In Which Melkor Drops the Other Shoe, Fëanor Rouses a Rabble, and A Promise Is Gravely Made

The dense-but-rich ninth chapter, “Of the Flight of the Noldor,” is like Exposition Central in The Silmarillion. Frankly, it might be easier to summarize what doesn’t happen in this one: Melkor doesn’t stay put. Ungoliant isn’t satisfied. Finwë isn’t long for this world. Fëanor doesn’t let bygones be bygones, nor does he call for solidarity among the Eldar and the Valar. As the Lords of the West sigh wistfully, the Children of the Stars look to eastern shores. And frankly, it’s too much to take in all at once, so this installment will only tackle the first half of this famous chapter.

But let’s get started! That oath of Fëanor’s isn’t going to take itself.

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Yavanna – Vala, grieving arborist
• Manwë – King of the Valar, management
• Fëanor – Noldo, oathtaker, rebel without a (righteous) cause
• Mandos – Vala, tells it like it is
• Melkor – see Morgoth
• Morgoth – see Melkor, still a supreme asshole
• Ungoliant – hungry, hungry spider

Of the Flight of the Noldor, Part One

We open on the Ring of Doom, that circle of thrones where the Valar meet to discuss important things. Melkor and Ungoliant’s Two-Tree deforestation job left a mess, but now the spider-smog has lifted and the ir is cleared by Manwë’s winds. But it’s still quite dark in Valinor; the stars, at least, can be seen again. A whole bunch of people—presumably Elves and Maiar—are all gathered around the Valar like an ad hoc town meeting has sprung up. Of course, Fëanor is also present, along with his half-brothers. They are the princes of the Noldor, after all.

Olórin, the Maia who will one day be called Gandalf the Grey, is probably in attendance as well. He’d have been partying, too, during that big festival before it got party-pooped. Probably hanging out with the children (being fond of smaller folk) and trying out some of his earliest firecracker ideas. And very likely Curunír is there, too—the Maia who will someday be known as Saruman. No, these two gentlemen of latter-day importance aren’t actually mentioned in this chapter because they play no part yet. But it’s worth mentioning that they bore witness to the Darkening of Valinor, because when these future wizards will conversate and argue thousands of years from now, they are…informed. They listened, they observed. They are wise.

Anyway, Valinor has been darkened. So what now?

We’re only told the big stuff right now, just the major talking points that an Elf might have written down that day. Ulmo, for one, is keeping his mouth shut. He’s too decent a guy to say “I told you so” about Melkor. Though, I just know Tulkas is sitting there, white-knuckled and brooding, on whatever throne of council the others probably have to make him sit on. Or maybe he just paces around all the seats.

But it’s Yavanna—initiative-taking Yavanna who’s been gunning for Melkor ever since the Lamps incident—who has a possible solution. No, she can’t just make new Trees. She’ll never be able to repeat that feat. But hey, what if Fëanor were to, say, lend his Silmarils to her? Remember, he’d actually captured some of the light of the Trees inside them, and so that’s all that’s left of that light now. With some of it, she might be able to salvage all this darkness. Maybe…maybe even rekindle the Trees!

Manwë asks Fëanor if he would concede and let her try, and when Fëanor is not quick to answer, Tulkas gets impatient and tries to hurry him. Only Aulë, the one Vala who would understand a craftsman and artist like Fëanor best, asks them to give Fëanor some peace, some time to think.

But Fëanor already has his answer ready, and it’s one that really starts him down his final path of obstinance. Remember what he thinks of the Valar. He’s already implied that they are like captors and the Elves their thralls. He’s not a fan, Melkor’s lies having wormed their way into his psyche. And now, in front of everyone, the Valar have gone and asked him—him, an exile!—for something. And not in some secret private meeting, but in front of everyone (which I think is important). They’ve put him on the spot. All eyes are on him. So Fëanor draws an immediate comparison between the Valar and himself, pointing out that just as Yavanna cannot remake the Trees, so he cannot recreate what he did in crafting the Silmarils. Moreover:

It may be that I can unlock my jewels, but never again shall I make their like; and if I must break them, I shall break my heart, and I shall be slain; first of all the Eldar in Aman.

And then Fëanor presumably goes on to found the world’s first emo band and write melancholic lyrics about how no one understands him and how even the slightest setbacks in his extremely privileged life wound him to the core of his precious, sensitive soul. Or, at least he would have, if things didn’t go down the way they do.

First off, Mandos immediately chimes in—in his usual, ominous way—which is never a good thing. The Doomsayer of the Valar makes his little interjection right after Fëanor suggests that “breaking” his precious Silmarils would straight-up slay him and he’d thus be the first Elf to die in all of Aman.

‘Not the first,’ said Mandos, but they did not understand his words…

Mandos knows stuff. Stuff he’s not always allowed to talk about. And by this point in history, they’ve probably given up asking him to clarify. At first it seems like he’s just snarkily referring to Míriel, Fëanor’s mother who perished soon after his birth. Technically, she might be the first of the Eldar to “die” in Aman. But then her passing has always been kind of a nebulous thing, hasn’t it? And I don’t think Mandos would just toss that painful reminder out like that. He’s not a jerk. But this means he must know of another of the Eldar who’s just snuffed it. Probably got an alert about it on his Halls of Mandos app: a slain Elf spirit is awaiting its summons. He would be the first to know.

But I find a lot of insight in what Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor, said in one of his Silmarillion Seminar podcast episodes about Mandos’s three-word line:

If there’s one thing that he’s communicating clearly, it is, ‘Fëanor, you’re not really as big a deal as you think you are. You are already having delusions of grandeur right here. You are already making yourself out like you’re the entire protagonist of this whole story. Like the Darkening of Valinor is, at the end of the day, all about you. And it isn’t.’

Anyway, we’ll come back to what Mandos is actually referring to.

Finally, after he stews for a while, the much-beleaguered and oh-so-put-upon Fëanor finally declares that he will not give up his Silmarils, even though it could help relight the Trees and bring that blessedness back to Valinor and all his own people:

But if the Valar will constrain me, then shall I know indeed that Melkor is of their kindred.

Clever words, though. This statement puts the Valar in an awkward place. Of course, it’s not even certain that lending his Silmarils to Yavanna and “unlocking” them would even destroy them. It’s, at most, just a possibility. But that’s too much for him. More importantly, it’s what they want him to do.

Forgive me, then, as I bring in a brief quote from another book. Not even a Tolkien book. Rather, from an unrelated story that was published by the professor’s friend C.S. Lewis in 1945. In one scene, a prideful ghost is being offered forgiveness and salvation simply by letting go of his grievances in life and just accepting his lot.

“So that’s the trick, is it?” shouted the Ghost, outwardly bitter, and yet I thought there was a kind of triumph in its voice. It had been entreated: it could make a refusal: and this seemed to it a kind of advantage. “I’d rather be damned than go along with you.”

Lewis and Tolkien both knew a thing or two about pride, mostly from their real world experiences. And they knew how dangerous pride can be—not just by itself, but the ways in which it can drive one’s actions and color one’s entire world view. It sure does color Fëanor’s every move. Pride isn’t about being proud. It’s about wanting to be better than someone else, or at least appear to be, or to have power over someone else.

Fëanor refuses the Valar’s request because he can. He may not be a mighty Vala from the Timeless Halls before Eä was made, but ahh, he can lord his free will over them. He knows they won’t take that from him—they are themselves constrained by Ilúvatar’s rules—so he exploits it. Denying the Silmarils is a petty triumph. Never mind that it was Yavanna’s Trees that supplied their light in the first place, or that it was Varda herself who had hallowed them and made them as powerful as they were.

So the Trees will have to remain extinguished forever. It’s a done deal. Mandos calls it. No use yapping about it any further. And as everyone is forced to sit back and just process this outcome, grey-hooded Nienna goes up upon the mound where they once lived and died. She mourns and weeps, as she does, and washes away the filth of Ungoliant with her tears. And as if this day hasn’t seen enough heaviness…

Messengers arrive from Formenos, Fëanor’s house. You know, that place up in the hills where he keeps all his stuff (and loved ones). They report that a Darkness came upon the place—which we know now is Ungoliant and her Unlight—and out of it had stepped Melkor. The Elves will not have seen him in his Dark Lord shape until now, either, so I have to think that would be a terrifying encounter. But it gets worse: Right there at the gates of Formenos, Melkor attacked and killed Finwë. Killed him dead.

Now, I want to imagine that there was some kind of battle, even a short one. This is Finwë—King of the Noldor, born on the shores of ancient Cuiviénen—we’re talking about. No, he’s not a warrior, not like his sons have groomed themselves to be. So he stood no chance against the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä. But alas, there were no Elves to witness his end. And why? Because the messengers report that “Finwë alone had not fled from the horror of the Dark.” Which means, I’m pretty sure, that he made sure that his seven grandkids—the sons of Fëanor—and whatever staff the place had made it out of there alive, before turning to face Melkor by himself, perhaps to buy them time.

Finwë, I think it should be observed, was always a great leader. And seemingly a good husband (twice!), up to a point. No, not a great king. But a loving father and grandfather.

Rest in Mandos, Finwë. Hopefully his reunion with Míriel won’t be too awkward.

And yet we’re still not done with the bad news. After committing his act of regicide, Melkor broke into the iron vaults and lifted the three Silmarils. That’s the final straw! And as kind of a footnote, he also took “all the jewels of the Noldor that were hoarded” there. Which has to be a lot.

Hearing all this, Fëanor is thrust into a decidedly dark place. This is his dad that’s just died—and the answer to Mandos’s “Not the first” riddle. And let’s not forget, though it’s easy to, that Finwë was also Fingolfin’s and Finarfin’s dad. And young Galadriel’s grandpa, too! But Fëanor isn’t exactly concerned with anyone else’s feelings just now (or, well, ever). And in truth, we’re kind of with him in this moment anyway. He’s not a bad guy…yet.

First things first: Fëanor curses Melkor and then renames him in front of everyone there at the Ring of Doom. And when Fëanor declares something, it sticks. So now Melkor is rebranded Morgoth, the Black Foe of the World, “and by that name only was he known to the Eldar ever after.” Like, sure, Melkor is going to keep referring to himself as Melkor, but if he writes checks under that name, they’re going to bounce. It’s like Arda’s metadata has been adjusted. Fëanor has made sure that history will be written with this new moniker.

Which reminds me, it’s time to update Melkor’s, err, Morgoth’s list…

Fëanor is now doubly pissed at Manwë for having summoned him to Taniquetil in the first place—never mind why—because if he’d only been home in Formenos, maybe he could have kept Morgoth at bay. So he leaves the rest of the Noldor and the Valar to their own grief and runs home. And to Fëanor’s credit—despite all the terrible things that will follow—we’re told that Finwë was “dearer to him than the Light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands…” Meaning even his dad meant more to him than the Silmarils—not by much, but when you consider how insanely obsessed he has become for the work of his own hands, Finwë must have been dear indeed.

Now we cut over to Morgoth himself, who probably doesn’t yet know that he totally got served has been renamed. Even so, he’s running across the wastes of Araman—the region north of Valinor on the continent of Aman—because you can bet Oromë and Tulkas will be hot on his tail soon. This time he is headed for Middle-earth, where Sauron and the Balrogs better not have turned his bedroom into a den. I mean, he’s only been away for three ages! C’mon, we’re all immortal here, right?

At one time, he might have just been able to eschew his physical form, go all ghostly and naked across the landscape—maybe even right over the Great Sea itself—to make short work of this trip. But he’s spent too much of himself and lost that ability, remember? He’s stuck in Dark Lord form forever now.

Plus he’s got the Silmarils and a bunch of other gems to carry. He’s can’t just pop those into a Bag of Holding. And no way would he travel by sea—that’s Ulmo’s turf! Things are about to go south for Morgoth…even though he’s technically going north. Because with him still is his hideous, eight-legged, light-sucking accomplice. Don’t forget her! (It’s hard to, once you’ve seen her.)

Ungoliant and Morgoth finally reach that land of unforgiving cold that serves as a bridge between the northern tips of Aman and Middle-earth. Known as the Grinding Ice, this arctic realm is called the Helcaraxë (hell-car-AX-ay)! It should surprise no one that this very devastatingly cool word is also the name of multiple real life death metal bands, from such badass places like Black River (Argentina), Bratislava (Slovakia), and…New Jersey.

It’s become clear to Ungoliant that Morgoth is trying to shake her. Now that their heist was a success, she’s apparently cramping his style. Plus let’s be honest: she’s also really freaking scary. Ever since the Trees, she’s only gotten bigger. Her cloying darkness hangs over them both, and she doesn’t let him out of her sight. The dude had made some pretty big promises back there—no way is he giving her the slip! You agree to go on a date with a monstrous black spider from the outer edges of the World, you better see it through.

So they cross the icy hellscape with an ease that only nigh-invincible immortals possess, and finally start in on Middle-earth itself. Morgoth has his sights on Angband, that western fortress where he’d left Sauron in charge (although Sauron had made himself scarce when Tulkas and the Valar had come bursting in to wreck the place). Realizing that once Morgoth is back at his pad, he’ll will be harder to manage, Ungoliant stops him short. She reminds him that she’s still hungry. And she knows he’s got some bright and tasty snacks in hand. Literally.

And he’s all like, hey, babe, it’s not like he promised her the whole world.

‘Not so much,’ said Ungoliant. ‘But thou hast a great treasure from Formenos; I will have all that. Yea, with both hands thou shalt give it.’

Oh snap! She throws his words back at him.

So Morgoth opens up his left hand and gives her all the shiny Noldorin gems that he’d stolen; not the gems, of course, but other treasures of Fëanor’s. She devours these, then demands what’s in his other hand, in which he clutches the three Silmarils housed in a crystal casket. Even through this compartment, they’ve begun to burn him (what with his “hands unclean” and “evil will,” per the terms of Varda’s hallowing), but he hasn’t let them go for even a second. Murdering the Trees of Valinor and Finwë had been a point of vengeance, but the Silmarils—which he’s been drooling over ever since he first laid eyes on them—had been the real prize.

So now we come to it, the breaking part of this particular relationship.

‘Nay!’ he said. ‘Thou hast had thy due. For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished. I need thee no more. These things thou shalt not have, nor see. I name them unto myself for ever.’

“Ungoliant Demands the Silmarils” by Ted Nasmith

Naturally, an altercation ensues. Morgoth might have been the “mightiest dweller in Eä” at some point in his career, but that’s becoming less true as time goes by. And now he’s been weakened by his part in Ungoliant’s empowerment, so she’s got the upper hand, as it were. She spins her “web of clinging thongs” around him, tangling him up. And then Morgoth does what all bad guys do when faced with their well-deserved comeuppance. He protests. He screams.

So loud is this cry that (1) it gives the place its name—Lammoth, the Great Echo—and (2) it reaches across the canyons and valleys of northern Beleriand, reverberates into Angband itself and down into its deep chambers. It stirs up the Balrogs who’ve been hiding out there. They’ve got great ears, it turns out, if not weight-bearing wings. (Discuss!) So up comes the Balrog Brigade (a term I want to exist but Tolkien certainly didn’t use). They come leaping out of their holes and rush across the mountainous terrain to the rescue of their Dark Lord, whom they have been waiting for faithfully.

Balrogs join the fray—which might have been brief, but could just as likely have taken days! With their fiery whips they burn away Ungoliant’s webs and ultimately drive her away. She could probably take out any of them individually, but they’ve got the numbers on her.

“Dark Lore of LOTR – Into the Storm” by Sebastian Rodriguez

So, Ungoliant flees, but there’s no going back to her mountain clefts in Aman—the Valar would surely look for her now—so she finds somewhere new to hide and nest in Beleriand. (A reminder: Beleriand is that whole northwestern region of Middle-earth where the rest of the Silmarillion will largely take place.) But really, thanks a lot, Morgoth! As if he hasn’t done enough rotten things to Middle-earth already, now he’s let in an invasive species to breed with the local, native spider monster population. And breed she does! In a dark valley beneath Ered Gorgoroth, the Mountains of Terror, Ungoliant settles in. And because she won’t be coming back into the story again after this, Tolkien gives us a brief forecast of her fate.

First, we’re told that “other foul creatures of spider form” have been living here since Morgoth’s previous occupancy of the region—likely more beasties of Yavanna’s natural world that had been tampered with by Morgoth in his mightier Melkor days. Well, we’re told that Ungoliant mates with these things before devouring them—double gross—and Eru knows how many broods of oversized, many-legged critters issue forth from her reproductive system over the ages!

“The Spiders of Mirkwood” by Ted Nasmith

At some point, though, this spider granny does leave even her lair in Ered Gorgoroth, after which no one ever hears of her again. Speculation is made that Ungoliant’s curse of always being hungry finally consumes her. Like, literally. For in her “uttermost famine she devoured herself at last.” Which is a gruesome image but also otherwordly. Being an ancient spirit from beyond Arda, anything’s possible—what does that even look like? Gross, no matter what.

But back to the present. Free of Ungoliant, Morgoth now takes charge of Angband and settles in for good. Presumably, Sauron, who used to be the leader of this base, is at some point sent abroad (we’ll find out where in a future chapter). Morgoth fortifies and rebuilds Angband—aka the Hells of Iron—and “rears” three gigantic mountains above it just to make it more badass. Together these three volcanic peaks are called Thangorodrim (than-GOH-roh-dreem) and they’ll become a metonym for Morgoth’s power…

and a great reek of dark smoke was ever wreathed about them. There countless became the hosts of his beasts and his demons, and the race of the Orcs, bred long before, grew and multiplied in the bowels of the earth.

So Morgoth digs up his old specs on mass Orc-production and gets it going again. Think of all that smelting and smoke and stink of Isengard in The Lord of the Rings, then add Mount Doom and the Dark Tower of Barad-dûr, and then magnify that a hundredfold. Sprinkle some Balrogs on top and add a dollop of discord. That’s Thangorodrim.

As for those Silmarils: Morgoth is still burned by their presence; he can’t properly touch them or grasp them like a stress reliever on his desk. And they’re too majestic to use as doorstops or paperweights. So he does what any self-respecting Dark Lord would do: he forges a crown of iron, sets the Silmarils into it, then places it on his head. Sure, he suffers from their proximity—“nor was he ever free from the pain of the burning, and the anger of the pain”—but out of sheer inescapable spite, he bears it. And it only seems to get heavier over time.

But still, very metal of him.

So there, sitting upon his throne deep underground and far from the sight of most of his so-called subjects, Morgoth declares himself King of the World. And it’s pathetic, but also horrific, for so much suffering will come of his presence and his works, even though we’re told that he ventures forth from his halls only once more of his own accord. Hence the rest of the Quenta Silmarillion.

“Morgoth” by Frédéric Bennett

Now back to Valinor! Time passes. The Valar sit in thought for a long time. Again. Their Maiar and Vanyar friends continue to mourn over the death of the Trees, while the Noldor have all gone back to their city of Tirion to cope with the death of their king—upper lips kept as stiff as possible, given the circumstances.

Then Fëanor shows up in Tirion, breaking his exile, and calls everyone to come listen to him. Of course, all the Noldor turn out to hear what he has to say, gathering in the streets and stairs with torches in hand (remember, it’s pretty dark now). And at last, Fëanor puts his money where his mouth is, calling for a rebellion against the Valar. His mother had named him “spirit of fire,” and on this day he really proves why. For all his harsh anti-Valar rhetoric, the Noldor people generally do love Fëanor, but he’ll soon be testing the limits of that love.

For now, they’re caught up in his “fierce and fell” demagogical speech, and are in fact “stirred to madness” by it. Fëanor even claims the kingship of the Noldor, now that his father the King is dead. (Long live the King!) He then calls on them all to leave Valinor with him, to rage-quit the whole shebang, and bring pursuit and vengeance to Morgoth.

To return to Middle-earth…this time with swords.

Feanor insists that the Valar are jealous and irresponsible, and he parrots, if unknowingly, the lies of Morgoth. Sure, he reviles the Dark Enemy of the World above all, because that’s the one one guy absolutely everyone now hates. But as a means to the end that he’s trying to achieve, Fëanor throws the Valar under the bus, rolling out his all-who-stay-here-are-just-thralls talk anew. He even plays the “Men” card again, and this is actually the first time some of the Noldor are even hearing about this. Those Men!…amirite, Eldar? Never mind that the Secondborn Children of Ilúvatar—who still, by the way, haven’t even shown up yet—are guilty of exactly diddly-squat. Fëanor claims the Valar, the “kin of my father’s slayer,” have brought the Elves to Valinor so that “Men might rule in Middle-earth.” Of course, this is all right out of Morgoth’s playbook.

Here’s the thing: Fëanor is an excellent orator, yes, but what makes his speech especially compelling is the fact that he’s not totally wrong. Not the master/slave stuff—that’s rubbish. And the Men-will-take-over bit? Horsefeathers! But the Elves coming to Valinor in the first place, rather than staying in Middle-earth, might indeed have been overreach on the part of the Valar. And they have allowed Morgoth to operate among them. So now Fëanor is insisting that his people, the Noldor, can achieve what the Valar have not—that they can “go further than Oromë” and “endure longer than Tulkas.” The Noldor, he is saying, will never give up! They will pursue Morgoth back to Middle-earth, return to the land from whence they came, regain the Silmarils, and then establish new realms and be “masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda.”

And, well, some of that will happen. Some.

Fëanor knows how to appeal to the pride of his kin. He cites Cuiviénen, a place he’s too young to have ever seen himself, and how “sweet ran the waters under unclouded stars.” Hearts are moved. A longing for the twilit Middle-earth is kindled anew.

Re: the Silmarils, however, Fëanor caps off his speech with the Oath to End All Oaths. It is one that will both spur Fëanor and his seven sons to action and yet haunt them forever. Now, while this terrible oath of “dread words” applies only to him and to his kids, and only they make the oath, it’s going to affect everyone. And I mean everyone.

“Oath of Fëanor” by Ted Nasmith

This is something that Fëanor, at the height of his hubris, does with all of the Noldor and the Valar as witnesses. He especially calls out Manwë and Varda—who are totally hearing and seeing all of this up on hallowed Taniquetil.

As for the content of this oath, well, it could be simplified by saying this: if you grab or retain a Silmaril—hell, if you even look at one funny—Fëanor & Sons will be coming for you. Your ass is grass.

Or, consider this flowchart which some Noldor lawyer could have put together.

It’s a rather alarming set of rules, though. Can you imagine standing between, say, the brothers Amrod and Amras, and then Amras asks you hand to him a Silmaril that Amrod is currently holding? I mean, first you’d better be clear that you’re not taking the Silmaril from Amrod but only receiving it; and you can’t hold onto it even for a moment; and you’d better hurry it over to Amras quickly or else you could be construed as keeping it. That’s one hot potato!

Meanwhile, the actual Silmarils are thousands of miles away in the possession of Morgoth, literally affixed to his head via his black crown, with no chance of anyone else holding, taking, or keeping one anytime soon. So this oath is just warning everyone well in advance that the Silmarils are the Property of Fëanor & Sons only. Note that by default Morgoth is already, according to the oath, on notice: he’s held, taken, and kept all three Silmarils. Damn.

But geez, man. This solemn oath is made right after he’s stirred up the hearts of the Noldor to set out on a long journey. Only Fëanor would have the guts (or the gall) to speak to his people and on their behalf, ask them all to uproot their lives and follow him into great hardship, then immediately threaten all of them.

In the next installment—in just one week this time, so keep an eye out next Wednesday—we’ll tackle Part Two of this chapter. Who will Fëanor antagonize next? Will the Noldor really follow him on this ill-advised flight? What about Fingolfin? Or Galadriel?! Will she stay in Valinor and therefore avoid entanglement in Middle-earth’s toxic politics? Is Manwë gonna stand for all this? Will Mandos put in his two cents? Will Nienna ever stop crying? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Top image: “Morgoth” by Frédéric Bennett”

Jeff LaSala generally tries to avoid taking ominous Fëanorian oaths. Tolkien nerdom aside, he wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books.

In Which the Noldor Begin Another (and This Time Regrettable) Game of Follow the Leader and then…WTF Fëanor?!!

When last we left the intrepid Noldor in the first half of the ninth chapter, “Of the Flight of the Noldor,” they were listening to the moody but charismatic Fëanor: first trying to convince them to leave Valinor and pursue Morgoth to Middle-earth, then swearing vengeance against “whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril” up to and including anyone there in the audience. Since there is still much exposition to cover in this chapter, it is again easier to summarize what doesn’t happen: The Noldor don’t have a lovely picnic with the Teleri and swap sea shanties. Manwë and Mandos do not keep mum and mind their own business. And Fëanor certainly does not adopt a No Elf Left Behind policy and stand by it.

All these non-events aside, this is the chapter that brings us back to Middle-earth at long last. For many of the travelers, this is a one-way trip…in this life.

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Fëanor – Noldor prince, contender for Morgoth’s title of “Supreme Asshole”
• Fingolfin – Noldor prince, reluctant grand marshal of the Elven parade
• Manwë – King of the Valar, watcher from the skies (watcher of all!)
• Mandos – Vala, prognosticator of prognosticators
• Olwë – Teler, rightfully unaccommodating king

Of the Flight of the Noldor, Part Two

Fëanor has been convincing. He commands the floor—err, well, the stairs and streets and balconies of the city of Tirion, where he’s been speechmaking. But, after his spirited Oath—which all seven of his sons made as well, possibly without thinking through the finer points— others among the Noldor speak out against him. Not necessarily about the Oath (best not to touch on that), but about his rebellion and proposed flight.

One such is Fingolfin, who in the previous chapter had very much wanted peace between them with his whole “Half-brother in blood, full brother in heart will I be” olive branch. But now Fëanor has upped his crazy talk and Fingolfin just doesn’t like where he’s going with all this. Has their father’s murder unhinged Fëanor completely? Harsh words are said between them—again, in front of everyone—and they nearly come to blows. Then Finarfin, their younger brother, speaks up. But he just wants calm.

Then, all their kids start picking sides: Turgon and Finrod don’t care for Fëanor’s ideas, for example, but Orodreth is with his dad and just wants everyone to chill. Whenever Tolkien throws a bunch of names at you in one paragraph, it’s helpful to have a diagram handy.

Interestingly, Galadriel’s own career of fighting “the long defeat,” as she calls it in the far distant future, begins here in this moment. We’re told she is the “only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes” who was moved by Fëanor’s words. Which I actually take to mean that most of the female Noldor aren’t buying into Fëanor at all, at least not enough to want to leave. But Galadriel does. Now, she does not like Uncle Fëanor—like, at all (there’s a bit of not-necessarily canonical history between them concerning her hair)—but she is at least agreeing with his whole let’s-get-out-of-Valinor thing. She has her own ambitions—and would be keen on ruling her own realm somewhere, now that you mention it. So let’s all watch her career with interest.

Anyway, at last Fëanor wins the day—if not the Most Popular vote, you might say. Therefore the Noldor will go!

Finarfin asks if they could all just wait a while first, but he’s shouted down, so preparations get immediately underway. The Noldor pack up their greatest possessions, things they made or shaped with their own hands: weapons, jewelry, and other objets d’art that on the long road ahead will be both “a solace and a burden.” Now, being Elves, they would normally take a long time to get going, but Fëanor is their taskmaster. He spurs them on with haste, knowing how much Elves like to tarry and not wanting their hearts to cool down. But I mean, at least they’re not Teleri-slow, right?

At first, no word comes from Manwë and the Valar. They know what’s going down but they aren’t trying to stop the Noldor. One, because restraining the Elves would be tampering with their free will—the Valar are as elders, not bosses—and doing so would only make Fëanor’s stinging accusations seem that much the stronger. And two, c’mon, these are Elves. They’ll surely stop and feast like twenty times before they even reach the shores. The Valar don’t really seem to think Fëanor can pull this off. Look how long it took Oromë, a Vala, just to get them all over here in the first place! And that was with Ulmo’s help carting them across the Great Sea.

And true enough, although his people will follow him, they won’t all acknowledge Fëanor as King of the Noldor. Most love the steadfast Fingolfin best and will only go if he leads. Fingolfin begrudgingly agrees, not wanting them to be sundered again—there’s been enough Elf-sundering in Arda already—and he hates the idea of them marching into Morgoth territory with only rash Fëanor to look to for guidance. No doubt Fingolfin’s own words from the day of the festival echo painfully in his mind:

Thou shalt lead and I will follow. May no new grief divide us.

Fingolfin is an Elf of his word. But still, this doesn’t make Fëanor the new ruler. Personally, I like to believe Galadriel is the one who starts the #NotMyKing movement among the Noldor, in regards to Uncle Fëanor. We’re also told a full 10% of the Noldor (a “tithe”) simply don’t leave at all—probably Tirion’s street sweepers and lamplighters. Hey, someone has to keep the lights on.

“Leaving Tirion” by Marya Filatova

Thus two hosts set out from Tirion at slightly different times, Fëanor at the head of a small one, Fingolfin at the head of a much larger one. And it’s once they’re out the gates of the city that a messenger from Manwë approaches. Finally, word is coming down from Taniquetil to convey the Valar’s official stance:

Go not forth! For the hour is evil, and your road leads to sorrow that ye do not foresee. No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest; but neither will they hinder you; for this ye shall know: as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart.

Moreover, the decree confirms that by Fëanor’s own Oath, he’s now officially cast out of Valinor (yeah, even though he’d never go back, anyway); everyone else would be welcomed again. And as for Fëanor defeating Morgoth, as he aims to? Well, not for nothing, but there’s zero chance of an Elf overcoming any Vala-tier being. Not even if Fëanor was powered up at three times his current level, armor class, and hit points could he do this…err, is more or less what Manwë is trying to say. He’s not boasting, just speaking plainly.

But Fëanor isn’t fazed by this. He actually laughs. Oh, really? Things are going to get sorrowful, Manwë? Hasn’t sorrow already come to this so-called Blessed Realm? Fëanor throws a few insults back at the Valar, and that’s that. On they march.

The last two Elves trailing behind in Fingoflin’s host are his brother Finarfin and Finarfin’s eldest son, Finrod (again, Galadriel’s big brother). It’s worth remembering these two, especially Finrod—the coolest Elf in Tolkien’s entire legendarium. (And that’s an objective fact). These are essentially the two Noldor least eager to leave Valinor. Not until Chapter 15 will we be given the clearest reason for Finrod’s reluctance, but I’ll just point out now that he’s leaving someone special behind. To me, this moment recalls Book Two of The Lord of the Rings when the just-formed Fellowship is readying to depart Rivendell.

Aragorn sat with his head bowed to his knees; only Elrond knew fully what this hour meant to him.

A lot may be going on with the entire Noldor people, but it’s also a huge and somewhat sad hour in one Elf’s story, and also one there’s no going back from. Finrod’s fate, like Aragorn’s, must now unravel. It’s going to be thick with dangerous and trials.

The Noldor stroll due east towards the Great Sea, and it dawns on Fëanor that he’ll still need to cross it. It would be way too awkward to ask the Valar if they could borrow another island-ferry. And sure, the Noldor could just follow the coastline north where the waters between Aman and Middle-earth are much narrower, but yeesh! Even that’s going to be a very long journey on foot. It sure would be be easier if they all had ships to sail on…

Say, you know who’s got ships? The Teleri! The good ol’ Last-comers. If anyone can convince that flock of beach Elves to (1) lend them their ships and (2) hey, maybe even come with the Noldor back to Middle-earth, it’s the great Fëanor! But when Fëanor’s smaller host reaches reaches Alqualondë, the Haven of Swans, its ruler, Olwë, wants nothing to do with their exodus. Moreover, the Teleri are happy here on their isle and their shores. Though they are sad that their Noldor friends want to go.

“We only just got here,” it’s like they’re saying, “y’know, like three hundred years ago or whatever!” And that’s in Valinorean years.

So naturally, Olwë refuses to give over his boats to Fëanor. The swan-decorated ships are to the Teleri “the work of our hearts,” he claims, not to be made again. Like the Silmarils are to Fëanor. Moreover, even helping the Noldor to make their own ship would be counter to the will of the Valar—the Teleri don’t want to rock that boat, as it were. Plus they like the Valar. Ulmo especially is their guy. You know, Ulmo, who always had Mel…err, Morgoth’s number. Plus, those two sea-loving Maiar, Ossë and Uinen, are their pals. Yeah, the Teleri aren’t going to be complicit in any rebellion.

Fëanor tries to be reasonable for like a second, then he changes gears and starts using Fëanorian logic and name-calling. He labels the Teleri “fainthearted loiterers” who benefited from the Noldor when they first arrived and now won’t return the favor.

“In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still, had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.”

But Olwë answered: “We renounce no friendship. But it may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly. And when the Noldor welcomes us and gave us aid, otherwise then you spoke: in the land of Aman we were to dwell for ever, as brothers whose houses stand side by side.”

If only Fëanor understood what brotherhood means. Not like he gets along with his actual brothers. At this point, I really want Olwë to be like, “Listen, kid. Your dad and my big brother were besties. To think that the son of Finwë would be giving his old man’s friends such a hard time…” In any case, Olwë puts his foot down.

All Fëanor sees at this point is a Teleri-shaped obstacle between him and his precious Silmarils. They’re a speed bump, a barrier that needs to be pushed past. So after some brooding and mustering, Fëanor leads his army of Noldor down to the docks to seize the ships by force. The Teleri push back. Some Noldor are tossed into the water. Noldorin blades are drawn…

And this is the truly heartbreaking part of this chapter. Even the slaying of Finwë isn’t as tragic. I mean, Morgoth (né Melkor) is the author of evil. Of course he’s going to kill some folks. But Elf battling Elf? This is the very first time, and so we come to the Kinslaying, the Cain and Abel moment for the High Elves. And it’s the first step on the aforementioned road that “leads to sorrow that ye do not foresee.” Manwë totally called it.

Initiative is rolled. Blood is spilled as battle erupts right there on the ships and piers of Alqualondë. Many Elves on both sides are slain, Noldor and Teleri alike. But the Teleri are armed with mere bows, while the Noldor fight with what are likely some of the finest swords Arda will ever see. You can bet Mandos is made aware of all this rather quickly now, as the spirits of the slain await his summoning to his halls.

“The Kinslaying at Alqualondë” by Ted Nasmith

To make matters worse, as the host of Fingolfin starts to catch up, those at the front see battle and rush to join in. They don’t know how this began or who began it, only that Noldor are being slain. To arms! Bolstered by Fingolfin’s vanguard, Fëanor’s group wins the day, beating the Teleri soundly; “a great part of their mariners that dwelt in Alqualondë were wickedly slain.” When the battle dies down, the Noldor commandeer the Teleri’s ships and start rowing north.

Olwë, who was not killed, calls out a prayer of help to Ossë. He’s a violence-prone Maia, surely he’ll do something! But the Maiar have been forbidden by the Valar from interfering. However, Ossë’s wife, Uinen, knows what’s happened, and she weeps for the Teleri. And when the Lady of the Seas is upset, well…shit’s going to get real. Waves roar up from the sea and actually wreck a bunch of the ships, slaying yet more Noldor. (Ossë knows he’s got the best wife!) Still, most of the Noldor survive and escape northward, working their way along the coast outside the mountain-fence of the Valar.

Now, a whole bunch of Fingolfin’s host—pretty much everyone not in the vanguard—did not take any direct part of the Kinslaying, yet they’re guilty by association. They’re still following Fëanor, after all. Finarfin especially would indeed have a heavy heart about this. All he ever wanted was for everyone to just get along. Oh, and his wife is Eärwen, the Swan-maiden of Alqualondë. She’s Olwë’s own daughter and is from this port city! That’s right: Finarfin married a Teleri Elf-maid, and then his idiot half-brother led a slaughter upon his father-in-law’s people. Damn that’s awkward.

Of the Kinslaying at Alqualondë more is told in that lament which is named Noldolantë, the Fall of the Noldor, that Maglor made ere he was lost.

Maglor. A few chapters ago, when we were first introduced to Fëanor and his sons, we learned that Maglor was one of the nicer ones. He’s a singer and poet, and here we’re told that he—he who was absolutely part of the Kinslaying and ran through who knows how many Teleri with his own sword—is the one who later writes it all down! Who sings about it. Who makes sure the tragic tale is told. The lament marks, in his own mind, the fall of the Noldor. History may be recorded by the victors, but at least among Elves, it doesn’t necessarily portray the wrongdoers favorably.

“Spoiler” Alert: We’re told that at some point after making a name for himself, Maglor will be…well, lost. Given the trajectory of Fëanor and his sons, this should surprise no one. By virtue of their impetuous Oath, all of them are ill-fated, even those who try to do some good.

At this point the Noldor march (and some row) north along the shoreline. This is, no doubt, a grievous time. Even the most hard-hearted of Elves—like Fëanor, who believes he’s in the right—still know that they’ve crossed a line. To Fëanor it’s clear that the end justifies the means, but there’s no joy in the killing of a Child of Ilúvatar by another. And theirs is a paradox of confinement, for Elves are bound to Arda. The victims of the Kinslaying, Noldor and Teleri, will now be hanging out together in the Halls of Mandos. What does one disembodied Elf say to another? And what does the spirit of Finwë now say to his own kinsmen who’ve joined him?

Well, the Noldor don’t get out of Valinor without a scolding. Right at the very border between Valinor and the wastelands that follow, a dark figure appears on a high rock looking down on them. They think it’s Mandos himself who’s come this time. Certainly it’s his words that boom down upon them in the most ominous of The Silmarillion’s monologues, probably with just enough reverb to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

Mandos’s words here will be known as the Doom of the Noldor or the Prophecy of the North. They’re fascinating, because although they sound like some verbose if poetic hex, they’re actually more of a statement of insight than a curse. It starts strong with:

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains.

So now it’s official. All these Noldor are banned from Valinor henceforth. But soon it points a finger squarely at Fëanor & Sons:

Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass.

Mandos isn’t inflicting anything on them; he’s trying to make clear what may not be obvious to them: that by their very actions, fear of betrayal is inevitable. If you lie enough to someone, you will be distrustful of others. If you betray someone, you will fear betrayal in turn. Kill another, then you know that others will be capable of killing you.

Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood yet shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. For though Eru appointed to you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.

He is emphasizing the weariness that will fall on even those who don’t die. “As ye have made thy bed,” I imagine Mandos might have closed in an early draft of this Prophecy, “So ye shall now, by its making, lie in it.” But that’s just me. Instead, Mandos ends with…

The Valar have spoken.

Mic drop.

Most of the Noldor blanch at this pronouncement of doom. They’re shaken. But hard-headed Fëanor goes full-on Morgoth here and doubles down in his wrongness. He basically says, “Yeah, well. At least we’re not cowards or anything. And what we go on to do will be talked about forever.”

And that’s all true, too. Fëanor is a lot of things—a jackass, an arrogant popinjay, a grade-A prick, and a real piece of work—but he’s not a knowing liar. He has conviction. He says what he means and somehow, in his Morgoth-infected ego, he believes what he’s doing is best for his people. But who are we kidding? It’s mainly for himself and kind of his family, too. He’s crossed so many red lines already, and we’re still not done.

But Finarfin just can’t do this anymore. And others of the Noldor do turn back from this brink. Along with his wife and many others, Finarfin throws in the towel and retraces his steps back to Tirion in order to seek (and soon to receive) pardon from the Valar. And this he has to do without his five children, of whom Finrod and Galadriel will prove the most memorable in the larger story. It’s moments like this I like to think of when I read The Lord of the Rings. The Galadriel we first meet in Lothlórien is a Galadriel who hasn’t seen her own parents in well over seven thousand years—because of this one moment, and her mixture of stubbornness, pride, and loyalty to her people who are all now committed to this road.

After presumably some very bittersweet goodbyes, the bulk of the Noldor press on to the north with their ill-gotten ships and come eventually to where they can see “the first teeth of the ice that floated in the sea.”

The Helcaraxë, the Grinding Ice, is near! The only beings who’ve traversed this nightmarishly frozen land before them were Morgoth and Ungoliant. The cold mists of this region block out the stars which the Elves love so much, so their morale is taking a hit. And in a world with no sun, no moon, no more light from the great Trees, and now no stars, it’s utterly dark, with no promise of dawn.

Fëanor knows of the turmoil in the hearts of his kinsmen, and now there is fear of betrayal. (Just as Mandos foretold.) He knows there are some cursing him behind his back. But he’s thinking about the future, his sons, and himself first. Regrettably, he’s long since disregarded his wife Nerdanel, who stayed in Valinor. All seven of her baby boys have left her behind, too. It’s a tragedy.

Well, they’ve still got some Teleri ships, but there aren’t enough of them for all the Noldor. Not in one crossing, anyway. They’d have to ferry back and forth for a while to get everyone across even in this narrower part of the sea.

But then Fëanor achieves a new low. He takes his sons and only those of the Noldor he thinks are the most loyal to him, and when the time is right he stealthily seizes all the ships they’ve got. The wind favors them as they sail secretly across the cold waters just south of the Helcaraxë—a far swifter journey than going by foot across treacherous ice floes, that’s for damned sure! They make landfall on Middle-earth in its far northwestern corner.

At which point Fëanor’s eldest son, Maedhros, speaks up. He doesn’t see his dad’s intent yet, and moreover, he cares about those they left behind. Who’s to fetch them, he asks, and who’ll come first? Foremost on Maedhros’s mind is Fingon (one of Fingolfin’s kids), who he’d always been good friends with.

But Fëanor, in a total dick move, actually laughs at the question. Then he answers his son:

None and none! What I have left behind I count now no loss; needless baggage on the road it has proved. Let those that cursed my name, curse me still, and whine their way back to the cages of the Valar! Let the ships burn!

Again, he believes his own skewed truths. Never mind the other Noldor who fought on his behalf and shed Elf blood. Never mind that they’d gone this far because of his leadership and hadn’t turned back even after Mandos’s foreboding judgments. Tough shit, says Fëanor. Sucks for them. Feanor then sets the ships, the “fairest vessels that ever sailed the sea,” alight.

“The Burning of the Ships” by Ted Nasmith

But “keen are the eyes of the Elves,” as Aragorn will one day proclaim. And so across however many miles of dark water that lie between them, Fingolfin, Finrod, Galadriel, and all those left behind by Fëanor see the burning, “red beneath the clouds.” They know what’s what. #NotMyKing, indeed.

So they’re faced with a choice. Fingolfin could turn back to Valinor, doubly shamed, and join Finarfin—or else press on and take his chances in the teeth of the Helcaraxë. He is filled with bitterness and wrath, and man oh man, would he really really like to see Fëanor again for a little chat. Like, in a Tulkas-wants-to-meet-Morgoth-again sort of way, if you understand me.

So Fingolfin and the rest of the Noldor choose the long and hard trek across the deadly floes of the Grinding Ice.

There’s no sun, no daylight. Just their pale lanterns and torches and the sheer grit of the High Elves. Of course, they are all Calaquendi, Elves of the Light, who have dwelt long in the radiance of the Two Trees. They’re tough beyond our understanding and “the fire of their hearts was young.” Yet they still suffer hardship and even lose many of their people to the frigid perils of the Helcaraxë. The wife of Turgon is one such. Whether she drops in a scouring storm of ice, slips into some deadly crevasse, or just perishes in the utter cold, she is the closest thing we get to a face representing the suffering of the Noldor at this time. Nothing in their centuries of long life in the Blessed Realm has prepared them for this. This is a seriously dramatic crossing, long and brutal.

How dramatic? Let’s just say that I imagine some haunting Lisa Gerrard-type vocals layered over any musical montage that might be scored for this grim trek, punctuated by some chilling percussion. Maybe with some actual breaking ice sound effects. Or is that just me?

“Spoiler” Alert: So right at the very end of this chapter we’re told that those who marched behind Fingolfin “blew their trumpets in Middle-earth at the first rising of the Moon.” To which my first thought is: the Noldor brought trumpets with them?!?!  I mean, of course they brought their favorite gems and ornaments, swords and shield, and probably banners and family heirlooms, and presumably plenty of warm furs because even though they didn’t plan on crossing the Helcaraxë they still knew they were going to spend a fair amount of time in the far north. But they also brought instruments, which…yeah, that shouldn’t be surprising. Elves do love music (“O! Tra-la-la-lally!”). I guess I just hadn’t pictured the host of Fingolfin as a majestic marching band. But one never knows when one needs to sound out something dramatic. And why not the Moon?

