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The Silmarillion is a GOLD MINE of unused ideas.

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Zennistrad from The Multiverse Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: I don't mind being locked in this eternal maze!
#1: Aug 6th 2011 at 10:47:58 PM

While browsing the article about Lost Technology, I came across this example:

The Silmarillion states that the people of the First Age built an elven ship made of "mithril and elven-glass" that could travel both through the sky and through the Outer Void (outer space.)

When Morgoth destroyed Gondolin, the great Elven city hidden in the mountains, he crossed the peaks with metal troop carriers that had fire in their bellies (engines.)

In the Second Age, the Numenoreans are said to have had ships with weapons that could "fire darts across an ocean."

Then I started reading snippets of The Silmarillion online; holy shit, there are so many awesome ideas here! It's The Lord Of The Rings in a Diesel Punk setting!

Seriously, why hasn't any professional author written about this? I mean, if the people who own the rights to the setting are okay with movie adaptations, why not let someone expand upon these ideas?

Aversion to Literary Necrophilia of Tolkien's work be damned, I want to see these ideas implemented in proper stories now!

Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
Zennistrad from The Multiverse Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: I don't mind being locked in this eternal maze!
#3: Aug 6th 2011 at 11:03:03 PM

I really just want to see it done in Tolkien's setting in a way that evokes Tolkien's earlier work.

edited 6th Aug '11 11:05:48 PM by Zennistrad

UltimatelySubjective Since: Jun, 2011
#4: Aug 6th 2011 at 11:03:12 PM

The Silmarillion is basically a bible of Tolkien's world. It's a fairly pure form of his ideas.

And most people would much rather write their own ideas.

Also, the Silmarillion itself is actually kind of dry, so maybe the someone needs to show off that the book has adaptable ideas before anyone will follow.

Zennistrad from The Multiverse Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: I don't mind being locked in this eternal maze!
#5: Aug 6th 2011 at 11:06:27 PM

I also really want to hear the full story behind the the great conflicts that are really only barely fleshed out.

UltimatelySubjective Since: Jun, 2011
#6: Aug 6th 2011 at 11:13:13 PM

Have you tried writing a fanfic of that?

I don't know if anyone will ever pick up the threads this paticular incomplete narrative, but that's what fans are for right?

Zennistrad from The Multiverse Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: I don't mind being locked in this eternal maze!
#7: Aug 6th 2011 at 11:15:51 PM

Well, there are a few recommendations...

... But none of them are actually retellings that elaborate on the stories...

edited 6th Aug '11 11:17:07 PM by Zennistrad

NLK Mo A Since: May, 2010
#8: Aug 7th 2011 at 12:12:06 AM

Hey, that's an awesome idea. But I don't know if it's legal to write about Arda (as in, real books, not just FF).

Likes many underrated webcomics
captainbrass2 from the United Kingdom Since: Mar, 2011
#9: Aug 7th 2011 at 4:15:35 PM

I doubt it. Really, most fanfic could be stamped on for breach of copyright, but is allowed to exist by creators because (a) the authors don't profit from it, (b) legal proceedings are complicated and expensive and (c) the internet generally is difficult to regulate. "Proper" books which make money are the point where the lawyers usually step in.

The Silmarillion is actually a highly edited version of decades-worth of unpublished notes by Tolkein about Middle Earth and its history. IIRC there is a multi-volume work called The History of Middle Earth which goes into more detail and Unfinished Tales does a bit as well.

"Well, it's a lifestyle"
MadassAlex I am vexed! from the Middle Ages. Since: Jan, 2001
Cider The Final ECW Champion from Not New York Since: May, 2009 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
The Final ECW Champion
#11: Aug 11th 2011 at 11:52:38 AM

People have had similar ideas but I haven't encountered anything that could be called a Spiritual Successor. Why no one is using JJR's particular tools for story telling? Eh good question, there is really no reason not to, so you could be the first. Go ahead, tell put your spin on his ground work, try and get it edited and published, file off serial numbers to make it lawyer friendly if you have too.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
ImipolexG frozen in time from all our yesterdays Since: Jan, 2001
frozen in time
#12: Aug 11th 2011 at 7:40:26 PM

The History of Middle Earth is, I believe, about 10 volumes that go through Tolkien's entire lifetime of unpublished writings and notes. It is heavy stuff, for the true fans only, really.

I tried to write a mythology in the style of The Silmarillion in high school. It was utter garbage, though.

no one will notice that I changed this
ImipolexG frozen in time from all our yesterdays Since: Jan, 2001
frozen in time
#14: Aug 12th 2011 at 4:41:48 PM

"True fans" as in the really dedicated ones who want to know everything.

no one will notice that I changed this
EricDVH Since: Jan, 2001
#15: Aug 13th 2011 at 3:33:59 AM

Honestly, there's a TON of stuff LotRO should be using, at the very least.

Eric,

NIkkolas from Texas Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#16: Jun 21st 2013 at 7:50:31 PM

So why am I so disconnected from the rest of the world in that I found LOTR really dull but The Silmarillion really interesting? Everyone seems to say the Sil is a slog and hard to get through. Apparently it's supposed to go "if you don't like LOTR, read The Hobbit. If you REALLY like LOTR, read The Silmarillion."

