But Fëanor Laughed

After watching the trailer for Thor Ragnarok my friends and I came to the conclusion that it seems after witnessing the clash between DC and critics/journalists at a safe distance the past couple of years. marvel got shit scared, thus turning their movie into even more of a total rainbow-fest.

First, off, the elves never get sick. It’s one of the benefits of being an elf (they can, however, be affected by strong poisons.) So, when discussing illness in Middle Earth, keep in mind that these illnesses would only affect mortals. (Also, for a related post, check out Medicine in Middle Earth.)

We get the feeling that illnesses and diseases must occur (first of all, why mention that elves are immune, if there’s nothing to be immune from. Also, the existence of the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith suggests that, even in peace-time, there was healing to be done), but we actually hear very little about medical issues. During war, infection and poison are an issue, but “natural” illnesses are almost never mentioned. In fact, I can only think of two at the moment. At the end of The Hobbit, it’s mentioned in passing that Bilbo had a cold (so, apparently even in Middle Earth, we can’t get rid of the common cold.) The second is, in my opinion, much more fascinating.

The Great Plague (or Dark Plague) hit Middle Earth in the year 1635 of the Third Age. Though it was said to come from an “evil wind” in the east, it actually spread from Harad, south of Mordor. It decimated the populations of Gondor, Rhovanion, and Minhiriath, as well as affecting Rhun, Rohan, Enedwaith, Cardolan, and The Shire. The exact number of casualties is unknown but it’s estimated to have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives (including over half the entire population of Rhovanion.) Some of the more “famous” casualties included Telemnar, king of Gondor, and his family, as well as the last remaining Dunedain of Cardolan. The historical and political implications of the plague were huge, but I won’t get in to them here (but just know that they were huge.)

Frustratingly enough, we really don’t know anything about the Great Plague as a disease - we don’t know the symptoms, or how it was treated, etc. But I’d imagine that it probably wasn’t your average plague, and many people believed that it was actually caused by Sauron himself.

SOURCES: LOTR, LOTR Appendices, The Hobbit, The Unfinished Tales (“Cirion and Eorl”)

Yes they arrived! The color tone is a bit darker than I thought, but still ahhhhh!

So I made a permanent Cosmere palette challenge sheet. You can send requests (character + number of the palette) at any time =) Please note that it may take some time! (Sorry.) If a request cannot be tackled immediately, I’ll definitely keep it in a list.

This sheet is also free to use. With it, you can start your own challenge! All the palettes come from: [x]

A choir made of soldiers and healers, the voice of which is strong enough to make the earth rumble as it sings of both new hope and old defiance. Maglor’s songs in the singers’ chests are as bright as any beacon, as sharp as a sword, and as deep as the roots of mountains.  Each voice, alone, carries a note of sadness, but when they all sing together the accent of pain spirals around the main theme to bloom into a cry of desperate joy. Orcs do not dare to attack when they sing and the very air seems to become denser, almost billowing with power, like a shield of harmonics. The sound of their songs can be heard across all of Lothlann, bouncing off the cold slopes of Himring, twisting in the labyrinth of hills surrounding it; its last accents break on the mountain slopes of the pass of Aglon; sometimes whispers of music reach Caranthir that, for once, smiles so brilliantly. 

Thanks to a dear friend, I got the chance to print a bunch of Cosmere postcards =) Here is the design for the back; I used some sketches to match the front.

Those are some of the ones I’d like to print: (and I’m still searching for more available files in my computer. Too many are lost.)

When I’m trying to convince people to read the Silmarillion, I tell them it begins with paradise being attacked and destroyed by a massive abdomination from beyond the void, leaving behind traumatized, shattered and grieving people whose subsequent terrible decisions destroy everything the monster could not. 

I’m talking about the Darkening, if the title didn’t give it away. This actually started out as a post about something completely different, and then I realized that that made no sense until I’d first explained what on earth is going on between Feanor and Fingolfin’s awkward handshake and Feanor’s arrival in Tirion. 

