Your gateway to endless inspiration
Silmarillion - Blog Posts
Very latish happy new year everyone! But it is never too late for kisses under mistletoe
I’m a fucking idiot. I’ve been turning over in my brain why nobody in the Silmarillion seems to get a redemption arc, why nobody seems to be able to make up for the harm they’ve done, etc.
One of the biggest themes in the Silmarillion is “the fall.” The fall from grace, the doomed, the railing against the impossible. Of COURSE nobody gets a redemption arc! It runs counter to the whole point of the book!
Now, Lotr specifically is different. Lotr is about finding hope when all seems lost, and finding allies in unexpected places against the darkness. This allows characters like Boromir to “fall” and yet redeem himself in his final moments, is what allows Sméagol to peek through in Gollum, is what lets Theoden lift his head from Grima’s ear and instead take Gandalf’s counsel.
But the Silmarillion? The Silmarillion is about the fall and doom of the Noldor, the decimation of Beleriand, and the consequences of failing to stop Morgoth. Of course nobody recovers. Of course.
Maglor as a La Llorona type figure in Middle Earth during the third age. He's either as faded as he can be without dying or has fades but his ghost roams Middle Earth. Like La Llorona, he can be found by bodies of water, mostly a coast, but it's said that he wails and cries for his children, but Maglor Feanorian never had children right?
He cries mostly for Elrond and Elros, he cries for his twin brothers whom he helped raise, and he cries for family, his desperate need for family and for love and security.
He has been seen approaching both elven and human children, but the Men began to hate him when twin girls disappeared one night and it was said the "Ghost Elf" took them.
Elrond has heard the rumors, but didn't have the time to believe or give much thought to it. That is until he finds a wraith like figure in the nursery of his twin sons. Elrond is frozen but it seems this ghost is too, only quiet crying sounds as shaking hands brushes at the dark hair of the infants. An airy whisper fills the room like a harsh chill:
"Elrond... Elros..."
. . . . .
I made a Sad! Aren't ya proud of me!!?? /j
I had this idea for a while but have finally been able to write it down properly!
What a bittersweet, heart wrenching moment it must have been when Galadriel first met Aragorn and saw he wore the ring that Finrod had given to Barahir so many thousands of years ago. That her brother's love was still being carried as such a treasured symbol of hope.
I think about this a lot.
just got here and i'm happy to see so much silmarillion content on tumblr. but everyone's doing ANYTHING to get new content. fighting for crumbs, i've seen morgoth vs fingolfin as giant christmas cookies and crochet elves (cute). at least we found each other. maybe the real silmarillion was the friends we made along the way
Sauron and Melkor crafting Maedhros' manacle
Full credit to @solsolange who created this gorgeous masterpiece, and who gave me permission to post it here.
Fanart of Weep and Be Burned, ch8
Your father and twin brother just died, and you were made chieftain of the Haladin, and now the weird elf lord in whose lands your people live is making what he thinks are f-me eyes at you.
Something quick and simple with Feanor and Fingolfin
The arrow is kind of random because I didn't want to give swords to both of them. Don't judge me!
merry yule everyone !
Look at this 'morgoth doing a big steppy on fingolfin' cookie
Lady Galadriel, of the golden house of Finarfin, the mightiest and fairest of all elves who remained in the Middle Earth. Lady of Lothlórien and bearer of Nenya. Her hair captured the light of the Trees of Valinor and were so beautiful, that Fëanor asked her for oneand she refused, which made him create the Silmarils.
Later; in third age, she was asked again for a single hair by Gimli and she gave him three.
I'm going back to my roots. I've decided to reread lord of the rings, the second ever book I read :) (after the hobbit ofc)
the franchise gives me so much nostalgia. I love it sm.
and I love the movies too. ofc we always watch the extended cuts, it is the law
Of Celebrian
Having a lifetime love of Elrond means that, of course, I have a keen interest in the characters around him. Perhaps the easiest character to love, simply because of the lack of textual evidence of her and so as a reader your imagination can go wild, is Celebrian.
I have gathered all mentions of her in Tolkien’s works and they will all be undercut, with any additional information, in the hope that it will be a resource for all fans of Elrond, Celebrian, or any other character that she may have come into contact with. Please reblog if you have found it helpful, and let me know if you would like further posts like this for other characters.
This should be all you ever need to know about her all in one place!
If you have found any errors please message me. If there is any missing information please message me.
