Silmarillion - Blog Posts
At least don’t tag her name on it!
You would think with certain revelations during these past few years, people would stop trying to vilify a native queen whose family (including twin brothers) and peoples were mass-murdered thrice over by invaders who steal her twin sons to keep as hostages against the surviving native population…
And yet, here we are. In 2021. Trying to browse Elwing’s tag and get a whole bunch of “shitty suicidal neglectful mom”-takes alongside “the genocidal mass-murdering kidnappers hostage takers that forced her to jump or be killed by them were their ~*REAL*~ parents uwu!”.
No. Elrond and Elros didn’t have any parents because the mass-murdering kidnappers killed their entire family! The closest thing they got were those few years before their real parents (and grandparents, and uncles, and great-grandparents and so on all the way back to Olwë’s people at the First Kinslaying, since Olwë was their great-great-granduncle) were killed by the mass-murderers you claim were better than their victims!
Maglor and Maedhros DID NOT create a found family FFS! Any rapport established between them and the twins were the twins trying desperately to survive being their hostages! It was not ~*uwu*~ sweet and lovely ~*uwu*~ it was likely fucking traumatic and Elrond and Elros were likely unable to deal with that trauma until their kidnappers disappeared and they felt safe again! Read up on Fawn in Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn reactions. Or any other related psychology!
Also, if Maglor and Maedhros actually took pity on orphaned elflings and not just valuable hostages, they would have adopted ALL the orphaned elflings; they had just burned a city and slaughtered lots of elves! Surely, unless they only slaughtered elflings, that means that there’s lots of orphans to go around! (This is why I say that the Silm is basically Noldorin propaganda; it’s not pity which moves Maglor, or there would have been a lot more adoptive brothers and sisters of the twins, but saying that it is pity makes Maglor and Maedhros look like better people than they actually are.)
maedhros is a shakespeare protagonist
finrod is a bible protagonist
and fingon is of course a shonen protagonist
no i will not elaborate
The Nameless Enemy: Speculations on My Favorite Baddie, Part 4
“It was an admirable thing and altogether precious.”
Gas cloud surrounding the star Fomalhaut.
go to part 1 | go to part 2 | go to part 3 | this is part 4 | go to part 5 [coming soon]
We never see Sauron—at least not in The Lord of the Rings—and that was funny to 13 year old me. When I first followed Frodo on that journey to Mount Doom I wondered at the choice to name a book after a villain who doesn’t actually appear in it. There’s the arrow of red light from Barad-dûr’s highest tower, of course, or the dark cloud with the reaching arm that rises over Mordor at the moment of Sauron’s defeat, but both of these function as suggestions of his presence or the weight of his attention only; they are the interpretations of the events as seen by others. Likewise, the one and only time Sauron speaks we receive his words through an intermediary—a contrite Pippin who has sneaked a peek at the palantir.
But Sauron is always there. The threat or the fear of him is always just at the edge of our peripheral vision: in the far-flung, millennia-long plots[1]; in the metaphors that put him everywhere all the time, disembodied limbs reaching to encompass all of Middle-earth (“his arm has grown long”) or disembodied eyes searching[2]; in the almost campy performance of evil on display when he orders his minions to steal only black horses from the Rohirrim; in the capitalized pronouns; in the metonymy and other evasive forms of address his orc underlings use to circumnavigate invoking him. In poor Sméagol’s other self[3].
In the ever-increasing weight hanging from Frodo’s neck: our antagonist is on that journey, too, literally and figuratively barreling towards his own destruction.
Along that journey Tolkien tells us numerous names and epithets for him—103 according to Richard Blackwelder’s A Tolkien Thesaurus—not counting the many he goes by in other texts. One of those is “The Nameless Enemy.” This word—“nameless”—is first applied in this way by Boromir at The Council of Elrond and later by Faramir, suggesting that invoking the name “Sauron” may be considered dangerous or even taboo to the Men of Gondor.