Here’s a hint: it’s a lot. 

This is, once again, a case where the version of the story in the published Silmarillion does not do the whole scope and terror of Tolkien’s vision justice. The rest is in Morgoth’s Ring. 

… through the throng came the sons of Feanor, flying from the North, and they bore new tidings of evil. Maedros spoke for them. ‘Blood and darkness!’ he cried. ‘Finwë the king is slain, and the Silmarils are gone!’

Thank you! It’s incredibly cool to hear that I’ve made someone else appreciate Tolkien’s world even more. I’ve been smiling irrepressibly for the last hour while I typed this up. 

Doom, Doom, Doom (Or: Executing Dogs is Not Cool: Why I Still Don’t Like the Valar)

What’s the difference between a curse and a prophecy? A “curse” implies causing misfortune, not just predicting it. If the Doom of the Noldor led to the terrible events that followed, or somehow drove them to occur, it was a curse; if it merely announced them, it’s a warning. 

And I think the text makes it reasonably clear that the Doom actively drives events from its pronouncement on forward. The warning of treason of “kin against kin” is part of what drives Fëanor to the abandonment in Araman (ironically, this abandonment is one of the treasons that the Doom warns of); Melian perceives the Doom as an actual shadow on the spirits of the Noldor, which is part of what drives Thingol to mistrust them (which, again, is part of why they fail).

When Ulmo speaks to Turgon about building Gondolin, he warns Turgon that he is also under the Doom, “which Ulmo had no power to remove.” That isn’t the sort of language you’d use for a prediction; it is the sort of language you’d use for a curse. Later, the Silmarillion attributes Maeglin’s unrequited love for Idril to the Doom of Mandos seeding evil in Gondolin. That’s right: it says the Doom actually causes Maeglin’s issues. Even Celegorm and Curufin’s antics in Nargothrond are attributed to the Doom: They are tremendously helpful and respected in Nargothrond at first, but then “the curse of Mandos came upon the brothers, and dark thoughts arose in their hearts” of usurping Finrod. Note that it doesn’t say, “and thoughts of treason arose in their hearts, as the curse of Mandos foretold” – which is how it would be presented, in my opinion, if the curse were a prophecy. Nope, the curse awakened in them, and caused dark thoughts. 

One more example: Huan, we are told, left with the rebels and thus fell also “under the doom  of woe set upon the Noldor, and it was decreed that he should meet death.” Not “and it was foretold” that he would meet death; it was decreed that he should meet death, as an appropriate punishment for leaving Valinor with Celegorm and thereby falling under the doom. I feel like there’s only one way to interpret this: the Valar got around and discussed what Huan’s fate should be, and they sentenced him to death.*

If you’re ever wondering whether you’re fighting for the good guys, look around and check if you’ve sentenced any dogs to death lately. That’s a sign you’re the bad guy. (Talking to you, too, Robert Baratheon).

The last point often made in favor of the “doom as prophecy” interpretation is that “doom”, in the archaic sense that Tolkien was using it, often meant “fate” or “destiny”, not “curse”. But the Silm routinely also refers to the Doom of the Noldor as the curse of Mandos, and “curse” carries no similar ambiguity. And “doom” is used earlier in the Silmarillion to refer to Fëanor’s sentence of exile. That means we have, only a chapter before the Doom of the Noldor is pronounced, “doom” being used to mean “sentence/punishment of the Valar against misbehaving elves”. And it’s a “doom”, as in curse, that Morgoth sets on Hurin’s children; he doesn’t prophecy that they’ll come to misfortune, he causes it. And Morgoth’s doom has precisely the same effects on Turin that the Doom of the Noldor is described as having on them; other Elves can sense a dark shadow over Turin, just as Melian is troubled by the dark shadow over the Noldor. 

