FF's Silmarillion Blog

IDK I have feelings about this book

[akitasenseidraws]

I can be your angel 🪽... or your devil 😈

[evydraws]

"Stealing a Silmaril" and "The Defeat of Sauron" - the first two illustrations in my trio of Lúthien art. The third, The Halls of Mandos, is currently stuck on one (1) paint layer as I finish commissions...

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Feeling for the herald who had to follow Fingon into battle against Gothmog purely to provide the balrogs with a banner (blue and silver) to tread into the mire of his blood. 10/10 most loyal follower.

[widevibratobitch]

girls will be like i like silmarillion a normal amount and then watch lotr and weep actual tears at every single feanor reference

[passivelylevolent]

I love the idea that by Noldor standards, all of the royalty/leadership of the Second Age are completely feral.

I’m thinking scandalously unconcerned with all the little details of court politics. Like during High King Finwë’s reign, dressing/accessorizing incorrectly would be the most embarrassing thing ever or a devastating insult. A third of Fingolfin and Fëanor’s arguments were carried out via hair and jewelry. Fëanor underdressing to that one party was SHOCKING stuff.

Cut to High King Gil-galad, furiously trying to scrape together the free people of Middle Earth into something resembling a functioning government and not a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Hair fully down and not a bit of jewelry besides the crown, if that (gets in the way of helmet). Every elf born in Tirion is clutching their pearls. Lord Elrond can and has shown up to council meetings in his PJs. Not only has Celebrimbor cut his hair to his shoulders, he doesn’t even bother with a circlet anymore. Curufin is rolling in his grave.

[demonibestia]

Maedhros and Fingon. Maedhrosito y Fingonito 🤕

[jackimer]

You Don’t Understand Fingon, He Has To Brood™

aka Fingon visits Himring and tries to seduce Maedhros into a healthy sleep schedule (he fails)

[curiouselleth]

Silmarillion characters rated on a scale of 1 - 10 based off behavior in airport security

Feanor: -10/10 - refuses to give up his sword. Threatens the security with it, telling them to get thee gone from gate F7. Is arrested.

Maedhros: 7/10 - very on top of things. Has all of his things in the xray bins, and manages to get all of his brother’s things set for security too. Points deduced because he always forgets to warn them about the metal prosthetic hand and then cracks hand jokes when they ask him. He is also too tall for the xrays you walk through but he’s apologetic.

Celegorm: 2/10 - he rolls his eyes but abides by the no weapons rule. He says they can’t take his teeth or claws. He does not, however, do all the paperwork to bring however many animals he has at the moment. And some bite.

Amrod and Amras: 6/10 - they trade passports between each passport check. Sometimes more. Otherwise Maedhros is able to get them to behave. Sort of.

Celebrimbor: 8/10 - is excited to be traveling with his friend Annatar. Follows all of the rules and is on perfect behavior. Except he tries to gift each person working there a ring. His friend smiled creepily each time someone took one.

Beleg: 4/10 - argues that he does not have to remove his red boots because he is unbegotten, and if old people don’t have to remove them he doesn’t have to.

Fingolfin: 5/10 - on good behavior until he gets into an argument with security to release Feanor. Gets delayed so much by this that he misses his flight and has to take one with the A/C stuck on.

Fingon: 8/10 - pretty well put together, until he slips further forward in line to argue with security a little about Maedhros's prosthetic. He accidentally drops he is the reason Maedhros has it.

Turgon and Aredhel: Not applicable. They wander off and miss the flight and aren't seen until the next family reunion several years later, where Aredhel has a son and ex husband she won't explain, and the kid keeps making comments that suggest Turgon killed someone.

Argon: 9/10 - doesn't create problems and has perfect behavior, but people keep picking fights with him.

Finarfin: ?/10 - says he is a king so he don't have to go through security. Was giving off enough vibes that the security guards just let him though. Unclear if he is actually allowed to do this.

Finrod: 2/10 - holds up the line for ages because he wore so much jewelry that it keeps setting off the metal detector. He cannot take off enough for it not to go off. They send him to take more off at least 5 times. Almost wanders off past security to investigate the food court and souvenir shops twice, has to be pulled back. Eventually finds his way into the back hallways and pilot's lounges. Strikes up conversation with one and convinces them to teach him to fly a 747 someday. Leaves with extensive knowledge of plane terminology. Cannot hold a normal conversation for the next 2 weeks.

