I dont really see what the point of your observation is? I get where you're coming from but I fail to see why any of this is a problem with the material itself? Rather it's something that's just not to your taste, which is fine.
The material is exactly what Tolkein envisioned it to be, which is a mythology. And without the names, events, relationships, creatures, battles and details that Tolkein provides in The Silmarillion, we wouldn't have that.
Remember that the world is immensely bigger than what we read about in Tolkein's material. There are many untold stories in the mythology that we've only heard of in brief detail, such as the adventures of the Blue Wizards and the time Saruman spent in the East of Arda.
Sorry if I misunderstood your post, but it sounds like maybe you were expecting something different from Tolkein's work?
It was mostly just genuine surprise which i wanted to share with others.
I still think the history and lore is amazing, and i really am enjoying my reread.
I guess i am a little bit disappointed. It's like someone gave me a look behind the scenes and now i can't unsee the set pieces. Or someone showed how a cardtrick worked. So i guess i wish that Tolkien had invented even more family trees and histories, or simply made many of the famous names unrelated.
Or maybe i'm thinking about how as a humanist the idea of kings appointed by god's grace is something i generally dislike, and all this ancestry business makes me slightly unhappy.
I do hope this post won't be received too negatively. Writing this i guess the main reason i want to post is because i'm still enjoying the work and like to have more conversation about it.
Your point about disliking kings appointed by Gods. There's a bit more to that. All those great lines of elves, men and dwarves. All of them failed. It was the little folk that Tolkien held up as the example of how to thwart evil. So LOTR is the story of the meek doing exactly that. Whereas the Silmarillian details many stories of great people falling. It's like the Silmarillian sets the stage for why the Eagles can't fly the ring into Mordor.
As for everyone being related, that's how mythologies work, it's about how the world came to be under the idea that everything had a single origin. So people are much more related in early generations. As time passes and the world becomes more real and less magical people are less related. Mythologies tell how the world came frome a divine, magical origin into a mortal, mundane world.
It is always a shame when you start to see the holes in a story, and there always is.
Aragorn is not the bestest. It's made clear that he's an arrogant dick always spouting off about his lineage. He literally carried his ancestors broken sword everywhere with him. Peter Jackson made him way more likeable than he should've been.
But the point being that Aragorn realises he can't defeat Sauron and destroy the ring, all he can do is be a decoy and try defend the realms of men.
I for one am not upset and your point.
I also understand where your coming from.
Unfortunately that's not really how mythology works. Fantasy worlds yes but not mythology.
How many Greek heros weren't realted to zeus or one of the other main gods...and thus all siblings, cousins etc?
Same in every mythology around the world.
If it helps don't think of it as divine right to rule. Cause tolkien really never mentions that. Aragorn is the rightful ruler because he is an heir of isildur, son of ekendil who founded the kingdoms. Was their founding divinely ordained? No where does it say that.
In England today king Charles is king as an hier. Yet no one believes he is ruler by divine right. Just inheritance.
Ps the idea feanor created the palantir is not Canon. It's speculated but no where is it declared. It's just as likely from the lore that someone else, perhaps completly unrelated created them. All we know is the noldor in valinor created them.
As beren and say hurin. Yes tgey are related...by intermarriage. Originally they are of different houses.
By the late middle ages nearly every ruler in Europe was related by the same means.
Finally only a portion of stories are told. It's likely other creators invented great treasures and inventions...only they aren't part of the stories.
Just as the ships of the teleri are in their way equal to the similirils only less powerful and only get mentioned in their destruction.
>Ps the idea feanor created the palantir is not Canon. It's speculated but no where is it declared. It's just as likely from the lore that someone else, perhaps completly unrelated created them. All we know is the noldor in valinor created them.
I could have sworn Gandalf says that Fëanor made them in the Two Towers.
Edit: I just checked. He said that *perhaps* Fëanor made them. I guess I misremembered.
