#i guess depending on our definition the silm COULD be a secondary source | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

corsairspade · 3 months ago

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every time i interact with the silmarillion i get weirdly excited about the fact that the authorial intent is that it's a translation of historical accounts. it's a tertiary source! none of it is first hand. it makes it so much more interesting. was the legendarium a mannish tradition? what parts of these were written by pengolodh? by rumil? what loremaster has recorded this? would there be bias in the accounting? can i trust what i'm reading, from this viewpoint, this many years after it would have been written?

what has been mythologised, what has been sanitised, what is third-hand written on rumour? it's such an interesting thing to consider.

#i mean like. you can trust MOST of it #but authorial intent as a translation makes it interesting to approach it from a research pov #like are you going to trust this story in its totality when it was transcribed by someone who hated someone in the story #i guess depending on our definition the silm COULD be a secondary source #but thats nitpicky lol #tolkien #silmarillion #silm #i just unreliable narrators/retellings #the element of ambiguity #the way your interpretation can be shaped by how much you trust the author #i totally get why people are like “this is what it says in the silmarillion so there's nothing that supports different readings”#but also i think that is doing the format a disservice

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