An absolute monarch is best understood from a democrat's point of view as a kind of demon, less a human being and more a deep wound in the fabric of reality

"Kings are to moral order as monsters are to physical order. Their courts are the workshops of crime, the crucible of corruption and the lair of tyrants. The history of kings reads like a martyrology of nations!" - Abbé Henri Grégoire before the National Convention, 21 September 1792

it's perfectly possible to think you can handle something and to be unable to do so (and vice versa)

people do not possess some innate knowledge of their tolerance levels

(sorry if this came a bit out of left field)

a character w/ the same sort of irascible temparement, legitimate grievances against society/the world, and some level of moral greyness, I guess?

Oh, I agree that it made sense from a narrative standpoint, but there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about the culmination of a rape survivor's arc not only being death, but essentially suicide.

I also had a question about the series if that's okay with you: what did you think of the conclusion of Jane's character arc? I can't help but wish it hadn't ended with her dying.

Hey, this post (months ago) started a chain of events that led me to start trying to write fanfiction, so thanks for introducing me to this series!

Janus bet Vhalnich ghostwrote this post, didn't he?

Actually, the story of Aragorn and Arwen's romance (and indeed Arwen herself) emerged quite late during the writing process for LR - at some point during the writing of RoK, iirc. In fact, there was a period during which Tolkien did envisage Eowyn as a genuine love interest for Aragorn.

are you telling me these aren't upstanding people?

Well then, go there and do something about it, Fritz. Make your grandpa proud.

Eh, sort of. Codexes and lore blurbs are generally pretty clear that while guardians are nominally a citizen militia, they're still on par with the professional soldiers of other species. How well that is reflected on the tabletop and in the fiction is... variable.

Here, Biel imagined Jesus as a fusion of the male divine principle joined to the female human nature, which was furnished by Jesus’s mother” - Leah DeVun, The Shape of Sex, pp.190-191

“According to [Gabriel] Biel’s argument, even in his male form Christ embodied both sexes because his human nature was inherently feminine. This position identified the fleshy, material aspects of existence – and hence humanity – with the female sex. […]

unironically something that was argued by some medieval theologians! (though obvs they didn't know about chromosomes)