Wait, there’s suddenly a Moon now? And with a capital “M,” too! It’s almost as if the Valar haven’t just been sitting around biting their nails when the Noldor strolled away….

In the next installment, which addresses the chapter “Of the Sindar,” we won’t find out about the Moon’s first rising. Not just yet. Instead we’ll learn how Middle-earth has fared while the Noldor were still futzing around in Valinor, and while Morgoth was still chained up in Mandos’s basement. And we’ll learn what become of all those Teleri who tarried so long and never made it over the pond. And say! Who are those short, bearded fellows coming up over the eastern horizon…?

Top image: “The Burning of the Ships” by Ted Nasmith

Jeff LaSala can’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone. Tolkien nerdom aside, he wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books.

It is a truth long acknowledged that an epic quest needs a Chosen One. The One Character, Chosen by Fate, Long-Prophesied, riddled with Marks of Great Portent, whose Birth Was Foretold, and Who Will Bring Balance/Right Wrongs/Overthrow Injustice.

But what about those heroes who aren’t chosen? Who see all of their friends, all of their world, go quiet in the face of an obvious evil? What about those who take up the lightsaber, the armor, the Ring, knowing all the while that, at any moment, they could be revealed as frauds? Or die without making anything better?

Today, we’re celebrating the “Unchosen Ones”.

Vin and Kelsier (Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson)

Art by Marc Simonetti

Vin and Kelsier live in a world of extreme injustice, swarming with monsters and mist, curated by the all-powerful Lord Ruler. There is no resistance. Resistance always fails. As thieves, Vin and Kelsier know this; all they want to do is get ahead and live out their days as part of the comfortable noble class.

Or at least that’s the reason Kelsier, himself an all-powerful Mistborn, initially tells Vin. As a rare Mistborn herself, Vin develops her powers to assist Kelsier with his heists, and continues to help him when it becomes clear that what Kelsier is really seeking is vengeance against the Lord Ruler. In the end, it becomes clear to Vin that what Kelsier really wants is a better world for everyone, that not only is he aiming straight at the source of evil in their world, he’s intent on creating something better as a replacement.

Kelsier fails. But in doing so, he solidifies Vin’s resolve. The evil of the Lord Ruler cannot remain unchallenged. And if she must be the only one to stand against that evil, then so be it.

Phillipe Gaston (Ladyhawke)

Phillipe Gaston is a thief—a damned good one, but still, just a thief. (We’re sensing a pattern here…) He’s not an epic hero or an orphan with a mystical birthright or a hidden prince. And he doesn’t have an overwhelming evil to fight; just a wrong that he feels he can’t ignore.

When Gaston stumbles across the dark fairy tale/curse shared by Etienne de Navarre and his ladylove, Isabeau, he does everything he can to resist it, first running away, and then trying to talk “sense” into the two lovers. But in the end he realizes that they have impossible odds against them, and that no one except an alcoholic friar is willing to help. He gives in to the story and plays several roles: saving Navarre, keeping hope alive in both of the lovers’ hearts, and reverting to his old cunning to smuggle the pair into the city to try to break their curse. He can’t save the world, but he can leave some lives better off.

Rey (Star Wars)

As The Last Jedi made clear, Rey is not a traditional chosen one. She’s a nobody, abandoned on a junk heap of a planet by parents who couldn’t (well, wouldn’t) take care of her. When she’s offered a gig that would take her across the galaxy she balks at the idea of a larger life. When she’s offered a straight up call to adventure, she runs the other way. She is desperate not to be chosen, because being chosen is terrifying. Even at the opening to The Last Jedi, she is still trying to pass the lightsaber back to Luke. She wants to hang back, be an apprentice, defer to an older authority.

But she’s seen the evil that pervades the galaxy (shirtless and all), and once Rey realizes that Luke is refusing his old responsibilities, she finally decides to step up and become the hero that her new friends, that the galaxy, needs her to be.

Heloise (The Armored Saint by Myke Cole)

Offer deference to the Empire, always. Even if they ask you to commit unspeakable acts. Especially if they ask you to commit unspeakable acts. If you don’t, demons will rip open the world, your family, and you. Heloise, the main character of Myke Cole’s The Armored Saint, is a young teen in this world, caught in that confusing in-between age where she understands what the rules are, but not why she or anyone else has to continue to obey them.

Cole’s The Armored Saint continually examines this question, pitting the “wisdom of youth” against unquestioning obedience, even to the social and cultural mores that protect and support her.

Maia (The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison)

Maia is not supposed to be Emperor. He’s the fourth in line to the throne, the son of an unloved wife, banished and nearly forgotten. But when a freak accident takes the lives of the Emperor and his three elder sons, Maia is summoned to court. But how can he possibly govern? Half-elven, half-goblin, he’s hated by his courtiers, untrained in the ways of state, isolated from the people he’s meant to rule, and fighting scheming rivals at very turn. Katharine Addison’s immersive, disarmingly gentle take on epic fantasy follows Maia as he learns not just how to rule, but how to rule well. Maia wasn’t ever meant to be Emperor, but as the book rolls along, he’s shocked to find he might actually be up for the challenge. Addison’s novel is even more notable in that the “unchosen one” already comes from a life of privilege, allowing The Goblin Emperor to explore what motivates someone to rule well, to ward off evil, when the stakes aren’t life or death.

Deeba (Un Lun Dun by China Mieville)

Obviously if we’re going to talk about “Unchosen Ones” we have to talk about UnLondon’s Deeba. When she travels to UnLondon with her friend Zanna, it’s under the belief that Zanna is the “Shwazzy,” the Chosen One prophesied by The Book (who can talk) to save UnLondon from the noxious Smog. But since Smog knows the prohpecy, too, Zanna is soon incapacitated in battle. The two girls are sent back to their own London, and all hope seems lost..unless Deeba decides to ignore prophecy. Can she find her own way back, and continue the battle without the benefit of Fate?

Taran (The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander)

Taran’s epic quest began because he chased after a pig. After daydreaming of heroics for his entire youth, he fails at his actual job—assistant pig keeper—and then has to make things right when the pig (who happens to be Oracular) escapes. He crashes right into what would normally be the A-plot, Prince Gwydion’s fight against the Evil Horned King (Ooooooh.) Over the course of the Prydain series, Taran learns how to be the hero his land needs, and stops worrying so much about whether or not anyone considers him “Chosen.”

Bilbo, Frodo, But Mostly Sam (The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien)

All three of Tolkien’s hobbit Ringbearers count as Unchosen Ones. Bilbo may be “chosen” by Gandalf, but he’s a thief, and not terribly well-equipped for his quest at first. The only reason he stumbles into the much larger [trumpet flourish] LORD OF THE RINGS [!!!] story is that he pockets Gollum’s Ring.

It is Frodo who treats the obvious evil of Sauron selflessly, countering the bickering of the Council of Elrond and the political and personal interests of everyone involved by offering to take the Ring to Mordor. But it is Samwise Gamgee most of all, a quiet gardener who can’t even pluck up the courage to ask Rosie the Barmaid out for a night on the Hobbiton, that exemplifies Unchosen Heroism. He is small and terrified, and in way over his head, but when Frodo fails it is Sam who carries the Ring, remains incorruptible, and makes it possible for Middle-earth to dispel its great evil.

Threequels. Not the groundbreaking first, not the stake-raising second, but the one that goes big or goes … elsewhere.

Return of the Jedi is equal parts ham-fisted plot cleanup and high emotional moments. Henry V is high-stakes action and excitement that nonetheless manages to create a closing arc for a complex character, even if it eschews the comic complexity of Henry IV parts I & II. Then there’s Die Hard with a Vengeance. And Terminator 3. And Alien 3. And … Okay, threequels are usually terrible. But here’s a list of threequels that rule their particular series.

Since the third child usually gets hand-me-downs, each book gets its very own special new present.

(Aside: this was not easy! I adore Octavia Butler, but her strongest series novels are definitely the tour-de-force Wild Seed, sitting at Patternmaster #1, and the intensity of Adulthood Rites, Xenogenesis #2, far outdoes the sedate pace of Imago. Naomi Novik’s best Temeraire book was the fourth, and both Jane Yolen’s Pit Dragons and Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain have stellar second books and slumpy third books. So don’t be hating because I picked some really well-known books. It just might be that it’s hard to do a good threequel.)

Spoiler warning for the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire and The Expanse, Mockingjay, and a few older books as well!

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

When I first read the series, young’ns, there were only three, and if George had been consumed by a dragon in 2001, he would have gone out on a high note.

It’s not just the Red Wedding although ouch, that still hurts. All the highlights were in this particular book. Tyrion’s betrayal of his family! The Hound’s duel with Beric Dondarrion! Jamie, Brienne and the bear! Jamie’s hand! Jon versus Ygritte! Dracarys! And most of all, with Martin running at maximum Martin, the duel between the Mountain and the Viper. Anywhere else in fantasy, especially in the early 2000s, you wouldn’t find such shades of gray, such reversals and heartbreak, and especially not a fist-pumping duel that ended with the “good guy” getting his head smashed in for his arrogance.

It’s also no surprise to me that George originally planned the series in 5-year-gaps—an idea he abandoned in order to write A Feast For Crows—and that this novel was supposed to climax the first arc before the gap set in. Nearly every character reaches a breaking point and is transformed into someone new. Each character, even the walk-ons like the Viper, is undone by their flaws. Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Sansa, all carrying the story, are undone and remade.

Well done, A Storm of Swords. You shine like Valyrian steel, so you get a new sword that you don’t have to share with your brother. We were gonna get you a new puppy, but he’s dead and his head is sewed to your brother’s corpse.

(STILL OUCH!)

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

There’s a lot of coronations, goodbyes, and fanboying about caves and trees, yes. But, for all that Aragorn and Gandalf spend a good twenty pages chatting in snow, The Return of the King is the book that contains all Tolkien’s greatest moments. It’s got his sharpest critique of industrialism in the Scouring of the Shire, his most profound musings on hope in the Houses of Healing, and the heart-wrenching despair in the wasteland of Mordor.

Plus the Crowning Moments of Awesome just keep coming. Sam carries Frodo up the mountain. Pippin leaps into the fire to save Aragorn. Gandalf faces the Witch-King at the gate of Minas Tirith. Aragorn summons the Dead to the Stone of Erech. Eowyn slays the Witch-King (an especially crowning moment of awesome after two books in which women are rare as Balrogs or dragons).

Actually, let’s see that. And again. Oh yeah.

In the end, Frodo’s permanent wound is a reminder that home never waits for us the same way—at least, not until we reach a “far green country under a swift sunrise.”

Well done, Return of the King. You get your very own tree. Yes, a tree, because you third kids like some odd things sometimes, but we sure love ya.

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey

Everyone agrees that The Expanse is great, and everyone also has very different opinions about which is the best book. And I have to agree this was a tough choice—for one, Gate doesn’t feature a viewpoint for Detective Miller, one of the best characters in the first book, although he features in the story as the alien surrogate. Nor does Chrisjen Avasarala figure in, with her Sol-system-spanning politics and entertainingly foul mouth.

But this book, designed to serve as a finale if Corey’s remaining story was not picked up, shows the heart of The Expanse. Humanity is ready to move on, in theory having outgrown a few planets and asteroids, and the ring gate is the key. But humanity is not ready to move on in spirit. A brutal, short-sighted force seizes control of the ship at the heart of the ring gate, and Clarissa Mao’s quest for vengeance almost ends interstellar exploration before it starts.

Anna Volovodov, a preacher, reaches out to Clarissa, and who becomes the voice of calm during the uprising. The books never comment on whether there is a divine force in the universe, other than extra-dimensional threats. Anna’s character, though, and all of Abaddon’s Gate, show that faith and hope are as real in space as are avarice, vengeance and despair.

Well done, Abaddon’s Gate. You get a brand-new David Bowie CD, to take into the farthest reaches of space. No, it’s not weird that I’m giving you a CD in 2018. It’s not used. It’s new, I promise. Fresh from the factory that definitely still makes CDs.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My wife and I have a running argument about Mockingjay: I think it’s the best novel in the trilogy, and she thinks it’s the worst. The ending changes Katniss permanently, removing her core tie to humanity (trying to avoid spoilers here, though you’ve probably all read it). For my wife, that was like telling the audience that everything meaningful was over.

For me … I like that sort of thing. And had (spoiler!) lived, I doubt that the books would feel so relevant.

The Hunger Games is by far the best Exploding YA Fad Book of the 21st century, and the one that will probably get taught in high school lit classes. Mockingjay proves it. When the brave resistance sees themselves in the actions of the Capitol, and when Katniss must question whether Coin has simply become another Snow, Collins manages to make the audience ask all the questions of 21st-century America. It’s all well and good to honor the troops and thank soldiers for their service, but when we continue to support and engage in eternal, unwinnable wars, do we perpetuate our own Hunger Games? And when we accept a culture of school shootings? When we say “freedom” as if it means something to people halfway around the globe getting hit by drones?

Collins’ answer is as brutal as it is resonant:

“I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.”

This book leaves us with a broken hero who has no ship to take her to a far green shore.

Well done, Mockingjay. You get your own pre-made dress for Katniss! She won’t have to wear the communal wedding dress after all—wait, isn’t Katniss like, seventeen? Why is she so worried about marriage anyway?

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

I love The Tombs of Atuan, as do many lapsed church kids, but I have to honestly admit that The Farthest Shore is the strongest of Le Guin’s early Earthsea books, and the one that best gives the essence of Earthsea. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read past Farthest Shore, so Tehanu might change my mind.)

Ged confronts his dark shadow-self in Wizard, in Tombs Arha must confront the darkness of denial and brainwashing. In Shore, the darkness is everywhere, and when it takes hold of Arren, he runs through a brutal gamut of emotions as he tries to reconcile Ged’s own human frailty with the every-darkening world. When Sopli leaps overboard to his death, and the boat drifts in horrid ennui, the book takes on a somber and scary quality that wasn’t there in the first two books. It’s not quite the fun, magical place, but it returns to the themes in Wizard and Tombs. Le Guin’s evil never comes from a Dark Lord, but always our own fear and despair, amplified and twisted by human creation, and Ged and Arren must cling to hope to get through death itself.

I may just prefer this one because of the title itself. What is the farthest shore but the other side of our own despair?

Well done, Farthest Shore. I got you a special night light to drive away the darkness, and to keep your brother awake.

Spencer Ellsworth is the author of the Starfire Trilogy, and his very own threequel, Memory’s Blade, is out as of February 27, resolving a trilogy of galactic genocide, sun-sized spiders, and a longtime craving for a tomato. His short fiction has also appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and here on Tor.com. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, works at a small tribal college on a Native American reservation, and blogs and newsletters through his website.

Resurrection isn’t just the basis for several long-running religions, it can also make for a game-changing plot point in fiction. After all, death is quite a hard reboot, and sometimes killing a character is exactly the shot in the arm a story needs – especially if it’s a fantasy epic, or a comics series that’s been going on a while. But then there’s the next problem—can you get even more of a jolt by bringing the character back? Will their death mean more if they have to contend with life again? If their grand sacrifice becomes a stand-in for a more explicitly religious event?

Since Easter is just around the corner, we’ve gathered some of our favorite takes on resurrection, and ranked them according to, um, data? Actually we just ranked them according to which ones we thought served their narratives best. Let us know if we missed any of your favorites in the comments!

(Potential spoilers ahead for A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and other SFF properties)

15. Jon Snow, Game of Thrones

Jon Snow’s resurrection hasn’t happened (yet) in the books, so its occurrence in Game of Thrones was our first real indicator that the show was vaulting confidently past the books, unafraid to alter key elements of the series. In this respect, Jon Snow’s resurrection was awesome, especially since the TV show skipped over A Song of Ice and Fire’s other major undead character: Lady Stoneheart.

But in another sense, this resurrection is annoyingly anti-climactic. Jon dies because he makes the same mistake that Ned did, assuming loyalty and a strong sense of morality where there was none. The mutinous ambush drains any possible tension from that mistake, and his death at the end of season five unravels or nullifies too much of the plot to be convincingly permanent—especially since the red priestess just happened to return to Castle Black at about the same time. The end result for the audience is impatience, and it’s not much of a shock when Jon finally returns to life in season six.

14. Church Creed, Pet Sematary

Church is the Creed family cat. He’s on the bottom of this list because, while it’s impressive that he comes back from the dead (after burial in an ancient magical MicMac burial ground, about which the less said the better), he’s not really too cuddly anymore, preferring to rend mice and birds and scatter bits of their corpses around the house. Dying and coming back seems to have really annoyed him, and maybe turned him eeee-villl. Also he smells bad.

And I’m not even going to talk about what happens to the Creed’s baby son, Gage.

13. C.H.O.M.P.S., C.H.O.M.P.S.

C.H.O.M.P.S. is a late-70s action comedy about a guy who wants to woo a young Valerie Bertinelli, so he… builds a robotic watchdog… to impress her dad… who runs a security company? It’s hard to explain. The film is basically a bunch of labored scenes of the robot dog chasing people while one of his pre-programmed sounds (barking, train whistles, machine gun fire) frightens his victims. Meanwhile, rival security agency-head Jim Backus schemes to steal him away for his own uses. At some point, for some inexplicable reason, C.H.O.M.P.S. is sent to sniff out a bomb. It blows him up, and since he looks like a real dog, everyone is sad and traumatized. But after a few minutes of everyone thinking he’s been damaged beyond repair, his eyes begin to glow, and suddenly he’s alive again, implying that C.H.O.M.P.S. has some sort of consciousness beyond his programming, or a soul, or something? It’s very confusing.

Honestly C.H.O.M.P.S. on this list because I wanted to make sure this movie wasn’t just a dream I had once.

12. Gurgi, The Black Cauldron (Film)

Gurgi doesn’t die in the book. A different character (name redacted for non-spoiler purposes) is the one who leapt into the Black Cauldron—and they stay leaped. But in the movie the sacrifice is handed over to the ridiculous apple crunching and munching comic relief character for maximum Disney pathos. He saves our protagonists and leaps into the Cauldron with the ultimate sign off: “Master has many friends. Gurgi has no friends.”  That might have been OK, but clearly the execs decided that they didn’t want to kill him, because when he comes back to life (for no discernible reason) the film stock changes color, which has always made me assume that the post-resurrection scenes were just tacked on after a test screening. There’s no emotional pay-off here because Gurgi is so irritating that you kind of wish he’d stayed dead, and then he forces Taran and Eilonwy to kiss in a moment that’s clearly supposed to be cute and Lady and the Tramp-esque, but just seems smarmy.

11. Superman, Various

Maybe DC Comics should kill Superman again? The first time was thrilling in that you could argue it was the first truly widescreen breakthrough moment that comic books had within mainstream pop culture. But that’s ALL it was; a gimmick to energize sales of the title. It said little about the character itself, his legacy, or the vacuum left in his absence. The Superman comics themselves resurrected him only 6 months later.

And we were happy to have him back, of course. Supes shouldn’t go down to some punk called Doomsday. But maybe next time Superman dies and is resurrected…lean into it? Less “emerges from goop inside a giant car engine” (this actually happens) and more “he’s a secular representation of Christ dying for our sins and is revived because we as people are worthy after all”? You don’t really have to go down the Christian mythology rabbit hole with Superman, but how humanity changes him and vice versa is an interesting character story that a death/resurrection tale could really bring into focus.

10. Aslan, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

When you’re a kid and you read The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe Aslan coming back seems, well, miraculous. But then you go back to the story when you’re older and the lightbulb goes off and you see why that particular miracle was inevitable. Realizing that Aslan has been Jesus all along it kind of makes the whole coming-back-from-death-thing seem inevitable? It robs it of some of its power.

BUT. Having said that, there’s no denying how powerful it is that the truly dead and bloody and broken lion gets up off the sacrificial rock, shakes death off, and reassures Mary Magdalene and the other Mary Susan and Lucy that he’s really alive now, and everything’s cool.

9. Alex Murphy, RoboCop

Much like Aslan, the resurrection in RoboCop is really just a thin veneer of genre storytelling over a much older story. (I’m speaking, of course, of Tammuzi, consort of Ishtar). RoboCop ranks slightly higher—first, because the grittier story lends itself to some great social commentary, but more importantly, because the audience truly experiences the death and resurrection of Alex Murphy. We’re in Alex’s POV as he’s murdered and humiliated, and we’re back in his POV when he’s rebooted in his rad new robo-body. And then, we get to experience the real difficulties of resurrection: the part where you have to embark on a new life, continually pestered by horrifying memories of your own murder.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

8. Sara Lance, Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow

The thing that makes Sara Lance’s resurrection great isn’t the actual resurrection, a sequence featuring Ra’s al Ghul’s very special hot tub (yeah, yeah, it’s called the Lazarus Pit). Nor is it the part after her resurrection, when Sara, missing her soul, goes feral. (This fate awaits Thea Queen, too, eventually, because Arrow has never met a trope it didn’t want to poke at from several angles.) Sure, that gives Oliver a chance to call his old buddy John Constantine, but even Constantine can’t hold a candle to the real bright spot here: the further development of Sara Lance herself. First she was just Laurel’s sister, the girl Ollie secretly took on that fated boat trip; then she was a member of the League of Assassins, a second-string Arrow character whose every appearance was a highlight. But brought back from the dead, she got to evolve into something even better: the smirking, flawed, badass, bisexual captain of the misfit gang of half-broken toys that make up the Legends of Tomorrow. After a shaky first season, Legends embraced its goofiness and doubled down on everyone’s best traits: Ray Palmer’s earnest sensitivity, Mick Rory’s weirdly endearing grumbles, Leonard Snart’s drawling delivery (RIP, Snart-of-Earth-1), and Sara’s reluctant-yet-effective captaincy. She had to come back from the dead—and embrace that death, and wear a lot of goofy outfits—to wind up in this position, and damn, she’s earned it.

7. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park and The Lost World

This one’s a reverse Gurgi! Ian Malcolm totally dies in the book. He’s lying there at the Isla Nublar Visitor Center, a big dinosaur bite taken out of him, whacked out of his math-loving gourd on morphine, babbling about paradigm shifts, and he dies.

He is dead, dead, deadski. Everyone is very clear on this.

But then! Steven Spielberg made a film of Jurassic Park, and it was an enormous hit, and Jeff Goldblum Jeff Goldblumed all over the character (becoming a certain generation’s Labyrinth-era David Bowie along the way) and lo! When Michael Crichton came to write The Lost World, suddenly Ian Malcolm was totally fiiiine. All the other characters just thought he was dead, but luckily some other people found him (???) and brought him back to life (????) so the breakout star of the film of the first book could be the star of the second book, and its (underrated, IMO) film adaptation.

“Crichton creates Malcolm, Crichton kills Malcolm. Goldblum kills as Malcolm, Crichton creates Malcolm again.”

6. Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings

Yes, I know, you think he should be higher. While his return is awesome and inspirational, the Fellowship might have been better off if he’d just stayed alive in the first place, rather than being too arrogant in his dealings with the Balrog. Most of all though, he’s kind of a dick when he comes back? He’s snarky and aloof, and then halfway through the Return of the King he finally reveals that there’s totally an afterlife, but he only tells Pippin, right before a giant battle that none of them expect to survive, but doesn’t bother to tell any of the countless barely-trained citizens going into battle—just Pippin.

Dick move, Gandalf.

5. Morpheus, The Sandman

Morpheus’s sacrifice is a fascinating one, because he isn’t really dying for a person, but for a concept. He realizes that he can’t change fast enough to remain a relevant Lord of All Dreaming; he’s too austere, too hung up on rules. Plus, after eons of service, he’s simply tired. So he allows the Kindly Ones to pursue him, he gives up fighting them, and then he calls upon his big sister. Even after the issues and issues of buildup, Morpheus’ death is shocking; personally it may be the first time I encountered a work of fiction where the old writing advice of “make your ending both inevitable and surprising” idea clicked into place: of course Morpheus has to die, but of course I didn’t expect him to go through with it. The death is real, the Endless mourn, they hold a wake, and all of humanity is shaken knowing that there’s been a disturbance in the natural order.

And then sweet, lovely Daniel appears to take on his new role, and life rolls on.

4. Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy saved the world a lot, and she also died multiple times. In season one’s “Prophecy Girl,” the show pulls the rug out from under us when the Master successfully drown her and leaves her dead. It’s a harsh, terrifying moment in a show that wasn’t exactly a lighthearted romp. But then Xander and Angel find her soon enough, and Xander’s able to CPR her back to life. But that’s only a practice death. The Real Thing comes in season five’s “The Gift.” Buffy chooses to leap into an inter-dimensional Hell portal, knowing that only the blood of a Summers girl will close it—and knowing that if she doesn’t jump, her sister Dawn is doomed. The rest of the Scoobies assume that she’s trapped in a Hell dimension, and spend months working on a spell to bring her back to life. Unfortunately, when she does come back, it turns out she’s been in Heaven the whole time, and not even life in California quite measure up to that.

Buffy gets extra points here for: choosing to take her sister’s place, dealing with the genuine existential crisis that comes after death and resurrection, working through that crisis in some remarkably censor-baiting scenes with Spike, and ultimately choosing to be alive at the end of about two seasons of mourning for herself.

We’ve got a two-way tie for second place here:

3. The Doctor, Doctor Who

The best thing about the Doctor’s resurrection is that death always means a brand new chance at life. The viewer isn’t supposed to worry much over the Doctor leaving us because the Doctor is never really gone—just revived and renewed and reclaimed by another face. And while it’s always jarring to be faced with that brand new person, it’s also like getting a chance to fall in love again; we are reminded of why we love the character so much, and get to appreciate them anew by seeing another actor put their spin on the part.

But regenerations are always fraught with emotion because the Doctor doesn’t live like a normal Time Lord—often these changes are the result of doing something terribly heroic, and then there’s a dramatic speech and sometimes there are companions standing around crying, and the whole thing is very hard to sit quietly through. The point is, all Doctor Who fans are secretly sadists, because it’s just cruel to do this to yourself every few years.

2. Spock, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Spock’s death is one of the most affecting in science fiction’s history, and literally no one is allowed to refute this because it is scientifically proved and impossible to renounce. There. It is declared. There are graphs and charts and academic papers backing this up. Spock and Kirk separated by a radiation chamber and having their last conversation is traumatizing, and no one is ever over it, so accept this and do not try to pretend that you’re over it. You don’t have to be over it. You are (ostensibly, if you are reading this) only human.

That being said, if Spock hadn’t been returned to his friends in the next film, this tragedy would have become unbearable. Whatever your feelings on Star Trek III, its endgame cannot be denied because when all is said and done, Spock is standing there in desperate need of a haircut, and he’s fairly sure that he knows this guy in front of him because “…Jim. Your name is Jim.”

*muffled sobs issue from the corner*

1. Iron Giant, The Iron Giant

The Iron Giant goes out sacrificing himself for Hogarth and the rest of humanity. This moment is one of the most heartrending scenes in all of children’s film. But after a warm ending sequence where we learn that Hogarth has finally made some friends, and his mom and Dean have fallen in love, we check back in with one of the Giant’s rivets as it rolls through forests, down a beach and into the sea. We sweep up over the ocean and into the Arctic, where we see the Giant’s antenna sending out a homing beacon for all of his scattered parts. It may take a while, but Superman is going to return.

Ugh I’m crying AGAIN FFS

[Clears throat, blows nose.] Anyway, what are your favorite SFF resurrections? Tell us all about them in the comments!

As the hosts of the One True Pairing podcast, we love romance (duh), and have a tendency to swoon over the same people over and over and over and over AND OVER again (Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, Romeo + Juliet FTW). But the SFF genre has so many incredible pairings, so we wanted to take a hot minute to share our favorites with you. Herein lie our choices for the greats SFF ’ships.

If this term is new for you, it’s not like the ship that took down Leo *sobs*. Your ’ship is the couple you love the most from your favorite fandom, whether it’s a TV show, movie, book, or real life! They can be an already established couple or two people you think make the perfect pair. Some of our picks are are SFF staples, some are a bit more obscure, some even dip into the romance world, but we hope you like them all—and if you don’t know them, we hope our pitches get you to research and find them and love them too!

Erica’s Top 5 SFF ’ships

Wade Wilson & Vanessa, Deadpool

First things first, Morena Baccarin is HOT AS THE DAY IS LOOOONG, which always makes any couple she’s half of totally shippable. Beyond that, though, Vanessa loves Wade so much that even when he ditches her basically out of nowhere (altruism be damned, she was committed and he was being a big manbaby about it), and then comes back to her looking like a wrinkled ballsack, she is STILL WILLING TO BE WITH HIM. It’s so hard to not freaking love them especially when other superhero pairings are so blah—they’re screwed up and real and in love and it’s magical. I’ll take Wade and Vanessa over pairings like Iron Man and Pepper Pots literally any day of the week.

Zsadist & Bella, Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood series) by J.R. Ward

I basically talk about this couple any time anyone asks me what a good new paranormal book series to get into is. Without giving TOO much away, Zsadist saves Bella from some bad motherfuckers, and she falls in love with him, but he’s SUPER broken (and not manbaby broken, but really and truly a ruined man) and doesn’t believe he’s good enough for her. It’s the best, most heartbreaking kind of rescue romance, and the end scene of this book legitimately made me cry and solidified me as a big Black Dagger Brotherhood fan. Ward’s written other couples just as well but Bella and Zsadist are the actual best ones.

Peter Bishop & Olivia Dunham, Fringe

Pretty sure my mom, my husband and I were the only people who watched this epic freaking show (which WHYYYY HOW ARE THE KARDASHIANS STILL ON THE AIR BUT NO ONE WATCHED FRINGE), and one of the best parts of that show was Peter and Olivia. Unlike on Firefly with Mal and Inara, they play the will-they-or-won’t-they game but then THEY DO and it’s AMAZING. Totally doesn’t hurt that Peter is played by Joshua Jackson who made Pacey hella better than Dawson.

Cosima & Delphine/Alison & Donnie (tie), Orphan Black

So I was obsessed with this show like nobody’s business and it was mainly because Cosima is an amazing badass from the get-go, and it’s all about clones and I’m a twin. But Cosima and Delphine were just EPIC as a couple—the betrayals, the reconciliations, it was all magic. HOWEVER, Alison and Donnie … Alison and Donnie are just amazing. They’re basically what would happen if Weeds was about clones (yep, they deal drugs and all manner of fucked up stuff). They’re serious relationship goals—no matter how messed up anything got throughout the course of the show Donnie was just always there and loyal and epic. (Alison wavers a bit in her devotion but not enough to make me not love them anymore.)

Marissa’s Top 5 SFF ’ships

Arwen & Aragorn, Lord of the Rings (movies)

Aragorn basically caused my sexual awakening and is also the reason my best friend and I are besties for life. We quickly realized all the girls drooling over Legolas and his Barbie hair were basic and if we wanted a real man we need look no further than our bearded Ranger. If you’re in doubt, I urge you to check out the scene in The Two Towers where he returns to Helms Deep to save the day. All he is doing is opening an effing door and I died!!! Anyway, if I can’t have him then the only person worthy of his love is badass elf maiden Arwen. She’s a fierce warrior and a healer, she can summon a river down on your ass, and she’s always encouraging Aragorn to seize his destiny. He rightly worships the ground she walks on and appreciates the sacrifice she makes by giving up her immortality for him. “I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone. I choose a mortal life.” Relationship goals.

Spock & Uhura, Star Trek

So I’m mostly familiar with the recent movies, and I don’t think their relationship is truly canon, but I just loved Spock and Nyota Uhura. Zoe Saldana is a goddess in everything she does and Zachary Quinto brought so much depth to Spock. I love a good opposites attract story because it makes for intense chemistry and fun banter. The way they approach life and love is so different (tends to happen when you grow up with completely different cultures and, you know, planets). But even though they’ve had their ups and downs, they are 100% endgame for me.

Charley Davidson & Reyes Farrow, Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones

Omg this series will be the death of me, mostly because it makes my heart explode with joy. To give you an idea of how addictive it is, please note that I binge-read the first ten books while on vacation. When we meet Charley, she’s a fulltime Grim Reaper, helping souls cross over to the other side, and a part-time PI, helping her uncle solve murders for the local PD (it helps to be able to talk to the victims!). She’s got the hots for Reyes Farrow, a smoking-hot entity who’s been following her all her life … and also happens to be the son of Satan. Charley is smart, fiercely loyal to the people (and ghosts) she loves, and so freaking funny. The things she thinks/says/does will have you involuntarily bursting out laughing in public. And Reyes … oh boy. He’s mysterious, ridiculously good-looking, infuriating yet endearing, and his dark side barely hides his heart of gold. These two go through A LOT over the course of twelve (soon to be thirteen!) books, which makes the brief moments when they are truly happy and safe from danger so beautiful. And super sexy.

Lucy Preston & Wyatt Logan, Timeless

I am such a sucker for time travel stories, and I love the way Timeless has captured so many different periods throughout history. From the beginning it was obvious we were going to get some sparks between nerdy, sarcastic historian Lucy Preston and Wyatt Logan, the hunky, broody soldier with a tragic past. I love that Lucy is brave and resourceful, someone young girls can really look up to. Her sometimes naive outlook on life is well balanced with Wyatt’s more practical point of view. Plus they’re gorgeous together! Kudos to the fans (aka Clockblockers) for saving this show from cancellation. I’m so excited to see what the future (and past) hold for these two!

Alison & Donnie, Orphan Black

I’m going to help Erica out here and be the tiebreaker on her Orphan Black dilemma. While I love Cosima and Delphine and the way the show told their story, I have to go with Alison and Donnie as my OTP. And the only evidence I need to make my case is the scene where they dance in their underwear on their bed, making it rain with all their drug money. It perfectly captures how multi-dimensional they are. Yes, they make some horrible choices (ex. selling drugs), but they’re also loving parents just trying to keep their family safe in some insane situations. Sure, they drive a minivan in suburbia, but they can also twerk with the best of them. They manage to love each other pretty unconditionally through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the batshit crazy. I can’t think of two better partners-in-crime.

If you like our picks, then go listen to One True Pairing on Apple or Stitcher for even more romance and relationship goals. Follow us on Twitter (@OTP_Pod) and feel free to @ us if there’s a couple we missed and you want us to know about it—we love Netflix and chill and will binge-watch the fuck out of anything. And check out our latest episode on Avengers: Infinity War, where we discuss our favorite (and not-so-favorite) couples in the MCU with Tor.com writers Natalie Zutter and Emily Asher-Perrin.

Erica Martirano loves dogs more than she loves people and is a voracious reader of all books, especially the dirtiest romances you can image. She’s an unapologetic nerd married to a man running for sainthood. When she’s not drinking wine, she’s putting the ASS in Senior Associate Marketing Director for St. Martin’s press daily. Marissa Sangiacomo is a mashed potato enthusiast and cat lady for life. She makes her living nerding out over romance books as a marketing manager at St. Martin’s Press.

Many people have been name-checking Empire Strikes Back in their comments on Avengers: Infinity War. But as I left the theater this weekend, I found myself thinking about The Last Jedi, and… Frodo? I will talk about Infinity War a lot but I have to work through a couple of points about pop culture heroism in general first, so come along with me on a journey through multiple franchises, won’t you?

(SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War and The Last Jedi.)

The heart of the anti-Last Jedi backlash was the treatment of Luke Skywalker. Sure people complained about the (great, imo) decision to make Rey a Nobody from Nowhere, and yes, people were annoyed by the sidequest to free the Chocobos of Canto Bight. But the beating heart of people’s frustration with Last Jedi is the fact that everybody’s hero, good-hearted Luke Skywalker, orphaned son of a cursed family, turned out to be a grief-stricken, pathetic, terrified old man. He mocks Rey (and, implicitly, the audience itself) for wanting him to make it all better by facing down the First Order with his “laser sword.” Then he pretends to do exactly that in a mocking parody of a western stand off with his nephew, and kills himself in the effort. Unlike Obi-Wan sacrificing himself in battle to Vader while Luke watched, Luke isn’t fake-fighting Kylo to teach Rey anything. He’s simply acting as a distraction the resistance can escape to fight more intelligently another day.

I’ll say it again: he’s a distraction.

Luke Skywalker, hero to millions, dies alone meditating on a rock. And I loved it. I loved it because this was the Luke of Return of the Jedi, throwing his sword away. I love it because it acknowledged the realities of grief and time, and what tragedy on that scale would actually do to a fresh-faced farm boy who used to long for adventure. In the same way that The Force Awakens subverted Han Solo the Lovable Scoundrel, Last Jedi rejected the pop cultural narrative of Luke the Action Hero, and turned him into something more.

I understand that it felt like someone really did murder your childhood, not in the “the Prequels suck!” sense, but in the real, slow, collapse of your body under time type sense. That’s what it did to me, anyway. I went home and lay in bed for hours after that movie staring at the ceiling and feeling fucking old. And it was good for me, I think. What would it say about me if I felt the same as I did as a kid watching Empire, eyes widening in shock as Vader told Luke the truth? If I’d learned nothing and gained no wisdom from the decades in between? I am old enough to know that while my pop cultural heroes are important, my relationship to them is allowed to change as I get older. I am old enough to appreciate a good death, and that’s what Rian Johnson gave Luke Skywalker, and I love him for it.

Can I just tell you how happy I am that Infinity War went down the same path, in a slightly more meta way?

I’m not talking about the deaths themselves, though there are bouquets of them, and a couple of them genuinely hurt (whoever decided that Peter Parker should be the one character with a deathbed monologue should either be thrown off a cliff or given a raise, but more on that scene in a second) but still—we knew people were going to die. We also can safely assume that at least some of those deaths will be undone by the fourth Avengers movie, because we can all google “Marvel movie release schedule.” But what I’m trying to get at here is how Marvel used its latest big budget blockbuster popcorn toy-inspiring movie to critique the uses of pop culture heroism.

I loved the first Guardians of the Galaxy, because I loved all the pop culture gags and Spielberg references and Kevin Bacon appreciation. I liked that it was nostalgia created by people who were old enough to remember it, and that the film, intelligently I thought, used pop culture itself as a lifeline for Quill as he’s adrift and orphaned in space. While I had a lot of problems with Guardians 2 I still thought a lot of the pop culture moments worked there, too. The way Quill clings to his Walkman, and to his mother’s songs, filled in some emotional gaps and gave him more depth than he’d have otherwise. That all worked for me, because I am very much a person who uses pop culture and gags to fill in my own emotional gaps.

I was also excited that they used a pop culture riff to weave Spider-Man into Captain America: Civil War—his excited reference to Empire Strikes Back highlighted his youth, his enthusiasm, and was an astonishing act of corporate Disney corporate synergy.

(Plus it’s just a solid plan.)

In Infinity War, the first shot of the Guardians is as joyful as the first film’s “Come and Get Your Love” dance: the Guardians are (mostly) grooving along to “The Rubberband Man”; the adults are annoyed at Teen Groot for playing his retro arcade handheld game and cursing at them in Grootish; Gamora has discovered that she loves to sing. It’s a cute little intergalactic family road trip. And then they pick up Thor, and the whole vibe is instantly spiked through with the reality of Thanos, and the seriousness of Infinity War. From the moment he tells them his story, Gamora switches back into her old, serious self, the one who knows what’s at stake, and each of Star-Lord’s attempts to be silly fall increasingly flat. Drax’s humor seems increasingly out of place. Mantis more and more becomes the wide-eyed empath rather than the wide-eyed comic relief.

When we check in with Earth, Stark initially treats the latest crisis with his usual sarcasm, calling Maw “Squidward” and getting into a pissing match with Strange. But once he realizes how high the stakes are he sobers up, and even explicitly forbids Spider-Man’s reliance on pop culture riffs. This clues the audience in to the idea that it’s Time To Get Serious, and reinforces Tony as Peter Parker’s stern pseudo-dad. But then, when they need a plan to save Doctor Strange, Peter immediately mentions “that really old movie Aliens” because all Peter has is movie plots. He doesn’t have any life experience, he’s not military, he’s not a tactician—so Aliens it is. And again, just like in Civil War, his seemingly ridiculous pop culture idea actually works.

So the Star Wars and Aliens franchises both exist in the MCU, as does Spongebob Squarepants (and Lord of the Rings, given Stark’s “Clench up, Legolas” quip from the first Avengers film), and there are awesome superhero-themed Ben & Jerry’s flavors like ‘Hulka-Hulka-Burning Fudge.’ And so far, all of their jokiness has worked—the Marvel writers have used pop culture riffs to add to their worldbuilding and make the movies fun, while, in-universe, the characters can use the jokes to show their personalities and bond with their teammates. In Peter Parker’s case his riffs were both fun, and the plans were successful. Despite the giant overarching plot, the silliness and gags can have their moments, and even feed into the action.

Once they meet up with the Guardians, eternal man-baby Star-Lord and actual teen Spider-Man discover that they can blab references at each other, and we quickly get a Flash Gordon reference, a call-back to Quill’s dance-off with Ronan, and an argument about Footloose. It’s fun, exactly what we’d want from these two, yelling nonsense at each other while Strange and Stark roll their eyes in the background. It’s the scene the trailers promised us. And it encapsulates every single criticism of the usual Marvel tic of undercutting dramatic moments with humor. Which is why it’s so perfectly brutal when the rug is pulled out from under them, all of us, and they lose. Because this is the team, specifically, that loses. Peter has almost pulled the Gauntlet from Thanos’ hand when Quill freaks out and ruins the plan. Pop culture-spouting, jokey, ridiculous Quill is the reason they are forced into what Strange calls the “endgame,” whatever that’s going to be. It’s the reason half of them have to die.

Quill says nothing as he crumbles into dust, not Gamora’s name, or his mother’s, no quips or jokes or famous last words. He’s just gone. Strange tells Stark they’re in the endgame, then dust. Back on Earth Bucky manages to say Steve’s name, but T’Challa, Sam Wilson, and Wanda say nothing.

It’s left to Peter Parker to have real dialogue during his death. I’ve been wondering about that. Why is he the only one with a protracted death? The best theory I’ve seen is that his Spidey-sense gives him just enough pre-cognition that he realizes he’s dying faster than the others, which, fuck. But tonally, it makes sense that it’s Peter Parker who gets the monologue—because the youngest hero, the one who has called upon pop culture for his two biggest Avengers moments, has to face the fact that in the end, this doesn’t save him.

A lot of people have said that the deaths don’t matter, they’re going to be undone, rewound, etc., and on one level that’s true, but the writers made goddamn sure to make Peter’s death matter. They gave us a couple of fun, fluffy moments, and then made sure we felt it. There are no quips, no references, no jokes. No fun dance-off. Just the inevitable, implacable wall of death. In Thanos’ rewiring of the universe, death is random, unfair, does not care what movies you’ve seen or what plans you have or what witty quip is waiting in the back of your mouth. You don’t get to talk your way out of it.

Now we know that Captain Marvel is coming out next March, with Avengers 4 following next May, Spiderman 2 in July, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3 sometime the year after that. We can all probably piece an arc together that will set everything back to “normal” in time for Phase 4. In all the general cultural chatter around this movie, people keep saying that these deaths don’t mean anything. That they’re just going to rewind and use the Time Stone or time travel of some kind to undo everything they’ve done in the film. But I really hope that they don’t just rewind to back before everyone died, erasing the trauma in the process, because I want at least Peter Parker to go into Spider-Man 2 with the memory of his death. This seems cruel, probably, but in all this talk about the uses of death in our big pop mythologies, I keep coming back to three things: (1) Lord of the Rings is the definitive fantasy epic, it’s about war, has an enormous cast, and yet almost none of the main characters die. Boromir meets a complicated end in the first third of the story, and Gandalf dies knowing he’ll be resurrected as a more powerful wizard. Other than that, the main cast is joyfully reunited after the fall of Mordor. Where the story gains meaning is in how those characters have changed, not whether their lives have ended. (2) In The Last Jedi, the film gains its power (YMMV) in the acknowledgement that Luke can’t go back to being the optimistic farm-boy hero. (3) And to come back to the MCU, and the most important example: the reason Peter Parker’s mentor has grown into a mature father figure is precisely because of his own death. The Iron Man Trilogy tangled itself around the Battle For New York and dug into his ongoing PTSD. It allowed him to grow from film to film. Everything, all the mistakes he makes in Age of Ultron, Civil War, and Spider-Man: Homecoming are born in that fall from the wormhole, and his inability to let go of that day.

