A recap of Boskone 47: Talking Tolkien with Tom Shippey

Tom Shippey might be the closest connection we have to J.R.R. Tolkien himself, save for Tolkien’s son Christopher. Shippey met Tolkien and had a few conversations with him shortly before the latter’s death in 1973. He followed in Tolkien’s footsteps as a professor of Anglo-Saxon literature, inheriting Tolkien’s chair and syllabus. Most importantly of all he understands the source material of Tolkien’s legendarium probably better than any man alive, including works like the Finnish Kalevala, Beowulf, the Eddas, and the Icelandic sagas. Shippey has also written two highly regarded critical works on Tolkien (certainly the two most impressive I’ve read), J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien created a new mythology.

Entering Friday’s night’s Boskone 47 conference at the Westin Boston Waterfront in Boston, MA, I was hoping to steal a minute or two of Shippey’s time to ask him some questions about my favorite author. I’m pleased to say I got much more!

I arrived at the conference a little before 6 p.m., checked in and got my badge and conference literature, then slid into an ongoing panel discussion about works of science fiction that don’t seem to be aging well (“What’s Showing Its Age?” by Daniel Dern, David Hartwell, and Peter Weston). The session let out at 7, just in time for an autographing session with Shippey, children’s author Jane Yolen, and sci-fi author Andrew Zimmerman Jones. The autographing session was being held in the Galleria, a large exhibition hall full of book dealers, purveyors of fantasy sculpture and miniatures, original artwork by the likes of John Picacio and Michael Whelan (the latter of Elric book cover fame), and much more.

When I entered the hall I saw that Yolen had a line of some 15-20 people deep waiting for autographs; Shippey had only a couple! Within minutes I was shaking the hand of perhaps the greatest Tolkien scholar ever, offering thanks for teaching me more about Tolkien than any other author, and garnering signatures for my copies of J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth.

I was prepared to be swept aside by other autograph seekers, but with none coming I got to speak with Shippey for quite a while. I felt completely out of my depth and initially a bit flustered, but he put me at ease with his friendly banter, warmth, and genuine sense of humor. Shippey is a lifelong fan of fantasy and science-fiction beyond Tolkien which also helped put me at ease.

I could not resist asking such fannish questions as:

“What was Tolkien like?”

“Have you read Michael Moorcock’s Epic Pooh? What did you think?”

“Which was a greater influence on Middle-earth: Old Northern or Christian mythology?” (this last question sparked some interesting side-conversation on Joseph Pearce’s Tolkien: Man and Myth).

“Was Middle-earth our actual earth in some pre-cataclysmic age? Or did Tolkien intend it purely as a fictional creation?” (The former, Shippey said)

Shippey took the time to answer them all. I won’t share all of Shippey’s comments here as it was personal, candid conversation, but I will relay a few things. For example, he mentioned how Tolkien was very Hobbit-like: He cared about things like football scores and people’s names and their origins. Shippey also talked about the declining enrollment of English majors and the marginalization of literature studies and critics (I agree completely). It’s strange to say, but having spoken with Shippey I now feel two degrees removed from Tolkien himself (and technically, I now am)!

Afterwards I attended two panel discussions featuring Shippey and others: The Lord of the Rings Films: 5 Years Later (which ran from 8-9 p.m.) and The Problem of Glorfindel and Other Issues in Tolkien (which ran from 9-10 p.m.). These were very enjoyable.

In general, Shippey enjoyed the Peter Jackson films and thought they were well done. He has some problems with them, of course, and stated that he didn’t like what Jackson did with the character of Theoden. Aragorn’s fake death when he falls over the cliff was derided by the panel, as were some of Jackson’s over-the-top scenes of grue (his horror influences spilling through).

But in general the panel thought the films were very good, and that the changes from the book were necessary in adapting it to a film medium while ensuring that the movie remained profitable and accessible for a broader audience. Someone else asked why battle scenes were downplayed in the books, particularly their graphic details, while in contrast the battles were huge set-pieces in the movies. Shippey responded, “Everyone who Tolkien knew was a veteran—there were things you didn’t have to explain,” whereas audiences today are “civilianized.”

Speaking of profitable, Shippey quipped that Tolkien’s writing of The Lord of the Rings “must have been the biggest return on investment in the history of the universe,” noting that Tolkien used scrap paper and borrowed ink to write the early drafts, and only had to sacrifice a college professor’s spare time (which is essentially worth zero, joked Shippey, who is a professor himself).

Shippey said Jackson made some “very gutty decisions” with the script, including leaving the ending as-is, keeping its tone of sadness and loss when a Star Wars-like ending might have been more palatable for a modern audience. Fellow panelist Michael Swanwick commented that the end of The Lord of the Rings “breaks your heart,” in that it’s happy and sad all at once. One of my favorite moments was Shippey’s comment that Sam’s final line (“Well, I’m back”) is “such an Anglo-Saxon thing to say:” It’s all of three syllables and in one respect pointless (of course Sam is back!), but at the same time means so much more. Shippey noted that Sam paradoxically came back to die, but also to live with his family and as Mayor of Michel Delving.

