#The Unfinished Tales

[unavidas]

a soft celedriel moment 🌿

[moonlarking]

Celebrían, Lady of Imladris

Closeups & more under the cut

Fucking FINALLY finished this piece. It genuinely infuriates me to no end that I can let a piece rot in the wip folder for ten fucking months because my brain won’t let me work on it and then just finish it on a whim in a couple hours because my brain decided to lift the fucking nonexistent magical ban on working on it ANYWAYS.

I was inspired by historical European medieval fashion for this, specifically the wimple/veil and the sideless ermine-lined surcote with fichets. I added the pearl headdress at the last minute as a reference to her mother, Galadriel, who wears Nenya, the ring of water.

Closeups:

Wip process:

Reference image:

(Model is Sasha Luss)

[essenceofarda]

did a lil' painting of Celebrian in my sketchbook today :)

You can watch the painting process in my latest sketchbook session on youtube!

[maglorslostsilmaril]

hate people who have only read the lord of the rings and the hobbit and love to bitch about tolkien barely having any strong female characters

[lilyofthelaiquendi]

"Oropher: King of Woodland Realm"

8 x 10 Acrylic on Canvas Panel

I fell in love with Tolkien's high fantasy world all over again after watching LOTR: TROP, so I wanted to try and paint again after so long. Since I made quite a few sketches of Thranduil already (one with a very embarrassing self insert of me with him that you'll never see 🫣), I thought that it would be so cool to paint a portrait of his Father, Oropher this time instead.

P.S. I have been on an extremely long art hiatus due to some health issues (not that I actually post that much of my own art... ehehe), but I really liked how this one turned out and wanted to share it here :>

[starsilversword]

So, reading the Unfinished Tales and I'm starting to notice a trend.

Great rulers/people of legend get 'stars' upon their brow instead of crowns.

I like it, but also, if none of these people have crowns, who does?

[annamannamanaman]

i love legendarium (tolkien mythology) so fucking much u dont get it

[beginnerblueglass]

canNOT believe that someone looked at the story of Celebrimbor, Annatar, Celeborn, Galadriel, Eregion, Khazad-Dum, and the creation of the Rings of Power, PEAK storytelling!! and said, “eh, I can do it better” ugh.

[spruceneedles]

A little drawing of Ailinel, Almiel and Aldarion

[unavidas]

A young Celeborn and Galadriel, sometime during the first age

[maglorslostsilmaril]

#130: Most Bright

My first piece for @tolkienrsb 2024, with a fic written by the lovely @darthrevaan !!

Fic can be read here!!

[general-illyrin]

Lately I've been doing research into the history of the Dwarves, focusing on the Petty-dwarves, and I came across an article in which the author used the etymology of the word "petty" as further evidence of Mîm being evil.

However, there is at least one main issue with this argument: the term "Petty-dwarf" is the translation of the Sindarin name for these Dwarves. Only once (in The Children of Hurin) does Mîm call himself a Petty-dwarf - all other times, he refers to himself as a Dwarf. And since "Petty-dwarf" is a Sindarin term, the potential biases and viewpoint of the Sindar need to be taken into account when considering the etymology of the name and what bearing it could have on the character of the Petty-dwarves.

Tolkien's texts* state that the Sindar first encountered the Petty-dwarves when the Sindar came to Beleriand and were promptly attacked by them. Because the Sindar didn't see the Petty-dwarves clearly, the Sindar thought that they were some sort of animal and hunted them until the Sindar encountered Great Dwarves. At this point, the Sindar recognized that they were Dwarves and named them "Noegyth nibin", which translates to "Petty-dwarf".

However, the Sindar's experiences with the Petty-dwarves had been mostly negative, so it's not surprising that they would give them a name which both conveyed the differentiating characteristic of their smaller size and reflected the idea that they were narrow-minded, ungenerous, or spiteful. But this does not mean that the Petty-dwarves were actually characterized by those traits; it only means that the Sindar may have perceived them that way. As such, the most that one can say about the Petty-dwarves' name is that it reflects how the Sindar viewed them; to use the etymology of the term "Petty-dwarf" as evidence showing the character of Petty-dwarves, especially an individual Petty-dwarf, is unfair to them (unless one considers the canonical origin of the term).

(The second major issue with this argument is that one cannot logically use the name of a group to determine the character of an individual of that group - the most one could say is that the individual exhibits a characteristic identified by the group's name.)

- - -

* The Nature of Middle-earth, The Children of Húrin, The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth

[elerondo]

wrong blog but i imagine Oropher would let Thranduil stay in Forlond for a long stretch of time, for as long as Thranduil wanted or needed, especially if Thranduil had made friends and a life for himself before Oropher completed the expedition of the East over the Misty Mountains. while Oropher isn’t a forceful person, and in my mind he is a lot gentler than Gil-galad   ( because Oropher is much older, and he is not King yet )   i think father and son would have to respect each other’s insecurities. Oropher does not want to stay in company of the Noldor, and as long as Elrond, last son of Elwing, was in good hands, Oropher wants to leave the High Kingship of the Noldor that had brought so much ruin to his Houses.

And it matters little if indeed the hosts of the Noldor fenced Beleriand from the forces of Morgoth. Personally, the scales are impossible to balance.

He putting Thranduil in Ereinion's care is also a show of trust. Can imagine that answering the call of the Last Alliance is very normal for Oropher, despite his reservations. The house of Nolofinwe has usually, mostly, been valiant.

[phynaofithilien]

Does the ring make only Hobbits invisible?

I've read somewhere the theory that the ring just strengthens natural magic, and as the natural magic of hobbits makes them disappear fast, it makes them invisible, but not other species. Is there any textual evidence for this? The ring is worn by Sauron (not invisible), Isildur (?), Gollum, Bilbo, Frodo and Sam (invisible) and Tom Bombadil (not invisible). Sauron is the master of the ring and if he doesn't want to be invisible, he won't be, and nobody makes rules about Tom Bombadil. The big unknown is Isildur. Luckily, Tolkien wrote something about that. Unluckily, i don't really understand what it means. Here the quote from the Unfinished Tales:

Isildur turned west, and drawing up the ring that hung in a wallet from a fine chain about his neck, he set it upon his finger with a cry of pain, and was never seen again by any eye upon Middle-earth. But the Elendilmir of the West could not be quenched, and suddenly it blazed forth red and wrathful as a burning star. Men and Orcs gave way in fear; and Isildur, drawing a hood over his head, vanished into the night.

There is a footnote to go with this:

The meaning, sufficently remarkable, of this passage appears to be that the light of the Elendilmir was proof against the Invisibility conferred by the One Ring when worn, if its light would be visible when the Ring not worn; but when Isildur covered his head with a hood its light was extinguished.

So does the Ring make Isildur invisible but the Elendilmir is stronger, but a hood can hide it? Or do I misunderstand the text? It is night, and a confusing fight in that instance, and noone sees anything anyway. And - other than Isildur - there was only one surviving non-Orc witness.

[venduri]

Only you could accomplish such art, Celebrimbor

Assad Zaman as Celebrimbor from JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales

[naarisz]

Tar-Ancalimë, first Ruling Queen of Númenor.