Tolkien's Legendarium

[Spren of Kindness]

I said I'd make it, so here I am.  It'll probably die quickly, since I think I have yet to make a thread that didn't experience sudden lithobraking maneuvers, but, y'know.  Some quick things to cover, I'm going to say, for the moment, that anything that happens in the published Silmarillion, Hobbit, or Lord of the Rings, doesn't need spoiler boxes.  Just to minimize confusion, however, discussion of drafts that were not in the final books (History of Middle-earth, mostly) might need spoiler boxes to keep things clear.  (An example would be trying to figure out who Gil-galad's father is, since that requires a lot of digging through old drafts.)  I probably don't need to say this, but keep discussions respectful!  Not really worried about this, since Sanderfans are super nice, and so are Tolkien fans, so it's like a Venn Diagram of wonderfulness.  Y'all are amazing.  )  If this thread gains traction, I'll see about putting up a poll so we can vote on what, if anything, to spoiler box.

Okay, to kick off the discussion!  Who are your favorite character(s) in the Legendarium?  Mine are Faramir, Maglor, and Tuor.  Oh, and Voronwe, he has the ocean Vibe.  Can't explain it.  From this, you may have gathered that I like blue.

Oh, and here's another thing I just remembered.  In the books, the Rohirrim were described as having long, braided hair.  How come no one ever picks up on that?

If anyone knows what an ell is, would you be willing to share your knowledge?

[Ixthos]

16 hours ago, Spren of Kindness said:

I said I'd make it, so here I am.  It'll probably die quickly, since I think I have yet to make a thread that didn't experience sudden lithobraking maneuvers, but, y'know.  Some quick things to cover, I'm going to say, for the moment, that anything that happens in the published Silmarillion, Hobbit, or Lord of the Rings, doesn't need spoiler boxes.  Just to minimize confusion, however, discussion of drafts that were not in the final books (History of Middle-earth, mostly) might need spoiler boxes to keep things clear.  (An example would be trying to figure out who Gil-galad's father is, since that requires a lot of digging through old drafts.)  I probably don't need to say this, but keep discussions respectful!  Not really worried about this, since Sanderfans are super nice, and so are Tolkien fans, so it's like a Venn Diagram of wonderfulness.  Y'all are amazing.  )  If this thread gains traction, I'll see about putting up a poll so we can vote on what, if anything, to spoiler box.

Okay, to kick off the discussion!  Who are your favorite character(s) in the Legendarium?  Mine are Faramir, Maglor, and Tuor.  Oh, and Voronwe, he has the ocean Vibe.  Can't explain it.  From this, you may have gathered that I like blue.

Oh, and here's another thing I just remembered.  In the books, the Rohirrim were described as having long, braided hair.  How come no one ever picks up on that?

If anyone knows what an ell is, would you be willing to share your knowledge?

It's been a while since I read the Silmarillion, but I used to have long discussions with one of my friends about it :-) My own favourite parts are actually the creation accounts, including the singing that served as the blueprints for the world, and the details about each Valar. One of my favourite parts was also the account of the creation of the Dwarves, and how Aule is in a sense the positive mirror to Melkor, with the same desire to make unique and new things, but with humility and obedience, and the way his actions were eventually rewarded for his subsequent humility with the Dwarves given souls. I think that part is a great story :-)

[Spren of Kindness]

7 hours ago, Ixthos said:

It's been a while since I read the Silmarillion, but I used to have long discussions with one of my friends about it :-) My own favourite parts are actually the creation accounts, including the singing that served as the blueprints for the world, and the details about each Valar. One of my favourite parts was also the account of the creation of the Dwarves, and how Aule is in a sense the positive mirror to Melkor, with the same desire to make unique and new things, but with humility and obedience, and the way his actions were eventually rewarded for his subsequent humility with the Dwarves given souls. I think that part is a great story :-)

Oh, I never realized that!  I always thought of Manwe as the opposite of Morgoth, because of the fact that they're brothers, but you're right!  And yeah, the Ainulindale is amazing.  It's just sort of everything at once, if you get my meaning.

Forgot to do this in the original post, but @Truthwatcher at the Rim, I made the thread!

