#also somehow I could name like. 4 lords of gondolin

[who-needs-words]

Final number: 207

Bonus internet points will be awarded to anyone who actually tries this exercise before voting.

Assume you need to get the spelling at least somewhat close, and if a character has multiple names, only one counts. Also, if a character doesn't have a canonical name, I'm sorry, but "that guy's wife" doesn't count.

For reference, if you can name the 9 members of the Fellowship, the eponymous Hobbit and his 13 dwarf buddies, 3 prominent women, and the guy who runs the Rivendell B&B, that's 27 characters right there. And you probably also know the name of a dragon.

For further reference, Tolkien Gateway has 637 (!!) pages dedicated to Third Age characters. (Don't click that link until you've voted, of course)

Edit: Your humble pollmaker gave this a try, and got as far as 73 before deciding she was too tired to keep trying to remember dwarf and Silm names. If you also want to share (and don't mind people being incredulous at your having forgot ____), pastebin allows you to paste text and share it for free. :)

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

five+-season quenta silmarillion tv show outline:

or, what i would have done if jeff gave me all that cash

season 1: how we all got into this mess. the first few episodes cover All That Noldorin Nonsense as an elaborate political costume drama, and then right in the middle of everybody’s arcs the trees get eaten. things in valinor take a turn for the apocalyptic, we get new points of view in beleriand and angband as everyone reacts to the return of the dark lord, the full scope of our story is revealed and events keep getting faster. we follow the chaos train up to... say the mereth aderthad? about the point when the status quo of the long siege sets in, in any case. might be a bit of a squeeze fitting everything in, might have to leak into season 2

season 2: tales of beleriand. we need a season or two set during the long siege, to establish what it is that gets lost when it’s broken. i kinda wanna do a long story arc about the arrival of men, but at the same time there’s other stuff we gotta set up that wouldn’t timeline easily with that. maybe one season-length arc surrounded by a bunch of one-off specials? one about finrod, one about maeglin, one about haleth, this’d probably the best place to insert original characters and storylines to flesh out the world. we get nice and used to how beleriand works, and then dragons

season 3: the quest for the silmaril, extended remix. we start from beren coming across lúthien in that grove, and from there we build up a portrait of beleriand after the bragollach. the old man and his wife’s self inserts are definitely our focus characters, but there’s a ton of b-plots weaving through the background, lots of flashbacks, lots of cameos from characters we’ve already met. we see the sincere hope that runs around the continent after the power couple do the impossible, and once they retire from the stage we follow that hope riiiight up to the nirnaeth. season ends with a panning shot of the hill of tears

season 4: everything goes to shit. our starting point is, of course, túrin too-many-names, but from his misadventures we chain into the ruin of doriath and the fall of gondolin, a three-part story in which basically the entire continent gets trashed. we’d probably need to fudge the timelines a little to make things flow dramatically, have stuff that’s actually a year or two apart happen simultaneously, but i feel like we could make it work, and it’d really emphasise how interconnected these three tragedies are. we end at sirion, first with the survivors building a new home together, and then, just when everyone’s had a chance to breathe, we smash cut to the third kinslaying

season 5: the war of wrath. we’ll start from the arrival of the hosts of valinor, with some conveniently placed flashbacks to fill in on how everything’s somehow gotten even worse since we last saw everyone. i kind of want to have post-war elrond doing a frame narrative kind of thing? certainly him and elros coming of age in a dying world would be a good throughline. we’re going to drown this thing in everything that’s left of the effects budget, and we’re going to make it very clear that despite all the heroics there’s almost no one and nothing left in beleriand to benefit. how i want to play the series finale, i’m not exactly sure, but we’re definitely going a little past the theft of the silmarils, enough to see the utter devastation

the seasons (and the s2 specials) are meant to function as full stories individually, forming a grand epic narrative as a whole but also providing a satisfying tale within themselves. at the start of each season we’ll have an abstract animated short film going over whatever background lore you need to know to understand what’s coming and also looking very pretty. once we start having human characters we’re gonna have to change them all every season, but it’s apparently been done before, i think we could make it work. the dwarves we can slowly put in old-age makeup, the elf actors are going to age but we can blame that on the war. outside of our heroes of legend and myth, i feel like we should have a few ‘touchstone characters’ (or families, for humans) that recur across seasons that we can check up on and see how they’re doing in each new period, relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things but providing a barometer for How Things Are Going. there’s enough space in the margins of the quenta silmarillion that would allow you to tell some really good stories around the ones we already have, yanno? that’s the kind of silm adaptation i’d love to see