Keep reading
Maybe Turgon chose to follow his family to cross the Ice partially because his daughter kept having dreams of 'Tirion' getting destroyed in fire
(After Gondolin was built Idril would one day look at the city from some tower and went "oh no")
I honestly have no concrete opinion right now, I like letting all versions exist simultaneously for the most part. But other than the usual son or Fingon or Orodreth, some others I've heard, ranked on outlandishness:
Lalwen's son
Glorfindel's kid, where Glorfindel is in turn Lalwen's son
Son of Caranthir (sometimes +Haleth)
A random kid Círdan found in the trash and said "yeah, I can work with this"
Finduilas in disguise
Actually Círdan's kid somehow, not Noldorin at all, they're running a con
Either Eluréd or Elurín in disguise. Or both depending on the day.
A Maia who got bored
Two dwarves in a trench coat
The ambiguity is so funny I love it.
PLEASE send me ur who-is-gil-galad theories i am losing my absolute mind rn
do you ever think that elrond, who was born amidst war and lost nearly his entire family, created a house of his own to look out for all the war-torn, displaced families seeking refuge ?
Elrond: Hostage or not, sometimes it's nice being held.
Gil-galad: Are you okay?
2 other things i really love from this translation of finrod song battle!!!
1) the use of "a lo lejos" (far away) to describe nargothrond, and in the next line the use of "mucho más lejos" (much farther away) to describe the western sea. it feels to me like an emphasis on how far from home finrod is in this moment. its very bittersweet to me
2) "EL VIENTO SE LAMENTA" FOR "THE WIND WAILS." ALSJAKDHSHJAH. ok let me explain. this is the first phrase following the description of the kinslaying at alqualondë. yes lamentarse can technically be translated as to wail but it also has an obvious connection to lament, regret, grief, and so on. much more powerful i think in this context (probably not intentional but i could also connect this to manwë mourning the fall of the noldor and the slaying of the teleri...... just saying)
Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings is Queen of Nothing by The Crane Wives!
requested by anon!
We all know that Halenthir has impeccable vibes, but no one can convince me that Haleth isn't a raging lesbian. Luckily, there's an obvious solution to this problem: transfem Caranthir. In this essay I will-
linguistics hcs: voseo in (fëanorian) quenya
i am currently taking a course on spanish dialects and yesterday we talked about "voseo" which in oversimplified terms is a variation in 2nd person informal pronouns and verbs, e.g. tú tienes -> vos tenís. the rules and commonality of voseo depend largely on the region, so in some places it is the default, in some places it is not used or barely used at all, and in some places it is a complicated little shit (for example, here in chile, you will sometimes hear the tú pronoun with the vos form of the verb, e.g. tú tenís, and the vos pronoun is reserved for Very familiar or informal situations).
my knowledge of quenya grammar is pre-elementary, so everything i am about to say is based exclusively on what i think would be fun, but!!!! let's go back to valinor in the years of the trees. while i'm pretty sure tolkien never made a distinction between formal/informal 2nd person in quenya, i do think the noldor would have naturally created one (they were big fans of their monarchy which would lead to quite the hierarchical society, they canonically mess around w grammatical rules for fun, and i also can't imagine they wouldn't employ a high level of formality when speaking to the ainur or at least the valar in particular).
now, i am a big fan of the hc that fëanor created the exclusive 1st person plural in quenya (as in "WE do this but YOU the listener do NOT") so he could make subtle grammatical jabs at indis and her kids. we also know the fëanorians used linguistic differences as political markers (see: shibboleth of fëanor). ALL THIS TO SAY, i think fëanor also created a quenya equivalent of voseo. it's not an exact equivalent because of historical context and reasoning for the shift in spanish, but suspend ur disbelief. here's what i think happened in quenya:
c. the noldor's arrival in valinor, they introduced a formal 2nd person form ("usted" for the sake of comparing this to spanish) (this was probably also picked up by the vanyar, if u care) (i will think about telerin languages another day, i'm already giving myself a headache)
fëanor, in an effort to distinguish his house and followers from the rest of the finwëans (specifically the nolofinwëans bc this is fëanor we're talking about), introduced a More Familiar informal 2nd person (see: chilean voseo) used only among the fëanorians
fëanorian "voseo" functions very similarly to chilean voseo overall. the pronoun itself is reserved for very informal/familiar contexts, close relationships, etc, but the VERB takes over from the standard informal form ("tú" conjugations) in the fëanorian dialect as another political marker
so for example, fëanor would "vos tenís" his kids, but "tú tenís" fingolfin's kids
i am inclined to say that this shift happens after the unchaining of melkor, when the political divide is a lot more dramatic, and therefore the whole thing is very controversial, but definitely is the standard in formenos during the exile
could also be used for dramatic effect
imagine the scenes if fëanor addressed fingolfin w the Fëanorian Super Informal Pronoun in "get thee gone and take thy due place"
imagine the scenes if fingolfin addressed fëanor w the Fëanorian Super Informal Pronoun in "thou shalt lead and i will follow"!!!!!
the fëanorians in beleriand definitely preserved this, bc of course they did
whether this phenomenon exists in other languages besides quenya i am unsure
i am too exhausted after all that to write any sort of proper conclusion. i hope it made sense. feel free to ask questions or add things on. live laugh linguistics
Made this a little while ago, I'll be doing more when I have the spoons for it lol.
