#seriously the silmarillion is just full of death

[molteasee]

Silmarillion Noldor Kings summed up pretty accurately 😂

Fëanor

Maehdros

Fingon (imo the last of the great kings)

Fingolfin

Maglor

Finwë

Turgon

Gil-Galad

Elrond

[gffa]

Over the last week, I decided to go ahead with bookmarking all the fics I've recommended over the years on AO3 since I abide by tumblr poll results always (and man pour one out for all the fic that never made it to AO3 or has since been deleted, sooooo many gems lost to time!) and it was a bit more than the ~3,000 I was expecting:

Hopefully, this will be easier than browsing the hundreds of recs posts I've made, since you can filter for any of the author's tags now! These are mostly focused on Star Wars and DC fandom, but I did my time in the anime mines and occasional tours through some TV fandoms or movies. You can dig into everything unfiltered and start your own filtering, or the bigger fandoms you'll find:

MAJOR FANDOMS: Each of these should have 100+ at minimum and, in the case of Star Wars, literally almost half of them are in that fandom. Look, Star Wars fandom might be a trash fire in a lot of ways, but it is ON FIRE with some good fic. (Older bookmarks not guaranteed to match my current sentiments, especially re: the Jedi, but they did catch my fancy at that point in time!)

STAR WARS: - All Star Wars -OR- All Star Wars minus the Obi-Wan/Anakin ship - OR- Nothing BUT Obi-Wan/Anakin

BATMAN/DC: - DC can sometimes be tricky, but you can do a Batman* search and get most of them (though, sometimes Nightwing* or Young Justice* or Superman* will catch some of the others). Honestly, though, you might want to just do a search for what character or dynamic you like and have fun from there, because otherwise you're getting a face full of my Dick Grayson Is The Center Of The Universe And I'm Making That Everyone Else's Problem agenda. ;)

MARVEL/MCU: - Marvel* will probably get most of the various properties, though you may want to filter for Defenders* or Guardians of the Galaxy* if you're interested -OR- Marvel* without the Thor/Loki - These focus a lot on the Thor* fandom if you want to witness the results of like 8 years of constant voracious reading in that fandom (Minus the ship), because, seriously, I read a LOT of Odinson family fic. - Bonus, just do a search for Maximoff* to find some really good X-Men: First Class-verse because, listen, I have been ALL ABOUT the Maximoff twins since long before the movies or MCU brought them over and I will DIE ON THE HILL of "Marvel, make Magneto their bio-dad again or I'm never reading another comic of yours ever".

TOLKIEN/LORD OF THE RINGS/SILMARILLION/HOBBIT: - Tolkien* -OR- Hobbit* -OR- Lord of the Rings* searches will turn up most of my Elf-hunting, I primarily focus on the Sindar Elves, but look I can't resist my problematic Feanorian faves or that I will die on the hill that Fingolfin is the best ever. (You have NO IDEA how sad I am that so much fic on Stories of Arda or FFNET is not easily bookmarked on AO3, sob. I externally bookmarked a few of the bigger ones, but sooo many shorter faves are missing from my recs tag.)

CLAMP: - X/Tokyo Babylon legitimately bums me out because it's not a huge fandom and yet so much of what was written was pre-AO3 and lost when CLAMPesque went down or was never brought over from Livejournal, yet this fandom (well, the Seishirou/Subaru pairing) still burns brightly in my heart.

MINOR FANDOMS: Ones that probably only have under 100 bookmarks (often around the 20-30 bookmarks range), but will at least give you a place to start! ANIME/MANGA: Bleach | Cardcaptor Sakura | Dragonball | Finder no Hyouteki/Viewfinder | Katekyou Hitman Reborn! | Kuroko no Basuke | One Piece | Sailor Moon | Madoka Magica | Naruto | Princess Tutu | Trigun | Weiss Kreuz | Yuri!!! on Ice

BOOKS: Chrestomanci | Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

DRAMAS: Nirvana in Fire | The Untamed -OR- Modao Zu Shi

TV SHOWS/MOVIES: Community | Game of Thrones -OR- ASOIAF | Good Omens | Hannibal | Highlander | The Old Guard | Our Flag Means Death | Stranger Things

VIDEO GAMES: Dragon Age: Inquisition | Final Fantasy 8 | Genshin Impact | Okami

BANDS: Arashi

All right, whew, that was actually a fun project, despite how much work it was to hunt down a lot of older faves to see if they were on AO3, hopefully you'll find this useful!

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Lord of the Rings as a Sequel to The Silmarillion (Part 1)

In one of his letters, Tolkien writes, “it is not really a sequel to The Hobbit, but to The Silmarillion.” I think it would be interesting to go through The Silmarillion and try to piece together the different ways in which The Lord of the Rings can be considered as a sequel to it, in terms of themes, motifs, characters, and plot elements.

But when I start at the beginning of the major events of the core Silmarillion, with the Return of the Noldor, the first pattern I find is The Hobbit as a Sequel to The Silmarillion.

Some of the similarities between the works are already thoroughly observered and discussed within the fandom: setting out on a quest against a dangerous, evil enemy with the aim both of taking vengeance for the death of family and recovering stolen treasure. Thorin and Fëanor likewise have. lear similarities, in pride, determination, self-will, and ultimately an obsession with a particular treasure that overpowers all other goals. And The Hobbit comes very close to a kinslaying at the end! I do not think the Arkenstone is a Silmaril; I think that Tolkien had the general concepts around The Silmarillion in his head, though, when he wrote The Hobbit, and presented some similar ideas there in a different form.

What really strikes me about the resemblances, though, is one key difference. In The Silmarillion, the Valar seek to dissuade Fëanor from pursuing Morgoth, from returning to Middle-earth in a quest for vengeance and lost treasure. In The Hobbit (or rather, as later described by Tolkien in Unfinished Tales), Gandalf - as near as one can get in Third Age Middle-earth to a representative of the Valar, and enturely familiar with the events of the First Age - actively encourages Thorin on his quest against Smaug:

Gandalf: I soon understood that [Thorin’s] heart was hot with brooding on his wrongs, and the loss of the treasure of his forefathers, and burdened too with the duty of revenge upon Smaug that he had inherited. Dwarves take such duties very seriously. [This too is quite Fëanorian - at Fëanor’s death “he laid it upon his sons to avenge their father”.] I promised to help him if I could. I was as eager as he was to see the end of Smaug. [Gandalf was concerned with the possibility of Sauron using Smaug against Rivendell.]

