#silmarillion rants

[galstelperion]

It needs to be said...

Elves with distinct and diverse appearances are always going to be 100x better than the long-haired, white, skinny, androgynous look copy/pasted everywhere.

I genuinely do not believe anyone who calls this "ugly" because it's simply not. Everything from the costuming to the jewelry and casting is carefully thought out and executed perfectly.

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

It’s just that Fingon’s like that stereotypical son who calls his mum and walks old ladies across the street, mows the lawn for his neighbours, brings home nice, pretty girls who want to be kindergarten teachers or something and is really passionate about some niche compassionate topic like children in poverty’s access to multiple sclerosis treatment and who everyone says is ‘such a nice boy’ but then he goes and dates the eldest kid of Mr. Stay Away From My Boys, Son, a flaming ginger who most people haven’t heard speak. And this is hilarious.

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

What does "kind as summer" even mean?

When I think of summer, I don't think of kindness. Where I live, it's either "you'll melt if you even think about going outside" or "you'll melt if you even think about going outside, and it's raining", and sometimes "you won't melt immediately upon going outside, but you might get hit by a tree or lightning, or possibly a tree getting hit by lightning".

I really hope Elrond isn't like that.

But I guess Tolkien lived in a place where the summer was a nice, mild 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit, so there's that.

Still, because of how summer is where I live, I characterize Elrond like this:

Elrond is kind, but he's not always nice. He is blunt and straightforward, and he says what he means and means what he says. He is usually gentle enough for his work as a healer, but if this is, say, the fifth time you broke your leg doing something stupid, he'll give you the Eyebrows of Doom™. He has a temper that he keeps well under control, but you can see the signs of him losing patience from afar off (so act accordingly). He's not above acting passive aggressive when he loses his temper, but it is very hard to push him to that point.

Maybe be more specific with your simile, Professor.

[starsofarda]

There are a lot of theories on the Silmarils, but one I can really get behind is that the Arkenstone is one of the Silmarils.

In which case I can imagine Feanor and his sons watching from Mandos' halls all of the events in The Hobbit and being EXTREMELY triggered by Thorin.

Literally.

Feanor in particular, I can hear him say stuff like:

"THAT DWARF IS HOLDING A SILMARIL"

"WHY DID HE CALL A SILMARIL THE ARKENSTONE"

"I AM GONNA KILL HIM WHY IS HE ADVANCING ANY PRETENSE ON MY STUFF"

"BRING ME MY SWORD I NEED TO FIGHT HIM AND GET BACK THE SILMARIL"

Et cetera.

whilst Mandos is like

Because last time the remaining two Silmarils were with Maglor and Maedhros. And Maedhros launched himself in the depth of an abyss full of lava, the Silmaril with him. The Silmaril embedded itself in rocks, then the entire Beleriand was basically destroyed and reformed into new land, it can't be that much outlandish that the Silmaril was now in Erebor.

The other Silmaril is in the depth of the ocean where Maglor launched it, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway.

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

"pronouncing 'Þerindë' as 'Serindë' is not that big of a deal" just say you've always been called right your whole life.

[lidoshka]

@feanorianweek Day 7: Miriel

Maybe Miriel wasn’t there physically, but she was present every small struggle and every tiny moment of joy in her grandchildren’s lives.

♡(ꈍ ᴗ ꈍ✿)

(part of the now camed “Eramos Felices y no lo Sabiamos” series, a.k.a. 5 times a Feanorian was not appreciating the moment and 1 time one did + 1)

°˖✧ Happy Feanorian Week! I hope you enjoyed it!! ✧˖° 

+

@feanorianweek Día 7: Miriel

Tal vez Miriel no estaba físicamente ahí, pero ella estuvo presente en cada momento de conflicto y cada momento de alegría en la vida de sus nietos

♡(ꈍ ᴗ ꈍ✿)

(parte de la recién bautizada serie “Eramos Felices y no lo Sabiamos" a.k.a. 5 veces que un hijo de Feanor no disfruto el momento y 1 vez que sí + 1)

°˖✧ Feliz Semana de Feanorians! ✧˖°  

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

some comment on my fic just claimed that "the iathrim didn't regard morgoth as an enemy," and that the second kinslaying "served the common good" by destroying doriath - apparently a "good-for-nothing state that was all but an ally to morgoth" - and by sending the silmaril on its path to valinor... that silmarillion copy was never cracked open

[glorf1ndel]

Thoughts on Maglor?

To me, Maglor is like this cat. At times, he is a dangerous killer. Other times, he is meowing singing sweetly. He probably hates water but still has to interact with it (the Crablor meme didn’t come from nowhere). In sum: Maglor is both terrifying and lovely. 😂

[nurantarenendurath]

Rings of Power

Watch out! Spoiler ahead (if you don't want to be spoiled stop here)

So, I watched Rings of Power and I got so mad.

