Evil never dies: Parts 3 and 4 of Blogging the Silmarillion updated

There is much goodness in Tolkien. But ample darkness, too.

In The Lord of the Rings, evil is exemplified in Sauron and the orcs and Shelob. But The Silmarillion greatly amplifies it. We get to know Sauron’s master, Melkor/Morgoth, the very embodiment of evil and most powerful of all the Valar. Along with dragons, balrogs, and the lust that invades even the hearts of elves like Eol and his son Maeglin.

But balanced against this Tolkien reminds us what goodness is, again and again. And how it should respond to evil: Hammerstrokes, but with compassion, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. 

You think we’d know this but we don’t.

Evil is real. It’s not just the stuff of faerie, embodied in the evil monsters and beings of the early Ages of Middle-Earth.

It’s the twisted terrorist running a car through a crowd of partygoers.

It’s in the actions of the ruthless dictator or soulless CEO.

In Tolkien’s Catholic-inspired universe we are fallen creatures, made in the image of an omnipotent creator but imbued with free will—with all the potential for greatness but also horrors that entails.

So it’s important we be continually reminded of the good, and the incredible sacrifices required for the maintenance of peace. And how the good can fail, how good people can succumb to base impulses and commit evil. 

Being good isn’t easy.

We see this great drama played out in The Silmarillion in the chapters I’m working through. Here are the recaps, as I continue to restore my full posts from the Blogging the Silmarillion series.

Part 3: Blogging The Silmarillion: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor

Part 4: Blogging The Silmarillion: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom

The Silver Key: 2024 in review

Life is pretty good these days, both personally and creatively. Even though I slowed down a bit on the blog, I’m making an impact.

Life is imperfect and hard and 2024 was no exception. My body continues to age, and hip and knee pain have made a dent in the formerly carefree way I could train with heavy weights. Yet it’s manageable and I keep pushing.

My wife and I are dealing with aging and increasingly infirm parents. My dad is 81, immobile and prone to falls, and I spend a lot of time helping him with day-to-day life. My father-in-law, 85, has early-stage dementia and now requires 24-7 in-home assistance. We’ve got some good external help, but you can imagine what that means for us, and in particular my wife. She spends a lot of time caretaking. We both do. 

But, despite these challenges I can say unequivocally that life is good. 

Why?

We’re grateful to be in a position to take care of our parents when they need us.

I’m blessed beyond measure with two wonderful daughters and a healthy marriage and a good job.

At age 51 I’m at ease with myself at a depth and surety I’ve never previously experienced. I am no longer plagued by unrelenting self-doubt. I know my value, I know where I stand on most issues, and I know what I value. I know enough to say when I don’t know (which is often), and I know when to keep my mouth shut.

This is what true wealth looks like.

My posting here on the blog has declined, but for good reason. My forthcoming heavy metal memoir is taking serious shape, and I know it will see publication this year. Either with some third-party publisher, or more likely self-published. I still sometimes wonder why I’m bothering with a relatively banal story of a no-name heavy metal fan, but I keep pushing, because I believe it’s an important story others might enjoy and learn from. It’s my life, shared in the context of a style of music that has meant so much to me.

But, between writing the memoir, aging parents, work and careers, maintaining friendships on and on, something has to give, and in 2024 it was my posting on The Silver Key. As it publishes this will be my 59th and possibly final post of 2024. 

Last year I had 65 posts, and the year prior 101.And yet somehow my blog traffic has … gone up?

Per Google Analytics, I had 29,352 total post views in 2023, and this year through Dec. 28 I have had 45,230 views. That’s a 54% increase YOY.

How did that occur? I don’t know. Perhaps someone with knowledge of search traffic trends and Google’s air-tight algorithm can offer some insights. I’m at a loss.

It had nothing close to a viral post, but if you look at my top 10 posts by views of 2023, the numbers are significantly higher across the board this year than last. Even though I don’t monetize this blog in any way it’s nice to know people are reading.

On to the show.

Most popular posts of 2024

Normally I do a clean top 10 type post in this spot, but in 2024 I had 17 posts with more than 400 views each. Last year I only had 3 posts exceed the 400 mark. So I’m listing all of these, lowest to highest.

Going Viking at DMR Books, 404 views. A review of the Saga of Swain the Viking, vol. 1.

Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, 413 views. My review of Judas Priest’s latest, awesome studio effort.

A review of Metallica, August 2nd 2024, Gillette Stadium, 450 views. I knocked out I believe four concert reviews this year, all of which pick up regular seach traffic and occasional traffic from Reddit.

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck, 467 views. So bad its good, I am “enjoying” the Death Dealer series and am reminded I need to review vol. 4.

Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction, 482 views. I liked this essay and am glad others did too, which I believe successfully navigated a fraught political line. 

A review of Iron Maiden, Nov. 9 2024, Prudential Center, Newark New Jersey, 483 views. Glad I got see Maiden perform a heavy dose of my favorite Maiden album Somewhere in Time, and one of the final performances of drummer Nicko McBrain.

Prayers for Howard Andrew Jones, ardent sword-and-sorcery champion, 490 views. A terrible tragedy and I continue to wish the best for Howard and his family.

