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P-JoArt — SoW: A Reversal of the Wicked
#celebrimbor #earth #elves #lotr #middle #middleearth #mordor #sauron #shadow #silmarillion #talion #tolkien #mairon #telperinquar #tyelperinquar #shadowofmordor #middleearthshadowofwar
Published: 2018-10-23 05:01:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 12685; Favourites: 137; Downloads: 24
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Scenes from a drabble I wrote: A Reversal of the WickedEDIT: I had to downsize it because, even though I set it to display at full resolution, deviantART kept resizing it down on its own which made it look all muddy!! D': So if you want to see the better resolution you have to CLICK HERE!!! :<<<
Talion had made the decision, the one he had been postponing for so long only to realise that it had been the only choice.
When the time came, he said yes.
He would serve the Dark Master.
He had only one condition, however, and he knew Sauron had no obligation to grant any wish to him, but he knew that the Dark Lord would be delighted to acquiesce to this particular request.Reblog on Tumblr: p-joart.tumblr.com/post/179336…
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Comments: 34
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
By the Valar, what have you done? You've made it worse! You've made it SO MUCH WORSE!
In all seriousness, though: your art is beautiful! I love the limited color palette! Not only does it make things feel supernatural, like the Wraith-world, it also really makes things like the blood and Talion's hellish eyes stand out. And I am in complete awe of the way you can draw their expressions and the raw tension in their posture. Teach me your ways, oh demon!
Celebrimbor looks utterly shattered, and I can just feel the utter rage pouring off Talion in panels 4 and 5, how you can immediately tell it's a brutal, unloving mockery of a "kiss". *shudders* And then there's Sauron acting like a creep. It's amazing how his whole aura comes off as gentle, maybe even kind... but then you notice that malicious, satisfied twinkle in his eye.
When he first showed up in SoM, I was like "Oooh, who's this gorgeous blond mofo-"
*eyes flash with Sauron's hellfire*
"Sh!t! Abort! ABORT!"
LOL. It was a memorable moment, and now I'm 200% convinced that Sauron's most terrifying persona is not the 8ft iron juggernaut - it's his fair form, hands down. And you've captured exactly that feeling here, something twisted and corrupted beyond all repair.
*returns to stalking your Tumblr*
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
Oooops 
At the first line somehow I was like "wha - what did I do" and ready to shield myself from a load of accusations. 
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed this so! 
As for drawing expressions and posture, there goes a lot of embarrassingly posing myself in front of the mirror or the camera. When I go through my webcamera shots it's always worth a good laugh. xD
I'm glad you think that kiss is clearly an unloving mockery, cause after some people asked 'why is he kissing him' I was starting to doubt myself.
And lol yes, that's my bae Sauron, so creepy and gorgeous, isn't he the perfect bad guy in that fair form.
If you want to, feel free to drop me a line on tumblr, I'm not sure I know your account there. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Nope, no accusations here - other than criminally messing with my feels. This last few hours of this game were traumatizing enough without you busting out the Reddi-wip to dollop on top, LOL. 
Don't doubt the kiss! The harsh cruelty of it fits perfectly, IMO. And yes, Sauron is the perfect bad guy; after I saw the subtlety and evil cunning his fair form was capable of, his villainy shot up so far he broke the meter. *must not think dirty thoughts about Sauron- must not think dirty thoughts... too late.*
Oh, and I forgot to mention how much I loved the lack of a "hard stop" between the panels. They blur and bleed and flow into each other, and I REALLY like the way that turned out!
No FB account for moi. DA remains the best place to reach me!
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Sorry, that's my way of trying to cope.
"must not think dirty thoughts about Sauron"
DEFINITELY too late. 
I'm glad that worked out well!
Alright then, maybe I could send you a note?
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A note would do just fine.
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AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I love how you captured all of their expressions and body language so well!!
Poor Celebrimbor...
god... both him and Maedhros did not have a very good life and now that I think of it I will go cry in a corner
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much!
Yeah, Tyelpe and Mae are easily my two fave elves of Tolkien, I'm such a sucker for tormented characters. D'x
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SSSSAAAAAMMMEEEE THOUGH (Maedhros is my bae X3) And becuz I'm such a wicked person I'm ashamed to admit I sort of ship Celebrimbor with Sauron
not sure about talion though I'm not really for that one. anyway I'm going to hell for shipping them XP
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Silverfisting=> the dirty thought that creeps under your skin and from then on you just cannot ignore it anymore. 
