Condensed tragedy is definitely a good way of describing it.
And lol. "High school English class" level analysis never lets you down. XD
What I was thinking while writing (if you don't mind the blather) was along the lines of 'What do we know about mithril? Okay, it's really light, really shiny, really strong and very rare. Very very rare, and valuable. And valuable metals often turn out as status symbols (e.g. bronze and iron (back in the day) and gold)so if mithril as as epic as Tolkien says it is, then it would be right up there as royal property. BUT. We know that dwarves traded it, even with elves - *insert Celebrimbor feels here* - but Celebrimbor was (kind of) a prince, and definitely a lord of a city (ruler in his own right) so maybe they would have let him have it for a huge price. And dwarves are a race of extremely skilled craftsmen, so...what if mithril is so important that they only let the most important dwarves work it. Royal dwarves, maybe some people who've been lucky enough to earn the honour somehow... Back to the coat. It's valuable (have you seen the maps of the shire? It's actually a fair-sized, fertile bit of land, and that coat could buy it? Right...) but it's also protective. Bilbo isn't all about the fighting, true, but Thorin is giving him something that valuable to protect himself? When one of the (few) things we do actually know about dwarves is that they are jealously possessive of their treasure? *insert expression of stunned disbelief here* And fair enough, it's not the Arkenstone, but chainmail is fiddly as all fuck to make and would take a lot of skill, which would up the value yet again, and if we look at forging mithril as a status symbol...'
And a new headcanon was spawned, lots of feels were felt, and a very short fic was written. According to that guide, I'm too anthropological to be an ex-literature student. *cries
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Date: 2013-01-03 12:12 pm (UTC)From:And lol. "High school English class" level analysis never lets you down. XD
What I was thinking while writing (if you don't mind the blather) was along the lines of 'What do we know about mithril? Okay, it's really light, really shiny, really strong and very rare. Very very rare, and valuable. And valuable metals often turn out as status symbols (e.g. bronze and iron (back in the day) and gold)so if mithril as as epic as Tolkien says it is, then it would be right up there as royal property. BUT. We know that dwarves traded it, even with elves - *insert Celebrimbor feels here* - but Celebrimbor was (kind of) a prince, and definitely a lord of a city (ruler in his own right) so maybe they would have let him have it for a huge price. And dwarves are a race of extremely skilled craftsmen, so...what if mithril is so important that they only let the most important dwarves work it. Royal dwarves, maybe some people who've been lucky enough to earn the honour somehow... Back to the coat. It's valuable (have you seen the maps of the shire? It's actually a fair-sized, fertile bit of land, and that coat could buy it? Right...) but it's also protective. Bilbo isn't all about the fighting, true, but Thorin is giving him something that valuable to protect himself? When one of the (few) things we do actually know about dwarves is that they are jealously possessive of their treasure? *insert expression of stunned disbelief here* And fair enough, it's not the Arkenstone, but chainmail is fiddly as all fuck to make and would take a lot of skill, which would up the value yet again, and if we look at forging mithril as a status symbol...'
And a new headcanon was spawned, lots of feels were felt, and a very short fic was written.
According to that guide, I'm too anthropological to be an ex-literature student. *cries