The Silmarillion

Hey guys! I just wanted to share my collection of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion material. Feel free to post your own! I currently have The History of Middle-Earth box set, a hard cover set of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion with custom dust covers, and six books pertaining to the grammar, syntax, writing, spelling, conjugation, and composition of Quenya and Sindarin (two of which are elvish to English dictionaries). The four additional marble notebooks contain meticulous notes on the entire Silmarillion, the Appendix of The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien linguistics. While The History of Middle-Earth is the most comprehensive, detailed, and complete account of Tolkien’s life work (that I’ve ever seen), there are still a few novels edited by Christopher Tolkien (J.R.R.’s literary heir) that I haven’t collected yet (i.e. The Fall of Gondolin, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Unfinished Tales etc.). Each of those stories are already contained in The History of Middle-Earth, but I imagine the narratives are different and more detailed. What are your favorite Tales of Middle-Earth and why? Let me know in the comments!

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/peter-jackson-the-silmarillion.html

This is 7 months old, so I suspect this was someone who heard something about new movies based on the Tolkien license and spun it into this complete load of BS, but I'm posting this to warn people about rumor garbage.

I've recently been re-reading the Silmarillion (and going very much into detail, or so I hope; also that's part of the reason I made a poll before for the two trees), and I just remembered to ask a question that I've probably had since the first time I ever read Silmarillion.

What is the origin of the hobbits? Obviously elves and men are the Children of Illuvatar, and dwarves are the creation of Aule, but what about hobbits? I've never found it anywhere, unless I missed something major...

I finally got my hands on a copy and I’m very excited to get into it. Is there anything I should know or any tips for a relatively new reader of Tolkien’s works?

Try piecing the stories together based on following: https://twitter.com/silmarillionbot

I finally managed to read The Silmarillion and it was very good.

Although, truthfully, The Fall of Numenor will always be my favorite Tolkien novel. But my favorite part of The Silmarillion is when it gets to the Rings of Power and the Third Age at the end.

It was a difficult book to get through but it was well worth it.

So i am currently reading Silmarillion. The teen Glaurung showed up but then i had a question. As I remember, Melkor didn't have the power to create life; that's why he corrupted Elves into Orcs. But what is the origin of the dragons then? Did Iluvatar create evil creatures? If not, Melkor corrupted them from which creature? Or did Melkor create life?

As elves are the wisest and perpetual beings in Middle-earth, many elvish lords turn out to be successful and great rulers, like Elrond and Galadriel. But I think Orodreth is an exception.

We know little of his character but I think we can still conclude it under the support of the events he's involved in. Starting from Finrod handing over the throne to him. Ever since he ascends kingship, he’s been struggling to take control over the kingdom with Celegorm and Curufin, but he failed to establish his authority properly like Finrod and keep them from expanding their power and support. It is possible that he would have already been usurped by the brothers if their treachery were not exposed early.

Even if it can be argued that the rise of Celgorm and Curufin was unavoidable (being the sons of Feanor), Orodreth’s weakness can still be proven right after the moment he finally has full authority over his kingdom - starting from giving it over to a foreign man, Turin. Many elvish lives would have been kept safe along with the kingdom if Orodreth had not listened to Turin’s ill-advice and go to open war with Morgoth. An elven king who carries noble blood and thousands of years of experience and knowledge should have known better than to defy the will of the Valar and reduce himself to a puppet figure, letting others take over.

I think Orodreth is one of the very few elvish lords who carries greater flaws resembling humanity - he is weak in leadership and doesn’t strive hard to defend his claim, while the worst thing is that he is easily manipulated. While Feanor brought his people’s doom because of his arrogance, Orodreth did so because of his weakness. He is an outlier, since elves are usuall proven to be capable, strong-willed leaders. Even if they make bad decisions, in the end (like Turgon and Thingol), at least they manage to keep their realm in peace for centuries and accomplish great, significant deeds.

I finished reading The Silmarillion. It’s a very epic, wondrous work, but it doesn’t give much depth of the characters in the story since it is written in an “epic, historical, objective” form. So I borrowed the War of the Jewels, but turns out it’s more of an appendices of the past events when I read the first few pages. Should I keep on reading it or should I read other books? My current focus is to know more about the personality and more information about those characters instead of only learning about the great events in which they are involved. Thanks.

I know that there are many characters in Tolkien’s works are inspired by Celtic and Norse mythology. But, I also find the similarities between the Valar and the Greek deities in mythologies too. Still, they are only similar in terms of titles and duties instead of the inner characters, because the Greek gods and goddess and much crueller and spiteful comparing with the benevolence of the Valar. So here is that small portion of similarities:

Manwe: Zeus

Ulmo: Poseidon

Aule: Hades/Hephaestus

Yavanna: Demeter

Varda: Hera

Orome: Orion

Nienna: Psyche (goddess of human suffering)

Vana: Persephone ?

