Unironically positing Iran as Morgoth and the Hothis as his orcs seems pretty self-evidently unhinged to me (or at the very least suggests a complete lack of critical media literacy)
Not following you here. Iran and the Houthis have a close relationship, and Iran has long-standing interests in turning the Houthis into a proxy actor for the Iranian-Saudi cold war. To what degree the Houthis see themselves as part of Iran's "Axis of Resistance" and to what degree they see themselves as fellow travelers is something I don't think anyone actually has strong evidence about.
Iran and the Houthis know the Red Sea is a major pinch-point for international shipping. The Houthis were also quite open about their desire to close the straits to Israeli, British, and American shipping in support of Hamas/Gaza/Palestine.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels also announce ‘submarine weapons’, as leader pledges to continue attacks amid Gaza war.
www.aljazeera.com
The Houthis almost certainly acquired the weapons used to attack shipping from Iran, and the Iranian government aren't idiots. They knew exactly what sort of role anti-ship missiles would be used for.
The Iranian government also knows that the US-Israeli relationship is our major weak spot in the Middle East. Heck, it took six months and 30,000 dead Palestinians for the US to start to offer tepid criticism of Israel. Iranian soft power and support in the wider Middle East comes in large part for being the only Muslim country that still "stands up to" American and Israel. Fighting against Israel and "the West" through proxies is a long standing part of Iranian foreign policy.
The level of control Iran has over the Houthis is something we can discuss and disagree about, but someone taking the position Iran has pretty strong control over regional proxies is hardly something I would call "unhinged". If anything, I think the Israel-Hamas war has shown how little control Iran has over its proxies in the "Axis of Resistance", but I don't think it is unreasonable to think otherwise.
If you want to dither over what "proxy" means, go ahead. I'm not wedded to any particular definition. For example, I've heard the Arab-Israeli wars (Six Day War, Yom Kippur War, War of Attrition, etc) described a US-Soviet proxy war with Israel, Egypt, and Syria as proxies. In that context, as long as one understands "proxy" doesn't mean "puppet", I for one don't have any problem describing the Arab-Israeli wars as in part a proxy conflict between the US and USSR without diminishing any of the local factors that helped drive the conflict.