[russingon]

“MIGHTY AMONG THE PRINCES OF THE NOLDOR”:  REDEEMING MAEGLIN LOMION

the more i contemplate it, the more i feel that maeglin is actually as much a victim as anyone is in the silmarillion and that, in the tragedy of gondolin’s fall, he was the chosen scapegoat. despite the title, this isn’t an essay, but i’ve compiled information on this topic below the cut for me and anyone else interested in this argument. what exactly the canon tells us and what, i think, can be easily extrapolated from it. here’s a very, very long sort of master-post to put it all down in one place!

(note: this is based only upon the contents of the published silmarillion and not the fall of gondolin)

(tw: inexplicit discussions of eöl’s canon mistreatment of his wife and son, the sketchy nature of aredhel and eöl’s marriage, inexplicit mention of canon torture)

WHAT DOES CANON SAY ABOUT MAEGLIN? THINGS TO CONSIDER:

1. maeglin was mistreated by his father long before arriving in gondolin. as is the habit of the silmarillion, we often only see small scenes and the rest is left implied, but there’s enough in the canonical text to tell us this. i don’t think it’s a stretch to say he’s an abuser. when maeglin dreams of leaving his father’s home and finding a way to gondolin and to see the sons of fëanor, the following unfolds:

 “but when he [maeglin] declared his purpose to eöl, his father was wrathful. ‘you are of the house of eöl, maeglin, my son,’ he said ‘and not of the golodhrim. all this land is the land of the teleri, and i will not deal nor have my son deal with the slayers of our kin, the invaders and usurpers of our homes. in this you shall obey me, or i will set you in bonds’”

here eöl not only says pretty awful things about half of maeglin’s heritage, which, while anti-noldor sentiment might be understandable because of the kinslaying, are cruel to a half-noldo boy, but also threatens physical harm against his son. maeglin, to be clear, is at the oldest possible maybe seventy or eighty when this happens but likely younger. elves come of age between fifty and one hundred, so maeglin is canonically a boy or barely of age when this happens. this is the most direct instance of eöl’s ill treatment of him, but there are some other details of interest. maeglin’s response to the above is not to argue, but simply to grow silent and mistrust his father. aredhel (and thus presumably maeglin) “at eöl’s command must shun the sunlight” which speaks to a kind of commanding rule over them, that they are not allowed to go outside during the day. eöl gives his son no name until he is twelve years old and maeglin, quote, “loved his mother better”.

2. then comes the actual flight to gondolin. maeglin and aredhel are fleeing, largely to get away from eöl. they leave while they think he is away, they give only half true directions about where they’re going to servants (they say they’re seeking out celegorm and curufin, when they really seek gondolin). the text actually says that while eöl was gone maeglin and aredhel were “free for a while to go where they wished” further implying eöl’s autocratic rule over them. maeglin actually says to aredhel:

 “what hope is there in this wood for you or for me? here we are held in bondage”

when aredhel discovers eöl has followed them to gondolin she says: 

“alas! eöl has followed us, even as I feared”

thus further showing that maeglin and his mother are trying to get away from eöl specifically and not just seeking out gondolin on a whim. then, of course, eöl chooses to die in gondolin and to kill maeglin and calls him “what is mine” like a possession. as we know, he kills aredhel instead as she leaps to save her son. maeglin then watches as his father is executed for the crime. eöl curses his son as he falls, all but calling him a bastard (“ill-gotten son”) and telling him all his hopes will fail and he’ll die. maeglin has just seen his mother murdered by his father in front of him and his father then executed, cursing him all the way.