The Silmarillion as Vines
So during Rings of Power season 2, there was a bit of theorizing going around that Mirdania would turn out to be Celebrían. Personally I'm glad that wasn't the case. However it got me thinking. What if Celebrían was one of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain? With her parents living in Eregion for a while and all that, it could potentially fit in very nicely. I had to draw her of course.
So I've been obsessing over that AU(?) idea... I haven't got much concrete yet but I definitely have Ideas.
I've been trying to get back into writing more recently, so there is a chance I'll try to put together a fic with this concept. It would be my first real attempt at fanfic. 😬 I enjoy reading it but I've never really tried it for myself. So. Not sure. I'll see if this goes anywhere but I at least wanted to share the art.
"average elf uses 3 brain cells a year" factoid actually statistical error. average elf uses 0 brain cells per year. Braincells Elrond, who lives in Imladris & uses 10,000 brain cells every day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
do you ever just think about how Elrond and Celebrian likely represent Tolkien's fear of being left alive, alone, without his wife, Edith... and then that very thing comes to pass... and then just start crying.... everyday i think of letter 340 and slowly feel my heart breaking more and more
Late 1st Age Noldor: We've made a king :)
Círdan: You've ruined a perfectly good child is what you did. Look at him. He has anxiety.
The tapestries made by the Aubusson manufacture based on the art of JRR Tolkien are currently exhibited at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris until May. @actual-bill-potts and I went there yesterday, they're so beautiful!!
These are all handmade tapestries, each is based on a Tolkien artwork (the Rivendell one has the facsimile on the right for scale).
Under the cut: group ID and bonus details
ID: 7 photos of the tapestries, which are each about 3m high, located in a 13th century monastery. The first is the map of middle earth, the others are illustrations Tolkien made of his books. The bonus photos below are details of the tapestries.
Character Thoughts - Elwing
I don’t think that Elwing throwing herself into the ocean had anything to do with possessiveness about the Silmaril. For me, it recalls two other scenes in Tolkien’s work.
One is Frodo’s defiance at the Ford of Bruinen: “By Elbereth and Lúthien the Fair, you shall have neither the Ring nor me!” A desperate defiance against evil when you’re at the end of your rope and the end of your strength (and retreat to water, and unexpected rescue).
And the other, even more strongly, is the Fall of Fingolfin. She’s just lost a desperate battle; she sees everything she knows and loves and has built falling into ruin and fire; she can’t stop any of it. But she can fight the people who did this to her, and she can hurt them, even if it kills her. She can’t outright duel Maedhros (he’s been probably the greatest swordsman in Beleriand for ten times longer than she’s been alive; that would quite possibly be a more unequal fight than the Duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth), but she still has a way to hurt him. You don’t get the Silmaril, and you don’t get to kill me. You don’t get to win.
The central thought underlying it is not ‘mine’; it is ‘fuck you’.
It is not about her keeping the Silmaril; it is about the Fëanorians not getting it.
I don’t think she knows just how well she’s succeeding at hurting them - everything in her life tells her the Fëanorians are monsters as bad as or worse than anything from Angband, not beings capable of remorse - but she knows she’s denying them the one thing they want. And Maedhros and Maglor are left knowing that the worst thing they’ve ever done was, as far as their goals are concerned, completely pointless.
She’s not ‘abandoning her children’. She’s already lost her children. She has no way to save them. She has no reason to believe they would be spared, whatever she did. The twins are of no use to the Fëanorians. The Fëanorians have already shown themselves willing to murder children, her brothers, that actually did have value as hostages. If Elwing handed over the Silmaril there’s no reason for her to believe they wouldn’t just kill her and her children for spite.
It can’t be emphasized enough that the Fëanorians are the monsters of Elwing’s life. Angband is a distant name and a threat. The murderers of Elwing’s father, her mother, her brothers, the twice-destroyers of her home, are the Fëanorians. They are her Morgoth.