The Silmarillion III

(QUENTA SILMARILLION: OF BELERIAND AND ITS REALMS, OF THE NOLDOR IN BELERIAND, OF MAEGLIN, OF THE COMING OF MEN INTO THE WEST, OF THE RUIN OF BELERIAND AND THE FALL OF FINGOLFIN)

This is the third post in our The Silmarillion series – you can read the previous two here and here. These new chapters (minus Of Beleriand) are everything we’ve been asking for: there’s conflict, Valar dissing, tragedy, and Elven magic.

Chapter 14: Of Beleriand and Its Realms is a more descriptive chapter that will no doubt please all the fantasy readers who love a good map. In it, Tolkien takes great care in describing all the beautiful lands he will soon be sending death and devastation to. That’s nice… and a little sadistic. He describes all the ugly, creepy ones, too, which tend to be dark, scary, filthy, and smoky.

Chapter 15: Of the Noldor in Beleriand starts with more scenery description. After Doriath, we now get Gondolin, another hidden magical Elven city courtesy of Ulmo (one of the few cool Valar, the other being Mandos, because it’s fitting that the god of the dead/judge is an uncaring asshole). We love hidden magical Elven cities. This one is ruled by Turgon, son of Fingolfin and brother of Aredhel, the White Lady of the Noldor. He had it built in secret for centuries and then moved there with his people. He’s so intent in keeping it hidden that anyone who finds their way there will never be allowed to leave. Ulmo promises him that Gondolin will be the last of the great Elven cities to fall. The rise of Men signalling the decline of the Elves has been repeated throughout the book, but this feels a lot more concrete. Death and tragedy are inevitable.

However, not every Noldor is as lucky as Turgon, who at least gets to have his own beautiful kingdom before the end. Their shameful secret is finally out in the open after Melian pushes Galadriel to admit they lied about their motives for leaving Valinor, even if she doesn’t mention the fight with the Teleri. Of course, this leads to rumours, some of them spread by Morgoth, about what exactly happened. Tolkien doesn’t describe what these rumours actually say and since there was no need for embellishment to make the Noldor look bad, we’re guessing they just implicated everyone in the killing. It was refreshing to see Angrod refuse to stay silent to protect his Noldor cousins after Thingol confronted him and Finrod. When Finrod didn’t defend himself from the accusations, we were worried several angsty centuries would follow until someone finally revealed the truth. It would be great if more fictional characters followed his example. We’re embarrassed to admit we had forgotten Thingol was related to the Teleri, so his angry proclamation was doubly shocking. Not even wanting to hear the Noldor language, which is the language of Valinor, was perfectly OTT dramatic. Naturally, we loved it when Thingol said the Valar didn’t care about what happened to the people of Middle Earth. No, they don’t. Sadly, he doesn’t know enough about their inefficiency to enumerate all the ways in which they fucked up.

Yes, we know the book is called The Silmarillion, and that these particular chapters are part of the Quenda Silmarillion, but we weren’t exactly happy when Melian reiterated the importance of the silmarils because they hold the light of the trees of Valinor. Maybe it’s because everything is so vague. The One Ring was better as the powerful item everyone wanted because its properties and danger were clearer. Even Morgoth couldn’t do more than putting the silmarils on a crown.

