LOTR Rants | Mostly Aralas

a 1AM revelation on frosam and aralas scenes

dedicated to leaderibbit who was here for my first lotr revelation and i invite them here for my second <3

How To Get Writing Inspiration Fast [REAL]
1. Tell yourself "inspiration will come when it comes, idrc"
2. Tell yourself you'll take a break
3. ACTUALLY take a break for like two days
4. 99.9% revelation guarantee! [REAL]

no but srsly, that's how it happened for me

we hit 1K, i was super happy but also super drained, literally had no new ideas, i relaxed the update schedule and decided to take a break, i rewatched lotr for the fifth time (as one does when in doubt) and ✨BOOM✨

suddenly i had a revelation on lotr film theory and ik exactly what to write for the next four chapters

PSA i didn't actually have this revelation at 1AM like last time it was more like 2PM and i spent a straight hour writing and rewriting this in my notes app on my phone and pacing the room talking to air bc HOLY SHITTTTTT THIS IS BIG.

as i'm writing this i have the whole chapter written but written in the style of an analysis essay so i have to go through add a couple exclamation marks, lowercases, emojis, etc etc

so i hope you enjoy reading abt me spiraling into madness as i attempt to explain what i titled in my notes app: The Straight Context, Queer Scene Theory, AKA SCQS: How Movies Make Us Think Queer Scenes are Straight Using Context

listen it makes sense to me okay?? and get ready to read the words straight, queer, context and scene like 12641863664783 times

***

how do movies gaslight us into thinking that a very clearly romantic/romantic tension-filled scene between two men is just bros being dudes and them being besties? how do people look past scenes like this, and deny their evident queerness?

All movies use the same theory—putting straight context onto a queer scene.

this is an extremely prominent theme in lotr, where before you can look too deeply into a scene that seems very gay, something undeniably straight in the context of the scene jumps out at you and you're like, "oh wait, no, this can't be gay, there's this very straight thing here in the background." That straight CONTEXT distracts you from the fact that that scene is very clearly queer.

allow me to explain, and I'll start with some examples in other fandoms/media, and I'll then come to how this is used in lotr.

Stranger Things season 4—the scene with Mike and Will (two of the mcs, for those not in the fandom) in the back of Will's van, where Will essentially makes a love confession to Mike, and basically comes out to him. It's a queer scene. But wait—there's a catch.

Will talked about Mike's gf in his "love confession" who was having trouble fitting in at her new school. He basically said "she's just different, and sometimes that's really difficult because people don't see you the same way as before." The whole thing was a metaphor for coming out, but it was a very straight metaphor because he talks about Mike's gf.

because of this, both people who ship Mike x Will and people who don't and say they're both straight, use this scene to defend their opinions. The shippers say it was a metaphor, he's in love with Mike, the haters say wym there is no metaphor, it's all straight, he was talking about Mike's gf.

the actor for Will has confirmed the former, but this scene still isn't fully accepted as such, and many don't see it as queer. Why? Because there's that straight context of Mike's girlfriend that draws attention away from the queerness of the scene.