NAAAAWWW How can you not ship Talion and Celebrimbor, those two are so made for each other!
Pretty sure we're goign to hell in every religion, yeah
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I really like the flow and the colors and the realism of the story.
I've never played, the game, though… and no I am confused: the dark haired man is Melkor in Chains, the blond is Sauron (?) and the beardy man is Talion who is possessed by Sauron/the Ring? Why does Talion kiss/bite Melkor? And than he punishes Melkor? Or is the black haired one Sauron, too?
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Thank you very much!
I want to reply to your question but I feel I must warn you that the answer is quite spoilerish for both the games (Shadow of Mordor/War). Although the games have been out for a while and these informations are vastly known by most people thus are generally not considered spoilers, since you apparently are one of the few who don't know it yet I thought it was right to warn you to continue to read below only if you're ok with this. xDD I honestly advice to just find it out playing the games cause they are awesome, but it's up to you, a little spoiler can't hurt that much. xD
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The black haired chained elf is the Wraith of Celebrimbor, last descendant of Feanor and the main smith that forged the Rings of Power in the Second Age, under the guidance of Sauron in the guise of Annatar, the "Lord of Gifts". In this game's story his spirit was cursed to haunt Mordor after he was killed by Sauron, and later he was bound to Talion, a Ranger of the Black Gate murdered with his family in a ritual slaugther to summon Celebrimbor.
The beardy man is in fact Talion, who after being betrayed by Celebrimbor (later in the second game), took one of the Nine Rings and became a Nazgûl. In this little story I wrote, when he joins Sauron (here seen in the form of Annatar, that fair haired shiny elf in the third panel) Talion asks to be allowed to take his revenge on Celebrimbor's spirit who has been captured by Sauron. That is basically what happens. The kiss is not actually a "real" kiss (Talion has his lips shut), it's more of a cruel mockery, since they had been so close for so long and then Celebrimbor betrayed Talion.
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I don't play games (except… maybe some Yoshi, Tetris or something like that), so I don't fear the spoiler
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Yes, very sad. 
In case you are interested, there are videos on youtube that put together all the cutscenes from the games into a 'cinematic' version, the story can be easily followed without playing the game (though it's actually a pretty cool game imo xD I'm not too much of a gamer myself but I recently got hooked up with a couple of titles. I'm really slow and just play once in a while but who cares.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The emotions and art style is awe-inspiring and breathtaking. I love that you only colored in the blood red and left the rest back and white. It is just overall appealing to the eyes. Very good, stunning work, I will have to check out your story.
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Thank you so much, I'm so delighted that the emotions are perceivable!
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DAMN ... ! You gave them such great emotions, it´s stunning! I was really angry about Celebrimbor and what he had done to Talion ... but now I feel so sorry for both of them. Seems to be a abwesome story what you wrote. Sadly I can´t read so much stuff in english, but I love your drawings. It´s funny, I had drawn a sketch with Morgoth that looks nearly like the first pic and now I want to work it out. XD
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Thank you so so much, I really tried, I'm glad you could feel the emotion!
The story I wrote is a short drabble made as prompt. To sum it up, Talion joins Sauron at the condition that the Dark Lord lets him see Celebrimbor's spirit once more and take his revenge on him. After that, Talion has a brief moment of regret in which he wonders if Celebrimbor could have been saved when he was alive before evil touched him, thus sparing Talion such a cruel fate as well. Then the Nazgul taint corrupts him finally, and all is lost. So much glee, lol. x'D
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Your end is even worse than in the game XD
I was especially mad at Cele because he betrayed Talion and then let him down. All this would not have happened if they had implemented their actual plan WITH Talion. He did not have to become a Nazgul, but Cele just got scared and betrayed Talion, so I do not like him very much, and that had nothing to do with what Cele had to go through ... both are very poor guys! But I can understand Talion well in your story, even if it's evil. All this blood and pain ... did he kill Cele? It´s not clear to me.