Gandalf advises Thorin - rather vehemently - on methods (a secret mission rather than open war), but he is very much in favour of the Quest. This support is in spite of his understanding of the danger presented by Thorin’s character flaws: “Curb your pride and your greed, or you will fall at the end of whatever path you take, though your hands be full of gold.”

This difference between the Valar and Gandalf, when confronted with a prideful, headstrong individual determined to take on a foe well out of his weight class in a quest for vengeance and treasure, strikes me as quite crucial:

The Valar: Absolutely don’t do that, it’s going to be a disaster and you have no chance of success. We won’t get in your way, but we think it’s a terrible idea.

Fëanor: Yeah, well, screw you, at least I’m not doing nothing, and I’m tougher than you think.

———-

Gandalf: Yes, go for it, I’ll help if I can. Take along this hobbit.

Thorin:…He seems pretty useless.

Gandalf: It is critically important that you take along this hobbit, and you’ll get no help from me if you don’t.

Thorin:…Fine. You’re coming along to babysit him, though.

The Third Age is after Valinor has been removed from the Circles of the World, when the Powers (or their representatives, like Gandalf) need to work with the Children of Ilúvatar, not on their behalf. Gandalf has no choice but to take risks, because he lacks the ability to fix everything by himself; that is, really, the very point of the Istari, that they are there to guide and support rather than to fix everything.

And the risk he takes here is a terrible one, and it very nearly goes terribly wrong. If not for the sudden arrival of an army of Orcs at the Lonely Mountain, it is very possible that his encouragement of the Quest would have resulted in the first Kinslaying (if we’re going to count a battle between broadly anti-Sauron Elves, Dwarves, and Men as a Kinslaying, which I do) in several thousand years. And he knows that Thorin has the kind of character flaws that make this dangerous - he tells Thorin so! And he knows about the Arkenstone. From one perspective, he’s gambling not just with the lives of Thorin & Company, but with Thorin’s soul. (I think this would be Elrond’s perspective, due to having had a front-row seat in the First Age to just how badly such things can go, and I imagine that the whole incident resulted in probably the most heated discussion/argument that Gandalf and Elrond ever had, after Gandalf and Bilbo got back to Rivendell. I don’t think Elrond had, necessarily, all the same context on the Quest and on Thorin’s personality as Gandalf did when Thorin & Co stopped at Rivendell.) From another perspective, Gandalf is respecting Thorin’s free will and the decision that Thorin has already made to go after Smaug, and is doing his best to provide advice and help to improve the chances that things go well. But there are no guarantees that things will go right.

[haleths]

BIG hugs to @glorfindels for tagging me!! ♡ ♡ ♡ how did you know i’m an absolute sucker for these?! i loved reading your answers and i likewise spent way too long answering the most basic of questions...

1. what is the colour of your hairbrush? black 2. name a food you never eat: strawberries, i’m allergic 3. are you typically too warm or too cold? too cold, but i prefer that to being too hot! i’m soooo hyped for autumn/winter weather you wouldn’t believe 4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? the washing up. i lead a very interesting life 5. what’s your favourite candy bar? kit kat chunky UGH 6. have you ever been to a professional sports game? god no 7. what is the last thing you said out loud? "shit” two minutes ago when i nearly split my drink lol 8. what is your favourite ice cream? chocolate👏🏻every👏🏻time👏🏻 preferably with chocolate chips or chucks of some sort 9. what was the last thing you had to drink? water. it’s good for you what can i say 10. do you like your wallet? i actually do! it’s the perfect size and shape, and in my favourite shade of green 11. what is the last thing you ate? dinner, which was sweet potato, tuna, and spinach 12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? nope 13. what’s the last sporting event you watched? .......i’m drawing a blank idk 14. what is your favourite flavour of popcorn? toffee/butterscotch probably. i’m not the biggest popcorn fan tbh, it always gets stuck in my teeth 15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? my brother. he’s great 16. ever been camping? oh yes, every year for our family holiday. my dad loved it, my mum not so much they’re divorced now it’s all good 17. do you take vitamins? nah 18. do you regularly attend a place of worship? not any more but i was a seriously committed christian until i was 17 19. do you have a tan? if you squint 20. do you prefer Chinese or pizza? PIZZA 21. do you drink your soda through a straw? i never drink soda but no 22. what colour socks do you usually wear? black. i’m boring sorry 23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? can't even drive lmao 24. what terrifies you? f a i l u r e . lack of control. eternity. death. not living up to my full potential 25. look to your left, what do you see? my bed, houseplants on the windowsill 26. what chore do you hate most? taking out the bins 27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? koalas?? 28. what’s your favourite soda? i HATE fizzy drinks and avoid them at all costs. my parents never gave them to me as a kid, and when i finally tried lemonade at a party when i was 14, the sensation of something fizzing in my mouth was so unnatural and i’ve never adjusted to it!! 29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? eh fast food isn’t really my thing but i prefer drive thru/takeaway just so i can eat at home in my pjs :) 30. what’s your favourite number? errr do i have one? 17 is pretty good 31. who’s the last person you talked to? does talking to myself count?? 32. favourite meat? chicken, or tuna if we’re counting fish as meat 33. last song you listened to? oh you pretty things - david bowie 34. last book you read? currently rereading the silmarillion 35. favourite day of the week? sunday. very chill 36. can you say the alphabet backwards? absolutely not! not even gonna try 37. how do you like your coffee? i don’t drink it. i looovvveee the smell of coffee and the flavour of it in other things like coffee cake, but the actual drink is too bitter for me 38. favourite pair of shoes? my doc martens 39. time you normally get up? oh god, anywhere between 6:30 and 11am 40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunsets definitely! it’s my favourite time of day 41. how many blankets on your bed? just the one 42. describe your kitchen plates: they’re quite quirky actually! colourful and floral, very cottagecore 43. describe your kitchen at the moment: clean and tidy, small but cosy 44. do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? i don’t drink alcohol either (no soda, no coffee, no alcohol. wtf is wrong with me?!?) 46. what colour is your car? don't have one but if i did......blue? maybe? 47. can you change a tire? hell no 48. your favourite state or province? i’m not american babes! but my favourite place in the uk is northumberland. i fully intend on retiring there one day 49. favourite job you’ve had? probably the one i’m at now. i work at a museum and have been there since i said goodbye to restaurant work last summer, good riddance! it’s not perfect and it’s far from my dream job but i actually feel respected?? and appreciated?? and valued as a part of the team?? it’s sad that my standards are this low but there you have it 50. tagging: @going-there-and-back-again, @kilioferebor, @andtheirlovewasrenewed, and @oreliel-from-valinor ♡ ♡ ♡

