#Unfinished Tales

[venduri]

Only you could accomplish such art, Celebrimbor

Assad Zaman as Celebrimbor from JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales

[naarisz]

Tar-Ancalimë, first Ruling Queen of Númenor.

[galstelperion]

"Will you then pass over Sea?" Celebrimbor asked.

"Nay," Galadriel said. "Angrod is gone, and Aegnor is gone, and Felagund is no more. Of Finarfin’s children I am the last. But my heart is still proud. What wrong did the golden house of Finarfin do that I should ask the pardon of the Valar, or be content with an isle in the sea whose native land was Aman the Blessed? Here I am mightier.”

Unfinished Tales, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn

[tolkien-povs]

Reading The Hobbit has a warm, cozy feeling to it, like sitting by a fireplace and downing a warm mug of hot chocolate. There are times when you want to cry, times when you want to laugh, times when you want to fight alongside Thorin’s Company. But at the end of the story, you realise that you will never experience that, because The Hobbit is fictional in reality, but so real in the heart and mind.

Reading The Lord of The Rings has a cool feeling, neither warm nor cold, but a comfortable one; it’s as if you’re sitting by a window, staring into the rain, and wishing you could go outside and relish in the rain but you can’t because it’s cold. There are times when you want to laugh, cry, dine with the Fellowship, fight with the Fellowship. But you can’t, because The Lord of The Rings is only a figment lodged in your heart, tucked away in a cozy spot.

Reading The Silmarillion has the feel of sitting in an enormous library almost abandoned, and fishing out an old, dusty book from a nook long forgotten, written about the history of the world. There are cases when you want to delve into that world and explore it, revel in it, fight it, love it, yell at the people in it. But you can never do that, because it is a history long past, existing only in the minds of very few.

Reading the old stories narrating the entire history of Arda has the feel of travelling back in time to the Library of Alexandria, reading and studying all the library can give. There are times when you want to cry, mourn, grieve, celebrate, laugh, revel in the world. But you can never, as that world, those people, are all part of your heart and mind, tucked away into the most precious part of you.

Reading the legendarium doesn’t make you want to be a part of that world because you love it. It makes you want to be a part of that world because the characters are normal people, like you, who got roped into an unlikely adventure, forever narrated in song, poems, ballads and laments.

They are simple stories, of simple people, in a simple world, where if you existed, you could have been one of those souls both fortunate and unfortunate.

Reading the legendarium makes you want to be part of it, because it makes you think you can survive it.

And certainly, if you have read this amazing mythological masterpiece, you absolutely can survive it.

[nevui-penim-miruvorrr]

Eöl

[martanis]

Answer [SPOILER]: I think that may be somewhat premature. More than that, I couldn't possibly tell you. — Nerdist, 2024

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Still laughing over the Celeborn -> Teleporno pipeline. The updated history of Galadriel and Celeborn was the last thing Tolkien wrote concerning middle earth, set down in the final month of his life. The final month, and he spent it scratching in some extra notes on his homegirl and her cousincest boyfriend. Unfathomable

[lowcountry-gothic]

Ulmo, Valar of the Sea, Tuor, and Voronwë from Tolkien's Unfinished Tales, by Alba Real.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Looking at the parts on Númenor in Unfinished Tales (and the LOTR appendix chronology) made me notice something Tolkien does with the history of Númenor that is very thoughtful, very important, and often neglected by other fantasy authors: he distinguishes between fighting on the right side and being the good guys, and he even delves into how those two things can work against each other.

Three times in particular, the Númenoreans help to defend Middle-Earth against Sauron. In Aldarion’s time, in the 800s, Aldarion spends much time establishing and rebuilding a port/haven on the coast of southern Eriador, to guard against invasion of the north through what will later be the Gap of Rohan. In 1700, Tar-Minastir sends a large force to drive back Sauron and rescue Gil-galad and Elrond and their people after the forging of the Rings and the destruction of Eregion. And, of course, near the end of the Second Age Ar-Pharazon sends the vast fleet and army that takes Sauron captive.

And each of these times are associated with successive stages in Númenor’s moral decline.

Aldarion is the first warning sign. His father, Tar-Meneldur, a wise man, discourages his voyaging, accurately fearing that it “sows the seeds of recklessness and the desire of other lands to hold”. Aldarion likewise marks the beginning of Númenoreans regarding nature as something to be valued for its use rather than for itself: trees as timber, not as forests. This is also when the Númenoreans begin to log Eriador - their logging will eventually be so extensive that, whereas virtually the whole area from the coast to the Misty Mountains to the Gap of Rohan was forested at the start of the Second Age, by the time of LOTR only the tiny fragment of the Old Forest remains. It’s not for nothing that the trees there are hostile to Men (and Hobbits). (This may not have been happening in the same way in Aldarion’s time - in Númenor he spends great efforts on replanting trees, nothwithstanding the ecological distinction between ‘tree plantations’ and ‘forests’, and he may have done the same in Middle-earth - but it’s still the starting point.)

And he does work extensively in Middle-earth to build defences against Sauron (or ‘the shadow in the east’; they don’t know it’s Sauron yet) and is described as “the friend and counsellor of Gil-Galad.” Yet the very growth in power, pragmatism, and expansionism that is involved in doing this is the start of Númenor’s downward path.

Next, we have Tar-Minastir, who drives back Sauron from Eregion during the War of the Elves and Sauron, following the forging of the Rings of Power, when Gil-galad, Elrond, and the Elves of Eregion are almost defeated. Unfinished Tales says “he loved the Eldar but envied them” and built a high tower to gaze westwards towards Valinor. And it is in the immediate aftermath of his rule that Númenor enters its phase of exploitative imperialism: his son Tar-Ciryatan is “a mighty king, but greedy of wealth; he built a great fleet of royal ships, amd his servants brought back great store of metal and gems, and oppressed the men of Middle-earth.” The next king, Tar-Atanamir, likewise “exacted heavy tribute from the men of the coasts of Middle-earth”, and was the first to be openly hostile to the Valar and the Eldar. The Silmarillion describes Ciryatan and Atanamir as “proud men, eager for wealth” who “laid the men of Middle-earth under tribute, taking now rather than giving”.

