honestly if I ever get too worried about getting reported for having the name Blorbo Bongblower, I could always change his surname to Blogger. Blorbo Blogger has a nice ring to it

leofdag just looks like he's about to start sobbing any second

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 1

Eldacar of Gondor vs Gwindeth

Eldacar of Gondor:

The twenty-first King of Gondor, also known as Vinitharya. During his reign the conflict known as the Kin-strife occurred and he was forced from his throne for ten years.

The blorbo of all time actually. He’s the protagonist of one of the most interesting stories in the LoTR appendices, the Kin-strife, and everything about his life story is so fascinating! His father was the crown prince of Gondor and his mother was the princess of Rhovanion so not a Númenorean. As a result all the racist nobles of Gondor made noises about how Eldacar was of “lesser race” and wouldn’t live as long as a “true Dúnadan”. One of the most fascinating examples of fantasy racism in Tolkien’s works imo – the bigotry is awful but the bigots have a shield to hide behind! Obviously their concerns are actually valid because they just don’t want their king to die young! (Their concerns aren’t valid. But I think the worldbuilding here is great.) Anyway Eldacar was born in Rhovanion and given the birth-name Vinitharya, but when he returned to Gondor aged five he was obliged to take up the Quenya name Eldacar, presumably to pacify all the racists in Gondor. He’s the EMBODIMENT of mixed-race/immigrant child trauma my beloved. Eventually his father died and he ascended to the throne of Gondor, but then his shitty second cousin Castamir (all my homies hate Castamir he’s the worst) started the civil war known as the Kin-strife and usurped Eldacar’s throne. Eldacar was forced to flee north to Rhovanion but Castamir captured his eldest son Ornendil and had him cruelly put to death which is SO SAD. But Eldacar, being brave and resourceful and clever and extremely cool, put together an alliance with his mother’s kinsfolk in Rhovanion and after ten years reclaimed his throne, which turned out to be slightly easier than expected because Castamir was The Worst and all his subjects hated him. And Eldacar PERSONALLY fought and killed Castamir HIMSELF and AVENGED HIS SON which is extremely important when you consider all the cringefail elves in the legendarium whose quests for revenge didn’t really go anywhere at all. Then he lived to be 235 proving that all the idiot racists who were worried about his lifespan didn’t have any idea what they were talking about, as is par for the course with racists. Also the Kin-strife itself has such far-reaching consequences for the history of Gondor! The Corsairs of Umbar, Gondor’s long-standing enemies, are actually followers of the descendants of Castamir. And during the Usurpation of Castamir Osgiliath was sacked and burned, leading to the beginning of its decline as Gondor’s greatest city. Even though Eldacar’s story is, to me, ultimately hopeful, it’s also such a fascinating turning point in the history of Gondor. Also ALSO he’s explicitly surrounded by textual ghosts which is really fascinating. His father Valacar has “children” plural – so Eldacar had siblings!! What were they like? How did they react to it all? And his son Aldamir is described as Eldacar’s second son and third child, meaning that he had a daughter too. Who was she?? What happened to her? He’s such a blorbo and there’s so much interesting stuff to dig into around him and he has to win this entire tournament please please please ❤️

Gwindeth:

A spirit who watched over lake Evendim and the surrounding Anorian ruins in the LOTRO game. She was also known as “The Blue Lady of Nenuial”

lady of the lake! goldberry-type water spirit who lives in/keeps lake nenuial. loved elendil & hung out with the kings in annuminas until the division of arnor. will yell at you if you accidentally kill the frogs in her cave. very intense all the time

Round 1 masterpost

Previous ask was not me: but I do have a question 😁:

Have you ever had a fandom fave that you look back on now and think "wtf was that phase?"

I ask because I think you approach fandom similarly to me, and I definitely have those. Even though most of my retired blorbos are still lovingly jnserted jn the stories I currently make up for myself.

This is a great question, I just tried to summon all my past obsessions to see if any of them was weird but - I don't think so?

That might be due to me being very lenient with "weird". Yes there was the phase I liked this cartoon gorilla - but why not. He's hot. He avoids eye contact. I know exactly what I was thinking. :D

I also have a bit of a type, "kinda formal with dangerous depths", so I see a common denominator in Odo/Giles/Agent Coulson, also Dijkstra and Emhyr.

Maybe it's because I don't fall for that many characters, so whoever is "it" gets sucked dry and all questions including "wtf?" will get answered.

