Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, or: On crying every single time

Mr. Thornton (Richard Armitage) observes Margaret pouring the tea in episode 1 of North & South. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com

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Three or four people reminded me this week that it was my Armitagemania onset anniversary and I found myself reflecting, off and on, about how that storm hit and the feeling the first weeks afterward. It was a little bit like the World Cup of Armitagewatching — it’s just instead of watching soccer in every spare second I was watching  North & South, living for the moment when I could go home and turn on that VCR. Quoting myself:

From January 7, 2010 to January 28, I was watching North & South in every free second I had, first in my parents’ living room, then in hotel rooms, then, finally, at home. Pattern: Get up in the morning, feel anxious, watch until I’m calm or else about to be late to class. Get dressed, breathing deeply. Drive to work, park, buy a coffee, walk to office. Work, teach, prepare, counsel students, write, grade, administer, with occasional breaks for food. Talk to mom on the phone. When all the crises are under control, walk to car, drive home, pick up food on the way, enter apartment. Slam door, drop bags, gasp until I sob. Stay in the dark till that stops, because if I can’t see my body I am not real and I don’t have to deal with anything an unreal body might be doing, feeling. Turn on lights, climb into bed with food, put DVD in laptop, snuggle up, watch until I feel I can sleep, usually with lights on. Sleep. Repeat. I went to therapy one morning a week. Dear Friend knew something was wrong but didn’t pester, just kept dropping into the visitor’s chair in my office and inviting me over for dinner with her partner. Twenty-one days.

Every time I am tempted to quit blogging, I remember those three weeks, how watching North & South saved me. I remember the atmosphere in that city, in that workplace, in that apartment, in that bedroom, and the way that North & South — and Richard Armitage — made it okay. I didn’t have an explanation then but it didn’t matter.

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Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, immediately after finally killing Azog, looking over the battlefield, back towards Erebor, in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

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Since dad’s been gone, I’ve been transfixed by Thorin’s death in The Battle of the Five Armies. I’m not in such terrible shape as I was in January 2010, of course, or rather, I’m in much better shape despite everything. And it’s not quite the same because I can’t take myself to the cinema every evening, and I can’t fit it in, always, to watch it twice — but I can always fit it in to cry. Tonight I thought I would analyze that scene, but I am still too emotionally close to it; I am still crying every single time I see it.

My breath catches when I see that Thorin is determined to win.

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And then I see the point where he realizes what’s going to happen, where the calculation sets in, of how he can win, or not.

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And then the point at which he realizes that losing is the only way to win, and the pain that causes him, more than the pain from the sword pressing him into the ice:

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Look at that lip, the outer edge of the right side of his face. And this is the point at which my own breathing starts to choke, my cheek muscles clench, my eyes begin to sting. I fight it, and then, like Thorin, I lose.

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The tears are starting before he rises, and walked away, and looks back

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then it’s the whole thing with Bilbo and the way that scene is played, the way he quickly gasps out his words, the way he seems almost relieved of his burdens

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We see how massive the dwarf Oakenshield is:

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and how aware he is of exactly what has happened:

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It’s not only the eagles that draw the direct parallel between these scene and the last one in An Unexpected Journey, it is the same earnestness of tone and emotion with which Thorin speaks.

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and Thorin’s urgency

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the love and the self-recognition and the awareness of his own passing, the way he draws up his cheeks toward his eyes, is this a smile, or pain, or both?

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and that last look of love and appreciation in his eyes

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and the way in which he is suddenly gone, his eyes empty

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I think I understand better what’s going on now — after realizing that I was cathecting to Thorin, and then realizing that the job search in 2012-13 was like trying to retake Erebor — now I watch what I might have become had I not let go. Thorin realizes what I saw a few months ahead of him, that you have to give in to lose, and if you give in quickly enough, perhaps you will not die. And I watch, now cathecting with his death as I give in to my own professional death … or so I think. And Armitage’s acting remains supreme. There will be so much more to be said, but for now I will simply let myself cry — every time.

~ by Servetus on January 12, 2015.