Our modern problems with reading, 499 views. The first of a couple rant-y type posts, people do like these (and I find them easy to write, they come out in a rush) but I’m often left with a feeling of guilt, like I’m adding yet more negativity to an ocean of internet awfulness. But I try to keep rationality at the foundation.

Not all books need be movies, 500 views. See above, I still get irked by everyone wanting a movie made out of every book or literary character. Books can just do some things better.

50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, 559 views. A big round anniversary for a game that’s meant a lot to me.

A review of Judas Priest, April 19 Newark NJ, 586 views. It’s amazing these guys are still doing it.

Some observations while reading Bulfinch’s Mythology, 605 views. Possibly the biggest surprise, a semi-review/scattered observations on an old book of mythology made my top 6 posts of 2024.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review, 634 views. A review of a book in the Heroic Signatures line by a writer with an ear for Howard’s prose style.

More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant, 689 views. A true rant, I stand behind my message but need to reiterate I believe everyone should create if the urge arises. I wish I had targeted it more at the major studios and the “franchise-zation” of everything good that ultimately tarnishes art.

And now the top 3:

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond, 776 views. SSOC was my gateway to Conan and S&S and I couldn’t let its silver anniversary slip by. One of these days I might get around to completing my collection.

Organizing my bookshelves: How I do it (YMMV—no hate), 878 views. Not sure what happened here—this post was picked up by a blog with bigger traffic and that drove many views, but I think it’s a topic that all of us book collectors can appreciate. 

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review, 1388 views. SSOC is an important title, both historically and today, and overall I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Titan. Though as my review points I had some issues with no. 1 (in particular the printing). But this one brought in the most eyeballs of 2024, both out of the gate and continues to do so. I’m reminded I need to pick up issues 5-6.

To sum up: People like shit posting/rants, they like reviews about Conan, they enjoy advice on how to shelve books (?), and they like heavy metal. All these things bring me great joy and I’m glad they seem to bring joy to you, too. I do very much welcome comments on the blog, and thank all my regulars, but the numbers have a power all their own, and demonstrate that which resonates with a broader audience. I’m not a numbers chaser at all and I write what I enjoy, but nevertheless I find the numbers interesting.

As always I welcome comments here about what you like, don’t like, or what you want to see more of in 2025 and beyond. 

Contribute a page

I’m just a guy (a classic JAG) who loves art, and is reflective by nature. So, I contribute reflections on art, and its relationship to life. 

I can’t not do this.

Life and art are intertwined. We need myths, and stories. They entertain, but also offer a model for how to live good lives (because goodness is real, not an abstract concept). Art is a mirror on reality, sometimes clear and sometimes carnival fantastic, that gives life shape and meaning.

So that’s what I’m doing here, and in my writings elsewhere.

Anyone who brings art into being or contributes reflections on art and life has done something of value. Whether or not you find commercial success, I salute you. 

Keep creating. Contribute a page.

Apropos of this PSA here is part 2 of Blogging the Silmarillion.

Silmarillion re-read, link to part 1 and letter to Milton Waldman

White ships from Valinor, Ted Nasmith.

I’m currently re-reading The Silmarillion and you can now find the full post of part 1 of my 2010 “Blogging the Silmarillion” series originally published on The Cimmerian, here.

A few additional thoughts and comments on this most recent go-round.

I don’t know why I previously failed to mention Tolkien’s 1951 letter to Milton Waldman that leads off the volume. It’s like reading the cheat code for Tolkien’s greater legendarium. Interestingly this letter does not appear in the 1977 Houghton Mifflin first edition hardcover, but does appear in the gorgeous, Ted Nasmith illustrated 2004 second edition that I also own. Get this latter edition if you don’t already have it, there are nearly 50 illustrations and many appear in this volume for the first time.

Waldman was Tolkien’s friend and an editor at the publishing house of Collins, and the letter is more or less a lengthy summation of Tolkien’s argument that The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings should have been published together, or at least in conjunction, “as one long Saga of the jewels and the rings.” Of course that did not occur as The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977.

The letter contains a wonderful summation of what lies at the heart of the legendarium, “Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” I am perhaps slightly more forgiving than others of Tolkien adaptations, even though I’d be content if we got no more, but I do believe that any faithful Tolkien adaptation must contain these elements. A Fall from God, the creator, Iluvatar; the problem of Mortality (and the problem of the pursuit of deathlessness); and the Machine, or the desire to dominate or coerce other wills and raze and bulldoze the natural world. Either implicit or explicit.

Re-reading The Silmarillion, and reviving my old Cimmerian posts

I've started re-reading The Silmarillion. It's been a few years, and I'm due to revisit the rich and wonderful history of Middle-earth.

I'm enjoying it as much as I did upon my last re-read, which prompted me to revisit my old "Blogging the Silmarillion" series for the Cimmerian website. 

Back when I was writing for The Cimmerian I used to run part of the post here and link to the rest. Unfortunately that has resulted in incomplete posts after that site was radically overhauled. Time to correct that by posting the full text here, which I fortunately retained.

