j a m e s

But then you actually touch grass and talk to normal people. Not even that, you talk to people who self diagnose as hard core Tolkien fans. And. None of them have read the Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is famously a book that nobody reads.

And yet. On AO3 The Silmarillion and Other Histories of Middle Earth has more works than The Lord of the Rings. Think about that. That’s baffling. It’s ridiculous. Like I realize that LotR fandom is split a bit by the movie, but still. The Silmarillion has almost four times as many fics as the LotR movies. Everybody has watched the movies!

I need to know what percentage of people who actually read the Silmarillion went on to write fic or draw fanart about it. Because it must be insane, surely. Like, I’m pretty sure the Silmarillion wins some kind of record in this department.

Thinking about the fanfic bell curve where on one end you have “Perfect, needs no improvement or elaboration” (LotR sits here) and on the other you have “So bad it’s no fun to even think about” with the middle being the fanfic zone. But I think there may be a secret fourth Silmarillion option. Which is a book that is perfect* but simultaneously non existent. It’s not even a real story! The language is super pretty and deeply incomprehensible (especially to people who, unlike me, were not raised from early childhood on both the Bible and classic literature). And it’s more of an outline and an abstract painting of cultural and world building vibes (not cultural and world building facts and information) than an actual narrative. There are story hooks galore. There are vivid and fascinating characters, but their lives are glossed over and you only get one or two paragraphs of prose that will reorder your brain chemistry and haunt you forever. There are countless more characters who only exist as names, the implication of whose existence is fascinating. All of this is deeply frustrating, both to casual readers who just want a Normal Enjoyable Book, and super fans who want All the Lore. But it is catnip to anyone who engages in transformative work.

the earth was flat until some people pissed off god enough that he punched it round

the sun and moon used to be trees, but a big spider ate them

elves even being in middle-earth can be traced back to one (1) dude hating that people mispronounced his mom's name

sauron is a werewolf

elrond's biological parents are a star and a bird now

there's a sexy vampire lady

fighting a balrog barehanded is so cool it'll get you reincarnated right away even if there isn't a current big crisis going on (sorry gandalf, glorfindel just did it better)

satan got banned from heaven for playing his own music too loud

this one guy (Sauron’s boss) got so scared of the big spider that he screeched really loud and the rocks nearby echoed his screams for centuries

that is until the land got squelched and fell into the sea in a giant battle that destroyed the continent (as you do)

(some of the other) elves being in Middle-earth happened because the Valar invited them to their special land but the elves lost their king in a forest and didn’t want to leave him

the Minas Tirith that you know in LOTR isn’t the first Minas Tirith—Sauron conquered the other one, but then lost it again because of a girl and her dog

Sauron had beef with the dog even before meeting him

the dog could talk

eagles used to be even bigger (yes really)

the elf-dwarf feud can be traced back to a dispute over a necklace with a very shiny rock