Which is why I really hope that they keep this in mind for the next round of films. Think of how well Spider-Man 2 could play with this, if they send Peter Parker back to high school knowing that he died in an event his classmates don’t remember. As much as I don’t want to see Gamora fridged (I really, really do not want that, Marvel) imagine how much more interesting the third Guardians film might be if Star-Lord doesn’t get to be the Rubber Band Man—if he finally has to grow the hell up. If Marvel wants all of this dust to add up to something, but also to bring their heroes back, they have to allow those heroes to change from their deaths, shed their old pop culture skins, and become mightier.

Leah Schnelbach went into Infinity War with a heart as cold as a Frost Giant’s, but that scene, man. That scene. Come weep with her on Twitter!

In Which Morgoth Pulls Out All the Stops, Fingolfin Goes Fey, Orcs Go Hither and Thither, More Men Show Up, and Húrin Comes Into His Own

This is it, folks. Morgoth has had enough of being quarantined. Sure, he prefers lurking in his basement, what with that blasted Sun soaring across the sky each day. But he’ll be damned if he has to stay cooped up with all his Orcs down there while all those Elves frolic through his forests unmolested. That’s right, his. Remember, Morgoth crowned himself King of the World once. As far as he’s considered, the Children of Ilúvatar are all just squatters.

This chapter also includes many names that might be familiar to The Lord of the Rings fans. Gil-galad, Grond, Easterlings, Sauron, and even that ring that Aragorn wears all play a part here. But fair warning: the body count is about to rise.

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Morgoth – Dark Lord, unfathomable asshole
• Fingolfin – Noldo, incensed High King of the Noldor
• Glaurung – Dragon, biohazard
• Finrod – Noldo, oath-maker, ring-giver
• Barahir – Man, Orc-slayer, ring-bearer
• Húrin – Man, little big brother of Huor, Eagle-rider
• Huor – Man, big little brother of Húrin, Eagle-rider

Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin

Fingolfin, the High King of the Noldor and the fastest sword in the West, hasn’t forgotten Morgoth over these last few centuries. He knows the leaguer that’s kept his foe corralled for all these years ain’t seamless. After all, the Eldar haven’t been able to watch the Dark Lord from the north side, what with those big Iron Mountains there—and that’s how Morgoth’s been able to send out spies and smaller bands of Orcs now and again. Worse, Morgoth has been free to direct his R&D, “devising new evils that none could foretell ere he should reveal them.” Like maybe that Glaurung character…

So Fingolfin floats the idea of an actual assault on Angband. The Elves have Men for allies now; they’ve never been stronger. Maybe it’s time to get this done? But one thing he doesn’t seem to have (which has been forewarned a few times elsewhere) is that special intel that there simply is no hope of overthrowing Morgoth, at least not by the Eldar alone. It was first given to Turgon, Fingolfin’s own son, by Ulmo himself. Gondolin would stand “longest of all the realms of the Eldalië…against Melkor.” Meaning they were going to fall.

But Elves are slow to accept change. They don’t really want to make the move that their King suggests. Things seem…pretty good. It’s been nearly four hundred years of peace; why rock the boat by initiating war? They can travel as they please, visit friends, and picnic outside their guarded walls. Sure, there’s a malevolent and primordial evil lurking in the north who wants to kill everyone, but I mean, as long as he’s not running amok with his Orcs, things are okay, right?

The ones least sold on Fingolfin’s crazy idea of assaulting Angband are the sons of Fëanor. I mean, it’s not like anyone took, held, and kept a Silmaril, right? Oh, wait, someone did. Someone hiding behind Angband’s gates. Gosh, for seven Elves who swore to pursue an offending party with vengeance, Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir, Amrod, and Amros sure do spend a lot of time not pursuing folks with vengeance.

In the 455th year of the First Age since the Noldor’s return to Middle-earth, Morgoth at last breaks the leaguer and the long peace like the Kool-Aid Man busting through an unassuming wall. He’s been loooooong preparing for this moment, and he’s got a rather simple and two-pronged approach for Beleriand and everyone in it who’s not a servant of his:

1. Rearrange some faces.
2. Totally wreck the place “that they had taken and made fair.”

“Thangorodrim” by Jonathan Guzi

One cool moonless night in winter, Morgoth pulls the trigger, turns all the levers, flips all the switches. Thangorodrim vomits out lava while the Iron Mountains themselves expel stinking fumes into the sky like factory stacks. Everything goes to hell. The lava flows swiftly across the plains of Ard-galen (Morgoth’s very big front lawn), killing everything: the grass, the wildlife, and even the unhappy Noldor on watch in their camps and simply cannot outride these “rivers of flame.” The destruction reaches all the way across the plain to where Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow, rise to the west and the highlands of Dorthonion rise to the south. The foothills are torched, the trees are blackened, while the Elves and Men standing guard around them are thrown into confusion.

Morgoth pursues what is quite literally a scorched earth policy. Ard-galen itself just…isn’t anymore. Henceforth it will be Anfauglith, the Gasping Dust, a lifeless wasteland. All is ash and dust and fire.

Then:

In the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Noldor had never before seen or imagined.

Well, shit. Morgoth is at least showing his commitment. He’s not sending out his Orc fodder to test the waters anymore. He’s done testing. These are his big guns in the lead, with the Orc masses following. Right away, these war captains and monsters and their legions head off in every direction and start killing everyone and laying siege to everything. Noldor, Sindar, and Men: anyone in their way gets wrecked; for the most part, only those who flee stay alive.

Although, interestingly, we are explicitly told that had Morgoth waited longer, prepared more fully, and not let his hatred upstage his own judgement, he could have eradicated his enemies completely. But his malice had been bottled up for so long, I guess something had to give. And as devastating as this is going to be, he still underestimates the prowess of the Elves and gives almost no credit to Men. Which he’ll pay for.

Thus we have the fourth of the Wars of Beleriand. This one is called, quite aptly, the Dagor Bragollach, or Battle of Sudden Flame. The first few days are the worst, as some of “stoutest of the foes of Morgoth” fall, and the many-fronted campaign lasts for just a few months. But this line is worth remembering:

War ceased not wholly ever again in Beleriand.

Which means that whenever things quiet down, it’s just an interlude between more fighting. All these Elf- and Man-occupied realms we’ve been talking about in the last few chapters are going to be cut off from one another quite often; Beleriand’s countryside is just too dangerous now for casual travel. I guess what I’m saying is: if this was a roleplaying game, anyone traveling from point A to point B in Beleriand now has to roll on some random encounter chart to see if they cross paths with an Orc, a war-band, a raiding party, or maybe even an entire army. Never mind the chance of running into Glaurung himself. No longer wet behind the [scaly] ears, he’s a full-grown, big-ass dragon now.

The good guys flee east, west, and south. Mostly south. Doriath, protected by the Girdle of Melian, takes in a lot of the Sindar refugees (remember, no Noldor are allowed in unless they’re kin of Finarfin), while others head to Nargothrond, Círdan’s Havens by the sea, Ossiriand, or other points south.

So this war is initially fought on three fronts, which we can basically categorize by the three royal houses of the Noldor. Let’s start, as Tolkien does, with the Finarfin front.

The Finarfin Front: Dorthonion

Finarfin’s kids, Angrod and Aegnor, are hit the hardest, as their strongholds are right there in Dorthonion, directly across the ruined plains from Angband. Their sister, Galadriel, is safe in Doriath, while their big brother, Finrod, leads a counter strike to the west in the Pass of Sirion. But Angrod and Aegnor are the first Elf-lords to stand up to Morgoth’s forces.

So they’re right in the crosshairs. Morgoth’s armies roll over them.

Men fight and die beside their Eldar friends. The House of Bëor, allied with the now-slain Angrod and Aegnor, is nearly obliterated. But one notable member of the house who isn’t there at this time is Barahir (BAR-ah-here), the great-great-great-great-grandson of Bëor the Old himself. Why? Because he’s off to the west leading the “bravest of his men” around the Fen of Serech, that marshland between the Mountains of Shadow and Dorthonion. There, he comes across Finrod, who’s somehow managed to get himself separated from his Elven warriors and surrounded by a company of Orcs.

And here I want to pause for a second because this is Finrod Felagund we’re talking about, Hewer of Caves (and Sometimes Orcs) and Arda’s coolest Elf. Remember that King Thingol never leaves Doriath (protected by the Girdle) and King Turgon never leaves Gondolin (protected by its secrecy). But King Finrod, who could be safely ensconced in his city of Nargothrond far from the front lines, has instead come right up to the edge of the now desolate and smoky plains. This guy is almost never home, and basically puts all of Beleriand before his own safety. Because Finrod.

Well, this would have been his death—or worse, his capture—to which I think he might have been accepting. “Eh, I had a good run.” After all, a day may come when an Elf is just going to be surrounded by more Orcs than he can slay, and friends who share a bond of fellowship are too far away to help. But it is not this day! This day, Barahir of the House of Bëor shows up with a crew of mortal Men, encircles Finrod with a wall of defensive spears, and then together they “cut their way out of the battle with great loss.” Men lay down their lives for Finrod, and he is saved! The Halls of Mandos will just have to wait.

Likewise Amarië, Finrod’s girlfriend back in Valinor, will have to wait a bit longer. It’s bittersweet. They almost got to change their relationship status…

But alas, not yet. Finrod still has work to do. And by the way, remember he was good friends with old Bëor himself, Barahir’s own ancestor. At this point they retreat back to Nargothrond in the south. There, Finrod Felagund swears an “oath of abiding friendship and aid in every need to Barahir and all his kin,” which is like the king of all blank checks on Arda. Finrod Felagund the Chillest Elf That Ever Was owes you a favor?! Wow. He then gives Barahir a very distinctive ring as a token of this oath, one he most likely brought out of the glory of Valinor. Recall now Elrond’s words to Aragorn in “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” at the end of The Lord of the Rings at the part when Aragon finds out who he really is:

‘Here is the ring of Barahir,’ he said, ‘the token of our kinship from afar; and here also are the shards of Narsil. With these you may yet do great deeds…’

So yeah, this is the ring Aragorn wears throughout his adventures as a ranger. It is an heirloom that will be passed down for a very long time, even through the hands of the Snowmen of Forochel who are called the Lossoth, and back again to the Dúnedain. Who exactly are these Snowmen? Go read the LotR Appendices if you missed them. They’re cool.

Finrod’s oath, meanwhile, is the oath he himself foreboded some years ago while chatting with Galadriel. It’s the excuse he gave his sister for not settling down with some nice Noldorin girl here on Middle-earth. Barahir, returning to Dorthonion, now rules what little remains of the House of Bëor. But he’s at least got an Elf-king’s solemn oath he can “cash in” at any time.

The Fingolfin Front: Hithlum and the Mountains of Shadow

In Hithlum, High King Fingolfin and his eldest son, Fingon, are hard-pressed indeed at their border, slammed by the forces of evil in their watchtowers. And so are their mortal allies. 66-year-old Hador (of House of Hador fame) is killed defending the the stronghold of Barad Eithel as Fingolfin’s army moves in retreat, leaving his son Galdor to take up the lordship of the house. They all fall back, but at least the Mountains of Shadow prove unassailable to Morgoth’s forces at this time. Which is impressive: there are even Balrogs—that’s plural Balrogs, the worst kind—there at the head of these dark armies, and still “the valour of Men and Elves” keeps all of Hithlum from being taken.

Yeesh, Balrogs. When you imagine the dread inspired by just one of these brutes at a certain bridge of Khazad-dûm, you can appreciate how awesome these Men and Elves were. I am reminded of something Smaug says to Bilbo in The Hobbit:

I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today.

Considering the time period Smaug must be referring to (his own youth in the Third Age), even those “warriors of old” surely pale in comparison to the Men and Elves in Fingolfin’s army. Moreover these First Age warriors remain a “threat upon the flank of Morgoth’s attack.” Yet to Fingolfin’s deep dismay, Hithlum is also totally cut off from all their allies by a “sea of foes.” It’s all he can do to hold the line on this western front.

Battles are breaking out all over the place at this time. These are the sorts of wars that set The Silmarillion apart from Tolkien’s better-known works. Every pitched battle, unexpected skirmish, or march of armies could easily be the epic climax of its own novel. The first siege of Barad Eithel, where Fingolfin retreats and Hador is slain, might be comparable to the Battle of the Pelennor in scale, valor, and tragic sacrifices—or probably even greater, what with all the Balrogs! Don’t mistake me: the War of the Ring in the Third Age is a huge deal, as it leads to the overthrow of the world’s second Dark Lord, but this is the First Age when the Elves are still numerous and strong; it’s the basis for all those songs and legends that everyone keeps bringing up in The Lord of the Rings. Everyone’s at the top of their game, including the bad guys. It’s glorious and calamitous on a grand scale.

The Fëanorean Front: East Beleriand

With fewer natural barriers between Angband and East Beleriand, the armies of Morgoth have less trouble getting through, and so the lands held by sons of Fëanor are swiftly overrun. The Pass of Aglon is taken, while Glaurung himself comes crawling/slithering through the Gap of Maglor and devastates “all the land between the arms of Gelion.” Dragons of this age—especially Glaurung, their daddy—are like abominable walking blights, polluting the landscape around them. Although Smaug, thousands of years from now, will be nowhere near as gross and slimy as Glaurung, we can see that even in the Third Age, wherever a dragon settles there is desolation. Real estate values plummet and people move out.

We’re specifically told that the Orcs “defile” Helevorn, that great lake in Caranthir’s lands. I don’t even want to know how they do that. I just know that it’s not a place anyone would want to go swimming afterwards. No more picnicking at Lake Helevorn.

So what of the famous seven sons of Fëanor? Not surprisingly, the eldest and “good” M-brothers actually hold the line (though they lose almost everything else). While the others, not doing so well in their lands, skedaddle with their people. In brief:

1. Maedhros – Holds the Hill of Himring; kicks serious Orc-ass
2. Maglor – Driven out of his Gap but joins Maedhros at the Hill of Himring
3. Celegorm – Defeated; flees west to Nargothrond
4. Caranthir – Defeated; flees south
5. Curufin – Defeated; flees west to Nargothrond
6. Amrod – Defeated; flees south
7. Amras – Defeated; flees south

But yeah, the now-left-handed eldest son of Fëanor, who once did a stint on the walls of Thangorodrim, proves that he is a force to be reckoned with.

Maedhros did deeds of surpassing valour, and the Orcs fled before his face; for since his torment upon Thangorodrim his spirit burned like a white fire within, and he was as one that returns from the dead.

Essentially, Maedhros embodies the old saying: Whatever doesn’t kill you [by hanging you starved and anguished amid the reeking slag-mountain of Morgoth, for Manwë knows how long] makes you stronger.

Bonus Front: Fingolfin!

Back in Hithlum, Fingolfin completely loses his cool. News reaches him from abroad that his friends and kin are dropping like flies. All his nephews and their lands have been overthrown in the east. Though this might be a bit seemingly exaggerated, it’s nearly all true. Centuries ago, after that first Glorious Battle, Fingolfin had actually boasted that “Morgoth could never again burst from the leaguer of the Eldar.” Yet he has. The High King, despite his vigilance all these years, was still not strong enough to contain the Dark Enemy of the World. And so he despairs. This seems to be the end of the Noldor and perhaps all of Beleriand. Morgoth, slayer of Finwë the first High King, corrupter of the Elves, darkener of Valinor, taker of the Silmarils, has apparently won.

Well, Fingolfin’s not going to take it anymore. Enough Elves and Elf-friends have been killed at Morgoth’s hand; this unlocks for Beleriand a new achievement: Wrath of Fingolfin. A fey-like rage overtakes the Elf-king—though Tolkien doesn’t actually use that word this time, perhaps because Fingolfin’s final sprint feels less impulsive, less mad, than Fëanor’s had. Without consulting anyone, not even his son Fingon, Fingolfin mounts up on his horse, Rochallor, and rides out alone. No one can stop him. Down onto the deathly plain of Anfauglith, he rides all the way to the gate of Angband itself. You’d think Orcs or even Balrogs could be summoned to intercept him, but those who do look upon him flee his wrath. He’s clearly on the warpath—and some even think he might be Oromë the hunter himself, for his “eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar.”

“Fingolfin Rides to Angband” by Kenneth Sofia

Right up to the big brass doors of Angband he rides, blows on his horn, and slams on the door—just as he did centuries ago when he was fresh off the Helcaraxë and spoiling for a fight. This time he doesn’t turn back, though he’s in way over his head. If the Noldor are doomed to fall, Fingolfin intends to give Morgoth everything he’s got and stick his sword where the Sun surely never shines. He calls out a challenge to Morgoth to face him “in single combat” and his voice echoes down into the depths of Angband because he’s a wrathful Calaquendë and also possibly because Angband has amazing acoustics.

Interestingly, Morgoth doesn’t want to go out and battle Fingolfin, for “alone of the Valar he knew fear.” He’s not exactly at the top of his personal game anymore, and that Elf-king sounds pissed. Not to mention the fact that so much of Morgoth’s might has been spent on marring the entire world and fueling his minions’ strength and malice. It’s like he knows he might not be up to this fight, or at least there’ll be a cost to it. But he also can’t refuse. Fingolfin has called him yellow—well, “craven”—right there at his own doorstep, in front of his captains and servants and slaves. To refuse is to lose face. And Morgoth’s pride is mighty indeed; it has been his defining trait since he screwed with the Music of the Ainu.

Thus Morgoth must answer the challenge. So up he climbs from his bottom-most chamber to the front door, where the son of Finwë is ready for him.

Fingolfin was always the most valiant son of the first King of the Noldor, and he’s basically the mightiest of the mighty, an Elf warrior at the height of his skill armed with an icy blade (Ringil, as it is named, has got to be a +5 weapon!), silvery mail, crystal-studded shield, and a helm. While Morgoth, stepping out at last, is “like a tower, iron-crowned,” holding a huge black lusterless shield and a big-ass hammer, Grond. Some readers may remember this as the name of the massive battering ram wielded by the army of Mordor against the doors of Minas Tirith. From The Return of the King:

Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

“By the Gates of Angband” by Çağlayan Kaya Göksoy

Except this Grond, the original, is wielded one-handed by the original Dark Lord himself. It’s not clear just how huge Morgoth is, but I think we can assume he’s at least as tall as the most monstrous of trolls or any Balrog. The Hammer of the Underworld that he wields might as well be a piece of siege weaponry, given his power.

And then these two combatants get down to business, and it’s possibly the coolest (and as always, tragically brief) fight in the book. Fëanor’s dust-up with Gothmog and the Balrog Brigade might be a close second; hard to say, since the description of that fight is even shorter. Fingolfin’s battle with Morgoth is two evocative paragraphs in length, and that’s a hell of a lot for a book that’s essentially a bunch of synopses crammed together. But every word of this confrontation is worth reading and digesting properly, so I don’t want to bother quoting much here. Do yourself a favor and read it aloud sometime. It’s just amazing.

“Morgoth vs Fingolfin” by David Franco Campos

Fingolfin holds his own against Morgoth; surely no other non-Ainu could last as long. But not only does fighting the Dark Enemy of the World eventually wear him down, every swing of Grond smashes a crater in the ground, making the terrain itself more precarious. Fingolfin wounds Morgoth repeatedly and each of the Vala’s shouts of pain rattles his own minions and sends them falling to the ground, and the cries echo throughout the North. Remember that one cry prompted by Ungoliant? Fingolfin has him crying out seven times.

“Morgoth and the High King of Noldor” by Ted Nasmith

But then we must come to the fall of Fingolfin, as prophesied by the chapter title itself. With his shield and helm broken, the High King of the Noldor is out of time. Stricken by the Hammer of the Underworld, he hits the ground, and even as Morgoth’s foot is upon his neck, crushing the life from him, Fingolfin gets in one final bloody slash of Ringil as a final eff-you to his enemy. Right in the foot with his ice-blade. Morgoth, who is still confined to his body—strong and nigh invulnerable though it seems to be—is thus hobbled forevermore. If he ever deigned to march out at the head of his own monstrous forces—something he won’t ever do—he’d be limping the whole time, courtesy of Fingolfin.

The Dark Lord lifts up the High King’s body and breaks it further. But before he can toss Fingolfin to the wolves, down from the clouds swoops Thorondor, the King of Eagles, and scratches Morgoth across the face—giving ol’ Melkor a nice little up-yours courtesy of Manwë. This scar, too, Morgoth will bear forever. The great Eagle then swipes Fingolfin’s body and carries it away, far from Thangorodrim, dropping it down on a mountainside overlooking the Hidden City of Gondolin, where his son Turgon finds it.

I’ve heard Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor, make an excellent point about this moment. He points out that Thorondor, as agent of Manwë, could have arrived a few minutes earlier and saved Fingolfin, scooped him up and flown him to safety. The Eagles enact the Valar’s moments of eucatastrophe only a few times throughout Arda’s history, but they never rescue anyone against their will. Fingolfin would not have consented to flight. He hadn’t ridden to Morgoth’s door only to retreat again. This was his swan song, a suicidal but valiant last-ditch attempt to smite his foe. Manwë honors Fingolfin’s decision. Thorondor’s after-the-fact intervention merely ensures Morgoth cannot make sport of his body. And bearing the body to Fingolfin’s son, who is currently hidden from Morgoth, ensures he can be most enduringly memorialized.

Turgon, who has not participated in the Battle of Sudden Flame—for the safety of his city is paramount to him and he hadn’t deemed the time right to come forth—is at least able to pay his respects to his father. He builds a cairn for him on a mountain north of Gondolin, looking down on its valley, and the tomb remains a sacred place untouched by Orcs.

This is a serious bummer, and a blow to all the Noldor. At this point, the kingship falls to Fingon. The High King is dead, long live the High King! But with the line of ascension now moving on, Fingon decides to send his own heir away from the front lines. He sends him over to the Havens by the sea. Fingon’s son, by the way, is Gil-galad, who some will remember is precisely one half of the two-person strike team whose efforts in the Last Alliance allow Isildur to cut the One Ring from its master’s hand. So at least it’s nice to meet an Elf, like Galadriel, who we know will live on still for a very long time!

Scattered Elf-friends

Thus Morgoth, who gets to return to his basement throne room, is the hobbled victor. From there he pushes his forces on, and they “overshadowed the North.” Now back from saving Finrod’s butt, Barahir, his son Beren, and the thinned remains of his house at first refuse to leave their lands in Dorthonion, even though the Dark Lord’s power turns the highlands into a haunted and blasted land that gets the name Taur-nu-Fuin, or “Forest under Nightshade.” But it eventually gets so bad there that even Orcs avoid the place unless specifically ordered to go in. Then we briefly meet Barahir’s wife, Emeldir, who quickly joins Haleth (of House of Haleth fame) on the growing list of Women In Tolkien We Totally Want to Spend More Time With But Don’t Get To.

She takes all the women and children that remain of the House of Bëor, arms them, and leads them south and west to safer lands. Emeldir, who we’re told bears the nickname “the Manhearted” (which sounds worse than it’s meant), does this only reluctantly, since her “mind was rather to fight beside her son and her husband than to flee.” Hell yes, I want to know more about Emeldir, who kind of sounds like a Haleth-spirited proto-Éowyn. But in the end she chooses the safety of her people over the need for glory. (And so perhaps “the Womanhearted” would have been equally apt.) But prior to this, she must have had her own battles with the Orcs defending her husband and son.

Her son, Beren, will go on to be instrumental in Middle-earth’s future.

And speaking of, among the people in Emeldir’s care are also two notable young women: Rían and Morwen, future moms of serious import. Someone nicknamed “the Blessed” will come from Rían’s bloodline, while “the bane of Glaurung” will come from Morwen—or so we were told in the previous chapter. Eventually, Emeldir and the women and children in her charge reach the forest of Brethil just outside the Girdle of Melian, where the Haladin (of the House of Haleth) have been living. The group splits here, some staying in Brethil, some eventually moving on toward Dor-lómin in Hithlum. Sadly, Barahir and Beren will never see their wife and mother, nor any of their kin, ever again. In fact, over time Barahir’s crew of “outlaws without hope” are whittled down to a mere twelve who are eagerly sought by Morgoth for their defiance. And still they remain a thorn in Morgoth’s ass.

The Lord of Werewolves

Oh, hey, remember that cat Sauron? You know, the “greatest and most terrible of the servants of Morgoth”? We haven’t heard much about him since his boss’s return to Middle-earth many chapters ago. He used to be in charge of Angband during the big guy’s three-age-long incarceration, and had enjoyed the run of the place. Now he’s had to pack it up and operate elsewhere. Additionally, to the detriment of many, especially the free peoples of the Third Age, he seems to have leveled up a bit.

His skills now include being “foul in wisdom, cruel in strength,” misshaping what he touches, and twisting what he rules. And also, “his dominion was torment” and he seems to bear leadership of werewolves. Congrats on the new job, Sauron!

Now remember, after his rescue by Barahir, Finrod Felagund had retreated back to Nargothrond. Which unfortunately left the river-island of Tol Sirion, where he’d built the watchtower Minas Tirith, ripe for the taking. Finrod had left his little brother, Orodreth, in charge, but when Sauron surges in with his “dark cloud of fear,” a lot of Orcs, and who knows how many wolves, off Orodreth flees. So Sauron seizes the island and tower, paints over the wallpaper and changes the drapes, goths it up big time, and renames it Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves. Sauron sets up shop with his vile wolf kennels and Orcs, and thereby occupies the whole Vale of Sirion region for Morgoth.

By the way, Tolkien’s werewolves are not lycanthropes, i.e. beasts that become men. Instead, they’re essentially the greater and more sentient version of wargs, which are themselves like big wolves inhabited by evil spirits. Werewolves are at the top of that wolvish hierarchy, and bad news for anything made of meat.

It’s worth remembering this place, this Isle of Werewolves. We’re going to come back here in greater detail in the next chapter.

Thralls

Some years go by and the Orcs get bolder and bolder, and Morgoth’s forces seize more and more lands formerly ruled by the Noldor. He starts to take captives, and these Elves are dragged back to Angband and forced into slavery. He puts them to work in his mines (because Noldor are crafty). Now some of these thralls he lets go on purpose, while others do manage to escape on their own (because again, Noldor are crafty). Still “others” are sent out as spies “clad in false forms” to simply look like former slaves. These escapees become a source of mistrust among the non-captive Elves.

But ever the Noldor feared most the treachery of those of their own kin, who had been thralls in Angband

Which is beyond tragic. And this all goes back to the Kinslaying and the curse of Mandos. Once you’ve spilled the blood of your own people, how can you ever trust anyone completely again? So even those of the Eldar who genuinely escape the horrors of the Dark Lord’s prison, work through their shell shock, and retain their own wills still find little welcome back home. (It’s almost as though Tolkien had firsthand experience with the horrors of war, loss, and the difficulty of returning to normalcy again…)

Double-downing on being an asshole, the Dark Lord renews his pro-Morgoth and anti-Noldor propaganda. He sends out messages to the Men of Beleriand—probably not bothering with Barahir & Co.—to say that these hard times have fallen on them all on account of the Eldar. If they would just acknowledge him as “the rightful Lord of Middle-earth,” they’d find honor, not disgrace. To this load of hogwash, most of the Men of the Edain pay no heed. So Morgoth sends his messengers back over the Blue Mountains to the regions east of Beleriand.

Easterlings

And then new groups of Men come over the Blue Mountains, just as the three houses of the Edain had several generations ago. These newcomers are initially regarded as the Swarthy Men—a very generalized term indeed, but they’re also going to go down in history as the Easterlings. Yup, those Easterlings, whose descendants will someday march under Sauron’s banner in the War of the Ring. Now some of these new Men are already secretly on Morgoth’s payroll;

but not all, for the rumour of Beleriand, of its lands and waters, of its wars and riches, went now far and wide, and the wandering feet of Men were ever set westward in those days.

This is a sort of like a second, but less innocent, exodus of Men coming into the West. But as with the three houses of the Edain, they’re not armies on a march to war; they’re whole clans with women and children, too.

Now Maedhros and some of the other sons of Fëanor, who’ve been struggling to hold their lands in the aftermath of the Battle of Sudden Flame, decide to make the best of these new arrivals. More Men are coming? What’re ya gonna do? So they forge alliances with the most powerful Easterling chieftains. One will be named Bór, who signs on with Maedhros and Maglor and leads his mass of people up to their northern reaches. Another is Ulfang, who signs on with Caranthir, and they settle in a bit further to the south.

“Spoiler” Alert: Caring nothing for suspense, Tolkien tells us that Morgoth arranged for some of these alliances, which doesn’t bode well at all. But even though the corresponding betrayals will come later, right up front Tolkien tells us that of these two big chieftains, one’s going to remain faithful to the Eldar (Bór, yay), and one will be false (Ulfang, boo).

In The War of Jewels, Tolkien points out that Bór’s people were also “worthy folk and tillers of the earth,” a reminder that not all of the Swarthy Men are the same. And remember, this is a group of Easterlings who will prove faithful allies of the enemies of Morgoth. I wish, as always, we had more information about them.

Now the Edain eventually come in contact with these Easterlings, and these two groups of Men don’t get along especially well, mostly because they’re strangers to one another and they live far apart. Prejudice is a thing, and Tolkien acknowledges it. “We didn’t hang out together before Beleriand, so why should we start now?” might well be the attitude of their cranky old-timers. In any case, this quality is not entirely unique to Men. It’s not like all Elves considered themselves equal to their brethren. Remember Fëanor’s attitude toward the Teleri, or Eöl’s toward the Noldor, or everyone’s toward the Avari (the Unwilling) far to the east. Remember the Kinslaying. The Firstborn and Secondborn Children, though they are all Ilúvatar’s, are fallible. As are we all.

If anyone had any ideas that Middle-earth is much too black and white, this arrival of the Easterlings in The Silmarillion is another solid reminder that it sure isn’t. It’s a reminder to step back and consider what we are given in the legendarium—which mostly concerns the deeds of Men and Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits in the lands of Beleriand, Eriador, and Rhovanion. Yes, these newcomer men and women who have darker complexions than those earlier men and women are equally as subject to good and evil as everyone else. For every Bereg there’s an Amlach; for every Barahir there’s a Mouth of Sauron; for every Éomer there’s a Gríma Wormtongue; for every Gandalf there’s a Saruman; for every Manwë there’s… Well, no, there’s just the one very, very bad Vala.

Heroes in West Beleriand

Now back to the western/southern front: In Brethil, just outside of the Girdle of Melian, the Men of the Haladin are finally having to deal with the Orcs, whose numbers keep swelling and bringing the war further south, especially now that Sauron has taken over that tower on Tol Sirion. They’ve been able to hold off the Orcs for a while, but now they’re getting hard-pressed. So the chieftain Halmir, whose great-aunt was Lady Haleth herself, sends word of the growing threat to King Thingol.

Doriath’s king has reason to be concerned. Thingol may be grouchy but he’s not the sort of guy who’s just going to wait and let Morgoth wipe out the Noldor. Plus there are tons of Sindar out there in harm’s way. It behooves him to help these Haladin deal with this Orc infestation. So he sends Beleg Strongbow, who as “Chief of the Marchwardens” is essentially Thingol’s border security boss. Beleg (BELL-egg) is going to really shine three chapters from now, but all we need to know about him right now is that he’s a kick-ass warrior of no special bloodline. He’s just a self-made woodland Elf with mad archery skillz. His name means “mighty” or “great” in Sindarin, just as Belegaer is the Great Sea and Belegost means “great city.” Beleg is sort of the Legolas of his time, minus the whole princely schtick. So anyway, Sindar to the rescue! Beleg arrives in Brethil with a great force of Elves who wield goddamned axes instead of swords. Together with the Haladin they surprise the invading Orcs and literally hack up their problem.

Now it’s time to meet Húrin and Huor again, who only got name-dropped in the previous chapter. These two Men are a sort of hybrid of the Houses of Hador and Haleth. They were raised in Brethil among the Haladin since their dad, Galdor, had actually married a Haladin woman and it’s customary in these days to be “fostered” with their uncle’s kin (that is, their Haladin mom’s brother). But when Orcs came into Brethil, these two brothers, who are barely out of their tweens, took up arms. Húrin himself “would not be restrained” from fighting, which means they tried to tell him he was too young. But apparently you’re never too young to hunt some Orc.

Well, during this Orc incursion, Húrin (HOO-rin) and Huor (HOO-or) are with a company of their people who get separated and pursued until only these two boys are left. Wandering alone and seemingly lost by the waters of the River Sirion (still #1 in Ulmo’s Top 10 Rivers of Middle-earth!), they’d have likely fallen prey to roving Orc bands, but a “mist arose from the river and hid them from their enemies.” So now they’re really lost, and who knows where Brethil even is anymore? They end up in the hills at the foot of the Crissaegrim, those mountains that, in “Of Beleriand and Its Realms” we learned was the abode of Eagles…

There Thorondor espied them, and he sent two of his eagles to their aid; and the eagles bore them up and brought them beyond the Encircling Mountains to the secret vale of Tumladen and the hidden city of Gondolin, which no Man yet had seen.

Hoo-boy! Well first of all, yay! The Eagles got involved, but something’s fishy about that. I mean, who commands the Eagles, right? But wait, aren’t rivers and especially the River Sirion more of an Ulmo thing? What’s going on here with the rescue of these two young Men of Hador/Haleth? Perhaps recall this passage from the Ainulindalë, wherein Ulmo is reacting to Ilúvatar’s words…

‘…I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to thy delight!’ And Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar.

It sure seems like a little bit of a team-up on their part—to me, anyway. Remember, the Valar are basically hands-off with Men as a race. They let the Noldor quit Valinor, and they’re not going to storm Morgoth’s base, wrecking Beleriand in the process—I mean, not yet. They’re letting the free wills of the peoples of Middle-earth determine their own choices and fates, but that doesn’t mean the Valar are turning their backs to all that’s going on. Up until now the only visible interference in the affairs of Beleriand has been a little swoop-and-rescue action via Air Eagle, and some advice and secrecy via Sirion dreams. But for all we know, there’s a lot more going on entirely behind the scenes that we just don’t read about. The Valar are likely not just twiddling their numinous thumbs back in Aman. No way is Tulkas just reading the paper.

With Húrin and Huor, though, the involvement of Thorondor involves more than mere counsel. This time it’s actual transportation. The Eagles drop the brothers off in the Hidden Valley Ranch of Gondolin itself. Which really is a big deal, considering all the pains Turgon has taken to keep the place secret. But it turns out, he’s cool with it; Ulmo has already given him some kind of hint of their coming from Sirion-based dreams.

So Turgon treats Húrin and Huor well, and they live among the Elves for nearly a year! The splendor of Gondolin would be like nothing they’ve ever imagined roughing it in the woods with the Haladin. In fact, they probably hadn’t spent much time with any Noldor before. It’s mostly the Moriquendi Sindar they had as neighbors. They learn much from the Noldor king and his people, and Turgon in turn becomes really taken by them and wishes they would just live out their short mortal lives here in his city.

And although the two boys eventually feel the desire to return to their people and share in their “wars and griefs,” it’s clear Turgon doesn’t want them to go. But Turgon’s own law—which was “that no stranger, be he Elf or Man, who found the way to the secret kingdom and looked upon the city should ever depart again,” doesn’t quite apply to them. They didn’t find the way in; ginormous birds brought them! Though they certainly weren’t unwilling to be rescued by Thorondor, it hadn’t been their decision to come. Húrin is the one to point this out to Turgon, when the time comes, and also why they cannot stay:

Lord, we are but mortal Men, and unlike the Eldar. They may endure for long years awaiting battle with their enemies in some far distant day; but for us the time is short, and our hope and strength soon wither.

Turgon gets it. He has to let them go. By Eagle, of course, the same way they got in.

But you know who doesn’t care one bit for these two young men, their favor in Turgon’s eyes, and the fact that they get to just leave with no real fuss? Not one tiny bit? Why, Maeglin, of course, the son of Eöl, who was thrown to his death nearly sixty years ago for trying to leave Gondolin. Okay, so that Dark Elf’s death had also been due to the murder of Turgon’s sister and the attempted murder of Maeglin himself. Maeglin, whose resentment at still not ruling Gondolin himself has been simmering as the years go by, says that “the law is become less stern than aforetime.” Bitter much?

Oblivious to all that, Turgon says that he hopes to see Húrin and Huor again “in a little while”—which sure means a different thing to an Elf than to a Man. In the blink of an Elven eye, these two young Men will have beards! Well, after swearing oaths to Turgon about keeping hush-hush, Húrin and Huor are off again by Air Thorondor. The Eagles drop them off in Dor-lómin, taking them to their father’s kin. And while their people are happy to see them alive, they’re astonished that they don’t look like wilderness hobos. Their own father, Galdor, head of the House of Hador, seems dubious about their unwillingness to explain their prolonged absence, or their fine clothing and healthy frames. Still, Galdor is happy to have his sons back and he lets it go. But it doesn’t take long for the other people of their house, who have served with Noldor before, to put two and two together.

And unfortunately, once word goes around that Húrin and Huor have spent time in the company of some very secretive Eldar, it’s only a matter of time before Morgoth hears of it, too. Until now, the Dark Lord knew almost nothing of Gondolin. Now he has a hint. Meanwhile, Turgon still doesn’t think it’s the right time to go sending his own military out.

But he believed also that the ending of the Siege was the beginning of the downfall of the Noldor, unless aid should come; and he sent companies of the Gondolindrim in secret to the mouths of Sirion and the Isle of Balar.

Ah, the Isle of Balar! Remember Ulmo’s island-ferry, the one that brought the Vanyar and Noldor, and then later some of the Teleri over to Valinor? Long, long ago. The Isle of Balar is that piece of island that broke off while Ulmo was moving it; it stayed rooted in the Bay of Balar. Well, this is one of the places Turgon sends his people to build ships (presumably with some local Teleri help). Previously, some of Finrod’s people had come to the Isle to build some forts in case war ever came this far south.

With these ships the Gondolindrim set sail for the “uttermost west” across Belegaer, the Great Sea, seeking Valinor and the pardon of the Valar. This, at least, is one of the Noldor (Turgon) trying to follow through on Ulmo’s old FYI:

But it’s not really the right way. Ulmo had said that one would come to him, to Turgon, when real peril approached Gondolin. Apparently that time isn’t now. And so of the Elf mariners who went sailing “few returned.” Even Morgoth hears the rumor of these would-be messengers, these ocean-going ships who would extend a beseeching hand to the Valar. He is not pleased at this, and he’s especially not pleased that he can locate neither Finrod Felagund nor Turgon, or figure out neither where they’re holed up, nor how strong they are. As someone who’s spent centuries planning and growing his own forces, Morgoth fears the mounting power of hidden Elven realms.

I like to stop and remember that there was a time, back in Valinor after the unchaining of Morgoth—who was just Melkor then—that he mingled with the Noldor, right there in their city of Tirion. In person. Fingolfin, who he brutally slew earlier in this chapter, is someone he once might have exchanged pleasantries with at some Noldorin dinner party once. Or he might have made small talk with Turgon, who he now seeks desperately and out of fear. Sure, Melkor was a seething ball of hatred even then and a total phony, but my point is that these beings kind of know each other in ways that, for example, Aragorn and Sauron never do. Clear enemies from the start, those two, just based on who they are. But the Noldor once listened to Melkor, took counsel with him, learned crafts from them. It’s chilling.

Anyway, now Morgoth recalls the main body of his Orcs to Angband, but he keeps his network of spies quite active. There is a brief if unquiet peace that returns to Beleriand during this time, while the Dark Enemy of the World works to gather “new strength.”

Several years go by and then he sends out a single force against Hithlum, by crossing over the Mountains of Shadow. This time Galdor is slain, and Húrin steps up as the head of the House of Hador. Now Húrin is full grown, “great in strength both of mind and body,” and he leads his own people in retaliation, slaughtering Orcs and chasing them back across the wasteland of what is now Anfauglith.

But more Orcs surge around the mountains from the north right into Hithlum and slam into King Fingon’s outnumbered forces. And that’s when we see the Elf we least expected to see this far north jump onto the scene: Círdan the freakin’ Shipwright! See, he sails up the coastline with a bunch of his people and T-bones the Orcs right there on the plains of Hithlum; scattered, they’re hunted down and slain to the last.

Remember that Círdan’s folk were formerly the Teleri. It’s cool to see Teleri rescuing their Noldor cousins from slaughter. It proves to be a nice little reverse-Kinslaying moment, and shows that there is still hope for the Eldar. Of course, when the Noldor first returned to Middle-earth with Fëanor at the head, they had helped pull the Orcs off Círdan’s Havens, too. Perhaps Círdan remembers this, or perhaps he just knows the Elves need to stick together. Elves before selves. Quid quo pro. I scrape the Orcs off your back, you scrape the Orcs off mine.

Speaking of Elves, that chart of Finwë’s descendants is getting a little…red.

So the chapter ends with talk of Húrin and how he’s not (unlike seemingly every other Tolkien character) super tall. He’s wiry and lithe; short, but strong and tough as Noldorin nails. He marries Morwen of the House of Bëor, who once lived in Dorthonion before it was totally lost to Morgoth’s assholery.

Which leaves us in just the right spot for the next installment, Chapter 19, “Of Beren and Lúthien,” easily one of the most amazing stories in the book and certainly the most accessible. Finally we’ll learn about the Elf princess to whom Arwen is but a nod. She’s the badass who breaks out of bondage, rescues her own man, and gets all up in Morgoth’s face.

Top image: “Hosts of Angband” by Kenneth Sofia • Sauron “profile” from Bohemian Weasel

Jeff LaSala received the Ring of Barahir (that is, the film replica) from his girlfriend as a counter-engagement ring. Know that when you give someone a token of Finrod’s house as a gift of betrothal, love is evergreen. Tolkien nerdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books. He is sometimes on Twitter.

The Tolkien fan site TheOneRing.net recently reported on Twitter that the eventual Amazon-acquired Lord of the Rings-based television series “will open its first season centered on a young Aragorn.” It cites this information as coming “from many sources” but offers none of them, which to me means this isn’t exactly absolute. But nothing has popped up to contradict and any chance to discuss the matter is fun, so…

Let’s roll with this. I’ve speculated on a few possibilities before, but with young Aragorn as the protagonist of at least the first season, we can sharpen our focus, take a look at what we know about Aragorn’s upbringing, and home in on some prospective plotlines.

Now I won’t even talk about what actor(s) should play the legendary ranger and future returning king, because I’m in the seemingly smallish camp of those who prefer a nigh-unknown actor to a well-established face from some other franchise (please God, no Marvel folks), but will instead highlight what sort of adventures such a season could depict. For now let’s throw caution to the wind and assume, crazily, that they’ll at least base it in canon from J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. I think it’s fine to fill in the gaps—you really have to—but I’d rather they not change the lore that’s already in place.

Mostly we’re looking at the Appendices found in the back of The Return of the King, and especially part I: The Númenorean Kings. We know that Aragorn is the last heir of Isildur, who took the One Ring from Sauron close to three thousand years before his birth, but when we meet Aragorn in Fellowship he’s just Strider, a ranger of whom the Men of Bree seem wary, and then we find out he’s the chieftain of a group called the Dúnedain. So which is it: chief or king?

Problem is, there’s no kingdom anymore. About a thousand years before Aragorn’s birth, one of his ancestors (Arvendui) was the last king of a realm known as Arthedain, itself a fragment of the kingdom of Arnor, which was a sort of brother kingdom to Gondor. They were all connected once, but then the Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl—remember that jerk?—played a big role in the fragmenting that followed. So the fading line of kings took to a wandering lifestyle, adopting the role of chieftains instead of kings. That’s what Aragorn was born into.