[squirrelwrangler]

Wait okay so I haven’t made this a separate full post? Swear I have- but okay, once more:

I Have Zero* Problems with the Idea of Maedhros Not being Rescued off the Slope of Thangorodrim. He isn’t rescued, he hangs by his wrist as Angband’s forgotten decoration, and as a footnote to the War of Wrath and symbolic of the sad disaster some Maiar and Vanyar find him as they liberate Angband (or he finally gets the release of death when Angalacon smashes down into the triple-peaks). Maglor was able to keep his brothers in check when Fingolfin’s much larger forces showed up, so either that continues and honestly very little of the Silmarillion plot changes except what was actions of Maedhros & Maglor becomes just Maglor. FINROD does far more actual good for teh strength of the Noldor war effort than Maedhros ever did. It helps that I also have ZERO emotional attachment to a narrative emphasis and creation buildup around some important Fingon-Maedhros relationship. Either Fingon died on the Helceraxë or killed while murdering Teleri sailors while trying to help steal their ships or dies trying to rescue Maedhros or gives up or maybe because his motives in going to rescue Maedhros were at least half if not more motivated by the political calculation of trying to unify the two Noldor groups, so have Fingon decide that a rescue attempt was too risky and won’t bring peace.Whatever. If the peace doesn’t hold? So we have Fingolfin’s much larger but less supplied (therefore more desperate and driven) forces attacking the Fëanorians to get revenge for the egregious betrayal and to regain their stolen supplies. And in the end I seriously doubt this, no matter how fierce the fighting, cripples the Fingolfin Noldor forces to make their war efforts against Morgoth completely unattainable (Duh, they always were in the end-game; that’s not the point). That means that there’s no lying to the native people of Beleriand. The Sindar, Dwarves, Nandor, and Avari KNOW that the Nodlor are warlike, will quarrel and turn on each other, can’t pretend that they came here for noble altruistic pure motives. But, Fingolfin’s forces are getting revenge for the murdered kin. They aren’t lying to allies, planting that seed of mistrust, building alliances on hidden quicksand. The Oath is removed from the equation, which removes a CURSE that thwarts the war.

But say the plot doesn’t have that divergence. Beren and Lúthien are on their Silmaril quest, C&C still did the coup and tried to kill Lúthien and nothing changed until Beren and Lúthien are at the gates of Angabnd about to meet Carcharoth. And they remember the stories that there’s a prisoner hanging up there. And Beren and Lúthien know what it is to be prisoners, are good and decent and empathetic people, and also maybe make the cold political calculation that they can win some good will against those Fëanorians who were trying to murder them if they free the oldest brother. They’re already doing the impossible and are here, might as well add to it. Beren has the Angrist knife that can cut through Angband’s iron. Now Maedhros owes a Life Debt to Beren and Lúthien. A Life Debt as strong if not stronger than that which Finrod owed to Barahir. Maedhros has a conflict of Oath versus Oath now, an actual character conflict (No, the published Silmarillion doesn’t show Maedhros regretting and second guessing himself; the troubled gray psyche is fanon developing him- heck even Maglor’s regret can you show me that it is more than self-pity?) Now Maedhros must wrestle with himself, with maybe actually breaking with his brothers and family, and become an actually interesting tragic character no matter the decision that he makes. 

*okay, just in the general pity for any captive victim of Morgoth, but Maedhros himself almost overwhelms that, f**k him

[vardasvapors]

reply post times whatever

simaethae replied to your post:                    some more replies                

   i think tho we may be cross-talking a little bc i honestly don’t feel like i often come across the phenomenon you describe? i get very irritated by victim-blaming or attempts to make it so that nothing is your faves’ fault, and i agree “they’re all just as bad other” is a shallow and boring take, but i’ve more often seen it in a context of… deepening complexity, it’s very difficult to achieve a good motive without unintended consequences, etc    

No yeah that’s probably true - I have seen the vague ruining thing a lot, so I’m super sensitive to it. But yeah, different fandom exposures can cause super different opinions or feelings about what the norm is or whatever. :) Like, idk, while IA that the deepening complexity thing can be done well, it eventually becomes obvious when a writer is actually doing it to deepen complexity/show things from a specific character’s personal perspective for its own sake/the larger story’s sake, and when a writer is doing it to try to make something else look worse in comparison to the thing they like. And like, I’ve had the impulse to do that too abut some things and know how tempting it is. But often it’s hard to tell right away, so resentment about the number of fics I have backspaced out of in the middle of like, chapter 5, when the shoe dropped, has just made me very touchy about it.

   i mean like, this is all fandom factional stuff, the feanorians were all dead about from maglor and celebrimbor by the time numenor was a thing and fortunately neither of them ever ended up involved with numenor outside certain distressing AUs, so i def think there’s a lot of scope for us just having… not stumbled across the same posts :p    

Oh no yeah totally! Errr...sorry if my ideas came all disjointed timeline-wise! I was just putting out like, examples of the phenomena I had seen -- I have not seen the, uh, The King’s Men were right stuff firsthand, but I have seen lots of the Feanorian stuff and of course I have seen lots and LOTS of the ‘make the Arafinweans in general awful in order to deny and discredit their moral high ground’ -- sometimes in the context of silencing the legitimacy or sympathy of their anger at the Feanorians about the mass murder against their maternal family’s/half their cultural heritage, and pretend that it’s just them being holier than thou or disloyal or sycophants -- but I’ve also seen it in other circumstances that weren’t just about the Feanorians, so the King’s Men thing kareenvorbarra mention def rings a bell in terms of that particular aspect of it.

    but what's unsympathetic about hubris? :p more seriously i'm into that kind of, tangle of sympathetic and shitty motives into this inextricable knot of fear and insatiable hunger, but that's just subjective personal taste                

Haha *insert one of those ‘oh you!’ gifs here* but no yeah I totally feel you on this, but I guess just....well, you know, the word ‘like’ as applied to characters is really headache-y and unclear tbh. Like...I really like their feelings but don’t like...them...? Like I find them sympathetic but not tragic, or...more empathetic than sympathetic, if that makes any sense...?

