Pippin: finally i’m getting the respect i deserve from these peasants
so accurate i am choking on my carrot. this is making me giggle harder than it should. I love Pippin so much.
I don’t think there will come time when I’m not reblogging this. Sorry guys.
no no no you guys don’t understand, Pippin is someone really important in the Shire! The books don’t talk about it a lot, and the movies won’t touch that stuff with a bargepole, but Pippin will be inheriting land rights to about a quarter of the Shire. He’s second in line to becoming military leader of all Hobbits. His dad is currently in charge of that stuff, but he’s completely aware of it, and educated for it, and that’s why he’s such an over privileged little shit in the books.
I thought it was a shame the movies didn’t talk about class differences in the Shire. Also puts M&P stealing food in an uglier light.
To be fair, at the time of the Party, Pippin would have been 12, which puts it back into a more acceptable light. And they’re stealing food from Bilbo, a wealthy and eccentric family member, which again makes things a bit different.
But yes, when they call Pippin Ernil i Perrianath – Prince of the Halflings – they are actually completely spot on.
And when Pippin tells Bergil “my father farms the land around Tuckborough” he’s deliberately downplaying his class so that he can greet the boy as an equal rather than a superior. It’s Pippin’s most adult moment in the series. Bergil is engaging in a status contest which Pippin can totally win – but instead chooses not to compete. Pippin is a gilded and spoiled lordling in the Shire, but he becomes a Man of Gondor.
Yeah, to add a bit of unnecessary trivia/level of preciseness, Frodo is the oldest of the four; he was born in 2968, was (obviously) 33 at the time of the Party, and so he’s 51 here. Sam’s second-oldest; born in 2980, he was 21 when Bilbo left and is 39 at this point. Merry’s two years younger than Sam, making him 18 or 19 in 3001, when the Party took place, and Pippin was born in 2990, so he was actually 10 or 11 during the Party, and during this scene they’re ~37 and ~29, respectively.
So yeah, Pippin’s the youngest by a lot. Plus, taking hobbit aging into account, he really is still in the equivalent of his teens; remember the Party was half to celebrate Frodo’s coming-of-age at 33, and Pippin’s around twenty years younger than Frodo.
This fucked me up. I didn’t read the books and in the movie it was shown like Frodo took off with the ring like 2 days after Bilbo’s gone away, but it was 17 years after that. OMFG.
Also worth noting that “Merry and Pippin stealing food” isn’t in the book – raiding Farmer Maggot’s fields, specifically the mushrooms, is something Frodo used to do when he was a kid, before his parents died and he moved to Hobbiton to live with Bilbo. Frodo’s still afraid of Maggot’s guard dogs, but the farmer himself is sympathetic and helpful when he finds Frodo & Co. cutting through his field.
And this is specifically invoked in the books at the Council of Elrond, where Elrond argues against Pippin in particular going, because he is so young. He’s okay with Merry going but wants to keep Pippin in Rivendell. Elrond has serious misgivings against sending an early-teenager off to face the Shadow, and given what happens to Pippin in The Two Towers, he was not wrong.
Merry is also a prince of sorts – his father is Master of Buckland, which is the semi-autonomous boundary community between the Brandywine river and the Old Forest (never, alas, discussed in the movies). Merry and Pippin are friends in the books in part because they’re of relatively equal status and in part because they’re cousins (like all nobs, Shire nobs mostly marry each other).
However, the books also clearly make Merry the Responsible One, even though he’s only been a full adult for four years. (Think early 20s in human terms.) Merry buys and prepares the house at Crickhollow. Merry figures out the secret of the ring before Bilbo even gives it to Frodo, but Merry keeps Bilbo’s secret. Merry convinces Sam to spy on Frodo. Merry explains that they’re all joining Frodo on the Quest, whether Frodo wants them to or not. Merry cautions about the Old Forest and doesn’t go down to drink in the taproom at the Prancing Pony.
So in the books, Merry isn’t Pippin’s partner in pranks – instead, Merry and Pippin spend all their time together on the Quest because Merry’s looking after his younger cousin. Can you imagine what his mother would say if he came home without Pippin? Merry can, and that’s why he takes some pretty absurd personal risks during the books to make sure that doesn’t happen. Like, he literally rides into battle on the back of someone else’s horse, in disguise, because Pippin is probably somewhere in that battle.