3. maeglin is so young. maeglin is just eighty years old at this point. again, he is barely of age. he is a child compared to any other elves present. in fact, it is important to remember that even at the fall of gondolin, maeglin is just 190. that is incredibly young compared to pretty much any elf even mentioned save the peredhil, whom we’re lead to believe come to maturity faster than standard elves.

4. there isn’t reason to believe maeglin behaves badly to idril in his youth. as it is described in the silmarillion, we’re led to imagine maeglin as this jealous watcher who violently covets idril, but as far as the silmarillion is concerned we don’t know that he ever actually does much of anything, other than bear the fact he has an unrequited love for her in silence, knowing that idril doesn’t feel that way. it’s also important to remember that even in the last years of maeglin’s life, idril is at the very least twice his age but potentially more. i cannot stress enough that maeglin is all but a boy. up until he is taken into angband, there is nothing to suggest maeglin is an aggressor. 

5. maeglin is a great and noble lord, especially for one so young: 

“but maeglin prospered and grew great among the gondolindrim, praised by all, and high in the favor of turgon; ... wise in counsel was maeglin and wary, yet hardy and valiant at need. and that was seen in after days: for when in the dread year of the nirnaeth arnoediad turgon opened his leaguer and marched forth to the help of fingon in the north, maeglin would not remain in gondolin as regent of the king, but went to war and fought beside turgon, and proved fell and fearless in battle ... maeglin, who had risen to be mighty among the princes of the noldor, and greatest save one in the most renowned of their realms.”

6. he is supposedly turned to morgoth’s side while in angband. maeglin was taken as a captive to angband, where “the torment wherewith he was threatened cowed his spirit” (do with that what you will) and he gives up gondolin’s location in exchange for being king of gondolin and having idril, supposedly. i question this, which will be discussed further down the post. we know the rest where canon is concerned, folks. maeglin returns, doesn’t warn people that gondolin is doomed, “lays hands upon” idril and eärendil during the fall and is killed by tuor.

SPECULATION/HEADCANON TO CONSIDER:

a number of aspects of this canon narrative don’t quite add up.

1. as shown above, maeglin, when given the opportunity to be regent of gondolin turns it down to fight by turgon’s side. that’s strange coming from a man who supposedly sells out to be leader of gondolin. furthermore,  the whole deal with morgoth doesn’t seem to make sense. morgoth promises maeglin the possession of idril, but, given his background, maeglin would know that’s never going to work. morgoth also promises maeglin “lordship of gondolin as his vassal”. beyond the fact that it doesn’t seem maeglin would actually want that, what would maeglin actually be lord of? in order for the city to be taken it would have to fall and likely be utterly destroyed and it’s warriors slaughtered. even if somehow some elves lived to be lorded over by maeglin as morgoth’s vassal in a ruined gondolin, they would hate him. maeglin is called wise in the text, he would know all this. why would maeglin, who lost everything to be free of the darkness in nan elmoth, willingly choose to rule over a land that would be swathed in morgoth’s darkness?

2. as i said, maeglin, above almost all other elves on arda, would know that a marriage in which the elleth was “not wholly willing” or “stolen” as was said of his mother could never be right. he lived with his mother and father and saw what that did and risked everything to escape. it doesn’t, in my eyes, make sense that he would seek to have that, even if we take for canon that he has this languishing desire and love for idril. given that so little is said of him actually falling in love with her or doing anything, just that he does love her, i think it’s even possible to call this doomed love ever having existed at all into question if the headcanoner or writer likes, but that’s just me.

3. the idea that, as the text says, as soon as eöl falls idril instantly knows maeglin is bad news and that fate wills what happens to him and idril always mistrusts him just doesn’t track given that turgon loves and trusts maeglin!!! why, unless he’s just an awful father, would turgon so love and trust maeglin if his beloved daughter was uncomfortable with him and disliked him or really felt he was a creep? it also doesn’t make sense to me that, even if maeglin was in a one-sided love with idril and she knew about it, she would hate him for it as the silmarillion says. elves, from both the laws and customs among the eldar and the silmarillion, love truly and don’t get to choose who they love, even if it’s someone forbidden to them (read: beren and luthien). as long as maeglin isn’t bothering her, which there’s no reason to suggest that he is given that it’s never mentioned and turgon has no issue with maeglin, it would be rather cruel of idril to hold it against him and we have no reason to think anything ill of her. also, if, as the silmarillion says, idril instantly mistrusts maeglin after seeing him watch his abusive father die, that seems uncharacteristically unkind of her and, again, there’s no reason to think anything bad of idril. 