The panel took some questions from the audience, including one from yours truly about the decision to remove the Scouring of the Shire. Other panelists than Shippey weighed in, but the general consensus was that there were already too many endings and that the Scouring was anti-climactic and works better in a book than on film (I don’t really agree, but there you have it).

As for whether or not these films still resonate, a member of the audience pretty much answered that with a story about a trip to New Zealand taken by his friend and friend’s fiancé. The two were pleased to discover that the country’s tourist maps are marked with all the sites from the films. The couple hiked up “Mount Doom” and brought him back a piece of igneous rock from its now legendary slope.

The second lecture/panel discussion I attended, The Problem of Glorfindel and Other Issues in Tolkien was a discussion of the minutea in Tolkien’s legendarium and some of its seeming inconsistencies. Panelist Mary Kay Kate of the Mythopoeic Society commented that, “We care about trivial things because [Tolkien] succeeded so well at creating his world—he can’t have just made mistakes.”

The panel opened with a discussion of Glorfindel. Elves in Tolkien’s legendarium do not reuse names, therefore the Glorfindel who died fighting a balrog in the First Age (as told in The Silmarillion) must have been reincarnated into the Glorfindel we know from The Lord of the Rings. However, it was unclear (and remains so) if Tolkien intended this, or whether he merely re-used an old name by accident. Shippey remarked that Tolkien had an uneasy attitude toward reincarnation—while he didn’t deny it, when asked whether he believed in its possibility Tolkien answered, “I’m a Catholic.”

There was a lot of conversation among the panel and the audience regarding Tom Bombadil, why this section of the book feels different, whether or not it’s important to advancement of the plot, etc. I admit that I’m rather ambivalent about this section of the book and so took few notes.

Shippey, who had been quiet for much of this discussion, then took off on a spellbinding 10 minute talk about Tolkien’s lifelong habit of revising and re-revising his work: “Niggling,” Shippey called it (Tolkien wrote a story entitled “Leaf by Niggle” which addresses this facet of his personality). This led to some problems and could have potentially wrought significant havoc with Tolkien’s creations. For example, Shippey stated that Tolkien was strongly considering a sixth revision of The Hobbit which would have significantly altered and softened the story, but fortunately reconsidered when a confidant said, “That’s all well and good John Ronald, but it’s not The Hobbit”). Shippey added that Christopher Tolkien told him that “his father never would have finished The Lord of the Rings if it were not for C.S. Lewis.” Shippey also noted that Tolkien went a large part of his latter academic career without publishing any scholarly works or papers, which was frowned upon by administration.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the session was the panel’s discussion of the problem of orcs. Some critics have called Tolkien’s depiction of the orcs racist; also troubling is the fact that orcs seem like an unredeemable race (whereas others in Tolkien’s legendarium choose evil, so they can theoretically repent their ways and be granted mercy).

Shippey noted that orcs share many human-like values: For instance, they value loyalty and abide by rough Geneva-like conventions of warfare (Shippey quoted the “regular elvish trick” line from the orc Gorbag who finds Frodo bound in webs and abandoned on the orc-path; Gorbag is at least outwardly appalled that a soldier would leave a wounded fellow soldier to die). “Orcs are all right!” Shippey said. But he also laid his finger on the root of the orcs’ evil: The problem of Ufthak. Ufthak was the unfortunate orc who was found by his comrades alive, emeshed in Shelob’s webs. Rather than freeing him, the other orcs laughed and left him hanging in a corner to die a horrible end. Saving him wasn’t their business.

Shippey made a compelling case that the problem of Ufthak demonstrates that the orcs have a thoroughly modern mindset: They know the difference between right and wrong and have a theoretical knowledge of good and evil, but don’t put into practice. They act self-centeredly, separate from standards of decency. This attitude resulted in the major man-made holocausts of the 20th century.

On a final note, when the moderator asked the panelists for closing remarks, Shippey with his booming voice told everyone that Tom Bombadil is “not a Maiar, or a Valar. He’s a land wight!”

Sounds reasonable to me, and who am I to argue?

A date with Tom Shippey at Boskone 47

This week I signed up for a one-day pass to attend Boskone. It's a regional convention put on by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA). It runs all weekend at the Westin hotel in Boston and features dozens of authors, artists, panel discussions, board and computer games, medieval weapon displays, zombies, and more.

I just found out about the convention this week, and was stunned to see that one of the special guests is Tom Shippey. Immediately I knew that I must attend.