Nienna: Minemosyne (goddess of memories)

Mandos: Thanatos/Hades

Lorien: Morpheus

Este: Epione (Goddess of soothing pain)

Tulkas: Hercules

Nessa: Artemis

Melkor: Seth (Egyptian god of chaos)/Loki/Satan (definitely)

Sauron: Loki (shapeshifter and deceiver)

Melkor and Sauron are the only ones inspired by Celtic/Norse religion. But the others are closer to Greek mythology. I’m not too familiar with Norse mythology actually. It’s find if your disagree my concept and explain the similarities of the Norse deities and the Valar if you could.

I'm not familiar with the copyright issues of the works of Tolkien. But do you think there will be any chance in the distant future that one day the Tolkien Estate would allow the Silmarillion, or any great stories from the First Age, to be adapted into movies and tv series? I know they didn't allow it over these years, but I don't know if there is still an opportunity to see their works being put into vision and let all faithful readers, fans and those who know nothing about the lore to see the true legends being visualised on screen. Then we won't receive any tragic outcomes that Amazon has created.

In The Silmarillion, in the chapter called "Of the sun and the moon and the hiding of Valinor", the sun and the moon rise, and Morgoth sends spirits of shadow to attack the moon (the vessel of the Maia Tilion), but they are defeated. However, I haven't found a single mention of this attack on this wikipedia, not even on the page of Tilion. Why is this so obscure? I mean, it is only brought up in a few lines, but it is important in convincing the Valar to completely hide Valinor.

Back in the Silmarillion, Feanor initiated the first kinslaying act against the Teleri after they refuse to aid his flight from Valinor, we know that he had killed many of those elves and raid their ships too. But I’m quite dismayed by the fact that the Valar did not help the Teleri. I know they can’t stop the Noldor from leaving because they are given a freedom to choose. But shouldn’t they help the Teleri to defend their people and property at least? Because they are inhabitants of Valinor and remain faithful to their beliefs too. They could have let Feanor continued his folly but they should have stopped him from committing atrocities towards his kinsmen. Or maybe there is much better reason behind this, hope I’ll get some explanation from it.

So I just made some research of Feanor’s speech, and I realised the official speech differs from the version in my book I bought. After Feanor said “Let the cowards keep their city.” It should be followed by “Only grass grow with them…toadstool etc”, but only now I find out the last sentence is cut out from my book.

As for the second part, Feanor had said that let them “go further than Tauron”, but in my version he said “lets go further than Orome”. I made other researches in Quora, then back to some videos, and found out some versions are as same as mine, but some differs. So does that mean the book is intended to be edited in different versions depends on the publisher? Mine is from Harper Collins by the way

I’ve been reading the Silmarillion until chapter 14, and now I wish to turn back to re read chapter 6 (I’m patient enough until I understand everything, both a delight and tragedy for my slow mind). I managed to fetch some maps and hope things will get better this time. But my mind is like this whenever I try to understand all the events inside. It must be Morgoth behind who tries to confuse me and hope me to give up on reading about his shameful history.

So I have been reading the Silmarillion, and Melkor is indeed a very spiteful role who seeks to destroy and corrupt everything that is good. But I also realized his personality and power is quite limited. Melkor is constantly jealous and afriad of things more powerful than him (or we may say that anything that stands against him). He's fretful of Tulkas and Orome and even a big hungry spider. When he fails on some point, he just simply run back to his basement and hide for some time. He somehow look like some vicious, mean jealous bully who is both a destroyer and coward too lol.

Look, I’m not saying that Morgoth is incompetent or stupid. He is very intelligent and corrupted, but I suppose the price of evil is that he’ll never find true courage and honour even when he has to fight back. His hands will never be healed from holding the Silmarils, which I assume it as a sign of how light and goodness will always be insufferable to him, and he will remember that for all eternity.

Why didn't the Valar imprison Morgoth in the end in the Halls of Mandos from where nobody (nor Valar) can escape? Why did they send him into the void from where he escapes in the end for the Dagor Dagorath, when they could keep him in the Halls of Mandos instead and chill?

It seems quite common to hear that readers of The Silmarillion find the book hard to read. I guess the most common reasons are that it's not written like the typical novel, and there are so many names that it's hard to keep track of them. However, I can't really relate to these struggles. For some reason, when I read The Silmarillion, it was a highly enjoyable experience. I never found it difficult to read.

So... I'm curious to know: if you've read The Silmarillion and found it a hard book, why specifically was it hard for you?