Emhyr might be the whatthefuckest of all of them, from an outside perspective. The hardest to explain. ("Well, there was a fanfic...")

For your entertainment: I also had lewd phantasies about Farengar (the Whiterun mage in Skyrim) and for a while shipped two of my gaming characters in LotRo to the extent that they sent each others letters. But it's still not weird to me - good times!

I'm now curious if you had a "wtf was this blorbo" phase - and who it was 🤣

Top 5 video games?

For a second I thought, 'Oh this will be easy!' and then I realised, wait, do I need to distinguish between all the main-series Pokemon games?? Halp! But I'll do my best:

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: This was the first Elder Scrolls game I played so it was my introduction to the series and its (utterly bonkers) lore, and to Bethesda games in general. I love how different it is from standard 'medieval-Europe' fantasy worlds and I love that I can play as an awesome dinosaur-lizard lady. I also love the guar. <3 I do not love cliff racers, which are pure swooping evil bastards, but at least you can mod them out. I haven't replayed it in a few years but nostalgia keeps it at number 1.

Pokemon X: It's honestly a toss-up between X, Red/Blue, and Platinum; I got Red waaay back in 1999 or 2000 (Mr Bear got Blue) and played it every day on the bus to and from work in the months before our wedding. Platinum was the one that got me really back into it after not getting a GBA or the first generation DS. But I'm giving it to X because I really enjoyed playing it, because I still think Mega Evolutions have been the best generational gimmick to date, and because it was the first one to introduce more character creation which I think is great. (Bonus for what remains of being a Francophile after living in the UK for 20+ years.)

World of Warcraft: Outing myself as a basic bench here, but I think I have to hand it to WoW for the sheer amount of hours I've pumped in and the fact I owe so many of my closest friends to it. Once upon a time I would have put Lord of the Rings Online in this place, but I've retired from LOTRO (my kin basically dried up and the game systems are - is Byzantine the word I want? - hella complicated, anyway) and WoW has sucked me back in yet again with friendship, dragons, and a Pokemon-lite minigame.

Animal Crossing New Horizons: aka 'The Pandemic Game'. I loved Wild World, and I loved New Leaf even more, so of course I love New Horizons - I even got the Happy Home Paradise DLC. Plus it's the game that led to me meeting you, @ricochetoconnell! So now it's on the list forever. ❤

The Sims 3: I have spent a silly number of hours playing this and designing houses, patterns, furniture, characters, gardens, etc. I don't even want to think how much I've spent in total across expansions and Store content (although I did get some stuff free with points or when they were doing specials.) Also I make my blorbos and then make them kiss. I should check out 4 at some point; the lack of create-a-style put me off but I've seen people making stunning builds in it.

Runner-up: Stardew Valley - what's not to love about that game??

@vakarians-babe your wish is Blorbo's command!

a lil kissy <3

okay Blorbo I think that's enough

BLORBO HE'S ALREADY IN A RELATIONSHIP

NOT IN FRONT OF MORDRAMBOR BLORBO

he's RIGHT THERE

LOTRO's naming filter sure is something huh! and here I was, thinking "this name will never go through" and yet...

the perfect character portrait doesn't exis-

Me when I see Corunir

BREAKING NEWS: 2 Blorbos spotted in the same location! this is a lethal dose of Blorbo. What could they be planning? more at 8!

in a shocking turn of events, it turns out that I am LAERDAN'S Blorbo! well well well how the turn tables.....

the size of this lad......

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 1

Narmeleth vs Horn

Narmeleth:

Elf of Lindon & later the Gwaith-i-Mirdain; crafted & entrapped by a minor ring of power (Lord of the Rings Online character)

Narmelleth!!! I mean. She's got it all. Corrupted by the Gift Lord, Ring-forger, Bane of Fornost, Earnur's Worstie, COOL OUTFIT, Redemption Arc we didn't start the fire

she actually managed to destroy the lesser ring of power "Annatar" had used to corrupt her, which is like, SO impressive considering how long she had been under its influence. She also fought Mordirith (the steward of Angmar) and his new champion Mordrambor (a universally loathed NPC that everyone rightfully hates for personal reasons) single-handedly!! I don't mean alone, the player character was there, but I mean she did it single-handed. with one hand. she lost a hand and kept fighting. and WON!!!

