#beren & lúthien

[chechula]

Beren and Lúthien in Menegroth throne room....sketch that I made 3month ago, I like it but...I have no idea how to finish it x_x There is so much detail everywhere so I have no idea where to put a focus...Shall I make it in colors? Or black&whitte? Ink or pencil.....no idea x_x

[maedictus]

Tinúviel was dancing there to music of a pipe unseen. And light of stars was in her hair and in her raiment, glimmering.

[aqua-regia009]

Carcharoth, the Red Maw - from Tolkien's Beren and Lúthien Illustrated by Alan Lee (English, b.1947)

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

silm fans are really like "god i love the silm but you can really see how sexist tolkien was. anyway here's reason 3478283493 why this male character's awful actions are this female character's responsibility. why do we never talk about how much death and suffering she caused by pushing him to do what he did :(((("

[crownedwithstars]

I was thinking of Beren and Lúthien and how their story is so much more interesting than they get credit for. I mean, on the surface it reads like a fairy tale but it also elevates the rest of the story, it uses common fairy tale tropes but turns them upside down, and the way we see the heroine asserting her agency in this story is so fascinating. I think the story of Beren and Lúthien provides much needed contrast for the rest of the Silm, and both become more poignant because of this contrast. 

The familiar fairy tale goes like this: there's a a poor but resourceful peasant, set with a difficult task (which is in fact designed to be impossible to complete), but thanks to some magical help he is successful, retrieves treasure, and as a reward he wins the king's daughter and lives happily ever after as a prince, gaining all the earthly glory one can have in this life. But in the Tale of Beren and Lúthien, the hero is a traumatised outlaw, the king's daughter IS the magical help, she is an active and equal participant in the quest for her own hand in marriage, the treasure may actually be cursed, the hero and heroine die, and the ultimate reward is not a social rise from rags to riches. Beren does not become a member of the power-wielding elite of Doriath and he and Lúthien are not promised that their second life will be happy or long. But just that chance is worth it, and by choosing it they actually change the course of history. Lúthien is offered all the bliss that is possible to have in Arda, if she will give up Beren, but she decides that the love she has for him is still more valuable. And that idea, of loving someone so much that your love shifts the world, is so compelling to me. 

And I love that the story of Beren and Lúthien is also a rendition of Orpheus and Eurydice, and that just as the world was created in the Music of the Ainur, so is Lúthien's song powerful enough to change what those original notes dictated. She changes it with hope and a song. That is so simple and yet so beautiful, in the way some of the best myths are. (Insane that this is essentially a love-letter to Edith Tolkien.)

There is this fascinating contrast between Beren and Lúthien: at the time of their first meeting, Beren has lost literally everything and his family is either dead or lost beyond retrieval. Stumbling across Lúthien, he is fresh from terrible ordeals and suffering. But Lúthien's life has been full of happiness and without care, and she has lived in a literal fairy kingdom as the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar. She could have her pick of any prince of Eldar. But here she comes across this mortal, who has nothing to give except for his love and even that only for a brief time, and she is willing to risk all she has for it. The gall and courage it takes to take such a chance! She chooses this man and her choice changes everything. 

And that is brilliant! Because Lúthien starts with so little power and agency, and she is constantly belittled or even abused by those with more power around her. She is treated as a pawn, her will is undermined and she is coerced and imprisoned to make her compliant. But Lúthien shows her determination and courage in holding fast to her choice even when it's just her and Beren against the world. In the end, she wins agency and freedom to determine her own tale. In her beginning Lúthien is a maid dancing in the woods; by the end she will have faced Satan and death itself, and changed the world forever. Truly, to call her story "Release from Bondage" is more than appropriate. How insane is this all from Beren's point of view? He has lost everything, he is an outlaw, and has nowhere to go. What is left of his family is scattered who knows where. He has nothing but the clothes on his back and nothing to give. But here is this immortal princess, and she will go to hell and back with him! She will cross the Sundering Sea to bid him farewell! She pleads with inexorable death and for her, an exception is made!  It's so on brand for Tolkien that these two achieve with their love, and precisely because they act out of love, something that others with armies behind their backs can't even imagine doing.

Yeah. It's such a good, hopeful, bittersweet tale.

