r/TheSilmarillion

I'm interested this as both a personal and strategic decision... From what I remember (and please forgive if my lore is rusty), of Feanor's sons only Curufin had Celebrimbor and he was born in Aman, right? There was Gil-Galad who was born in Middle-Earth but Idril was born before/during the crossing? I understand that from a literary perspective there are only so many characters and generations we can keep track of, but in Arda the sons of Finwe had several children each, while in Middle-Earth there were almost none, and that does seem strange. One would think that more children would make royal lines less vulnerable, add to the skills, knowledge, leadership, and even just literal fighting numbers of elves, and potentially offer some expression of hope against the darkness. I know extended war isn't a great place for kids but there were certainly times of relative peace. Any suggestions?

Is it meant to be MAYdhros (as in may) or MYdhros (as in my)? I've heard people say it both ways. I've also heard Maeglin pronounced both ways, although MAYglin seems to be the more common one.

Is it possible that they are pronounced differently given that they were originally Meglin and Maidros? Can Sindarin, like English, be inconsistent in its pronunciation?

Would this also apply to Aerin or Nirnaeth?

From the storytelling and/or lore point of view I always felt so disappointed that he died so early, he could have done so much more. Why do you think Tokien did that?

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

Ash nazg thrakutulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Sauron created the master ring in secret. He didnt touch the Three or know of their existence before wearing the One. So how does the inscription describe the elven rings?

Is it semi embellishment for the poem? Did Sauron add this inscription onto the ring? Was he aware? Did he add it later?

Thanks.

When Pippin used the word “hill” for a mountain in the Common Tongue, Treebeard was puzzled. Why such a short name?

“Treebeard repeated the words thoughtfully. ‘Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped.’”

For the most part, contractions are “hasty” words. Cutting words short means we don’t want to hear their story. Hastiness in words, just like hastiness in movement, annihilates one of the most precious gifts we have been given — the gift of depth.

C.S. Lewis once noted something similar about the gift of distance:

“The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it ‘annihilates space.’ It does. It annihilates one of the most glorious gifts we have been given. It is a vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels a hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from traveling ten.’” — Surprised by Joy.

Hastiness in travel dulls one’s sense of liberation and pilgrimage. When we rush along in a car, we miss the gift of the Tao — the Way that changes us from the inside out. We return to ourselves only by walking the Way.

There is a time and place for rushing under the sun, but when we are always rushed, we cease to experience the Way. We become wayward.

Similarly, hastiness in words dulls our sense of depth. We scrape the surface. We receive the calories of data but not the nutrition of Speech. We gain knowledge but not transformation. We are fed more and more information, yet become famished for meaning. We say LA instead of Los Angeles to save time — but we can no longer hear the angels singing.

In our fast-moving world, we have created a shorthand language without realizing what it has cut us off from. We write bc for because, plz for please, w/o for without, IMHO for in my humble opinion — and then wonder why life grows noisier and less musical.

By contracting words, we cut ourselves off from the music of language. FOMO, IDK, FYI, TBD are maimed, limping words. They do not sound. They fall from the mouth and drop dead on the floor without stirring the soul.

At the dawn of the Soviet era, in post-revolution Russia, a whole corpus of abbreviations and contractions was imposed by the Bolshevicks. According to Pavel Florensky, the new language sounded “like a splinter in the tongue.” He called this practice “linguistic deformity,” the “mangling of words through deliberate disfigurement.”

What is annihilated in our hasty contractions? The gift of sound. Its power to transform. The less Sound we hear, the less we are moved.

Interestingly, the word sound comes from the Proto–Indo-European root swen- / swon-, from which we also derive song and swan.

True sound is a bird — a singing bird. True sound flies and calls. IDK and TBD do not fly. In The Silver Trumpet by Owen Barfield, the heroes encounter true sound every time the Silver Trumpet is played.

Each time, they are stunned — and called. Called where? To return to the Music from which the world came.

The sound of the Silver Trumpet is a metaphor for true Speech — a performative, Logos-infused language that effects what it names.

“And at the very first note of the trumpet, Princess Violet forgot the Prince and the garden and Princess Gamboy and Mountainy Castle and the sky above her and dreamed she was afloat beneath tons and tons of clear green water near the bottom of the sea, and — oh, yes — far away someone was booming a huge bell.” — The Silver Trumpet

The more rushed we are in our language, the more our world shrinks. As Treebeard said to Pippin about fair Lothlórien:

Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of Laurelindórenan! That is what the Elves used to call it, but now they make the name shorter: Lothlórien they call it. Perhaps they are right: maybe it is fading, not growing.”

I know they go to Halls of Mandos, but what then? Are they in there hanging out with all of the other “dead” elves? Can others in Valinor come to the Halls of Mandos and consult with them? Can they ever regain a body and live in Valinor again?

Excluding Children of Hurin the most obvious,what was the most tragic event and character in your own opinion ?

Ever since I read The Silmarillion, I’ve constantly longed for an adaptation of the work—it would be perfect. If it were a film anthology, it couldn’t be a trilogy, like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but rather separate films based on certain tales (such as a film for Beren and Lúthien, or a series for Túrin), and a very long trilogy for the main storylines of the Quenta Silmarillion (such as The Great Journey, the flight and arrival of the Noldor, the War of Wrath, etc.), where each film would be truly long, lasting four to five hours. It would be a dream come true. It would be truly breathtaking to see Fëanor, Fingolfin, Morgoth, Ancalagon, Gondolin, and others brought to life on the big screen! Or we also have the option of a series, which resembles Game of Thrones in some ways, but a very long one, of course. If it were a series, I’d have lower expectations and would be a little apprehensive, since series tend to either drag out events too much or condense them in a way that they no longer reflect how they actually were! Well, what do you think?

If so,what does that make the parts Christopher Tolkien omitted ?

What were the fundamental ideas of it? Did they have the holy texts? Did they sing him songs? Did they celebrate the day when Melkor defeated Fingolfin or was released from the Halls of Mandos? What were the traditions other than burning shit in a ginormous temple?

Were Numenoreans aware that he was imprisoned in the Void at the moment? Did they think their worshipping and human sacrifices would help him get free? Did they just think that we get free cause he’s so powerful?

Did they think human sacrifices simply please him or literally give him power?

How did they think Melkor would give them immortality? Did they think sacrifices is the price for it or that he would ask more of them?

It is a shame we will never know. And it is just hilarious how Numenoreans started religion because of stupid sexy Sauron one guy who was their captive. It was Sauron's most brilliant plan, tbh.

Finduilas is one of my favorite characters in Tolkien’s works, despite her appearing only in Turin’s story. She had a big impact there and held my attention more than most characters. And what happened to her… It is clear she did not deserve it. So, what would be the best change to occur in order for her to not suffer this? At first glance, it’s because of Turin that she suffered this, but he could have saved her, I think. On the other hand, it is very likely that Nargothrond would have been discovered and attacked eventually even without Turin’s interference, and she could be captured anyway And we don’t even know how she was captured in the original story). 

So, what would be the best change that could occur that would make her live longer and hopefully even survive until the Second Era?