Lord of the memes

At risk of being a dork I’ll also compare this to Star Trek (largely because OP is a clear fan). Both series are really timeless and impactful imo because they portray people as almost supremely emotionally intelligent. Everyone is very professional when they need to be - capable of great emotional restraint, but also deeply empathetic and caring and ‘tender’ when the time is right.

I mean Gimli is supposed to be the “emotional hothead” of the Fellowship and he’s literally more chill and emotionally controlled than most of the people you run into working retail

This type of relationship is pretty common in war. You and the squad end up "in the shit" and now you have all crossed the boundaries of what civilians call "manliness". You are free, unimpeachable, the manliest thing, a real warrior, a soldier in battle. The things you do now define manliness, you are writing the rules. They can call you whatever, you will reply with the sort of laughter that silences fools.

People die around you. The sound of another man's voice becomes poetry to you. How much longer will you hear his voice? Who knows, tell him a shitty joke. Sit on his lap for a gag, do whatever. Drink in his presence, press his flesh against yours, be alive together, try to keep him in your memory, tomorrow we all may die. Has anybody seen those pictures of soldiers from the American Civil War all hanging out and mugging for the camera? Acting all "gay" with each other? That's what war does to men, sometimes, probably not that often, I fear.

Somebody online with a military background once remarked about the safest he's ever felt, including in civilian life, was when he was in some tent in a war zone with the rest of the platoon, everyone in their sleeping bags, crammed in the tent together like a litter of kittens in a box. Sure, they were in the death zone, for real, but he was warm and snug, surrounded by armed badasses who would come to his aid at once if anything nasty went down. He said he slept like a baby, that he's never felt that sense of security since, not even safe in bed as a civilian, later.

It means a lot to me that this book, TLOR, was pretty much written by the Great War. Tolkien went to that war, against his own will, compelled by shame campaigns, not even the law, in spite of his own convictions, and he did not have some safe posting at the base, no, he was at the Somme. He saw the worst of it, probably missed death by inches several times, saw mud and blood, was deafened and battered, only to survive at last, coming home as changed as Frodo.

He watched men charge into machine guns like mice into a blender, watched them die of trench foot and the stupid ways war kills you without even glory or honor to show for it, saw that sometimes courage is just hiding in your little hole and not screaming when the tanks roll over. He saw Mordor in person. No man's land.

Then he came home, and did he write some edgy darkness? No. He wrote this thing, this fantasy, with its message of hope that evil can be vanquished, and that men can be good, yes, even when they seem utterly lost to goodness. This is somehow the lesson that the War to End All Wars had taught him. He had nothing left to prove, so he made a pretty, frivolous thing, for children, but couldn't help it, he couldn't help making something bigger than that. He knew how intimate men become with each other under fire, and it ended up in the book.

That is the only thing he wanted to remember, that unexpected love when suffering and death are right on top of you. I wonder who Legolas was to him? Somebody young and beautiful, who deserved to live a thousand years, but didn't, probably. They shall not grow old.

We shouldn't need the machine guns coming at us to hug our friends, that's probably what he wanted the world to know.

I'll never forget the time I ran into an old friend of mine and I went to give him a hug and he awkwardly laughed and said uh, no, and shook my hand.

We're still very good friends and we send several texts to each other every week.

But it's a terrible feeling when you instinctively go to hug someone with zero sexual feelings and get instantly and reflexively rejected. I don't blame my friend. I blame our fucked up culture.

'Murica: where we love our guns more than we love our school children. Is it any wonder men can't hug here.

Paraphrased from the last thread I saw about this: Women always want these types of men from LotR, but they never want to be like women from LotR: Strong, gentle, soft and loyal.

I mean, the problem here is that if you want emotionally available men you have to treat men better.

Good luck getting people to do that.

Look up Troy Hawke on Instagram and use his act as a guide.

Sure, the last time I tried to be tender and emotional like this my wife mocked me for crying. Do I wish for close relationships like this with my fellow men, yes but there's no room for it for some of us. Toxic masculinity is also expressed by the women in our society (USA)

The fellowship, especially the human members were made up of aristocrats doing things for honor and Valor. But most humans in 4th age me were living in squalor, a shell of a former great empire and people. Even the movies did a decent job of showing the distrust, violence and squalor and curruptability of average men.

All that said yes show less toxicity and more role model responses to hard situations is a good idea. But drama sells.