Aegnor: 3/10 - was So Ready to take off his shoes and put everything in bins, then experienced love at first sight with a woman in a neighboring line. Was so enraptured by her he forgot to do everything. They meet after security, and share a brief 57 minutes before they are dragged onto different flights, never to see each other again, and heartbroken.

Galadriel: security thinks she is a 10/10. She is in fact a 1/10 who smuggled several weapons past them in case Feanor tries asking for her hair again.

Edrahil: 6/10 - perfectly behaved, security didn't even realize he was there, until he insisted on holding all of Finrod's jewelry for him, saying the jewelry should be passed to a steward while not on Finrod's person. Tried to give it to Aegnor but Aegnor was still staring lovingly at Andreth.

Gandalf: -15/10 - the one time he tried to fly he attempted to check a cart of fireworks, and was caught with a significant amount of pipe weed. On the no fly list.

Huan: 4/10 - ate his service dog paperwork because he found it demeaning, was one of Celegorm's undocumented animals. Was better behaved than Celegorm. Slightly.

Beren: 5/10 - can be polite but won't if insulted

Luthien: -100/10 - airport security can't keep track of her, can't keep her out of places, and just has to let her do what she wants.

Gildor: 5/10 - fairly well behaved, but a little prone to wandering, and has a lot of questions about how things work.

[starsofarda]

@ulmondil I hope you don't mind the tag, but you are correct.

I feel that there are more who can fit together with Mae, but again. Silm fandom, I summon you.

And this is why I, a shitposter and barely a writer, need you all 💖

Meme from here.

[finweanfangirl]

Finrod Felagund - I think he looks a little too much like Galadriel but its okay because they're siblings.

[ferithtolkienesque]

The Silmarillion fandom is genuinely insane. Like, you hang out on tumblr, read fic on AO3 and you think, yeah. Lots of people have read the Silmarillion. It’s Tolkien. Everyone’s read Tolkien. Barnes and Noble has a whole bunch of the HoME and also a bunch of books by people writing about the legendarium. This is mainstream, surely.

But then you actually touch grass and talk to normal people. Not even that, you talk to people who self diagnose as hard core Tolkien fans. And. None of them have read the Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is famously a book that nobody reads.

And yet. On AO3 The Silmarillion and Other Histories of Middle Earth has more works than The Lord of the Rings. Think about that. That’s baffling. It’s ridiculous. Like I realize that LotR fandom is split a bit by the movie, but still. The Silmarillion has almost four times as many fics as the LotR movies. Everybody has watched the movies!

I need to know what percentage of people who actually read the Silmarillion went on to write fic or draw fanart about it. Because it must be insane, surely. Like, I’m pretty sure the Silmarillion wins some kind of record in this department.

Thinking about the fanfic bell curve where on one end you have “Perfect, needs no improvement or elaboration” (LotR sits here) and on the other you have “So bad it’s no fun to even think about” with the middle being the fanfic zone. But I think there may be a secret fourth Silmarillion option. Which is a book that is perfect* but simultaneously non existent. It’s not even a real story! The language is super pretty and deeply incomprehensible (especially to people who, unlike me, were not raised from early childhood on both the Bible and classic literature). And it’s more of an outline and an abstract painting of cultural and world building vibes (not cultural and world building facts and information) than an actual narrative. There are story hooks galore. There are vivid and fascinating characters, but their lives are glossed over and you only get one or two paragraphs of prose that will reorder your brain chemistry and haunt you forever. There are countless more characters who only exist as names, the implication of whose existence is fascinating. All of this is deeply frustrating, both to casual readers who just want a Normal Enjoyable Book, and super fans who want All the Lore. But it is catnip to anyone who engages in transformative work.