Like I think, ‘well, tbh, if i wasn’t someone living in a world where immortality doesn’t exist, but was instead an almost-elf who was almost-immortal living almost in sight of paradise full of immortals, how would i feel and behave about immortality and the possible prospect of becoming immortal and being denied something that i like to think just might maybe hold the possibility of making me immortal?’ and while the answer is not ‘massive colonial conquest of the inferior races to stoke my crumbling ego and feed the inevitably encroaching void’ it still......moves the needle :P

(Also I guess my greater interest in a more crystallized and sincere fear-of-death motive would probably back up to Tar-Minastir and Tar-Telperien)

elesianne replied to your post:                   some more replies                

   I want to click like on all your posts and replies where you speak for nuanced and interesting interpretations of canon/characters without unnecessary hate but instead I’m just going to leave this reply here    

awwww :) thank you! I’m glad i come off that way i guess, though imo i feel like a lot of my opinions are just ‘well idk which is right, but this one is wrong’ laziness

crocordile replied to your post:                some more replies                

   Honored u remember + like something I wrote uwu    

Always!!! <3 The ‘selling mastery over others as freedom’ etc. And tolkien putting a lot more thought into his depictions of idealism and fake idealism than people give him credit for  :)

unfortunatelyimaginary replied to your post: other replies

ack, I have to go to work so I guarantee this won’t be well written but I appreciate this whole Feanorians discussion so very much - Maedhros was my favorite character from the first time I read the Silmarillion but it makes me feel so uncomfortable to see his and his brothers actions treated lightly/excused because, well, it felt like something he/they wouldn’t approve of and that doesn’t quite sound right but I really don’t want to be late for work so apologiesifwrong

No yeah exactly, this makes total sense! It just comes off as so, tin-eared?

[queen-of-arda]

For the silmarillion asks, could you answer no. 3, 6,11,17,18,24,29,30?^^

3. What’s your favourite dwarf?Thorin Oakenshield tbh (mainstream af i know)

6. Would you have followed Fëanor?

already answered

11. Do you agree with the way the Valar dealt with Middle-Earth?honestly not really. it was a bit strange how they ran it (in my opinion, feel free to disagree but do it respectfully). I know they didn’t want to interfere but seriously they could have prevented a lot of shit from happening…

17. You are Fëanor and YOU HAVE the silmarils (Melkor didn’t take it). Would you give them to Yavanna save the two trees and bring light to Valinor again?Most likely, yes. I mean I’d probably not want to give them up but I’d know it was for a good cause and that’s a pretty decent motive to give them to Yavanna.

18. What do you think Eru meant by “And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”?I think it was a warning, a low-key threat. I know if I analyzed this quote more I could find something deeper but I’m too lazy rn lol

24. Why do you think that the race of men are the only one that never went to Valinor besides the orcs?Call me corny but I think it’s fate. In my opinion, things were just destined and set out to be that way (taking into account that the men did not fully trust the Valar). The race of Men had a different path, and that path did not involve Valinor, which I like because it’s different and unique!

29. If you were an elf in Middle-Earth after the War of Wrath would you sail immediately to Valinor or wait a little more in Middle-Earth?Tricky question. It all depends on how I was involved in the War of Wrath. For example, if I had been fighting in it and/or seen terrible tragedy (i.e. the deaths of my close friends and family) then I think it would be too traumatic to remain in Middle-Earth. If I was less involved in the war and lived more in the east where I was less affected and hadn’t encountered the full extent of the war then I would probably remain for a while longer. I hope this makes sense.

30. What do you think of the fact that Tolkien created in 360-ish pages something so perfect and complex?so many emotions. gratefulness, happiness, and generally all around thankful for him creating this incredible world that means so much to me. Overall, I can’t even express it.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Tim Truman, Mort Kunstler, World’s End, DICE Awards

Comic Books (DMR Books): Timothy Truman grew up in small-town West Virginia. spending his childhood reading comics and Conan paperbacks. One of his favorite comics writers was–and remains–Gardner F. Fox. Little did he know at the time, but someday Tim would illustrate the last sword-and-sorcery tale that Gar Fox ever wrote and relaunch Hawkman—a character created by Fox—to critical acclaim.

  Lovecraft (Akratic Wizardry): H. P. Lovecraft (in a letter to J. Vernon Shea, 1934): “I didn’t slop over in youthful romance, since I didn’t believe — and still don’t — in the existence of sentimental ‘love’ as a definite, powerful, or persistent human emotion.

  Comic Books (Paint Monk): How I missed reading Conan the Barbarian #115 when it was on the newsstand is beyond me. It is a fantastic issue, full of references to the last 114 issues, and a fitting swan song for Roy Thomas’ departure from the title for the next 125 monthly installments. It’s also interesting to note that Conan the Barbarian #115 marks Conan’s 10th Anniversary as a Marvel Comics licensed property. To a lesser but by no means insignificant extent, this means the scribes here at Paint Monk’s Library have reviewed a decade worth of Conan comics in less than a year and a half.

    Science Fiction (Tellers of Weird Tales): Ruthless, predatory–they arrive. They will make of their new empire a purely material thing, made and engineered for their own benefit and for the ruination of everyone who is not they. But then all of their very finest plans are ruined when they are laid low “by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.” I have been writing about the late H.G. Wells. Those quoted words are from the early version of himself when he might have put prayer and belief into his work with far less squeamishness.

    Gaming (Geeky Nerf Herder): The winners of the DICE awards, honouring and celebrating the best video games from 2019, have been announced by the Academy Of Interactive Arts And Sciences. Since 1996, the DICE Awards (a backronym for Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) have recognized games, individuals and development teams that have contributed to the advancement of the worldwide entertainment software industry.

    Art (Michael May): But it raises the question: where did such ridiculous armor come from? Whether it is Sonja’s steel attire drawn by Frank Thorne or the equally common fur version for less divine opponents painted by Frank Frazetta? The fur and steel bikini is our second sword-and-sorcery cliché and it has its own history, of course.

    Horror (Porpor Books): Well, here we go with another ‘reviews’ special from UK author Justin Marriott, compiled from the pages of his bookzine of the same name (which is up to issue No. 8, as of 2019). In his Introduction, Marriott states that the 130 reviews in this Special cover the time interval from 1918 – 1998 and use a maximum five-star rating system.

    D&D (Bxblack Razor): This post might ruffle some feathers. I’m okay with that. Once upon a time, someone wrote (in reference to Dungeons & Dragons): We don’t explore character; we explore dungeons. And that is as apt a way of describing B/X-style play as I’ve seen, at least in relation to (most) post-1980s gaming. As I’ve described before, the character in B/X is simply one’s avatar for exploration; it is the vehicle used to facilitate play.