For the uninitiated, Shippey is the premiere J.R.R. Tolkien scholar of our age, author of the incomparable works J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien created a new mythology. Shippey knew Tolkien personally, teaching Old English at St. John's College during Tolkien's last years of retirement. He later followed directly in Tolkien's footsteps, inheriting JRRT's chair and syllabus.

If you own the extended versions of Peter Jackson's LOTR films, Shippey is featured prominently on the extras on these discs. I have learned more about Tolkien from Shippey than any other author. He's brilliant.

Shippey will be at Boskone throughout the weekend, but the stuff I'm most interested in all takes place tomorrow. I was able to buy a one-day pass for $17 and plan to attend the following panel sessions (you can bet I'll be bringing my copies of The Road to Middle-earth and Author of the Century for autographing):

Friday 7 p.m. Autographing
Andrew Zimmerman Jones, Tom Shippey, Jane Yolen

Commentary: I don't know AZJ, but I have read Yolen's Owl Moon to my children. She's a prolific children's author and Owl Moon is wonderful.

Friday 8 p.m. Harbor 1: The Lord of the Rings Films: 5 Years Later
How are they holding up? Any virtues or themes (or faults) that are clearer nos? Think they'll be popular for decades, watched annually on September 22 (Bilbo's birthday—but you should know that)? If computer graphics imagery keeps improving (see Avatar!), should we redo LOTR every five years? Come join the discussion of what is lost and what is gained when adapting beloved books to the silver screen, and share what your vision of a (non-Peter Jackson?) LOTR 2.0 might look like.

Ethan Gilsdorf, Laurie Mann (m), Tom Shippey, Michael Swanwick, Ann Tonsor Zeddies

Friday 9 p.m. Harbor 2: The Problem of Glorfindel—and Other Issues in Tolkien
Tolkien's elves never re-used names (they were immortal, after all) yet a Glorfindel lived and died in the First Age of Middle-Earth and another was a character in The Lord of the Rings six thousand years later—what happened? One of the joys of Tolkien's world is that it is so well-realized that minor anomalies (which in a lesser writer would be assumed to be sloppiness) only make it seem more real, since the history of the real worls also abounds in puzzles. Enjoy a walk through Middle-Earth's lesser-know byways. Who was Eldest: Treebeard or Tom Bombadil? What were orcs, actually, since Morgoth could not create anything new? Why are the wood-elves such jerks in The Hobbit? Whatever happend to Ungoliant? Arwen became mortal, but what happened to the sons of Elrond when he took ship for Valinor? Where did Sauron hide the One Ring when he was taken captive to Numinor? Let's take the time to explore these and other intriguing curiosities of Middle Earth.

Mary Kay Kare, Kate Nepveu, Mark L. Olson (m), Tom Shippey

I'd love to get the chance to ask the guy a few questions about Tolkien, but it all depends on how crazy the con is. I'll post a report here afterwards.

Blogging The Silmarillion: Of Blind Guardian’s Nightfall in Middle-earth

In this week’s Blogging the Silmarillion, I’ve decided to take a temporary detour into two tastes that taste great together: Heavy metal and J.R.R. Tolkien. Following is a review of Blind Guardian’s Nightfall in Middle-earth, aka. The Silmarillion with electric guitars.

I can’t speak for all readers of The Cimmerian and The Silver Key, but back when I was in high school—circa 1987-91—there was a bright line drawn between fantasy fiction and heavy metal. The former was the province of D&D-playing nerds, and the latter was for bad-asses who hung out in the back parking lots, wore denim and smoked cigarettes. And never the twain shall meet.
This divide was equal parts myth and reality, of course. Some people liked both. For example, I always prided myself on having one foot in each camp, and I was not alone—most of my friends were into metal, and many were also fans of books like The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

In addition, you could find a few examples of successful metal-fantasy alliances back then. For example, Iron Maiden attracted both stoners and readers alike with songs like “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Alexander the Great,” and “To Tame a Land” (the latter was a song about Frank Herbert’s novel Dune). Black Sabbath’s album Heaven and Hell (fronted by Ronnie James Dio) had plenty of fantasy imagery in its lyrics, too.

Still, in the main, the two camps were on opposing sides of the battle-line, perennially at odds like the forces of Gondor and Minas Morgul.

After high school I lost touch with the day-to-day happenings in the heavy metal scene. I kept listening to bands like Maiden and Judas Priest, but I stopped paying attention to new trends and upcoming bands. Specifically, I failed to keep up with a new metal force rising like a steel wave out of the heart of Europe, until I woke up one day to find that heavy metal and J.R.R. Tolkien had inexplicably become bedfellows. The unholy offspring of this unlikely coupling was the 1998 album Nightfall in Middle-earth by Blind Guardian.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site .

Blogging The Silmarillion: The breaking of the siege of Angband and other (myth) busting

Part five of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with chapters 16-20 of the Quenta Silmarillion.

