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Ik ben Martijn, software-ontwikkelaar bij DGMR Software, vader van drie bloedjes van kinders, liefhebber van taal, fantasy en science-fiction.
Recente blogposts en reblogs
hmm ok it’s come to my attention that I should probably give you all a crash course in who Eldacar…
thelordofgifs: hmm ok it’s come to my attention that I should probably give you all a crash course in who Eldacar actually WAS. buckle up! this is my favourite story from the LoTR appendices.
So! The year is Third Age 1250. Rómendacil of Gondor is the regent for his uncle (and later also for his father) the king, who is an indolent and altogether useless guy. Rómendacil’s main concern is the land of Rhovanion, to the North of Gondor, where he has recently fought off an invasion of Easterlings with the help of this guy Vidugavia who now calls himself the King of Rhovanion and rules the people known as the Northmen. Cool cool cool, thinks Rómendacil, who obviously has a lot on his plate with his useless uncle whose country he’s running. So he sends his son Valacar north as an ambassador to Rhovanion, to serve in their army, learn their culture and all-around strengthen the alliance.
Valacar misunderstands the assignment and falls in love with Vidugavia’s daughter, Vidumavi.
Now the Northmen are all very good as allies, but this simply won’t do! After all, Valacar is a high-blooded Númenorean, with a long long lifespan and all the other gifts that come with being one of the Men of the West, and Vidumavi, although fair and noble, is just of lesser race. The people of Gondor are not impressed. (The people of Gondor are racist.) And Valacar has even had a son with Vidumavi! His name is Vinitharya in the language of the Northmen, but when Valacar brings his little family back to Osgiliath (then Gondor’s capital city) five years later, he gives his son the Quenya name Eldacar instead. If he was hoping that would quell the mutterings, it doesn’t. The racists of Gondor are not pleased that the heir to the throne is of “lesser race” and complain a lot that he won’t live as long as his father.
A lot of time passes. Rómendacil becomes King and dies, Vidumavi dies (at a very advanced age), Valacar becomes King and eventually dies. Eldacar becomes King aged 177 and the unrest almost immediately breaks out into full-scale rebellion and the civil war called the Kin-strife – especially in the coastal south of Gondor, and the harbour cities of Umbar and Pelargir.
Eventually Eldacar’s second cousin Castamir, who is the Captain of Ships of Gondor and also The Worst, decides to seize the throne from Eldacar, an event known as the Usurpation of Castamir. He besieges Eldacar in Osgiliath and sacks the city, leading to (among other things) the destruction of the great hall called the Dome of Stars and the loss in the River Anduin of the palantír of Osgiliath, which was the greatest of the seven seeing-stones brought by Elendil from Númenor. Thanks, Castamir! Anyway Eldacar fights valiantly (Eldacar is very valiant. the texts says so explicitly I’m not just saying this because he’s my blorbo) but Castamir manages to force him out of Osgiliath and claim the throne for himself. Eldacar flees north to Rhovanion, but Castamir has captured Eldacar’s eldest son Ornendil and cruelly puts him to death which is :( really sad :(
Anyway turns out that backfires on Castamir because the people of Gondor quickly realise what we already know, i.e. that Castamir is The Worst. They aren’t fans of the unnecessarily brutal sack of Osgiliath and the execution of poor Ornendil. Castamir is obsessed with ships and fleets and whatnot and does a generally poor job of ruling. Also he wants to move the seat of the King from Osgiliath to Pelargir, a proposal nobody in the north of Gondor likes.
Ten years later! Our bestest boy Eldacar has not been idle. He puts together an alliance with his mother’s kinsfolk in Rhovanion and also the people in the north of Gondor who hate Castamir, marches back to Gondor with a huge army, has a giant battle, and personally kills Castamir to avenge his son which is so fucking cool.
Anyway the tone of the narrative in the appendices then takes a slightly weird turn by noting that much of the “best blood” of Gondor was lost in that battle and had to be “replenished” with “lesser Men” from Rhovanion to which I say: good. They sound like they had their heads screwed on more tightly than the idiots always mooning over Númenor and Númenor’s gifts and Númenor’s glory like. your place DROWNED over a THOUSAND YEARS AGO. get over yourselves. Anyway.
The Kin-strife has huge consequences for the history of Gondor as a whole – Castamir’s sons survived and established a lordship of their own at Umbar, which remained at intermittent war with Gondor literally until the time of Aragorn 1500 years later. But Eldacar’s story has a happy-ish ending! He lived to be 235, proving that all the racists did not in fact have any idea what they were talking about. As you’d expect, for racists. Eventually he was succeeded as King by his younger son, Aldamir.
The end! Go and have a read of the LoTR appendices seriously. They’re imo a lot more accessible than the silm in writing style, and really really interesting! And for the love of everything holy vote Eldacar on June 1st please and thank you :)
I’m seriously considering a tattoo with Sam’s quote from Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in…
stormchaser819: I’m seriously considering a tattoo with Sam’s quote from Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in this world Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” It’s a quote I keep coming back to over and over and always reminds me there’s still hope out there.
Software & code
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"Preview HTML" is a plug-in for Notepad++ which allows previewing a HTML page inside Notepad++ while editing it. (No longer maintained, source available).
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