But for me, it took me about five or six tries to get through Fellowship. The crap in the Shire and the Barrow Downs and everything up to the Council of Elrond was just so....ZZZZZZ. (except Tom Bombadil)

But The Silmarillion? It's nonstop epic. And not epic in the overused synonym for cool. It's epic as in really expansive and vast and something that stretches the scope of your imagination. How can gods wrestling, mountains and continents crumbling and all that be more boring and unenjoyable than the affais of Midgetville? Morgoth was a better villain than Sauron and Turin was an amazing protagonist.

MorwenEdhelwen Aussie Tolkien freak from Sydney, Australia Since: Jul, 2012
Aussie Tolkien freak
#17: Jun 21st 2013 at 8:08:30 PM

I once thought of using the idea of the Cottage of Lost Play in my writing. I probably will, eventually.

edited 21st Jun '13 9:23:31 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien
Darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#18: Jun 21st 2013 at 8:36:21 PM

Yeah, it's an amazing book that deserves much more love than it gets.

It's a beautiful book with gorgeous prose and storytelling on a epic scale.

But for ideas, History of Middle-Earth has tons more. The infamous example being Balrogs and orcs riding elven-made tanks/war machines into Gondolin. But there's more including Turin possibly returning to slay Morgoth in the Dagor Dagorath at the end of time, the tale of Beron and Luthien recast in alliterative verse, a final draft of Earendil's song from Lotr being replaced with a rougher one by mistake and never corrected, the unpublished epilogue of Return of the King, more hints on Tom's origins, the Numenoreans building airships, and much more.

Plus the Book of Lost Tales is just surreal, especially the first time you read it.

edited 21st Jun '13 8:39:44 PM by Darkabomination

MorwenEdhelwen Aussie Tolkien freak from Sydney, Australia Since: Jul, 2012
Aussie Tolkien freak
#19: Jun 21st 2013 at 9:04:05 PM

@Dark: It's "Beren."

edited 21st Jun '13 9:04:27 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien
Ninety Absolutely no relation to NLK from Land of Quakes and Hills Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
Absolutely no relation to NLK
#21: Jun 21st 2013 at 9:59:02 PM

That guy up there looks familiar.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#22: Jun 22nd 2013 at 4:17:37 AM

While a lot of fantasy books are inspired by mythology, The Silmarillion is designed to actually read like a book of mythology. If you're like me, and spent much of your childhood digging through the 398.2 section of the library, that's a very welcome thing.

ArcadesSabboth from Mother Earth Since: Oct, 2011
#23: Jun 22nd 2013 at 4:54:00 PM

I love the Silmarillion and dearly wish the author had finished it, and written more detailed versions of some First Age stories. There is The Children of Húrin, and "The Wanderings of Hurin" in War of the Jewels, but even those aren't quite written like novels, and nothing else from the First Age comes close to that amount of detail.

N Ikkolas, you are not the only one who feels that way. I loved the Silmarillion the moment I sat down with it, but keep hearing people say Ainulindale is so dull. Instead I found the first half of Fellowship of the Ring very dull. But The Lord of the Rings picks up later. What happened is this: after The Hobbit became semi-popular, fans wrote to the publisher and author asking for a sequel. JRR was trying to find the time to actually finish the Silmarillion, but decided to try writing a Hobbit sequel since there was this demand. Except that it started morphing into a Silmarillion sequel instead. Then he had to revise The Hobbit to fit it into Middle-earth, and the LOTR turned into this mammoth over-sized epic. So yeah, LOTR becomes much more Silmarillion-like the further you read.

I probably loved the Silmarillion so much because I was already into mythology.

The History of Middle-earth is 12 volumes. The TVT page sums it up nicely, I think. The troop carriers and airships are from HOME, not the Silmarilion; I edited Lost Technology to fix that example. Actually I'm not sure if the 'mithril and elven-glass' Vingilote isn't from HOME too.

Arda is so richly fascinating and wonderful, but also frustrating. There's much that JRRT never explained that we'll just never know.

edited 22nd Jun '13 4:56:29 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#24: Jun 22nd 2013 at 11:32:45 PM

Well, as Christopher said in volume 11:

The compendious or epitomising form and manner of The Silmarillion, with its suggestion of ages of poetry and "lore" behind it, strongly evokes a sense of "untold tales", even in the telling of them There is no narrative urgency, the pressure and fear of the immediate and unknown event. We do not actually see the Silmarils as we see the Ring.' But this is entirely speculative, because none of it came about: neither the 'great saga' nor the Quenta Silmarillion were concluded. Freely as my father often wrote of his work, he never so much as hinted at his larger intentions for the structure of the whole. I think that it must be said we are left, finally, in the dark.

To give an example, the final fate of Arda itself. We have hints, but there isn't even a rough draft of the event. But like so many things, we'll never know. It's sad to get to intimately know a world so much and ultimately be forced to say goodbye with so many unanswered questions.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#25: Jun 24th 2013 at 9:03:33 AM

I had thought that "The End" was never written about because it hasn't happened yet. Framing for both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings suggested that their world slowly became our world, "Dominion of Man" and all. Thus it could only be foretold to the degree it could be foretold (with stuff that happens outside Mandos' ken, etc), but was still to come.


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