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By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears.

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, “Of the Fifth Battle”

If you had but four words to describe the action of Chapters 16-20 of The Silmarillion, you could do worse than all hell’s breaking loose. It’s a section I equate to a great turning of the tide against the forces of good.

In fact, Hell breaking loose is almost a literal interpretation of what happens in the fourth great Battle of Beleriand, the Dagor Bragollach (Battle of Sudden Flame). From the deep pits and mines of hellish Angband issue great streams of fire, followed by hosts of orcs, Balrogs, and the dragon Glaurung. It’s very much as if Gehenna, on the orders of Satan, were to empty its bowels of fell spirits and demons. The Noldorin guarding Angband are destroyed or driven back as Morgoth, pent up in his fortress for nearly 400 years, breaks out with a fury and a vengeance.

Seventeen years after this eruption, the forces of good marshal for another great cast at overthrowing Morgoth and ending his reign of terror. The result is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (Battle of Unnumbered Tears), whose enduring image is a great hill of corpses of Elves, Men, and Dwarves, captured magnificently in the above piece of art by the incomparable Ted Nasmith. The Doom of the Noldor comes home fully to roost as the grieving wives and children of the slain indeed shed “tears unnumbered.” With the defeat, Elven might in Beleriand, save in a defensive capacity only, is smashed. It’s one of the greatest and at the same time most heartbreaking scenes of battlefield ruin I’ve read.

And Morgoth came...

These two battles also contain two of the finest (I’m tempted to say the finest) passages in fantasy literature. The first is from the Dagor Bragollach when Fingolfin, overflowing with wrath and despair following the rout and destruction of his brethren, rides to the gates of Angband and challenges Morgoth to single combat:

He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Orome himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.

The other passage that leaves me breathless is Hurin’s last stand at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad:

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and seized the axe of an orc-captain and wielded it two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried aloud: ‘Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, who thought thus to do him more evil than by death. Therefore the Orcs grappled Hurin with their hands, which clung to him still, though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, till he fell buried beneath them.

If these passages don’t move, inspire, or astound you, I encourage you to have your pulse checked.

In addition to the death of its best and bravest leaders, and the slaughter and enslavement of a great number of the Noldor, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad begins a dark age that lasts roughly one hundred years until the return of the Valar for the War of Wrath. With the power of Elves and Men destroyed and scattered, Morgoth’s forces largely have free reign to plunder and pillage. Much of Beleriand is razed.

In other words, it’s a bad ending for the forces of good, and gets at the very essence of why short-sighted critiques offered by the likes of Elric author Michael Moorcock and Richard Morgan, author of The Steel Remains, bother me so much. These guys claim to understand Tolkien, yet never bothered to read The Silmarillion. I say that with confidence because once you’ve read about Fingolfin’s battle with Morgoth at the gates of Angband, or the account of Rian weeping over the Hill of Slain, how can you reconcile such ludicrous statements as:

• There is no happy ending to the Romance of Robin Hood, however, whereas Tolkien, going against the grain of his subject matter, forces one on us – as a matter of policy. (Moorcock)

• Ponderous epic tones of Towering Archetypal Evil pitted against Irritatingly Radiant Good (oh – and guess who wins). (Morgan)

Against these two claims, I place on the other side of the scale the twin deaths of Fingon and Fingolfin. Now, you can make the case that Fëanor with his overbearing pride and Silmaril fixation had death coming to him, and therefore he’s not really a “good guy.” No such argument exists with Fingon and Fingolfin. These are beneficent, forgiving, courageous leaders of the Noldor. Yes, they were dragged along in Fëanor’s train and complicit in his rebellion against the Valar. But both paid their dues on the ice-clad sea of Helcaraxë and went on to rule their peoples with fairness and justice. They deserved victory. They didn’t get it.

Not only are both to die on the battlefield, but the manner of their deaths is quite grim, even gruesome (or as gruesome as Tolkien gets). First, we have Fingon pounded into gristle by Gothmog and the maces of his Balrogs:

Then Gothmog hewed him with his black axe, and a white flame sprang up from the helm of Fingon as it was cloven. Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.

Then we get Fingolfin, his neck and body broken by Morgoth:

Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill… And Morgoth took the body of the Elven-King and broke it.

It bears mentioning that the author of said carnage saw similar scenes played out on one of mankind’s grimmest stages. Two of Tolkien’s best friends, Rob Gilson and Geoffrey Smith, were killed on World War I battlefields. Both were smart, promising young men who should have lived long and fruitful existences. Neither they—nor Fingon or Fingolfin—deserved death. But to borrow a quote from Unforgiven’s William Munny: Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Sometimes—often times, truth be told—evil wins. War spares no one the sword or the arrow (or the machine gun bullet or the burst of shrapnel). It cuts down the worst and best alike. Tolkien understood this fact far better than his critics give him credit for.