Here's the series introduction, Cimmerian sighting: Blogging The Silmarillion. 

I'll post the others as I work my way through the text, and possibly add a little additional commentary.

Some interpretations of the ambiguous ending of The Green Knight (2021)

If you haven’t seen The Green Knight, and don’t wish to be spoiled, stop here before you enter the Green Chapel and its perils. Thou hast been warned.

The 2021 David Lowery written and directed film The Green Knight is an interesting, inventive take on the old poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” 

It’s beautifully rendered. You can’t take your eyes off it. It also sticks with you, in part due to its ambiguous ending, which is very much open to interpretation.

Here’s a few thoughts I had from a recent re-watch. And yes, I seem gripped again by my annually recurring year-end fascination with King Arthur.

Needless to say spoilers coming. 

***

Brief recap: The plot of The Green Knight (book and film) centers around the arrival of a massive, green-skinned and armored knight in King Arthur’s court on Christmas. He offers up a challenge: Any knight can strike him a blow with sword or axe from which he will not flinch, save that he will return the blow one year hence.

Arthur’s nephew Gawain, the youngest knight in the court, takes up the challenge and strikes a savage cut that sends his head tumbling to the floor. Then, to the horror of all in the hall, the mysterious figure picks up his severed head and turns to leave the stunned court, but not before reminding Gawain he must ride out to his chapel in a year to complete the challenge.

Gawain commits, and embarks on a series of adventures en route. In one of these he is given a green belt/sash that renders him invulnerable to any blow. An obvious, unforeseen advantage in a contest of his sort. But also, unfair and dishonorable.

In the poem, Gawain leaves on the sash, and receives a nick on the neck as a rebuke.

In the film, Gawain removes his sash after an agonized internal struggle, then turns to await the blow. One we’re not sure lands, because the film ends before we see it.

So, does Gawain get his head cut off?

I don’t believe that’s what actually matters. What does is his decision moments prior.

Earlier in the scene Gawain asks an existential question as he stares death in the face: “Is this really all there is?”

This is not (merely) a question concerning the end of his own life, but the possibility of a life without meaning, one ruled by the material laws of nature in which purpose and beauty and meaning are empty and meaningless, and death and decay our only masters. The type of world described by the dragon in John Gardner’s Grendel: “It’s all the same in the end, matter and motion, simple or complex. No difference, finally. Death, transfiguration. Ashes to ashes and slime to slime, amen.”

If he leaves on the sash, he will be invulnerable, but also will have fatally compromised the only virtue that matters in such a world: His integrity. 

Gawain has a flash of what would happen should he leave on the sash: he becomes a king of a fallen kingdom, a dishonorable ruler, haunted by his choice over the long years until the kingdom falls, corrupted.

Ultimately he chooses honor. Does that cost him his life?

The film offers some clues. “Well done my brave knight,” the green knight says, after Gawain removes the sash. And then, the final cryptic line of the film: “Now, Off With Your Head,” which obviously implies he’s a goner. 

After all, a blow is due in return per the sacred rules of the game. Honor demands it.

However, the Green Knight delivers the final line with a good natured, light-hearted spirit, indicating that any blow will be only lightly given, which would make it true to the poem.

As important as this (obviously) is for Gawain and his future, I’m not sure it matters either way. 

Even if Gawain loses his head, the message of the film can be interpreted as profoundly hopeful. 

Let’s start with the idea that the Green Knight represents nature. If so, his acknowledgement of Gawain’s selfless act implies there is honor embedded in nature. It is not an abstract, empty term rendered meaningless by postmodernism, it is as real as the grass under our feet, the rotation of the earth and its seasons. We just have to make the choice.

Though there is a far bleaker interpretation. There may be honor but it ultimately doesn’t matter, nature is going to kill you in the end anyway. It’s all a cosmic joke.

But maybe we should still act honorably anyway, because doing so is its own reward.

Regardless, I believe Gawain's transformation from shiftless coward to noble knight suggests that facing death with dignity is essential to living a meaningful life.

What do you think?

I welcome any thoughts on this.

Where Eagles Dare, Iron Maiden (for Nicko)

Job well done.

This Metal Friday, a toast to the great Nicko McBrain, who last week called it a day after a career that spanned more than 40 years behind the drum kit with Iron Maiden.

When Nicko joined Iron Maiden in 1982 there were skeptics. He was replacing Clive Burr, a terrific player who had been there since Maiden’s debut album, and joining a well-established band that had just put out the wildly popular Number of the Beast.

Nicko had to make an impression. And he did, on the very first song of his first studio album with the band, “Where Eagles Dare.” An awesome, driving tune kicking off side A of Piece of Mind (1983).

It’s telling that the first sounds you hear on this classic album are Nicko’s thunderous drums. He brought a new level of heaviness and intensity to the band, and remained Maiden’s drummer for 42 years, until age and the residual effects of a 2023 stroke forced him to hang up the drumsticks. 

At 72 Nicko has more than earned his retirement.

I’m glad I got to see Maiden and Nicko one last time earlier this year. Our metal heroes are aging, no guarantees of tomorrow.