Finally, of course, we have the fact that the Doom is eventually “lifted” when the Valar relent; Manwë chooses for it not to apply to Earendil and Elwing, and presumably not to the other Elves who are good and come back home at the end of the Age. That implies that it’s something over which he has power, not just something which happens. 

I like the idea that the Doom was a prophecy; it makes the behavior of the Valar a little more justifiable, and it fits with the sort of painful sense of inevitability that shapes the Silmarillion. But I don’t think it’s consistent with the text. Mandos doomed the Noldor just as Morgoth doomed Hurin, and in both cases the result was tremendous suffering.

Here are some useful resources I’ve found while I’ve been in the community, so I thought I’d share! PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN IF YOU HAVE ANY! And please reblog and share!

References

askmiddlearth – A great blog where you can send in questions and receive answers regarding just about any aspect of the Legendarium. 

coco.raceme – A collection of quotes, songs, and important passages from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, arranged by book and chapter.

Fish in Middle Earth – Did you ever want to know what kinds of fish there were in Middle Earth? No? You’ll probably end up reading this anyways. The curiosity will get to you.

henneth-annun – The HASA story archive has mostly moved to AO3 now, but this website still contains hundreds of timelines, character bios, quotes, object descriptions, and more.

silmarillionwritersguild – Essays, meta, biographies, and more – all about the plot and characters of the Silmarillion.

Languages

almare – Tumblr user almare has a great collection of Tolkien language resources, including a handy graphic of the relations between Elvish languages.

councilofelrond – A good resource for translations of canon texts, glossaries, conlang discussions, a dictionary, etc. Of particular interest is their Sindarin mutation chart, which is necessary pretty much whenever you’re stringing more than two Sindarin words together.

dwarrowscholar – Contains everything from lessons to a truly massive Khuzdul dictionary. If you have a basic understanding of Neo-Khuzdul, you can also make use of the translation tool.

Hiswelókë’s – A delightfully thorough dictionary available in a variety of arrangements ( English-Sindarin, Sindarin-English, thematic, etc. ). Available in English, French, and German.

midgardsmal – The blog of David Salo, one of the people who worked on the languages in Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films.

realelvish – A handy phrasebook that provides categories for easy searches, dialects, pronunciation, and multiple translations of the same phrase. Includes fun categories, such as ‘in the bedroom’ and ‘on the internet’, as well as many others that are more in keeping with Tolkien’s tone. 

sindarinlessons – A collection of rules, references, and explanations of Sindarin grammar.

your-sindarin-textbook – On this site, a duck teaches you Sindarin. What more could you want? Includes exercises and references.

Books

All the books in PDF – These two posts both contain links to Tolkien’s works and where you can find them online.

HoME reading order – tumblr user lintamande has put together a list of Tolkien’s texts beyond the Silmarillion, in case you were wanting to dip your toes into HoME but didn’t know where to begin. They also have a general Silm resource page that’s worth looking at, as well as all their meta. 

On Fairy Stories – One of Tolkien’s most-referenced essays.

Tolkien’s letters – A collection of many of Tolkien’s transcribed letters, useful for all those really obscure facts you need to check and to impress your friends.

Non-Tolkien

A shameless plug – I do my best to collect useful references, notes, and masterposts on writing, Tolkien, and more in my ‘references’ tag.

howtofightwrite – This blog contains discussions on weapons and how they’re used, as well as some particularly useful weapon primers that will give you the basics on the weapons your character uses. 

Medieval references – A collection of a few useful references for medieval-type jobs, terms, and more. 

Mood music – Themed music playlists for just about anything you could ever want to write.

Ardalambion is a high quality language resource and has extensive wordlists. Good for obscure languages like Nandorin and Taliska. It’s more in-depth than a dictionary and has notes on in-universe and out-universe history for the languages.

Textual Ghosts Project, a list of unnamed and missing female characters from Tolkien’s works.

Notes: some of the book links don’t work any more.

The working link for OP’s resources tag is now here.