The Silmarillion

[BitVyper]

You know, everyone has always told me that it's dry and boring and blah blah blah, but I'm about two thirds of the way through, and I'm just not finding that at all. Now granted, I've read quite a few epics, so I'm a bit more accustomed to the type of storytelling, but still, it doesn't really seem THAT slow. I mean, you're not getting page after page of "Beowulf gets some more treasure. Here's where it all came from and who owned it and their family history."

Anyway, it IS the sort of story that needs to be consumed in small bites. It's not the sort of thing where you can sit down and have an enjoyable time reading it through in one sitting.

I have a few observations from what I've read so far:

1: Fingolfin was one bad motherfucker. I mean, everyone is all on about how awesome Feanor was, but Fingolfin completely blew him out of the water. It's like...

Morgoth breaks the four hundred year siege of Angband, throwing the Noldor into disarray and generally ruining everyone's shit. While everyone is still collectively going "FUCK! RETREAT!" Fingolfin has another response

He goes fucking super saiyan, jumps on his horse, and rides toward Angband with such intensity that the armies of evil think he's a Valar and get the fuck out of his way. He gets to Angband and tells Morgoth to get his pansy bitch ass the fuck out there and fight him. Morgoth, formerly greatest of the Valar, the guy who reshapes continents when he fights and needs not fear destruction from any mortal, pisses in his pants. He has to go out and confront Fingolfin anyway, so he does, and Fingolfin proceeds to kick his sorry ass all over the battlefield until he is literally too tired from beating the shit out of Morgoth to dodge anymore. Morgoth tags him with a hammer that has been leaving big craters all over the place, and Fingolfin just gets back up and keeps fighting. That happens a few more times until Morgoth finally manages to get the better of him, and has his boot on Fingolfin's throat. Just as he delivers the final blow, Fingolfin stabs him in the leg, wounding him grievously for the eighth time in their fight, giving him a permanent limp.

Morgoth vows to defile his body, but the lord of friggin eagles saw everything and he's like "oh HELLZ no,' flies out of the sky, claws the shit out of Morgoth, picks up Fingolfin's corpse, and flies off to give him the resting place he deserves.

Keep in mind, Fingolfin never had to come back to Middle Earth. He could have stayed in the west and been perfectly safe from Morgoth forever. He only came for the sake of Feanor.

I have this image in my head of Fingolfin getting up for the second time from being hit by Morgoth and kinda drunkenly going "that all you got? THAT ALL YOU GOT!? I FART harder than that, you sissy!"

2. Turin son of Hurin's entire life story needs to be animated and set to Yakety Sax.

3. Sauron is scarier than Morgoth ever was.

[Si Civa]

You know, everyone has always told me that it's dry and boring and blah blah blah, but I'm about two thirds of the way through, and I'm just not finding that at all.

It's been quite long time since I read Silmarillion, but I think I'm right when I say that it should be noted that some people complain the same thing about Lord of the Rings.

But since you said you have read some other epics, so have you read any of those which Tolkien has admitted that influenced him? (Kalevala!) And have you seen some similar stories? Because if I remember correctly one story is really close to one story from Kalevala*, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was more of those.

*I don't remember anymore who was the character's name and talking what happens in that one would be kinda spoilerish, but I really don't remember how much it loaned from Kalevala and can be in fact quite orginal even though one can easily point where Tolkien got his influence.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I bought this ages ago, after reading the Hobbit and LotR. I got about... 4 pages in, then stopped. Yeah, found it hard going alright. But I've recently rewatched the films on blu-ray and kinda sorta' decided I might maybe give Sil another go.

Haven't started yet mind, gotta get in the right mood for it. But I will read it! Eventually! Someday... maybe.


I do already kind of know the story though, because I also have a Tolkien encyclepedia which basically tells the entire abridged history of everything, but I definately need to read Sil at some point properly. It seems fairly epic.