Merry is 99%* common sense unless Pippin is involved, and then he is 100% save/rescue/protect/support Pippin. The character growth and maturation we see in Merry in the movies isn’t in the books; instead he has almost the exact opposite arc of becoming an extreme risk-taker, driven by his protective instincts.
(*The other 1% stabbed a ringwraith in the calf that one time, but we can argue that this was due to a natural expansion of Merry’s protective instincts toward Eowyn, with whom he’d bonded quite a lot recently, and toward Theoden, who he deeply respected as being kind of like his dad.)
bonus kleenex moment:
when pippin finds merry stumbling half-blind and sick through the streets of Minas Tirith after killing the Ringwraith, he tells Merry “Poor old fellow! I’ll look after you,” half-carries him to the healing halls, and is worried sick about him until he can finally get Aragorn in to give him medicine.
It’s the first time in the story that Pippin has looked after Merry, instead of the other way around.
It shows that Pippin has grown up, that he can protect the people who always protected him.
This is also why it’s awesome when they finally come back to the Shire, and Saruman’s made a right mess of things, and it’s Merry and Pippin that kick ass and take names. They’re the closest things the Shire has to princes and military leaders, and they’ve just had adventures that make this look like a minor action. Frodo’s tired, and Sam’s just worried about Frodo, and Merry and Pippin are like hold my pint, I got this.
You know, Encounter is amazing not because of mood or acting (even though they are great) but because it takes one of the often done narratives – our protagonist experiencing mid life crisis/feeling about meaninglessness of life until they meet someone exciting and rediscover themselves – and makes it new by switching out the genders.
How many stories are there about powerful middle-aged women, with past relationship baggage, high social standing and constant ennui who meet free-spirited and poor young men who make them see the world anew through their manic pixie dreamboy qualities?
Yeah, I will wait.
Still waiting.
It’s also perfectly acted and shot, but what stays with me is the melancholy yet hopeful mood and the story set-up.
As someone who has neither a douchy ex nor a CEO position, I still found myself relating deeply to Song Hye Kyo’s burned-out character. The regrets are relatable, the possibility of an emotional miracle inspiring. But I am a lot closer to her age than the average tumblr kdrama watcher. I wonder if this drama works for someone who is a teen or in their early twenties or if it just appears a lot of fuss over nothing.
This might be the most compelling evidence yet that the girl in the green dress is actually Woo Kyung herself. Not just in the implication of Ji Heon’s words, but in the composition of the first shots. Woo Kyung’s reflection looks like her ghost looking back at her, mirroring the little girl’s gaze. A delusion surfacing from somewhere deep in Woo Kyung’s subconscious, a buried trauma, urging her to save abused and mistreated children. Because she was one of them.
I don’t know for sure if that’s what’s going on, but Woo Kyung has clearly suffered some kind of abuse in the past. Possibly at the hands of her stepmother. That woman is cruel, hold and emotionally withholding toward her. And Woo Kyung consistently tries to pacify and please her, while also being terrified of her hanger. Her reaction to her stepmother is as strange as it is disturbing.
If what’s happening isn’t supernatural, but rather a manifestation of Woo Kyung’s intuition, then her delusion might very well be repressed memories surfacing.
Question: if you could spend some sweet time with starlights what kind of project would you propose?
Ravi: i drew a concert hall. rather than a grand performance, being together with our fans in the concert hall (performing) live has meaning for us.
Hongbin: since usually we show many things on stage i would like it if we could have time to talk personally at a close distance.
Hyuk: i want to have a healing party with starlights at a resort or beach. on that day i’d like to plan things and lead everyone (in what to do).
Leo: it’s a meal. hyukkie is serving while the other members cook. i personally like to cook and the things i’m confident in making the most include pasta, ramyeon and galchijorim.
Hakyeon: I want to go on a trip on the kitty bus. Any destination is fine as long as the view is good. We don’t have to do anything in particular I think just sitting down and staying still would be enjoyable. (He drew the kitty bus from totoro and the Japanese under it says “travel together”)
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