But “nameless” is far more appropriate than this simple explanation can express.
Czytaj dalej
(This is gonna be a long analysis)
I love angbang soooooo much. So much that I looked into all the religious subtext that their relationship is full of. Someone help me...................I mean it’s hard to separate the cannon from it’s religious connotations.........I needed to know all I could about angbang so here goes:
Okay I think Sauron and Melkor’s relationship was supposed to be an illustration of Idolatry.
The way Tolkien talks about their relationship seems to back this up.
On one hand he says: “but there was seen an effect of Melkor on Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor’s own terms: as a god, or even as god. This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”
And:
“While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”
Now to put plainly it seems Sauron worshipped Melkor. He thought of him as god, and at least in the beginning adored him. He did not desire his own triumph, but the triumph of Melkor. He worked and schemed for him, for someone he admired and adored, for someone he seemed to revere.
It should be noted that the word “adore” is used to describe the way the valar and elves feel towards Eru. This makes it seem that Marion worships Melkor in the way the valar/elves worship Eru. That this feeling is good and “holy”
(I believe the word admire is also used in the same way)
But of course we are talking about dark lords, and Tolkien has admitted his stories are religious works. Naturally Sauron’s feelings for Melkor cannot from a religious lens be viewed as on the same level with worship and admiration of Eru.
This is displayed when Tolkien expresses only Eru can give TRUE love and independence. He also states that no sub-creator can give love in that same way, and that it is a wish for loving obedience. Then it is stated that can only turn into robotic servitude, which is inherently evil.
Now this is most likely a jab at Sauron, but it is NOT invalidating the strength of his original worship and devotion. It seems to be implying that as Tolkien said: “This may have been a residue of a state which was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron to at least admire or admit the superiority of a being other than himself.”
And that: “(he worked)desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begining he had adored.”
(Again the words adored and admired again. Those in themselves were considered holy and devout feelings, things pure and selfless. Given to an idol they in the eyes of Eru become corrupt.)
Now it seems Mairon’s admiration and worship of Melkor was in essence the same in feeling as those who worshiped Eru, (they both feel admiration and reverence) but is inherently unholy and sinful. Something to be abhorred in its denial of god.
Or it could be that Sauron’s clear admiration for Melkor was a shadow of the gift Eru had given him, one that turned into sin as time went on. It was a shadow goodness and selflessness, but became corrupt.
Either way there are clear parallels between Sauron’s worship of Morgoth and Idolatry. Apparently just because you worship someone it doesn’t mean it’s holy. Sauron gave himself up, became imbued with evil and corruption, but his worship towards Melkor ran deep and kept him loyal for a long time. He denied Eru, but as Tolkien said in his words: “(Sauron)wasn’t a true atheist” as he instead looked to Melkor. But in worshipping Melkor he denied Eru.
Now Tolkien does seem to imply Sauron’s original feelings for Melkor were valid and pure, that is until they turned into denial of the true god and his love. Then of course Sauron’s feelings must have diminished into a shell of all true and holy love. Something with only semblance of such a “holy” thing as love for god.
SIGH.....Tolkien how come I had to raised by theologians to understand this reference. I never liked theology but of course my parents taught me to read Middle-English.
So what we can garner from this is it seems Sauron’s original love/devotion to Melkor was true and valid, but then became corrupted and twisted when it turned into denial of Eru. It became a shell of true love, something that caused him to remain in loyal and constant service to Morgoth through the millennia.
OR we can just focus on how it was all written from an unreliable narrator and thus we can do what we want!
Plus why does Sauron’s love of Melkor have to be inherently unholy! Why is love in itself not a pure and selfless action?
Tolkien made clear Sauron schemed for Melkor, desired the triumph of Melkor during all the time he served him. Even if his love was only holy in the beginning he still remained constantly selflessly devoted to Melkor, even when it contradicted his own goal. It would have been obvious to Sauron Melkor wished to destroy, while Sauron himself wished to innovate and control. You cannot innovate out of nothingness. But he still worked for Melkor, desired Melkor’s success and was implementing Melkor’s plans. What about that besides who it’s given to in unholy in any way?