    Warhammer (Track of Words): With literally hundreds of Black Library books, short stories and audio dramas available, and new stories being released every week, it can be hard to know where to start, whether you’re brand new to Warhammer or you want to find out more about certain series, factions or characters. That’s where my series of Where to Start With Black Library articles comes in, as I try to demystify the process of getting into Warhammer fiction, suggesting some great stories that you could start with and talking about why they would make good entry points.

    Art (Pulp Fiction Reviews): Künstler began his career in the 1950s as a freelance artist, illustrating paperback book covers and men’s adventure magazines. In 1965 he was commissioned by National Geographic to create what became his first historic painting. He also created posters for movies such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. And by the 1970s he was painting covers for Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, and other magazines, with the bulk of his work during that period in advertising art.”

    RPG (Victorious RPG): A discussion with a couple of friends of mine (Hi DM Jim and J. Spahn!) has got me to thinking about RPG rules, especially rules that cover a genre specific game like Victorious. There’s a long-running debate as to what is best practice in making a RPG that will be enjoyed by a majority of people. First, there’s the “Uniformity” argument. This was highlighted during the D&D 3rd edition era of the 2000s, but hasn’t gone away. This argument states that a uniform set of rules like D20, GURPS, Savage Worlds, etc. are good because if you know one set of rules you can go to different games that use most of those rules and start playing with a minimum of a learning curve.

    Science Fiction (Brinks Chaos Theory): That was not the case with William Gibson’s classic pillar of cyberpunk, Neuromancer. I read this book about 10 years ago and really enjoyed. Although recently, I couldn’t really remember much about it. I remembered the principal characters, and that the AIs (artificial intelligences) were these huge, mythic beings (not physically huge, but mythically huge), and I remembered that there were Rastafarians in space.

    Fiction (DMR Books): February 15th marks 137 years since the birth of Sax Rohmer. Later this year, his most influential and notorious character, the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu will mark 108 years since his first appearance in print. Born Arthur Henry Ward in Birmingham, England; he adopted the bizarre pseudonym of Sax Rohmer to reflect his fascination with the occult and what was then considered the mysterious East. Rohmer was a prolific, if sometimes formulaic, writer of bestselling thrillers who consistently delivered the goods right up to his ironic death of Asiatic flu in 1959.

    Fantasy Fiction (Sacnoth’s Scriptorium): My own take on the the respective roles of Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay in putting together the 1977 SILMARILLION is simple: I don’t know of any evidence that Kay wrote any of it. And I wd be surprised if he did. I think it far more likely that Kay helped in the sorting and sequencing of the manuscripts, that all-important stage of surveying just what materials existed for each chapter or associated work, after which Christopher wd have decided just which Ms he wd use as his text(s).

    Fantasy Fiction (Tentaclii): DMR has a new blog post, “When Klarkash-Ton Read The Book of Westmarch”, musing on precisely why Clark Ashton Smith was an early admirer of The Lord of the Rings, in those fallow decades before the book was properly understood by its early fans or was taken seriously by some perceptive critics. I can add a few useful dates and some historical context, which DMR lacks. For instance, in the year Smith died the reviewer Philip Toynbee in the Observer newspaper (6th August 1961, then a leading UK Sunday newspaper) was pleased to note of Tolkien’s works that… “today these books have passed into a merciful oblivion”.

    Publishing (Jon Mollison): By now the immediacy of the Barnes and Noble failed experiment of woke-casting classical literature has faded.  These non-troversies rise and fall so fast it can be hard to keep up, so let’s have a quick recap courtesy of Penguin Random House and Barnes and Noble: To kick off Black History Month, Penguin Random House and Barnes & Noble Fifth Avenue is partnering up to give twelve classic young adult novels new covers, known as “Diverse Editions.”

  RPG (Table Top Gaming News): I chat with Matt Finch about the concepts of Old School style roleplaying as well as Swords & Wizardry and the current Kickstarter, from Frog God Games, to produce a special boxed set for the system.

    Book Review (Everyday Should be Tuesday): It was an unexpected arrival, but book mail is always welcome at la casa de martes.  I started reading The Bard’s Blade in part due to comparisons to The Wheel of Time.  As it happens, I had just started a reread of The Eye of the World.  I am afraid The Bard’s Blade suffers in comparison.  And for other reasons.

    Appendix N (Appendix N Bookclub): Bunn Hoi and Jeff chat with Todd Bunn about Lin Carter’s “The Enchantress of World’s End”, flipping expectations, one-shot adventures, sphinxes, and introductory RPG systems!

          Science Fiction (M Porcius Blog  ) : Let’s pull a volume off the paperback anthology shelf of the MPorcius Library and read three SF stories by British authors that appear in editor Mike Ashley’s 1977 book The Best of British SF 2.  The Best of British SF 2 contains 14 stories over its 378 pages, and I have already read and blogged about two of them, Arthur C. Clarke’s 1971 “Transit of Earth,” and John Wyndham’s “The Emptiness of Space,” AKA “The Asteroids, 2194.”

  Sensor Sweep: Tim Truman, Mort Kunstler, World’s End, DICE Awards published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[spinneryesteryear]

Spinner plays FFXIV Heavensward

SPOILERS AHOY

- I made sure to unlock and lvl DRG before starting HW because reasons

- I… don’t really understand why people love Foulques so much? I can only presume it’s because they find him attractive

- at first I wondered why the lancers’ guild quests emphasized courage so much, but once you realize lancer upgrades to dragoon it all makes sense: they’re training the absolute maniacs who jump headfirst at DRAGONS; of course they’re going to emphasize courage

- the literal first thing I did as a dragoon after getting my soul crystal and the jump action was to launch myself into an AOE so clearly I’m playing my job right

- the drama between Alberic and Estinien was the only reason I made it through the 2.1 - 2.3 slog, tbh

- I picked up GLD/PLD somewhere in there, too, but the GLD quests weren’t exactly riveting and the PLD quests weren’t any better. I was just biding my time for DRK

- meanwhile I had hit like lvl 62 on WHM thanks to running lots of roulettes with Adventurer in Need: Healer so I’d switch to that while wandering through a lot of the HW regions so the mobs wouldn’t attack me. I did the HW story on DRG but ran dungeons as WHM the first time bc it’s my comfort role. 

