Lost in Thorin’s eyes: or, Snaffling Armitage

Getting to be a Richard Armitage fan involves learning the fine art of snaffling. There’s a sort of weird “right click” twitch I’ve learned to perform with my right ring finger whenever I see an especially beautiful photo, which is often. Lately, most of what I am snaffling is Thorin.

As one characteristic of the snaffle lies in its quick, surreptitious quality, I usually don’t record where I get the snaffled photos. This one is from a tumblr I particularly love.

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Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield

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Every photo I’ve snaffled lately has been about Thorin Oakenshield’s eyes. Armitage said once that all of Thorin is in them, and I totally feel that. I’ve often thought that Armitage has that quality of a nineteenth-century actor — the very dramatic face that can be used in so many ways to indicate so many moods, so that the photo of the actor in the role becomes immediately iconic. In a way, Armitage is out of place in a culture that emphasizes naturalistic acting because everything about him as an actor is a bit larger than life.

The role of Thorin Oakenshield totally capitalizes on these epic qualities and I never see that more clearly than in his eyes, which embody so many paradoxes (pride and shame, for instance) but above all — always that hint of vulnerability that draws me to them. The wounded warrior, whose eyes make me think there’s a way into him and his world.

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[I know I’ve been kind of AWOL lately. I still have a lot of stuff to say about The Crucible, too. I’m still adjusting to the new schedule, learning the new job, doing all the “move” things, and catching up with friends and the tap list at my favorite bar. Anyway, Yom Kippur starts Friday night. I want to do one more post before then but if I don’t manage it, Tzom Kal (easy fast) to all my friends who are fasting, and may you be sealed in the Book of Life for a good new year! See you on Saturday night at the very latest.]

~ by Servetus on October 3, 2014.