Horn:

Man of Rohan; student of Gleowine, son of Reeve Ingbert of the Entwash Vale (mentioned in canon, prominent character in LOTRO)

he's a guy from rohan with absolutely no chill at all <3 he's a minstrel & a swordsman who wrote a rude song about wormtongue, got banished to a term at this border post near lothlorien, got kicked out of *there* because he wouldn't let this random dunlending girl die, went back to edoras with some friends, got banished *again*, fought a giant for awhile, went back to edoras *AGAIN* (important to note that this is less than 48 hours later), and honestly probably would've gotten killed for that if it wasn't also the day gandalf & the three hunters got there. also his dad's a dick. that's not really relevant but it *is* true

Round 1 masterpost

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Quarterfinals results and analysis

It feels a bit silly to do this for just four polls, but here we are. The full quarterfinals results are here, and statistics under the cut.

Who got the most votes?

Pleased to announce that that was our queen Tar-Ancalimë, with 214 votes!

Who got the fewest votes?

Narmeleth, who has done very impressively so far, bows out with just 58 votes. Sorry, LoTRO people! You have my utmost respect anyway.

Which poll got the most votes?

Beregond vs Tar-Ancalimë had a healthy 399 votes.

Which poll got the fewest votes?

The quarterfinal from the most obscure quarter of the bracket, Narmeleth vs the tra-la-la-lally elf, garnered 196 votes - still a lot more than the low vote totals in the previous rounds! Things are definitely heating up now.

What was the tightest race?

I didn't think we could possibly beat the insanity of the fox vs Eldacar poll last round, but astonishingly Nerdanel beat Haleth by 0.4% or one vote. What can I say we love them both.

What was the biggest sweep?

The tra-la-la-lally elf did rather crush poor Narmeleth with a margin of 40.8%! Which makes me rather scared for the semifinals ngl.

I hope everyone enjoyed the quarterfinals :)

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 2

Narmeleth vs Faramir (son of Ondoher)

Narmeleth:

Elf of Lindon & later the Gwaith-i-Mirdain; crafted & entrapped by a minor ring of power (Lord of the Rings Online character)

Narmelleth!!! I mean. She's got it all. Corrupted by the Gift Lord, Ring-forger, Bane of Fornost, Earnur's Worstie, COOL OUTFIT, Redemption Arc we didn't start the fire

she actually managed to destroy the lesser ring of power "Annatar" had used to corrupt her, which is like, SO impressive considering how long she had been under its influence. She also fought Mordirith (the steward of Angmar) and his new champion Mordrambor (a universally loathed NPC that everyone rightfully hates for personal reasons) single-handedly!! I don't mean alone, the player character was there, but I mean she did it single-handed. with one hand. she lost a hand and kept fighting. and WON!!!

Faramir (son of Ondoher):

The younger son of King Ondoher of Gondor, killed in battle along with his father and older brother. Also a character in Lord of the Rings Online.

more blorboganda later but! he's been hanging out on dagorlad as a ghost bc he snuck out to join the fighting against the wainriders with his dad and brother and they all got killed. really wants to help the rangers of ithilien once he gets out of the 'ghost who had to hang out at torture temple for a thousand years or so' fog

propaGANDA please vote for Faramir "Namesake of the Faramir we know" son of Ondoher he's got it all. Younger brother, couldn't stay behind while his family fought Mordor, rode out in disguise (sound familiar?) but died TRAGICALLY in the arms of the proto-Rohirric Commander. this is not even touching all the stuff he gets into in adaptations. Faramir I supremacy

