#Manwe and Maedhros are there tho

[wroniec]

Melkor teaching the Noldor in Valinor

Now in his heart Melkor most hated the Eldar(...). Therefore all the more did he feign love for them, and sought their friendship, and offered them the service of his lore and labour in any great deed that they would do. And many of the Noldor, because of their desire of all knowledge, hearkened to him and took delight in his teaching.

Morgoth's Ring

[searchingforserendipity25]

mmm you know what! i'm going to submit my boys here too. eönwë/finarfin? but also turgon/elenwe if you're willing

thank you (also congrats on being nearly done with school!)

eönwë/finarfin are so so interesting but what is even interesting is the hot gossip around them. became close while preparing for the war and came back basically Elf/Ainur Marriage The Reprise, but like, if thingol was already married and king. they're adorable and so complicated, but really incongruously adorable sometimes.

the fact that eonwe is the other woman (the other bird, if you will) leads manwe to change the laws and costumes because he Does have a favourite not-son tho! this might have been finarfin's plot to change the míriel/indis/finwe situation and eventually step down if/when his dad comes back. eonwe is aware of it and loves his king who still has a neurotic need to be underestimated and plot cunning plots. he thinks it's cute :)

also i think it's amazing that finarfin finds his compatible brand of freak is an unknowable being made for righteous battle and absolute fairness. like!! what a guy, what a guy.

turgon/elenwe! rivals to friends to married to widowed/dead to rivals to friends to married!

in my heart of hearts turgon wakes up from mandos to find elenwe has taken over the raising of cities and leading of the people of gondolin and built her OWN city and he's simply living there. she's everything he's just ken. and after the insane stress of the last run he's just happy to be there (no, he has so many opinions, it takes work and delegating to make it work but it always did. at no point do they consider a brief separation, tho - they should, but they don't)

they have a weird dynamic even before post-death and the only reason anyone would marry turgon (INTENSE attachment style from the get-go) is if they're as intense. which elenwe is. like, she left her people for him! she's objectively an insane life choice! like girl! that's just a guy!

they're always ready to take on a light-hearted third tho, because they are A Lot at once even for each other. their gallery features such rolodex cards as finrod (semi-established) to elemmíre (it happened once in a sweet night in valmar) to maedhros (fun casual affair becomes the world's least fun exs-situation).

[jazzapples3]

Tier system: actually 2 tiers of ainur, valar and maiar. Valar: morgoth, manwe etc. Maiar: sauron, gandalf, other wizards, balrogs etc. Eru created both valar and maiar. Not confirmed what ungoliant actually is

Tree of life: actually 2 trees, telperion and laurelin (silver and gold tree) they provide light to valinor.

Melkor (morgoth) made a deal with ungoliant to help him get into valinor to kill the 2 trees and let ungoliant eat the sap. He promised anything afterwards that would sate her lust after that but broke his vow by denying her the silmarils. No war over it, just a fight. Melkor was getting his ass beat until he let out a scream that summoned his balrogs to him who drove ungoliant away.

Sauron never wore any silmarils in his helm, in the first age morgoth wore the 3 silmarils in his iron crown but by the end of the first age all 3 were lost: 1 stolen by beren and luthien, eventually passed to earendil who took it into the sky and became the star of high hope which eventually light was trapped in the vial of galadriel and given to frodo. The other two were: one: tossed into a crack of fire (along with maedhros) and tossed into the ocean. Sauron would not have had the opportunity to wear one.

Cant fault the reasoning for not wanting to tangle with shelob tho. Sauron is much diminished, why would he want that fight yknow

Thinking of the larger context of LOTR and like, the fellowship swapping old war stories and shit and Sam just says “Yeah I killed a huge spider…Shelob, I think?”

And Gandalf just blinks and is like, “You what now?”

“Yeah, killed it. Had to save Frodo”

Gandalf elects not to tell Sam that he killed the spawn of a primordial demon.

[doodle-pops]

wahoo!! thank you sm for letting me know :3c

I think I can get by sneaking this in there, but how would the elves ( or the aniur ) react to their s/o who gives themself a buzz cut about every year or two? I know they’re very big on hair & I shave my head quite a bit ( tho I’m trying to grow it out now I miss having it long lol ) an i just know they’d be so devastated.