[Ixthos]

1 hour ago, Spren of Kindness said:

Oh, I never realized that!  I always thought of Manwe as the opposite of Morgoth, because of the fact that they're brothers, but you're right!  And yeah, the Ainulindale is amazing.  It's just sort of everything at once, if you get my meaning.

Indeed! I agree Manwe is the mirror in the sense of being the true leader and strongest of the loyal Valar, while Morgoth is the absolutely strongest and the rebel, in a sense with Manwe as the Archangel Michael, and Morgoth as the rebelling Satan. There are a lot of potential parallels, though also remember that the two Maia in the service of Aule that we know of eventually rebelled, so in a sense Morgoth could be a mirror to both Manwe and Aule, or to all the Vala in that he had a hand in trying to corrupt everything they made.

[Spren of Kindness]

2 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Indeed! I agree Manwe is the mirror in the sense of being the true leader and strongest of the loyal Valar, while Morgoth is the absolutely strongest and the rebel, in a sense with Manwe as the Archangel Michael, and Morgoth as the rebelling Satan. There are a lot of potential parallels, though also remember that the two Maia in the service of Aule that we know of eventually rebelled, so in a sense Morgoth could be a mirror to both Manwe and Aule, or to all the Vala in that he had a hand in trying to corrupt everything they made.

Curumo/Saruman is the second who rebelled, right?

Had a thought whilst making lunch - you know how it's canon that High Elves glow?  I had this image of the glow being like a supernova.  That would be really cool.  Imagine how terrifying that could be.

[Frustration]

@Kingsdaughter613 I found a home for you.

My favorite Characters include: Feanor(I'm not going to go and grab the accents) Fingolfin, Melkor, Earendil, @Turin Turambar and Glorfindel.

And of course Tom Bombadil, I would be a bad person to not like him.

My favorite peice of poetry is the part of The Lay of Gil-Galad we get in Fellowship

[Kingsdaughter613]

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

@Kingsdaughter613 I found a home for you.

My favorite Characters include: Feanor(I'm not going to go and grab the accents) Fingolfin, Melkor, Earendil, @Turin Turambar and Glorfindel.

And of course Tom Bombadil, I would be a bad person to not like him.

My favorite peice of poetry is the part of The Lay of Gil-Galad we get in Fellowship

Thanks for the invite! My favorite character is Sam, because he’s just good. And my favorite piece of poetry is the Lay of Leithian.

[Spren of Kindness]

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

@Kingsdaughter613 I found a home for you.

My favorite Characters include: Feanor(I'm not going to go and grab the accents) Fingolfin, Melkor, Earendil, @Turin Turambar and Glorfindel.

And of course Tom Bombadil, I would be a bad person to not like him.

My favorite peice of poetry is the part of The Lay of Gil-Galad we get in Fellowship

Diacritics!  The bane of typing.

I think the Lay of Gil-Galad might be my favorite too.  I have the whole thing memorized.  (Not very hard, there's three verses.  )

[Ixthos]

11 hours ago, Spren of Kindness said:

Curumo/Saruman is the second who rebelled, right?

Had a thought whilst making lunch - you know how it's canon that High Elves glow?  I had this image of the glow being like a supernova.  That would be really cool.  Imagine how terrifying that could be.

Correct :-)

Hmmm ... and their swords glow ... and the most famous gems in the world glow ... are the elves actually radioactive? :-P Also, yes, that would be cool, though a little frightening :-P I like in The Fellowship of the Ring when Sam sees the lady Galadriel's ring as a glow, a star among her fingers I think it was described as? There is a lot of light imagery around elves.

[Spren of Kindness]

9 hours ago, Ixthos said:

Correct :-)

Hmmm ... and their swords glow ... and the most famous gems in the world glow ... are the elves actually radioactive? :-P Also, yes, that would be cool, though a little frightening :-P I like in The Fellowship of the Ring when Sam sees the lady Galadriel's ring as a glow, a star among her fingers I think it was described as? There is a lot of light imagery around elves.

Radioactive elves... I like it!  And then that explains why the Silmarils burn things too.

There is, it's really interesting.  I've been thinking about it a lot recently, kind of writing an essay in my head about it.  And yes, Sam saw 'a star through her fingers'.