4. i think it is important to remember about maeglin’s character that because of the way eöl talks about the noldor, both to maeglin and to turgon, we know he not only hated the noldor, but hated the idea that maeglin would be in any way like them or one of them. however, there’s enough to suggest the noldor don’t like that maeglin is eöl’s son either and not just because he killed aredhel. there’s, of course, the feud between the noldor and the sindar with ill on both sides, but i mean eöl specifically. we know that other marriages between noldor and sindar happen without much issue, so it’s not that eöl is a sinda. no, i think it is because of the, to say the least, dubious nature of eöl and aredhel’s marriage. they are considered married, both because of the laws and customs of the eldar and because aredhel declares them so, albeit reluctantly. however, eöl canonically trapped aredhel and there is no way, because no one heard from aredhel for many years after she went missing in nan elmoth, that any noldorin customs about marriage could possibly have been observed save the, um, wedding itself. curufin goes so far as to say that aredhel was “stolen”. not that the sons of fëanor have any great love for the sindar, anyway, but curufin, who, along with celegorm and his other brothers, was a close friends of aredhel’s in ancient days, hates eöl rather violently and quite personally. this, to me, further implies a potentially dubious marriage. now, there is of course the classic line that aredhel was “not wholly unwilling” but that implies she isn’t wholly willing either. as a result of all this, i think it quite possible that the noldor of gondolin see maeglin as almost an illegitimate child. eöl himself calls him an “ill-gotten son”. if this is true, maeglin is caught in an impossible situation. his sindarin father hated that he was noldorin in a way, the noldor see him as all but a bastard and, from the way the silmarillion talks about him, don’t like how sindarin he is. this is an impossible position.

5. supposedly, maeglin is only threatened by morgoth before he breaks but the way it’s phrased “maeglin was no weakling nor craven, but the torment wherewith he was threatened...” implies that whatever was threatened against him was something truly awful. it’s really no far stretch to suggest maeglin was, indeed, tortured. you can even read that line that way. knowing what we know about every other major character who ends up in angband (maedhros, gwindor, húrin, etc.) it’s not far-fetched, either. in fact, it seems almost more unlikely that maeglin walks out unscathed. consider: if maedhros fëanorian, thousands of years old and one of the most powerful of all the noldor, could be made to beg for death at morgoth’s tortures, i don't think there’s any real limit to what a 180 something year old maeglin could be made to do or promise. maeglin had, by that point, survived the nirnaeth and his childhood and everything else, he is not weak. and to break under morgoth’s torture would not make him weak.

6.  maeglin being somehow unable to tell anyone what’s coming in gondolin, but forced to watch it happen, would actually be very in line with what happens to húrin, who was also kept captive in angband because he wouldn’t reveal gondolin’s location. he’s forced to watch, powerless, as his children’s doom unfolds. maeglin, made to return and watch gondolin fall, would parallel it directly. that idril senses all is not well with maeglin when he returns is potentially evidence to this possibility.

7. the way that the silmarillion talks about maeglin, like his fate is an inevitability of his birth, like he’s the singular traitor to blame, that it was just and that everyone knew he was bad right from the start sounds exactly like something a heartbroken people looking for someone to blame would say. the general tone of “we never liked him!” is too convenient a line. it’s too convenient for them that they have reason to think maeglin is somehow partially an outsider and that, because his father mistreated his mother, he was just bound to turn out that way. it doesn’t acknowledge anything else we know about him. 

in short, i don’t know what happened to maeglin, exactly, but i think there’s fair evidence it didn’t go down as the silmarillion tells it.