I Love Them (and Need More Fancy Disguise Hijinks In Season 2)

I love them (and need more fancy disguise hijinks in season 2)

one of my personal favorite dichotomies in atla is how iroh, once the top strategist and highest-ranking general of the fire nation, now directs all his energy and considerable tactical experience towards attempting to keep his teenage nephew from throwing himself into life-threatening situations AND IROH REGULARLY FAILS TO PREVENT HIM FROM DOING SO.

he lead a six-hundred day siege and now iroh can't keep up with a sixteen-year-old armed with two swords and a passionate deathwish. zuko's motto is "act first, think never" and he's running rings around his uncle. it's like!!! who's gonna come out on top, iroh's west point education vs. zuko's deep and abiding commitment to always choosing the stupidest possible course of action, and zuko manages to win every single time

I painted these two and have already started getting them tattooed! Never has there ever been better written characters

#honestly the only indication that tolkien gives of canon couples having sex is them marrying#and/or having children#and since gay marriage was not legal in tolkien’s lifetime#and children wouldn’t have been a thing#there is literally no reason their relationship would have been brought up as explicitly sexual in canon even if it were#like#the most that would have been mentioned would be them loving each other and sharing their lives#OH WAIT#tolkien barely mentions Aragorn/Arwen#and that’s canon as hell#their story is in the appendix#alongside legolas taking gimli to valinor#so it not being mentioned isn’t weird even by straight pairing standards#gigolas#gimli#legolas#legolas x gimli (tags from @aragornsrockcollection)

Reblogging to share these additions from @aragornsrockcollection, as they are extremely correct and accurate additions!

On a more pride themed Tolkien note, I would like to share the fact that Legolas and Gimli wound up such good friends during the events of LotR that Legolas - whose heart was forever longing to travel across the sea from the moment he first laid eyes on it - stayed in Middle-earth until Aragorn died many years after the events of LotR, and then he took Gimli with him when he sailed to Valinor. To quote Tolkien's own words, "Legolas took Gimli Gloin's son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it."

That last bit referring to the fact that literally no other Dwarf had ever sailed across the sea or ever sailed across the sea again. Just Gimli, who was taken to Valinor by his good pal Legolas, in the boat that Legolas built himself when he was finally ready to depart from Middle-earth and follow his heart's desire. Just two good pals in a boat sailing over the sea together. Two great friends from peoples who were historically Not Friends, leaving behind the mortal world side by side, heading out together in the boat that one of them built by hand for the two of them to travel in.

And anyways I've always kind of loved that Tolkien wrote one of the best romances in literature apparently without even realizing it.

I love her, my god