[BitVyper]

It's been quite long time since I read Silmarillion, but I think I'm right when I say that it should be noted that some people complain the same thing about Lord of the Rings.

I find Tolkein gets better the more middle-English literature you read. It helps you get an understanding of the depth of exactly what he did with Lord of the Rings.

Ironically though, I haven't actually read the main stuff that Tolkein's work is directly based off. I really mean to read Nibelungenlied one of these days (I saw the TV series! That sorta counts!). I still have to finish Journey to the West though - I'm about two thirds of the way through and stalled out, thinking I need a better translation because this one is unpleasant to read. In the Chinese vein, I want to pick up Water Margin, which Suikoden was based on, some time as well.

[Magus]

The first time I tried reading the Silmarillion, I quit a little way in. The second time (years later) I sort of "forced" myself past that point and ended up really, really enjoying it. It's a great book, well worth reading if you're a fan of LOTR or fantasy in general. You just have to get past the beginning, apparently.

[BitVyper]

I loved the singing of the Ainur. I love the way it's all played out in the story.

[Si Civa]

The singing being "magical" in whole Tolkien's works* is one of the things that is loaned from Kalevala. (One of the first things people will know about Kalevala is that V?in?m?inen sung another person to swamp!)

Though I would imagine that there's more epics and other fictional books before Tolkien that treated singing and music the same way as Kalevala and prolly many before Kalevala was published.

But I think it was Tolkien's own brain child that the world was created by singing. And now I think about it it's probably the most beautiful way to start the world. Melodical big bang..

*Think about all those moments in LOTR where they hear elves singing and how they feel what is sung even though they don't understand the words. Or how much songs there actually were. (And now I can only think how Vonnegut said that music is proof that God exists)

[BitVyper]

But I think it was Tolkien's own brain child that the world was created by singing. And now I think about it it's probably the most beautiful way to start the world. Melodical big bang..

Ever play Audiosurf? If you haven't, you should.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I loved this book. It was a little difficult to read at first but I really got into it.

Turin's story was one of the most compelling ones because of how depressing it was. It only got turned up with the Children of Hurin.

[BitVyper]

Turin's story is less depressing if you picture it with a canned audience (or Yakety Sax, as I suggested before) and prodigious use of the "wa wa waaaaaa" sound effect.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I am now going to reread it with my phone set to play that recording.

[RickZarber]

That guy Fingolfin deserves a pretty epic song... oh wait (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=320Te91vWnY)! (Just in case there was anyone out there still unaware that such a thing existed.)

I first read the Silmarillion seven years ago after a few aborted attempts. The nice thing about it is that once you have a working knowledge of the place and people names, re-readings are easy.

Have you read The Children of H?rin yet, Bit? (Curious as to whether you'd read that before or after.)

If you really really like the works of Tolkien, I highly recommend The History of Middle-Earth, Christopher Tolkien's 12 volume exploration of the various versions of the stories. The composition of the published Silmarillion is a bit of an oddity, cobbled together as it is from disparate writings that span several decades. I've found reading the tales in their original and evolving forms gave me a much deeper appreciation of the canon.

[BitVyper]

I've got some other Tolkein stuff I'm planning to get into after I finish this. This bookstore I went to had that one book about Tom Bombadil, but it was 120 dollars for whatever reason (didn't ask why), so I didn't get it.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Wow, so I actually started reading this last night. It only took me like 4 years to pick it back up, not bad considering. Haven't got far yet though; the Elves just all got divided into different Noldor and Sindar and Teleri factions, which I now completely understand.

It's actually pretty good once you get into it.

[RickZarber]

You know what's really great? The Lay of Leithian--the epic-length poem that comprises the long form of the story of Beren and L?thien. Specifically the 1955 revision. (Found in The Lays of Beleriand.)

Far in the northern hills of stone,
in caverns black there was a throne
by flame encircled. There the smoke
in coiling columns rose to choke
the breath of life, and there in deep
and gasping dungeons lost would creep
to hopeless death all those who strayed
by doom beneath that ghastly shade.