For the first twenty years of his life, he is known as Estel, a name his mother, Gilraen the Fair, gave him and which in the Sindarin (Elven) language means “hope.” When he was two years old, his father was slain by orcs, his grandfather having already been killed by trolls. Yeah, there are serious occupational hazards to being a ranger and chieftain of the Dúnedain.

So…back to the Amazon series thing.

Any seasons or episodes involving the early years of Aragorn can begin at any point from here. He was raised in Rivendell, lived with his mom, and had Elrond as a guardian and surrogate father. It would be cool to get at least a glimpse of him as a child, playing among Elves, care-free and unburdened by the weight of his ancestry. But then he grows fast, and alongside Elrond’s actual sons, the twins Elladan and Elrohir, Estel did “great deeds” (safe to assume that included hunting some orc). He’s not even informed of his true lineage and name until he’s twenty, at which point Elrond lays it all on him at once, gives him the shards of Narsil (the sword that Isildur used to cut the One Ring from Sauron) as well as a token of his family’s kinship with Elves from long before (the Ring of Barahir!). And then it’s the very next day that he meets Arwen, and things get even more momentous and heavily weighted with meaning. Any treatment of these important moments could be wonderful to watch.

Once Elrond finds out that Aragorn really digs his daughter, and that Arwen’s heart has turned toward him, things get…well, spiritually complex. Elrond loves Aragorn like his own son, but the prospect of losing Arwen to the doom of mortals (meaning total separation after death) is heavy. But no decisions are made yet, just considered, dreaded, anticipated.

And then Aragorn sets out on his solo adventures, and I have to think that no matter what Amazon does with the above, they’ll have to address these. As he says goodbye to his mother, to Elrond, and to Arwen, he sets out to make the world a better place for “nearly thirty years.” A long time for a mortal Man, but remember, they’re a long-lived race, these Dúnedain. So what does he do?

He meets and befriends Gandalf! Talk about a life-altering partnership. Together they share “many perilous journeys” and he learns much Wisdom.

Under the alias of Thorongil (“Eagle of the Star”), he joins up with the horsemen of Rohan, serving King Thengel. That’s Théoden’s dad! He tells no one who he really is.

He then goes to Gondor, becomes a captain in its army, and even becomes a counselor to its current Steward, Ecthelion II, Denethor’s dad!). In fact, Denethor is the only one in Gondor who doesn’t like this Thorongil fellow. We’re talking about twenty years before the birth of Boromir, at this point. Denethor is a young man.

And in one matter only were their counsels to the Steward at variance: Thorongil often warned Ecthelion not to put trust in Saruman the White in Isengard, but to welcome rather Gandalf the Grey.

It’s even suggested that Denethor “had discovered who this stranger Thorongil in truth was, and suspected that he and Mithrandir designed to supplant him.” Which of course is a bit off the mark, but there’s plenty of drama to be had, here.

Okay, then there’s this. After we read how Aragorn helped Gondor against the pirate-like Corsairs on the coast, we also get this bit from Appendix A:

and then in the hour of victory he passed out of the knowledge of Men of the West, and went alone far into the East and deep into the South, exploring the hearts of Men, both evil and good, and uncovering the plots and devices of the servants of Sauron.

And I’m going to stop right there and say: what an opportunity! If ever there was a time to explore the cultures and trials of the East and the South of Middle-earth, where Sauron holds the most sway but not absolutely, it is here, with Aragorn. We’re talking about the Easterlings and the Haradrim, the descendants of the “Swarthy Men” mentioned in The Silmarillion, and right here in Appendix A we’re again told that among them are people “both evil and good.” I so desperately would love to meet some of them, especially the latter.

Aragorn needn’t be some “white savior” or anything. Remember, he’s in exile, in disguise. Let’s see him participate in the resistance, to help—as we’re told in the book—uncover plots and devices of the Dark Lord. Let’s see him save some people, and be saved in turn. Let’s see what friendships, hardships, and knowledge can be learned in the further corners of Middle-earth! If any Man of the West and North would be open-minded about foreign cultures, it would be Aragorn, who spent years in the company of Gandalf—himself an ancient Maia who learned firsthand wisdom and mercy from the Valar and even contributed to creation itself in the Music of the Ainur.

Aragorn isn’t going to single-handedly save Far Harad or Rhûn or anything ridiculous like that. Even during the War of the Ring he requires the valor of many to win the day (and in the end, of course, true victory is achieved by hobbits). The East and South are enemy-occupied territories for the most part, but not entirely. Sauron doesn’t have everyone under his power.

So…there are so many stories that can be explored around Aragorn. In the end, the focus should be about the characters and finding the right actors; they’ll give it life. Gandalf, Arwen, and Elrond are just the tip of the massive iceberg of possibilities. But the one topic I would love to see most is Aragorn’s relationship with Gilraen, his mother. While his father is never in the picture, his mother absolutely is, even though he does eventually lose her, too (perhaps mirroring Tolkien’s own life a little bit).

We so rarely get to see motherhood in Tolkien’s legendarium. After his thirty years of adventures, Aragorn returns to Gilraen in Rivendell. The Appendix even brings us a scene at what is essentially her deathbed at the age of 100! By this point, he’s come into his own and been a hero many times over (though he still has the War of the Ring ahead), and he’s nominally betrothed to Arwen (but has yet to achieve the “great doom” and goal of kingship laid on him by Elrond). He’s taken on various names, but he’s still Estel to his mother. Still her baby boy.

“This is our last parting, Estel, my son. I am aged by care, even as one of lesser Men; and now that it draws near I cannot face the darkness of our time that gathers upon Middle-earth. I shall leave it soon.”

‘Aragorn tried to comfort her, saying: “Yet there may be a light beyond the darkness; and if so, I would have you see it and be glad.”

‘But she answered only with this linnod:

Ónen i-Estel Edain, ú-chebin estel anim,

Which in Elvish means, “I gave Hope to the Dúnedain, I have kept no hope for myself.”

What do you think? What, if Aragorn is indeed where Amazon’s bold venture begins, what would you want to see?

Jeff LaSala, the nerd behind The Silmarillion Primer series, can’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone and. Tolkien geekdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor. He is sometimes on Twitter.

In Which the Son of Barahir Meets a Girl, Accepts An Impossible Quest To Marry Her, Gets Himself Thrown In the Slammer (of Sauron), and Witnesses the Demise of the Greatest Elf In Arda

Chapter 19, “Of Beren and Lúthien,” is the most famous love story of the First Age, even of Tolkien’s entire legendarium. It is the original adventure romance between a mortal Man and an immortal Elf-maid, the legend of which Aragorn and Arwen’s own tale is an echo in The Lord of the Rings.

I’ve written about this extraordinary yarn twice on Tor.com before, first as a study of Lúthien herself (Lúthien: Tolkien’s Original Badass Elf Princess) and then again when Christopher Tolkien released the stand-alone book in 2017 (Beren and Lúthien and Their Not-So-Little Dog, Too). For a deeper walk-through of that tale, I would encourage you to check those out. But for a more contextualized primer entry that places the story within The Silmarillion, read on. As this adventure story is especially rich with exposition, oaths, callbacks, and foreshadowing, I’m going to tackle the chapter in two installments.

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Beren – Man, son of Barahir, thorn in Morgoth’s ass
• Lúthien – Maia-blooded Sinda, badass mofo
• Thingol – Sinda, scowling king, disapproving dad
• Melian – Maia, Girdle-weaver, long-suffering adviser
• Finrod – Noldo, helpful king, oath-fulfiller
• Celegorm – Noldo, jerk, son of Fëanor #3
• Curufin – Noldo, also a jerk, son of Fëanor #5
• Huan – Valinorian hound, good boy
• Sauron – Lord of Werewolves, burgeoning asshole

Of Beren and Lúthien

The Battle of Sudden Flame in the previous chapter, followed by Morgoth’s follow-up depredations, has made of Dorthonion a haunted land. Renamed Taur-nu-Fuin, the Forest under Nightshade, its only inhabitants are some of the last remnants of the House of Bëor. Which really just means thirteen dudes: Barahir and his band of not-so-merry men, which includes his son, Beren—who, in a previous chapter, we were told will somehow return from the Dead. Mysterious!

Well, these anti-Morgoth proto-rangers live in the wild like outlaws and have made a secret lair beside the last pleasant spot in the region, a lake called Tarn Aeluin (tarn-EYE-loo-een) that Melian herself is said to have hallowed in the deep past—back before any of the Eldar followed the Vala Oromë across Beleriand and over the Great Sea to Valinor, and certainly before the Maia got herself hitched to the Teleri Elf-lord who then changed his name to Thingol. Theirs is a union worth keeping in mind as we read on.

Now Morgoth really hates Barahir and his crew—these Men’s obstinacy in the face of overwhelming odds really gets Morgoth’s goat—but he can’t locate them. So he actually puts his right-hand man, Sauron, on the case. But alas, even Sauron can’t actually find their hideout. Curse that Melian and her meddling Maiar power!

“At Tarn Aeluin” by Ted Nasmith

It’s not that Sauron’s minions never encounter Barahir and his band of brothers. Just the opposite: they’ve deliberately chosen to snub Morgoth by slaying every evil creature they can find. Even if Sauron manages to waylay one of them, he can’t just torture the guy and expect to find out the whereabouts of the rest. These Men of the House of Bëor wouldn’t break that easily.

But Sauron, being a master of deceit, finds the weakest link in their chain: Gorlim “the unhappy” (a term which here just means unfortunate, but still, yeesh, what’d they call the other guys in this grim clan?). Gorlim sometimes goes off alone in search of his lost wife, looking for her where they’d lived in happier times before the war. Using his mastery of shadows and phantoms, Sauron tricks Gorlim into believing she is still alive and in his power. Gorlim is made to believe he can hear her voice despairing of his abandonment right there in his old house. Gorlim tries to help, is captured, tortured to no avail, then brought face to face with Sauron—you know, the guy whose face we never get to actually see in the Tolkien book that’s actually named after the guy.

He bargains with Gorlim in a sort of good cop, bad cop (good Maia, bad Maia?) style. He’s already seen Bad Sauron, who’s had him tortured. Now, if Gorlim spills the beans about Barahir, Good Sauron promises, he and his wife will be reunited and released. Desperate to save her, Gorlim agrees. He reveals the hideout of Barahir. The future Lord of the Rings then laughs, mocks him, and shows Gorlim that his wife was dead all along. Fooled you! Then Sauron takes Gorlim and puts him “cruelly to death”—which, given his tower of nightmares and his army of Orcs and wolves, must be pretty horrible. Apparently, Sauron has been learning how to be an asshole by watching his master.

With this new intel—precisely where he can find the rebel base Barahir’s lair!—Sauron sends a force of Orcs to take the outlaws unawares, striking just before dawn. And, damn it, all of them are slain! Even Barahir himself, about whose heroic exploits the Elves have at least one song topping the charts in Beleriand, is tragically slain in cold blood.

Well, wait, one dude wasn’t there….

See, if you’re a leader of some kind in Tolkien’s world and you allow yourself to be separated from your group, either you’re going to be slain, or all of them will. In this case, Beren son of Barahir was off on a spy mission at the time, far from the secret Tarn Aeluin hideout, so he was spared the slaughter. Yet while asleep one night, he has a vision, a dream wherein “a wraith of Gorlim” approaches him from across a pool of water. The spirit admits to his betrayal, and his death, and tells Beren to hurry back to his dad.

And Beren does, but it’s already too late. Argh, Wraith Gorlim! You had one job! But in truth, this was likely meant just to steer him homeward, not actually get him back in time. Also, was this dream sent by Ilúvatar? If Wraith Gorlim comes from the real Gorlim, then yes, absolutely—who but Ilúvatar knows where the spirits of Men go when they die? But if it’s just a fabricated specter of Gorlim, it might well be Ulmo’s doing! The ghost appeared to Beren across water, and we’ve seen Ulmo send dreams before to set wheels in motion. Still, we don’t really know.

Beren returns to the hideout and finds that his people are all dead. He builds a cairn for Barahir, swears to avenge his father, then hunts down those goddamned Orcs. He sees their captain actually boasting of the sport they’d made of Barahir and the Men. Moreover, this doofus Orc is holding up Barahir’s severed hand, which is still wearing the ring that had been given to Barahir by Finrod Felagund—the token of Finrod’s own oath and a symbol of the House of Finarfin. Well, surprising them all, Beren jumps out, kills the Orc captain, and makes off with his father’s hand and ring. (We’ll learn later just how good a jumper Beren is, too. Or…leaper.)

Four dark years then march on for lonely Beren, who haunts night-shrouded Dorthonion as surely as the dread that clings to it. He is determined to remain the a thorn in Morgoth’s ass, as his father was. Beren goes vegan, befriending whatever beasts and birds remain in this blasted highland, and through innumerable acts of sabotage and Orc-slaying he fights his way—basically First Blood Rambo-style—right onto Morgoth’s Most Wanted list. This is no small thing, as his name now sits right alongside the likes of Fingon, the current High King of the Noldor! Orcs won’t even go near Beren now; they’re terrified of this bogeyman among Men. I imagine Orc-heads-on-pikes strategically mounted in all the right places, possibly spelling out “FU Morgoth” when viewed from afar.

So the Dark Enemy of the World is forced to send in his right-hand man again. Sauron already got Dad, now he’s supposed to get Junior, who slipped through his fingers last time.

Therefore an army was sent against him under the command of Sauron; and Sauron brought were-wolves, fell beasts inhabited by dreadful spirits that he had imprisoned in their bodies.

“Sauron brought werewolves” by Peter Xavier Price

It takes an army of monsters to despoil the land further, making things harder for Beren. With wolves and werewolves sniffing around, it’s going to be more difficult to lay low. Note, also, that werewolves are something more than mean-spirited wolves. They’re antithetical to Yavanna’s creations, and thus living things flee from them—like all those birds and beasts that Beren befriended. Werewolves aren’t just bullies who happen to follow the biggest, baddest wolf among them. Like Orcs, they’re slaves to Morgoth and thereby Sauron, evil spirits imprisoned in monster bodies. These are not happy campers.

Now we’re going to see that sometimes Tolkien interchange wolves and werewolves. We can probably assume that the “shock troops,” outside of the Orcs in Sauron’s service, are common wolves bred towards violence. But werewolves are another next step up from both wolves and wargs (wargs being more of a Third Age thing). For help, let’s consult this handy chart courtesy of The Prancing Pony Podcast! Note that wargs are wolves—and that werewolves aren’t shapechangers; they’re wolflike fell beasts, often capable of speech.

Anyway: Now with Dorthonion completely untenable, Beren finally leaves. He goes south, passing through the horrid mountains where Ungoliant once came and lived for a while to produce her hideous offspring before eventually moving on again. From the mountains of Ered Gorgoroth, he comes down into the wild and shadowy wilderness of Nan Dungortheb—that stretch of land where Aredhel (the White Lady of Gondolin) lost her escorts and barely escaped, and where Haleth and her people suffered as they marched through it. Now Beren comes through it alone and undergoes unspeakable ordeals therein that weigh him down physically and spiritually. It’s worth remembering that since Morgoth has broken the leaguer of the Noldor, this region (like many others) is even more horrific. This Valley of Dreadful Death is a place “where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked.” Shelob herself is very likely here with her older siblings, for she is the baby of that big horrible family. Who knows what kind of trials Beren suffers through? They’re so bad he never talks about it.

I’m breaking my own rule now by including a few snippets of verse outside The Silmarillion proper, going right to the source: Tolkien wrote The Lay of Leithian (a lay is a song or narrative poem and Leithian means “release from bondage”) as a long-verse epic first, then later adapted it into a prose form. In any case, it’s moments like these where the poetry  really says it best:

Forwandered, wayworn, gaunt was he,
his body sick and heart gone cold,
grey in his hair, his youth turned old;
for those that tread that lonely way
a price of woe and anguish pay.

And then Beren comes at last to the border of Doriath, where he strolls heedless right through the Girdle of Melian, and obviously misses the NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT signs that I assume Thingol posted up. No arrow-nocked marchwardens are there to spot him and feather him. And why can he just walk right in, a lowly mortal who was not granted permission by Doriath’s Elven-king? Well, Melian herself once foretold this (a couple of chapters ago), in an aside to her BFF, Galadriel:

And one of Men, even of Beör’s house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him

So who set this doom, this fate, upon Beren? Considering all that follows, one can easily assume Ilúvatar himself might have something to do with it. Any of the Valar would have the power to override the Girdle of Melian, but as this concerns the intertwining of the Firstborn and Secondborn of the Children of Ilúvatar, I’d say they wouldn’t likely meddle with affairs quite like this.

Fevered and delirious, Beren wanders into the forest of Neldoreth “grey and bowed as with many years of woe,” and there, for the second time in the history of Arda (that we know of), a man beholds a woman of great supernatural power in a forest glade and is thunderstruck by the encounter. Interestingly and probably not coincidentally, the last time this happened it was in a different-but-nearby forest, when Thingol meeting Melian and those two stood entranced while years passed and trees grew tall around them.

This time, it’s Beren looking upon Lúthien, Thingol and Melian’s only daughter, as she dances in the grass near the Esgalduin river. And boy is she a sight for sore, spider-haunted eyes! Enchanted by the look and the sound of her, Beren’s cares fall away, but so also does his voice.

And now his heart was healed and slain
with a new life and a new pain.

Days pass as if in a dream before their second encounter and ultimate meet-up. Here their romance begins, as doom—a bit of the good kind, a bit of the bad—falls upon them both. His came along with him and let him through the fence, but hers comes by accepting him.

“Lúthien” by Marya Filatova

and as she went he swiftly came
and called her with the tender name
of nightingales in elven tongue,
that all the woods now sudden rung:
‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’,
and clear his voice was as a bell;
its echoes wove a binding spell:
‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’
His voice such love and longing filled
one moment stood she, fear was stilled,
one moment without fear or shame,
one moment only: Beren came,
and as she stood there shimmering
her grey eyes danced a-glimmering.

While I still love the prose version of this tale in The Silmarillion, it’s worth checking out the poem. Suffice it to say that there is more detail. And enchantment, swooning, chasing, and disappearing. Fairy stuff. (Or maybe more correctly, faerie.) There’s so much of it, though it is sadly also incomplete. Yet for the sake of expediency, let’s move on. (I just can’t help but steer new readers toward that eminently romantic version of this story.)

Now, in loving Beren, Lúthien finds herself subject to the mysteries of mortality. As much as these two are fated to meet and unite the two sides of the Children of Ilúvatar coin, remember that Men have some role to play beyond the Music of the Ainur, and therefore outside the world. Thus her life, if she sees this relationship through, will become unbound to Arda. As will become obvious, this chapter contains a lot of discussion of bonds—some figurative, some literal—and the breaking of them. The Lay of Leithian actually means “release from bondage,” though it’s never stated which bonds, if any, are being referenced in the title.

Of course, it’s inevitable that Thingol, of all Elves, isn’t going to be happy about a mortal Man (1) entering his land or (2) crushing on his daughter. Can you imagine the “stranger danger” lessons he’d have given her as a little girl? He didn’t even want Noldor in his woods, certainly not filthy Men! But it was all for naught, for Lúthien is as smitten with Beren as he is with her. The age gap doesn’t bother them, either. Just because they’re separated by hundreds, very likely thousands, of years—Lúthien having been born before the first rise of the Sun and the birth of Mankind—doesn’t mean this can’t work out.

They spend a season together, with Beren living in the wild and Lúthien returning to visit him in secret each day. This is their courtship. But after Lúthien is betrayed by the Elf minstrel Daeron, who has spotted them together and suffers from a bad case of unrequited love, she is quick to get ahead of the scandal by bringing Beren right into her father’s court before his servants hunt him down. So, it’s time to meet the parents!

“Beren and Luthien in the Court of Thingol and Melian” by Donato Giancola

Harsh and proud words are spoken between Beren and Thingol, who lords his authority over his unwelcome guest. Insults, too. To Thingol, Beren is a thief who would steal away his daughter. Beren, in his defense, displays the ring of Barahir, which came from Finrod Felagund—and I’m not even sure if Beren at this point would know that Finrod is related to Thingol—surely that would help! But it hardly matters. Thingol is the haughtiest he’s ever been, conveniently forgetting his own case of marrying high above his station, while Beren is overly prideful once he gets past being intimidated by the majesty of the subterranean city of Menegroth, the Thousand Caves.

And frankly, Lúthien is not seeing the best of her boyfriend or her father in the dire ways in which they converse with one another. In fact, this moment of an uninvited guest arguing with a king is a bit reminiscent of Eöl and Turgon’s confrontation back in Gondolin. Then again, while both Man and King speak about Lúthien right in front of her as if she were property or some mere prize to be negotiated over, Beren had been silent only moments before, overwhelmed by the majesty of Menegroth and no doubt its very tall king. It’s only when he looked to his girlfriend and her mother (who we must recall has the light of Aman in her face!) “that it seemed to him that words were put into his mouth.” When you see the way he speaks to Lúthien directly, before and after this, you can see this isn’t normal for him. It’s as though he’s been directed to use language that Thingol can understand—own ownership, of desire. A language that will provoke him.

Still, the tension is high, and Thingol so very badly wants to have Beren put to death. What part of “into Doriath no Man shall come” did this “baseborn mortal” not understand? And here this guy, who’ll live a few more decades more at best, comes seeking to marry his daughter, who will live as long as Arda itself? The gall! Melian is, as always, the voice of reason, and she tries to caution her husband to cool his jets.

‘For not by you,’ she said, ‘shall Beren be slain; and far and free does his fate lead him in the end, yet it is wound with yours. Take heed!’

Thingol does the opposite of heed-taking and contrives for Beren a task that surely he cannot achieve. Moreover, it would likely kill the Man for him. Oh, you’re a cunning one, Thingol! So he boldly declares before everyone present that he will approve of Beren and Lúthien’s betrothal if Beren brings to him, in his hand, a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown.

Melian possibly does a facepalm, as Thingol has now “wrought the doom of Doriath,” because the curse of Mandos is wrapped up with the Silmarils, even though up until now he’d done a fine job staying out of the affairs of the sons of Fëanor and their oath. Beren, in response, gives the Mannish equivalent of “Oh, is that all?” and agrees to it. It may be a tall order, and in the face of Thingol he may be blustery, but Beren is still a man of honor and he will absolutely do it or die trying. Lúthien becomes dispirited, which bums everyone out. The people of Doriath adore her, and are accustomed to her singing.

Meanwhile, Beren sets out on his impossible quest, and it’s evident that he doesn’t even know how to go about achieving it, yet. He doesn’t just make a beeline for Angband. He needs a plan, and his wandering feet eventually bring him to the realm of Nargothrond, that other great Elven kingdom of caves, where his possession of Barahir’s ring spares him the arrows of its watchful archers.

Beren is brought before King Finrod himself, who’s definitely the best Elf to seek for help in all of Beleriand. Not only is Finrod the kind of guy who’d probably help anyone out of a jam, he did also swear an oath to Beren’s father that he’d aid anyone of the House of Bëor. Hence that ring. So here Beren is, calling in that rolling favor. Finrod listens to his tale, about the loss of Beren’s father and his friends and kin, and of his new and very unprecedented relationship with Lúthien…who is something like Finrod’s second cousin.

But Finrod is direct, once he hears what Thingol has demanded of Beren. He says:

It is plain that Thingol desires your death; but it seems that this doom goes beyond his purpose, and that the Oath of Fëanor is again at work. For the Silmarils are cursed with with an oath of hatred, and he that even names them in desire moves a great power from slumber; and the sons of Fëanor would lay all the Elf-kingdoms in ruin rather than suffer any other than themselves to win or possess a Silmaril, for the Oath drives them.

Remember that Finrod was there when Fëanor made his blasphemous oath in old Tirion upon Túna, hundreds of years ago, there among the “contending princes” of the Noldor. Finrod hadn’t like it then, and he sure doesn’t like being even more ensnared by it now. But he’s an Elf of his word, so of course he’s going to help Beren. He points out that Celegorm and Curufin, quite possibly the least pleasant sons of Fëanor, are actually here in Nargothrond—having been driven out of their East Beleriand lands by Morgoth.

For the likes of Finrod Felagund, helping Beren on his quest isn’t something he’d just keep on the down-low. He’s a king, for one, but he’s also much too honest for such shenanigans. So he makes the announcement to his people that it’s his duty to “aid the son of Barahir in his need,” and so he must go, but also: would anyone like to come with?

Celegorm—who is there in the gathering, because of course he is—stands up in defiance of Finrod’s words. Then he actually repeats, almost word for word, the conditions of their infamous oath, citing that anyone—ahem!—who finds a Silmaril and keeps it shall earn the “pursuing hate of Fëanor’s sons.” His brother Curufin tag-teams the effort, and together they politicize Finrod’s personal oath, painting the picture of Nargothrond’s destruction should the people dare to help him. And it totally works. Finrod’s own people are swayed by the charismatic speeches of the sons of Fëanor; it has a paralyzing effect, and thereafter they elect not to go into open war again and instead favor “stealth and ambush.”

“Curufin and Celegorm in Nargothrond” by Marya Filatova

And it’s a damned shame. Beren, with Finrod’s help, purports to go and actually get a Silmaril, the thing the sons of Fëanor ill-advisedly swore to achieve. But they have chosen to twist the oath, to reinterpret it, in baleful ways—and when it’s clear Fingolfin’s own people aren’t going to follow him now, it even kindles the ambitions of the dastardly C-bros. Finrod might go and get himself killed now, leaving the throne of Nargothrond vacant. Ugh, these bastards. That’s Finrod they’re scheming over, man!

Dispirited by this shift in the loyalties of his people, Finrod abdicates his throne and tosses his crown to the ground. Ten Elves, at least, come forth and stay true to their king, but they suggest a steward be chosen to hold onto the kingship until Finrod’s return. Thus is Orodreth, Finrod’s little brother, given the role—which is fine with Celegorm and Curufin. Orodreth is a real patsy.

So the quest is back on, with Beren accompanied by Finrod and ten loyal Elves. They follow the River Narog north to its source, meet a company of Orcs and slay them, as you do. Then, just like Frodo and Sam will do thousands of years from now, they take up the weapons and armor of their enemies and pretend to be Orcs. As you do. But Finrod garnishes their practical trickery with some real power and makes their faces and bodies resemble Orcs as well. Illusionary magic! This gets them further north, but once they approach the north end of this river valley—almost to Anfauglith, across which lies Angband—Sauron detects them. He sends his servants to bring in these suspicious “Orcs.”

They are escorted back to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, the Isle of Werewolves, formerly known as Minas Tirith, on the island known as Tol Sirion. This was Finrod’s own tower back before the war. Here, Sauron’s power strips away their disguises. Now he can see what they are—a Man and eleven Elves—but he cannot figure out who they are or what they’re doing trying to sneak past him.

So now we come to it, that moment when it’s Finrod vs. Sauron. This isn’t like Fingolfin’s battle with Morgoth, which was sword vs. giant mace, Elf vs. Vala. This time it’s Elf vs. Maia, but instead of weapons, speed, and melee attacks, it’s with music that they engage, facing each other in their very own epic rap battle of ancient history. And here we see another prime example of music as power, as magic, as the manifestation of one’s spirit. Singing as a means of exerting power is also something that seems like an ability unique to the very wise. We see Finrod do it now, we’ll see Lúthien do it soon enough, and we’ll hear about Galadriel doing it as well someday. But you never see, for example, a son of Fëanor use music in this way. Not even Maglor, who is a minstrel.

It’s not surprising that Finrod can evoke such power and imagery with music, but it is fascinating to read about Sauron doing so. To be fair, we’re told that Sauron chants, which could be singing or just some creeply monotonous liturgy of evil words. At first it seems possible for Finrod to overcome his foe, for his words are bright and filled with conviction, conjuring the beauty of the world and the trust of kin…but Sauron with his own words exploits the guilt of the Noldor and the Kinslaying that has tainted them. And thus Finrod loses soundly and all his companions are vulnerable. Sauron imprisons the lot of them in a pit beneath his stolen tower. Why doesn’t he straight up kill them? Because he still doesn’t know who they are or what they’re up to. He can’t have secrets kept from him, nor risk any embarrassment before his boss in Angband.

Still, these guys are utterly in Sauron’s power. They’re donezo.

Then we flash over to Lúthien, who a first-time reader might suppose is just going to sit at home like a good girl this entire time. Nuh-uh, not Lúthien, who feels the “weight of horror” upon her heart when Beren is locked up. If it seems unfair or inappropriately romantic that she gets to just know when her significant other is in trouble, remember that a “great doom” lays upon Beren, and by choosing to stop and meet him properly and love him in turn, she allowed that doom to fall upon her. Now, this doom, this fate, might have some predetermination elements involved. It might be that Ilúvatar himself is trying to steer some of his Children in ways that will allow both Elves and Men (and even Dwarves) to navigate their way through Arda Marred, but at no point does he come down and command them to follow through on such nudging. Ilúvatar never just makes everything okay. No, they have to become agents of that change, and choose to join the fight against evil. Lúthien feels Beren is in peril, and she can choose to stay safe behind her mother’s Girdle…or she can venture out and rescue his ass.

But first she consults her mom, who…okay, does just somehow know or is able to learn that Beren is in the “dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth without hope of rescue.” That’s very specific, Melian! And also, dungeons? Tol-in-Gaurhoth used to be the lovely Tol Sirion, Finrod’s own river estate. I mean, sure, he’s Felagund, Hewer of Caves, but no way did Finrod commission an actual dungeon in the basement of his tower. I bet it was a really slick wine cellar before Sauron came in, fouled it up, and rearranged all the furniture.

But that’s beside the point. Lúthien perceives that “no help would come from any on earth,” so she prepares to just infiltrate Sauron’s tower herself.

Digression: There isn’t much I, as a Tolkien fanboy, would try to change about the story of Beren and Lúthien—beyond “more please”—even if I could. It’s really just awesome as is. But this moment is one where I can’t help but wish Lúthien had gone to Galadriel for help; she’s totally right there in Doriath with her, and chit-chats with her mom all the time. There are so many reasons why such a team-up would make sense. Galadriel is a Noldo, and the Noldor came back to Middle-earth, at least in part, in vengeance against Morgoth for the murder of their High King and the theft of the Silmarils. It seems strange that this quest for a Silmaril is embarked upon by non-Noldor. Lúthien herself isn’t Noldorin at all; while considered fully an Elfmaid, if we get technical, Lúthien is half-Maia and half-Teleri. Finally, Finrod is also in deadly peril in Sauron’s dungeon. How amazing would it be if Lúthien set out to save her boyfriend while Galadriel came along to save her big brother? Very. But alas, it was not to be. And also, Lúthien knows nothing about Finrod yet. Say, I bet Melian knew—would it have killed her tell Galadriel that her brother is in Sauron’s dungeon, too? End digression.

And that’s when Thingol finds out that his daughter is about to chase after her boyfriend. Here, he crosses the line from protective father to overreacting jailer. I think we would all respect him if, say, he just sits her down and tries his best to persuade her from risking everything as she does—but instead he imprisons her in a guarded and tall tree house. I do wonder what his long term plan was: let her out when news of Beren’s demise finally came back to Doriath? In any case, Thingol’s daughter is also the willful daughter of a Maia. Nobody puts Lúthien in a corner! She contrives her own escape by means of some seriously cool Elf magic (if this is what we would call magic): with “arts of enchantment,” she pulls a reverse Rapunzel to escape, growing her hair out long and makes of it a dark cloak and a rope. Its strands have the ability to put people to sleep: bonus! Lúthien quits Doriath altogether, and who knows, this might be the first time she’s left the borders of her father’s realm, in all these centuries.

Now it’s time to pause to properly prepare for the arrival of The Silmarillion’s most amazing quadruped, a character with heart, power, guts, a shiny coat, and, perhaps most surprisingly, good counsel! I’m speaking, of course, about Huan the wolfhound, a mighty, long-lived dog from Valinor who was once one of Oromë’s own pups. Back in those days, before things got dark, Huan (HOO-on) would have bounded merrily through Oromë’s woods, barking up a storm and having a grand old time. Then at some point he was given by the Valar’s huntsman to the third son of Fëanor, Celegorm—who, I have to assume, was far less jerky than he is now. Or, I don’t know, maybe he just gave amazing belly rubs or something.

Huan’s been with Celegorm ever since, walking faithfully beside his master even out of Aman during the flight of the Noldor—and thus falling under the doom of Mandos himself. He’d have had to sit and whine and lower his head sadly as Fëanor and his sons burned the Teleri ships, and still he was loyal. He’s clearly of some special large breed of dog, but we’re not told what type. He’s probably not Maia, but possibly akin to Thorondor, the Eagle. There are two things to understand about Huan:

1. He’s been given the power of speech but he can only use it three times his entire life. It’s worth pointing out that that he’s not used any of the three yet, not in the hundreds or thousands of years he’s been with Celegorm.
2. There is a prophecy concerning Huan specifically, presumably at some point while going into exile with the Noldor, though we’re not told who decreed this (Mandos himself or maybe one of his Maiar servants was there to spout it): “and it was decreed that he should meet death, but not until he encountered the mightiest wolf that would ever walk the world.”

I suppose this ensures Huan’s eventual demise, since he’s a wolfhound. He’s going to be encountering many wolves, it’s in his job description. Huan is to hostile wolves what a gigantic, heavenly mongoose might be to snakes—predisposed to slay them, particularly those in the service of Sauron or Morgoth.

So all this time he’s been Celegorm’s loyal hunting companion, and lately he’s leading the hunt against Sauron’s wolves, many of which now roam West Beleriand. And it’s on one such hunt, with Celegorm and Curufin close behind, that Huan discovers Lúthien moving just outside the trees of Doriath. Despite her arts of stealth, Huan has an excellent sniffer and he gives chase the moment he spots her. But it’s a friendly meeting—of course it is, he’s big and furry with a wagging tail. And then both their lives, as well as all of Middle-earth, are changed forever. With both Elf and dog unaware of what will happen next, he leads her to his master.

Upon seeing Lúthien and learning who she is, Celegorm and Curufin ratchet up their prickishness. For starters, they were ostensibly out hunting Sauron’s wolves but they’ve also been hoping to discover Finrod’s fate—and not because they’re concerned for his safety but they sure would like to make sure he stays gone. Now they see a real prize in Lúthien. Worse, she trusts these Noldorin princes right away, almost inexplicably. Surely she grew up hearing her father mouth off about the Noldor, especially the sons of Fëanor, from whom Thingol wisely has kept his distance. (Right up until he shot himself in the foot by declaring his desire for a Silmaril.) C’mon, girl, you’re smarter than this!

Promising to give her help once they return to Nargothrond, the C-brothers bring her back…only to betray her! They lock her up, take away her sleep-inducing cloak, and keep her from talking to anyone else. Their plan is to fulfill their father’s oath only in the most cowardly and self-serving roundabout of ways:

• Wait for news of Finrod’s death—wherever or whenever that may be!
• Keep Lúthien hostage.
• Force Thingol to consent to Celegorm marrying her (as if).
• Profit (become the lords of Nargothrond and the most powerful Elf-princes ever).

They’ll maybe consider possibly starting to maybe begin thinking about seeking those pesky Silmarils—or maybe permit someone else to get them, but only once they’ve achieved all of the above. It’s not a good plan, but they’re not good people, and it’s going to cost them. These two will get their comeuppances, surely! But probably not right away.

But you know who is good people? Huan. Better than the Brothers C, that’s for sure. This hound of Valinor, who is “true of heart,” actually spends time with Lúthien, listens to her plight, and loves her unconditionally, as a dog does. From the moment he first met her, he knew she was good people, too. So in the dark of night, he goes to her door and speaks! He tells her about his plan to break her out of her Fëanorean cage. Oh, I’m sure it’s a posh Elvish prison-suite suitable for the “future wife” of Celegorm, but still: nobody puts Lúthien in a corner! By the way, this is Huan’s Speaking Allowance #1; it says much about him, and Lúthien, that he chooses this moment.

He fetches her cloak like a good boy, then sneaks her “by secret ways” out of Nargothrond. Even better, as they head north together under cover of night, he lets her ride him (nobody, but nobody, gets to do that) “even as the Orcs did at times upon great wolves.” They’re in a hurry now.

“Lúthien Escapes upon_Huan” by Ted Nasmith

Now we return to Beren in the dungeons of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. One by one, Sauron has been trying to “wheedle” the truth from his mysterious guests and not having much luck with it. This particular band of adventurers is tough. Not so much good cop, bad cop this time—Sauron has been employing the more direct bad werewolf, worse werewolf method, wherein a spirit-possessed monster canine devours them one at a time until someone talks. And none of them are talking. Every single one of the Elves loyal to Finrod have now been eaten, probably right in front of him and Beren.

Sauron is now down to two prisoners: the one mortal Man in their group plus the obviously wise and tenacious Noldo who tried to oust him with song. At last, though, he decides to send a werewolf to devour Beren, not knowing that this was that elusive, hard-to-kill son of Barahir that Sauron had tried to hunt down back in Taur-nu-Fuin. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

In any case, it looks like Beren’s number is up. The monstrous wolf closes in…

And that’s when Finrod shows his quality (again) and fulfills his oath to the last. Finrod Felagund, Hewer of Caves, now becomes the breaker of chains; with desperation and Calaquendi mojo he rolls a natural “20” on his final Strength check and bursts from his bonds, then wrestles the werewolf to death, with his own bare hands and teeth. In the process, Finrod is torn up and suffers mortal wounds.

With the last of his strength, the eldest son of Finarfin speaks to the grieving Beren, whose life he has just saved.

‘I go now to my long rest in the timeless halls beyond the seas and the Mountains of Aman. It will be long ere I am seen among the Noldor again; and it may be that we shall not meet a second time in death or life, for the fates of our kindreds are apart. Farewell!’ He died then in the dark, in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, whose great tower he himself had built. Thus Finrod Felagund, fairest and most beloved of the house of Finwë, redeemed his oath;

Finrod, hewer of caves, son of Finarfin, last surviving brother of Galadriel (until now), finder of Men, declarer of meaningful and benevolent oaths…

I would say more, but… For me the grief is still too near.

“Spoiler” Alert: Finrod’s spirit does indeed go to the Halls of Mandos, as all cooperative Elven spirits do. But it doesn’t sound like he has to wait long to be re-embodied in Valinor proper. In the same paragraph in which we’re told that he now “walks with Finarfin his father” again, and probably reunites with his long-distance girlfriend, Amarië, we’re also given another reminder that Beleriand will be “changed and broken” in due time by “destroying seas.” Don’t get too comfortable here, Tolkien seems to be saying, even when things are looking up.

In the next installment we’ll discuss what becomes of Beren, who’s only just been saved from death and still languishes in the dungeon and has now just witnessed the death of his friend. But you know, it’s not like there aren’t more werewolves in Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Sauron’s got a bunch. We can only hope there’ll be some comeuppance for the bastard who’ll one day forge the One Ring to Rule Them All in the fires of Mount Doom.

Top image from “Beren and Lúthien in the Court of Thingol and Melian” by Donato Giancola

Jeff LaSala can’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone. Tolkien geekdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books. He is sometimes on Twitter.

She was warned—that leaving Valinor would mean exile.

She was given an explanation—indeed, it was made clear to all the Elves that following the vindictive Elf, Fëanor, boded poorly.

Nevertheless, she persisted—for Galadriel, “the only woman of the Noldor to stand that day tall and valiant among the contending princes, was eager to be gone.”

Casual moviegoers might think of her first as that blond Elf lady who bestows kisses on hobbits and gifts to the heroes. Or maybe as that white-clad, stare-eyed woman who wigs out on Elijah Wood and gets all deep-voiced and creepy. But readers know that Galadriel is so, so much more, especially those who have read beyond the trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings is so jam-packed with heroes and larger-than-life characters it’s easy to overlook those we don’t see hunting Orcs and stabbing spiders; those who just seem to stand around, give counsel, dispense wisdom, and hand out magic items like MMO quest rewards. And yet a closer look reveals how pivotal some of these characters are in the foundations of the story—especially the Elves, who are the holdouts of their race in the Third Age.

Right now I look to the Lady of the Golden Wood, who is straight-up called “the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth” during the events of The Lord of the Rings. Certainly she is the most ancient female… unless there really are some Entwives still lurking somewhere out there. So let’s look at what we know about her, chronologically.

I’ll start by pointing out that while The Silmarillion forms the basis of Galadriel’s role in the grand scheme of Middle-earth, I also primarily reference “The History of Galadriel and Celeborn” chapter from Unfinished Tales—a book of not-quite-finished notes and essays compiled and contextualized by Christopher Tolkien. Tales may not be strictly canon, as the writings were still unfinished at the time of the professor’s death, but it’s obvious they provide much of the lore, and of Tolkien’s intentions, behind some of his chief characters and events. Moreover, some of the writings therein were written later in Tolkien’s life and might well have been completed if he’d had the time.

“Lady of Light” by Claudio Pozas

Everyone gets by now that Galadriel’s hair is luminous and golden, right? Funny thing is, even at her first mention in The Silmarillion, her locks are immediately noteworthy, “lit with gold as though [they] had caught in a mesh the radiance of the Laurelin.” Laurelin, you see, is the name given to one of the Two Trees of Valinor, a source of holy light in the early days of the world and which, by the way, precede the existence of the Sun itself. As do most of the Elves in these early years.

These same golden tresses would, many thousands of years later, assist in smiting the heart of Gimli, the stout-hearted son of Glóin. And lest you think beauty or descriptions of hair are unique to women in Tolkien’s works, we learn in Unfinished Tales that these aureate locks Galadriel inherited mostly from her father and his mother. Hair—its color, its length, its radiance—is an oft-mentioned feature in Tolkien’s works, and is commonly mentioned in high-born, noble-hearted, or powerful beings, be they male or female. Witness the hair of the Maia named Uinen, the Lady of the Seas, which “lies spread through all waters under sky,” the “grey silver” of King Thingol’s head, or the prince Fingon, who “wore his long dark hair in great plaits braided with gold.”

Anyway, so lovely are Galadriel’s locks that, as is speculated in Unfinished Tales, the way they shone inspires in her step-uncle Fëanor—indisputably the most infamous of Elves—the very idea of “imprisoning and blending” the light of the Two Trees. And he does this, on spec, by crafting the woundrous Silmarils—presumably with “kind of like how Galadriel’s hair does” penciled into the margins of his gem-crafting blueprints. Now, the Silmarils, and especially the decisions Fëanor sets in motion around their fate, have a mighty rippling effect upon all of Middle-earth’s history to come. So one could argue that Galadriel, with a mere turn of her lovely head, was a contributing catalyst to much that followed.

Of this, in Unfinished Tales, Tolkien wrote:

For Fëanor beheld the hair of Galadriel with wonder and delight. He begged three times for a tress, but Galadriel would not give him even one hair. These two kinsfolk, the greatest of the Eldar of Valinor, were unfriends forever.

Aside from being a delightful snub of the arrogant Fëanor, this passage—which I sure wish Christopher Tolkien had included in The Silmarillion—further emphasizes Galadriel’s esteem for Gimli in The Fellowship of the Ring. And therefore ours, because Gimli is awesome.

All right, so she’s a groovy lady, and a striking one at that. But she is not just a pretty head of hair. Who is she and what makes her lineage and her hair worthy of discussion at all? What’s her origin story?

From the first, Galadriel is true royalty. Her father is Finarfin, son of the High King of the Noldor. The Noldor are the second great clan of Elves who journeyed westward to Valinor when the Elves were summoned there after their “awakening” in the world. Galadriel’s mother is Eärwen, daughter of the king of the Teleri. The Teleri are Sea-elves, those who lingered on the shores of Valinor and took to ship-building and, I assume, whale watching. After the very tragic event known as the Kinslaying—a travesty instigated by the aforementioned Fëanor—Galadriel’s father returns to the Blessed Realm of Valinor and becomes the High King of his people. She is therefore a princess by association and the youngest of four (and the only girl).

So Galadriel is in lofty company from the start and bears witness to many of these early events that shape the history of Middle-earth. She is a leader among the Noldor when the Elves are still young as a race and still dwell in the company of the Valar. The Valar are the god-like entities who serve as the shapers and overseers of the world, as designed by Ilúvatar. They are not the ones who created Elves or Men—Ilúvatar alone, as supreme deity, has that claim—but are given authority to watch over, judge, and advise his Children (Elves are the Firstborn and Men, when they show up, are the Secondborn).