So again I ask, happy endings? Somebody better explain that to trod-in-the-mire Fingon, or broken-bodied Fingolfin: If you find them in the Halls of Mandos, they have a different story to tell. Somebody better tell that to the people of Hithlum, who for the next hundred years after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad are to lose everything—their possessions, their homes, even their children—to roving bands of orcs and Easterlings.

In addition, somebody forgot to tell Gwindor—a Noldorin Elf forced to watch as a group of orcs brutally hack the hands, feet, and finally the head from his brother, Gelmir—that Tolkien was all about happy endings, and that better times were coming. In most authors’ hands Gwindor would have gotten his revenge and found a measure of solace, but in not Tolkien’s, who knew the realities of the long defeat and the capriciousness of death on the battlefield. Gwindor kills his brother’s tormentors, but his mission of revenge fails—all his men are slain, and he is imprisoned, spending years in toil and torment. Later he manages to escape, only to die in a hopeless defense of the Elven city of Nargothrond.

That Tolkien was soft and guilty of spoon-feeding his readers happy endings is pure myth-making, and not the definition of myth that Tolkien employed (an ancient tale told through fictional creations, but with truth at its heart). Rather, this canard fits the modern definition of myth—a perpetrated hoax that needs to be put to rest. The truth is right there in the text, and Tolkien’s ledger—the body of his legendarium—supports sadness, uncertainty, and unhappiness in the main.

In short, Moorcock and Morgan might be good writers of fiction, but as Tolkien critics they’re rather poor and imperceptive, and they certainly haven’t done their homework.

While the great defeats of the Wars of Beleriand dominate this section, there’s much more to recommend in these chapters of The Silmarillion. Some highlights include:

• Eöl the dark Elf, a short-lived but memorable character who sires the ill-fated Maeglin. Initially loyal, Maeglin, through a series of unfortunate events (his father is executed, and his love for a beautiful Elf princess goes unrequited), becomes a dark seed of evil who will eventually betray hidden Gondolin.

The first Bard's song...

• The coming of Men into the west. Tolkien paints a great scene of Finrod traveling alone in Ossiriand and finding the first Men to cross the mountains of Ered Lindon. Finrod waits until they’re sleeping, then, sitting beside their dying fire, picks up a harp and begins to play songs of the making of Arda and the bliss of Aman beyond the shadows of the sea. Slowly the Men awake, and listen in amazement: “Each thought that he was in some fair dream, until he saw that his fellows were awake also beside him.” Tolkien notes that these Men have a “darkness behind them,” which seems to imply some Edenic Fall, though this is never fully explained.

• Guerilla warfare waged by the Elves and Men after the Battle of Sudden Flame. The most famous of these is Beren (see below).

Terrific Tolkien: The tale of Beren and Lúthien

Handed a book with the synopsis, “Hero attempts to steal a great treasure, is thrown into a dark pit in which his companion wrestles and kills a werewolf,” most fantasy readers would naturally ask, Sounds awesome: What Robert E. Howard story is that again?

That this is actually a scene from “Of Beren and Luthien,” chapter 19 of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, speaks to both Tolkien’s surprising range as an author (he did write about more than just Elves and Hobbits), but also the sheer otherworldliness of this remarkable tale. In the midst of the two horrible battles described above comes this tale of remarkable bravery, sacrifice, and a love so powerful that it literally transcends death. Of all Tolkien’s stories, “Of Beren and Lúthien” feels the most otherworldly to me, a myth within a myth. It’s a work of unparalleled imagination that I can’t possibly do justice to here. Read it yourself.

Beren is of the race of Men, a valiant warrior who fights on guerilla-style with a small group of survivors after the Battle of Sudden Flame. Beren gains notoriety for his ferocious attacks on Morgoth’s forces, drawing the attention of the dark lord himself. Sauron dispatches orcs to kill off this band of fighters (one of whom is Barahir, Beren’s father), and with the hunters on his trail Beren is forced to flee. In the woods of Doriath he finds Lúthien dancing and singing. The pair soon falls in love.

Unfortunately, Lúthien is the daughter of Thingol, suspicious Elven king of Doriath. Thingol considers Beren unworthy of his daughter and saddles him with a seemingly impossible task: He can have his daughter’s hand in marriage only if he wrests one of the Silmarils from Morgoth’s iron crown. Beren responds that “when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown.” It does, of course; Beren’s hand just happens to be in the belly of a wolf at the time. But he does fulfill his vow.

Artwork by Ted Nasmith.

Epic battles of Middle-earth in miniature

I'd like to offer a half-hearted apology to readers of The Silver Key who don't care much for Middle-earth. Until I get through Blogging the Silmarillion, for now and in the foreseeable future it's all Tolkien, all the time.