A king there sat, most dark and fell
of all that under heaven dwell.
Than earth or sea, than moon or star,
more ancient was he, mightier far
in mind abysmal than the thought
of Eldar or of man, and wrought
of strength primeval; ere the stone
was hewn to build the world, alone
he walked in darkness, fierce and dire,
burned, as he wielded it, by fire.

He 'twas that laid in ruin black
the Blessed Realm and fled then back
to Middle-Earth anew to build
beneath the mountains mansions filled
with misbegotten slaves of hate;
death's shadow brooded at his gate.
His hosts he armed with spears of steel
and brands of flame, and at their heel
the wolf walked and the serpent crept
with lidless eyes; now forth they leapt,
his ruinous legions, kindling war
in field and frith and woodland hoar.
Where long the golden elanor
had gleamed amid the grass, they bore
their banners black; where finch had sung,
and harpers silver harps had wrung,
now dark the ravens wheeled and cried
amid the reek, and far and wide
the swords of Morgoth dripped with red
above the hewn and trampled dead.
Slowly his shadow like a cloud
rolled from the North, and on the proud
that would not yield his vengeance fell;
to death or thralldom under hell
all things he doomed: the Northern land
lay cowed beneath his ghastly hand.

No joke, I typed that out from memory. /nerd

I actually know about 200 lines more, but I'm too lazy to type them.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I just got to the 3rd battle in the Beleriand wars and I have to concur; Melkor was a fucking pussy! Over and over again it talks about how he's too scared to move against the Valar or the Eldar, despite how much power he has and how much shit he stirs up.

Though, I don't blame him for running away from Ungoliant. That bitch was fucking crazy!

[CABAL49]

The Silmarillion is on my list for books to read. I have read Children of Hurin, which was soo damn sad. It was hard for me to read because it was so sad. Turin's story was included in Children of Hurin correct?

Edit: Wait, I remember now. What I had read was Morgoth's Ring. Morgoth was a crazy dude.

[BitVyper]

Over and over again it talks about how he's too scared to move against the Valar or the Eldar, despite how much power he has and how much shit he stirs up.

To be fair, he's probably about the equal of Manwe, but Manwe is friends with a dozen or so other guys who are almost as powerful as him. Melkor did pretty good all things considered, but yeah, Sauron's the scarier villain. It's just that he got to play the game on a lower difficulty setting.

Anyway, I finished it off a couple days ago. It was a very satisfying read, but I think most of the best stuff is in the middle, and Fingolfin's fight with Morgoth is easily one of the most awesome scenes in history period.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I hope they never try to adapt all of it at once. It would turn out so bad.

[BitVyper]

It'd be like trying to get the whole Bible into one movie. Too many little stories going on.

The story of Beren and Luthien would be a nice one for a film.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

To be fair, he's probably about the equal of Manwe, but Manwe is friends with a dozen or so other guys who are almost as powerful as him. Melkor did pretty good all things considered, but yeah, Sauron's the scarier villain. It's just that he got to play the game on a lower difficulty setting.


I think it states somewhere that he's more powerful than any one Valar, but he still cowers away in his fortress whenever Orome came wandering into Middle Earth. I can uderstand him getting his arse kicked repeatedly when they all gang up on him though.

[BitVyper]

I think overall he's more powerful, but a lot of them seem to be better at their specialties. And to be fair, he did kick the Valar's asses off Middle Earth for a long time. It also seemed like a lot of the stuff he did really took it out of him - obviously Ungoliant did, but that was later. I think he was spreading his own power kind of thin, which was fine when he had all his defenses in place, but as soon as he had to deal with the Valar personally, it wasn't so great.

Manwe was stated somewhere to at least be really really close to him if not his equal.