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Hahah yeah, it had to be really really sad, to push my friend into writing a fic for my prompt that was like "Talion goes back in time to try and stop the creation of the Rings of Power", sort of like "please fix this terrible mess somehow", if you get what I mean. xD
Weeeeell, this discussion needs a long dissertation that I'm not entirely comfortable doing here, but there we go. Wall fo text incoming. xDDD I guess Talion is easier to relate to for most people. But I actually feel very much what is going on with Celebrimbor. Everything he's been through, both in life and in death (millennias wandering Mordor alone just watching, raging and grieving? who would be sane after that, seriously??), all of that has corrupted him into something very different from the elf he was; and it's pretty clear from the beginning of SoM that he would do anything to achieve the twisted goals that he set for himself. He is a spirit of vengeance, he has lost so much of his soul, burned into rage and hatred; such a creature can only lean towards absolute axioms. The last straw was when he poured so much of himself into the new ring, which worsened once more his corruption. Talion was his only moral compass by then basically. Then when Celebrimbor realized he could dominate Nazguls and believed he could do the same with Sauron, Talion was only a hindrance and he had to be sacrificed for a greater good. I believe Celebrimbor didn't take any joy in sacrificing Talion, he just tells him that this is greater than both of them and their "petty revenge" or something, which he believes Talion. For me this is just all the more painful, the thought that Celebrimbor gave up the last drops of his soul and his friendship with Talion because he just had to, in his mind he had no other choice.
At the same time, I just can't let go the thought that Celebrimbor KNEW Sauron CAN NOT be destroyed or dominated - he's a god of sorts after all - and subconsciously Celebrimbor just decided to go kamikaze because he couldn't take it anymore, but he left Talion to die so he would not be corrupted by Sauron as well. So basically in some twisted way I believe he was subconsciously trying to save him. If this makes any sense. Like: "I have to do this, you wouldn't understand, just go back to your family now." After all Talion was supposed to be dead long ago, and his first wish had been to reunite with his family in death. But Talion just couldn't let go. In a way he had been corrupted too and much of what happened is his fault too: he decided to stay after they took down the Black Hand and he suggested to create a new ring, and I believe that moment was a huge pivotal point in their descent.
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Oh wow textflash hahaha! Thanks, it´s nice to talk about it, but I think I dont understand ... the picture is about a story where Talion kills Celeb -in the past-? You know about time paradoxes eh? XD
It's true that Cele probably wanted to protect Talion. That makes him nice again ... but if he wanted to protect him from danger and release him, why the hell, is he just letting the ring of Isildur lie around him ??? I just guess: this is a huge fail of the game storyteller, because otherwise Cele has provoked everything himself and consciously what will become of Talion. And I hardly believe it, because despite all the crap he had to go through, he still had a good attitude. Logically speaking, it makes no sense. He would never have left Isildur's ring lying around and never before a cursed and dying man!
It's not like I do not understand Cele. I have designed even extremely traumatized characters who have to endure over thousands of years a very profound psychological construct of lunacy, grief and violence BUT NOT ALL FAIL! Therefore I reproach Cele surely to betrayed and sacrificed Talion in my opinion. It was still his decide and he could had have decided other. Especially if they could then fight three against Sauron and not just two! I think they could even do it in threes.
(sorry my english is bad and google tells/writes more crap than you think.)
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No, the story is basically what you see in these pictures, Talion asks Sauron to see Celebrimbor, and takes his revenge on him. There was a PROMPT lying in there, like an idea, a suggestion for ANOTHER fiction, not something that I wrote. But it was Talion going back in time TO SAVE Celebrimbor and stop the creation of the Rings - not to kill him, lol, that'd be cruel considering Celebrimbor hadn't yet done anything wrong back then. xD
As for leaving Isildur's ring around, it does seem like a slip on both Celebrimbor and the game developers' side, a little unexplained hole among many in this game.
I can venture a couple of theories: -Maybe Celebrimbor was too concerned with his plans to worry about that, and he probably believed Talion would've died in a matter of seconds anyway. After all, why would he CONSCIOUSLY let ANYONE near that ring, thus providing one more ally to Sauron?
-The same can be said about Sauron leaving Celebrimbor's ring lying on the ground for Eltariel to grab.
-My guess is that those Rings may control those who touch them. Both Gandalf and Galadriel didn't dare taking the One Ring, not even for destroying it, so it does make sense. Celebrimbor couldn't destroy Isildur's ring himself (cause he's a ghost, remember? he can't touch things at all), and he didn't ask to Eltariel to take it because it may cause her corruption. In the same way, in fact, even Sauron didn't touch or have anyone take Celebrimbor's ring cause that may have caused Celebrimbor's spirit to retake control on it.