But although I've been shirking RPGs and gaming these days, I thought gamers and Tolkien fans alike would appreciate this link. It's a site with some great pictures of miniatures and detailed descriptions of some of the large-scale battles of Middle-earth, from The Silmarillion all the way up through The Lord of the Rings. These were articles originally published in Miniature Wargames magazine; the owner of the Web site is apparently the author.

Awesome stuff. My personal favorite is Helm's Deep. That and the picture of Eowyn and the Witch-King from the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

I love miniatures and wish I had the time and patience (and talent) to do work like this.

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

Part four of Blogging the Silmarillion continues with chapters 10-15 of the Quenta Silmarillion.
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“If we insist on asking for the moral of the story, that is its moral: a recall from facile optimism and wailing pessimism alike, to that hard, yet not quite desperate, insight into Man’s unchanging predicament by which heroic ages have lived. It is here that the Norse affinity is strongest: hammerstrokes but with compassion.”

—C.S. Lewis, “The Dethronement of Power,” from Tolkien and the Critics

J.R.R. Tolkien said in a letter that “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” While true, this oft-quoted statement has led some critics and observers to pigeonhole it and his works as simple analogues of Christianity. This leads to conclusions that The Silmarillion is a parable of the Fall of Man, for instance, when in fact Tolkien’s legendarium is perhaps more akin to a hauberk of hard scale armor, its iron plates hammered together from a mosaic of influences, both Christian and other.

The deeper you get into The Silmarillion the more you feel a coldness grip your spine. It’s a bitter wind whose source is the wild North. As the late Steve Tompkins once said, “Norse and Celtic elements are as integral to The Silmarillion as are hydrogen and oxygen to water; the book is so northern that compasses point quiveringly in its direction.” While it may have been only hinted at in past chapters, this northern-ness resounds like the great hammer of Thor in the section of The Silmarillion that I plan to cover here.

Chapter 10 of The Silmarillion moves the action from Valinor over to Middle-earth, specifically the lands of Beleriand which lie west of the mountains of Ered Luin. These next six chapters, though they contain three major battles, are largely a time of uneasy peace: Morgoth is forced inside his fortress of Angband where he remains under the watchful eyes of the Noldor, which begins a siege that lasts some 400 years.

The Noldor win all three of the first major Battles of Beleriand, the third of which (the Dagor Aglareb) results in utter ruin for a large force of orcs, which is completely destroyed before the gates of Angband. Yet the Elves suffer great casualties themselves. Wary of further attacks, they build great city-fortresses to protect themselves against further sorties. These include Menegroth, Nargothrond, and the hidden mountain fortress of Gondolin (above).

Indeed, while the Elves have the upper hand, it’s a momentary victory: Despair and impending tragedy weigh heavily on this section of The Silmarillion. More than once I felt the cold hand of a northern Doom laid upon my shoulder as I read.

In chapter 13 (“Of the Return of the Noldor”) we learn the fate of Fëanor. He and the Noldor land on the wasteland of Lammoth and disembark with shouts and great cries. Aroused by the tumult and by the burning of the Teleri ships, a great force of orcs arrive and attack. But with Fëanor at their head the Noldor drive them back in ruin.

Yet Fëanor in his pride crosses a bridge too far. He wildly presses the attack, an unquenchable firebrand bringing destruction to his enemies all the way to the gates of Angband. With his fortress in danger of being overrun Melkor calls in the heavy artillery: a force of Balrogs. Surrounded by these great spirits of the Maiar, Feanor incredibly fights on, but is eventually mortally wounded. His sons bear him from the field. Blood streaming from his wounds, Fëanor beholds the great volcanic peaks of the Thangorodrim which serve as a ring around Angband, and knows that the Noldor will never be able to take the fortress alone. At a glance, he knows his mission has been in vain. But rather than tell his sons to abandon their suicidal mission, Fëanor curses Morgoth thrice with his dying breath. He urges his sons to avenge him and hold to their oath. When he dies, Fëanor’s body is consumed by its own fiery energies.

So what are we to make of this mightiest of the Noldorin race? Does Fëanor serve as a simple instructive example to not become too attached to the works of our own hands, nor to swear oaths that place earthly objectives above the divine? The Valar Ulmo issues a warning which it seems folly to ignore: “Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart.” Fëanor is guilty of both trangressions, and dies because of it.

Yet this greatest of the Noldorin is something more than a mere allegorical example. I don’t believe that Tolkien was unsympathetic of Fëanor —that’s not the way he’s portrayed in The Silmarillion. He may be a casualty of his own limitless pride, and/or a victim of the lies of Morgoth, but Fëanor’s warrior spirit is a thing of beauty. He is a larger than life hero, and not a law-abiding, humble citizen “hero” with which we associate the term today, but a Greek or Norse hero, strong in arms and sure of purpose. He is a blazing flame among dimmer lights, and one that I cannot help but admire.

In Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth (and if you like Tolkien but haven’t read Shippey, get that fixed), Shippey states that one of Tolkien’s primary objectives in writing The Lord of the Rings was to dramatise and elevate the “theory of courage” from old Northern literature. The central tenet of this theory is that man and gods are doomed to suffer ultimate defeat at Ragnarök, the great last battle, but that defeat is no refutation. “The right side remains right even if it has no ultimate hope at all,” explains Shippey.

Now, I don’t believe that what Fëanor did was right. His actions brought ruin and death to countless Elves who otherwise would have lived merry lives in the sun of an earthly paradise. But if we can put ourselves in Fëanor’s position, his reckless oath of bringing war to Morgoth is perfectly understandable: Morgoth stole his jewels, killed his father, and extinguished the light of the two trees of Valinor. Having committed himself to his mission of revenge—one that he knew was hopeless— Fëanor fulfills his vow. He makes Morgoth tremble, so close does his reckless attack come to smashing Angband. Like Achilles, Fëanor carves out a name that lives forever in the great roll of heroes in the northern tradition.

The Northmen would have greatly respected that. I think Tolkien did too.

Speaking of Northern-ness, we also learn that the Mandos-pronounced Doom of the Noldor isn’t going away any time soon, not even after Feanor’s death. It comes crashing back into the story after Thingol and Melian begin asking some uncomfortable questions about the Noldor, and why a dark cloud seems to hang about them. When Thingol learns of the Kinslaying at Alqualonde, he severs ties with the Noldor, banishing them from his realm. This creates a rift between the Sindar and Noldor that Morgoth exploits. United the strength of the Elves may have kept him penned up in Angband indefinitely, but as two tribes they will ultimately fall. And it all goes back to the Doom of the Noldor.

The Doom of the Noldor is another way in which Tolkien’s legendarium diverges from Christianity, and it’s why I refuse to classify The Silmarillion solely as a Christian parable. There is always hope for redemption in Christianity, but there is no escape or appeal from Doom; when pronounced by Mandos its fulfillment is as sure as nightfall. After they choose to follow Fëanor the Noldor are pulled along implacably with Fëanor to certain destruction. The Doom of the Noldor is in this respect much akin to the sacred oaths of the old Norse culture: Anathema to break, and often ruinous to follow.

There’s another angle to consider here: The Doom of the Noldor could be Tolkien’s statement that the old heroic way of life—the exaltation of power, might equals right—is ultimately ruinous and must come to an end if our species is to survive. Looking ahead to The Lord of the Rings, the forces of good reach the conclusion that evil power cannot be bested by power; the only way to defeat Sauron is to destroy his ring (in essence, abandoning force). Boromir is arguably the closest character in northern martial spirit to Fëanor that we have in The Lord of the Rings, and perhaps not coincidentally he shares a similar grim end.

This section of The Silmarillion (chapter 15) ends with yet another bleak foreshadowing of doom: Galadriel asks King Finrod Felagund (the eldest son of Finarfin, who is Feanor’s half-brother) why he has taken no wife. His answer is chilling:

Foresight came upon Felagund as she spoke, and he said, ‘An oath I too shall swear, and must be free to fulfill it, and go into darkness. Nor shall anything of my realm endure that a son should inherit.’

But despite the growing despair there are glimmers of hope. When Turgon leaves his ancestral home in Nevrast to retreat to the (temporary) security of hidden Gondolin, the sea-god Ulmo warns him that the curse of the Noldor will reach him even there, and “treason will awake within thy walls.” Turgon appears doomed, but Ulmo tells the Elf-king to leave behind weapons and armor for the coming of some future hope: “Leave therefore in this house arms and sword, that in years to come he may find them.”

At this point in the book we don’t know who this hero shall be, but we at least have a slim ray of light to illuminate a coming dark age in Middle-earth.

While Fëanor’s arrival in Middle-earth and death were a personal highlight of chapters 10-15, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the other important details:

• Costly battles. In addition to the death of Fëanor, Denethor (not the Steward of Gondor, but a Sindar Elf) and a large force of his brethren are killed to the last man on a hill during the first Battle of Beleriand.

• The forging of a pseudo-friendship between Dwarves and Elves. Though these two races never see eye-to-eye, they are far from hostile in the first Age of Middle-earth. They share arts and knowledge, and the Elves employ the Dwarves to build their fortresses in exchange for precious gems.

• The creation of the sun and moon. I had forgotten until this re-read that Middle-earth was a lightless place for most of its early days (I can only imagine the terror Melkor must have wrought with his forces unhindered by the light of day). Two of the Valar try to restore life to the blackened, poisoned trees of Valinor: Nienna cries upon them, and Yavanna sings to them. While they cannot restore life, the two goddesses cause Telperion to bear one flower of silver which becomes the moon, and Laurelin a single fruit of gold which becomes the sun. These provide Middle-earth with its first reckoning of the passage of time, and light to hinder the deeds of Morgoth.