*I am aware that not anyone who is a fan of the silm thinks it’s perfect

[rain-kiwi]

pov youre watching gondolins resident flautist with two (2) nonfunctional arms but one (1) pointy helmet face off against the lord of balrogs

[eleneressea]

the Valar seem pretty content to primarily punish the ringleaders and let their followers go, so the Fëanorian followers probably get re-embodied well before their lords do

thus when Elrond shows up Formenos is not so much a lone fortress of exile as a bustling city where all the Fëanorians live, as most of them don't really want to swear loyalty to Finarfin and also don't tend to get along with the various other factions in Tirion

[shrikeseams]

#finarfin is frankly just glad he can make them someone else's problem#namely elrond and celebrimbor#namo would LIKE to make them someone else's problem they keep petitioning him for feanor and his sons#and say what you will about the feanorians they're certainly persistent#any feanorion getting re-embodied would be met with an entire parade because the feanorians know how to put on a show#celebrimbor returning to life: i will quietly re-integrate into society#an army of feanorians: hi :)#here is your parade we have been waiting for thousands of years and got very bored#would you like to hear the song about your bravery and heroism#or the song about what we'll do to sauron for hurting you if we ever get our hands on him#celebrimbor: please no why -@eleneressea

[disorganisedautodidact]

thankfully, Celebrimbor can throw them at Elrond when be shows up. Eventually.

i could also see Celebrían feeling out of place in Tirion and being taken in by an army of kindlayers who are scarier than her nightmares and loyal to her husband

[eleneressea]

Maedhros and Maglor's last order to their host was to look after the boys, and this extends to the boys' wives and descendants. probably. they're pretty sure, anyway, and in lieu of anyone who can supersede the order they're going to follow it as best they can.

they do let Finrod know (as Celebrían is staying with him) that they're here to protect Celebrían and don't mean any harm, and so Celebrían has some red-cloaked bodyguards who call her 'Princess Celebrían' and a standing invitation to come to Formenos any time she wants to

[disorganisedautodidact]

#feanor is their king so his sons are their princes and they've decided that elrond is maglor's heir probably#so that makes him a prince and his wife a princess. their logic is flawless#also they're maybe a little desperate for anyone even vaguely feanorian-adjacent to lead them#(vaire gets regular packages addressed to 'queen miriel')#(nerdanel threw a chisel at the last feanorian she saw but they just put their sneakiest on guarding her)#(and she doesn't throw out their care packages either! progress!) -@eleneressea

absolutely flawless logic, clearly celebrían is a princess of the house of Feanor and needs to be served and protected and gifted all sorts of jewelry that is totally not enchanted! (you can't tell me the house of Feanor doesn't have gifted jewelsmiths among their followers who can put in a protective charm or a healing spell or something) Finrod is a bit wary about the Feanorians, especially the ones that used to follow Celegorm or Curufin, but they do seem to cheer his niece up, so.

[eleneressea]

Celebrían's bodyguards: oh, we didn't follow Celegorm or Curufin

Finrod, much relieved: oh!

Celebrían's bodyguards: we followed Maedhros!

Finrod, significantly less relieved: oh.

[shrikeseams]

#celebrian likes them so he can't complain too much (they remind her of her sons)#but actually i figure her guard were angband escapees who went to himring and died pre-doriath#so they did no kinslayings and can also understand her fears the best -@eleneressea

[eleneressea]

#I suspect on the whole maedhros followers are less prone to spontaneous violence#But also much harder to dissuade from a chosen course of action (no matter how ill-conceived)#A slow and steady kind of danger like their former leader

Maedhros's followers are just as capable of violence as any of the other Fëanorians. They just don't do it spontaneously. They think it over and debate and plan and do their violence deliberately. This is not, of course, better, except that they do a lot less collateral damage in the process.

[rain-sleet-snow]

... Celebrían who needs to take a roughly two-hundred-year-long restorative nap in the Gardens of Lórien after her near-death experience with the orcs, awaking to find herself in possession of an honour guard of Fëanorians and the subject of several ballads about the silver queen beneath the trees who sleeps until she heals.

FINROD: We haven’t really met before, but I'm your uncle, and these are... a lot of people who find you very culturally meaningful! (Unfortunately.) I have tried explaining that "silver queen" was almost certainly not a name of prophecy, but it doesn’t seem to take.

CELEBRÍAN: Mmrgh. Really?

FINROD: Yes. I am very sorry, but -

CELEBRÍAN (who actively collaborated with Elrond to build the Last Homely House, and has been failing to disclose the presence of assorted Fëanorians to her parents for millennia): Do they do coffee?

FINROD: They could probably do a hostile takeover of the local government if you asked them to!

CELEBRÍAN: I know that. But what I want is coffee.

I expect she got the coffee.

[marinasilvus]

Okay, but you can't tell me all those ballads about a sleeping silver queen, who will only awake once she has healed, ISNT giving every Noldor who hears it intense feelings about Míriel Þerindë. Like I'm seeing all sorts of lovely parallels the bards might focus on. History echoing itself.