-I can imagine one could object that Eltariel didn't need to pick up the ring, she could have kicked it far away without touching it. Then again I suspect Shelob would have taken it back to him. Her power is not to underestimate and her spiders are everywhere. The fact that the Ring appeared right next to Talion's hand for him to grab in his last seconds of life, right after talking to her, makes me believe she had a little part in pushing it just a little bit closer to make it happen.
Those are wild guesses but seem to work out decently to explain the story.
As for them defeating Sauron if they had been in three? Not a chance, in my opinion. Sauron is immortal, even if they managed to defeat him (of which I doubt) he would come back, even in the game that is pretty clear and Eltariel says that evil just comes back and they have a chance to end it by dominating Sauron instead. I personally don't think that he could be dominated by Celebrimbor's power in any way either. Celebrimbor is using powers that Sauron himself taught him, there's not a chance Celebrimbor could best Sauron at his own game.
The only thing that could be done was keeping to "disturb" Sauron's army like Talion did, but the benefit of that is very unclear. Celebrimbor decided to take the risk of trying to dominate Sauron, it was a win or lose situation but I guess he had to take that chance, considering his history it does make sense.
And mind I don't justify Celebrimbor for being a douche to Talion, but I can't really hold it against him either: this is one of those Shakesperean situations where drama erupts from everywhere and it's just impossible to place the blame on one single person because even those who did it aren't entirely responsible of that; it's like evil has a mind of its own and works up to its own ends, ruining even those who want to be righteous, and there's nothing to break this curse.
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I think I still do not understand this story right, that's probably because of my bad translation, but it does not matter, it sounds very interesting and creative and I love your pictures anyway!
Because of the "betrayal" of Talion and the surrounding rings:
I thought that they would have had a better chance at third to capture Sauron than only at two, it also looked a bit that they could do it. If Talion had been there, it would have worked in my opinion. It's clear to me that you can not really kill Sauron. And I think it would have been possible to convince Talion to join in, at least to capture him. Honestly, I do not even know what Talion had actually thought of what thair plan was. Has anyone never told him before that you can not kill Sauron??? OMG!
That Cele was a ghost and can not touch the ring, I really did not thought haha! But yes, he could have told Eltariel. And no she could have taken the thing, because even Gandalf has picked up the one ring by putting it in a piece of textile before - so not directly touched. That seems to be enough to, at least, hide it somewhere fast. So, what the fuck ... no matter if Talion, the spiders or Gollum or a orc or Nazgul or anyone else ... somebody would have snapped the ring sooner or later. It remains an illogical event for me to let it lay. Especially when Cele is sacrificing the last of his soul to stop Sauron. But then leave something lying around and probably leave to the enemy so ??? Again lol!
Sauron, too, could have snatched the new ring from some servant before Eltariel and imprisoned Eltariel. It seems very illogical to me that a Nazgul can not fly high before Eltariel has woken up.
But hey ... it´s just a game. XD
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Gandalf only holds it for a few seconds inside that cloth. Taking it and bringing it to Mount Doom to destroy it would take a longer time and risk. Considering they were going to face Sauron in a win or lose situation soon after, I guess Celebrimbor didn't really care what happened of that Nazgul Ring. If Celebrimbor won, he would have controlled the Nine probably, if he lost then the fate of the Nazgul Rings mattered not to him, right? Cause in his mind there would be no others to fight Sauron after him and have a chance to succeed.
As for Sauron, I can only guess that Celebrimbor's Ring may corrupt one of the Nazguls as well. I still don't get why he didn't have Eltariel imprisoned. I'll just accept that she snatched the Ring and ran away before Sauron's minions could get up there, and that probably Sauron didn't consider her a threat anyway (after all, she just basically handed Celebrimbor to him, so maybe he let her free cause he thinks she could become an ally later, who knows?? x°DD)
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Ohhh yeah hehe, that would suit to Sauron. He definitely has patience! >,..,>
Yeah, Gandalf only holds it for a few seconds ... it was the one ring ... but here we have "just" a Nazgul ring ... however yes. You´re right, Cele may not care, because with him everything is won or lost ... but that does not make him more nice! Overbearing bastard! XD
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