They Are Characters Who Happen To Be Close - Tumblr Posts
Merry my baby!! I am holding him so gently!! I love him
i cant formulate words rn but i want you to know that ever since you sent me that one reply about merry and his fear of being left behind you’ve enlightened me. opened my eyes to the beautiful truth of complex character design lying just below my nose. he’s like my favorite character now and i think about him and what you said all the time. how could you do this to me (positive). thank you. im sorry if this weird but i needed to you to know that its your fault (in a good way) that im a merry stan now
No don't be sorry at all!! Merry is one of my favorite characters too and I think there's so much more to be said about him (like how the position he is put in with Eowyn can retroactively represent a lot of marginalized men and how often they really don't get treated like Real men or provided the same "male privilege" that men normally would be—though I doubt this was Tolkien's intent, or at least not in the way I'm imagining it)
But I think Merry gets ignored by the fandom a lot because some people don't understand his character and just lump him in with Pippin (whether because they haven't read the books or some other reason). Nothing in the books would've happened if Merry hadn't bothered to look deeper into Frodo's business and was SO adamant about not leaving his side. Not letting him go to Rivendell alone. without HIM. Not Pippin, not Fatry, not even Sam (because, believe it or not, in the books he actually Wasn't very close to Frodo until they started to truly get to know eachother in Rivendell, away from the constraints of their class barrier in the Shire). MERRY didn't want to be left behind. I mean this aspect of character and his development comes to its crux when everyone marches to the Black Gate and he resigns to accept the role he has played and waits in the Houses of Healing with Eowyn and Faramir, but in the movies that literally just DOESN'T HAPPEN. He's just suddenly Better and goes with Pippin anyway (another way the movies reduced his character).
I didn't think that my LOTR character opinions impacted anyone so much but I'm very glad they have :) reading this genuinely made me so happy. thank you!!