Like picture thick long curly hair when they see them first in the morning, then BAM! buzz cut s/o is loving it especially if it’s hot in the summer feels amaazing 🥰🥰 but their elven ( or equivalent of gods/angels ) are just sobbing because what happened to your hair ??? Cause I don’t think elves would ever cut their hair willingly an even if they did it’s no where near short you’d think y’know? So just seeing their mortal s/o with a nice buzz cut would confuse an break their hearts i bet

( I’m joking but s/o has to sleep in the “dog house” until their hair comes back 😔 naughty lovers don’t get to sleep with them )

Thank you sm I will see you for actual content & not just ramblings when you open up full requests 💖💖 have a lovely day Mina

I read this and went, "Well, someone is getting the longest timeout in the history of timeouts" 😂😂 For some odd reason, you and everyone else are on a hair marathon. I'm making notes of everyone who has a hair kink ✍. I know some people will cut their hair short to have it grow out thicker (they cut it according to moon phases)

Blasphemy! It's the end of the world and Melkor is going to win the war. You just cut off all your beautiful hair like it was nothing. The look of horror in their eyes. They don't know if to scream, shout, jump, flip, sprout wings and fly — confusion. If 'I am confusion' was a person, it most certainly would be them. Your lover doesn't know if to touch your head or not because they believe that what little remaining strands you have left might fall out if they do. The entire day is going to be spent staring at you silently. Just judging and questioning you because they saw nothing wrong with your hair, "You're a monster for cutting your hair off, and there was nothing wrong! How could you do this to me!" The entire situation would be treated as though you wounded them (you did).

FEANOR, MAEDHROS, MAGLOR, CELEGORM, CARANTHIR, CURUFIN, AMROD, AMRAS, CELEBRIMBOR, FINGOLFIN, FINGON, TURGON, ARGON, FINARFIN, FINROD, ANGROD, AEGNOR, GLORFINDEL, ECTHELION, ROG, EGALMOTH, GALDOR

MANWE, EONWE, IMRO, SAURON, Tilion, TULKAS, ULMO, Namo, Melkor, Orome

[kendrixtermina]

Further reactions to "The book of lost tales":

I appreciate that Idril canonically wears armor and does swordfighting.

I feel like I can actually imagine adult!Idril much better now like in armor and with open hair, distraught but ready to fight while babby Earendil does not yet realize the danger...

My first thought is that Earendil was probably cute in that baby chainmail. My second thought is OUCH, Idril and Tuor always made sure their growing baby had fitting chainmail cause they felt the apocalypse might get them at any moment. Imagine that, imagine them having the baby armor fitted every year or so :(

Its fun how much of the basic structure already exists but most of what you'd consider the main characters doesn't exist or is scattered across various minor roles The only Prince anywhere in sight is Turgon - Except for Team Doriath, theyre all accounted for. I suppose Maeglin is kinda there in name only with vaguely the same role & motivation, but looks personality and background all did a 180 since. Luthien is still pretty much "princesd classic" at this point, not quite the fearless go-getter from the final version - markedly this version tells Beren that she doesnt want to wander in the wilderness with him whereas the final one says she doesnt care and its Beren still wants to get the shiny so as not to ask this of her and also for his honor.

I mean in the finished version Id consider the 3rd and 4th gen royals to be the main characters (well, alobgside Team Doriath and the varioud human heroes) and theyre hardly here. Imagine the silm with no Finrod!

Feanor had no affiliation with the royal family whatsoever, and is also generally less super. He's just the guy who won the jewelsmithing competition, not the inventor of the whole discipline. Still seems to have been envisionad as a respected member of the community who gets called to the palace for crisis meetings and is listened to when he stsrts giving speeches. From the first he already has the backstory of going off the deep end (or at least growing disillusioned with Valinor) after a family member is killed by Melkor and theyre still the first to die, but its just some other rando unrelated to the royals

The situation regarding the humans is different - instead of Melkor leaking their existence, its Manwe who explains that the other continents were supposed to be for them eventually. So Feanor goes off on a tirade about weak puny mortals comes off as a more of a jerk unlike in the final version where Melkor barely knew about the humans and described them to the Noldor as a threat. On the other hand in this one, also very much unlike in the finished product, Melkor dupes even Manwe into being unfair to the elves as a whole. In this the final version is a definite improvement, both Feanor and the Valar come off as a lot more sympathetic and though still deceived he's partially right in some things at least, so you have more of a genuine tragedy rather than a simple feud

There is something to the idea of Commoner!Feanor tho. I guess some of this survived in his nomadic explorer lifestyle and how both his wife and mother (who arent mentioned here) eventually were the ones to get that background of being not especially pretty ladies who are not from the nobility but got renown, respect and acclaim for their unique talent and contribution to society, with each having invented things and Nerdanel also being renowed for her wisdom. Hes sort of an odysseus-like Figure in that sense. I suppose later developements necesitated that Maedhros & co. have an army not just a band of thieves, which means they needed to be nobles/lords. That said this being a society where artisans are very respected and half the lords have scholarly/artistic pursuits going, the gap was probably not as big to begin with as it might have been in say, medieval England. Esoecially since Nerdanel's father had been given special honor by one of the local deities and that the social order might have been a very recent thing in Miriel's time. One might speculate that the first generation of Lords started out as warriors during the great journey, or perhaps just Finwe's friend group.

