I’ve mentioned before that Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings movies won so many awards — capped off by Return of the King basically sweeping the Oscars. That acclaim also applies to the film’s soundtrack. Worth noting, of course, that Howard Shore, the composer of said soundtrack, is CanCon.
Of course, since The Lord of the Rings is one of my favourite film series — and, also, I need more music posts — it seems like a good source of more Music to Write Realmgard to.
Also, the trailer for War of the Rohirrim just dropped:
So I’ve been thinking about the Jackson-verse Lord of the Rings movies. Also, season two of Rings of Power is debuting in, like, a week, so I’ve had Lord of the Rings on the brain in general lately…
I think the general consensus is that Helm’s Deep — incidentally, Helm’s Deep is the ravine where the fortress is built, the fortress itself is called the Hornbug — is the best battle in the trilogy. I don’t disagree, but I think Fellowship is my favourite of the three movies.
Despite being the one with the fewest large-scale battles — the Last Alliance is glossed over in the prologue of Fellowship, Two Towers has Helm’s Deep, Return of the King has the Pelennor and the Black Gate — and being a slow burn in general (also true of the book), Fellowship still has some pretty compelling setpieces.
Of course, the Uruk-hai discovering Aragorn’s not locked in here with them, they’re look in here with him at Amon Hen is one of the my favourite scenes in the trilogy.
[Obligatory reminder that “Aragorn” means “Dread King.”]
But also: when the Balrog first shows up in Moria, which is probably one of the best “From Bad to Worse” sequences in cinematic history: the Orcs trap the Fellowship in Balin’s Tomb, they have a Cave Troll (that’s bad), they kill the Cave Troll and break through (that’s good), the Orcs start running away (that’s probably bad), the halls of Moria start glowing like they’re on fire (that’s definitely bad).
It’s a Balrog.
To put that into context, “Balrog” literally means “Demon of Might” and Tolkien considered writing it into the lore that they were so powerful that only a handful of them ever existed — that didn’t necessarily take; Tolkien changed his mind about a lot of stuff…
[Obligatory reminder that the character who became Aragorn was originally a Hobbit with wooden feet named Trotter.]
…but it’s clear that Tolkien considered the Balrogs has probably the most powerful servants of the Enemy in his mythos. And this particular Balrog single-handedly destroyed the strongest Dwarven kingdom in Middle-earth.
The soundtrack for this scene, The Bridge of Khazad-dûm is suitably epic, particularly the vocals supplied by a Maori rugby team. It feels like it both perfectly captures what chanting Dwarves would sound like, while the lyrics perfectly capture how apocalyptically bad it is to be up against a rampaging Balrog:
“Fire in the deep!
Flames lick our skin!
Fear rips our heart!Flames lick our skin!
Fear rips our heart!
No! No! No!
The demon comes!”Lyrics via Genius.
Which, of course, only amplifies how awesome it is when Gandalf is actually able to hold the thing back — giving some brief glimpse into his true nature as an angelic being (basically the metaphysical opposite of the Balrog itself).
Now, for what it’s worth, Khuzdul is one of the least-established language in Tolkien’s works, so whenever it appears in the movies, it’s an extrapolation based on what little we do have from Tolkien himself. It’s not necessarily entirely Tolkien-accurate — like, admittedly, a lot of stuff in the Jackson movies isn’t.
Like, do not get me started on how badly they butchered the Gondor storyline in Return of the King.
Bleach: Pierrot.
Ahem…
So, yeah, creative licence and all, but it sure sounds cool:
The Music to Write Realmgard to Playlist is here:
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