Chapter 16: Of Maeglin is a bit of Elven Gothic. The imperilled heroine is Aredhel and her sinister pursuer is Eöl, aptly named the Dark Elf. Aredhel lives in the hidden city of Gondolin, but after staying there for a couple of centuries, she persuades her brother to let her leave. After much riding, she gets separated from her companions and finds herself in Nan Elmoth, Eöl’s permanently shadowy domain. He becomes obsessed and uses his magic to prevent her from leaving. Because she’s stuck there, Aredhel ends up marrying him and giving him a son, Maeglin. The whole thing is creepy, and Tolkien’s descriptions of Nan Elmoth as a twilight realm have a dreamlike quality. We wish he had written more about how Aredhel felt. She left Gondolin because she was tired of being stuck in the same place and she didn’t like her brother trying to give her orders. Now, she’s trapped in a dark forest with only brooding Eöl and his silent servants for company, and her new husband orders her to avoid both the sunlight and other Noldor, including her family. Yet, all that we get is that she wasn’t unhappy about it, which frankly sounds a little too optimistic. It’s weird that even Turgon won’t find any of this a problem and only her cousin Curufin is upset about this marriage. Of course, since the chapter is called Of Maeglin, it’s not really about her. As for the titular Maeglin, it’s obvious that he’s going to be as bad as his father, and his interest in the fact that his uncle has no male heir, only a daughter, Idril, doesn’t bode well. Unfortunately, Aredhel doesn’t see it and takes him back to the hidden city. Eöl follows them and tragedy happens when he learns of his brother-in-law’s rule about people who find their way into Gondolin. He choses death for himself and Maeglin, whom he tries to kill with a poisoned dart. Aredhel gives her life to save her villain-in-the-making son and Eöl is executed for his crime. Before he dies, he has time to curse the son he tried to murder. Maeglin stays with his uncle and is nothing but diligent and reliable, though the other Elves don’t think any good can come from such a tragic union. Considering he harbours an unrequited crush on Idril, who isn’t into cousin/cousin incest, and how the ominous ending makes it clear that love will turn to hate and likely contribute to the ruin of Gondolin, they’re probably right. So, guess Maeglin is going to be another Grima Wormtongue.

In Chapter 17: Of the Coming of Men into the West, things are a lot less gloomy. Sort of. The human tribes start migrating West, some are accepted in some Elven courts… and some are eaten by Orcs. We’re sure Tolkien envisioned Felagund watching the humans sing one of their songs and then starting to sing an Elven song while they sleep as poetic, but it didn’t quite work. Also, since it’s clear these humans are aware that bad things can happen, loudly singing while in a strange land is a weird choice. However, this is how we meet Bëor, great-grandfather to Beren. And of course, Morgoth messed with the humans when they woke up in Middle Earth and the Valar, who were all worried about causing them unnecessary distress by waging war against the powerful dark lord intent on world domination, did nothing. Fortunately for Eru’s second batch of children, they were too few and too insignificant to hold his interest for long. Not all Elves are happy about this influx of tree cutters and animal hunters, though, and the Green-elves ask Felagund to tell his new buddies to stay away from Ossiriand. Thingol goes all NIMBY, too, and decrees that no human will ever set foot in Doriath, not even those of the family of Bëor, who joined Felagund’s court and left his son in charge of his people. Hmm, we predict Thingol is going to have to take that back in a couple of chapters.

Naturally, Morgoth isn’t happy to see everyone getting along. First, he tries to cause dissent with lies. He even goes as far as denouncing himself as a hoax created by the Elves to keep the Men in line. His efforts aren’t entirely successful, though Bereg of the House of Bëor manages to convince others to move away from the Elves, who were the ones in conflict with Morgoth, and into safer lands. This means they won’t appear in songs, which in turn means they probably didn’t die horrible tragic deaths, so good for them. Since the rumour strategy isn’t working, Morgoth decides to unleash the Orcs and things get bloody. And also chewy, as the Orcs tend to snack on their victims. We know Bëor is an important character, but the MVP of this chapter is Haleth, who leads her people to safety after her father and brother are killed by Orcs. Her decision to keep moving was probably not the wisest and Tolkien only gives readers a very superficial description of her personality, but her response to Thingol’s concerns about her people possibly switching sides to Morgoth was perfect. The Orcs ate her family, FFS.

We get how Bëor dying of old age after a measly nearly four hundred years would be shocking for his Elven friends, but it’s still too much. Introducing the humans should have helped accentuate the Elves’ different nature. However, Tolkien keeps insisting that these first Men were equal to them, and we feel like it’s going back to the beginning where the Elves weren’t that Elven, only now it’s the humans who are a little too special.

