The Silmarillion

Already gots ourselves a Lord of The Rings thread so guess we should have one solely talkings about Silmarillion tale.

So 10 out of 10 for book yeah?

Yep. My favorite part was the Fall of Gondolin.

I think Silmarillion is underrated by a lot of people but I like the uber-epic "Bible according to Tolkien" approach.

Did someone say Silmarillion?

One of my favorite bits was the story of the Dwarves during the Unnumbered Tears, where their Lord Azaghal fell in battle against the dragons, and then they just picked up his body and all marched off singing a funeral dirge and none of Morgoth's forces wanted anything to do with it.

Fingolfin's battle with Morgoth will always be a favorite for me. And, of course, the story of Beren and Luthien.

Fingolfin went out like a Boss.

edited 8th Feb '14 11:33:32 AM by tricksterson

Feanor too. Didn't he take out like, six Balrogs at once?

Yeah but he was a jerk.

I honestly hated Feanor more than Morgoth or Sauron or Maeglin or anyone else.

I liked Feanor because he was so unlike the typical prissy elves from the rest of the legendarium. Guy kicked ass. It doesn't matter whose ass. The fact that he tore shit up like a boss was good enough for me.

Fëanor: Badass... ass.

Actually, no. He fought all of the Balrogs at once. In the later versions, there were only supposed to be seven Balrogs, and only six of them were killed during the First Age. Tolkien supposedly gave a fixed number in order to prevent himself from making them less threatening by making them Bad Ass measuring sticks and attributing too many Balrog kills to too many characters.

I believe the only characters specifically stated to have killed Balrogs were Ecthelion (who killed the leader Gothmog), Glorfindel, and Gandalf, and all of them died doing it.

Of course, none of this takes away from Feanor's Badassness. Not only was he a fearless warrior, but he was smart enough to make the Middle-Earth versions of the lightbulb and Skype, not to mention going out fighting a bunch of burning giant monsters by bursting into flame himself, so even if he was a Jerkass in life, he at least minimized the cost of his own funeral.

edited 11th Feb '14 6:45:24 PM by shiro_okami

The Palantiri are not Skype. Ugh. They're not just for communicating, they let you see anything that's happening, anywhere in the world. And they're a lot cooler.

edited 13th Feb '14 3:07:01 PM by WarriorEowyn

Btw just wanted to throw this out there (especially since someone deleted my edit on "The Silmarilion Crowning Moment Of Awesome); guys the Numenoreans had absolutely no chance of beating the Valar. The only reason The Valar (Tulkas,Orome,Ulmo and Manwe) didn't smite their ass is because they weren't in a position of authority to do so.

Tolkien even said in his letters that they weren't allowed to:

The Valar had no real answer to this monstrous rebellion - for the Children of God were not under their ultimate jurisdiction: they were not allowed to destroy them, or coerce the, with any ’divine’ display of the powers they held over the physical world." (Letter #156)

Aaron Diaz (the fellow behind Dresden Codak) is working on a long-term project to illustrate the Silmarillion, chapter by chapter, with miscellaneous character studies scattered in as a bonus. It won't be everyone's cup of tea—"a cartoony Tolkien?!"—but I love his conscious departure from the standard-issue Alan Lee mold, and from the well-worn conventions for depicting Tolkien's cultures & environments.

http://silmarillionproject.tumblr.com/

Fucking Christopher Tolkien (Facepalms). While I initially understood the people who defended his side of things in being against the P.J LOTR films I'm kind of pissed off at him for omitting what happened to Feanor's youngest son Amras from The Silmarillion. Dude can't say shit about honoring his daddy if he leaves out key parts from the story.

I just finished this. Faenor was a boss. Too bad he went out like a punk.

@Kalel

Feanor is a punk even if he did go out the way he did. Dude blamed the wrong people for his grievances.

Couchpotato:

I wouldn't necessarily blame Christopher Tolkien for not including information on a given character. If my understanding is correct, the younger Tolkien doesn't write things from whole cloth. Instead he'll piece together a bunch of his father's notes and drafts (and Tolkien Sr. was prolific with his revisions) into a story, or rewrite something his father wrote as poetry as prose (such as The Children of Hurin, my personal favorite).

@Sharur

Well, I'm still gonna blame 'em. Dude is even shunning his own kids for liking Peter Jackson's rendition of the book even though they're doin everything can to make the story stick out in media. Something he hasn't tried to do and instead remain reclusive.

^Um, what. Christopher Tolkien has spent most of his life working on bringing out his father's work to the public. Most of the information we know about Amras comes from one of the histories of Middle-Earth Christopher Tolkien wrote. As for "leaving out key parts" and not adhering to his father's wishes - Tolkien wrote and rewrote The Silmarillion throughout his life. He left so many notes, letters and drafts with different ideas and plans. Christopher has had to sort through all of these and try to make a coherent narrative. Of course some elements will be left out, because there's no way every detail will fit, and it's clear from the revisions that Tolkien didn't want every past detail in the final work.

edited 19th May '14 8:17:18 PM by Yuanchosaan

@ Yuanchosaan

(just listened to Silmarillion audio book so takes back what said about Amrod and Amras) Still like Amrod's original death than dying in the attack of Sirion's Haven in the third kinslaying.

Dude Peter Jackson has dedicated a motherfucking decade to bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece to the film form. Just because some things are omitted or changed around that doesn't mean that he's giving the Tolkien the middle finger. If someone is offering to do something nice to show appreciation to your work you don't act like a dick to them.

On another note: geez listening to the audio book of Children of Hurin makes me even more teary eyed than when I read it. Y_Y

I didn't say I agreed with Christopher Tolkien's opinion on the Lot R films. Just that it's pretty much undeniable that he's done a great deal to bring the Legendarium to the world.

I love the Lot R films, personally, but I can see how different they are to the books.

As fun as it looks, that Dresden Kodak thing does raise a few red flags.

Heh heh heh heh.