[Truthwatcher at the Rim]

Ehehehe... So after reading through this convo I realize I need to reread The Silmarillion.  Badly.  I shall start it tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

[Mulk]

Hey, more Tolkienophiles!

Seriously, I'm by far the most into his stories of anyone I know, enough that I regularly joke to my friends whenever we get into discussions about it that I probably know more about it anyone you're likely to ever meet, unless you happen to know a professional Tolkien geek...

Favorite characters across the whole Legendarium is such a huge thing.  Fingolfin, Tuor, Luthien, Huan, Nienna, Glorfindel, Samwise, Faramir...

I kinda go on and on and on.

The Elves (at least with respect to the High Elves, I don't believe it holds for those who never went into the West), I took to mean the light of the spiritual shown through them, that they were themselves hallowed, possibly akin to the way the Silmarils were, save when they dispose of it by their own actions.  And that light cannot be born by creatures of shadow.

[Spren of Kindness]

I was reading the appendices of ROTK (because I will need to be dragged kicking and screaming from Middle-earth), and I am in awe.  Because Tolkien went and wrote not just the names of every important person in the Third Age, he also wrote why they were important.  There is so much stuff.

Also, I drew Maglor.  You can see the edge of Faramir in the corner.

[Mulk]

Indeed.  Like...I forget just how many generations it is from Elros to Aragorn, but they're all recorded, the full span of like 6400 years.  Not to mention all the major elf lords, the doings of the inhabitants of Rohan and where they came from.  The only stuff not really sketched in are the doings of the Longbeards in Khazad-Dum over the course of the First Age and up till when they and the Noldor strike up their friendship in the Second Age, and where exactly it is the Hobbits come from and just how long they've been around.

I've read everything I own so often.  My copies of Unfinished Tales and books of lost tales 1 and 2 are falling apart, I had to finally give up and replace my original LOTR set, will have to do the same with the Silmarillion some time soon

[Spren of Kindness]

10 minutes ago, Mulk said:

Indeed.  Like...I forget just how many generations it is from Elros to Aragorn, but they're all recorded, the full span of like 6400 years.  Not to mention all the major elf lords, the doings of the inhabitants of Rohan and where they came from.  The only stuff not really sketched in are the doings of the Longbeards in Khazad-Dum over the course of the First Age and up till when they and the Noldor strike up their friendship in the Second Age, and where exactly it is the Hobbits come from and just how long they've been around.

I've read everything I own so often.  My copies of Unfinished Tales and books of lost tales 1 and 2 are falling apart, I had to finally give up and replace my original LOTR set, will have to do the same with the Silmarillion some time soon

From Isildur to Aragorn it's thirty-nine generations.  My instinct is to say that Elros to Aragorn is sixty-four, but I'm probably off on that.

I feel like my Children of Hurin is going to be the first to go, I have the mass-market paperback, and I have a bad habit of opening those too much while reading.

[Mulk]

Really wish Tolkien had lived long enough to rewrite the full tale of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin as a cohesive whole.  That is probably my favorite of all the First Age tales, all things considered, though I do still really love the Lay of Leithian

[Spren of Kindness]

1 hour ago, Mulk said:

Really wish Tolkien had lived long enough to rewrite the full tale of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin as a cohesive whole.  That is probably my favorite of all the First Age tales, all things considered, though I do still really love the Lay of Leithian

Me too.  The Lay of Leithian is amazing, but there's something about the story of Gondolin that gets me.

[Mulk]

Ditto (obviously)

I was taken by the very name of it the first time I ran across it while reading the Hobbit when I was...like 7 or 8 or so.  It was a word that felt old, grandiose, historic.  It was much harder back then to find any art of it, since the internet didn't come around till I was an adult and married already.  Years ago someone gave me a calendar that amongst other things had this image by Ted Nasmith that I always gravitated to: 

I would just stare at it at times, wishing I could have lived there and seen it, walked its streets.

(edit: finally found it - it was a 1996 calendar.  Good Lord that's been ages ago)

Edited December 31, 2020 by Mulk

[Spren of Kindness]

Daaaang, that's gorgeous!  I think it was the same for me, when I read the Hobbit.  I read The Lord of the Rings right after, so it might have been then, but it felt old, and full of history.