollow and pretend to be Frodo, for as long as possible. So it was, that when Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo left for Bree, Fatty was left alone in Crickhollow. There was a certain knowledge that the Black Riders would eventually catch up to Frodo and the other Hobbits, but I don’t think Fatty expected them to burst through the door of Crickhollow.
To Fatty’s credit, he hadn’t just cowered in fear, as soon as the Black Riders were surrounding Crickhollow he snuck away, ran to the nearest house, and (once he calmed down) alerted the residents that enemies were in Buckland. All the Hobbits in the area were called to arms to defend their land.
It was, however, too late, the Black Riders mounted their horses and rode away with speed.
Fatty played his part for now, no longer were the residents of the Shire unwary that enemies were abroad. He also played a chief role later on in the story, but we’ll get to that part later.
Thank you for your time, we hope you join us as we celebrate Fredegar Bolger this week.
Of Blades and Kings 