- I’m… still not sure exactly how to do the mechanics on the Steps of Faith. Whoops. Fortunately, all but once I was WHM when I got it in roulette and I could just heal/spam Holy. The exception was on DRG and I just kinda… derped around killing what adds I could.

- those cutscenes at the end of 2.5, though. Dude. Duuuuuuude.

- it did give us Pipin Tarupin, however, and he is Best Lala.

- So, like… what exactly did Ysayle expect would happen when she broke Ishguard’s magic wards and opened it to assault by hordes of dragons??She seems genuinely regretful of the innocent lives lost when spoken to in the MSQ later in HW proper, but when she actually did the deed she was channeling ‘deranged witch’ for all it was worth and talking about how the sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. Did this incident give her a rude awakening about the Dravanian desire for vengeance?? Idk, maybe further quests will explain this.

—– me: *just arrives in Ishgard*

—– me: *taking the grand tour of the city*

—– me: *notices mob near cathedral, inquires about it, learns about recent violent death of heretic*

—– me: *finds heretic corpse*

—– me: *derails grand tour of Ishgard by slaughtering my way through the streets and through various chapels, laughing maniacally as I enjoy the greater reach of my brand-new greatsword and spam Unleash*

—– me, standing amid the broken corpses of a few dozen temple knights: Count Fortemps is probably gonna regret letting me into this city.

- that one dude in Camp Cloudtop who’s entirely too obsessed with the menu deserves to be booted off his lookout platform. I’ll even rescue him via flying mount before he splatters on the ground (however far down the ground happens to be, idk), but I really want to kick him off at least once. He gave me far too many fetch quests and my inner Fray is disgruntled, to say the least.

- me, just trying to make my way across the map: WILL EVERYTHING IN COERTHAS STOP CHASING ME???

- other people think the gaelicats are too cute to kill them. I, however, just want to kill them all the more. I’d be perfectly content to leave the mobs alone and continue on my merry way, but, nooooooo, they have to attack me. So I respond in savage kind.

- me, doing sidequest chains and getting mildly attached to extremely minor characters: So, I kinda ship Ayleth and Saintrelmaux now…

- ever since I unlocked it, I get Dusk Vigil all the time in lvling roulette so I’m now an expert on ice age megafauna, undead knights, and murderous griffins of the non-Sloppeh type

- Ravana is my fave HW primal, hands down, and his theme is definitely among my fave primal music. I would say it’s my absolute fave (I have listened to it on repeat for hours at a time, but I’ve done that with other music, so it’s not conclusive evidence) but it has stiff competition in the form of the Ultima theme, Leviathan’s theme, and the Knights of the Round theme.

- going on a life-changing field trip with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle was amazing. All we needed was Zuko.

- far too many side quests in Tailfeather. Far too many. And that one quest chain ended up with the poor dude’s pet baby chocobo as chicken tenders? If I didn’t hate chickens so much IRL that would have been super painful.

- the moogle quests required to progress the MSQ weren’t that bad. The sheer amount of moogle sidequests needed to unlock flying for that zone and their beast tribe quests, however…. well, I’m completely on board now with any plans Sidurgu might have for utter moogle genocide.

- lol, the moogles were about to give us more chores to do but Estinien’s sheer murderous rage panicked their chieftain into sending us on our way. I love him. (Estinien, that is. Not the moogles. I love to hate them.)

- Estinien is just… I love him so much. It’s more than his armor. It’s more than his jumps. It’s more than his sass and swearing. No stereotypical elf qualities to be found here, folks. Honestly, he could give some elves from The Silmarillion a run for their money, with even his own equivalent of Angband PTSD post-Nidhogg. I also immensely love that he’s a character on a power level similar to the WoL. (I don’t actually enjoy the main character being the most powerful person in the world, without equal. I like someone else being better in at least some ways and that being okay.) Heck, when possessed by Nidhogg he’s the final boss of the expansion + patches. And he lives. (Which is in itself a pretty powerful moment and Alphinaud and the WoL’s desire to save him lifts the whole plot point/theme into something more sublime. It would have been easy to kill him regretfully, both from a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective. The devs had no problems throwing painful deaths at us in this expansion. But we took the harder route. And it was worth it.)

- low-key painful Heavensward moments (bc heavens know there’s enough high-key painful moments): Alberic is extremely worried about his adopted son, whom he last saw nearly possessed by a dragon’s millennium’s worth of hate and rage, and who then vanished in an explosion, but he can’t do anything about it so instead he helps another retired dragoon worry about his own missing daughter

- ngl there was some red herring foreshadowing that the primal Archbishop Thordan planned to summon was actually Halone, the Fury, Goddess of Justice and Patroness of Ishgard. Which would have been badass. But I’m pretty sure Square Enix is going the Dragon Age route of never confirming/denying the presence of the Maker with their Twelve, Halone included, so I deemed it unlikely even as I secretly hoped. A lot of players probably missed these fake hints and would wonder what I’m even talking about. 

- I couldn’t even get mad about all the bad things that happened during the Vault because the characters were juggling Idiot Balls. (1) Aymeric thought his father, who has been consorting with Ascians and plans to summon a primal, could be reasoned with. (2) Aymeric went alone to go reason with him and was correspondingly captured and tortured. (3) We fought three of the twelve Heaven’s Ward in the Vault itself and NO ONE APPARENTLY QUESTIONED WHERE THE OTHER NINE WERE. Plus, said three have clearly already been tempered and are feeding off primal energy for their second forms, even if the mechanics are unknown. Those without the Echo should have promptly skedaddled after rescuing Aymeric. (4) After a dungeon full of ambush mobs, no one thought to secure the little airship landing behind the Vault before arguing with Archbishop Thordan. In Ishgard, city of verticality with its gravity-defying dragoons, personal airplanes, and millennium-long war against flying dragons. Everyone involved should have thought to check the nearby roofs for hostiles. Am I seriously the only person who has ever thought tactically about this situation??? (5) The WoL and Haurchefant rush forward to delay the Archbishop, again without considering the whereabouts of the rest of his presumably also tempered bodyguards or whether any hostiles remain in the building behind us. And so events happened as they did.

- Regula van Hydrus has a cool name and a cool silhouette with that helmet. Better than Varis, anyway. 

- the Vundu are probably my fave HW beast tribe. The moogles are the crafting tribe so Imma do them anyway (and have fun tricking them into doing work) but I’m actually looking forward to the Vundu. I’m just benevolently apathetic towards the Gnath.