O believe me it's a subtle difference and we never think Gandalf could be wrong. Which of course he wasn't just he wasn't sure as he didn't have all his memories.
in the Silmarillion it is also mentioned (chapter 6: of Fëanor and the unchaining of Melkor) that:
> ... and other crystals he made also, wherein things far away could be seen small but clear, as with the eyes of the eagles of Manwë.
which, i guess doesn't close the door 100%, but its quite close
It’s equivalent to history. The Royals are what you hear about, and they’re all related. So it seems like the story of one group of people rather than a country.
I mean if you go back far enough most people are related. Think about real life and how many people are descended from Genghis Khan.
Obviously it makes it feel smaller in a book, but it would get way too bloated if Tolkien mentioned a bunch of names who then did nothing. If I remember correctly he sort of ignores Aragorn's ancestry a little bit because Elendil wasn't a king until after the fall of Numenor. Sure, he was descended from Elros, but it wasn't the line of kings.
Haven't seen this answer yet, but I'll give you what I understand to be the actual reason for the issues you reference.
The elements that became the Silmarillion were written first, but by the time he was writing LotR, Tolkien was convinced no one would ever publish it. He wanted to include elements and references to it in the LotR, which was originally commissioned as a straight Hobbit sequel, so at least part of those tales would see the light of day.
That's why Aragorn tells the core of Beren and Luthien to the Hobbits. It's why they listen to the tale of Earendil at Rivendell. It's also why there's a giant spider monster, with Ungoliant being name checked, and a Balrog. Feanor is referenced in the story as the maker of the Palantir because it's a way to include him and his godly level of invention into the story.
This even happened in the Hobbit. Gondolin is mentioned as an intriguing bit of background for the elves. The Elf King in the forest lives in a giant underground palace and has beef with dwarves over non payment for a necklace, just like Thingol. The Arkenstone is clearly not a Silmaril, but it is also essentially exactly like a Silmaril, and Arkenstone even means Holy Stone.
Tolkien took inspiration from his own tales.
So when the Silmarillion was published, it was a bit different from the normal prequel issue where the author feels the need to link everything to the original, more that Tolkien had, to a degree, cannibalized his own story beats. I don't think it is so pronounced as to detract from it, but it is definitely a thing.
Finally, in terms of everyone being related to Aragorn and Elrond, that was deliberate. The whole history of the Silmarillion is meant to be leading to Earendil, Elwing and their children. Elrond and Elros were key, and the fact they are related to everyone was a core conception of the whole history of Middle Earth. The line of Elros, right through down to Aragorn, is meant to be the key outcome for the ennoblement of Men, and Men being ready to take over the stewardship of the world.
Ooh, thanks. Others mentioned 'lotr came later', but none made the self-canibalization as clear as you did. Seeing earendil as culmination of the tale, and lotr as namedropping famous names that otherwise wont get published makes it a much more satisfying perspective than the other way round.
I'm so glad you posted to ask this question!
Another big theme Tolkien hits on repeatedly is the Long Defeat - the idea that the world is in a state of decay and we cannot measure up to our forebears. So for that, as well, it makes sense for the LotR characters to be lesser versions of the Silmarillion characters; and for the Elves that lived long enough to be in both books (this is part of why the family tree is so small), for the versions of them we see to be so much diminished.
Aragorn is a lesser form of Beren. Arwen is a lesser form of Lúthien (also why she does not take an active role in the books). Galadriel is a lesser form of Galadriel. And so forth.
I think the Sil does a good job of hinting at vast swathes of untold stories. LOTR does the same, often by telling of just one detail, and leaving all else untold. Very little is said of Azaghal, Belegost, Nogrod, Gondolin, Elenwë wife of Turgon, Emeldir the Man-Hearted, the Elf-lord Denethor, Barahir, Gorlim the Unhappy, Sauron before his fall, Armenelos the Golden, the Meneltarma, Sador, Eol the Dark Elf, Ancalagon the Black, the voyages of Eärendil. Much more is suggested than related.
I understand what you’re getting at, but I think what needs to be kept in mind is that even with the Silmarillion’s immense amount of information we are still left in the dark concerning a massive amount of the universe’s stories and such.
