My brother, my captain, my king

I have finally reached a very satisfactory end to a relatively shitty day, shitty in both the literal and figurative sense. I went to two doctors today, one of whom gave me no real advice on my stomach ("Try eating no food except popcicles for a day and see if that makes it better." "Alas, you seem to have forgotten that I JUST TOLD YOU that I have eaten nothing but nothing since FOUR WEEKS AGO, and I have to go to work tomorrow without fainting, but whatever.") and the other of whom advised me that I might have a yeast infection as a follow-up to my other mysterious infection, contrary to the opinion of a different doctor. Good times abounded. I came home and ate some crackers, and felt quite nauseous.

And then.

LORD OF THE RINGS. HOLY EFF.

Here is the only thing nerdier than going to see The Fellowship of the Ring remastered in theaters for one night only with your younger brother:

Composing an essay on the environmentalism of Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien's fantasy world in your heard during the entire movie.

While composing your own answer, should you choose to do so, you might want to reflect on certain scenes, which might help if you're seeing the whole thing remastered and on a gigantic screen, so you can drool at the awesomeness of the gigantic landscape shots and the BEAUTIFUL landscape contained therein.

Things to consider would include:

-The Shire's/the Hobbits' obvious connection to nature
-Saruman = evil = a symbol of industrialization and the destruction of nature (cf "a wizard should know better")
-The GORGEOUS landscape shots throughout, as previously mentioned

HOWEVER, you should also consider that:

-Even though the Ringwraiths are destroyed by natural elements--fire, water--they still ride horses, who seem down with that even though all the other animals are afraid of them, like that one cute dog, who backs away while wagging her tail frantically. Good dog. Good acting skillz.
-The Ringwraiths have a weird affinity with nature too--see the Nazgul and also that super weird time when the little hobbits are hiding under a log and all these bugs come out and Elijah Wood's face gets all fat, so that's weird
-The Crebain! From Dunland! They are aminals/nature, but they are EVIL AND MEAN
-Also, why do Jackson's Uruk Hai get borned out of mud? Because that suggests a connection to nature too, albeit a kind of gross one, which messes up my whole nature is good/industry is evil paradigm.

My conclusion is that like good and evil in the film, nature is polarized too, suggesting that EVERYTHING has free will and agency but also that good and evil are fairly black and white. But since it's Tolkien and since we're a Western audience, the evil things are crows and wolves, things Westerners have typically vilified, so there's that too and it's kind of unfair. Typically, though, nature is good (cf the Ents) and industry/mining is evil, which makes perfect sense to me.

OTHER THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE BEAUTY THAT IS THE LORD OF THE RINGS:

-I have SO DESPERATELY missed the sound of a theater full of people sobbing quietly while Gandalf and later Boromir die tragically.
-I myself was tempted to cry at these scenes for the first time in my life, but the best I could do was make weird sobbing noises which just made me want to throw up rather than cry. Probably I'm too dehydrated for tears.
-I feel like I FINALLY GET IT. Because when I saw these movies ten years ago and I was all little, I loved the ANGST and the VIOLENCE and the EMO PARTS OF IT, but I feel like it just clicked in my head that this movie/these books are a reflection of the world as it is. Just like The Road. They're fictional places and characters and worlds, but the things the characters go through--the confusion, doubt, fear, despair, whatever--are just reflections of our own lives.
-I tried to make a list of all the things the Ring could symbolize, but mostly (and predictably) I just settled on how having it is like having depression.
-Why does Aragorn son of Arathorn wear a black glove on his RIGHT HAND ONLY. By the end of his awesome battle, though, his left hand is so grimy that it's black, so maybe that counts.
-I spent the entire troll battle scene trying to figure out if it was wearing a loincloth like I'd always thought or if I had just seen these giant dangling troll balls. Turns out it's a loincloth--but a rather diaper-ish and therefore quite bulging loincloth, so it almost doesn't count, maybe.
-Also, the first time I saw these in theaters, the characters weren't my bros yet. Now, after we all successfully got through high school together, we really are bros. I want to reach through the screen and give my bros a hug and tell them it's going to be okay and sit there and cry and cry and cry. Or at least make weird little sobbing/vomiting noises with my poor kidnapped/ring-carrying/arrowed/Heir of Gondor-esque babies.

In conclusion, Lord of the Rings once again saves both my life and my testimony. Aww.

AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAITED A YEAR IN BETWEEN EACH ONE no wonder I saw the first one nine times in theaters HOW AM I GOING TO WAIT A WEEK EVEN THOUGH I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS GAH.

The end.