- I just, like… did not care about Azys Lla in the slightest. It was more Allagan BS and I hated the map. (I still don’t have it fully explored??? What am I doing??) The ‘terms and conditions’ bit with the node was amusing, but… the entire place got old almost immediately. Finding Tiamat and talking to her with Midgardsormr was the only high point.

- why isn’t there an option to have Hrasevelgr come and talk to Tiamat to persuade her to abandon her self-chosen imprisonment??? Or to have Estinien later come and talk to her to possibly give her Nidhogg’s perspective? Bc I think Nidhogg would have some insight into her situation, definitely. She summoned elder primal Bahamut out of grief at his loss, while Nidhogg launched a millennium-long war out of grief at Ratatoskr’s loss, and now they’ve both abandoned their vengeance. 

- ARF TILL YOU BARF

- idk, man, the Aetherochemical Research Facility is such a weird conglomerate of things for a dugneon. Firstly, you got Allagan tech and machines. Then you got mutant creatures the Allagans made (bc, if it was mad science, then the Allagans were all over it). Then you got Ascians, evil ghosty dudes who laugh evilly and throw standard Evil Ascian Attacks at you before doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z and becoming a Giant Evil Ascian. Igeyhorm has a feminine voice but is she(?) actually female or is she just presumably possessing a female body? Do Ascians have gender or do they even care about such things? (I am very much Not Thinking about Solus/Emet-Selch reproducing here.) 

- Archbishop Thordan reveals the millennium-old, perfectly preserved corpse of Haldrath, the original Thordan’s dragoon son, with NIDHOGG’S OTHER EYE FUSED INTO THE CORPSE’S CHEST, and, like, no one really comments on it in- or out-of-universe???? What happened??? Haldrath gave up the throne, apparently because he wasn’t 100% on board with his dad’s treachery against Ratatoskr and consequent decision to kill all dragons to maintain power. Dragoons were apparently already a thing at this point (HC: to combat the voidsent infesting Abalathia’s Spine and the mountains between Coerthas and Gridania, e.g. Witches’ Drop), so what happened to Haldrath? Is this explained somewhere and I missed it??? Did Nidhogg hijack his mind? Estinien had Nidhogg’s eyes (both of them, incidentally, which Haldrath didn’t have to deal with) fused to his arm & shoulder but Haldrath had an eye fused to his chest. To his HEART. What happened.

- And then Archbishop Thordan somehow turns Haldrath’s corpse + armor + Nidhogg’s eye into a sword, the primal version of presumably Ascalon, King Thordan’s sword, somehow designing it to eat primal/Ascian aether. And then he kills Lahabrea, which, no great loss there. But it leaves my questions unanswered.

- Thordan + Knights of the Round is such a cool trial, I love it to death and not because it’s easy. It could be as hard as Nidhogg Normal and I’d still love it. I wish I had a static with whom I could do Thordan Ex and other more complicated content.

- finishing that fight and the cutscenes after, however… man, I didn’t know how to feel. I was screaming internally and torn in at least three different directions. Couldn’t get through the patch content fast enough to fight Nidhogg.

- had to fight Raubahn as DRG to represent my decimated Knights Dragoon brethren and my missing possessed dragoon brother and restore their honor. I’m also 100% convinced Raubahn learned of Ifrit’s nail trick and decided, “I can totally do that with Tizona.”

- has Aymeric ever done a dragoon jump? No? Then he’s not a real Azure Dragoon even if he has a nice color scheme and has ridden a dragon. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can do a dragoon jump (he’s survived years as Estinien’s friend somehow, and I can’t help but imagine he’s dragged Estinien off more than one rooftop), but until he does it I’m not budging on this. 

- Aymeric getting stabbed by a rando with a pocketknife and nearly dying was (1) surprisingly realistic and (2) made him look wimpy next to all the punishment so many of the other characters take without dying. Sorry, man. It had to be said. I love you, Aymeric, but still.

- standing there on the Final Steps of Faith, on the broken bridge to the Gate of Judgment, staring down Nidhogg while that beautiful music plays (TELL ME WHY BREAK TRUST, WHY TURN THE PAST TO DUST) and waiting for the queue to pop… that was a powerful emotion unlike any other. Stormblood couldn’t match it.

- Nidhogg is such a fun fight because it’s still hard and I hate that I don’t get it in trial roulette more often. (Trial roulette is my favorite, actually. I love almost all trials - with the notable exception of the Chrysalis bc everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off on it and rages in chat, and with the possible exception of non-Final Steps of Faith.) Akh Morn is still a killer, I sometimes just want to watch bodies hit the floor, and Final Chorus is such a badass moment even as we’re all dodging for our puny lives. We’re fighting Bahamut’s brother. 

- Estinien takes advantage of Nidhogg’s temporary aether depletion to regain enough control over his body to try to kill himself before being used to wreak any more havoc. Estinien survived weeks, possibly months of possession via ancient angry dragon, and having two giant dragon eyeballs embedded in his body and feeding him enormous amounts of foreign aether. Estinien survived his body being aetherically remade into the shape of an enormous dragon and then into a giant dragon-man hybrid. Estinien survived the Warrior of Light. IMHO he doesn’t get enough credit for this. 

- do u ever wonder about Hraesvelgr and Estinien later meeting and Hraesvelgr identifying the spirit of his brother lingering within Estinien? Bc I think a lot of us have headcanon’d that Estinien is not as free of Nidhogg as one might think, what with his red fiery aura in SB and all. On the other hand… some of us further theorize that Estinien can’t be tempered now, so he could help us fight primals. It’d be awesome.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Silmarillion as a TV/Netflix Show (Part 3)

Links to Part 1 and Part 2.

Part 3 is where Men show up, and this is the point where the time-frame issues around adapting The Silmarillion become really challenging. Because in Season 2, you could have longish periods of time passing, a season taking place over the space of decades, without really drawing attention to it - your characters don’t age. But unless you want to really draw out the events of the Silm, you’re going to end up with whole generations of Men aging and dying within the space of one season. Which does have the intriguing potential of essentially getting the audience to view Men - us - from the Elven perspective, and see the brevity of human life the way the elves percieve it. For the most part, I’ve dealt with the issue by shortening the time frame and incorporating one timeskip, so the events can be concentrated into two periods rather than spread out evenly over more than a century.

(Technically, there are also about 150 pretty quiet years between the end of the previous season and the start of this one. Whether we tell the audience that is an open question - on the one hand it could deflate the tension a little; on the other, it explains some things like Aredhel’s restlessness, which could come across badly if she’s pushing to leave the city just a couple episodes after it was established.)

