Mysticalclamfishopera - Alexithymia

Jotaro’s fists aren’t his greatest weapon

I dig your HC on Al never paying for anything and that he just scares people in to giving him things. From the comic he does seem to have money. Where do you think he got it from? Does he get paid for his radio show? Ads? Did he take it from the overlords he defeated?

Short answer:

That dude in the butcher shop that Alastor mangled and made meat of?

He's not going to need his wallet anymore.

Long answer:

I think that, in Hell, Alastor doesn't exactly have a job anymore—no show, no ads. Sure, he still broadcasts, because that's part of his power set, but the difference between having a radio show versus casually broadcasting is like the difference between having a weekly editorial column in a major newspaper versus yelling your opinions on twitter.

And this is significant because the fact that he doesn't HAVE a job is probably why he feels so bored and uninspired. If he'd continued being a proper radio host throughout his time in Hell, then he would have something that he’s dedicated to, something he can spend all his time on, something that plays to his strengths and interests.

Instead? When we get a look at a day in the (after)life of Alastor... what he does all day is wander around. Meander through the streets of Pentagram City. Pause for brunch, check out a new store, say hi to the neighborhood ladies. Sure, it sounds like a nice way to spend a free Saturday—but if this is, as we’re led to believe, his AVERAGE day, then this dude has got jack shit to fill his time. He just wanders around, and wanders around, and wanders around.

He’s wandering around when he catches Charlie’s broadcast on TV. He’s got so little going on that he can IMMEDIATELY go over to the hotel and beg for a job offer his services. He’s not running a radio show. He’s not doing anything.

(How COULD he run a show, anyway? He’s the terrifying guy called the Radio Demon who’s best known for 1) mangling people, and 2) broadcasting it live on air. If you live in Hell, you turn on the radio, and you hear the Radio Demon’s voice... the smartest possible thing you could do is turn off the radio and run. Alastor’s mere existence in Hell probably tanked the popularity of radios while they were still on the rise in the living world. The Radio Demon is the worst thing that could have happened to radio.)

So, he gets what little cash he carries on him the same way he gets everything else: by taking it.

As we’re coming up to the two year anniversary of the post that made me famous and led to the new favourite characterization of Legolas as a “baby gay dudebro redneck of the elves”, I feel I should write a follow up based on my flippant agreement to this adorable phrase.

So, I have come to answer a question that has sort of floated in tags since then. Is Legolas actually gay?

And the answer, my friends, is “well, he’s not not gay.”

If Tolkien had the words to describe it today, I would bet good money on him dubbing Legolas as an aromantic asexual, which would be fitting as him being an aro-ace…you know, because of the archery? Ha ha? Please clap.

My argument for this is mostly literary analysis, an understanding of Catholic theology at the time, and a question of demographics. Now of course, the minute I say this, I’m going to have a bunch of people jumping in saying that Legolas is a lesser Glorfindel or a recycled version of the Second Age hero with the same name. For those who say this, a very small part of me might slightly concede but the rest of me says HOW DARE YOU SPEAK THAT WAY ABOUT MY BOY.

So, the literary analysis or as I like to call it “There’s Something About Legolas.” For one thing, Legolas’ lineage is surprisingly empty considering Tolkien wrote the family trees of like everyone ever. We get Oropher - Thranduil - Legolas. That’s it. Now many would argue it’s unlikely he’s Thranduil’s only son as he basically spends his time…well, being Legolas. The other thing that is super weird here is that A) No spouses/wives are known and B) Legolas isn’t married. The first can be explained with Tolkien just never filling it in because women do sometimes go missing in his stuff, sure. The second is a bit weirder because the vast majority of elves do get married and get married before 200. And our boy is a baby, but he’s at least 500. Usually when we get a character like this, there are three possible explanations A) they have no interest in being married or B) Their spouse is significantly younger than them (like my homegirl Arwen being her hot cougar self) or C) they’re going to get killed off. But Legolas never gets married, not even when a large majority of the Fellowship spends their Happily Ever After in happy domestic bliss. Besides Gandalf being well exempt from the whole mortal thing, we have exactly three who do not get married.

1) Frodo - like, I could write a whole other thing on his romantic life and I’m not the expert in our good good boy so I’ll let someone else do that

2) Gimli - demographically, my main man had less than a 33% chance of getting married to a nice dwarven girl. This is not a cultural norm for him so it’s really not weird for this to have worked out the way it did.

3) LEGOLAS - what the heck? Heir to kingdom? Race who is so into marriage they can look at someone and know if they’ve been banging? What? How is this man still on the market?

So then the question becomes this: if Tolkien gave Legolas an exemption from the usual Happily Ever After of wife, babies, healthy happy home life, what is his good life after the war? For Frodo, we get mostly him being a happy uncle and just getting to live that sweet Hobbit life. For Gimli, he gets the best dang caves in the world and gets to make his own settlement and has like the best dwarven life ever. And my argument is that for Legolas, that happily ever after is Gimli. Even in an original draft, Galadriel’s message to Legolas was not warning him about hearing the sound of the sea but that he and Gimli were going on a road trip together post war. And of course we get the whole no greater love piece describing Gimli going with him to the undying lands. There are so many lines and references to them either going where the other goes or dying by the other’s side. Like, if you’ve made it this far, I’m preaching to the choir. Tolkien lays it out for us. This is one of the most important friendships and relationships of the Third/Fourth Age. They love each other and even the laws of mortality are not going to keep them apart because everyone gets a happy ending, gosh darn it. JRR doesn’t let his boys down.

Okay, I’m not saying they are canonically gay for each other. Well, I am a little, but not in the hypersexualized M/M smutty way you might be thinking. Tolkien was a huge fan of using romantic friendship in his work, which is a really old literary tradition and honestly a big thing in real life we should be giving more credit to because it’s the best. By that I mean that he did not view romantic love as being vastly superior to the love between friends. And like that makes sense? Tolkien’s life, in many ways, was inundated with this. As a soldier, Tolkien was part of a military culture that encouraged men to view each other as brothers. As a Catholic, same thing and his theology/philosophy even encouraged the study of the four different types of loves. And even his adult life was filled with close friendships between men. Heck, LOTR would not have been written if it weren’t for his bros just yelling at him to get ‘er done.

Now don’t get me wrong, Tolkien was head over heels in love with his wife. Like disgustingly, adorably in love with his wife. It was just that he had different types of loves in his life and he recognized that these relationships were all important. I honestly believe that Legolas’ and Gimli’s relationship was written with this in mind. I think if Tolkien was to have the words we have now, they would be in a queer platonic relationship because they are not in love in the same way as say Arwen and Aragorn. There is no pining, no lust, no need for romantic love and marriage and babies. But they are soulmates. They belong together. And clearly our boy Legolas has been waiting for him before he can sail off into the sunset.

tl;dr Legolas is a weird elf. The traditional elven narrative of a happy ending wouldn’t work for him so it makes complete sense that he would be in a QPR with Gimli. He’s definitely aro-ace. Tolkien didn’t have the words for this and was writing them in the literary tradition of romantic friendship but he would totally have my back. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Dostoevsky: Pyotr Verkhovensky is actually above medium height.

Me: PETYA IST EIN LAUFENDER METER, UND DAMIT PUNKT!!!

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