OK no I can wax poetical on Faramir I Son of Ondoher because his is a tragedy that sets in motion the end of the Kings of Gondor (for an age or two. idk on specific but). Faramir I second son of Ondoher is not content to stay at home, doing his duty, following orders etc. etc. because he LOVES his dad and his big brother SO much. And the thing is, he really really shouldn't go. Hindsight 20/20 and all that but if he leaves there is NO ONE who can take the throne from his dad's direct line (because the Gondorian Council are punks and decide his cool sister Firiel and her extremely cool husband Arvedui can't have it on account of [handwaves] honestly). But the armies they're facing off against are serious business! They're really outmatching Gondor here. They straight up already fought his grandfather King Calimehtar, iand are back for round 2. So what does precious Faramir (I) do? He pulls the OG Eowyn, babey (and let's not forget parallels, PARALLELS about following your father (figure) and brother to war, right? she marries the NAMESAKE of this guy, incredibly cool mirroring here) and gets a disguise and rides with the Rohirrim-before-Eorl (some adaptations call this the Eotheod) to go help. Here's where things get EXTRA angsty HIS FATHER AND BROTHER ARE DEAD. He doesn't know because he's with the Eotheod, but like. The Wainriders killed them. And the Eotheod does help rout the rest of them and eventually, Earnil II future Throne-thief (but it's not his fault) gets the final victory BUT not before sweet noble Faramir is run through with a spear by the chieftain of the Wainriders and DIES IN THE ARMS OF A COMMANDER OF THE EOTHEOD. Like. That's a specific detail we have. Blorbo Blorbamir at LEAST didn't die alone and was discovered to be the prince there. So. Mr. Horse Leader gets to give the news to everyone about the poor guy that died in his arms being the son of the king. But oops! The King and brother are already dead so. Technically the King of Gondor died in his arms. What a day for him, right? Anyway this is still about Faramir who (in the LoTRO adaptation) feels such guilt that he HANGS AROUND AS A GHOST REGRETTING HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DOWNFALL OF GONDOR. Tragicest blorbo. Regret. Precious guy. Vote Faramir I

Round 2 masterpost

Obscure Tolkien Blorbo: Round 1

Nuin vs Faramir (son of Ondoher)

Nuin:

A Dark Elf in the Book of Lost Tales.

He’s an elf who found the first men asleep before the sun rose! He accidentally woke them up and took responsibility and taught them how to talk and how the world works. They call him the Father of Speech, in the very early draft he inhabits. Still canon in my heart, you go you random Avar.

Faramir (son of Ondoher):

The younger son of King Ondoher of Gondor, killed in battle along with his father and older brother. Also a character in Lord of the Rings Online.

more blorboganda later but! he's been hanging out on dagorlad as a ghost bc he snuck out to join the fighting against the wainriders with his dad and brother and they all got killed. really wants to help the rangers of ithilien once he gets out of the 'ghost who had to hang out at torture temple for a thousand years or so' fog

propaGANDA please vote for Faramir "Namesake of the Faramir we know" son of Ondoher he's got it all. Younger brother, couldn't stay behind while his family fought Mordor, rode out in disguise (sound familiar?) but died TRAGICALLY in the arms of the proto-Rohirric Commander. this is not even touching all the stuff he gets into in adaptations. Faramir I supremacy

OK no I can wax poetical on Faramir I Son of Ondoher because his is a tragedy that sets in motion the end of the Kings of Gondor (for an age or two. idk on specific but). Faramir I second son of Ondoher is not content to stay at home, doing his duty, following orders etc. etc. because he LOVES his dad and his big brother SO much. And the thing is, he really really shouldn't go. Hindsight 20/20 and all that but if he leaves there is NO ONE who can take the throne from his dad's direct line (because the Gondorian Council are punks and decide his cool sister Firiel and her extremely cool husband Arvedui can't have it on account of [handwaves] honestly). But the armies they're facing off against are serious business! They're really outmatching Gondor here. They straight up already fought his grandfather King Calimehtar, iand are back for round 2. So what does precious Faramir (I) do? He pulls the OG Eowyn, babey (and let's not forget parallels, PARALLELS about following your father (figure) and brother to war, right? she marries the NAMESAKE of this guy, incredibly cool mirroring here) and gets a disguise and rides with the Rohirrim-before-Eorl (some adaptations call this the Eotheod) to go help. Here's where things get EXTRA angsty HIS FATHER AND BROTHER ARE DEAD. He doesn't know because he's with the Eotheod, but like. The Wainriders killed them. And the Eotheod does help rout the rest of them and eventually, Earnil II future Throne-thief (but it's not his fault) gets the final victory BUT not before sweet noble Faramir is run through with a spear by the chieftain of the Wainriders and DIES IN THE ARMS OF A COMMANDER OF THE EOTHEOD. Like. That's a specific detail we have. Blorbo Blorbamir at LEAST didn't die alone and was discovered to be the prince there. So. Mr. Horse Leader gets to give the news to everyone about the poor guy that died in his arms being the son of the king. But oops! The King and brother are already dead so. Technically the King of Gondor died in his arms. What a day for him, right? Anyway this is still about Faramir who (in the LoTRO adaptation) feels such guilt that he HANGS AROUND AS A GHOST REGRETTING HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DOWNFALL OF GONDOR. Tragicest blorbo. Regret. Precious guy. Vote Faramir I

Round 1 masterpost