Because...Like...Galadriels whole motivation doesn't make any

sense.

She says, that she is trying to avenge her brothers death and is super

sad about it right? Then why does she jump from the ship, that was supposed to bring her to Valinor? The place where her brother LITERALLY IS STILL ALIVE????

Like this is so illogical and makes her an unlikable hypocrite.

Also we did get a death scare for ISILDUR? fucking Isildur? And for Celeborn too? Like what?

The people writing the show obviously know nothing about the lore and how it works (otherwise they wouldn't have put GANDALF??? with the fake Hobbits thousands of years before he is supposed to arrive???)

Yeah this show makes me mad. Excited to bash the second season and already in fear of how they might ruin it XD

[eri-pl]

Lack of redemption arcs in the Legendarium

Surprisingly, I can't find many, if any at all.

I mean real redemption arcs ie character is evil / has done done serious evil at the start and they put actual work and things happen and at the end they're less evil and do less evil (or none at all).

(And ideally, they don't die at the completion of the arc but separately later or not at all.)

I don't mean things like "did evil things out of trauma it ignorance" (therapy or education is a different thing from redemption. All are great, but different people need different of those.) or "did one very minor thing and is sorry" (it's not an arc, it's something smaller). I mean the real deal.

There are implied redemption arcs (elves in Mandos in general), something that feels like a referenced arc but never described (Osse), a heavy edited story that at one point kind of feels like a redemption arc (Galadriel), failed attempts (all the baddies especially Smeagol and Mairon)...

I don't remember book Boromir well, maybe he... But he's not evil, just a little weak. He does very little wrong. He's more serious than makes bad choices.

Elu Thingol sort of has an arc on "don't be racist against humans" but then dies partially at being racist against dwarves so I'm not sure that counts either.

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, whose greatest crime is being a mean relative. I guess this counts?

Even in Numenor, nobody gets it.

I know it's a modern trend to give everyone redemption arcs, but I would expect, with all the talk about mercy and pity, to see some actual results, more results than "yay, we got the evil defeated because we were good to the bad guy". With all due respect. That's a big result too. But anyway.

I suppose Tolkien just didn't vibe with bad people. He survived the war and I guess it needed more... How to call it? More thinking on terms of "if you cross this line, you're lost". I know theoretically he didn't see it like this. But in practice, you may only go so far (and it's not far) until you're beyond repair.

I don't like it. It's not how the world works. I went further.

Also, another thing that irks me tremendously, but it's an observable rule in all Legendarium:

When your aesthetic is dark or wrong, you are beyond salvation.

You like industry? Bye. You don't like light? Bye! You look ugly (not plain, just ugly)? There might be a few exceptions of Elves who went through Angband, but generally: bye. You don't laugh and feel uneasy in company? Out to the void with you, go join Morgoth. You are depressed and not in a nice (Frodo) way, but in a cold way that makes you feel cynical? Bye. You live at the East and like sun more than noon? You're probably evil too.

I may be oversimplifying a bit, but not by much. It is a thing.

That's not how things work!!!

Seriously. I was there. I was all those things. I am dinner if then still and don't consider it a problem.

I hate this in the books. I love Tolkien's work and what he tried to do, but I feel like I'm some places he failed at it dramatically and the general feel it's not faithful to his intentions.

I hope this rambling is understandable enough, I'm bad at English, especially when ranting.

Luckily, there are fanfics

[cilil]

I get kinda scared when I imagine what would happen if I were to try writing for another fandom (aka not Tolkien/Silmarillion in particular). It's just that certain concepts don't exist for me anymore, ya feel? Men with short hair? Clothing that isn't robes or armor? Not half a dozen fictional languages I have to learn and be mindful of when naming characters? *confused screaming*

[galstelperion]

Continuing with my love for Morfydd Clark: Galadriel in Rings of Power is such a perfect reflection of her family's grief, anger, sorrow, and arrogance. I can never take the criticism of her depiction in the show seriously when all the complaints are about how she didn't stand stoically in a corner the entire time, or that she needs to be next to her husband, Celeborn, with her head turned down, while the other far superior male characters in the story take the lead.

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Maedhros built up a high pain resistance from Angband; particularly to the burning sensation. Considering how low he thinks of himself, it’s likely he expected the Silmaril to burn him. He didn’t think he was redemptive, he thought I can take it.

Part of why Maedhros acts so viciously is because that’s how life treated him. I can take it if my brothers die. I can take it if I’m damned for eternity. I can take it if everybody thinks I’m a monster.

He’s proud, and he’s suffering. He won’t back down, he will succeed or be martyred.