(As an aside: this is a period where I’m particularly curious about what Gil-galad and Elrond were thinking, and the decisions they had to make. The Númenoreans have just recently decisively rescued them, and it may not be going too far to say the Elves of Eregion and Lindon are military dependent on Númenor. And yet the Númenoreans are now mistreating and oppressing the men of Middle-earth. How to balance military/political pragmatism and ethics? Are the Númenoreans friends or not? Should they be trying to do anything to stop Númenorean empire? Can they do anything? Does benefitting from Númenorean military might while not doing anything make them complicit? Do they try to talk to the Númenoreans? And for Elrond in particular, on top of the moral vs pragmatic concerns, there’s the knowledge that it’s his brother’s descendents and successors who are doing this - in a sense, the only family he has left.)

And lastly, of course, we have Ar-Pharazon, who defeats Sauron but without being any better than Sauron, and who is corrupted by him, wreaks devastation on the men of Middle-earth and on his political opponents at home, and leads Númenor to its destruction.

It feels like this reinforces the themes of The Lord of the Rings, that victory over evil is not one by seeking to overpower it, but by renunciation of power. The downfall of Númenor highlights this by contrast by showing the corrupting force of accumulated imperial power, even when used against a foe that is genuinely evil.

[kai-janik-art]

Ost-in-Edhil (2024)

Limited edition lino print

21x21 cm

My version of Celebrimbor's city before its fall.

[venduri]

fëanáro curufinwë

[runawaymun]

A Welcome Interruption

And here is my second piece for @tolkienrsb!

Celebrían has decided that Elrond's spent long enough working today and it's time for a break ;) this is in collaboration with @fishing4stars and I cannot wait for you guys to read the fic, so keep an eye out for it! I will update this post with a link once the gallery opens on September 6th.

Please do not repost to another site, and do NOT feed my artwork to AI. Reblogs very much appreciated!

[fantasyquests]

In Unfinished Tales, it is briefly mentioned that Maedhros saved the Dwarf king Azaghal when he was waylaid by orcs. Perhaps this episode was an inspiration for the backstory about Elrond and Durin - who first met when Elrond saved Durin from hill trolls, or the other way round, depending on which one of them you choose to believe.

[hailturinturambar]

“In Eregion Sauron posed as an emissary of the Valar, sent by them to Middle-earth (“thus anticipating the Istari”) or ordered by them to remain there to give aid to the Elves.

He perceived at once that Galadriel would be his chief adversary and obstacle, and he endeavoured therefore to placate her, bearing her scorn with outward patience and courtesy.”

Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth by J. R. R. Tolkien

[nevui-penim-miruvorrr]

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[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

While we’re marking the tragic and noble death of Théodred today (we’re all marking this, right? We should!)… here are a few thoughts on his last words:

“Let me lie here — to keep the Fords til Éomer comes.”

I don’t think it’s 100% clear exactly what he meant by “let me lie here.” A lot of people read it literally with “lie here” meaning “left here undisturbed” until his beloved cousin can arrive. But I also like to think that he’s specifically asking to be *buried* at the Fords, with “let me lie here” being in the sense of “here lies Théodred, son of Théoden,” for a very specific purpose.

All throughout Middle Earth (and, more broadly, Arda, because this is a thing that happens in the Silm a *bunch*, too) the final resting places of good and worthy people can take on a special hallowed quality. The land itself seems to hold some memory of the dead person that is manifested in both physical and metaphysical ways — grass and flowers flourish where they might otherwise not, and (critically) enemies and dark things become afraid to tread there. So perhaps Théodred wanted to be buried at the Fords rather than at home among the kingly barrows so that his final resting place could protect a strategically critical location (as the only place where a crossing of the Isen was possible) and forestall a full-on invasion until such time that it could be better defended by actual reinforcements from Éomer.

I think there’s good evidence for this reading. For starters, Elfhelm and Grimbold did bury Théodred at the Fords, and it makes sense that they’d act based on his expressed wishes if he had any. In addition, Théodred would have been perfectly aware of the almost magical hallowing effect of certain graves, and not just because of the tradition of simbelmynë spontaneously appearing on Rohirrim grave barrows. His own great grandfather had twin brothers, Folcred and Fastred, who were slain together in Gondor and buried there in the Haudh in Gwanûr (Mound of the Twins), which the enemies of Gondor thereafter always “feared to pass.” So it’s entirely plausible that he was thinking specifically about that when he spoke those words and hoped to achieve a similar effect. 

Éomer also gives some credence to this reading when our heroes pass by the Fords on their way to Isengard after Helm’s Deep. When they see the burial markers there for Théodred and his men, Éomer says, “Here let them rest. And when their spears have rotted and rusted, long still may their mound stand and guard the Fords of Isen!” He may just be speaking metaphorically there, but he may not. Based on a known phenomenon of his world, he may actually see their graves as a legitimate source of protection for the river crossing.

Anyway. There’s obviously an appealing emotional element to the idea that Théodred wanted to be reunited with his beloved cousin/quasi-brother at his death, and that’s what he meant by his final words. But I think there’s an equally emotional element to the idea that even as he lay dying, he was still trying to think of how he could use himself, in death as much as in life, to help defend his people and his land. ♥️

Either way, what an incredible person!

@sotwk and @celeluwhenfics fellow Théodred enthusiasts!