Now there is the argument that a big part of his service to Morgoth was based of if his desire for power. Now as much as it might seem that was true from how he is described being drawn to Melkor’s strength, the fact that Tolkien said he did not seek his own supremacy, but desired the success of Melkor, and worked and schemed FOR someone other than himself, I do not think it could ever be reduced to simply that.
He seemed close to selfless in his actions as he was scheming and giving himself up for someone else.
I disagree with Tolkien. I believe reverence in itself is good and true. I believe to adore, to be selfless is good and true, though of course it is no excuse for committing evil. I just mean to me Sauron retained something good, even amidst the cocoon of his evil. So I guess I choose to interpret this in a different way, I choose to see his devotion not as inherent sin but as a fragment of good within him, which is almost what Tolkien meant honestly
But like it’s still love. He is working and scheming and striving for the success of someone other than himself. Tolkien said he desired Melkor’s success, and that his feelings for Melkor were the shadow of good. He is selfless in the fact he is truly desiring the goal of someone else above himself, and he is acting on it.
On Dragons (in Tolkien’s World)
The metaphysics[1] of dragons in Tolkien’s world is something of a mystery due to Tolkien’s principle that evil cannot create, only corrupt. So where do dragons come from? Are they just twisted forms of some pre-existing animal? But if so, how are they intelligent and self-aware? Are they corrupted Maiar? But if so, why do they need time to age and grow, as we see with Glaurung?
My theory is that the raw materials of dragons are existing animals[2] that have been twisted, just as the raw materials for werewolves like Carcharoth are actual wolves. (Carcharoth is raised from one of the ‘regular’ werewolves and then ‘he became filled with a devouring spirit’.)
But the spirits that inhabit dragons aren’t Maiar, in my theory. The Silmarillion says that “in the domination of his servants and the inspiring of them with evil [Morgoth] spent his spirit”. I think that, once the dragons were full-grown, Morgoth was splitting off parts of his spirit and putting it into the dragons, so that each dragon is in effect a little piece of Morgoth. It would explain why he guarded them so carefully, and kept most of them until a very last resort in the War of Wrath.
And it would explain the behaviour and power of Glaurung. When he first leaves Angband, during the Long Peace, he basically just acts like an animal. In the Narn i Hîn Húrin, he’s a very different character, malicious and scheming and deadly. And he pursues the children of Húrin like it’s a personal vendetta, which is striking. The other powerful servants of Morgoth either have at least some of their own motivations and goals, like Sauron, or show no distinct personalities, like the balrogs. But Glaurung is very deliberately, and precisely, and maliciously carrying out Morgoth’s goals to destroy Húrin’s family, and he seems to take it personally and revel in it despite never having met them. He’s manipulative and deceptive and very much like what we saw from Melkor back when he was active and scheming and not hiding in Angband. Even when Glaurung’s dying, he’s more driven by finding final ways to hurt the Children of Húrin than by the fact that he’s dying. And this makes sense if the spirit that’s animating him is, in effect, part of Morgoth.
And it explains why Morgoth was so weak by the end of the War of Wrath - he’d split off so many parts of his power that he had much less left in and of himself than any of the Valar did. In all likelihood, most of the other dragons had less than Glaurung, because Morgoth had less power to use by the point that he was making the winged dragons.
It also lines up with something else Tolkien said, that parts of Morgoth’s power remained in the world even after he was cast into the Void, and that power remained particularly strongly in gold. And what is it that dragons hoard? Gold. And The Hobbit states outright that the simple fact of having been hoarded by a dragon makes gold more dangerous and corrupting, at least to people who are vulnerable to it (like Thorin, and the Master of Lake-town).