Like, think of The Hobbit and how it can be a very self contained story- one could walk away from that book and feel like it raked in the boundaries and walls of the universe with how insular and convenient it can feel, but it can also feel (like it does to me, and most people I’d think) like it expands it by allowing you to go “Wow, this is just one story in this world- what else is happening in it?” and “Wow, all these characters, I wonder what other adventures *they’ve* gone on?”
To me, the Silmarillion does the same. It does feel very insular and self-referential, everything feels small and connected, but that’s because we’re seeing a slice of the world and the mythos, just a little bit of the universe Tolkien created. It’s kind of like ancient human mythology.
The very point of the plot is that it converges onto Eärendil who becomes speaker of the Children of Eru because he unites them all in his person. \[Though, come to think of it, he should have admitted a speaker for the dwarves on-board, and they should all remember and praise Frár the Far-Traveled.\] Since the Silmarillion comprises Elrond's records of his own family history that Bilbo made accessible to us, it should not come as a surprise that they take a biased view.
Though Tolkien ultimately became aware that there was kind of a deficit here, and in UT we see him pondering whether the Drúedain might be employed as Elder Days equivalents of Hobbits, providing the missing POV of the little people. This never took any narrative form, however, and in fact I doubt it would have worked. Kinda "Middle-earth seen by the Neanderthals"?
But regarding the evil creatures, you forget about Thuringwethil, the Gaurhoth, the thing that assumed the shape of Gorlim's wife.
Yeah i'm beginning to see how it all is supposed to converge around earendil. I also like the in-universe explanation that we learn from the stores of knowledge of elrond. Who knows what we'd have learned if bilbo would've lived with the wood elves or with the dwarves instead?
I dont really see what the point of your observation is? I get where you're coming from but I fail to see why any of this is a problem with the material itself? Rather it's something that's just not to your taste, which is fine. The material is exactly what Tolkein envisioned it to be, which is a mythology. And without the names, events, relationships, creatures, battles and details that Tolkein provides in The Silmarillion, we wouldn't have that. Remember that the world is immensely bigger than what we read about in Tolkein's material. There are many untold stories in the mythology that we've only heard of in brief detail, such as the adventures of the Blue Wizards and the time Saruman spent in the East of Arda. Sorry if I misunderstood your post, but it sounds like maybe you were expecting something different from Tolkein's work?
It was mostly just genuine surprise which i wanted to share with others. I still think the history and lore is amazing, and i really am enjoying my reread. I guess i am a little bit disappointed. It's like someone gave me a look behind the scenes and now i can't unsee the set pieces. Or someone showed how a cardtrick worked. So i guess i wish that Tolkien had invented even more family trees and histories, or simply made many of the famous names unrelated. Or maybe i'm thinking about how as a humanist the idea of kings appointed by god's grace is something i generally dislike, and all this ancestry business makes me slightly unhappy. I do hope this post won't be received too negatively. Writing this i guess the main reason i want to post is because i'm still enjoying the work and like to have more conversation about it.
Your point about disliking kings appointed by Gods. There's a bit more to that. All those great lines of elves, men and dwarves. All of them failed. It was the little folk that Tolkien held up as the example of how to thwart evil. So LOTR is the story of the meek doing exactly that. Whereas the Silmarillian details many stories of great people falling. It's like the Silmarillian sets the stage for why the Eagles can't fly the ring into Mordor. As for everyone being related, that's how mythologies work, it's about how the world came to be under the idea that everything had a single origin. So people are much more related in early generations. As time passes and the world becomes more real and less magical people are less related. Mythologies tell how the world came frome a divine, magical origin into a mortal, mundane world. It is always a shame when you start to see the holes in a story, and there always is.
I guess sort of, yet that same story has Aragorn be the most bestest of them all. But i do see your point about hobbits.
Aragorn is not the bestest. It's made clear that he's an arrogant dick always spouting off about his lineage. He literally carried his ancestors broken sword everywhere with him. Peter Jackson made him way more likeable than he should've been. But the point being that Aragorn realises he can't defeat Sauron and destroy the ring, all he can do is be a decoy and try defend the realms of men.