Also found that bit intetesting where the Valar have to deal with the remaining political tensions and effects of Melkor's lies on the remaining population in Valinor... - i guess with the change of framing device it was less likely for news of something like this to reach Beleriand. That, or the existence of Finarfin and his repentance made this go smoother this over in later cannon

Turgon's go-down-with-the-ship moment reaaly got to me. Im half tempted to write a fic where his wife, siblings and dad glomp him on arrival in Mandos. I dont care that none of them exists yet in this continuity i want Turgon to get hugs

I love all the additional Detail that got compressed out in the shift from fairytale-ish to pseudohistoric style especially all the various Valinor magic insofofar as it is compatible with the final version - particularly love the idea of the connection between the lamps and the trees that is now integrated into my headcanon forever

Its actually explained what the doors of night are

If I had not already read unfinished tales or volumes X to XII where this is also apparent, this is where I would say: Ah so the Valar were supposed to be flawed characters. Manwe has an actual arc; by the time he sends Gandalf he finally "got" it. I think in the published silm the little arcs of Ulmo and Manwe are mostly just lost in compression/ less apparent when only some of the relevant scenes got in but not all

It occurred to me way too late that the "BG" chars are the most consistent because theyre at the start and most stories are written from beginning to end. Finwe doesnt get a dedicated paragraph of explicit description until HoME X but my takeaway was that he's described pretty much like I always imagined him anyways/ same vibe I always got from him... charismatic, thoughtful, enthusiastic, sanguine temperament, brave in a pinch but at times lets his judgement be clouded by personal sentiment (though that last bit is more apparent/salient as a character flaw once he became the father of a certain Problem Child) ...i guess this would be a result of jrrt having had a consistent idea of him in his head for a long time.

This means Finwe's still alive at the time of the exodus which is just fun to see/interesting to know... Interestingly he sort of gets what later would be Finarfin's part of ineffectually telling everxone to please chill and think it over first while Feanor simply shouts louder (which is consistent with his actions before the sword incident in later canon where he initially spoke out against the suspiciozs regarding the Valar) - but its not exactly the same, he's more active than Finarfin later in that when "chillax" availed nothing he said that then at least they should talk with the other Kings and Manwe to leave with their blessing and get help leaving (This seems like it would have been the clusterfuck preventing million dollar suggestion in the universe where Feanor is related to him and values him) but when even that falls on death ears he decides that he "would not be parted from his people" and went to run the preparations. I find it interesting that the motivation is sentiment/attachment (even phrased as "he would not be parted from [his people]" same words/ expression as is later used for the formenos situation), not explicitly obligation as it later is for Fingolfin (who had promised to follow Feanor and didnt want to leave his subjects at the mercy of Feanor's recklessness )

Speaking of problem children. It seems the sons of Feanor were the Kaworu Nagisa of the Silmarillion in that originally all they do is show up at some point and kill Dior as an episodic villain-of-the-week. And then, it seems their role got bigger in each continuity/rewrite... probably has something to do with the Silmarils ending up in the title later making it in the sense their story that ends and begins with them. They have zero characterization beyond "fierce and wild" at this point, though in what teetsy bits there is we already have the idea that Maedhros is the leader and Curufin is the smart one/shemer/sweet-talker, though not the bit where Maedhros (or Maglor, or anyone really) is "the nice one". Which I guess explains why "Maglor" sounds like such a stereotypical villain name.

"The Ruin of Doriath" was purportedly the patchworkiest bit of the finished product, but I never noticed and it actually left quite an impression of me upon first reading, the visual of Melian sitting there with Thingol's corpse in her arms contemplating everything thinking back to how they met... she had the knowledge to warn him not to doom himself but couldnt get him to understand it because he doesnt see the world as she does.... After reading this though I wish there was a 'dynamic' rendition that combined all the best bits like, youd have to adapt it to the later canon's rendition of the dwarves, have Nargothrond exist etc. But i mean that just makes Finrod another dead/doomed relative of Thingol's whom bling cannot truly replace, like Luthien and Turin. In the Silmarillion you could easily read it as just an "honoured guest treatment" but here and in unfinished tales I get the impression that Thingol actually did see Turin as a son.

Already you see the idea of trying to make the stories all interconnected but there is less than there will be (the human heroes aren't related yet and there is basically no Nargothrond, which is later a common thread for many of the stories - a prototype shows up in the 'Tale of Turambar' tho complete with half baked prototypes of Orodreth and Finduillas

O boi im not even through yet