In Which I Plot A Revolution, and Elrond's Face Comes Off//A Collab with Pippin

Before I knew exactly when Megan and I were going to do our collaboration, I asked my cousin Pippin if he wanted to do a collab with me, similar to the ones Faith and Brooke have been doing, where we would just chat about books and movies. He did want to, and so, since he has to go back to school this week and won't have time later, you're being gifted with two collabs in one month! Although, to be fair, they are very different collabs. :)

Pippin is talking in purple, and I'm talking in my normal black

Anyhow, without further ado...

Welcome to the blog, Pippin!

Glad I could be here, thanks so much for having me!

You’re very welcome! Thank you for coming. So, do you want to introduce yourself a little to everyone?

Yeah, sure! I’m Sam’s cousin, I just started at Uni last fall and I’m psyching myself up to go back, I’m an aspiring writer, and a fan of (some) classic literature.   

Fair enough. :) Favorite book? (I know, this is a mean question.)

This is actually one of the easier “favorite thing” questions I get asked. Maybe it’s just because I don’t read enough books. But my favorite is probably either Moby Dick by Herman Melville or A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. 

If I were you, I would go with the second answer. Moby Dick is an abomination. (Y’know, dissing your favorites in the nicest possible way).

I know, I know, but something about Moby Dick just really captivated me when I first read it. It’s such an interesting, basically primary source, document from that particular time and culture. 

So you like it from a historical standpoint? That explains a lot. (I got stuck on the chapter on white.)

Well, I didn’t really know what white was before I read that chapter, so the benefits of reading the book are numerous. In all seriousness, though, it is interesting to me from a historical perspective, and I love looking through that little window into Nantucket whaling. Call me a huge nerd... 

And Fr. TA does do so on a fairly regular basis… (BTW, because nothing is private, Legolas says we’re being too polite, and Eomer says hi. XD)

Well, I’m validated then! Nerd-dom for the win! (tell Legolas that if sarcasm translated well in a text-based medium, it would be a different story).

Will do. :) Okay, just out of curiosity, what’s one of the harder “favorite things” questions you get asked?

I always wrestle with stuff like favorite color and favorite song. Like, how are you supposed to pick? I listen to a lot of music and see a lot of colors, and I am always reduced to “ooh, that’s a hard one!” by these questions. 

Same! In choir the other day, we were asked to share our Very Favorite Songs, and I was reduced to “Oh God Beyond All Praising”. I mean, it is one of my Favorites, but I felt like there should have been a better answer.

Exactly. Every time I do answer, I’m disregarding the ten or twenty other favorite songs kicking around in my brain. Not to mention the fact that I don’t usually have permanent faves. 

 We need a revolution! Make people stop asking what our favorite songs are! (And then make them argue like St. Thomas Aquinas. Y’know, while we’re at it.)

Might as well kill two birds with one stone! And favorite books are much more informative anyway. 

True! So it’s time to talk about my favorite book...LOTR. (You knew this was coming.)

I’m always down to talk about LOTR.  

Okay, so I know I call you Pippin, but who’s your favorite character?

That is a great question...I think my favorite might have to be someone like Aragorn, or Gandalf. I really like Faramir, and related to that Denathor’s arc is very compelling thematically. So I have a few, but the wizard is near the top for sure.  

As he should be. :) (Faramir, too! So good! They ruined him in the movie.)

Ugh, I know! It’s such a shame that stuff like that had to happen in an otherwise epic trilogy. (That’s what bugs me about the LOTR movies, they’re so definitive as film versions that the errors like that just have to stand). 

*Growls* (Did you know, Legolas wants to make an animated version of LOTR to sort-of go along with the animated Hobbit? Don’t know if she ever will, but I feel like that would be fun. Although I’m not sure anyone could top Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn).

Some type of fan-made project like that would be really fun. I just wanna see Tom Bombadil in film, is that too much to ask?  

Definitely not!

So, I think it’s your turn...What character arc/character interactions is/are most thematically relevant to the LOTR series as a whole? (possibly excluding Frodo).

Are you writing an approach paper and need discussion questions, by chance? (Kidding, kidding!). Um...wow, I’m going to need to think about that for a moment.
But off the top of my head, it might be the way Legolas and Gimli become friends. Because up until that point in Middle Earth, dwarves and elves had been very separate, and I feel like their friendship might usher in a new age. In a sense. But also, the way Aragorn forgives/”absolves” Boromir when he’s dying, pointing to his (Aragorn’s) role as Christ figure...I love that moment.

Those are both really good answers, I don’t think I would have come up with either! I think those both do encapsulate the ideas of the book pretty well.  

Listen to us sounding like big, grown-up book analyzers.