[velvet4510]

Some see Beren as idiotic for relying so much on Lúthien’s dad’s blessing to marry her instead of just running off with her as she was willing to do … but you guys need to understand just how noble and un-toxic that is of him.

He doesn’t want to take her away from her family forever or force her to cut all ties with them. He knows there’s a chance her dad will disown her if he takes her away and he doesn’t want to put her through that. (Thingol never directly says this, but I think it’s possible he would’ve, considering that he’d literally rather send this guy to die than let him marry her, so if she were to disappear with this guy, he probably wouldn’t be happy with her. Either way, Beren is an understandably paranoid person.)

Plus it’s important to remember that at this point, Beren believes that Lúthien will outlive him by centuries - he has no idea of what is to come. So if he were to just take her away, he’d condemn her to eternity as an outcast from her family and people, long after his death. On top of that, he’s already a wanted man. Morgoth’s forces are hunting for him. So without her family’s support or the safety net of Doriath, Lúthien would be left all alone with the long-lasting consequences of being Beren’s widow during a time of war against the Dark Lord who already massacred Beren’s dad and friends.

Naturally that’s the last thing he wants her to have to deal with. How could he whisk her off for a few decades of bliss just to die and leave her with the burden of paying the price for HIS enmity with Morgoth himself while being an outcast from her people?

Thus, instead of running away, he takes the most dangerous path because that is the path that will allow them to be happy together without costing Lúthien her loving relationship with her parents or her safety net.

A lesser man would’ve just swept her away. But Beren doesn’t want Lúthien to lose or give up anyone she loves in order to be with him, or be left as an eternal target of Morgoth with no backup or support system.

Come on, ladies, that’s husband goals right there.

[autistook]

If the love I find isn't like this I don't want it

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Things would be Better if the silmarils were just loaves of bread

[soranatus]

Lúthien, little lover & elven jocks By Cami | morchlav

[theworldsoftolkein]

Beren & Lúthien - by Sarumanka

[armenelols]

Actually. Star crown Elrond is important to me because it keeps the theme of his family carrying stars with them, their connection to the stars and skies far beyond what even all other elves have. Thingol, who fell in love with a Maia from beyond Arda and Aman and from before time itself existed, and who, of all the elves, was alone named Elwë, after stars; Lúthien and the nightingales, birds, free with their wings, soaring the skies; Dior who carried the silmaril with the light of the Trees inside it; and Elwing who inherited it, and turned into a bird, flying as Lúthien's nightingales once did; Eärendil, a literal star; and Elros, who followed his father's star to Númenor, a star-shaped island where eagles dwelt. Star crown Elrond is important to me okay

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

[maedictus]

More drawings of east asian Beren and Lúthien

[sauronnaise]

Nobody told me Beren and Lúthien was based on Shrek.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

people whining about how beren and luthien have favoritism from the narrative will never not be funny to me like yes. this is a fictional plot created by someone, the author. that author will have a story they want to tell and a message they want to convey. to tell that story, to convey that message, that author will have created protagonists whom the plot centers on, and whom other characters are meant to parallel, foil, complement, and contrast. the purpose of the story and of the other characters is to illustrate and serve the protagonists' journey, so of course the protagonists will have narrative favoritism. that narrative quite literally exists for their sake and for their development. if you don't like the fact that the protagonists are the ones with whom the narrative sides then just don't engage with the fucking story

[crownedwithstars]

the reasons I think Fëanorians should not get the Silmarils back

it's a better and more compelling story this way. their fall from grace and the way they corrupt and destroy themselves because of a hopeless quest is peak tragedy, which would be ruined by their success.

it's a justified consequence of the Kinslayings: the right of ownership is not and cannot ever be more important than somebody else's right to live.

it's also a justified consequence of them stealing and destroying someone else's priceless semi-sacred property: Teleri will never get their ships back because Fëanor burned them out of spite, so it's only fair and square that the Silmarils are never returned to him or his heirs. 

if Stuff is so important to you that it causes you to ruin the lives of all your children, losing that Stuff forever is probably just karmic justice. (see also: "if more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold...")

And no, nobody else should have the Silmarils either. It's clear that having a Silmaril messes with your brain. At the end of the Silm, they should become public property. I would go even further than this and say that the actual resolution of the Silm, where nobody can have them and the single surviving jewel is carried as a star that everyone can indiscriminately see by a guy who never expressed a desire for it, is probably the only correct one.