This also deals with the same kind of metaphysical problem Tolkien had with orcs: how can a sapient species be entirely and universally evil? If dragons are bits of Morgoth, if they don’t have spirits with independent origins they’re inherently evil; you can’t have a good dragon in Middle-earth.
(And another benefit of this theory is that it makes Bilbo Baggins even more of a badass in retrospect for holding his own in a conversation with Smaug.)
[1] Fun fact: this term comes from the title of the book Aristotle wrote after his Physics. It literally just meant Physics: The Sequel and we’ve made a fancy philosophical term out of it.
[2] Dinosaurs, maybe? :D
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Your post on Melian being the Maia of love, and how the Ainur all had their “domains” has got me wondering, what do you think Mairon’s would have been before corruption or if his corruption had never happened?
Always an interesting question, and thanks so much for being curious about my opinion!
I think his domain was the same before and after corruption, just like Melkor.
The chaos and extremes Melkor represents didn’t need to be evil, in fact they go into how his contribution is almost a way of swirling the domains of the different Valar together, like how Melkor’s influence on Ulmo’s domain creates clouds that allowed him to be close to Manwe… that’s off topic, but I want to point out that corrupted or not we should still be able to see Sauron hold down the same skills as he would as Mairon.
My initial instinct is that he is the Maia of Order, which intensifies into a need for control when he defects to Melkor. This gives us the idea of Sauron being the order in Melkor’s chaos, making his defection an inevitable part of his nature.
Tolkien was writing LotR in letters to his son fighting in WWII at one point, and the parallels between fascism and Mordor were not subtle as a result. Sauron seeks order and to implement that he needs control and for that he needs power. This drives him, and his understanding of systems and order makes him very, very good at getting it.
The rings are very neat and orderly in concept, a heirarchy of power created with numbers significant to each race- there were 3 original elves, 7 fathers of dwarves, and we can assume based on that pattern, 9 was the initial number of men.
But I also think a lot about his symbol being the red eye, and his perception being stifling and practically a weight characters have to bear. He was initially Melkor’s spy in the years of the lamps, so information might be his domain.
Now, Aule would definitely be the Valar of knowledge, so it’s not quite that, but he has a desire to share that knowledge (see creation of the dwarfs) and Mairon was initially one of Aule’s maiar. Also, can I just say that knowledge being the forbidden fruit in Christian mythology and Aule having as much if not more knowledge of the workings of the physical world as Melkor? Very clearly this is why his Maiar keep getting corrupted.
So if I were to marry the idea of order with the eye imagery which screams observation, I think it he would end up with a domain of…
Math.
I’m kidding but I’m also not kidding. Calculations and analysis that orders the world based on observation… hyper intelligence and recognition of patterns, association with chaos…
I think Mairon is the Maia of patterns and calculations… which is basically math.
Trust a liberal arts professor to make their villain a math guy, smh.
Really, information and organization of that information are his strengths, and I think it’s really significant that he ultimately falls because he did NOT have all the information and failed to understand all the factors until it was too late.
Ok, his domain is Order, final answer. But I still secretly think it’s math.
I am obsessed with Sauron projecting his toxic and bumpy relationship with Melkor onto that dark web of manipulation he weaves with Celebrimbor. He expects Tyelpë to be as unstable, unreliable, chaotic, cold and heartless as Melkor could be, and is fairly certain that deep down Tyelpë is as ready to betray him as he does Tyelpë. And when Tyelpë shows him genuine love, kindness and, unwittingly, empathy, there is an urge within Sauron to give into this warmth and to reach out for a real 'human' connection. This makes him very confused and angry, at it forces all that bottled-down anger towards Melkor to surface. But then Tyelpë would unknowingly repeat Sauron's lies he has already told him, call him Annatar, and that would bring Sauron back on track.
Later, in Sauron's pits of torture, Tyelpë would laugh hysterically and tell Sauron, If he was anything like you are, then he had already left you before you even met.
The least 6 portraits.
Lúthien, Fingolfin, Maglor, Fëanor, Aredhel and Ecthelion.
