The Silmarillion II
(QUENTA SILMARILLION: Of THE SINDAR, OF THE SUN AND THE MOON AND THE HIDING OF VALINOR, OF MEN, OF THE RETURN OF THE NOLDOR)
We are reading The Silmarillion for the first time and we’re going by the names of the chapters to decide the best place to stop. We ended the previous review on Chapter 9: Of the Flight of the Noldor (read it here) and were planning to wait until Chapter 18 to write this next review. However, after finishing Chapter 13, we felt we already had enough material. So, here it is.
Every time Tolkien leaves the bland Valar and returns to Middle Earth, the storytelling becomes a lot more dynamic. Sadly, he goes back for a whole chapter.
Chapter 10: Of the Sindar catches up with Thingol (formerly known as Elwë Singollo), Melian, and the Elves that stayed behind. The Dwarves also show up and everyone is surprisingly cooperative and more or less friendly. Who isn’t friendly? The Orcs. Even with Melkor captive, they bring terror and devastation. On the plus side, all that Orc awfulness brings the scattered Elven tribes together. So, yay? It’s both funny and annoying that Tolkien keeps reminding readers that the only reason that the Orcs are still around is because the idiot Valar didn’t bother to check under Melkor’s fortress when they finally captured him, while at the same time praising those same Valar's awesomeness. Fortunately for the Elves, King Thingol is a lot more proactive than Manwë and leads an army against the Orcs. Sure, he may have been a little too enthusiastic about it in a possibly war criminal way, but everyone still loves him, and we did ask for more moral complexity, so we can’t complain. Queen Melian hiding their kingdom was a smart move because not only are Melkor’s friends still around, but now perpetually angry Fëanor and his most trusted Noldor have also arrived in Middle Earth to bring even more chaos.
The Elves that have never been to Valinor and seen the lights of its special trees may be considered lesser in-story – the Elves of Darkness, aka the Moriquendi – but they’re a lot more interesting and with the creation of Doriath, they finally gain that fae-like aura that’s present in The Lord of the Rings. Actually, that has been a bit of a problem for us regarding the Elves of The Silmarillion – they’re too ordinary. Their longevity never feels as overwhelming as it should be. When among mortals, it sets them apart as beings with a completely different way of experiencing life. Here, among other Elves, it’s meaningless. The Noldor might as well be humans. So, it was good to see the Sindar being magical. We’re not sure what to think about Tolkien making a point of saying that Thingol wasn’t really considered one of the Moriquendi because he had seen the trees’ light through Melian. Why couldn’t he be a good king and an Elf of Darkness?
Chapter 11: Of the Sun and the Moon and the Hiding of Valinor drags us back to Valinor and the useless Valar who were totally not doing nothing, but instead were discussing important matters. In silence. Pinky swear. Tolkien really doesn’t want people to think they’re lazy, especially Manwë, who, according to the Valaquenta, will one day be king of all Arda. So, maybe he should be taking better care of it? Instead, he and the rest of the Valar just gave up on Middle Earth and did nothing while Manwë’s future subjects were being massacred by Orcs that wouldn’t even have been there if the Valar had been more thorough when they took Melkor’s fortress.
The Valar take a break from their silent arguing (yeah, right) to create the Sun and the Moon with the new blossoms of what was left of the two special trees. This of course means that Middle Earth spent all this time in darkness, with only the stars to light things. Seriously?! It took the wise Valar this long to come to the conclusion that maybe it would be a good idea to give proper lighting to everyone?! Even worse, the light was needed for Yavanna’s abandoned creations to blossom. Didn’t this ever occur to them? Oh, and guess what, turns out Melkor – who will be referred to exclusively as Morgoth from now on – and his horrible allies are sensitive to the light of the sun and are forced to hide. Later, in an effort to counteract this bright threat, he produces lots of black smoke and sends spirits to attack the vessel carrying the Moon because he was too afraid of the Sun. The attack fails but do the Valar take this opportunity to vanquish their enemy permanently? Nope. You’d think at least Yavanna would want to stop all the air pollution. In fact, the Valar don’t want to fight so much that they end up hiding Valinor so that the greatly weakened enemy who can barely leave his fortress doesn’t destroy it.
Pagan gods may have a hand in maintaining the world mortals live in, and they may sometimes be helpful, but they can also be capricious assholes, so it makes sense that they don’t always care about helping the lowly humans. However, Tolkien introduced an omniscient and omnipotent deity, Eru Ilúvatar, who values goodness, and tasked the Valar with shaping a world for his future children. The Valar are described as wise and good and interested in the wellbeing of the inhabitants of this new world. This means that there’s no reason for them to be so neglectful. Not only should they want to help, it’s their job. In addition to this, they’re powerful enough on their own to do the things that need to be done, so they’re not like angels, who are dependent on God to do anything. This mix of paganism and Christianity just doesn’t work. As for when the Valar do their magic, it’s all very empty and bland. Much like in the previous chapters about them, it never feels genuine, as if Tolkien is mimicking something but can’t give it the necessary spark.
Humans finally show up in Chapter 12: Of Men. Tolkien wants readers to think it’s sad that they can’t understand the messages the Valar send them through Ulmo’s waters, but frankly, it’s not as if they’re missing anything. By the way, we keep complaining about his bland descriptions, but the paragraphs about Ulmo in the Valaquenta were genuinely good. Probably some of the best imagery so far. Anyway, everyone gets along, though Morgoth’s lies are already working towards a future rift between Men and Elves. We also keep being reminded throughout the book that the rise of Men means the decline of the Elves.
Chapter 13: Of the Return of the Noldor does away with Fëanor pretty quickly. Yes, it was prophesised that he wouldn’t see the silmarils again, but we thought he’d last longer. Of course, he makes his sons swear an oath to avenge his death, so this mess won’t die with him. With the arrival of Fingolfin and his people, which include Galadriel, the Noldor are all together again. Chapter 10 gave us Doriath and now with the rescue of Maedhros, Tolkien manages to truly emulate the myths that served him as inspiration. Also, it’s nice to know that at one point the Eagles didn’t wait until it was all over to intervene. The Noldor reconciliation seemed a bit too easy, even if there's still distrust on both sides. It was interesting to see the Noldor interacting with Thingol, the other Elves of Darkness, and the Dwarves. However, it was weird to see Tolkien write how the Noldor were better at everything while the Sindar were only more skilled singers and musicians. And even then, none of them is as good as Maglor, one of Fëanor’s sons. Weren’t they kicking Orc butt in Chapter 10? Or that doesn’t count because Thingol isn’t considered an Elf of Darkness? Given the titles of the next chapters, things aren’t always going to go well for the Noldor, so we don’t get why Tolkien decided to make them so perfect. Fëanor himself was considered the bestest ever by the Valar themselves, which made his fall worse for them, even if the only great thing about him seemed to be his skill as an artisan. It reads as if Tolkien thinks tragedy is only remarkable when it happens to perfect people.
A big problem we had with this chapter was how many times Morgoth was defeated. It’s hard to accept him as this overwhelming threat when it’s clear he’s beatable. He’s beginning to look like the Littlefinger of Middle Earth.
These new chapters were more interesting than the previous ones. Since Valinor has been hidden, we’re guessing Tolkien will be staying in Middle Earth from now on. Let’s hope that was the last we saw of the dull Valar.