[RickZarber]

Yeah, Tolkien stated explicitly somewhere or other that the more power he spread out in conquering and controlling, the less power he retained in his physical form. Enough that he could actually be hurt by mortals. Thus the hiding. To be fair, he caused far more death and destruction through the sheer vastness of his forces that Sauron ever did.

Sauron didn't make the same mistake; he poured all of his power into a piece of bling. :P

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yeah later on his power dropped as he spread out, I read that much last night. But to begin with he was more powerful than the others, though they had numbers on their side.

[Magus]

Main thing I remember from this is the one guy who fights Morgoth manages to wound him but then spends like a century hanging by one arm from a manacle at the pinnacle of Angband (or one of those fortresses), though Tolkein foreshadows the Gandalf rescue from Isengard by having someone come save him on an eagle (I think. It's been a while since I read this so I'm probably blurring stuff together). In any case, giving Morgoth a limp isn't that great a payoff for a century of torture, but that's just me.

The Silmarillion would make a great series of films but obviously it can't be done in one. Not even a trilogy, I don't think. It'd have to be an epic seven movie Harry Potter bid. But I'd totally watch all seven of those movies.

HBO could maybe pull off a long-running series but you know the special effects wouldn't look good enough.

[BitVyper]

Sauron didn't make the same mistake; he poured all of his power into a piece of bling. :P

That was more due to lack of choice than anything. He didn't have power to spread out like Melkor had, so in order for The One Ring to do what he wanted it to, he had to be pretty much directly connected with it.

Oddly enough, his biggest victory of all, fucking over the Numenoreans, had nothing to do with the rings. Funny how Sauron is the one who managed to piss off Eru so much that he changed the shape of the world so that no one could get to Valinor.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I would love to see a Children of Hurin mini-series on HBO. That would be straight up awesome.

[BitVyper]

Turin gets his own show. It's called "That's Our Turin" and every episode is Turin screwing up royally and then changing his name to run away from his past while someone goes "that's our Turin!"

It's not even stories from The Silmarillion after awhile. Like one time he has to get an apartment in New York City, but he thinks the landlady is an orc, so he brutally murders her. Then he runs away and meets a beautiful woman, so they get married and then it turns out that she's the ex-landlady's daughter. Hilarity ensues.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I would herby like to nominate Beren as the "Man with the Largest, Most Shiny, Most Brass Coloured Balls in all the World". Seriously, dude has balls so huge that all other men would stand back in surprise and go "Whoa, those are some massve balls yo!"

Only survivor of a group of a dozen Men who steadfastly refused to give up even though they were surrounded and pursued by Melkors legions, he then wanders for 4 frikken' years in the wild under constant pursuit until Sauron himself made it a personal mission to drive him off (cos he sure as hell couldn't kill him!). He then is the only Man, Elf, Dwarve or anything else that ever found a path through the giant spider infested lands known as "The Mountains of Terror", before wandering straight through the supposedly impassable magical barrier created my a damn Maiar, gets caught by the King, demands the hand of his daughter, saying that he wants nothing else, be it jewels or land or iron, to which the King replies, "Well shit dawg, if land and mountains and an armies worth of weapons mean nothing to you, then go bypass all of those things and bring me a Silmaril from the crown of The Dark Lord of all the Earth, who sits on a thrown in the deepest pits beneath the Earth surrounded by pure evil with only a few dozen thousand Orcs, Wolves, Vampires, Dragons and Balrogs between you and him."

To which Beren replies, "Kay", and goes off to do just that. Of course he kepts captured, by Sauron no less, but after he's rescued he gets to spend time with his woman, and could easily just run off with her but then thinks to himself, "Naw, actually, I'm gona head back north and try and break into the Impregnable Fortress of the Dark Enemy again, cos shit, nothin' better to do!"

Seriously, that's pretty hardcore.

[BitVyper]

The crazy part is that he succeeds. Huan is my favourite character from that story though.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yeah Huan's awesome. So sad when he dies though. I was telling my friend an abridged version of the story, and even he was upset when I told him that.

It's all rather epic though.