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

Honestly, it feels like the Valar only got involved in Beleriand for the Silmarils.

Warning to Eri, this isn't very pro-Valar.

For starters, it really seems like the only reason they didn't go after Morgoth earlier was to spite Fëanáro for refusing to give the Silmarils to them. This is something they'd been upset about long before the Trees were destroyed. Heaven forbid he keep his stuff with him. Even before the Trees died, they wanted the Silmarils. I think the only reason they didn't covet them is because Tolkien didn't want to make them evil, but they basically coveted them.

Ulmo killed every Noldo who tried to return to Valinor for help. Even the ones who had nothing to do with Alqualondë. Even the ones who hadn't even chosen to leave to begin with because they weren't born. There's only one exception: Voronwë.

Voronwë, who brought Tuor to Gondolin. Without Voronwë, Tuor and Idril would never have met. Without Voronwë, Eärendil would've never been born. Without Voronwë, Eärendil would've never brought the Silmaril to Valinor.

Am I implying Ulmo only spares Voronwë so that the Valar would get the Silmaril? Maybe.

Ulmo also was the one who inspired Turgon and Finrod to make Gondolin and Nargothrond. Gondolin kept Idril safe long enough to meet Tuor. Nargothrond kept Finrod safe long enough to die for Beren to get the Silmaril. Literally everything Ulmo did had the consequence of getting the Silmaril to Aman. I don't know if that was his intention, but it doesn't really matter because it's what happened.

When Eärendil brought the Silmaril, it was a sign to the Valar that Morgoth was weak enough to take the rest. He also brought news that the Fëanárions were too weak to stop Morgoth. Too weak to stop the Host of Valinor from taking the Silmarils as a war prize.

Is this a particularly charitable interpretation of the Valar? No, but I'm not in a particularly charitable mood as of now. Sorry, Eri, if you made it this far.

I just feels like the whole First Age was a long con done by the Valar to get their main sources of competition to kill each other so they could swoop in and take what they wanted.

[the-elusive-soleil]

Okay, all I wanted to know what which Quenya words originally had þ instead of s, and instead I stumbled on this thing, and now I need to make it other people's problem.

So I knew a large part of why Feanor was so...twitchy about the þ vs. s thing was because of his mom's name, Miriel þerinde. What I did not know was that, while the verb þer- means "to sew", which means that "þerinde" is "seamstress", there was also a verb ser- before the þer- verb changed.

The original ser- means "to rest". So after the pronunciation shift, "Serinde" could mean either "seamstress" or "she who rests".

Considering that Feanor lost his mom because giving birth to him took so much out of her that she essentially had to permanently rest...I can see why this would be such an incredibly sore point with him.

It's not just about "hey, quit mispronouncing my mom's name", it's about "quit calling my mom 'the one who couldn't hack it and had to go away forever' and use the name that describes her as a craftswoman, you complete troglodytes".

[stitcherofchaos]

I just realize something that made my blood boil.

You know how a lot of people in the fandom hate how Maglor had mercy on Elrond and Elrond and raised them as his own?

And how they try to twist and pervert that relationship into something abusive, selfish, and/or manipulative?

What if it was Maedhros?

And why do I feel like if it was him, everyone would be at his defense and write fan fictions, draw fanart, and love this family dynamic more than when it was Maglor?

Why does Maglor seem to have the most issues in the Silmarillion fandom, more than Maedhros?

Why do many people try to make Maglor into an even worse person than Maedhros despite what- albeit little- canon lore said about him?

Lastly, why did Tolkien make so many changes and switch so many things about those two in order make their characters consistent? Not to mention actually giving them character arcs…

You know, I’m staring to think that if Maedhros had found Elured and Elurín- and quite possibly raised them- the whole fandoms would’ve equally supported that dynamic.

I’m also guessing by the reason the fandom seems to like and defend Maedhros so much is because he is the ‘hot ginger’ out of the two brothers.

After all, you can project whatever you want out of a ‘blank page’, but you can’t touch the so-called ‘masterpiece’.

I’m not attacking anyone, I don’t want to attack anyone, heck maybe I’m wrong and all of Tolkien’s words are misleading from his true vision. I’m attempting to defend and respect the material that he worked so hard on, and sadly never finished.

Oh and just to be PERFECTLY clear, Maglor is not a good person, neither is Maedhros!

I just want the facts to be made clear. Maglor is a son of Feanor, a fierce killer, who committed 3 kinslayings! That is not the topic I’m discussing.

This is about the guilt, sorrow, and compassion he expressed for two orphaned boys at the end of the last kinsalying.

“For Maglor took pity upon Elrond and Elrond, and he cherished them, as little might be thought, but Maglor’s heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath.”

- J R.R. Tolkien