Chapter 18: Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin brings all out war to those lands Tolkien lovingly described a few chapters ago. Don’t expect some gritty, gruelling, and gruesome descriptions of bloody battles – this isn’t a Bernard Cornwell novel. Do expect an epic tale where the bad guy unleashes the huge army he built in secret against the good guys, who fight valiantly, die tragically, beat the odds, and become legends. Tolkien introduces Beren, the Eagles keep being useful and on time, and Glaurung gets to make up for the embarrassing performance of Chapter 13. The best bit is, of course, the Fingolfin/Morgoth duel. Tolkien only gave Fingolfin the bare minimum in terms of personality, which is a shame because a lot happened to him, and it would’ve been great to get more of the character’s inner life. However, he compensated for it by giving him a hell of an ending. Yes, he dies, but in only a few paragraphs, Tolkien manages to create an amazing, rousing sequence that we would love to see on film.

Unfortunately, the chapter doesn’t end there, and Tolkien decides to add a little ethnic diversity to the human tribes with the coming of shorter, darker skinned folk from the East who promptly team up with Morgoth and betray the good guys. Fine, not all of them do that, but given how white everyone else is, we can’t help finding this addition a teensy bit awkward. You know, like how Grima Wormtongue is the only short, dark-haired one among the tall, blond Rohirrim...

While we liked these chapters, the problem with the underdeveloped characters remains. When Tolkien mentions all the people who fought and died in the several battles with Morgoth’s army, they’re just names because he never bothered writing anything else about them. Fëanor’s sons are mostly interchangeable and the other Noldor princes don’t fare much better in terms of distinct personalities. Maedhros is the only one that stands out and that’s mainly due to what Morgoth did to him – he hasn’t really done anything after losing a hand. This is particularly egregious because we’ve been following the Noldor since Chapter 5 of the Quenta Silmarillion. They should be more than different names and a simple this one is nicer/angrier than the others. We wished we had seen more of Melian and Galadriel other than the short scene where the latter finally tells part of the truth about the Noldor coming to Middle Earth. If it weren’t for her role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Galadriel would barely register and even Melian herself isn’t much more than the wise Queen of Doriath who protects her kingdom with her magic, which is what Tolkien keeps repeating without ever going beyond it. Hopefully, that will change in the next chapter, Of Beren and Lúthien.

Even with a much smaller cast of characters like in Chapter 16 he still manages to fail at it. How can Aredhel have so much pagetime and so little inner life? She starts as a rebellious woman who doesn’t want to be told what to do and ends up as an obedient wife who waits ages before leaving Eöl? Sure, she’s probably suffering from the Middle Earth equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, but Tolkien never bothers to actually describe her evolution. Wouldn’t a strong-willed member of a powerful Elven House who’s used to getting her way put up a little resistance to a suspicious stranger’s demands? Didn’t she ever realise that he had trapped her with his magic? The difference between her initial defiant attitude when dealing with her brother and her later more subdued demeanour also gives the whole thing the unpleasant feel of a proud woman being brought down. It was Aredhel’s unwillingness to follow her brother’s request that put her in Eöl’s path and will probably lead to Gondolin’s ruin thanks to their son Maeglin. She makes an interesting contrast to human Haleth, whose stubbornness and defiance help her take her people to safety and make her a respected leader. Her sassy reply to the fears of a possible betrayal also help her make more of an impression though she has a lot less pagetime than Aredhel. We've somehow become invested in Thingol, though we’re not sure why. Maybe it’s because he’s shown some moral complexity and has actually done things that justify all the praise. It helps that he dissed the Valar and keeps popping up throughout the story instead of disappearing for a while like Fingolfin. He’s also a bit of a drama queen, so we can’t wait to see how he’s going to lose it in the next chapter. We are curious about Beren and hope Lúthien gets to be more than just the most beautiful Elven maiden ever.

Thus ends part 3 of our The Silmarillion review. Judging by the names of the next chapters, things are going to get even more epic and tragic in Middle Earth, and we can’t wait to get started! We’d like to get more of Galadriel’s story pre-The Lord of the Rings and while we don’t really care about Turgon, Idril, or Maeglin, we’re eager to know how everything will go to hell in Gondolin. Doriath's ruin better be worth it, dammit! We do hope that if characterisation is going to keep getting short shrift, Tolkien will at least write more great sequences like the Fingolfin/Morgoth duel or conjure up more beautiful imagery like Nan Elmoth.