“The Shores of Valinor” by Ted Nasmith

Galadriel is also one who has lived amid the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, and that sets her apart from almost everyone in the The Lord of the Rings thousands of years later. If you’ve not read The Silmarillion, know that this is an important point. See, there are various ways to classify the Elves, but one particularly unique and big-picture method Tolkien devised is this: which Elves saw the light of the Trees of Valinor and which did not? First, understand that Valinor is the Blessed Realm, or the Undying Lands, the dwelling place of the Valar and the seemingly mythic realm where ships later sail to “into the West” when leaving Middle-earth. But in these early years, you could go to Valinor physically; it was a place on a map, a whole continent, and if you had the permission of the Valar—as all Elves did—then voilà, you were in!

But after some very cataclysmic and tragic events, which are orchestrated foremost by the fallen Vala named Melkor (aka, Morgoth, the whole world’s Public Enemy No. 1), Valinor later becomes a place utterly inaccessible to anyone without the express involvement of the Valar.

So if you are an Elf who has seen those two gigantic Trees with your own eyes, great, you’re of the Calaquendi—the “Elves of the Light.” If you are not so lucky, then you are of the Moriquendi—the “Elves of the Darkness” never graced with that light—and that actually means you are of lesser might. This distinction means little in terms of one’s character, of any intrinsic good or evil, but relates more to one’s grace and a memory of that hallowed place.

“Trees of Valinor” by HelenKei

Galadriel is very much Calaquendi, and all the way through the First, Second, and Third Age, her powers exhibit this distinction, and then some. By comparison, much younger Elves like Legolas and even Elrond—who are born long after the sad demise of the Two Trees—are, by default, Dark Elves. Galadriel isn’t the only Calaquendë still in Middle-earth by the War of the Ring, but she is one of only a few.

Recall Glorfindel from The Fellowship of the Ring, the Elf who meets our heroes, post-Nazgûl-stabbing, on their way to Rivendell. When Frodo awakens later and talks with Gandalf about what happened at the Ford of Bruinen, the wizard says, concerning Sauron:

‘And here in Rivendell there live still some of his chief foes: the Elven-wise, lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas. They do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.’

Frodo recalls seeing “a shining figure of white light” when the Ringwraiths had advanced on him, before he blacked out from his Morgul-wound.

‘I thought that I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim like the others. Was that Glorfindel then?’

‘Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the Firstborn. He is an Elf-lord of a house of princes. Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell.’

Gandalf doesn’t say it here, but those “other powers” refer to those like Galadriel—and probably the Lady of Lothlórien most specifically.

But still, that is all much, much later. I only wish to stress what it implies to be counted among “the mighty of the Firstborn.” In RPG terms—because I can’t fully turn off that part of my brain—let’s just say that the early Silmarillion Calaquendi had a lot more hit points, some insane skill bonuses, and possibly a handful of unique powers we don’t see in latter-day Elves. Unfinished Tales calls out Galadriel’s talent directly, which we certainly see play out in Fellowship:

From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her goodwill from none save only Fëanor.

And yeah, there’s another fun jab at Fëanor. I won’t go into him too much here, but suffice to say that he’s like the Elven version of Morgoth: proud, jealous, wrathful, a great instigator of terrible deeds, and yet all encapsulated in a genius mind whose creative skills outmatch those of his peers. It was he who crafted the three Silmarils and captured in them some of the light of the Trees of Valinor. Three gems of utmost beauty and wonder, they are highly coveted and lead to drama and doom for everyone roped into their fate. But after the Trees’ are withered by the doings of Morgoth, their light is extinguished, and Valinor (and to some extent, the whole world) is darkened. The Valar ask Fëanor if he will allow the Trees to be rekindled with the Silmarils’ light, but he refuses out of jealousy and spite, and the Valar do not press the point. Free will is important to them—and was to Tolkien.

When Morgoth eventually slays (spoiler alert!) the High King of the Noldor, who is both Fëanor’s father and Galadriel’s grandfather (through different parentage), then steals the Silmarils and flees to Middle-earth, Fëanor blames the Valar for everything as a petulant child might blame a parent for his own poor decisions. Yet he is charismatic and confident, and he manages to rally the Elves together and convince most of them to follow him out of Valinor altogether—beyond the protection and influence of the Valar, who Fëanor casts in a sinister and domineering light. Taken aback, the Valar are initially silent about this.

Although many are on board with Fëanor’s plan, they aren’t all in agreement that he should be the king to replace his father (there are two other sons, one of whom is Galadriel’s dad). Remember, Galadriel is essentially president of the Fëanor Sucks Club; the two are unfriends. But, she is swayed by his goal to go to Middle-earth and oppose Morgoth, if not his methods or his leadership. She is young and proud herself, nursing ambitions of her own. She was “eager to be gone,” and furthermore:

No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will.

Kindness is in her heart, and even “a reverence for the Valar that she could not forget,” but it is not enough to ground her there. When the Valar send forth a herald to bid the Noldor not depart, Fëanor hand-waves it away and the Elves continue on. No matter her thoughts, Galadriel is complicit in rebellion, in the rejection of authority. As a much younger Elf, she is like a highly educated heiress who believes herself destined for great things, a restless princess eager to be queen who will not be held back. So as posited in Unfinished Tales, “once she had set foot upon that road of exile she would not relent, but rejected the last message of the Valar, and came under the Doom of Mandos.”

“The Kinslaying at Alqualondë” by Ted Nasmith

The Doom of Mandos, aka the Prophecy of the North, is the final warning the Valar issue, and it comes on the heels of a great evil enacted by the increasingly erratic and rabble-rousing Fëanor. See, at the head of this Elven exodus, Fëanor and his biggest supporters engage in the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, a port city at the edge of Valinor where a different group of Elves dwell: the sea-loving, ship-building Teleri, who otherwise had no part in all this rebel talk, and who just happen to be Galadriel’s mom’s people! Fëanor slays those Elves of the Teleri who try to prevent his posse from taking their ships—ships he intends to use to get the hell out of Dodge (i.e. Valinor.) This is the Elves’ Cain-and-Abel moment, when Elf blood is spilled by Elf for the first time.

In another account of Galadriel’s history, Tolkien even suggests that she fought back (presumably with her brothers) against Fëanor in that battle. Somehow. (I desperately wish he’d said more—she bore weapons?!) The Silmarillion doesn’t offer great detail about the Kinslaying—only heartbreakingly beautiful prose, per its usual M.O.—and only later intimates that Galadriel and her brothers had no part in that bloody event. Yet even the death of her mother’s kin isn’t enough to turn her back to Valinor after the Doom of Mandos gives every Noldo a final warning to do so. In fact, Galadriel is driven by her contempt for Fëanor and follows him on to Middle-earth “to thwart him in all ways that she could.”

Fascinatingly, there is yet another version of Galadriel’s departure from Valinor that is less compatible with the others, but it is also, according to Christopher Tolkien, the “last writing of my father’s on the subject of Galadriel and Celeborn, and probably the last on Middle-earth and Valinor, set down in the last month of his life.” (Which…whoa.) He even talks about this in one of his now-published letters. In this version, Galadriel meets her future husband in Alqualondë, pre-Kinslaying, and makes plans with him to leave Valinor well before Fëanor and the other Noldor. She greatly desires to bring what she’d learned from the Valar to Middle-earth “for the exercise of her talents.” And it is obvious she is a top-notch, Hermione-level student who always did her homework. As is suggested but never explicitly stated in more canon texts, Galadriel is basically bursting at the seams with power and lore, and possesses a “commanding stature” that is nearly the equal of Fëanor’s. This account emphasizes a stronger opposition to him specifically, as though Fëanor and Galadriel are two sides of the same Elf coin.

In Silmarillion canon, however, Galadriel departs with her brothers in their own company, well behind Fëanor, joining the host of her uncle, Fingolfin. When they are abandoned by Fëanor even after the savagery of the Kinslaying, they are forced to journey through the brutal wastes of the Helcaraxë, the Grinding Ice, the frozen land-bridge in the far north that then connected Valinor with Middle-earth. “Few of the deeds of the Noldor thereafter surpassed that desperate crossing in hardihood or woe,” Tolkien wrote, and many Elves perish in the journey. It’s just this sort of context I like to consider when I read about the Fellowship’s sojourn in Lothlórien. We’re used to picturing her barefoot in star-lit forest glades, clad in simple white, and at one with the natural world. But she is one who has endured the “terrors of the Helcaraxë,” too, and seen kinsmen slain by treachery and bitter cold. Add all of this to her résumé of badassery.

“Fingolfin Leads the Host Across the Helcaraxë” by Ted Nasmith

In any case, Galadriel plays little or no part directly in the larger conflicts in which the Noldor take part after they reach the shores of Middle-earth, where they mingle with various groups of Dark-Elves, battle Morgoth’s minions, and establish kingdoms throughout the region called Beleriand. She herself settles into the lush and forested realm of Doriath, which is ruled by King Thingol and Queen Melian.

Melian herself is a big deal, and the fact that she and Galadriel become friends is no small thing. For one, Melian is a Maia, one of the powerful spirits set forth to help shape the world, of the same order of beings as Sauron, the Balrogs, and the wizards-to-come like Gandalf and Saruman. And as far as I can tell, she is the only one who not only chooses to dwell on Middle-earth among the Elves but also married one. Sure, Thingol is a king of no small stature (hell, he’s called out as being the tallest of the Children of Ilúvatar) but he’s still an Elf, not a demigod powerful enough to conjure “an unseen wall of shadow and bewilderment” that keeps out of the kingdom everyone and everything without her permission, or her husband’s. Which Melian totally does to fence in Doriath from Morgoth’s reach. As the hosts of the meritorious Prancing Pony Podcast have pointed out a few times, quite a lot of the males in Middle-earth sure do marry up!

“Galadriel and Melian” by sassynails

So Galadriel and Melian become BFFs. One is a queen, the other still clearly wants to be (but to her credit, she is patient about it), and through her friendship with the elder Maia Galadriel sharpens her already impressive powers—many of which she will one day employ in the glory and protection of Lothlórien. Not to mention that we learn that Melian is the first maker of lembas bread—guess we know where Galadriel gets the recipe! They seem like sisters, sharing old stories of Valinor “and the bliss of old” in a land where few can relate, but Melian is at least as insightful as her friend and sees that she is haunted by some grief. For none of the exiled Noldor, not even the good-hearted Galadriel, have admitted up to this point to the other Elves why they left Valinor and under what circumstances.

Melian asks Galadriel why she does not speak of it.

‘For that woe is past,’ said Galadriel; ‘and I would take what joy is here left, untroubled by memory. And maybe there is woe yet to come, though still hope may seem bright.’

Galadriel’s maturity is showing. She is less proud, and not quick to point fingers. Gone is her earlier, Morgoth-may-care self. It may in part be because one of her early motivators has been removed; by this time, Fëanor has already been slain. She is adrift, living apart from her brothers, possibly unsure of her path ahead. Her time to take charge and lead has not yet come, though her wisdom increases. In this conversation with Melian, she dares not lie about the past, but she also cannot face the full guilt of her kin. She says that the Noldor left of their own choosing and were not cast out (true, though having left they have become exiled, per the Doom of Mandos), but she leaves out the part about…well, the Elves-killing-other-Elves thing. That comes to light soon enough, and not by her. She has more learning to do.

It is in Doriath that Galadriel at last meets and falls in love with Celeborn, a prince and kinsman of Thingol’s. He’s also, mind you, one of the never-saw-the-light-of-those-Trees Moriquendi, And as time goes by, Galadriel is surrounded more and more by Elves who never knew the bliss of Valinor as she had. At some point, the two marry, and but for one Firstborn king who got special permission, all Elves marry only once.

“Celeborn, Galadriel and snow” by Moumou38

As mentioned earlier, Galadriel never joins any of the great battles of the First Age, even peripherally, against Morgoth. As times goes by, her wisdom increases, and she takes a longer view. She sees no point in rushing against Morgoth directly, as so many of the Noldor do, wdriven too much by vengeance. I am left wondering if she was more active in arguing against their folly; Tolkien didn’t say. The Elves of this era are still strong, but they are not Maiar, nor Valar (as even Morgoth himself was once counted). Remember, also, that Galadriel has greater respect for the Valar than do most of the exiled Noldor. Unfinished Tales even clarifies this point about her and Celeborn:

In the years after they did not join in the war against Angband, which they judged to be hopeless under the ban of the Valar and without their aid; and their counsel was to withdraw from Beleriand and to build up a power to the eastward (whence they feared that Morgoth would draw reinforcement), befriending and teaching the Dark Elves and Men of those regions.

Like Galadriel herself, Celeborn’s role as a leader and adversary to Morgoth’s servants comes much later. It is enough to say that Galadriel found and married her husband in the First Age, before the  final defeat of Morgoth, the rise of his ambitious lieutenant, and the destruction of all of Beleriand. It’s like they always say: the couple who gives counsel against Morgoth together stays together.

Meanwhile, although not yet a queen of any realm, Galadriel is very much a sister to her brothers. She is most in character like Finrod, the eldest brother, and at one point she visits him in his own kingdom, where he has become a king. Meddling in the way a sister sometimes ought to, she asks him why he has not married. Surely he could find a nice girl in his kingdom, Noldor or otherwise! But ahh, sadly, Finrod is as prescient as his little sis, and he replies that he needs to remain “free” to fulfill an oath of his own yet to come—not of marriage, but of something grim and purposeful.

And indeed, of the children of Eärwen and Finarfin, only Galadriel survives beyond the First Age. Two of her brothers are slain in the Battle of Sudden Flame, a massive conflict wherein Morgoth burst from his stronghold of Angband after having been contained there for quite some time. With his homegrown and monstrous legions, he first turns an empty plain into a wasteland of fire and poisonous vapors, and the Elves and Men who stand against him suffer heavy losses. Including the notable fall of the High King of the Noldor (and Galadriel’s uncle), Fingolfin, in hand-to-hand combat with Morgoth. Her eldest brother, Finrod, does survive this war by the intervention of some particularly intrepid mortal Men. For their loyalty, he swears an oath of friendship to them. Sadly, it is this oath—plus Finrod’s tendency to be a paragon of awesomeness and friendship—that later ropes him into the quest of the famous Beren (of Beren and Lúthien fame). In that epic tale, Finrod meets his end at the hands of Sauron’ werewolves (but not until after having a grand sing-off against the future Dark Lord of Mordor and after saving Beren with his literal bare hands).

Aside: If you’ve never read The Silmarillion or thought it’s just a bunch of flowery words about Elves, think again. It’s also full of magic dogs and maimings and Orcs and shade-throwing talking dragons and stuff.

“Eärendil and the Battle of Eagles and Dragons” by Ted Nasmith

So, while Galadriel takes no part in these wars, she is obviously grieved by them, having lost her brothers and many kin. Ushering in the final days of the First Age, the War of Wrath then sees the Valar finally come forth from the West—by fantastical means—to lead the charge against the Dark Enemy of the World. Few of the Middle-earth-dwelling Elves actually take part in this, either; it is the Valar and many Elves who had remained faithful to them in Valinor who comprise this army, along with Eagles, Maiar, and one flying ship! They clash with Morgoth’s full might, his Orcs, Balrogs, dragons, and everything else at his disposal.

In the most epic of epic battles, the armies of Morgoth are destroyed, and the Vala formerly known as Melkor is carried away in chains, then thrust out into the Timeless Void. Which is a place only the Valar are capable of ousting someone, and probably sucks real bad (as surely the brochures indicate). During and after the course of the War of Wrath, this corner of Middle-earth is so badly damaged that most of it ends up sinking down into the earth and is swallowed up by the waves. Only the easternmost region, which becomes the Elf-occupied realm of Lindon, remains of what used to be Beleriand.

Here, then, is an important moment for all the Noldor, and for Galadriel especially. After hundreds of years, the Doom of Mandos is lifted: for their often vain if valiant efforts against Morgoth, all the Noldor (except for the remaining sons of Fëanor) are pardoned. Their early rebellion and departure is forgiven, the ban on their return to Valinor is lifted. And most of them, weary of war and of the world, do indeed go westward back to the Blessed Realm where their hearts will no longer be troubled.

Some of the Noldor choose to remain, though not many, and Galadriel is called out as one of the notables. She and Celeborn still take the long view, or as she will tell Frodo someday, “together through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.” For though Morgoth is removed from the picture, his evil endures. And in not so long a time, Sauron himself will eventually assume the mantle of Dark Lord and it is under his banner that those evils take shape. While The Silmarillion merely states that Galadriel “alone remained of those who had led the Noldor to exile,” in nearly every other account, from Unfinished Tales to Tolkien’s own letters, it’s said that Galadriel outright refuses the pardon granted by the Valar. She is no Fëanor, but after all these centuries, she is still not without pride and still set on ruling a realm of her own.

But frankly, my impression is that although pride and ambition sent Galadriel out of Valinor in the first place, her maturity and a desire to keep fighting the good fight keeps her there. She may not have been counted as a great warrior, taking on Balrogs and dragons as did her kinsmen, but I would argue that she, above all Elves, is closest to the counsels of the Valar; she learned much from their wisdom in Valinor, then she hung with a Maia and actually listened to her—when we see time and again that Melian’s own husband, Thingol, seldom did. Galadriel’s long history does indeed sound like the fostering of a queen, not a soldier.

Sauron, too, is actually given a chance to return and face his judgement before the Valar. Yet deep shame and fear of an unknowable sentence causes him to double down instead, retreating into the depths of Middle-earth, where he falls back into his comfortable Morgoth-nurtured self.

And not coincidentally, it is in this Second Age that Galadriel’s leadership flourishes. First, she and Celeborn linger in Lindon, where she hangs out with the much younger Gil-Galad (last High King of the Noldor) and a chap named Elrond Half-Elven; then, they drift eastward and kickstart a Noldorin realm west of the Misty Mountains. Here they are appointed as Lord and Lady, and at her prompting, establish diplomatic ties with their mountain-dwelling neighbors: the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm! These were the happier times when you could, y’know, just speak “friend” and enter a place.

But it isn’t just trade with the Dwarves that brought her there. Galadriel alone “perceived that there was an evil controlling purpose abroad in the world,” despite the long peace that followed Morgoth’s removal. She has a special brand of sixth sense and ideas about what to do about it. Now Celeborn isn’t as pleased to be mingling with the Dwarves for some very personal reasons. In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien writes:

In any case, Galadriel was more far-sighted in this than Celeborn; and she perceived from the beginning that Middle-earth could not be saved from “the residue of evil” that Morgoth had left behind him save by a union of all the peoples who were in their way opposed to him.

First, this instantly calls to my mind the “Many Meetings” and “The Council of Elrond” from The Lord of the Rings, because ultimately it does take teamwork and, well, fellowship, to win the day. And second, how gross is the phrasing “the residue…that Morgoth left behind”? Very!

Despite this constant unease about Sauron, there are some happy times in the Second Age. Galadriel has a daughter, Celebrían (future mother of Arwen)! And another significant Noldo comes onto the scene, one who has a big part to play: Celebrimbor, who is likely the only grandson of Fëanor. He’s a kickass jewel-smith like his ill-fated grandsire, but certainly is not as nasty, and he’s also rather fond of Galadriel. But who isn’t, right?

Oh, wait, Sauron isn’t! Now he’s rebranding himself the Lord of the Earth, and starts in with his mind games. He knows the Elves are the greatest threat to his goal (you know, dominion over all Middle-earth) but he can’t yet wage war against them. He is no Morgoth, and cannot hope to hold against them all… yet. It’s not just the remnant of the Noldor he’s facing, but scads of Dark Elves who’ve long since settled in various lands. Morgoth might have been mightier, but Sauron is more subtle in his deeds. He has to be, having watched his boss get dragged off by the Lords of the West.

So Sauron plays to his time-honored strengths of skulduggery. He commits serious identity fraud by assuming the charismatic and handsome persona of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. And everyone falls for it. Or, most do. He befriends the Noldorin Elven smiths of the day, for they possess the cutting-edge, jewelry-making technology he intends to exploit. With a disarming charm and presumably some industrial-strength Morgoth-residue-suppressing cologne, he gets in real tight with Celebrimbor. In doing so, Annatar—who totally isn’t Sauron the Deceiver in a Scooby-Doo villain mask—will ensnare them all.

Meanwhile, Sauron avoids a few particular Elves, including Galadriel, who are wary of his alter ego, but even they can’t quite see through it. In one account, he even claims to be an emissary of the Valar specifically sent to give aid to the Elves. Which he knows they crave. He also knows Galadriel is his “chief adversary and obstacle” in this, and therefore “endeavoured to placate her, bearing her scorn with outward patience and courtesy.” Not so much in hopes that she will come around, but in hopes of buying time in order to do what he intends to do.

And so, right there under Galadriel’s nose, in her own realm, this fallen-Maia-in-Elf’s-clothing starts up a secret club of Elven smiths, wherein he teaches his pupils the sinister arts-and-crafts of—you guessed it!—ringmaking. He sees that these Noldor are divided in mind and “not at peace in their hearts,” for they long for a return to Valinor, yet love Middle-earth and wish to stay. Sauron, asshole that he is, capitalizes on this heartsickness. Celebrimbor and the other smiths lose themselves in their efforts, clearly working nights and weekends as they try to fill that Valinor-shaped hole with Sauron’s ring-based schematics. In Unfinished Tales, it’s even suggested that Sauron actually persuades this secret brotherhood to revolt against their Lord and Lady, prompting the unplanned exit of Galadriel and Celeborn from their own realm. And with the meddlesome Galadriel unawares, the height of Celebrimbor’s jewelry-making is achieved. From his forge, and those of his buddies, come the Rings of Power!

Much has been written of all that follows, but in short: Sauron heads over to his new abode in Mordor in the east and starts whipping up his Master-ring to complete his plan. But the Three Rings of the Elves are actually made by Celebrimbor after Sauron’s departure and without his micromanagement, which ends up making all the difference. First, despite all the ring-making secrecy, Celebrimbor is a nice guy. In an act that his granddad would have disapproved of, he gives the Three to other people. One of them, Nenya, the Ring of Water, goes to Galadriel. Its power is great, and according to Unfinished Tales, it even makes her yearn for the sea, and the West, as if she wasn’t already keenly aware of her exile.

When Sauron finishes his boss ring and slips it on, his cover is totally blown, so the Elves immediately take theirs off. This enrages him, and he finally throws down the gauntlet of open war. Galadriel becomes instrumental in all counsels against him. She tells everyone to keep their rings off, hidden, and never to use them. And the fact that Sauron is never able to figure out which goddamned Elf has which goddamned ring infuriates him all the more. He can only guess as the ages go by.

A whole slew of battles occur, with victories and setbacks on all sides. Celebrimbor is captured by Sauron, tortured for as much information as can be squeezed from him (not much!), then slain and paraded about as an Orc arrow pin cushion. Sauron sends his Orcs west and almost overwhelms Elrond’s forces but his army is suddenly attacked “in the rear” by the angry Dwarves of Khazad-dûm (which is not a place you want to be attacked by Dwarves, angry or otherwise).

Galadriel forms the White Council to direct the forces of the West, and at its behest Rivendell is founded as one of the primary refuges against evil—and as we know, it is here that Elrond sets up shop. For years the struggle is a constant mess of battles between Sauron and those who stand up against him. It is in this time that Sauron uses the One Ring to corrupt (but can never master) the Dwarves , and he takes his hold over the Nine Rings given to Men. The Last Alliance is eventually formed, Isildur does his finger-choppy thing, and the Dark Lord’s ring-based pyramid scheme comes to a dramatic end.

…well, not permanently. The Second Age comes to a close, and a relative peace returns to Middle-earth. But here in the Third Age, Galadriel remains watchful. With the One Ring lost, the Three Rings of the Elves can now safely be used again. In the realm of Lothlórien—which was first established by some nope-still-haven’t-seen-those-Trees Moriquendi Elves—Galadriel and Celeborn take up residence and become its Lord and Lady. With the power of Nenya, and her own Valar- and Melian-inspired arts, Galadriel turns Lothlórien into the place we see in The Lord of the Rings: the Golden Wood with its mallorn trees that “holds evil from the land.”

Galadriel left Valinor thousands of years in the past “to rule a realm at her own will,” yet she settles for simply overseeing the final refuge of a race that has been long in decline. She had great power, desired more, and sought always to use her skills. At this point, she doesn’t even go for a royal title, even though others regard her as a queen. In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien wrote this of Galadriel and Celeborn:

There they dwelt while the Third Age lasted, but they took no title of King or Queen; for they said that they were only guardians of this small but fair realm, the last eastward outpost of the Elves.

When the wizards arrive on the western shores of Middle-earth a thousand years into the Third Age, Galadriel is one of the three who learns exactly who they are and the nature of their purpose. And of those, it is of Gandalf that she is fondest, and she perceives him rightly to be the wisest and most loyal. She even tries to convince him to lead the reformed White Council, but he declines in deference to the unquiet Saruman, though he remains an active participant. Undoubtedly Gandalf is the most active agent of Sauron’s opposition throughout the Third Age.

Galadriel and Gandalf always seem to have a special bond—this is hinted at but never explained in Jackson’s films. Even in Unfinished Tales, they share a brief but touching scene:

For the years of her exile began to lie heavy on the Lady of the Noldor, and she longed for news of her kin and for the blessed land of her birth, and yet was unwilling to forsake Middle-earth. And when Gandalf had told her many tidings she sighed, and said: ‘I grieve for Middle-earth, for leaves fall and flowers fade; and my heart yearns, remembering trees and grass that do not die. I would have these in my home.’

Knowing that Gandalf was sent by the Valar, that he was a Maia (as her friend Melian had been), she knows she can confide in him in ways she cannot even with her husband, who had never experienced Valinor. But Gandalf certainly has, and far more recently. In this version of events, it is even Gandalf who gives her the Elessar, the Elfstone, that is mentioned in the “Farewell to Lórien” chapter of Rings.

She in turn gives this ancient First Age treasure, long thought lost, to her daughter Celebrían. Celebrían marries Elrond fairly early in the Third Age, and the two share many years together in Rivendell. But of course evil is only sleeping. Though none have seen or heard from Sauron in a long time, his Orcs still linger unchecked in the mountains, and while journeying to visit her parents one day, Celebrían is captured and tortured by some! She is wounded with poison, and even when her sons slay the Orcs and rescue her, Elrond is only able to cure her physical body. Celebrían remains haunted by the experience and she loses all joy for the world. With no other recourse, she is forced to sail into the West, leaving Elrond without his wife, and Galadriel and Celeborn without their daughter.

“Elrond and Celebrían” by Anna Kulisz

Galadriel has many good reasons to remain on Middle-earth on behalf of the Noldor, but even in his silence Sauron constantly gives her reasons to keep sending him hate mail. Fortunately, she does have the occasional opportunity to score one for Team Noldor. Some years after Gandalf discovers that the Necromancer in Dol Guldur is indeed Sauron, he convinces the White Council to attack at last. We see one take on this moment in Jackson’s The Battle of the Five Armies, wherein she is given a starring role, but even in the Appendices it’s implied that Galadriel takes part in giving Sauron the old heave-ho.

Given that she is specifically named as later returning to Dol Guldur for a final Calaquendi-style rinsing, I’d say it’s reasonable to assume that Galadriel does get to throw down alongside the boys of the White Council. We will never know if she goes clad in Elvish mail or armed with a bow or blade, but I’m inclined to think her martial arts are more subtle, or more radiant—like when she vaporizes the Orc tormenting Gandalf in the Extended Edition of the film. In both attacks, Dol Guldur is occupied by Orcs, so that means she’s got to be doing some sort of fighting. The White Council is a strike team, not an army, yet it’s likely they take on an army. The Wise aren’t joking around. They, as mighty Elves, and staff-wielding Maiar wizards, clearly pack some serious heat. It would be awesome to read more of those little off-screen Silmarillion-like moments of the War of the Ring. But that’s just me being wistful.

We know, of course, the part Galadriel plays on the Fellowship’s journey, when the One Ring is found and the Third Age draws toward its conclusion. We know of her fortune-telling Mirror (which just seems to magnify her already existing prescient wisdom), but it seems like her ability to read the minds of others is even more impressive:

‘I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!’

“The Mirror of Galadriel” by Ted Nasmith

Sauron indeed seeks her, because she represents what he’s hated the most since Morgoth’s removal: those damned Elves holding out, still frustrating his ambitions and keeping him from total dominion.

We know also how Frodo offers her the One Ring—honestly, innocently, almost desperate to be unburdened by it—and that after a brief, yup-I-sure-have-seen-the-light-of-the-Trees Calaquendi moment, she declines it politely and with good humor. Of course, she knows very well what the One Ring could give her, and make of her. Talk about ruling a “realm at her own will,” Galadriel could rule all realms, depose the Dark Lord and be the ultimate Dark Queen. It’s clear she’s already given this a lot of thought. She’s had the time, and it seems like she’s already concluded how such an offer will go. Power is not actually what she wants anymore, and so her answer to Frodo is quick.

She knows that even in the best case scenario, if the One Ring is destroyed, then the power of her own ring will be extinguished, as will her entire purpose for remaining on Middle-earth. Is it a moment of fear, or elation for her? Probably both. When she says “I pass the test” to Frodo, it always reads to me like a private, quietly-to-herself sort statement. Or like one of those Shakespearean moments that can be interpreted and portrayed a thousand different ways.

‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’

And when she says this I always feel like Sam and Frodo scarcely know what she’s talking about. But if you know her history, her choices, her exile, her pardon, her continued exile, then you do. If she goes into the West, to the Blessed Realm, she may be reunited with her lost kin, even those who died! She will just be Galadriel. A daughter, a sister, a mother. After all the time and effort and suffering she’s given of herself… well, that’s enough.

In some accounts of her history, Galadriel is actually still under a ban, for being complicit in rebellion and then for refusing the pardon, and is unable to return to Valinor even if she wants. But only up until this moment. Her refusal to take the One Ring, though it is offered freely (and would absolutely be within her power to simply take), grants her the Valar’s absolute pardon.

Before the final sendoff, Galadriel also gives Aragorn the Elessar as a token of her approval for his destiny. Not only as the future King of Gondor but also as the soon-to-be husband of Arwen (her granddaughter). The Elfstone should have been given to him by Celebrían, as part of a customary Elven bridal gift, but Celebrían is long since gone by now. And honestly, coming from Galadriel it is more fitting. She has overseen so many of the great events of the world—why not also the moment when the Fourth Age is dawning and the Age of Men has come?

Even when the Fellowship departs, her part is not yet over. She possesses an authority we don’t see in anyone else. Consider the great Eagles of Manwë, who nobody—but nobody—gets to command. They do favors when it suits them, when they’re nearby and not feeling especially cranky, or when the Valar specifically send them to intervene. Yet Galadriel does call on Gwaihir the Windlord directly—a very old bird, by one account hailing from the First Age himself!—and so he fetches Gandalf from a snowy peak in the Misty Mountains after his moment of rebirth. Gwaihir does this specifically at Galadriel’s “command” (his word, not mine!)… almost like she still has a bit of pull with the Valar. Who can say? At this point in the story, all the powers that have long been dormant seem to be stirring again. And it is because of Galadriel’s behind-the-scenes intervention that Gandalf is able to rejoin the scattered Fellowship and rally the captains of Men to later victory. Gandalf is the one we see riding to the rescue, but it is the Lady of Lórien who makes it possible for him to do so.

To me, Galadriel is the ultimate holdout of her kind. She is like the keeper of a lighthouse, or as a torchbearer in times of darkness. She makes it her job to keep hope alive when so much has been lost or faded away, especially in the Third Age when the Valar are more absent than ever and few remember them at all. The giving of her phial to Frodo for “when all other lights go out” is the perfect metaphor for her character. She weathers the joys and griefs of thousands of years but remains fair to others, like a kindly old woman who nurses a lifetime of hurts but still manages to smile reassuringly for young people and give them candy.

Her last words to Frodo when the Fellowship is leaving Lothlórien are “Remember Galadriel and her Mirror!” Her vendetta against Sauron by this point feels so personal, you almost wish she would have tossed out an edgier line, like: “When you see the Dark Lord, tell him Galadriel says, ‘Checkmate, bitch!’” Except, you know, something classier and more Tolkienesque.

When Sauron is at last defeated, Celeborn leads the Lórien Elves against the dreadful fortress of Dol Guldur (Sauron’s hidey-hole before revealing himself in the War of the Ring), and in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings we are told that she “threw down its walls and laid bare its pits.” This language actually echoes the moment in The Silmarillion when Lúthien—Melian’s daughter, who Galadriel would have known well—came forth against a different Sauron-occupied fortress.

Lúthien stood upon the bridge, and declared her power: and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare.

In any case, that’s the sort of First Age smackdown I would have loved to read more about with Galadriel. But that wasn’t always Tolkien’s vision for her, and to him Galadriel remains primarily a stately figure of power in reserve. A source of healing, comfort, and wisdom. But she has a long history, after all, and a complicated one. Her story, as Tolkien conceived it, was never fully pieced together; consequently, you’ve got different versions going on, and frankly, it’s fantastic that Christopher Tolkien was able to share them with us at all. But even when they contradict one another in the details, they all speak to the same sort of character.

Galadriel was once one of the leaders in a great, if misguided, rebellion. Then when the common evil was defeated but not exactly wiped clean, she remained when most of the other rebels departed, and so went on to become a leader in the organized resistance of the next great enemy. When you make these connections and are able to see her in this light, suddenly this white-clad princess begins to seem even more familiar to our pop culture sensibilities…

“Sauron, I should have expected to find you holding Saruman’s leash. I recognized your foul stench…”

Jeff LaSala can’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone and is trying to figure out a surrepticious yet surefire way to make a future Lord of the Rings fan out of his 4-year-old son. Tolkien fandom aside, he also wrote some D&D books, orchestrated a cyberpunk anthology, and now works for Tor Books. And sometimes is on Twitter.

First great thing: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis went on movie dates to see blockbuster films. Second great thing: They reviewed them in letters to their friends.

Atlas Obscura has highlighted a passage from the J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, an out of print reference text, that describes Lewis taking Tolkien to see Disney’s Snow White in 1938. The article’s author Eric Grundhauser pulls in other reference material–letters from Lewis and reactions from scholars–to get a more complete picture of just how rankled the authors got over Disney’s depiction of fairy tales.

From Lewis, in what very much reads like an internet troll comment but was really just a letter to his friend A.K. Hamilton:

Dwarfs ought to be ugly of course, but not in that way. And the dwarfs’ jazz party was pretty bad. I suppose it never occurred to the poor boob that you could give them any other kind of music. But all the terrifying bits were good, and the animals really most moving: and the use of shadows (of dwarfs and vultures) was real genius. What might not have come of it if this man had been educated–or even brought up in a decent society?

It should be noted that according to the sequence of events that Grundhauser has reconstructed, Lewis saw the movie alone, had that reaction, then goaded Tolkien into going with him to see it again. “Hey Tolkien, come hate-watch this with me!” essentially said the lauded author of the classic Narnia fantasy series.

The author goes into much more detail in the Atlas Obscura piece, including Tolkien’s likely opinion on Disney’s depiction of dwarves and what may or may not have been Disney’s winking response to the two authors. It’s a great, fun read.

(Tor.com’s own Mari Ness rewatched the film in 2015 and notes: Everyone always forgets the tortoise.)

In Which the Son of Húrin… Well… It’s Hard to… Oh, It’s All Just the Worst

As Túrin confronts the dreaded father of all dragons on the doorstep of Nargothrond, it’s time for us to confront the second half of the Tale of the Children of Húrin as summarized in Chapter 21 of The Silmarillion. Here the tale widens, as we are reminded through new tragedies that Túrin isn’t the only doomed child of Húrin—nor the only one yoked by the curse of Morgoth.

We left off with Túrin operating under the name of Mormegil, the Black Sword, where his coming to Nargothrond had unfortunately spelled out its own ruin after some crummy choices. If you haven’t read part one of this tale, consider doing so before reading on…

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Túrin – Man of constant sorrow, cursed hero
• Glaurung – Dragon, provocateur extraordinaire
• Morwen – Woman, mother who knows “best,” wife of Húrin
• Nienor – Woman, little sis of Túrin, daughter of Morwen and Húrin
• Mablung – Sinda, chief captain, bearer of bad news
• Níniel – Woman, amnesiac, see Nienor

Of Túrin Turambar, continued

Having succumbed to the Mormegil’s well-meaning but terrible military advice, Nargothrond’s goose is now well and truly cooked. Glaurung, the first Urulókë, sire of all dragonkind, has already blasted down its doors and an army of Orcs has streamed through to ransack the place. They’ve killed or driven away any Elf who dared to stand and actually fight. (I’m thinking Celebrimbor, the future-famous son of Curufin, is one of those who was forced to flee, because Nargothrond was where we last left him, and we’ll not see him again until the Second Age!)

Now it’s just the noncombatants who’re being chained up for the slave-train back to Angband. One of these is Finduilas, princess of Nargothrond, daughter of Orodreth, formerly the king of this guarded stronghold. At least, it had been guarded before Túrin showed up.

Glaurung crawls back out from the shattered doors and hails Túrin as the Man dares to approach the dragon with his black sword drawn. Túrin doesn’t try to match wits with the dragon; he springs forward to attack. He’s brave to begin with, but his valor here also stems from another place: the possibility of absolution.

Maybe. See, with his dying breath, Túrin’s friend Gwindor had offered him a lifeline. Had offered what might even be considered a loophole in Morgoth’s curse, which has been hanging over the Túrin for most of his life and has been a contributing factor in the woe of many. Speaking specifically of Finduilas, Gwindor had said that “she alone stands between thee and thy doom. If thou fail her, it shall not fail to find thee.”

Translation: rescue the princess and you win the game. Subvert Morgoth’s curse entirely! Although Túrin might have been dealt a losing hand simply because of who his father is, with the foresight of death, Gwindor has given him an out. And the key lies in saving Finduilas.

Note, there’s no saving Nargothrond itself. Túrin can maybe save the Elf-princess, though—she who loves him against her better judgment. But alas, this isn’t a proper battlefield and Glaurung isn’t doing that whole rampaging, fire-spewing thing right now, not as he had against so many Elves and Dwarves in past wars. With Túrin he has a different card to play and it’s one given to him by his Master.

So it doesn’t come to blows. Glaurung pins Túrin down with his gaze alone, hitting the would-be savior with a spell that holds him paralyzed. Like an über-strong Hold Person spell, and Túrin just rolled a nat “1” on his saving throw against it. This ability, and the fact that we’re told he spoke “by the spirit that was in him” reminds us that he’s not just a giant reptile bred by Morgoth, but one inhabited by an evil spirit—very obviously a powerful one, on par with a Maia.

“The Sack of Nargothrond” by Donato Giancola

And then Glaurung reveals that he’s not just a spirit-possessed monster. He’s also a dick. He taunts Túrin even as he reveals that he’s well acquainted with the Man’s history thus far—Morgoth’s spies have been working overtime—by rattling off Túrin’s greatest hits like they’re a bunch of new names.

Thankless fosterling, outlaw, slayer of thy friend, thief of love, usurper of Nargothrond, captain foolhardy, and deserter of thy kin. As thralls thy mother and thy sister live in Dor-lómin, in misery and wants. Thou art arrayed as a prince, but they go in rags; and for thee they yearn, but thou carest not for that. Glad may thy father be to learn that he hath such a son; as learn he shall.

It’s a brutal roast, and Túrin feels appropriately shitty over it. By Glaurung’s poisonous words, he sees “himself as in a mirror misshapen by malice, and loathed that which he saw.” Truth is, his life has been a mixture of (1) ill fortune that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with his father and (2) sloppy, poorly-considered decisions on his part. But under Glaurung’s spell, it’s all cast in the most hideous of lights. He’s such a bastard. Whereas his descendant, Smaug, will speak in more self-aggrandizing ways and is, in turn, soothed by flattery, Glaurung just gnaws mercilessly at one’s self worth. Can you imagine the comments he’d leave on YouTube?

Even when Túrin has screwed up, he never meant to be a jerk. Yet on top of all that Túrin’s already done, here Glaurung is pointing out that his mother and sister are dirt poor in Dor-lómin and apparently Túrin doesn’t give a damn. Again, just a dick move on the dragon’s part.

Meanwhile, as Túrin is paralyzed and subjected to Glaurung’s abuse, he can still see and hear what’s physically happening around him. The Orcs herd their captives out the doors of Nargothrond and across the bridge—the bridge that Túrin once thought was a good idea to build. Finduilas, quite literally a damsel in distress, calls out to him as she passes right by him, and still he can’t move or even speak. He can’t comfort her or respond in any way.

Glaurung waits until the anguished cries of Morgoth’s new slaves have faded away before ending his hold on Túrin. And when he does, Túrin immediately tries to fight the dragon again, enraged. But when he’s fully aware of a singular opponent, even one as dangerous as Túrin, Glaurung is nigh invulnerable; he’s quick and strong and recoils to dodge any blows. Then he continues to taunt Túrin, telling him can simply kill him if death is really what the Man wants—but how will death help poor Morwen and Nienor? That’s right…Túrin has a sister…

He croons that because Túrin was courageous in facing him, he’ll let him live. Look how generous Glaurung is! This drake’s really aboveboard, isn’t he? Now, why not go see if mom and sis can be rescued from their oppressors up in Dor-lómin? I mean, if Túrin doesn’t go, what a waste of an opportunity that would be.

Of course, Glaurung is merely doing his Master’s work with such poisonous words. Túrin, already the king of collateral damage, can do so much more harm this way: just steer him elsewhere, away from the captives, away from people he can actually help and knows for a fact are right there nearby, awaiting rescue. Finduilas isn’t that far yet! And Túrin, sadly, falls hard for the dragon’s fake news. He departs, heading north.

Glaurung, having successfully ticked the box on the To Do list given to him by Morgoth, is now free to indulge himself in Nargothrond. This dragon is off duty! He asserts himself among the other servants of the Dark Lord, setting to flame everything around him inside these chambers once occupied by Petty-Dwarves and Noldor. He kicks out all the Orcs before they can properly pillage the place and make off with any spoils, then destroys that bridge at last—which Ulmo had warned Túrin to do much earlier. Now Glaurung has got a new lair all to himself, sitting his scaly ass down amid the treasures that once belonged to Finrod Felagund. At which point the dragon-stink indubitably sets in.

But back to Túrin and his choice. Gwindor had told him that Finduilas stood between him and his doom. Yet she passed him by. At first it doesn’t seem fair, right? He’d been spellbound and helpless while she was led past him on the bridge; he can’t be expected to have saved her then. But he can do so now. He’s free. He can forego traveling all the way up to Dor-lómin—something he could have done many times before now—as a response to the words of an enemy, and rescue her. Yet he doesn’t. Newly obsessed with what’s become of Morwen and Nienor, Túrin marches homeward to Dor-lómin.

And it’s a miserable march. A Morgoth-bolstered winter is on the land, and it’s a blasted road he travels due to the fire-breathing environmental disaster that spurred him this way. First Túrin reaches the once-blessed Ivrin, whose waters are just an icy marsh now that Glaurung did…whatever he did to defile it. Then through the snowy passes of the Mountains of Shadow he goes, until at last he finds his old stomping ground. He goes to the not-so-little house on the Hithlum prairie where he once lived with his ma and pa and little Lalaith and their servants, and discovers it is now cold and empty.

“Túrin Reaches the Abandoned Homestead” by Ted Nasmith

Morwen and Nienor are gone…and seem to have been for some time. Could Glaurung, the dragon whom Morgoth has jacked up with malice and evil power, have…fibbed?

So Túrin checks in with a neighbor he once he knew: Aerin, a kinswoman of Húrin’s who was basically like an aunt to Túrin, and used to sneak food to Morwen back when she was living as a single mom under Easterling oppression. But the problem is, even then, Aerin (EYE-rin) had been taken to be the wife of an Easterling—yes, against her will. That Easterling’s name is Brodda and Aerin is still stuck with him. He’s no important person among his own people, but Brodda’s a bully and has claimed all of the holdings of Húrin’s family. This doesn’t bode well for him with Túrin’s homecoming, though, does it?