Ha ha! That’s the beauty of something like LOTR, you can be basically anybody and still delve into it. 

Tolkien: Classics Author For the Masses

I think you’ll find that’s Dickens :)

Brat.

Accurate.  

(For the record: I have enjoyed every Dickens novel I’ve read. Including Pickwick.)

(For the record, I have not read that many Dickens novels).

So, you read Great Expectations with me...did you ever read Oliver Twist?

Now that is a very interesting question that has a severalfold answer...no, I did not.

Haha! That was the first one I read (because Mrs. Juanita made me) and it kind of scarred my tender young literary heart. But it was good.

Thank goodness for book recommendations. Even if they traumatize you a little. That’s what the real world is made of! 

True facts! Speaking of, have you finished Queen of Attolia yet?

Another big fat NO for that one... it’s pretty shameful but I haven’t even passed the halfway point yet. 

Well, you do have other things to do. Like, spend time with your family for the first time in four months. (Okay, also: you should be glad you’re not in literature with me this year. Because I’m looking down the barrel of Les Mis. And it’s terrifying.)

I really don’t have an excuse, because I just reread Gentleman In Moscow over break! (and I really don’t envy you Les Mis; I expect it’s brilliant but something about the time crunch leeches some of the joy away). 

Fine, I rescind my pardon. :) It’s true--having to read a book in a particular time frame somehow makes it less enjoyable. This is my excuse as to why I am leery of classics. (I just realized that I go into every classic with the expectation that it’s going to be boring. Sub-ideal.)

There’s something to that, and I do think that if I hadn’t enjoyed Moby Dick way back in American Lit class I would have been left with a lingering mistrust of Those Who Pick the Books. 

Lol! I have to read Faust this year, so I still have a mistrust of Those Who Pick the Books. I mean, it’s a Catholic curriculum! Why are we reading Faust?!

Yeah, I’m not sad to be missing that one.  

You would have loved Divine Comedia, though. In fact, you should read those on your own at some point. Not boring. I promise.

I will have to look into it. Dante was always a bit of a daunting prospect :) 

Okay, but 1) Virgil is in it 2) Dante puts himself in as a character and he’s a wimp and 3) There are demons who make bawdy jokes (if I remember correctly).

I might have to go after it just for wimpy Dante. 

Ok, on a completely different topic...we watched the first half of Captain America: First Avenger last night, (with Mom...which may or may not have been a good choice) and I am a little weirded out to have Elrond as a really creepy bad guy.

OOOh that is a very good movie. Even in the company of non-action-fans. But if creepy Elrond is weird, just wait for the Matrix... 

I’m really enjoying it! But yeah, every time a body hits the ground, I’m a little more aware of it when Mom is watching, too.

That movie is one of the great early Marvel movies, and I stand by that. Has he gotten big yet? (spoiler alert, whoops) 

Yep, we’re at the part where he jumps (if that vague description makes sense) right after Elrond’s face comes off.

What a movie...anything that allows me to say the sentence “Elrond’s face comes off” is a win in my book.  

Word!
Okay, but I haven’t figured out yet why everyone is so obsessed with Bucky. Literally every time I’ve seen his name it’s been in all caps because people were squealing over him. I mean, he’s handsome? Ish?

He’s built up some clout in the intervening years, he’s been in some pretty good Marvel installations and has a pretty compelling arc. But that’s for me to know and you to find out... 

Well, Legolas and my plan is to watch a movie every week until I go to college, so hopefully it won’t take too long for me to find out.

There you go. Which of the Marvels have you seen so far now? 

Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, and half of Cap. Am. Very much looking forward to Iron Man 2 to finish out tier 1. :)

Got any standouts?  

Is that even a question? Iron Man. 100%. Although I do love all the other ones, it’s just that that one was over the top amazing. Tony Stark is the best.

And he’s in your Hogwarts house! 

Is he? I thought we agreed he was Slytherin. I do think he’s my same personality type, though.

Ohhh, that’s right. I had Ravenclaw stuck in my brain for some reason.  

I do think he would make an excellent Ravenclaw, but if we’re going by Gimli’s categorizing system, their house is based on the attributes that they not only have, but which are most important to them. Which, for Stark, is ambition. I think.

No, that does make a barrel of sense. He seems like prime Slytherin to me and most of the people I’ve talked to about him. 

Okay, I just realized we’ve filled a...number of pages. So maybe we should sign off for today. But this was super fun!

Thanks so much for the opportunity! I had a blast.  

Me too! Thank you so much for coming!

Of course. And now I’ll officially be on the internet! 

XD

That was so much fun for both of us, I hope y'all enjoyed it as well!

Do you have a family member or friend that you constantly debate books with? Have you read The Divine Comedy? Do you like Moby Dick?