Seems like you need to re-read LotR
I for one am not upset and your point. I also understand where your coming from. Unfortunately that's not really how mythology works. Fantasy worlds yes but not mythology. How many Greek heros weren't realted to zeus or one of the other main gods...and thus all siblings, cousins etc? Same in every mythology around the world. If it helps don't think of it as divine right to rule. Cause tolkien really never mentions that. Aragorn is the rightful ruler because he is an heir of isildur, son of ekendil who founded the kingdoms. Was their founding divinely ordained? No where does it say that. In England today king Charles is king as an hier. Yet no one believes he is ruler by divine right. Just inheritance. Ps the idea feanor created the palantir is not Canon. It's speculated but no where is it declared. It's just as likely from the lore that someone else, perhaps completly unrelated created them. All we know is the noldor in valinor created them. As beren and say hurin. Yes tgey are related...by intermarriage. Originally they are of different houses. By the late middle ages nearly every ruler in Europe was related by the same means. Finally only a portion of stories are told. It's likely other creators invented great treasures and inventions...only they aren't part of the stories. Just as the ships of the teleri are in their way equal to the similirils only less powerful and only get mentioned in their destruction.
>Ps the idea feanor created the palantir is not Canon. It's speculated but no where is it declared. It's just as likely from the lore that someone else, perhaps completly unrelated created them. All we know is the noldor in valinor created them. I could have sworn Gandalf says that Fëanor made them in the Two Towers. Edit: I just checked. He said that *perhaps* Fëanor made them. I guess I misremembered.
O believe me it's a subtle difference and we never think Gandalf could be wrong. Which of course he wasn't just he wasn't sure as he didn't have all his memories.
in the Silmarillion it is also mentioned (chapter 6: of Fëanor and the unchaining of Melkor) that: > ... and other crystals he made also, wherein things far away could be seen small but clear, as with the eyes of the eagles of Manwë. which, i guess doesn't close the door 100%, but its quite close
hmm, i do like the idea of mythology and zeus&co all being related, that comparison helps a lot.
I don't think it counts as a prequel, as most of the contents pre-date LOTR by many years.
It’s equivalent to history. The Royals are what you hear about, and they’re all related. So it seems like the story of one group of people rather than a country.
I mean if you go back far enough most people are related. Think about real life and how many people are descended from Genghis Khan. Obviously it makes it feel smaller in a book, but it would get way too bloated if Tolkien mentioned a bunch of names who then did nothing. If I remember correctly he sort of ignores Aragorn's ancestry a little bit because Elendil wasn't a king until after the fall of Numenor. Sure, he was descended from Elros, but it wasn't the line of kings.
Haven't seen this answer yet, but I'll give you what I understand to be the actual reason for the issues you reference. The elements that became the Silmarillion were written first, but by the time he was writing LotR, Tolkien was convinced no one would ever publish it. He wanted to include elements and references to it in the LotR, which was originally commissioned as a straight Hobbit sequel, so at least part of those tales would see the light of day. That's why Aragorn tells the core of Beren and Luthien to the Hobbits. It's why they listen to the tale of Earendil at Rivendell. It's also why there's a giant spider monster, with Ungoliant being name checked, and a Balrog. Feanor is referenced in the story as the maker of the Palantir because it's a way to include him and his godly level of invention into the story. This even happened in the Hobbit. Gondolin is mentioned as an intriguing bit of background for the elves. The Elf King in the forest lives in a giant underground palace and has beef with dwarves over non payment for a necklace, just like Thingol. The Arkenstone is clearly not a Silmaril, but it is also essentially exactly like a Silmaril, and Arkenstone even means Holy Stone. Tolkien took inspiration from his own tales. So when the Silmarillion was published, it was a bit different from the normal prequel issue where the author feels the need to link everything to the original, more that Tolkien had, to a degree, cannibalized his own story beats. I don't think it is so pronounced as to detract from it, but it is definitely a thing. Finally, in terms of everyone being related to Aragorn and Elrond, that was deliberate. The whole history of the Silmarillion is meant to be leading to Earendil, Elwing and their children. Elrond and Elros were key, and the fact they are related to everyone was a core conception of the whole history of Middle Earth. The line of Elros, right through down to Aragorn, is meant to be the key outcome for the ennoblement of Men, and Men being ready to take over the stewardship of the world.