And so not only are the faenorians a little bit fixated on Celebrían because she's their new princess... but the also because of how they can intertwine her story Míriel.

Like the same thing happened with Arwen and Luthien. Elves love that shit.

[rain-sleet-snow]

oh absolutely.

Galadriel’s going to have forty fits.

[finweanfangirl]

Inspired by a dream I had last night:

What if Balrogs can be healed by compassion? Are these beings truly evil at heart or are they tempted and corrupted by Morgoth initially and left to stew in anger and rage in the horrific environment of Angband.

Maybe a Balrog can be more easily defeated not by the language of war and arms but by showing it true compassion for it and its return. If a Balrog is trapped in its terrible form then if it heals may it return to being a normal Maia.

In my dream the way to defeat a Balrog was to sing “A Elbereth Gilthoniel” to it with a pure heart until the Maia was healed back to a benevolent being.

This sounds easy but who would do such a kind act rather than be afraid and save themselves.

[outofangband]

Made a post awhile ago about the motifs of sight and blindness/darkness in The Children of Húrin but while I was writing it it reminded me of two quotes from the darkening of Valinor

A cloak of darkness she wove about them when Melkor and Ungoliant set forth : an Unlight in which things seem to be no more, and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void

This is notably not the darkness that falls when the trees are destroyed but rather what Ungoliant uses to shield her and Melkor before they do this.

This darkness that Ungoliant has woven is likely the same that Maedhros speaks of in Morgoth’s Ring, when he speaks of a shadow that had (literally and figuratively) consumed the house of Fëanor

Then, after the trees are destroyed, we are told “ The light failed and the darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a darkness that seems not lack, but the thing with being of its own. It was indeed made by malice out of light, and it had power to pierce the eye and enter the heart and mind and strangle the very will

Morgoth has succeeded in corrupting the domain that has haunted him since the beginning; light. He has taken the fear of the dark and made it so that fear is the darkness. (Desperately hope that makes sense!)

He has taken the worst parts of darkness; the fear of the unknown, the confusion and paranoia, the disquiet, and combined it with the worst parts of light; invasive, exposing, piercing

There’s also so many parallels to the darkness of Morgoth that Túrin speaks of, especially at the end of The Children of Húrin. I wonder, if the darkness that covers Túrin and his family for all those years, overriding wills and distorting the eyes, is a more subtle version of this cloak of darkness described above. Morgoth’s power is at its height in that moment and it's covering everyone

[find-the-path]

Silmarillion AU where after his rescue from Thangorodrim, Maedhros gets back to Mithrim to find his brothers have used their thirty years of no supervision very effectively.

They're at war with Thingol, with Morgoth, and with one specific tribe of Avari. Their only alliance is with the Dwarves. Those same Dwarves are the evidence the point to that they can be good at diplomacy, look at that, Nelyo! (They sent Caranthir as an ambassador. No, he never came back and only sends letters at Christmas but it's fine.)

What do you mean, where's Maglor? He's on a walk. Yeah, he left two years ago but it's fine. We can even hear him singing sometimes!

Maedhros is really wishing Fingon just shot the arrow. And incidentally, that Maglor won't mind company.

[finweanfangirl]

He thinks its fine and that he can just pass the kingship to Fingolfin when actually Fingolfin decides he'd quite like to just set up a separate polity and be allies not wanting to deal with that shit. Maedhros is even more done with life.

[eri-pl]

Reverse AU where Miriel is Feanor's young daughter and she gets sick unexplainably at the day when he starts thinking about the Silmarils and dies when they're finished. Finwë is his son, still dies when Morgoth steals them. (Feanor is the king of the Noldor)

Conceptual help needed to place the other characters in the family tree. But it would be fitting if he had no other children (and Nerdanel doesn't want to deal with him anymore).

Ideas / thoughts / thrown fruit?

[finweanfangirl]

The SoF could totally be super protective uncles, with maybe like Celebrimbor as the eldest of the family, and Curufin as his father. Celebrimbor willingly gives up the Kingship, and then it gets to Feanor due to Maedhros thinking (haphazardly) that such a gifted child of the family deserves the honour. When the Silmarils are stolen the rest of the family needs to protect their youngest branch.