So I’ve been customizing this recently, and naturally, all of my websites’ themes are related to whatever I’m obsessed with. This blog used to be a lot more, let’s say girly. The header image was peach blossoms floating around and the text was purple.
Yesterday, I completely changed the mood of it by changing the text background to The Argonath, from LoTR, and the banner image to Aragorn, my favorite character.
I also asked for an order–or some people call it commission, it’s basically a free commission, yes–from my friend’s Art of Problem Solving shop involving Aragorn. It’s here, and examples of her art are here, but the only way you can talk there is to register an AoPS account.
AoPS is a math website where you take math lessons (how surprising). There are also forums where you can talk and chat with others, participate in RPGs, and play user-invented games.
Why does that sound like I’m advertising it? Maybe I am.
But the point is that she drew me my banner! I wasn’t originally intending for it to be a banner. Rather, I had wanted it to be my AoPS profile picture. But I already have like, five pending orders for Aragorn avatars from different avatar shops on AoPS, around two of which are completed. I also made one myself, but really, it’s just going online, finding a good picture of Aragorn, and putting a ring circle on it. Doesn’t really count.
I’m tempted right now to somehow order another Aragorn avatar from my other friend. I’ll have to email her, though, because she uses Instagram, which I don’t have an account for. This is her account. Her art is amazing.
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The banner does capture Aragorn quite well. It shows a lot of his Ranger side, his days spent wandering in the mountains and exploring distant lands. There are mountains in the distance (I think they’re the Misty Mountains) that he’s looking at. His sword is drawn as if bracing for some unseen foe. I haven’t watched the second and third movies of LoTR yet (I only just finished the first yesterday), but so far, this scene reminds me of two possibilities.
First, it might be Aragorn before he was with the Company and set out to destroy the ring. He’s alone in the scene, looking lonelily out at the mountains as a dusty Ranger, still hiding in the shadows, full of self-doubt (at least in movies it’s like that. In the books, he’s a lot more confident). He’s probably hunting some orcs or monsters or perhaps looking for Gollum along with Gandalf somewhere. The sword in his hand, though it seems like Anduril, could possibly be some other sword that he’s carrying.
It also might be Aragorn with the Company, and there are two other possibilities for that:
It might be before they tried to cross the Misty Mountains (and later went through Moria). Aragorn could be looking at the mountains with a sense of dread for what was to come, but also with determination and his sword (Anduril now, probably) drawn, ready for any danger. His companions, though not in the scene, could be somewhere else.
Or it could be after they came out of Moria–without Gandalf. This idea is one that I really like. Aragorn, though in the movie (and the book if I remember correctly) seems to not care as much as the others about Gandalf’s apparent death, he does care. The only reason he makes the Company continue is that he knows that Gandalf would have wanted them to push on. But inside I’m sure he was mourning as much as any other person, and perhaps even more. He and Gandalf were very close friends, I believe. Before leaving the mountains, Aragorn might be looking at them one more time, the place where his best friend fell to his death.
Honestly, my friend hasn’t even read or watched LoTR, and I just told her to draw some mountain scenery or something with Aragorn in it, but I think it’s really great to be able to invent completely random ideas of what might be happening in this scene.
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