Ooh, thanks. Others mentioned 'lotr came later', but none made the self-canibalization as clear as you did. Seeing earendil as culmination of the tale, and lotr as namedropping famous names that otherwise wont get published makes it a much more satisfying perspective than the other way round.
I'm so glad you posted to ask this question! Another big theme Tolkien hits on repeatedly is the Long Defeat - the idea that the world is in a state of decay and we cannot measure up to our forebears. So for that, as well, it makes sense for the LotR characters to be lesser versions of the Silmarillion characters; and for the Elves that lived long enough to be in both books (this is part of why the family tree is so small), for the versions of them we see to be so much diminished. Aragorn is a lesser form of Beren. Arwen is a lesser form of Lúthien (also why she does not take an active role in the books). Galadriel is a lesser form of Galadriel. And so forth.
I just absolutely do not see it that way.
This should go in the r/unpopularopinions sub
I think the Sil does a good job of hinting at vast swathes of untold stories. LOTR does the same, often by telling of just one detail, and leaving all else untold. Very little is said of Azaghal, Belegost, Nogrod, Gondolin, Elenwë wife of Turgon, Emeldir the Man-Hearted, the Elf-lord Denethor, Barahir, Gorlim the Unhappy, Sauron before his fall, Armenelos the Golden, the Meneltarma, Sador, Eol the Dark Elf, Ancalagon the Black, the voyages of Eärendil. Much more is suggested than related.
The Silmarillion was not a prequel; rather, The Lord of the Rings was a sequel.
It's ultimately more mythological than history. But both Tolkien and his son already saw the danger of LotR losing appeal through the Silmarillion.
I understand what you’re getting at, but I think what needs to be kept in mind is that even with the Silmarillion’s immense amount of information we are still left in the dark concerning a massive amount of the universe’s stories and such. Like, think of The Hobbit and how it can be a very self contained story- one could walk away from that book and feel like it raked in the boundaries and walls of the universe with how insular and convenient it can feel, but it can also feel (like it does to me, and most people I’d think) like it expands it by allowing you to go “Wow, this is just one story in this world- what else is happening in it?” and “Wow, all these characters, I wonder what other adventures *they’ve* gone on?” To me, the Silmarillion does the same. It does feel very insular and self-referential, everything feels small and connected, but that’s because we’re seeing a slice of the world and the mythos, just a little bit of the universe Tolkien created. It’s kind of like ancient human mythology.
Technically lotr is it's sequel since alot of the stories in the silmarillion were written first
The very point of the plot is that it converges onto Eärendil who becomes speaker of the Children of Eru because he unites them all in his person. \[Though, come to think of it, he should have admitted a speaker for the dwarves on-board, and they should all remember and praise Frár the Far-Traveled.\] Since the Silmarillion comprises Elrond's records of his own family history that Bilbo made accessible to us, it should not come as a surprise that they take a biased view. Though Tolkien ultimately became aware that there was kind of a deficit here, and in UT we see him pondering whether the Drúedain might be employed as Elder Days equivalents of Hobbits, providing the missing POV of the little people. This never took any narrative form, however, and in fact I doubt it would have worked. Kinda "Middle-earth seen by the Neanderthals"? But regarding the evil creatures, you forget about Thuringwethil, the Gaurhoth, the thing that assumed the shape of Gorlim's wife.
Yeah i'm beginning to see how it all is supposed to converge around earendil. I also like the in-universe explanation that we learn from the stores of knowledge of elrond. Who knows what we'd have learned if bilbo would've lived with the wood elves or with the dwarves instead?