No indeed. Well, an old servant of Aerin’s meets him and tells Túrin that his mother and sister had indeed departed Dor-lómin already. More than a year ago, in fact. But that’s not good enough. Where did they go? So Túrin, who’s slain scads of Orcs and even his best friend, is in no mood to ask nicely. He goes right into Brodda the Easterling’s house, his black-bladed sword in hand, and demands to know where Morwen has gone. Aerin comes forth and gives him that answer: Morwen and her daughter went to Doriath.

‘For the lands were freed then from evil,’ she said. ‘by the Black Sword of the south, who now has fallen, they say.’

Hearing this, Túrin finally realizes what Glaurung and his lies have achieved in sending him on this wild goose chase. Wrath overtakes him, as it often does, and he kills Brodda then and there, along with the other bystander Easterlings at his table. Now, Túrin is one of the First Age’s greatest warriors among Men, but he alone cannot take on all the Easterlings who occupy Hithlum, so he’s got to flee now that he’s slain these guys. And all the servants and serfs who were once Hador’s folk now have new troubles of their own—they will be hunted by the Easterlings. But Túrin departs Dor-lómin, leaving yet another mess in his wake.

“Túrin” by Līga Kļaviņa

He’s not completely self-unaware. He realizes now that his efforts as Gorthol the Dread Helm (in Amon Rûdh) and especially the Black Sword (in Nargothrond) have had the effect of clearing the way for his mom and sister to go to Doriath. But now that he knows they went to King Thingol, there is nowhere else safer than inside the Girdle of Melian, so he decides to let them be. To “leave them in peace unshadowed for a while.” It’s fairly sound thinking, and given his track record for keeping those around him intact, it’s not the worst thing to just leave them alone for now. Yet, sadly, it also takes no account of the curse upon the family. What’s to say they will stay put?

So Túrin treks back into the Vale of Sirion, seeking Finduilas at long last. But it’s far too late; the trail is cold. He does come upon some warriors of Brethil; that is, the remnants of the Haladin, Lady Haleth’s folk, to whom Túrin does have some distant blood ties. A group of them are beset by the Orcs who Glaurung had kicked out of Nargothrond. Seeing this, Túrin does what Túrin does do best: he attacks the Orcs, killing and/or sending them running. The Men are freed and give thanks.

Naturally, introductions are order.

Pop quiz time! Does Túrin…

1. give his name,
2. use one of his other aliases, or
3. make up a new one on the spot?

If you don’t know the answer, you haven’t been paying attention. Since he always wants to circumvent his infamy, he now calls himself…

Wildman of the Woods

For an intelligent (if unwise) Man raised among Elves, this is a pretty lazy name. Not exactly his most original. But whatevs, they accept it. Their leader gives his name, Dorlas, and he invites “Wildman” to return with them back to their homesteads. Wildman initially declines, saying he must find Finduilas, daughter of Orodreth. But sadly, there’s no need. Dorlas tells him that she is dead. In fact, this very band of hunters, ever allies to Elves (if aloofly, see below), were the ones who struck out against the Orc-host that sacked Nargothrond even as they’d marched their captives by the Crossings of Taeglin—that is, a ford where an actual road crosses the River Taeglin. In that assault, the Orcs immediately turned on their prisoners and slew them quickly so they could not be rescued.

Princess Finduilas, most likely considered the Orcs’ most valuable prisoner, had been singled out and “pinned to a tree with a spear.” Worse, as she was dying, Dorlas heard her say: ‘Tell the Mormegil that Finduilas is here.’ And these same Men, after that battle, placed her body in a burial mound, as Men do.

Grim as ever, Túrin-as-Wildman asks to be led to this mound. When he reaches it, he drops down and just lies there in a comatose grief. Although he can be thick as a brick and never considers the consequences of his actions, Túrin does feel their weight after the fact. Half his woes he brings upon himself, and he does suffers for it.

“Túrin is Led to the Mound of Finduilas” by Ted Nasmith

This somnolent and dramatic display, as well as the black-bladed sword in his possession, outs “Wildman” as both the Mormegil and the son of the legendary Húrin. The Haladin then pick him up and take him back to their settlement, which is located in a topographically higher region of Brethil. The current ruler and heir of the house of Haleth is a guy named Brandir, a man who “trusted rather in secrecy than in deeds of war” (uh-oh, not exactly the Mormegil’s style), who also happens to be somewhat physically disabled, or “lame from birth.” Brandir takes pity on the Man, even though he’s rightly wary of him—the reputation of the Mormegil isn’t exactly one of caution and subtlety. I mean, didn’t Nargothrond get wrecked with the Black Sword as its captain? Ah, but who’s to say? Rumors abound, and the First Age is not exactly Middle-earth’s age of mass communication.

Túrin is nursed back to health. Thinking that he really ought to stay in Brethil now, he decides he can “put his shadow behind him” and begin a new chapter in his life by forsaking his past. Which…really, Túrin? Somehow he thinks he hasn’t tried this before. I kind of want to say he just needs a good friend to give him wise counsel…but, honestly, that probably wouldn’t work. Either the advice would go in one ear and out the other, or he’d end up killing that friend in a freak…let’s say whittling accident. Probably both.

In any case, he boldly declares this “new” approach to life by giving himself…you guessed it. A new name.

Turambar

Choosing a name that’s Quenya for “Master of Doom,” Túrin seems like he’s trying to own the portents that surround him. But it’s really just new wine in old bottles. He asks the people of Haleth to basically pretend that he was never anyone other than a dude named Turambar who lived here among them. He wants help in his pretending. Again.

One aspect of his life that he can’t shake off, though: his need to kill Orcs. It’s in his blood, and probably what he shares most in common with dear old dad. So he returns often to both the mound where Finduilas lays buried and the Crossings of Taeglin, the ford that gets the most Orc-foot-traffic in the region. This time, he does all his hunting with a bow and a spear, setting aside the sword formerly known as Anglachel (now named Gurthang), just in case it’s tied up with his crazy life. Maybe it’s caused enough trouble.

Now we jump back to Menegroth in Doriath, where Morwen and Nienor are still living in Thingol’s court. By this time, some of the survivors of Nargothrond’s ruin have brought word of its fall.

A few things in particular come to light, though they are shadowed by doubts and uncertainties:

• Morgoth’s forces have, for the most part, retreated back to the north.
• The dragon Glaurung has made the ruins of Nargothrond his lair.
• The Mormegil, once captain of that Elf-city, is either dead or stands enspelled by the dragon still.
• Oh, and the Mormegil is Túrin son of Húrin.

Morwen finally can’t take it anymore. She knows where her son might be now and wants to find him. Very understandable. She regrets waiting in Dor-lómin as long as she did. But it’s also kind of too little, too late. Is he alive or dead? She hasn’t seen her baby boy since he was eight years old! Thus Morwen does what is now de rigueur in the kingdom of Doriath and “refuses the counsel of Melian” when it is given to her—Melian’s counsel being to not go at this time, for to do so under these circumstances sure feels like playing into the hands of Morgoth.

But you know, in this, we can at least see that not heeding the advice of the Maia Queen, wisest being in all of Beleriand and probably all of Middle-earth, is not necessarily a sexist thing. Now we see that even noblewomen—fellow mothers with a child in peril, no less—disregard her when it matters most. Again, I like to remind myself that Galadriel is right there, seeing all this, for she’s been living in Menegroth as a close friend of Melian’s for centuries now, taking little part in the great deeds of the First Age, but surely taking notes. She’s an informed observer who will one day give guidance and leadership to many more still.

So Morwen rides out, exiting the Girdle of Melian. Now, Thingol is eager to find out exactly what’s become of Nargothrond, too, but he also isn’t crazy about his mortal friend heading off into such danger. So he sends Mablung of the Heavy Handed to go after Morwen to guard her journey and find out what state Nargothrond’s really in. And with him will go a group of his best march-wards. Mablung, it’s worth recalling, had once joined in the Hunt for the Wolf with Beren One-handed, Beleg Strongbow, and King Thingol; he’s a veteran and undoubtedly a high-level ranger.

Buy it Now

Nienor had insisted on joining Morwen but had been denied. Now, having more sense than her mother, she intends to go anyway—hoping to persuade her mom to come back by putting herself in jeopardy. Being the daughter of Húrin, she doesn’t shy from this danger, so she pulls an Éowyn, kinda sorta, and disguises herself as one of the Elves in Mablung’s posse. It’s not a stretch, either: she’s tall like her brother, and just as he resembles an Elf, so does she.

By the River Sirion they catch up to Morwen and deliberate on the situation. Mablung tries but is unable to convince the Lady of Dor-lómin to return to Menegroth. She is acting much too “fey” now to listen to reason. (Note that previously, only Fëanor and Fingolfin had been described as fey…and look how they ended up!) Likewise, Nienor is also unmasked: heyyy, that’s no Elf! She’s just as stubborn as her mom and also refuses to go back, as well. Mablung, I have to think, is shaking his head at these bullheaded women of Hithlum. Better to chase the Wolf than reason with these two! At least with Carcharoth the goal and the means was clearer: kill the Wolf and try not to get eaten.

At this point, the whole company presses on together, heading south towards Nargothrond. Mablung is calling the shots now. They proceed cautiously when they get close, and the Elf sends his scouts ahead to make sure it’s even safe to approach the gates—

—but it’s totally not safe! Glaurung gets the drop on them. He may be lazing around Nargothrond and swimming through his hoarded treasure like Scrooge McDuck, but he’s not truly idle. Back on duty, the dragon assaults them with his trademark fire and fury right at the river. Now remember, dragons are walking biohazards in Tolkien’s world. Dragon + fire + water = “vast vapour and foul reek,” which blinds the whole company. They are scattered and confused.

The Elf-guards try to keep the women safe, and do their utmost to escort them swiftly away from this crisis, but unlucky winds blow the dragon-stink right after them. The sheer smell makes the horses go mad, so much that some of the Elves are killed as their steeds dash themselves into trees. The rest are simply carried uselessly away.

Morwen nearly disappears from history at this point. Wherever her maddened horse carries her, we’re not told, and no one in Doriath ever hears word of her again. She’s just…gone.

Nienor, however, is thrown from her steed but is otherwise unhurt. She tries to find Mablung or her mom or any of the others, and ends up walking up a hill for a better vantage…

“Nienor Confronts Glaurung” by Jonathan Guzi

And falls right into Glaurung’s crosshairs. He pulls the ol’ you-thought-you-were-looking-west-but-you’re-actually-looking-right-into-my-eyes trick. Gets ’em every time!

Glaurung had been crouched there, waiting for her, and now the young woman ends up fully exposed to his terrible spirit-eyes. Nienor is as spellbound as her brother had been on the bridge of Nargothrond. She tries for a while to battle him through sheer willpower—which is no small thing, being a proud daughter of Húrin. But he wins the contest.

In the full tale—as told in The Children of Húrin—Nienor and Glaurung also have a brief exchange, in which she verbally stands up to him. He asks her what she seeks. She names Túrin, who he then calls “craven,” and in response she boldly claims that (1) “the children of Húrin at least are not craven” and (2) that “We fear you not.”

“Glaurung and Nienor” by Eric Velhagen

But see, even this is a perilous misstep on her part, as it reveals precisely who she is, where before he did not know for certain. To be fair, it’s not like Nienor’s had any experience with dragons or with the deceits of Morgoth. And of course being a Urulókë, his ego can’t stand the idea of her not being terrified of him. So he’s all, you should fear me, blah blah, “For I am Glaurung!”

and he laid a spell of utter darkness and forgetfulness upon her, so that she could remember nothing that had ever befallen her, nor her own name, nor the name of any other thing;

“Glaurung and Nienor” by Donato Giancola

Glaurung has cleared Nienor’s history, emptied her cache, deleted all her cookies. Did a total factory reset on her mind. I mean, yeah, he could easily devour her or burn her up. But right now that’s not his style, nor would that accomplish the variety of woe Morgoth has prescribed for this family. He’s a cunning dragon, the first of dragons, and has power and evil in him that the Dark Lord had placed there.

So with that, Glaurung just crawls off, leaving her there, bereft of language, identity, even most of her senses. She cannot see, she cannot hear. She’s stricken dumb.

“The Glance of Glaurung” by Alexey Rudikov

Mablung, after doing his own searching, eventually finds her! But Nienor might as well be an automaton, a ghost of her former self. She follows slowly when he takes her hand but she’s got zero agency now. There is no trace of Morwen anywhere, and he encounters only three of his own march-wards. This adventure has been a bust. Oh, to be hunting the Wolf instead! The five of them begin the long and slow journey back home, for Nienor has never been so vulnerable. It’s not explicitly suggested, but I’m betting if they get her to Menegroth, Melian would be able to help the girl. The Maia who can tell Ungoliant to get lost has got to be one who can strip away a dragon-spell.

When they finally draw near to the border of Doriath, Nienor succumbs to sleep for the first time since her meeting with Glaurung, which is a good thing. It sure beats creeping everyone out with her haunted, unseeing eyes. Well, they all need rest, so Mablung has them stop to camp. Which is really just the worst timing for an Orc-band to show up.

You know, this all sucks for Nienor and the Elves, but it’s also weirdly relieving to see that such foul misfortune can and does happen to people other than just Túrin. In this case, the curse of Morgoth seems to be flaring up around her. And it’s in the tumult of sudden battle that Nienor is roused. Suddenly she can see and hear again, but that’s all. Spooked by the Orcs, she jumps up and runs in terror. The Orcs chase her, but the Elves chase them and eventually slay them.

But they can’t find Nienor. Not even expert Mablung can track her down, though he tries for a long time and eventually has no choice but to return to Menegroth and report the very unsuccessful let’s-check-out-Nargothrond mission they’d all embarked on. In The Children of Húrin, he beats himself up over it, but Thingol and Melian both tell him otherwise. The queen even points out that there was nothing more he could have done, being “matched against a power too great…too great indeed for all that now dwell in Middle-earth.” She knows losing Nienor must be Morgoth’s doing, and seems to count herself as being no match for it.

Meanwhile, Nienor has become like a feral creature of the wild. In madness, she has shed her own clothing, and runs faster than a deer. Wait…naked and being compared to an even-toed ruminant of the woods sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

If the Men of Hithlum are so wild and fell, of what sort are the women of that land? Do they run like deer clad only in their hair?

Thus spoke Saeros back at the real start of the troubles of the children of Húrin. Dang those Elves and their bizarre foresightedness, even in mere jest!

Eventually she passes out. But when she wakes again in the morning, she beholds the world with childlike wonder. Everything seems new to her. She still has no language, no words, but she can see and hear, and she is aware of some nameless darkness behind her that seems in steady pursuit. Lacking the means to hunt, or any knowledge of how, she wanders in hunger towards the tall trees of Brethil, that big forest west of Doriath. At least she knows she can find shelter there. Frightened by a powerful storm that rises up from the south, she ends up rain-lashed and vulnerable, cowering on the ground. Not just any ground, but a man-made mound of earth.

And so it’s right there, on the very burial mound where the body of the Elf-maid Finguilas has been interred, that Turambar the Master of Doom—who we’re all pretending isn’t Túrin—comes upon this young woman lying on the ground in her birthday suit. He’s out hunting with the Haladin he’s been living with. Remember, these aren’t outlaws, but Men of the house of Haleth. They’re based out of a settlement called Ephel Brandir, a big stockade named after its ruler.

Of course, Turambar doesn’t recognize the fair maiden. Why would he? He’s legit never seen her before in his life. But he is “stricken to the heart” when he looks upon her.

“Túrin Discovers Nienor at the Mound of Finduilas” by Ted Nasmith

Which… uh-oh. Anyone smell the curse of Morgoth? It’s getting creepy up in here.

But Turambar isn’t a monster. He doesn’t just gawk at her. He’s quick to cover her up with his cloak and carry her to a nearby outpost. Gets her warm and fed. When she comes to and looks at him, she feels safe. Despite the spiritual darkness that seems to shroud her, she sees in this man—this very handsome man—“something that she had sought.” When he tries to communicate with her and ask her name, she cries in frustration, as she’s unable to properly understand him or know what’s even being asked. Turambar doesn’t mind, he’s in no hurry. In fact, he’ll give her a name. Why wouldn’t he? That’s, like, his whole thing! He loves coming up with names, this guy.

She thus becomes Níniel, which means Tear-maiden. And she can speak again, but she has to relearn language itself. She doesn’t have the mind of a baby, only the education of one. She has to start over. And so with Níniel in tow, the Turambar and the Haladin head back toward Ephel Brandir.

On the way they pass by a waterfall called Dimrost, a.k.a. the Rainy Stair, a scenic cascade formed where a smaller river, Celebros, flows down into the River Taeglin. This, in turn, commands a view of a nearby gorge. In view of that high precipice, Níniel has a mysterious panic attack. So ominous are her spasms that the Elves later rename the place—because Elves—Nen Girith, the Shuddering Water. In this moment, we don’t see why she has this reaction, but we’ll find out later. Remember this view, this gorge.

Anyway, her episode leaves her faint and sick. So they carry her on from there.

“Up the Rainy Stairs” by Ted Nasmith

When they reach Ephel Brandir, the young amnesiac is well cared for. Time goes by and the land is uncharacteristically peaceful for a while. Orcs have become scarce. Turambar actually relaxes. The Haladin’s official leader, Brandir with the lame foot, falls in love with Níniel. But she in turn has, quite unfortunately, fallen for this “Turambar” fella. History repeating itself (à la Finduilas and Gwindor), it seems, but with Men, rather than Elves. Yet this time, Turambar falls for the girl who’s fallen for him. Ooof.

Turambar then actually proposes to her. Yeah, this guy is actually trying to find some happiness in the crapshoot that has been his adult life, but though she shares his feelings, Níniel does stall for a time. Something about it troubles her. Brandir is jealous, but he also forebodes this development. He counsels her against marrying Turambar. Moreover, he tells her his real name: Túrin son of Húrin. But…but…

though she knew not the name, a shadow fell upon her mind.

Something deep inside her is warning her, but she can’t parse out her feelings of confusion. Glaurung’s spell of forgetting is a real son of a bitch.

It’s a shame that the Valar are so hands-off with Men. Because this sure seems like a good time for Ulmo to send some river-borne dreams to Níniel. Or even to Túrin, right? Maybe a copy of the Húrin family tree could wash up somewhere with a couple of choice names circled on it…. But no, the Valar have no traction among Men. Look at what happened in Nargothrond. The warnings of the Lord of Waters were ignored. It’s doubly a shame that the Haladin are so insular—which they were even in Haleth’s day—because this would also be a great time to get a visit from an Elf—any Elf—of Thingol’s court. Someone who would recognize Níniel and know her real name. Alas, none of that happens.

Three years go by, and once again there are rumors of Orcs moving along the borders of Brethil. Turambar asks Níniel to make up her mind about getting hitched. She’s got two choices.

1. Marry him and he’ll stay there with her and give up going to war; in fact, he’ll only go and fight if their home is directly attacked. But no more going out on wild Orc hunts.
2. Don’t marry him, in which case he’ll head out to secure the borders now. Who’s better than Turambar at slaying Orcs?

While he may seem like a jerk throwing down this ultimatum, pushing her towards something she doesn’t want, that’s not really the case. She does want to be with Turambar. There’s just that pesky shadow upon her mind…but hey, what’s the worst that could happen?

And Níniel took him with joy, and they were wedded at the midsummer, and the woodsmen of Brethil made a great feast.

Ooof, all right. It’s done. It’s happened. Damn that Glaurung. Damn Morgoth. And maybe, damn Túrin for not hiring a PI to run a background check on his amnesiac girlfriend. Even in the expanded tale, I don’t think he does much nosing around, no trying to solve the Case of the Girl With No Memory. I mean, she couldn’t have just popped out of the ground with no backstory, right?

Anyway, they are happy for a time, happy in the bliss of ignorance. Actual joy, messed up as it may be, is achieved by the children of Húrin for a little while. But before a year goes by, trouble brews. Glaurung has sent out from his Nargothrond dominion more Orcs to harass the region. Oh, sure, now he wants Orcs around to command.

But Turambar keeps his word to his wife and stays at home, even as the Orcs start to press in. Thing start to go south for the Men of Brethil at their borders. Dorlas, the leader of their warriors, even “upbraids” Turambar for this—that is, he rebukes the guy for not helping to defend the land that took him in. Turambar, being proud, can’t just let that stand. He is roused to action, and agrees to go out and chop some heads—just for a little while. He even takes up Gurthang again, and he leads the Haladin warriors to victory; they mop the floor with the Orcs.

A few must get away, though, because they bring word to Glaurung that the Black Sword is now active in Brethil. Which places Túrin back on the map. And with that knowledge, the father of all dragons devises “new evil.” Out with the old, in with the new!

And then, a while later, Níniel becomes pregnant. So Turambar is going to be a father! She’s going to be a mother! But this makes her sad, quite possibly for a variety of reasons, but most likely it’s that darkness that clings to her, like a wraith of her former self that she cannot see.

And soon after, rumors start going around Ephel Brandir that Glaurung has left Nargothrond. The Haladin hope that he’s just heading back to Angband and will pass them by, but can they risk that? By this time, Turambar is calling the shots, and no one’s listening to their actual leader, Brandir, anymore. This is, of course, some tragic déjà vu. Túrin “Turambar” clearly has problems with authority and has a knack for just taking charge of whatever group he’s part of. On the one hand, it’s confidence and decisiveness—legitimate traits for a leader—but his initiatives are always stymied by pride. Can you imagine if he ever met Fëanor? I mean, on this side of the Halls of Mandos?

So Glaurung is by this point loitering outside the borders of Brethil, dragging his toxic ass near the River Taeglin. It’s clear he’s not going away; in fact, all signs point to him coming in and burning the hell out of Brethil. So the Haladin look to Turambar. What to do? He at least knows better this time around to not just lead the warriors out in force. Only by by “cunning and good fortune” could they possibly succeed that way. Glaurung has flame-broiled Noldor straight-up; Men would just be so much kindling.

So he tells them that he will go and seek out the dragon alone, and try to take Glaurung unawares. Quite a change from his old methods. Hey, he’s learning. He’s Turambar, right, Master of Doom? He’s trying to make his own fate. And maybe, from his point of view, he can’t be blamed for having some hope. He’s been miserable for so long, but now he has a beautiful wife who loves him and now they’re gonna be parents. A whole new chapter surely lies before him. Maybe he thinks his fortunes have changed somehow. Maybe with his last renaming he finally outran Morgoth’s alleged curse.

He just has to deal with the dragon problem. So he asks for volunteers to come with him, but receives only two: Dorlas and a guy named Hunthor. Dorlas chews out his people, especially Brandir, for their cowardice. Then they set out, but not before Turambar says farewell to Níniel. The next time they meet, the dragon will be dead: that’s the plan. But she is sorrowful, foreboding something evil. He is far more optimistic. Well, he has to be, at this point. And speaking of points, he’s definitely got his trusty old sword, Gurthang for this errand. So Turambar, Dorlas, and Hunthor set out to find Glaurung, a three-man team of drake assassins.

But Níniel isn’t content to just stay behind and wait to get bad news. (Just as how, in a former life, she would not be restrained and so followed after her mother.) So she sets out a ways behind Turambar, and a bunch of the Haladim go with her. She’s courageous, and it gives them the courage. Brandir is still against all of this, and in bitterness, he renounces his leadership altogether. Yet he skulks after them but can’t keep up.

Meanwhile, Team Dragonslayer discovers Glaurung hanging out on the western side of the Taeglin, aiming to stretch his length across a narrow point in the gorge because it’s too wide a river for him to just step over. This spot is called Cabed-en-Aras, or Leap of the Deer, because once a deer jumped across to escape a Haladin hunter—and frankly, all it takes is one incident for Elves to slap a name on it.

This is where Turambar intends to strike. See, Glaurung first has to get his business side (head and forelegs) over that gap, then he can heave his party side (hindquarters) over as well. And that means for a moment his softer underbelly will be exposed. Now it might be obvious, of course, but it’s worth pointing out that dragons in Middle-earth still don’t have wings! Even though some of his descendants will, Glaurung is the first dragon. He’s Dragon 1.0, as Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor, declares him. He might be mighty as spirits go, and given that Morgoth has put some of his power into the father of all dragon, he’s no joke. But as dragon design goes, the best is yet to come. Glaurung can blast down the Doors of Felagund and burn up a host of Elves, but a big expanse of water? Clearly he doesn’t like to swim. Thus he’s come to this narrow gorge where the two sides of the river are close enough that he can just stretch-jump across.

I assume, at this point, that Turambar whips up a quick sketch of his plan.

Anyway, this is all happening within sight of that waterfall, Dimrost, where several years before Níniel had her strange, shuddering episode. What portent lies in this place? Well Turambar’s plan is creep up the gorge from the bottom and stab Glaurung from below; not an easy climb, but it’s the only feasible plan. And it’s crazy enough that it just might work!

At dusk the three Men ready themselves for the moment of Glaurung’s crossing, but Dorlas chickens out and retreats in the woods, full of shame. Hunthor stays true, but just as Glaurung begins to make the crossing—totally unaware of the sneaky mortals—he starts with a great blast of fire to burn away the trees on the opposite side. The land shakes, the heat nearly overtakes the Men, and a big rock is dislodged in the tumult. The falling stone takes Hunthor right on the head, and he’s instantly killed and dropped into the river below. Ill luck indeed to be near Turambar.

But Turambar’s gamble still looks like it just might work, though it takes all his grit to make it happen as he scrambles up the wet rocks: If it doesn’t work, he’s toast. Turambar reaches a ledge just beneath the stretching dragon, and he draws out Gurthang, the Iron of Death. And it sure feels like in that moment, he should be saying: “Black blade! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my best friend and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of a Dark Elf in Nan Elmoth, go now and stab well!”

But no, that would be silly. There’s no time for a speech. Túrin Turambar drives the sword “with all the might of his arm, and his hate” right up into the more vulnerable belly of the dragon. Right to the hilt. Thus is Túrin truly the “bane of Glaurung,” as the narrator tried to spoil for us quite a while back.

“The Slaying of Glaurung” by Ted Nasmith

Well no one told Glaurung that! He sure hadn’t seen this coming. Perhaps he, too, was stricken with overconfidence and hubris. And look, no matter how bad things turn out for Túrin, he’ll still be given props by Elrond one day, and songs are made in memory of him, whereas everyone is going to—rightly—talk shit about Glaurung forever. It ultimately sucks to work for Morgoth. Sucks real bad.

Glaurung finishes his climb across the gorge, carrying the embedded Gurthang with him, but then he thrashes about, spraying fire willy-nilly, generally freaking out because he’s going to die and maybe he hadn’t gotten all his affairs in order. When he finally lies still, dying but still not quite dead, Túrin Turambar makes yet another poor decision. And this time no one’s around to hold his mead. He wants to get his sword back, and isn’t content to wait—Gurthang isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, right? Yet he feels the needs to mock his foe. Like father, like son, I suppose.

Turambar walks up to Glaurung and he’s all like, ’Sup, dragon? Or rather:

Hail, Worm of Morgoth! Well met again! Die now and the darkness have thee! Thus is Túrin son of Húrin avenged.

Of course, he’s congratulating himself much too soon. When Turambar draws Gurthang back out of the dragon’s body, with it comes a spurt of venomous black blood that splashes him on the hand. Glaurung opens his eyes and with one last little bit of malice his glare hits the Man like a blow to the head, and down he goes. Meanwhile, the venom of the dragon’s blood overtakes him and Turambar falls into a deathlike slumber.

Meanwhile, Níniel and the Haladin are nearby now, frightened because they mistook the bellows of Glaurung to be the dragon’s triumph. She shudders again by that “Rainy Stair” waterfall of shuddering, feeling that familiar dread creep over her. Which is when wretched Brandir limps up, thinking to whisk her away—if Túrin Turambar is dead, then maybe he and Níniel can find some kind of life together far from here. But it doesn’t work. She refuses to go with him, instead seeking out her husband, whatever his fate may be.

She follows the river until she finally comes upon the scene of ruin.

“Glaurung The Deceiver” by Çağlayan Kaya Göksoy

Glaurung is sprawled out. Turambar lies nearby, stricken. Dead? She hurries to him, washes his burned hand with tears and wraps the wound in a torn-off piece of her clothing, and tries to wake him. But it’s no use, like Juliet looking upon a supposedly dead Romeo. That’s when Glaurung stirs one last time. This is his death speech, his fell swan song. He’s either going to make a lewd joke or he’s going to say something that hurts her feelings. He’s all about hurting others’ feelings.

He calls her not Níniel but Nienor, daughter of Húrin, then rattles off something about being glad she finally got to find her…brother! Then he figuratively kicks Túrin while he’s down by calling the Man a bunch more names again. Because that guy just can’t have too many names. But Glaurung finishes his hurtful words to the pregnant Nienor with a real stinger.

But the worst of all his deeds thou shalt feel in thyself.

Some things were already cringe-worthy up until now, but this moment is as cruel and tragic as it gets, since the dragon is now referring to the unborn child inside her, a product of unknowing incest. Then Glaurung dies, speeding his evil spirit to wherever in Arda it came from, or maybe to some worse fate. He was a very Bad Dragon.

And now he’s an ex-dragon.

But Glaurung’s death unravels Nienor’s mind, unspools all that dreadful darkness, and utterly banishes the spell he’d placed upon her. Now she remembers everything, up to and including marrying her brother, Túrin son of Húrin, and some other stuff that’s now grim indeed.

Nienor is understandably horrified. First she cries a desperate farewell to Túrin, who she calls “twice beloved.” As icky as this whole situation is, it’s worth understanding that she recalls both halves of her life now: yes, she was the sister of Túrin and even though as his sister she never met him, she loved him still. She may have grown up idolizing him, hearing all about him first from Morwen then later from Thingol and Melian. But she can also recall knowing him not as her brother, but as a wife who shared her life with him in a short time of joy. And as an expectant mother.

But that’s little consolation now.

“Nienor and Túrin at Cabed-en-Aras” by Donato Giancola

She then does what’s proven to be a family trait: she runs. Lame Brandir has watched this unfold from nearby—had heard Glaurung’s revelation—and though he tries to stop her, he can’t possibly catch her.

Nienor runs to the same gorge where Glaurung had been gutted. The same precipice where the waterfall Nimrost looks upon, where as Níniel she once stopped and had a shuddering fit—a dark premonition of this very moment. Which, to me, ultimately creeps me out more than anything else in this chapter. It’s philosophically fascinating.

“The last moments of Nienor’s life” by O.G. (steamy)

and coming to the brink of Cabed-en-Aras she cast herself over, and was lost in the wild water.

Her body is never recovered. Nienor and her child are lost utterly to the World—and have probably moved into the Circles Beyond it. Brandir, who witnessed this, turns away, as do all. The site becomes a haunted place and it is—yes, of course—renamed. Formerly the Leap of the Deer (even that name being a premonition of this moment), now it is the Leap of Dreadful Doom.

Now comes all the fallout of these terrible developments. Brandir comes upon Dorlas—with whom he has some bone to pick—and manages to slay him there in the woods. He returns to the Haladin and reports on the respective deaths of Glaurung, Turambar, and Níniel, and then relays precisely what she had learned that made her leap to her death: Níniel is Nienor, Túrin’s own sister. He says nothing about Dorlas.

Of Turambar’s death Brandir dares to call “good tidings.” And then he gets to have one of those “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” moments. Because it turns out Turambar’s death was fake news, as the Man himself comes walking up. For a moment they think he’s a g-g-g-ghost… But he had simply awakened from his Shakespearean nap of misunderstood death. He sought everyone out, confused by the state of his awakening. Who had tended his hand? He demands to know where his wife, Níniel, is. Brandir says she is dead; she threw herself over the gorge.

But Brandir’s information has become suspect, and Turambar gets wrathful. Seeing where this is going, Brandir tells all: to Turambar’s face he tells him that he overheard Glaurung in his final moment, of Níniel’s true identity as Nienor daughter of Húrin, and that Túrin Turambar “was a curse unto his kin and to all that harboured him.” And that’s the last straw for the son of Húrin. He screams that Brandir’s words are false and right in front of everyone, he slays him with Gurthang. With this act of straight-up, cold-blooded murder, he’s finished with the people of Brethil. He then runs to the sacred mound where Finduilas had been buried. It’s the closest thing to a safe space for him, which is grim indeed, considering it’s a place of sorrow.

Here he reflects on everything, not knowing what to believe, unsure where to go next. And it’s here that Mablung and a group of Elves find him. At last. And in one of those rare moments, someone is glad to see Túrin and he tells him so. It’s only a short-lived balm on his soul, perhaps, because at Túrin’s prompting, Mablung tells him what knows about Morwen and Nienor, and how they met Glaurung at Nargothrond; Morwen was simply lost, while Nienor fell into a “spell of dumb forgetfulness” at the dragon’s behest. Not all of Brandir’s fake news was fake, after all.

Túrin, now perceiving the full horror of Glaurung’s deception, and Morgoth’s curse, and his own crimes, retorts with bitter words. Then he pulls a Túrin, fleeing again one last time. Mablung and the Elves are left standing, confused, and try to follow him. Túrin reaches the gorge and looks upon the roaring waters. He’s at the end of his tether. He’s got nothing left. He didn’t burn the candle at both ends; he cut the goddamned candle in half.

Now, I think it’s very easy to rag on Túrin, and there’s no question that he’s brought misery and ruin to a lot of people. It was never his intention, and from The Silmarillion and from the full tale provided elsewhere you can see he is possessed of pity, and a sense of justice. Even kindness at times. But it’s always wrapped up in chains and bloody decisions and tempered by the fact that an evil ex-Vala does have it in for him.

“Wilt thou take Túrin Turambar?” by Peter Xavier Price

Whenever I reread this final deed—the act of a noble warrior who lost the will the fight—I also like to remember that Túrin was a boy once. He knew Laughter before he knew Mourning. He had a stern yet strong mother who he took after. And he had a father who went off to war when he was only eight years old. There is a brief scene early in The Children of Húrin when the family is gathered together for the last time. Húrin is about to ride off to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, which will be his point of no return. But right then they still have hope, and expect to return to enjoy a midwinter feast and a “fearless spring after.” Húrin picks up his little boy and puts him on his shoulders, then calls out to the gathered warriors of Dor-lómin:

‘Let the heir of the House of Hador see the light of your swords!’ And the sun glittered on fifty blades as they leaped forth, and the court rang with the battle-cry of the Edain of the North.

But now Túrin, a thirtysomething Man who is accounted as one of the greatest of the First Age, slayer of the first dragon of Morgoth (and probably thousands of Orcs), now beseeches his black-bladed sword, Gurthang. He asks it if it will take his life, and slay him quickly. And in a cold voice it answers him, either in actuality as some vestigial remnant of its maker, or maybe just in his emotionally-haunted mind:

Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly.

“Túrin Prepares to Take His Life” by Ted Nasmith

And that’s all he needs to hear. Túrin Turambar, a Man of many names, friends, loves, and curses, places the hilt to the ground and casts himself upon the blade. Ending his own life. Game over.

Everyone thinks Tolkien’s is all dei ex machina and happy endings. Well, not this time. No Eagle swoops in to scoop up the sword first.

*Briefly, then it’s beyond the circles of the world for him!

The company of Elves comes upon the scene soon after, look upon Túrin, and they grieve. The lives of mortal Men are so short to the Elves, but shorter still when violence takes them. All the worse when it’s self-delivered. Mablung feels especially mournful for having played a part in the doom of Húrin’s kids. He declares that the tidings that he brought “have slain one that I loved.”

Many readers wonder why Túrin gets named by Elrond in the list of First Age heroes and Elf-friends. I mean, yeah, Túrin stopped Glaurung, who otherwise would have totally would have gone on wreak a hell of a lot more death and misery unchecked, starting with the forest of Brethil; armies couldn’t bring him down. But Túrin seems chiefly responsible for the ruined lives of a bunch of other people. And yeah, I suppose he is…along with the supernatural curse he rode in on.

But he doesn’t go down in the history of Middle-earth as a monster. He goes down as a hero, or one who tried to be, and as someone who was loved anyway. Mablung has it right. Think of it this way: Have you ever lost someone you loved but didn’t always agree with in life? Someone you actually fought a lot with? As the years go by, it’s easier to remember the good qualities, the reasons you loved them, and harder to remember the bad stuff. You usually forgive the bad, even if you don’t fully forget it.

In the aftermath, Túrin’s body is placed in a mound right where he died, along with the shattered remains of Gurthang, which broke at last. In a tombstone upon it the Elves of Doriath carve, in Sindarin, Túrin Turambar, Bane of Glaurung and then both of Nienor’s names below it.

“Túrin” by Kenneth Sofia

Third Age trivia: Aragorn, son of Arathorn, racks up more names and titles in his life than Túrin ever does. Like, more than twice as many, if you count translations and nicknames. Now to be fair, Strider lives much, much longer than Túrin, makes way better decisions, and wears humility instead of pride through his years of hardship. There’s less fanfare and emo drama with each naming, and the King of Gondor certainly doesn’t really need to rebrand himself so much as take on new roles. But credit where credit’s due: Elessar a.k.a. Thorongil a.k.a. Longshanks a.k.a. Wingfoot doesn’t slay a single dragon.

Well, in the next installment, we come to Chapter 22, “Of the Ruin of Doriath,” wherein the camera pans back over to Húrin so we can see how he’s handling things. Also, we’ll try and determine which Elf-realm is the next to fall. (Hint: it’s right there in the dang chapter title.)

Top image from “The Glance of Glaurung” by Alexey Rudikov

Jeff LaSala can’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone. But Tolkien geekdom aside, he wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books. He is sometimes on Twitter.

Who works harder in a fantasy novel than the trusty and ubiquitous horse?

I have my favorites. I invite you all to tell us about yours in the comments.

Light spoilers for The Lord of the Rings and HBO’s Game of Thrones.

So, to begin, here are three fantasy worlds and the horses whose labor helps to keep them running (and traveling and fighting and hauling and plowing and…):

Andre Norton’s Witch World

Illustration by Laurence Schwinger

Horses in the Witch World are mostly transportation, and almost never individuals. But I have to give props to the rare and unusual breed ridden by the Wereriders.

The common or garden variety of horse cannot tolerate the presence of a Were, as poor misplaced Kethan learns all too quickly in The Jargoon Pard. Clearly horses are picking up the presence of the predator behind the human guise, and they’re not having any.

The Weres’ mounts are different. They’re built differently, and their brindle coloring is distinctive. And most important of all, they don’t mind being ridden by beings who can transform into their natural enemies.

Yes, yes, one of the Weres takes stallion form, but stallions are the enforcers of the horse world, and can be quite aggressive. Add the peculiar magic and the air of otherness that goes along with being a shapeshifter, and you’ve still got a combination of signals that says to a horse, Danger. Run Away.

So Weres are best served by their own breed, which does not share the instincts or the reactivity of the rest of the species. They serve well and with minimal fanfare, and I wish we knew more about them. As, you know, one (if one is a horse person) does.

The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien was not a horseman that I know of; he certainly wasn’t noted for his real-world interactions with the species. And yet he paid attention to them. He gave them names and personalities. He populated his world with different breeds and types. They were more than mechanisms to move people and armies from place to place; they were characters in their own right.

The big blazing star of the epic of course is Shadowfax, the King of the Mearas, which essentially makes him the ruler of the horses of the West. He’s a classic fantasy horse: pure white, royal, exceedingly intelligent, with endless stamina and world-beating speed. And of course, no mere mortal may touch him. He’s a one-Wizard horse, and he and Gandalf are partners through the War of the Ring.

At the other end of the noble-hero spectrum is good old Bill the Pony. He’s a rescue, saved from an abusive owner by Sam Gamgee (who is the same kind of homespun hero), and in his way, he’s as valuable to the story as Shadowfax. He serves as pack pony for the Fellowship, and has to be abandoned outside of Moria—but being a smart and practical pony, he finds his way to Tom Bombadil’s stable, and Tom sells him back to a much better owner in Bree. In the end, he and Sam are reunited, and we can presume he lives out his life as Sam’s friend and regular mount.

These aren’t the only named horses in the books. Glorfindel, the High Elf who helps to rescue Frodo from the Black Riders, rides the Elf-horse Asfaloth, who clearly has powers of his own. (I wonder if Elf-horses are immortal, too?) And Tom Bombadil has a whole herd of ponies led by the somewhat insultingly named Fatty Lumpkin.

And of course there are Hasufel and Arod, the horses of Rohan given by Eomer to Aragorn and Legolas. They’re quietly there through much of the story, though Hasufel slides from sight after the Dunedain arrive with Aragorn’s own horse, Roheryn. Arod continues to carry Legolas and the very unwilling Gimli, all the way through to the harbors of Umbar. Then I hope he’s taken care of and returned home to Rohan, though we aren’t told what becomes of him.

Most of these don’t make it into the films, or aren’t named when they appear, but in the extended versions more than the theatrical releases, there’s sturdy and loyal Brego, who had been Theoden’s son’s horse before he was killed, and whom Aragorn claimed for himself in Edoras. Brego rescues Aragorn after the Warg-rider attack, which is excellent service in any universe. (And actor Viggo Mortensen bought him after the films wrapped, which has always made me happy.)

Finally, let’s give a moment’s thought (and prayer) to the horses of the Nazgul, who like Norton’s Were-mounts are distinctively able to tolerate riders who would drive any other horse mad with fear. That’s heroism of a quiet and terrible kind.

Game of Thrones

I’m referencing the television series here; I confess I’ve only read part of the first book. There aren’t any named horses that I’ve observed (though I gather they exist in the books), but the series is still full of horses-as-subtle-characters. Horse people notice; it’s a thing.

Khal Drogo’s wedding gift to Dany: In the books I hear she’s named The Silver, and she doesn’t drop dead the way she does in the series. I’m glad about that. She doesn’t get much air time, but she’s lovely and she says a lot about how the Khal feels about his new wife.

Ser Loras Tyrell’s mare and the Mountain’s stallion: Ouch. Evil trick on Loras’ part, and graphic demonstration that the Mountain has serious anger-management issues. I will note that while tempting a stallion with a mare in heat can work, [a] a properly trained war stallion will have learned to control himself regardless of his hormonal status, so this is a poor reflection on both his trainer and his rider, and [b] the mare would telegraph her own status for the whole world to see, by standing at the end of the lists, throwing her tail up over her back, squatting, and peeing a river at the stallion. With probable sexy sound effects.

Normally I’d say this would be problematical on screen, but this is premium cable and very little else has been left to the imagination. Missed opportunity here.

Jaime Lannister’s white charger: He will do anything for his rider, and in the end he does, in a crazy, suicidal charge against the biggest of all big predators. R.I.P.

With brief salute to the next horse Jaime is seen riding, a rather nice Friesian. (We will not discuss here why this breed is not one I’d choose for a long journey in winter. It’s the optics that count. Black horse, white landscape. Hokay. Also perhaps some symbolism in the shift from white horse to black, but that remains to be seen.)

Uncle Benjen’s horse: First seen carrying the Stark kids’ favorite uncle. Later seen coming back to Castle Black minus his rider. Much later, seen again, more than once, with Undead Benjen, or is it a different horse? And is it alive? Or undead? Last seen in a desperate last-ditch rescue, with one final dramatic return to the Wall. That horse gets around.

They’re dead and presumably long past caring, but the White Walkers’ mounts have a lot of work to do out there in the ice and snow, packing their riders from one end of a large land mass to the other, and doing it at the same funereal pace regardless of where or when they are or who is charging against them.

And last but far from least, a tip of the helmet to the mule pulling the Wight wagon. This tidy, shiny, well-kept equid joins the Were-horses and the Nazgul mounts on the roster of horses doing their job against all their natural instincts, hitched to a cart carrying an existential horror, and barely turning a long elegant ear. Respect.

And that’s my shortlist of favorite working fantasy horses (and mule). I’d love to hear about yours.

