The Tales That Really Matter

09/06/2026

😴 😍

Sunday Status 🔋💤

📷: © BJ Kirschhoffer / polarbearsinternational.org

09/05/2026

“She was proud, strong, and selfwilled, as were all the descendants of Finwe save Finarfin…she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would…Yet deeper still there dwelt in her the noble and generous spirit of the Vanyar, and a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget.”—Unfinished Tales

09/04/2026

"Coming from a character that was so rooted in resentment and let that darkness define him, it's cathartic stepping into the light of the character that has experienced suffering but hasn't chosen the path of I'm in pain, therefore, I'm going to make everyone else feel pain. It's a really beautiful and totally opposite way of thinking and living. I will be honest with you, there was definitely a resistance within me towards this idea. I had to really spend a lot of time thinking about what joy means."--Jamie Campbell Bower, interviewed by Joy Ling for Esquire Singapore (link in the comments); photographed by Jared Kocka

09/03/2026

I still have to read Dimturiel’s first Substack essay about Isildur 🫠 But I did read this one. And it’s great 😊 If more people were able to ask for and receive forgiveness the way various characters in RoP S2 did, the world would be a better place.

Examining instances of conflict and reconciliation in season 2 of The Rings of Power

09/02/2026

🐈‍⬛ 😍

09/02/2026

Following the grand traditions established by The Lord of the Rings on Prime's social media...my long-form essays kinda dried up for a month after my last entry. But part of the reason for that is defensible, as I scoured the internet for as many of the interviews the cast and crew did for Season 3 at SDCC (and a few items from a bit later) for another of my compilations that I started doing around the time of Season 2. With some of my personal thoughts about these developments as well. And it's finally here, and on the day we commemorate Tolkien's death as well. See the link down below.



https://talesthatreallymatter.substack.com/p/california-dreamin-2-all-the-leaves

09/01/2026

Not. Funny 😑 That soup looks GOOD, dammit. As it should; as an "Anglo-Saxon" princess, Eowyn would have been familiar with all aspects of preparing all kinds of meals (so by extention, even her stew probably wasn't THAT bad). And the sooner we as a community stop letting PJ off the hook for that weird and slightly sexist gag, the better.

The cruelest cut of all 😢

(Yes, im posting this specifically for the people who hate Eowyn jokes)

08/30/2026

Morfydd Clark at the world premiere and afterparty for Rings of Power's first season on this day in 2022, and at the world premiere for the second season on August 20 2024. Always our beautiful Galadriel 🥹🥰🥲 We are all looking forward to see her grace the world premiere for Season 3 later this year.

08/28/2026

Morfydd Clark, our Galadriel, in some recently released BTS photographs from her folk horror movie "Starve Acre" that came out around this time two years ago, by cinematographer Adam Scarth.

08/27/2026

“Her face was like an open word
Where brave men speak and choose,
The very colors of her coat,
Were better than good news.”

—G.K. Chesterton, “The Ballad of the White Horse”