Episode 1: Teenage Glaurung sneaks out of Angband and is driven back by Fingon and a party of horse-archers. This is an effective warning of things to come, as he’ll show up again at the end of the season in the Dagor Bragollach; plus, it lets the season get started off on an exciting note. Finrod and Thingol both have foreboding dreams (Finrod’s of the fall of Nargothrond and an oath; Thingol’s of trouble coming to Doriath from Men), and Finrod talks to Galadriel about him. Rumours reach Beleriand (likely via the dwarves, as Nogrod and Belegost have relations with Khazad-dum) of a new people on the other side of the mountains.

Episode 2: Finrod, on a visit to Maedhros and Maglor (and interesting in asking the Laiquendi about the new rumours) encounters Men in Ossiriand. The Laiquendi dislike them because they find them disruptive to nature, and Finrod negotiates that the Laiquendi will not bother them and that the Bëorings can establish a settlement further northwest, which becomes Estolad. Haleth’s people are in Ossiriand at the same time and settle in Caranthir’s lands; Caranthir tolerates/ignores them. At the end of the episode the people of Hador (much more military and well-armed) also arrive in Estolad.

Episode 3: Aredhel leaves Gondolin. The arrival of Men fits into this nicely, because it gives her an incentive beyond mere restlessness. What we see of her suggests she’s adventurous and impetuous, and she would be interested in meeting this new group of people, in addition to wanting to see her cousins. And she can make the case to Turgon that knowing more about them would be beneficial to Gondolin. Turgon lets her go partly because he can’t really stop her and partly because Idril has a foresight that Men will be beneficial to Gondolin in some way. Aredhel’s group encounters monsters in Nan Dungortheb; she survives (and has some exiting vattles with giant spiders and other unpleasant creatures) and makes it to Aglon; the rest of her company do not.

Various elves, curious about Men, visit Estolad, and we have several scenes of the various elven main characters (Sons of Fëanor; Fingolfin and Fingon; Thingol and Melian) discussing the situation.

Episode 4: Aredhel, on her way to see Estolad, attempts to cut through Nan Elmoth (seriously, it’s directly to the north of Estolad) and becomes lost. She meets Eöl. Whether there are plenty of different interpretations for their early relationship, I think it works best for the show (and gives Aredhel rather more agency, and makes Eöl less out-and-out evil) if they’re genuinely infatuated with each other at the beginning. Neither of them has met anyone quiet like the other before! Falling in live with a mysterious stranger does seem like a reasonably in-character thing for Aredhel to do. Let him tell her the story of how Thingol and Melian met (in those same woods) and make some appealingly-flattering comparisons. Leave it ambigous as to whether Aredhel’s inability to find a way out of Nan Elmoth is due to Eöl’s magic or to the general enchantment surrounding Nan Elmoth.

The Noldorin rulers of Hithlum and Dorthonion, both out of desire for closer relations between elves and men (it’s fascinating to finally meet the Secondborn!) and an understanding of their military value, invite the houses of Beör and Hador to live in those lands.

Episode 5: The Men of Estolad debate whether to accept the elven-lords’ invitations, or whether the presence of Angband makes Beleriand too dangerous and they should head back east of the mountains. We get the moment at a community meeting where someone who looks like Amlach claims that both the Valar and Morgoth are a fiction and the real problem is with the Eldar; but Amlach says he wasn’t there, to great discomfitment. Some of the Men leave for the east; some leave for the west; Anlach goes north and joins Maedhros’ forces.

The debate, while interesting, doesn’t fill an entire episode. There’s also room in this episode for the Orc attack on Haleth’s people, the death of her father and brother and her desperate defence; and their (belated) rescue by Caranthir.

Episode 6: Haleth’s people head west through Nan Dungortheb (with more battle sequences!), and after their arrival in Brethil, Finrod negotiates with Thingol to let them stay there. Some scenes with young Maeglin in Nan Elmoth, as several years have passed since the previous episode. The houses of Beör and Hador settle into Dorthonion and Dor-lómin, respectively.

Episode 7: Timeskip from the previous episode. Beör, now living in Nargothrond, is elderly, while his grandson Barahir rules the Edain in Dorthonion (yes, I think I’ve condensed things by a generation). Death of Bëor. In Dorthonion, Aegnor and Andreth meet, fall in love, and break up. The juxtaposition with Beör’s death highlights the difficulties inherent in relationships between elves and mortals.

Maeglin, now an adult, is becoming weary of life in Nan Elmoth and expresses interest in meeting Aredhel’s kinsfolk, including the Sonnof Fëanor. Eöl reacts sharply and threatens to chain him up if he tries it.

Fingolfin calls a council of the lords of the Noldor to discuss an assault on Angband aimed at going beyond a siege and winning the war.

Episode 8: The council of the Noldor-lords is held. Considerable debate about whether to try to outright overthrow Angband. Fingolfin, Fingon, Angrod, and Aegnor are in favour; the Fëanorians, Finrod, and Orodreth are opposed. (Turgon, obviously, is not present.) Maedhros in particular is opposed on the basis that it’s impossible, being the only member of the group who has actually seen the interior of Angband. The decisions is ultimately against a direct attack on Angband.

Aredhel and Maeglin talk, and it becomes apparent that both of them are feeling rather like prisoners and Aredhel misses her family and Gondolin (and sunlight, and freedom).

This episode is also a good place to introduce Beren as a young man, since he’ll be one of the main characters in the next season.

Episode 9: Eöl visits the dwarves in Nogrod for a midsummer feast; Aredhel and Maeglin take the opportunity to escape. Eöl follows them to Gondolin, is captured, tries to kill Maeglin, does kill Aredhel, and is executed. This is dramatic enough to trick the audience into thinking it’s the climax of the season (well, at least if they’re not very genre-savvy; the subject matter of the previous episode is what we call ‘a hint’.)

Episode 10: The early parts of the Battle of Sudden Flame (Dagor Bragollach): Glaurung (now full-grown), the deaths of Angrod and Aegnor, desperate fight of Maedhros to hold Himring in the east, defense of the fortresses of the Ered Wethrin in the west. Ends with the Duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth and Fingolfin’s body being brought to Gondolin. (Poor Turgon has now lost two immediate family members in the space of two episodes. This contributes to him feeling very attached to Maeglin, the one family member he’s gained.) Season ends with a final pan out from Gondolin to show the entire north being on fire and full of orcs.

This episode is going to need a serious special effects budget.