This article was originally published in September 2017.

Judith Tarr is a lifelong horse person. She supports her habit by writing works of fantasy and science fiction as well as historical novels, many of which have been published as ebooks by Book View Cafe. Her most recent short novel, Dragons in the Earth, features a herd of magical horses, and her space opera, Forgotten Suns, features both terrestrial horses and an alien horselike species (and space whales!). She lives near Tucson, Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans, a clowder of cats, and a blue-eyed dog.

In many ways the conception of Valentine’s Day feels a bit like a science fiction thing, or at the very least, an urban legend. Unlike Saint Patrick, who totally, for real, drove snakes out of Ireland (maybe), details about exactly what Saint Valentine did are dubiously muddled and/or non-existent. The essential fact is this: at some point there was a Saint Valentine who was certainly a martyr, so it might as well be for love!

But when you stop to reflect on it, science fiction and fantasy is lousy with martyrs, and we probably know much more about them than we’ll ever know about Saint Valentine. Here are seven martyrs who keep sci-fi and fantasy going, mostly because they seem to always come back after they’ve died!

The Doctor (Doctor Who)

The Doctor is interesting because he performs martyr-like actions but has to live through, and with, the consequences in the next Regeneration. It’s such a great sci-fi trick, especially coupled with the show’s wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey shenanigans: we live through the trauma of the Ninth Doctor’s martyr complex / amnesiac survivor’s guilt long before ever meeting his predecessor, the War Doctor. But whether he’s absorbing the time vortex, or shielding a friend from a massive dose of radiation, or simply saving Christmas, the nu-Who Doctors carried on a tradition of martyrdom with a sci-fi resurrection twist.

Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings)

The most prominent fantasy martyr also gets to return with a shiny new upgrade, although unlike the Doctor, the grey wizard doesn’t expect a second chance to rejoin his friends in Middle-earth. So it’s a good thing he ends on a high note with one of the best parting lines of all time: “Fly, you fools!” Gandalf is so badass that he insults you while he’s saving you from the Balrog. It’s hard to be a cooler martyr than Gandalf, though some have tried.

John Sheridan (Babylon 5)

Speaking of people who return from the dead slightly weirder than before, Sheridan from Babylon 5 martyrs himself to take down the Shadows, but is able to return thanks to the power of his love for Delenn. Anyway, if he hadn’t blown himself up, the other alien races probably wouldn’t have gotten on board with the whole fighting the darkness thing. Good work, Sheridan!

Spock (Star Trek)

In many ways, Spock is a career martyr. He’s always trying to sacrifice and/or punish himself for stuff in the original TV show. In “Operation: Annihilate!” he nearly blinds himself in order to kill the creepy parasite/flying pancake things. In “Amok Time” he promptly decides to turn himself into the space cops after he thinks he’s killed Kirk, and of course there’s that whole radiation poisoning/fixing the warp drive stunt he pulled in The Wrath of Khan. Though Bones “liked him better before he died,” Spock actually doesn’t become an asshole when he gets resurrected, and his martyr-like behavior (whether he actually dies or not) usually is truly selfless. One of the reasons we like Spock so much is precisely because of this quality: if Spock were a celebrity pop star, he’d probably ONLY do charity concerts. And he’d mean it.

Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Buffy has been shuffled off this mortal coil only to be resurrected more than once, and she might have been a whole lot happier staying dead. When Buffy comes back from some heaven-like place following her second major life sacrifice in season five, she tries to keep the truth from her friends—being done with the whole slaying thing had been awesome. But she gets it together once more, becomes a counselor at school, then a Slayer grand dame, and keeps saving the world over and over. It’s not just the fact that Buffy has sacrificed herself, it’s that she will never stop doing it—maybe not always by physically giving up her life, but by repeatedly sacrificing her love life, her friends and associates, and her personal happiness. Heck, it turns out that dying was the easy part.

Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock)

Though the martyrdom of Sherlock Holmes is not technically science fiction or fantasy (though I truly believe you can make a case for it being in the genre!) it has become significant recently, perhaps more than ever before. Yes, readers famously wore black armbands after Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Holmes in “The Final Problem,” but that swell of devotion may have been eclipsed recently by the “I Believe in Sherlock” fan phenomenon which popped up on the Internet after the airing of “The Reichenbach Fall.” As many have pointed out before, any adaptation of “The Final Problem” is poised to be better than the original, because Conan Doyle clearly didn’t give a shit about that story making sense. BBC’s Sherlock crafted perhaps the best possible version of this story by having Sherlock’s martyrdom not only be accomplished by his death, but also the complete loss of his precious reputation. His phone call to John might just be the most heartbreaking Sherlock Holmes-related moment of all time.

Valentine Michael Smith (Stranger in a Strange Land)

Did you think we’d get through a Valentine’s Day martyr post without mentioning the guy who has “Valentine” in his name? Way to be subtle, Robert A. Heinlein! We know there are an infinite number of opinions about Stranger in a Strange Land, but beyond having an awesome title (and premise) the final scenes of Valentine Michael Smith’s life easily qualify him for best genre martyr ever. Not only did this character introduce the word “grok” into the pop cultural lexicon, he also inverted all the mores of the future world in which he lived. And how did society repay him? Mob violence takes him down! Luckily, he gets to talk to his pal Jubal from the afterlife, and the book about his life is still in print and readily available. Now, we know this might be an inappropriate time to bring this up, but where’s our damn Stranger in a Strange Land movie already? And why is Michael Fassbender not playing Valentine Michael Smith?

In any case, Happy Martyr Day, everyone!

Originally published in February 2013

In Which Morgoth Gets His Ass Handed To Him, the Last Sons of Fëanor Find Time To Make One More Bad Decision, and Beleriand Starts Taking On Water

Well, we’re down to it at last. The final showdown of the First Age, which gets less page space than any of the Wars of Beleriand—and yet it’s the greatest conflict of them all. We’ve not seen this sort of mayhem since the Valar mopped the floor with Morgoth back when his library card still read “Melkor.” And that was arguably a more discreet event, since the Valar were then trying to shelter the newly awakened Elves!

The second half of Chapter 24 is a bit like the rushed ending of a really great novel—something even the best authors can be guilty of. But it’s not the ending of The Silmarillion, just the Quenta Silmarillion, the history of the First Age which centers around the Noldor and those pesky Silmarils. So let’s get right into it.

Dramatis personæ of note:

• Eönwë – Maia, Manwë’s right-hand man
• Eärendil – Half-Elf, star-studded dragonslayer
• Maedhros – Noldo, tragic one-handed son of Fëanor (eldest)
• Maglor – Noldo, hapless two-handed son of Fëanor (next eldest)
• Morgoth – Ex-Vala, World’s Greatest Asshole
• Sauron – Maia, Assistant to the World’s Greatest Asshole

Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath, Part 2

When last we looked, Eärendil had taken to the heavens on his ship, Vingilot, and now he carries a Silmaril around the world as a new star. Taken together, the Eärendil + Silmaril combo is called Gil-Estel by the Elves, which means Star of High Hope. (Note: millennia from now, a two-year-old Aragorn will be given the name Estel while his lineage was kept secret “until the proper time.”)

“Eärendil the Mariner” by Adrian Bara

But now, spurred to action by Eärendil’s great voyage, the Valar are going on crusade! Morgoth’s crossed too many red lines, and they’re pissed—wrathful, even, and probably have been for a long time. The polite and courageous request of one of Ilúvatar’s own children was all they needed to let slip the Valinorean hounds of war.

The host of the Valar is thus borne across Belegaer, the Great Sea, in ships lent to them, and manned by, the Teleri. Thus the Vanyar, some Noldor, and a whole lotta Maiar storm the beaches of Beleriand where Morgoth presumes to reign. Now, the Teleri doing the actual marine work refuse to set foot on shore; instead, they hang back on their ships. Which seems fair. They still hold a grudge against the rebellious Noldor for what they did, and will go no further in helping to liberate those who remain. Plus, they have another reason to be wary: those arsonistic sons of Fëanor might still be lurking about.

“Vanyar” by Janka Látečková

Now, it’s the Maiar and possibly some of the Valar who are the mysterious ones in this host, for we are told that they are now “arrayed in forms young and fair and terrible.” See, we know that only Ainur (i.e. Valar and Maiar) can alter their bodies and shapes in such ways. And the host of the Valar is not subtle, and so their forms are probably not small and Elven-soft. The mountains ring beneath their feet and all of Beleriand is “ablaze with the glory of their arms.” Wow. Are, like, a bunch of them assembling, Voltron-style, and advancing towards Angband like some great titan? Either way, I would so love to see the expressions on the faces of the first Orcs who caught sight of this host.

But what a wonderful invitation to imagine! Tolkien gives us very little to work with, in part because the chief storytellers of this time were the Elves of Beleriand, and they’re not at all involved in this war. They learn only after the fact about how things went down. So that means we as readers are left with questions like:

• Is Eönwë, “whose might in arms in surpassed by none in Arda,” some kind of giant-sized knight?
• Are there Maiar of Yavanna who march out like colossal animals? Some sort of Tolkien-style kaiju? That would be boss.
• How luminous and awesome would the elite of Varda, Lady of the Stars, be?
• Does Tulkas send a brute squad, like a gang of pro-wrestlers who favor brawn over brain in the field of combat? Or is he the brute squad?
• Is Oromë getting in on the action? There’s no way his hunters and hounds aren’t here. And who knows, maybe the spirit of Huan leads them once again!
• Are there other good spirits of fire here, counterparts to the Balrogs (like Arien, the maiden who took up the task of bearing the Sun on its celestial course)?
• What form would warriors of Vairë the Weaver take? How badass would they be with their nets and spears? Do Mandos’s servants dish out bardic recitations?
• Are there earth elemental-style Maiar who serve Aulë, or am I just unable to turn off my D&D sensibilities?

Buy it Now

Whatever it really looks like, what follows is the War of Wrath—and because it’s covered so succinctly in the text, it’s easy to assume that it’s fast and fierce. But it’s more likely a long and protracted conflict. This is truly a war, not a battle. According to The War of the Jewels (vol XI of the History of Middle-earth) we learn that the host of the West reaches Beleriand in the year 545 of the First Age, yet the war doesn’t conclude until roughly forty-five years later. Now recall that these combatants are among the mightiest beings in the world…it’s no wonder Beleriand gets so torn up.

The Valar do not wage war lightly. They cannot afford to; the resultant devastation is much too great. Even if a representative of the Two Kindreds had gotten a hold of a Silmaril much earlier—like, say, before the fall of Nargothrond—and made it to Aman to entreat the Valar for aid, I don’t think they’d have taken action right away. At least, not like this. There were too many Elves and Men scattered about the lands then; too many towers and fortresses—too many communities. Too many lives of the Children of Ilúvatar at stake, and the Valar do not forget for whom Arda was made in the first place.

To say nothing of the devastation to the flora and fauna—possibly some mass extinctions—which are sure to follow. How bummed must Yavanna be about what’s coming? Although she always wanted to go after Morgoth, the natural world has really flourished since the rising of the Sun. I’m betting she’s the last of the Valar to consent to this Great War.

Morgoth responds with a terrifyingly large force of his own. It’s a bit ironic, actually. He himself is the physically weakest he’s ever been, since he’s spent so much of his Vala-born power in marring the world and inflating his monsters. Yet because he has done so, and because he’s been uncontested for decades now, his armies have never been stronger. Just how numerous have they become? Well, beyond count:

There was marshalled the whole power of the Throne of Morgoth, and it had become great beyond count, so that Anfauglith could not contain it; and all the North was aflame with war.

“The Gates of Angband” by Ivan

See that? The vast plain of Gasping Dust, where the Nirnaeth Arnoediad was principally fought, isn’t a big enough field to even temporarily hold his forces. How deep Angband is—or how vast the tunnels beneath the Iron Mountains must be—that his Orcs and wolves and werewolves and vampires and trolls and Balrogs can’t even fit onto his very prodigious front lawn! These forces have only multiplied, it seems, since he took over the North. So we’re talking huge armies, even more massive than those involved in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears or the Battle of Sudden Flame.

But now the skies resound with the trumpets of Eönwë, who, as the herald of Manwë and the master of arms, is essentially the general of this invading force. He likely has his own kick-ass marching band wherein seventy-six trumpets lead the big parade way and, I guess, Valinorean-style sousaphones brings up the rear? Followed then by a host of warriors.

You know who’s not in this war? The Elves of Middle-earth, which includes the Noldor, the scattered Sindar, or even the Green-elves of Ossiriand. Not a one. Cowed by all their defeats, they’re sitting this one out. Also not taking any official part in this war are the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains (though they will be impacted, as we’ll see soon).

But guess who does join up with the host of the Valar? Men! You know, those measly Secondborn Children of Ilúvatar: the Sickly, the Usurpers, the Strangers, the Followers. To be fair, we’re talking about only the last remnants of the Edain, the three houses of Elf-friends (Bëor, Hador, and Haleth). But still, good on them! Their valor has always been lauded. And anyway, at this point, what have they got to lose? Their lives? Death is an escape from the hurts of the world, and from Morgoth’s reach.

That said, Easterlings join in the fighting as well, and they’re backing the very wrong horse. We’re talking about the people of Uldor (son of the treacherous Ulfast), who may or may not include the Easterlings that were “rewarded” with the occupation of Hithlum. But also other Men from east of the Blue Mountains come streaming over, likewise siding with Morgoth, “and the Elves do not forget it.”

Now, this clash of armies is so colossal and epic that we get…welp, pretty much nothing. Except for the bottom line, which doesn’t look good for Morgoth. Again, try and remember this isn’t just some skirmish on a bigger scale; it stretches on for years—decades!—no doubt involving prolonged campaigns, risky strategies, and setbacks on both sides. Think the Crusades meets World War I…and II, for that matter.

“War of Wrath” by Firat Solhan

So how do Morgoth’s armies fare? Well, we’ve never seen his armies so deliciously defeated as described in this prose:

The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caves inaccessible at the roots of the earth; and the uncounted legions of the Orcs perished like straw in a great fire, or were swept like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind.

Ohhhh snap!

So, all right, a trifling number of Balrogs seem to have gotten away, but they’ve gone underground now—but not back into Angband, instead finding super-deep places to hide out. As long as no one delves too greedily and too deep elsewhere in Middle-earth, I don’t think anyone needs to worry about these guys again. And the Orcs? They’re donezo, at least for a good long time.

At this point, Morgoth is given pause. He sees the Tengwar writing on the wall. The Valar are coming for him at last; it turns out Manwë wasn’t just going to let the depredations of half a millennium slide. Back in the days of Utumno, Morgoth was a force to be reckoned with. He was not so diminished from his Ainulindalë days, when he was “clad in ice and crowned with smoke and fire,” and it took the combined efforts of the Valar to simply apprehend him.

“Morgoth, He Who Arises in Might” by Dymond Starr

But now? No way can he stand up to Eönwë and his lionhearted forces in the flesh. Therefore he plays his final card, hoping it’s a real ace in the hole. If by “hole” we mean the voluminous pits of Angband, and by “ace” we mean dragons. Winged goddamn dragons! Fresh out of Morgoth’s R&D.

So off these flying fire-drakes go, to take on the host of the Valar.

Now, I do admittedly have a couple of questions myself: Were these winged dragons field-tested in the Iron Mountains first, or did they somehow have sufficient flyspace in deep caverns? And what harm would it have been to release the flying dragons earlier? Maybe they’re too testy, and too hungry. Maybe they’d eat and burn up too many Orcs if both forces were loosed in tandem? Maybe the dragons aren’t necessarily as loyal as their old granddaddy, Glaurung, had been?

See, even if Gondolin had lasted for some years more, once the Dark Lord got these winged dragons out and about, they’d have spotted the Hidden City in no time. Eagles be damned. Still, Morgoth’s dragon gambit in the War of Wrath pays off for a while.

…and so sudden and ruinous was the onset of that dreadful fleet that the host of the Valar was driven back, for the coming of the dragons was with great thunder, and lightning, and a tempest of fire.

“Ancalagon the Black” by Çağlayan Kaya Göksoy

For some perspective on this: Remember when it was just Glaurung and a few of his wingless runts? Even Calaquendi Elves couldn’t withstand him! Only the Aulë-wrought Dwarves with their hardy skins and hardier battle masks were able to square off against them. But this new batch? There’s a freakin’ fleet now, and they’re all flying. The invading host can’t stave these fire-drakes off completely. Sure, no doubt plenty of Maiar can face their mettle, but dragons are the work of Arda’s formerly most powerful dweller. Morgoth himself might be much weaker than he was in his heyday, but his monsters are jacked up.

We’re also introduced oh-so-briefly to the mightiest of these dragons and probably the physically largest: Ancalagon the Black! We really only get this one moment with him, sadly, but he must feature into some stories that get passed down through the ages, since Gandalf brings him up like he’s a household name when telling Frodo about how the One Ring is impervious even to dragon-fire. Not even Ancalagon the Black, the wizard points out, would have been able to destroy this ring! So this drake’s breath must be truly toasty.

Anyway, these dragons might account for some of the years that go by, while the host of the Valar contend with them. They’re Morgoth’s big guns. But eventually the armies of the West do rally and retaliate, and more important, they finally get some air support.

Support, you might say, unlooked for that cometh at unawares!

“The Dragon and the Star” by Manuel Castañón

Because this is when Eärendil the mariner swooshes in, apparently taking a break from circumnavigating the world outside the Door of Night. From the deck of a white-gleaming, star-blazing Vingilot, he flies down into the fray but never touches down: Eärendil honors Manwë’s ruling that he cannot return to Middle-earth. Floating above it is a convenient loophole, (though rules-lawyer Mandos must surely disapprove).

Accompanying Eärendil are “all the birds of heaven”—that is, all of Manwë’s special ops. That’s right, the Eagles are coming! Of course, they’re led by none other than old Thirty-Fathom Thorondor, who we may all remember from such marrings as Morgoth’s face and such Elf-corpse retrievals as Fingolfin’s and Glorfindel’s.

And as the Eagles take on the dragons (feathers vs. leathers!), we’re given a solid measure of time, as the whirling and battling of these combatants lasts for a single “day and a night of doubt.”

“The Eagles of Manwë” by Kip Rasmussen

It culminates just before the rising of the Sun the next morning. Normally this is when folks would see the morning star in the sky—but right now it’s beaming out from Eärendil’s brow, and he’s way too busy battling the greatest dragon ever, thank you very much.

Eärendil does prevail, slaying Ancalagon the Black. We’re not sure how—it really doesn’t matter, as any detailed description of this amazing battle could fall short of its mythic power—but I have to think our hero is clad in the chainmail armor and rune-scored shield mentioned in Bilbo’s song. His dragon-horn bow launches arrows of ebony, his “sword of steel” is valiant, and let’s not forget the Silmaril strapped to his head which is sure to boost his every attack and damage roll against creatures of Morgoth.

“Eärendil and the Battle of Eagles and Dragons” by Ted Nasmith

Anyway…

Ancalagon is eventually thrown down from the sky, right on top of the ginormous, slag-based baking soda volcano that Morgoth named Thangorodrim. These three monstrous peaks have endured as the metonymic symbol of the Dark Lord’s menace for a loooong time. They were the very towers of dread that Fëanor himself looked upon in his dying moments only to realize that the full might of the Noldor would never overcome them. But now, by the initiative of the Valar, the hope of the West, and the mariner most renowned, a very large dragon has been cast upon these towers and they break under the force.

Most of the dragons are slain, but of course, some do live on to breed another day. I mean, some future mama dragon is going to have to birth baby Smaug someday, right? The Lonely Mountain and the vast treasures of Erebor aren’t going to conquer themselves in the Third Age!

So this just leaves the head honcho himself. The Big Cheese of Evil. The OG Dark Lord.

“Morgoth, He Who Arises in Might” by Dymond Starr

Eönwë and his host overtake the now unguarded Angband, unbattening all the hatches and tearing off its roofs. Pits are exposed and all monstrous guardians (if there are even any left) are routed and slain. Morgoth himself is now cornered in his dungeons, defeated. The text tells us “the might of the Valar descended into the deeps of the earth,” which to me really does imply that at least some of the Valar themselves are here—as they were the last time they came down and ripped the black sheep of the Valar out of his hidey-hole.

Like a bully who’s finally been stood up to, Morgoth abases himself, asking for “peace and pardon.” Like, hey, I was only kidding! Can’t you all take a joke? Well, his feet are “hewed from under him,” so he’s laid low by warriors probably smaller than he—likely some valiant Vanyar or Noldor. Then he’s thrown down right onto his freakin’ face, and…I’m sorry, but I have to think Tulkas is on the scene for this. He’s been dreaming of this moment for a long time, no question. Morgoth is no match for him—not even close, especially now that he’s squandered so much of his strength in polluting the world.

In the very least, I like to think there are a series of punches from Tulkas the Strong. “This *punch* is for Telperion, and this *punch* is for Laurelin. This *punch* is for Finwe, and *punch* Fingolfin, and this *punch* is for stringing along Fëanor and ruining him, and this *punch* is for the way you looked at Nessa that one time, and maybe this *punch* for ogling Lúthien. And this *punch* is for…” The list in my head is long but distinguished.

“Tulkas Chaining Morgoth as Eönwë Holds the Iron Crown” by Kip Rasmussen

At some point, out comes Angainor, that big chain he wore once back in the day, when the Valar had some shred of patience for him yet.

and his iron crown they beat into a collar for his neck, and his head was bowed upon his knees.

Such an evocative image, and such a symbolic one! So you’re King of the World, eh? Nice crown you got there, asshole; but we think it would look better around your traitorous neck! Yes, of course, all the Valar are too classy to say anything like that (but Tulkas is definitely thinkin’ it). Given that Aulë himself had fashioned the chain Angainor, I wonder if he or at least some of his Maiar are the ones to repurpose Morgoth’s crown and hammer it into its new form, probably right there in the sub-basement of Angband. Bonus points if Angband is now so thoroughly ruined that the Sun comes beaming down on him, just to add further injury.

Either way, Morgoth is then dragged away. But we haven’t quite seen the last of him. Sit tight.

What’s also really cool, but very easy to overlook, is the fact that at this point “a multitude of slaves” is released from Morgoth’s prisons. We’ve seen this sort of thing before, such as when Lúthien freed the slaves at Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Sauron’s Isle of Werewolves. But this is Angband and the numbers are much greater. This motherlode of ex-captives could be a whole bunch of Noldor, Sindar, and Men of all stripes who have heretofore been unaccounted for—and therefore might well represent more of the people, or the ancestors of the people, who live on in future ages.

And at long last, after some six hundred years or so, the Silmarils are reclaimed! Well, two of them. That third one is still stuck to Eärendil’s forehead, and it’s going to keep on encircling the world with him till the end of time world is remade. So Eönwë takes charge of these two jewels of Fëanor, and he sets a guard on them in his camp until such time as they’re shipped back to Valinor. There are many possibilities for the Silmarils now. They can be placed somewhere for all to view and enjoy, or maybe—just maybe—they Valar will find a way (sans Fëanor) to “unlock” them and allow Yavanna to rekindle the Two Trees or something amazeballs like that.

But we need to talk about the destruction of Beleriand and its realms, which has been hinted at and voiced more than a few times throughout the book. By the time of the final confrontation with Morgoth, the land had already begun to change. To…well…sink.

For so great was the fury of those adversaries that the northern regions of the western world were rent asunder, and the sea roared in through many chasms, and there was confusion and great noise; and rivers perished or found new paths, and the valleys were upheaved and the hills trod down; and Sirion was no more.

“Ulmo Holds Back the Great Sea” by Kip Rasmussen

So, two things about this.

One, “so great was the fury of those adversaries” sure sounds like some actual Valar were battling Morgoth’s forces in person (though no, it’s not definitive, and it’s likely not all of them). Recall that when the Valar had punched their way into Morgoth’s old fortress of Utumno thousands of years ago, they rocked the land dramatically enough that the Elves at Cuiviénen felt it in the earth beneath them and heard the clamor from afar. The Great Sea expanded, pushing Aman and Middle-earth further apart. Yet even back then the Valar hadn’t wrecked as massive a piece of the continent as they have now in the War of Wrath. Maiar can be mighty, but this feels like the combined firepower of some heavy-handed Valar as well.

Two, the sinking of Beleriand isn’t happening overnight. Though most of it will fall under the waves entirely, it takes time for the rivers and seas to wash over the land. It’s not like the slaves freed in Angband come walking out and find themselves scrambling for lifeboats. Beleriand’s changing, but it’s not gone yet. And in the events that follow below, there is obviously still some land left to walk around on for a while. But I do think it’s safe to say that all Elves and Men are forced to shuffle around—or more likely, be shuffled around by Valinorean ushers—during this time. This chapter is so concise that we have to connect some dots ourselves.

Oh, wait. Here’s a third thing that no one really talks about. Going back to that passage…

and Sirion was no more.

Yes, this is all a great calamity to many—Ainur, immortals, and mortals alike—watching Beleriand swallowed up like this. I can’t help but think that Aulë and Yavanna would find the loss especially sorrowful. Aulë was aggrieved the last time the Vala battled Melkor, knowing how much it would harm the earth. And now? All those wonderful mountains and caves and valleys and tors and ravines and hills…they’re all just collapsing and going under. And Yavanna! She has so many of her creatures living in these lands, innumerable plants and animals—possibly whole species!—surely wiped out. The Ents, as we learn from Treebeard later, have moved eastward, at least.

But see, Sirion itself gets called out in the text where other rivers do not. We know Ulmo must be bummed. This was his favorite river! (With Gelion a close second.) The mighty Sirion was his buddy; through it he had aided the folks of Beleriand quite a few times: Turgon, Finrod, Húrin, Tuor, and on. Yes, water is water, and it all drains back to his oceans. But rivers, like all natural things, have an identity to the Valar…and to Tolkien. A moment of silence, then, for the drowned River Sirion.

“War of Wrath” (closeup) by Firat Solhan

In the meantime, Eönwë is still in charge of what’s going on in Middle-earth. If any of the Valar had come out for the fighting, they’ve probably retreated now, steering clear of Middle-earth as much as possible for their own overarching reasons. And so it falls to Manwë’s agent to issue a new summons to the Elves of [the currently sinking] Beleriand: they can, perhaps even should, now depart from Middle-earth and go to Valinor. The time of the Elves is already waning anyway, and had been since the rising of the Sun.

But think of this as a soft summons, because the Firstborn are not so much ordered out of Middle-earth as shown the door. It’s a door, we will see for at least two long ages more, that will stay open and be manned by Círdan the Shipwright. But it’s only for Elves. Remember that. There will be a quiz.

Meanwhile, Maedhros and Maglor have found themselves in a truly sticky situation. Eönwë has the Silmarils, and he’s right here! And by their Oath, the must now go after him. They deliberate and grieve over it; neither of them actually wants to do it. Are there any loopholes they can exploit? Not really. And rather than going up to Eönwë himself in person, they send messengers to his camp as part of their ask-nicely-for-the-Silmarils-first policy.

Eönwë simply responds that NO, the Silmarils are not his to yield. Essentially, they’re exhibits A and B in the custody of the court of Valinor. Furthermore, his messengers respond, the sons of Fëanor have lost all rights to the Silmarils anyway. They might have had a legitimate claim before, but that’s all gone now, especially after all the horrendous things they’ve done in their name. The Silmarils are now set to return to Valinor, where they were made. Oh, and also: Maedhros and Maglor are hereby ordered to appear in Valinor and face the judgement of the Valar. The last remaining sons of Fëanor have been subpoenaed.

So here’s a question some might have in regards to the M-brothers, but could also be applied to other circumstances (such as Eärendil’s quest earlier in this chapter). The question is, why is there a need to go all the way to Valinor to ask for pardon or to face judgement? Why couldn’t Eärendil (or others) merely stand on the shores of Middle-earth and supplicate the gods from afar? Surely Manwë and Varda can see and hear.

And for Maedhros and Maglor in their situation, couldn’t Manwë have just handed out a judgement right here in Beleriand? Or might this be proof that that the Valar didn’t appear in the War of Wrath? Why would Eönwë direct the sons of Fëanor to first travel all the way back to Valinor in Manwë was already here? Can’t he just point and say “take it up with the big guy”? Well, for one, even if some of his brethren did come, Manwë himself almost certainly didn’t leave his halls atop Taniquetil, the Holy Mountain.

Tolkien addresses this sort of thing in Morgoth’s Ring (vol X of the History of Middle-earth):

He, like Melkor, practically never is seen or heard of outside or far away from his own halls and permanent residence. Why is this? For no very profound reason. The Government is always in Whitehall. King Arthur is usually in Camelot or Caerleon, and news and adventures come there and arise there. . . . Even to the final war against Morgoth it is [Eönwë] who leads out the power of the Valar. When we move out Manwë it will be the last battle, and the end of the World (or of ‘Arda Marred’) as the Eldar would say.

Simply put, that’s not how it is done in the great tales. To put it yet another way, here are similar words from Tolkien’s friend, C.S. Lewis, who in his book Mere Christianity could just as well be speaking of Manwë or Ilúvatar himself:

But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realise what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over.

With this in mind, let’s return to the sons of Fëanor. Maglor tries to convince his big brother to just lay their Oath aside and trust the mercy of the Valar. Maybe Manwë and Varda, being King and Queen of all Arda, can straight-up void it for them? At least, he suggests, maybe they can let it rest for a while. The Oath never said they couldn’t procrastinate, and they’ve certainly done it before. But apparently their daddy issues win out, as does their fear of the cosmic power that Fëanor had invoked in making the Oath in the first place.

And so one last lamentable decision is made, and yet they know they’re in the wrong. The two brothers sneak into Eönwë’s camp, find the Silmaril’s guards, and slay them. Presumably these guards are other Elves, as even the sons of Fëanor would be no match for a couple of guardian Maiar. Then they flee, Silmarils in hand—each brother carries one. Holding the hallowed gems, it becomes clear that Eönwë was right: their claim to the Silmarils isn’t legit, for their “hands unclean” are scorched by them! Although the camp is roused at this murder and theft, Eönwë forbids pursuit. Maedhros and Maglor have made their decision and dug their own graves. Free will can be a bitch.

Maedhros suffers “pain unbearable” with his one hand. Remember, the other one was cut off on Thangorodrim long ago in a different time, back when he was trying to fight the good fight. And so great is his agony and despair that he finds a “gaping chasm filled with fire”—which, with Beleriand crumbling apart, is probably not as hard to find as it used to be.

He throws himself down with the Silmaril…

“Into the Bosom of the Earth” by Peter Xavier Price

That’s right. Here we are at the end of an age, and a mighty objet d’art falls along with its bearer into a fiery crack of doom. Sure, sure, Maedhros had once hung in torment, facing certain death, from the side of a mountain of terror and against all hope made it back alive. Alas, there’s no coming back from this one. If you don’t believe me, ask Gollum.

Now Maglor, having just lost his big brother, is no less tormented by his burden. He is, after all, the most self-flagellating of the sons of Fëanor. He knows he deserves punishment. But instead of throwing himself into a pit to his death, he simply runs up to the edge of the land and casts the Silmaril into the Sea. Good riddance!

“Maglor Casts a Silmaril into the Sea” by Ted Nasmith

And then he wanders forevermore along the shores. We’re not told which sea—probably Belegaer, which ever encroaches upon the sinking Beleriand, but in theory it could be somewhere else in Middle-earth. Maglor, the minstrel who once composed a song about the Kinslaying he participated in—and goes down in history as the second greatest singer of them all—is never heard from again. He sings “in pain and regret beside the waves,” and that’s that. He never comes back among Elves ever again, so he appears in no more tales.

Thus one Silmaril lies buried somewhere deep in the earth. One has fallen into deep waters. And one rides above the atmosphere with Eärendil and Vingilot. So at least one of three is enjoyed by all from afar, while the people of Valinor are denied those glowing remnants of the Two Trees they adored.

We’re told that most of the Eldar do answer the summons of Eönwë and sail into the West. All the Vanyar go back, of course, but with them go most of what’s left of the Noldor and Sindar—those who fled from the havens of Sirion or were set free from Angband.

They were admitted again to the love of Manwë and the pardon of the Valar; and the Teleri forgave their ancient grief, and the curse was laid to rest.

“Halls of Mandos” by Jonathan Guzi

Woo! No more Curse of Mandos! And everyone is friends again. The reunions must be joyous indeed, and who knows which of the slain Elves of Beleriand have yet been released and re-embodied from the Halls of Mandos by this point? Whatever sorrows they had known may yet be soothed. And all of them get to know Nienna. Way back in the Valaquenta, we were told that…

all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom.

At this point, that’s most of the royals of the Noldor who’ve gone to the other side.

Now, who among the Eldar isn’t leaving Middle-earth? Well, an uncertain but relatively small number of Noldor (from whom Elves like Gildor likely stem) and some Sindar (from whom Elves like Thranduil of Mirkwood definitely hail). But also these folks, specifically, will be sticking around:

• Galadriel, the last of the Noldorin leaders who staged that famous walkout in Valinor
• Gil-galad, the last High King of the Noldor
• Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol and husband of Galadriel
• Celebrimbor, son of Curufin (and thus the grandson of Fëanor), who’s surely itching to get back into arts and crafts
• Círdan the Shipwright, the ever-faithful coast-dweller

“Galadriel” by Janka Látečková

And of course, Elrond and Elros Half-elven. We’ll be coming back to them in the last two chapters of this book. But for now it’s important to know that from these brothers, the blood of the Elves “and a strain of the spirits divine that were before Arda” live on. That is: Great-great Grandma Melian the Maia’s blood is in that mix along with the blood of all three kindreds of the Eldar and the three houses of the Edain. And oh yeah, their dad continues to circle the world with a star on his head.

So by the endpoint of the chapter—and in preparation for the next one—Beleriand has largely crumbled away, and the Great Sea has swallowed it. So what does remain? Well, a whole swath of Ossiriand survives and forms the new western coastline of Middle-earth, but all its signature rivers have vanished. That entire region is renamed Lindon. The Blue Mountains also pull through, though they’re sundered into two halves by the Gulf of Lune (often spelled Lhûn). At the far eastern end of the gulf is the future site of the little port city of Mithlond—better known as the Grey Havens!

Oh, and speaking of the Blue Mountains, what happens to the Dwarves?! Well, while the Dwarves of Nogrod may have been greatly diminished by their ill-advised tussle with the Elves of Doriath (not to mention old Beren One-handed), they kept to themselves during the War of Wrath, as did those of the city of Belegost, for certain. But did those cities survive the shake-up? For that answer we actually have to look at the “Durin’s Folk” section of Appendix A in The Lord of the Rings:

At the end of the First Age the power and wealth of Khazad-dûm was much increased; for it was enriched by many people and much lore and craft when the ancient cities of Nogrod and Belegost in the Blue Mountains were ruined at the breaking of Thangorodrim.

So there we are. While both Dwarf cities get wrecked in the cataclysm, it seems like many and/or most of the Dwarves themselves were able to abandon them, go east, and seek their fortunes and their mines in Eriador and beyond.

Anyway, that’s for the land masses that remained. But what about islands? Well, in The Silmarillion itself, Tolkien only cites one at the end of Chapter 21, that place where Morwen and Túrin lie entombed (with Nienor merely memorialized):

and still Tol Morwen stands alone in the water beyond the new coasts that were made in the days of the wrath of the Valar.

“Tol Morwen” by Stefan Meisl

That said, Tolkien had two other parts of Beleriand in mind, cited in Unfinished Tales but not actually mentioned in the published Silmarillion. One is the hill of Himring, upon which Maedhros had built his fortress in the years of the leaguer of the Noldor. On the maps of Eriador in The Lord of the Rings, you can also see it there just off the northwestern coast, and it’s labeled Himling (which had been Tolkien’s earlier name for it). The other is only a little further to the west, and it’s a much greater stretch of land. It’s a part of what used to be Dorthonion, where Finarfin’s sons Angrod and Aegnor once ruled, and which later became Taur-nu-Fuin (the Forest under Nightshade) after the Battle of Sudden Flame. And now it’s just a larger island called Tol Fuin.

And so ends the First Age, with most of the remaining Elves having sailed west to Valinor.

Heyyy, what about Morgoth? Well, there’s a special place in the Void prepared for him, and that special place is everywhere and nowhere. He gets no cozy cell in Mandos Penitentiary this time, no three-age sentence and retrial. The Valar’s tolerance for him now is exactly zilch. Even Nienna, who once spoke in his defense, is basically, “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!”

No one’s sorry to see him go.

He is “thrust” (or maybe frog-marched and drop-kicked by Tulkas?) out into the Timeless Void, a.k.a. the Everlasting Dark, the very non-place where he started. Don’t let the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World hit you on the way out, Morgoth!

He is now outside Arda, and outside Eä, the Universe itself, and lacks the power he once had to slip back in. And Eärendil will keep eyes on the Door, just in case. Morgoth can’t hurt anyone in the Void because there is no one there. There’s nothing to create, no one to control, no thing to mar. There isn’t even a Flame Imperishable to seek (which got him in trouble in the first place) since that’s always been with Ilúvatar.

Morgoth faces utter unending boredom, I suppose you could say. He doesn’t even get a mirror in which to admire or loathe his own hideous, Eagle-scratched face. Boo-hoo.

But…Arda is still Arda Marred, and though he cannot micromanage his evil anymore, it does live on in the world without him. It’s in the hearts of Elves and Men (and Dwarves) still; moreover, it cannot be eliminated until such time as Ilúvatar has the world remade again. I suppose Morgoth could take these enduring stains of evil as some kind of consolation prize, but it’s not like he gets to witness and enjoy it.

So the Dark Lord is defeated! Long live the…second Dark Lord? That’s right, there’s no mention of what happens to Sauron just yet. But we know he’s still around and will be up to no good in due time. It seems to be in Tolkien’s nature to present information in dramatic rather than chronological order. But for Primer purposes, it’s helpful to know that Sauron isn’t simply grabbed up and tossed out into the Void like his boss. In fact, after Morgoth gets the boot, Sauron is seriously freaked out. While the surviving Balrogs buggered off, he willingly comes forth to apologize to Eönwë, seeking pardon. Hard to imagine the future Lord of Mordor doing even that much, isn’t it?

But granting pardon to one anyone, especially a peer of his own spiritual rank—a Maia, and a genocidal tyrant and slavemaster at that—is well above Eönwë’s pay grade. You don’t seek forgiveness from a fellow student if you deface school property and beat up a bunch of other kids…you face the principal. Eönwë tells Sauron he must go to Aman and face the judgment of Manwë, which means accepting humility. Say, do you think he’ll do it?

Well, that’s the end of the Tale of the Silmarils, but not the end of the book. If you found your first read-through to be challenging, know that you’re not the first.

See? The Doomsman of the Valar always knew.

In the next Primer installment, we’ll take on the Akallabêth , a.k.a. the story of the rise and fall of Númenor, which also explains why the Dúnedain have so much mojo. But first, I’ll be offering a review of the new book, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, the tie-in to the Bodleian Library’s current exhibit featuring the work and life of our favorite professor!

Top image from “The Dragon and the Star” by Manuel Castañón.

Jeff LaSala isn’t in to pro-wrestling or anything, but sure would love to see a WWE-style cage match of Tulkas vs. Morgoth play out properly, with ropes, improvised weapons, folding chairs, and all. Tolkien geekdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books. He is sometimes on Twitter.

Look, sometimes you wake up in the morning and think, “What can I do today that would make J.R.R. Tolkien proud of me?” And your brain, rested and wise, supplies the only true answer:

You will rank hobbits by hotness for Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday.

Disclaimer: This is a ranking of hobbits by hotness, not the humans who play them. They are being ranked on their hobbit forms. Take no offense, dear reader.

Note: Peregrin Took is not on this list because during the events of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he does not reach the hobbit coming-of-age of 33 years old (he does in the appendices, but that’s not where the bulk of his story can be found). He’s only 28 when the story starts, which puts him at roughly 16 or 17 years old in human terms. Ranking the hotness of a hobbit teenager (no matter the true age of the actor playing him) is not cool. Unless the person doing the ranking is also a teenager! Which I am not.

11. Odo Proudfoot

Look, while we must appreciate his declaration of “ProudFEET” at Bilbo’s birthday party, Mr. Proudfoot is clearly a hobbit with no love in his heart. His angry glare as he sweeps this stoop while Gandalf ambles past in his cart proves that he is a very bitter fellow indeed. He’s so bitter that he hides his own happiness! When Gandalf sets off some fireworks for hobbit children, old Proudfoot forgets that he should not laugh… and then promptly reverts to glaring when this is brought to his attention.

10. Sméagol/Gollum

The overall effect here drops him pretty far down the list, since there’s not very much hobbit left in Gollum by the end. But he did help get that pesky ring into a very big fire, so he’s not bottom of the list. Helping to save the world bumps you up a place.

9. Déagol

Deagol technically started most of the world’s Ring Problems when he scooped the One Ring off the bottom of a river bed, and while it’s true that the ring was trying to get found, it still bumps him down the list. Also, he wasn’t very good at sharing, which led to his unfortunate demise.

8. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins

Bilbo’s cousin is a genuinely nasty person. We know this because Bilbo takes every opportunity to let us know. (Is Bilbo an unreliable narrator? Well yes, but a cousin who takes every possible opportunity to loot your house for the purpose of looking richer isn’t a very nice cousin.) She’s not all the way down at the bottom because she didn’t bring about the end of the world, and also, she has spectacular taste in hats.

7. Gaffer Gamgee

Not necessarily a smokin’ babe, but we have no idea what the old Gaffer looked like back in his heyday. He’s a pretty okay dad, even if he does get a little bit caught up in the gossip of pub buddies. He does his hobbit job well. He’s just pretty okay all around. And he’s an inspiration to his kid.

6. Bilbo Baggins

Poor Bilbo could be higher on this list. He’s an adventurous spirit despite all intents not to be, and he’s always got a full pantry stocked. He writes stories (mostly about himself, but they say “write what you know” and it’s not his fault that’s he’s learned quite a lot in his travels). But he also stole a ring from some poor creature in a cave and then lied when questioned about it. Then he tried to take said ring back from his nephew, and the act made him decidedly unattractive. For about two whole seconds. Guess in this case, the ugliness on the inside really does show on the outside. Yikes.

5. Farmer Maggot

Farmer Maggot is fine. He’s got a proper hobbit job, he’s never short on mushrooms, and he’s got a very cute dog. Sure, he betrays the location of the Baggins family to a terrifying dark stranger on a horse, and he chases thieves away from his farm with a scythe, but those are reasonable actions in certain lights. And there’s still the dog to consider.

4. Meriadoc Brandybuck

Some people will cry foul that Merry isn’t in a top three spot, and they might have a point. But in the end, Merry is the perhaps the least “hobbit-y” of the Fellowship crew. He’s constantly looking after cousin Pippin to his own detriment. He shouts at Ents when they seem less than keen to help with the war effort. He insists on fighting in the battle he’s entirely too small for, which leads to him having a hand in Eowyn’s vanquishing of the Witch-King of Angmar. He’s just very insistent on being a rebel, and that’s a totally hot thing for a human to be, but probably less so for a hobbit? He’s still a handsome fellow, though.

3. Frodo Baggins

If we were ranking hobbits by the likelihood of drowning in the depths of their haunted eyes, Frodo Baggins would definitely take first place. If we were ranking hobbits by their ability to be elven and otherworldly with a melodic cadence to their voice, he would also take first place. But we’re ranking the hotness of hobbits as hobbits, and Frodo Baggins falls just a little outside of that brief. He saves the world (for the most part), which bumps him way up the list, and those eyes are gonna get you whether you mean for them to sway your rankings or not. So he comes in third with the acknowledgement that he’s far too pretty for a mere list to contain.

2. Samwise Gamgee

Sweet sunshine perfect soft boy who never did anything wrong ever including dropping eave on wizards. Excellent farmer, wonderful cook, lovely father, protects you with frying pans, cries when you’re sad because he feels your sadness, would literally die for you without hesitation and never regret doing so because he believes you are worth it. A++ please swipe right and give him all of your poh-TAY-toes for boiling, mashing, or otherwise sticking in a stew.

