#seriously it’s pretty much canon that pippin and merry remind him of fili and kili
Imagine how incredibly lonely it is to be the Gray Wizard, always on the road and immortal – the First Children of Illuvatar too hidebound with their customs, living their lives always slowly; the Younger Children with their brilliant sparks all too brief, your own kind scattered to the ends of the earth and apart.
To love the world and its future fiercely enough to fight all your endless days for it, wondering whether it will be enough – knowing that the cycle of time is forged not by those who live outside it, but those who will die within it, and at the end, you will still be there, when the world is dust, and even the First Children have sailed. Because power and immortality come always with a price, and you have paid, oh, you have paid-
here I was thinking the kili-fili/merry-pippin analogy gifsets couldn’t get any more heart-wrenching, then this commentary happened