Which brings us to the #1 spot, who could only be…

1. Rosie Cotton

If you hadn’t guessed that Rosie Cotton took the top spot on this list, then shame on you. She is perfect. Her smile is like a blooming flower, and her curls are well-moisturized. She’s an excellent dancer. She’s neither a gossip, nor a ring thief, and she doesn’t make terrible split-second decisions all the time, like some other hobbits we could mention. Plus, she’s always ready to hand you a tankard of ale. Samwise Gamgee would die for you, but we would all die for Rosie Cotton, and should not pretend otherwise.

And that’s the list! It is accurate and brooks no argument. It is eternal. It is written on a door somewhere in Sindarin. Sorry, I’m just delivering the news.

Before diving into the list itself, I’d like to establish a few things: first, these are completely subjective rankings based on my own favorite series. The list takes into consideration things like prose, dialogue, characters, worldbuilding, and plot. In some cases, weight will be given more to phenomenal prose; in others, the focus will be on setting or characters or whatever the books’ major strengths happen to be.

It also ignores incomplete series, so you won’t see any love for The Kingkiller Chronicle or The Stormlight Archive, among others. Similarly, it ignores standalone books, so no Uprooted or The Windup Girl or Roadside Picnic.

Additionally, this list in many ways represents science fiction and fantasy of the past (mostly the late 20th century). It’s likely that a few of these will still be on my list in a decade, but SFF of the past few years has taken a much-needed turn toward more diverse viewpoints and voices. This means that I simply haven’t read some of the best new authors yet—and others, whom I have, don’t have their series finished. So while the largely male and white voices of the 1980-2010 era have provided some excellent groundwork, the future of science fiction and fantasy will undoubtedly feature more diverse voices at the top of the board.

For instance, I haven’t yet read the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin (which is by all accounts a stunning literary work). Authors like Jemisin are sure to figure into future lists of this sort…and the opportunity to find and read new stories from new voices is one of the most exciting things about reading SFF.

That said, let’s dive on in!

10. The Runelords (“Earth King” series) by David Farland

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David Farland’s Runelords series occupies an interesting spot in the fantasy canon, especially for me. Perhaps because of the timing of my introduction to it, and perhaps because of the cover art, but I’ve always thought of Runelords as a more traditional series. Like The Wheel of Time, Runelords had cover art for most of the books done by the legendary Darryl K. Sweet.

Indeed, it was that cover art that led me to buy the first book, The Sum of All Men, in a little beachfront bookstore on vacation in Hawaii when I was 12. I saw something that looked like The Wheel of Time and jumped in with both feet.

I’m glad I did. Farland’s a talented writer, and he truly excels at giving depth to things that normally get glossed over in fantasy.

There are two main magic systems, for lack of a better term, in Runelords. The first involves a pretty standard elemental magic: you’ve got magic-users who can perform magic based around earth, air, fire, and water. There are some interesting applications here, but the genius in this series lies with the other magic system.

In this world, people can grant endowments—physical or mental attributes—to other people. Those who have acquired such endowments are called Runelords, and tend to be nobles or soldiers. After all, a warrior with the strength of five men and the stamina of three is going to be tough to fight on a battlefield.

Farland could have left the magic there and made the series somewhat interesting. Instead, he dug deeper, exploring the ethical, moral, and even economic implications behind such a system.

When an endowment is given to a Runelord, it’s transferred. Thus, if a Runelord wants the sight of two men, his Dedicate will be left blind, and the endowment only works for the Runelord while the Dedicate is living.

The result is tremendous expense given to keep Dedicates alive. The giving of endowments like grace (the ability to relax muscles), brawn (the ability to flex them), and stamina leaves such Dedicates in extremely fragile states. A Dedicate who gave stamina, for instance, is susceptible to disease.

On top of that, Runelords are almost unstoppable in battle, except by other similarly powered Runelords. Instead of facing them down on the field, strategy has evolved to focus on assassins, who try to break into Dedicates’ Keeps and kill the helpless Dedicates, weakening Runelords out on the field. It’s a fascinating look at all of the implications of the way this magic works.

I should note that while, technically speaking, the extended series as a whole will run nine books, it’s really split into two: the first four books comprise the “Earth King” series, and the next four (and forthcoming fifth) comprise the “Scions of the Earth” series. The first four are where Farland’s story and world work the best.

9. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

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As one of my friends noted when I mentioned this list to her, “one of these things is not like the others.”

Harry Potter may be aimed at a younger audience than the rest of the series here, but it is without a doubt one of the most influential series of the last 30 years.

Sure, Rowling’s writing is a bit elementary during the first few books, but it improves as the series goes on. Her worldbuilding is excellent (despite post-publishing missteps), the characters are undeniably vibrant, and the plotting is, for the most part, tight.

Most impressive, however, is the pacing of these books. There truly isn’t much wasted space, even in the 800-plus-page The Order of the Phoenix. They are eminently re-readable, buzzing along at a healthy speed and filled with moments of thrills, sadness, and exuberance.

8. The Mistborn Trilogy (Era 1) by Brandon Sanderson

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The only completed series in Sanderson’s Cosmere deserves a place in this list. While many of the series that I have ranked higher are there because of incredible prose or vibrant characters, Sanderson’s strength lies in his worldbuilding.

Scadrial is perhaps the most “traditional” of the worlds in the Cosmere, with the typical medieval tech and armies of high fantasy. But Sanderson’s world around those staples is unique, with the mists and the ashmounts—and the Metallic Arts.

The three main types of magic used in Mistborn revolve around the use of metals to fuel (or steal) magic, with an intricate, thorough grounding. Mysteries are explored and revelations abound, remaining satisfying and surprising despite how logical they are.

While the second book, The Well of Ascension, suffers from pacing issues and a bit of a lackluster conflict through the first two-thirds, its final third and climax are truly outstanding work—some of Sanderson’s best.

The Hero of Ages presents the kind of bombastic conclusion hoped for, with twists, surprises, and a beautiful, bittersweet ending. By all accounts, Era 2 of Mistborn is even better, but that review will have to wait for the release of The Lost Metal, expected sometime in late 2019.

7. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

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This may be a somewhat controversial pick; or it may not. Either way, Tolkien’s famed trilogy holds a special place in my heart. Lord of the Rings is not the best-paced story, nor the most intricate, but it does several things extraordinarily well.

The way Tolkien handles tropes is straightforward but meaningful: Samwise Gamgee, for instance, truly is the hero of the story. It’s not Aragorn or Legolas or Gimli, of course, but neither is it Frodo. Samwise is the ultimate sidekick, because at the root of the story, he’s not a sidekick.

Tolkien’s prose gets knocked fairly often, though I don’t mind it. But where he really knocks it out of the park is with his dialogue. The elevated language flows beautifully, and there are some absolutely fantastic conversations and exchanges in these books. Take Gandalf’s encounter with the Witch King inside the gates of Minas Tirith:

In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.

“You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!”

The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!”

Not many writers can craft something so smooth, foreboding, and powerful. Similar scenes between Eowyn and the Witch King, and between Aragorn and the Mouth of Sauron, stand out.

The Silmarillion technically doesn’t belong here, but I must note that it is also a tremendous bit of storytelling in a different style. The tales in the Quenta Silmarillion vary from exciting to romantic to outright heartrending (looking at you, Túrin Turambar…).

6. The Ender Quartet/Shadow Quartet by Orson Scott Card

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I struggled with whether or not to split these into two series, since they really do follow two separate (but intertwined) stories. In the end, I felt that the way Card has written in new novels since completing the main quartets shows he considers them more connected.

Ender’s Game is certainly one of the most popular science fiction novels ever written, and for good reason. It resonates with younger audiences, while exploring themes and morality suitable for any adult. The subsequent Ender books carry forward that more adult-oriented focus.

Speaker for the Dead remains the single best science fiction book I’ve ever read, and while Xenocide and Children of the Mind do not maintain that lofty standard, they at least give a decent conclusion to the series.

Meanwhile, the Bean installments are uniformly excellent. Ender’s Shadow was a brilliant idea, and the way the subsequent Shadow books handle the characters of Peter Wiggin and Petra Arkanian is wonderful.

5. The Acts of Caine by Matthew Woodring Stover

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Like The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson, Stover’s quartet can get rather gruesome at points. It’s the kind of no-holds-barred adventure story that fantasy often aspires to be, but misses. It’s grimdark, but not for the sake of being grimdark.

Starting with Heroes Die, Stover’s series blends science fiction and fantasy: in the far-future of Earth, the world finds its entertainment in the recorded Adventures of Actors, sent by inter-dimensional technology to a fantasy world called Overworld, inhabited by elves and dragons, wizards and ogrilloi.

As the series goes on, it becomes clear that the fates of Overworld and Earth are more intertwined than people believed, and Hari Michaelson, a.k.a. Caine, is at the center of it all.

The characters are truly what shine in Stover’s series. His prose is excellent, riddled with fight scenes and one-liners to make any reader laugh, but the most impressive part is how he molds a wide cast of characters.

Caine is, of course, the focus. However, his estranged wife Shanna (or Pallas Ril, as she’s known on Overworld) is a deeply interesting woman with psychological depths of the kind rarely explored in other series. The antagonists are at turns pure evil and startlingly sympathetic. Arturo Kollberg, Hari’s boss on Earth, undergoes one of the most shocking transformations you can imagine. Ma’elKoth, the god-emperor of Ankhana on Overworld, is ruthless yet tender.

Most of all, The Acts of Caine is an ambitious series. Heroes Die is a near-perfect adventure novel, with sublime pacing and a cathartic climax. The Blade of Tyshalle follows up Heroes Die as a flawed masterpiece.

In Blade, Stover plays with mythology and legend while taking the old authors’ maxim “think of the worst thing you can do to your protagonist, and then do it” to 11. It is in this book that we see the darkest depths of characters; it is also here where we see hope shine the brightest.

The third book, Caine Black Knife, is an unadulterated love letter from Stover to Caine, covering his most famous Adventure. The final book, Caine’s Law, is a runaway roller coaster, full of bombastic twists and mind-boggling revelations.

The Acts of Caine is, at heart, an adventure story—but one with all the trappings of high literature already in place. It allows the reader to enjoy the thrill of the action, but also forces you to consider the entertainment you’re consuming, and what it means to consume it.

4. The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson

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Donaldson’s Gap Cycle is my highest-ranked pure sci-fi series. This is the peak of space opera, as far as I’m concerned.

The five-book series starts with a shorter volume: The Real Story is basically a novella, laying the groundwork for the fireworks to come. It tells a story from several different perspectives, showing how point-of-view impacts what people might think of as “the real story.”

Donaldson’s clever introduction explodes in the second installment, Forbidden Knowledge. From here, the series just gets more intense, more tightly woven, and develops ever-increasing stakes.

The Gap Cycle is, in fact, probably the only series I’ve ever read where each book is demonstrably better than the last. The final book, This Day All Gods Die, was a white-knuckle thriller from page one to the epilogue—on top of having one of the most incredible titles I’ve ever seen.

(Content of the stories aside, Donaldson’s titles are just fantastic. A Dark and Hungry God Arises? Awesome. This Day All Gods Die? Hell yeah.)

This series has one major knock, and that’s the subject matter. The first two books especially deal with graphic violence, of both sexual and psychological natures. It can get pretty tough to read at points. Despite that, it’s an incredible story, well-written, with some of the most complex and layered characters in science fiction.

3. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

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Gene Wolfe is probably the most decorated, celebrated, and accomplished SFF writer that most people have never heard of.

(Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. But not by much.)

Wolfe’s four-part Book of the New Sun is a monumental literary accomplishment. His use of symbolism, metaphor, an unreliable narrator, and constant foreshadowing beggars anything that Robert Jordan or George R.R. Martin have ever done.

Wolfe’s story is compelling, but unorthodox. The pacing of the series—especially in the first two books—is strange, as the narrative meanders about, touching on seemingly inconsequential events and glossing over (or leaving out entirely) big action scenes.

But the action and adventure isn’t the point. Wolfe’s writing is so rich and his storytelling so involved that he grips you and pulls you along in a riptide of language and mystery.

The Book of the New Sun is a challenging read, to be sure. Archaic language abounds, and layered storytelling forces the reader to pay attention, smarten up, and read more critically.

My favorite part of Wolfe’s work is his writing, though. The way he uses words, conjuring everyday images in beautiful ways, is unparalleled among writers I’ve read (really, only Kai Ashante Wilson is even in the same conversation):

How glorious are they, the immovable idols of Urth, carved with unaccountable tools in a time inconceivably ancient, still lifting above the rim of the world grim heads crowned with mitres, tiaras, and diadems spangled with snow, heads whose eyes are as large as towns, figures whose shoulders are wrapped in forests.

Who else would describe mountains like that? Who else would turn such an everyday writing opportunity into lyrical, evocative imagery?

I think it says a lot that, after I finished Citadel of the Autarch, I couldn’t make myself read any other authors for almost two months. Everything just felt bland after the richness of Book of the New Sun.

2. The Black Company by Glen Cook*

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Glen Cook is a lesser-known name, but his mark on fantasy is everywhere. His knack for approaching the grittier, more down-to-earth aspects of fantasy inspired the grimdark genre. The Black Company itself eschews the deep worldbuilding of Jordan or Martin or Sanderson, instead concentrating on the day-to-day stories of soldiers in the mercenary Black Company.

Tropes are twisted on their heads, humor abounds, and settings move from standard European fare to vibrant Middle Eastern analogues and beyond.

The Black Company is a rollicking good time, interspersed with creepy demons and eldritch castles, mad wizards and the horrifying conditions of besieged cities.

This series features some of my favorite characters. Whether it’s the snarky Croaker, brooding Murgen, competent Sleepy, or the irrepressible Voroshk girls, there’s a wide and diverse cast. Not only that, but the emotional impact built up over the course of ten books leaves the reader stunned at the end of Soldiers Live.

It’s that lasting impression from the end of the series that sticks with me—it’s the most perfect series ending I’ve read.

As Croaker says at one point, “Memory is immortality of a sort.” The Black Company left this reader with indelible memories.

*The full narrative arc of the series is completed in Soldiers Live, but Cook may not be totally finished just yet. Port of Shadows, a sort of “interquel” between books one and two, was recently released. Another book has long been rumored, called A Pitiless Rain.

1. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson)

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I almost feel bad about how little there is to say in this section. When it comes down to it, I can’t do justice to this series in a list review. The meat, the immersion, the pure reality of reading Robert Jordan’s magnum opus is something that must be experienced to be understood.

The Wheel of Time is one of the preeminent fantasy series of the late ’90s/early 2000s. Jordan was an absolute titan of fantasy, with his books selling upwards of 80 million copies, according to some sources.

Jordan took Tolkien’s legacy and transformed it for the modern era. The series purposely starts in a similar, familiar fashion, but rapidly comes off the rails and grows into its own monster. The level of worldbuilding is incredible, down to histories, cultures and customs, genealogies and magic.

The Wheel of Time defined a generation of fantasy. Robert Jordan didn’t turn out sparkling prose like Gene Wolfe, but he certainly had his moments. His characters aren’t necessarily as compelling as those in The Acts of Caine or The Black Company, but they’re nonetheless rich, dynamic, and feature the kind of warmth that makes readers consider them friends. The Wheel of Time is, in its way, the complete fantasy package.

Drew McCaffrey lives in Fort Collins, CO, where he is spoiled by all the amazing craft beer. You can find him on Twitter, talking about books and writing, but mostly just getting worked up about the New York Rangers.

Many fans of J.R.R. Tolkien already know that there is, right now, a free and rare exhibit of the professor’s many works at Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries running through the rest of October. It’s a dragon’s hoard of hand-drawn maps, illustrations, and book drafts—many of which have never been presented publicly before—all on display, along with an assortment of wonderfully nerdy and decidedly hobbitish accoutrements like Tolkien’s writing desk, pencils, chair, and smoking pipes. And some of us are also giddily excited about that same exhibit coming to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York next year. It’s a veritable Elf-studded, high fantasy equivalent of the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in the Bronx or the Mark Twain House in Connecticut.

The exhibit is called Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth and from what I’m hearing, it’s any Middle-earth geek’s delight. But it’s also finite. By mid-May next year, all those original works will be closed up one last time like the Doors of Durin, Watcher-style, then whisked back into the vaults of private collectors, the Tolkien Estate, Marquette University, and the Bodleian itself. But for those fans who can’t make it to these far-distant museums and still want to experience some of that awesomeness…well, there’s a book for that!

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, like the exhibit, is about the man himself. Which means this is really more about appreciating the depth of the human being behind the stories we love. Now, to own this hefty coffee table book, you’d probably want to be someone who loves the books already—maybe the films, too, but those’re way less important—because the material in here is like an Extended Edition of the professor’s own tale.

What it is: A compelling and extraordinarily rich account of J.R.R. Tolkien’s life and literary history interspersed between three hundred images, all of which are scans from manuscripts, photographs, original sketches—even doodles!—and watercolor paintings of his own creation. Not to mention some fun letters written by him, to him, or about him…such as the handwritten Christmas gift card written by “Wanild Toekins” (i.e. phonetically transcribed by his mother, Mabel) and allegedly delivered by Santa Claus to his father, “Daddy Toekins.” This was back when little 2-year-old Ronald would frequently ask for “penkils & paper” to write with.

To start things off, there are six essays written by well-known Tolkien scholars:

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biographical Sketch — Written by Bodleian Library archivist Catherine McIlwaine (who also put this whole book together), this account gives us Tolkien’s life in a halfling-sized nutshell: his youth, his many losses, his wife, World War I, his kids, and the creative and linguistic genius that ran through it all.

Tolkien and the Inklings — Written by Tolkien scholar John Garth (Tolkien and the Great War, et al.), this one zeroes in on the camaraderie of the famous literary discussion group and social circle of which Tolkien was a key member. Though these academics famously met at the Eagle & Child pub in Oxford, the Inklings began long before in private rooms and informal spaces—and more officially launched when Tolkien founded a book club specifically intended “to show Oxford faculty staff that reading the medieval Icelandic sagas in the original Old Norse language could be fun.” (Yeah, that showed ’em!) His friendship with C.S. Lewis, of course, features prominently in this essay, as does the banter, the good-natured ribbing, and even the brutal criticism that defined the social circle.

Faërie: Tolkien’s Perilous Land — Written by author and mythology specialist Verlyn Flieger (Splintered Light, et al.), this one dives right into Tolkien’s obsession with that elusive world beyond worlds: Faërie, a concept that can be as hard to define as it is easy to be caught up in. She explains how sections of Tolkien’s best-known works, such as those set in the Mirkwood and Old Forest, may be his most recognizable treatment of Faërie, but its otherworldly and mysterious qualities can be found throughout his legendarium. The esteemed Flieger—who, by the way, was recently interviewed on The Prancing Pony Podcast (totally worth listening to)—has a deep and longstanding investment in Tolkien’s world: she read The Fellowship of the Ring in 1956, before it was the worldwide phenomenon it is now.

Inventing Elvish — Written by NASA computer scientist Carl F. Hostetter (Tolkien’s Legendarium, et al.), this essay showcases the author’s own passion for languages by exploring the real heart of Tolkien’s worlds: Elvish, his “secret vice,” the thing that shows the professor really was a word nerd first and a fantasy author second. While casual readers of The Lord of the Rings know modes of Elvish only in some scattered dialog, on the Doors of Durin, or inside the One Ring to Rule Them All, it provided the framework upon which Middle-earth coalesced.

Tolkien and ‘that noble northern spirit’ — Written by Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey (The Road to Middle-earth, et al.), this essay sheds light on the man’s chief literary inspiration: tales of the Old North and Norse mythology. Not only does he touch on some of the legendarium’s more poignant moments that invoke “the Old World of the barbarian past” (such as the horns of Rohan blowing at dawn during the siege of Gondor), Shippey also gives us a crash course on the origins of the modern world’s discovery of Norse mythology in the first place. Like, how the story we know as Beowulf was just an obscure poem some nineteenth-century Finnish doctor found lying around and decided to publish. Then there was that time when a Danish scholar in the seventeenth century released a thirteenth-century work of literature, The Prose Edda. And this, in turn, helped to introduce a whole bunch of Norse elements to the world at large:

The mythological tales of The Prose Edda, in particular, very soon ‘went viral’: everyone now knows about Ragnarök and Valhalla, Thor and Odin and Loki.

Tolkien’s Visual Art — Written by Tolkien scholarly power couple Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, et al.), this essay zooms in on the professor’s own efforts as an amateur, yet most impressive, illustrator. Since Tolkien’s drawings and watercolor paintings complement his stories, and have informed many artists ever since, this subject is central to the purpose of the book.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about some of the specific images at hand. Sure, there are some excellent photographs of John Ronald Reuel at all stages of his life—such as the family portrait on page 115 taken in South Africa when Tolkien was only ten months old that, “[u]nusually, in a country marked by racial divisions…also included the household servants.” Or the photo of 3-year-old Ronald with his little brother, Hilary, both dressed in Victorian outfits “feminine to the modern eye” on page 121. But honestly, there’s no point in merely listing them. There are too many.

Really, you should just go and get this book if you can bear the cost. Of the hundreds of illustrations, here at least are three in particular that stand out to me.

Consider this drawing he made at the age of 12, when Ronald and his brother were temporarily separated after their mother, Mabel, took ill (diabetes, being nearly untreatable in 1904). While she was hospitalized, he was sent to stay with an uncle in Brighton. As many kids do, he sketched the things around him that reflected his circumstances; then he had these drawings sent to his mom like little postcards. This one shows young Tolkien mending clothes with his uncle in front of a fireplace (a hobbitish image in itself, isn’t it?), getting by and doing normal things out of necessity in the absence of his mom. It’s charming and it’s simple (though what a moustache!), but it’s the title Tolkien gives it that sticks with me: What Is a Home Without A Mother {Or a Wife}

Bodleian Library, MS. Tolkien Drawings 86, fol. 5. © The Tolkien Trust 1992

Readers of The Lord of the Rings see very little of motherhood in Tolkien’s work. Sure, we know there are some moms—Belladonna Took, Gilraen, even Galadriel—but we never really see anyone being a mother. Aragorn’s mother may be the only exception, but while her story is very touching, it’s tucked away in the Appendices. Readers of The Silmarillion know there are quite a few more moms to be found therein, but they’re usually wrapped in tragedy or misfortune, such as with the Elf Míriel, mother of Fëanor, who chooses to die after she’s given birth to her legendary son; the Maia Melian, mother of the incomparable Elfmaiden Lúthien, who loses her daughter to mortality itself; and Morwen, mother of Túrin, the ill-fated hero of Men, who sends her son away when he is eight years old and, despite both their efforts, never sees him again.

Sadly, Tolkien lost his mother the same year he made this drawing—a drawing that shows he thought the world of her, and missed her, and was trying to put on a brave face in her absence by doing normal things. For someone with such an imagination, who spent so much of his life illustrating fantastical things, young Tolkien’s scene of utter realism is poignant.

Let’s move forward in time. Of all the maps in this book, the one that I was most excited to see up close is the first Silmarillion map ever! First revealed in 1986’s The Shaping of Middle-earth, only in the hardcover edition has it been seen like this before. Here it’s nice and clear and in color, being the first map of Beleriand (which Tolkien had been calling “Broseliand,” at that point in time), the north-western corner of Middle-earth where all the events of The Silmarillion play out before its destruction at the end of the First Age. Tolkien worked up this map in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Bodleian Library, MS. Tolkien S 2/X, fol. 3r.© The Tolkien Estate Limited 1986

It’s a wonderful color-coded mixture of the topographic and the narrative. And it’s clear he’d been working out so many stories in his head during this time, though we wouldn’t know about them until at least 1977. Like, who the heck were the sons of Fëanor to anyone else in mid 1920s?! (See the arrow pointing to the east.) And look how integral to both geography and story the river named Sirion is. Good old Sirion.

That said, my favorite features of this map are:

• Angband, the mountain-fortress of Morgoth, is actually shown and labeled here. None of the usual published maps of Beleriand gave us this, leaving us to deduce its location.
• A “Dwarf-road” is drawn leading from somewhere off the page (east) all the way right up to the “Thousand Caves” (of Menegroth) in the Elven woodland of Doriath. In The Silmarillion, this road is much shorter and terminates well before reaching the forest. This is indicative of a very different iteration of First Age events, where the Dwarves seem to have greater access to the Elven lands. More in keeping with events in The Book of Lost Tales.
• Gnomes everywhere! Written multiple times. “Gnomes” being Tolkien’s early word for the Elves later known as the Noldor.
• Huan, the best dog in the whole universe from any mythology, is labelled here, indicating his territory. In the early days of this version of Middle-earth, he was an independent and free-roaming agent, keeping the land safe from the early predecessor of Sauron, that dastardly Prince of Cats, Tevildo.

It’s no coincidence that the regions covered in this map are heavily trafficked by the three central tales Tolkien had been working on that would snowball, in time, into The Silmarillion itself. That is, the “Great Tales” of The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin.

But my uttermost favorite part is in the upper left corner: Do not write on this margin. Those aren’t Tolkien’s words, of course, but they’re proof that he drew this momentous, highly formative fantasy map using, effectively, office supplies. Specifically, on “an unused page from an examination booklet from the University of Leeds.” Even the world’s most famous fantasy author was daydreaming at his day job. It’s nice to be able to relate.

And also, who hasn’t written ORC-RAIDS on their school papers before?! Am I right?

In the same vein, it would have been around 1930 that he wrote his famous “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” on the blank page of an exam-book while grading papers.

Now, we need to talk about Glaurung, the first dragon created by the Dark Lord, Morgoth—or, rather, Glórund, as he was first called in The Book of Lost Tales. He is the bane of the Elves’ existence in the First Age, at least until the mortal hero Túrin Turambar puts an end to him—but not before Glaurung made the guy’s life a living nightmare (in truth, many other things contributed to the Man’s misery—such as Túrin Turambar himself).

In 1927, Tolkien made the following illustration. Note that this is ten years before the publication of The Hobbit. That’s right: before he’d even thought up Smaug the Tremendous, Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, there was this Glórund fellow…

Bodleian Library, MS. Tolkien Drawings 87, fol. 34. © The Tolkien Trust 1977

Tolkien’s black ink and watercolor illustration of Glórund is remarkable—nay, fabulous!—and not the least because he made this dreadful beast mustard yellow. Well, to be fair, he was called “the golden,” and the father of dragons, and his eyes could enthrall anyone who looked in them. Both Túrin and his sister, Nienor, are thus enspelled by his gaze when they first meet Glaurung and are sent hurtling down a ruinous path in their lives.

As a hot and heavy dragon, he of course bears little resemblance to the winged Smaug we’re all more familiar with. Glórund was the first of the First Age dragons, but also the greatest in those days:

but the mightier are hot and very heavy and slow-going, and some belch flame, and fire flickereth beneath their scales, and the lust and greed and cunning evil of these is the greatest of all creatures

In this scene, Glórund is emerging from his lair in the ruins of the Elf-city of Nargothrond, which he himself had thoroughly ransacked with an army of Orcs. Glórund has been called on by his master, Melko (the early name for Melkor/Morgoth) to seek Túrin again after the mortal resurfaced some years after their first meeting. And so he crawls out of the tunnel and across the river, slow and ponderous, yet terrible.

So what are we to make of the size of Glórund based on the cave he’s coming out of? What about those crazy water-goggle eyes of his? And why don’t any of the Tolkien artists model their Glaurung illustrations after this one? Why do we seldom see any yellow-bodied, green-headed Middle-earth dragons who look like they were hopped up goofballs anywhere else? John Garth, the scholar I mentioned above, explains on his blog why we shouldn’t look for for too much realism in these originals:

Tolkien’s pictures cannot be taken as empirical evidence. They are heavily stylized, as befits a story with medieval or legendary/fairy-tale overtones. So, frequently, are his Middle-earth writings.

Tolkien admitted that his Bilbo in ‘Conversation with Smaug’ is not depicted to scale. ‘The hobbit in the picture of the gold-hoard, Chapter XII, is of course (apart from being fat in the wrong places) enormously too large. . . . It’s clear that the picture ‘Glorund sets forth to seek Túrin’ is even less likely to represent actual proportions: it is explicitly medieval in style, where ‘Conversation with Smaug’ has more in common with the classic children’s book illustration of the late 19th and early 20th century – Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, and so on.

To me, it’s the scenery in this piece that’s arguably the best part of it. Though he was humbly self-deprecating about his own illustrations, Tolkien (I think most of us would agree) invokes the realm of Faerie in his art. You can’t look at his skies and landscapes, forests and rivers, houses and towers and not feel like you’re looking into another world.

But still … those eyes! Maybe Glórund’s just got us all in thrall…

So, there you have it. This has really just been a brief glimpse into one awesome and lore-packed book. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is the book beyond the exhibit, which endures even as the other diminishes and sails into the West. It’s sure to enrich any fan’s appreciation for Tolkien the mortal Man, who despite having left this world has at least left behind another of his own creation. A vast, believable, alien-yet-familiar, and somehow still scarcely inhabited world: Middle-earth, which seems to be half the Earth we know and half an Earth we don’t. One that’s steeped in Faerie.

Ultimately, J.R.R. Tolkien was just a guy who loved to study and create languages, adored medieval poetry, loved his wife, wrote stories for his children, and turned out to be rather brilliant at all of it—to our great benefit. He was just a dreamer who totally wrote on that margin, and I’m really glad he did.

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is available from the Bodleian Library.

J.R.R. Tolkien portrait by Donato Giancola

Jeff LaSala, the crazy person behind The Silmarillion Primer, won’t leave Middle-earth well enough alone. Tolkien geekdom aside, Jeff wrote a Scribe Award–nominated D&D novel, produced some cyberpunk stories, and now works for Tor Books. He sometimes flits about on Twitter.

Now that Jeff LaSala’s excellent Silmarillion Primer has reached the Downfall of Númenor, I’d like to talk about something that has been bothering me about the whole Númenor matter:

How on earth did the Númenóreans become such good mariners?

“Above all arts,” says the Akallabêth, the Men of Númenor “nourished ship-building and sea-craft, and they became mariners whose like shall never be again since the world was diminished; and voyaging upon the wide seas was the chief feat and adventure of their hardy men in the gallant days of their youth.” With the exception of the Undying Lands, travel to which was banned, the Dúnedain traversed the Sundering Sea and beyond: “from the darkness of the North to the heats of the South, and beyond the South to the Nether Darkness; and they came even into the inner seas, and sailed about Middle-earth and glimpsed from their high prows the Gates of Morning in the East.” In other words: they got around.

To travel the world like that doesn’t just require hardy seafarers and ships, it requires skilled navigation. And that’s where the problem is. Before the Changing of the World that destroyed Númenor bent the seas and made the world round, the world—Arda—was flat. And if you know enough about maps, navigation, or mucking about with boats, you know that will have serious implications for navigation.

Think about how a sailing crew would navigate on our world. During the later years of the Age of Sail, a navigator might make use of a compass, a sextant and a marine chronometer to figure out their precise location on a map—the compass to determine bearing; the sextant to determine the latitude from the height of the Sun at noon or Polaris at night; the chronometer to determine longitude. (Longitude can be determined by measuring the difference in time between noon in two locations: if local noon is an hour earlier in one position than it is in another, it’s 15 degrees west of that other position.) Earlier in maritime history an astrolabe or a Jacob’s staff would have been used instead of a sextant.

All of these tools are predicated on a spherical (okay, oblate spheroid) world. On a flat earth they wouldn’t work the same way, or even at all. On a flat earth, noon takes place at the same time around the world—Arda has no time zones—so longitude can’t be determined that way. And while the angle of the Sun or the celestial north pole might change the further north or south you go, it would not (as we will see) be a reliable way of determining latitude.

So how could the Númenóreans have navigated? That’s a surprisingly tricky question—one I didn’t think would have a good answer when I started working on this article. But it turns out that there are methods they could have used to cross the wide seas of Arda without getting completely and hopelessly lost. In this thought experiment, I explore how they might have done it.

Sea-Craft in Middle-earth

But before we talk about navigating Tolkien’s seas, let’s establish what we know about them.

For all of the talk of Sea-Kings and of passing over the Sea, and for all the characters from Tuor to Legolas coming down with case after incurable case of thalassophilia, the Sea plays a relatively small role in Tolkien’s legendarium. In a 2010 essay for TheOneRing.net, Ringer Squire notes that Tolkien mostly keeps the Sea off-stage. “In the annals of Middle-earth there is no action at sea, no description of the moods of the ocean, no engagement with the voyages as voyages. Tolkien’s Sea for all its greatness is merely the context for a text about Lands.” It acts as both borderland and staging area: deeps for ships to come out of, like Elendil’s nine ships out of the wreck of Númenor, or to disappear into, like the ship bearing the Ring-bearers away at the end of The Return of the King.

As such, we have few details of the seafaring aspects of the cultures of Middle-earth, Númenor or Eldamar, because it’s not the central focus of the story. Even Eärendil’s pivotal voyage is dealt with in a single paragraph. Mostly we read about ships and shipbuilding: about Círdan the Shipwright, the swan-ships of Alqualondë, the vast fleets of the Númenóreans built to challenge the might of Mordor and (later) Valinor. The focus is on ships’ seaworthiness (Telerin ships are apparently unsinkable) rather than sailing prowess.

Artists working in the Tolkien legendarium generally depict small, open single-masted boats, with square or lateen sails. Most of them seem to have oars: Eärendil’s ship Vingilot had them, and in Unfinished Tales an approaching Eldarin ship was remarked upon for being oarless. The ships were not always small: Númenor in particular was capable of building gargantuan vessels. Aldarion’s ship Hirilondë is described in Unfinished Tales as “like a castle with tall masts and great sails like clouds, bearing men and stores enough for a town.” Millenia later, Ar-Pharazôn’s flagship Alcarondas, the Castle of the Sea, is described as “many-oared” and “many-masted,” and with “many strong slaves to row beneath the lash.” (Remember, kids: Ar-Pharazôn is bad.)

“Aldarion and Erendis” by O. G. (steamey)

Either way, large or small, we’re talking about galleys rather than pure sailing vessels: boats that rely on muscle power when the winds fail or are unfavourable. Winds nevertheless play a major role in Númenórean seafaring: “Aldarion and Erendis,” a chapter in Unfinished Tales that includes more about Númenórean seafaring than any other source, describes riding the spring winds blowing from the west, ships “borne by the winds with foam at its throat to coasts and havens unguessed,” and being beset by “contrary winds and great storms.”

In dealing with those winds and storms there is a certain amount of divine intervention, or at least divine restraint, on the part of Ossë and Uinen, the Maiar responsible for storms and calm waters, respectively. As Aldarion’s father, Tar-Meneldur the fifth king of Númenor, remonstrates with him,

Do you forget that the Edain dwell here under the grace of the Lords of the West, that Uinen is kind to us, and Ossë is restrained? Our ships are guarded, and other hands guide them than ours. So be not overproud, or the grace may wane; and do not presume that it will extend to those who risk themselves without need upon the rocks of strange shores or in the lands of men of darkness.

Emphasis added in bold: the Dúnedain are not necessarily masters of their own craft.

How Could They Have Navigated?

Following the winds and the weather (and when they’re adverse, enduring them), is a rather passive form of sea-craft, and strange spirits lying in seas is no basis for a system of navigation. Surely the Dúnedain had more agency than that when it came to feats and adventure.

Fortunately, there are methods of finding your way at sea that could be used on a flat world. John Edward Huth sets out a number of them in his 2013 book, The Lost Art of Finding Your Way, which discusses the strategies by which pre-GPS human beings used to be able to avoid getting lost. Huth’s book is an argument for mindfulness and situational awareness: awareness of your surroundings, of the factors that may push you off course, and the tricks you can use to put you right again. For sea-based navigation, they include:

• Using wind direction as a natural compass;
• Following the migration paths of birds;
• Local knowledge of currents and tides;
• Local knowledge of the interference patterns in the waves created by nearby land; and
• Dead reckoning: using distance and direction travelled to estimate your current position.

Currents and winds and tides, a connection to the sea: these methods have a certain poetry, a certain lack of technology, a certain naturalness that would no doubt appeal to Tolkien’s anti-modern outlook, and were probably what he would have had in mind if he had given some thought to this subject. One imagines what Strider the Ranger would do at sea.

But are they enough?

It depends on where you’re sailing, and how far; but as far as the Númenóreans are concerned, no, they aren’t.

Each of these methods has a margin of error that gets larger the further you travel. The winds can change. Currents induce drift. Dead reckoning’s uncertainties—figured by Huth as between five and ten percent—accumulate over time, like an expanding cone. The further you go, the less accurate your path, the further off course you can get without knowing it. You need to get a fix on your actual position on a regular basis.

This is not a problem when navigating short or even medium distances. Significant error will not have time to accumulate: if you’re off by only a few miles, you can correct your course visually. And if your journey has many intermediate steps—if, for example, you’re hopping from island to island—you can get a fix on your position at every stop, increasing the accuracy of your overall route.

The Númenóreans, however, were sailing over large distances. How large? The maps in Karen Wynne Fonstad’s Atlas of Middle-earth come with a scale, so we can figure that out.

The ports in Middle-earth used by the Dúnedain were between 1,600 and 1,900 miles from the main Númenórean haven of Rómenna, on a roughly north-easterly heading. Ships in the early Age of Sail could average about eighty miles a day; using that as our benchmark, and assuming ideal conditions, it should take between three and four weeks to make the journey from Númenor to Middle-earth. Ideal conditions—and an improbably straight line. More realistically, a month would be considered exceptionally quick.

“Rómenna” by Matěj Čadil

But the problem isn’t that it’s 1,600 to 1,900 miles. It’s 1,600 to 1,900 miles over uninterrupted ocean. The distance between Númenor and Middle-earth is roughly the same as the distance between Norway and Greenland, but the Norse never did that trip in one go: they could, for example, stop at Shetland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland. There appear to be no islands between Númenor and Middle-earth, which means there are no intermediate stops for Númenórean ships to pause and reorient themselves. Nowhere on land to get a fix. The chances of drifting off course are quite high.

This isn’t much of an issue when sailing from Númenor to Middle-earth: Middle-earth is huge and hard to miss. If you were aiming for Mithlond and end up at Umbar instead, you can work your way up the coast and still make your date with Gil-galad. Getting back home is a little trickier: at 250 miles across, Númenor is a smaller target, though not particularly small. Assuming Huth’s five to ten percent uncertainty, the cone of uncertainty would be around 160 to 380 miles. It would be difficult for a seasoned mariner to miss that target, especially given the extended horizon of a flat world and the good eyesight of the Dúnedain. Plus there’s the Meneltarma: the mother of all trig pillars.

But wait! Huth’s five to ten percent uncertainty assumes the use of a compass. Do the Númenóreans even have compasses? We don’t know whether Arda has a magnetic field: it hasn’t come up in Tolkien’s writings, as far as I’m aware. Earth’s magnetic field is the result of its outer core acting as a dynamo: it requires planetary rotation. Because Arda is not round and does not spin, it won’t have a magnetic field—not unless one of Aulë’s Maiar is tasked with churning things up in the deeps. So compasses may not be a thing, in which case sailing past Númenor—and into trouble—just got a lot more likely.

So, our Númenórean navigators need to solve two problems: how to figure out a ship’s bearing, and how to get a fix at sea.

Bearing and Position

If magnetic compasses aren’t an option, the Númenórean navigators would have to resort to celestial methods to determine bearing. For example, the Sun. Even on Arda, the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West, and so sunrise and sunset can be used to determine a rough heading. But on Arda, because the Sun rises and sets at exactly the same point, the azimuth angle of the sunrise changes depending on your position, not just your latitude. A ship keeping the rising Sun to port would sail in a long arc curving from southwest to southeast, and the effect would be greater the further east it was. You could compensate for it, but first you’d need to know your exact position, and solving the problem would be more complicated over long voyages.

Something similar would occur if the navigators used the stars as their guide. We know that Tolkien’s celestial sphere rotates on its axis, because we’re told that Tar-Meneldur observed the motions of the stars from a tower in the north of Númenor. Enter star compasses. Based on the position of rising and setting stars, star compasses have been used both by Arab navigators in the Indian Ocean and by Pacific Islanders: at equatorial latitudes a star will rise at the same point, giving a consistent bearing. On a flat earth like Arda it should operate at any latitude, and the same equatorial stars and constellations would be useable, but there’s a catch: like the rising Sun, the azimuth of a rising star would change depend on your position. Borgil (Aldebaran) and Helluin (Sirius) would rise at a different angle relative to true north in Lindon than it would in Umbar, just as the Sun does.

Which means that the Númenórean navigators can’t determine an accurate bearing without knowing their position. So how do they determine their position? As I mentioned above, longitude can’t be determined by the Sun at high noon. Nor can latitude: the Sun would appear to have the same apparent altitude in a circle around the centre of the world, rather than along parallels of latitude.

Since we’ve been talking about azimuth, a solution presents itself: triangulation.

You can’t do very much with the azimuth of the rising point of a single star. With a second star, or even the Sun, the observer is now at the intersection of two lines between themselves and the two stars—position lines. That gives the angle between the two stars. If the observer also knows the direction of true north (or west, or east), that would be sufficient to determine position, but on Arda, as we’ve established, we need to find position before we can find bearing. So we add a third star and a third position line. The angles between these three lines will be unique for every position on the earth.

This is similar to the intercept method still used in navigation today (as well as the method my computerized telescope uses to align itself). The intercept method combines position lines derived from celestial observations with more conventional means of navigation (the chronometer, the sextant, charts and tables) to achieve a high degree of accuracy. Since many of those conventional methods wouldn’t work on a flat earth, the Númenóreans wouldn’t be able to be quite that accurate. But it would be far more accurate than dead reckoning, and—more importantly—it would allow them to get a fix at sea.

I imagine it working something like this: In the same way that Ptolemy’s Geography or medieval astronomical tables collected longitude/latitude coordinates for cities in the known world, the Númenóreans would collect angles. Getting a fix at sea would involve taking new angular measurements and comparing them to what was already recorded. Perhaps there would be a set of tables carried by every ship’s master, or perhaps there would be a lot of math involved; either way, the new position could be interpolated into what was already known. But however it was done, it could be done. If nothing else, they’d have nearly three thousand years to get good at it.

This method yields two unusual outcomes. One is that because they’re measuring azimuth rather than altitude, Númenórean navigation instruments would be held horizontally; sextants, octants, and astrolabes are held vertically. And, as I suggested above, bearing would be derived from position. Once a navigator determines their ship’s position, they will know the angular difference between the position lines and the compass points: for example, that north is 80 degrees clockwise of the rising of Borgil at this location. It would be a good deal more complicated than using a magnetic compass, but more consistent, because magnetic declination wouldn’t be a factor.

But a significant drawback is that bearing could not be checked throughout the day: following a compass heading or a rhumb line wouldn’t be possible. You sail; at night you get a fix and see how far off course you’ve gone over the course of the day; you make corrections for the next day’s sailing. Which means that a Númenórean navigator requires clear, starry skies—if you’re beset by storms or clouds, your ability to navigate drops precipitously. In a cosmology where angelic spirits rule the winds and the waves and the skies, it really would behoove you to remain in their good graces.

The Changing of the World

Of course, everything changed with the Downfall. The mariners of the Dúnedain kingdoms in exile, Gondor and Arnor, would be starting from scratch. Ossë and Uinen would no longer be factors, and the stars would, from their perspective, behave strangely: they would be different if they moved too far south, and their angles would not change if they moved east to west. They would have to learn navigation all over again, on seas that operated under entirely new rules.

Small wonder the Exiles, who managed to, you know, circumnavigate the globe, nevertheless saw their Númenórean forebears as “mariners whose like shall never be again since the world was diminished”: they mastered lost seas in ways that were now forever obsolete.

Top image: “Mithlond” by Jordy Lakiere.

Jonathan Crowe blogs about maps at The Map Room and reviews Canadian science fiction for AE. His sf fanzine, Ecdysis, was a two-time Aurora Award finalist. He lives in Shawville, Quebec, with his wife, their three cats, and an uncomfortable number of snakes. He’s on Twitter at @mcwetboy.