• The walling off of Valinor. The Valar render Valinor unreachable behind a string of enchanted isles and a wall of sleep, such that only one in after days will ever reach Valinor via ship.

• The first coming of Men into Middle-earth. The Elves’ description of Men sums up how I feel about our race in one of my darker moods: “They called them also Hildor, the Followers, and many other names: Apanonar, the After-born, Engwar, the Sickly, and Firimar, the Mortals; and they named them the Usurpers, the Strangers, and the Inscrutable, the Self-cursed, the Heavy-handed, and the Night-fearers, the Children of the Sun.”

• The first glimpse of Glaurung, a great wingless dragon. In his first appearance he emerges from the gates of Angband as a young, immature wyrm in an attempt to break the siege, and is driven back inside by Elven archers. Later, full-grown and at the height of his powers, he returns to wreak great havoc.

Terrific Tolkien: Fingon’s “helping hand” frees Maedhros

This is going to hurt, but it's for the best.

At one point in the long war Morgoth sends an embassy to treat with the Noldor. It’s pure trickery. Maedhros, son of Fëanor, is taken captive, and his companions are slain. Morgoth tortures Maedhros by chaining him by one hand to a sheer cliff in the great mountains of Thangorodrim. The Noldor are helpless to save him.

Fingon, the eldest son of Fingolfin,embarks on a rescue mission. In the barren mountains he plays on his harp an ancient song of Valinor, and the song is taken up by Maedhros, who responds with a clear Elven voice. With the help of an Eagle sent by Manwë, Fingon reaches Maedhros, but the malice-forged manacle is too strong. In order to free him Fingon cuts off his hand at the wrist. Maedhros will go on to fight better with his left hand, writes Tolkien.

Not only does this passage reveal Maedhros as a bad-ass who loses his sword hand and emerges stronger from the maiming, but it also contains an act of incalculable altruism by Fingon. With the memory of betrayal still in his heart—remember that Fingon was abandoned by Fëanor and his sons (including Maedhros) after the burning of the Teleri ships—he alone dares a deed which earns him renown, even among the feats of the brave princes of the Noldor. Afterwards, the hatred between the houses of Fingolfin and Fëanor is assuaged.

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

Part three of Blogging The Silmarillion continues with chapters 6-9 of the Quenta Silmarillion.

——–

Say farewell to bondage! But say farewell also to ease! Say farewell to the weak! Say farewell to your treasures! More still shall we make. Journey light: but bring with you your swords! For we will go further than Oromë, endure longer than Tulkas: we will never turn back from pursuit. After Morgoth to the ends of the Earth!

—from Fëanor’s speech to the Noldor, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion


Difficult and boring. Too dry. Too much history and too many names. Not enough heat and passion.

These are some of the typical complaints often leveled at The Silmarillion. As you can probably guess I don’t have much sympathy for them, and I hope that my first two Blogging The Silmarillion posts have helped dispel the myth that nothing exciting or worthwhile happens in this book. But after 50 pages of The Silmarillion it’s not an unfair question to ask (literally and figuratively): What’s the story, JRRT?

The disappointed and befuddled critics who reviewed The Silmarillion back in 1977 wanted a main character upon whose sturdy frame the story could be told; at the outset of the book such a protagonist does not seem to exist. Instead of hobbits, we’re fed a steady diet of creation myths and lists of demigods.

But I would counter with: Did these critics and disappointed readers ever get beyond Ainulindalë and Valaquenta? And if they did, how did they miss the great, proud, headstrong, damn the torpedoes Noldorin Elf known as Fëanor? Fëanor is what I would consider the first “big name” in The Silmarillion, a larger than life hero that seems to have strode out of some wild northern legend and into the pages of Tolkien’s magnificent legendarium. He shatters the pale, washed-out, emotionless Elven stereotype that people have unfairly associated with Tolkien.

In addition to being a kick-ass character, Fëanor introduces a couple important themes that run throughout The Silmarillion: The sin of excessive pride, and the danger of embracing the material at the expense of the spiritual. His character also adds another facet to Tolkien’s interesting and complex portrayal of the nature of evil.

(As an aside, Melkor is also shaping up to be another main characters that critics of The Silmarillion seem to overlook. Unlike Sauron, who we glimpse only as a shadowy dark lord or as a burning eye in The Lord of the Rings, Melkor is firmly on center stage. We see his ambitions and fears, his triumphs, defeats, and pettiness all over the pages of this book).

Fëanor is the eldest son of Finwë, king of the Noldor. His name means Spirit of Fire, and this is quite apt: He burns with the fires of unquenchable passion, and seems more akin to Man than Elf in this regard. His mother, Miriel, dies shortly after delivering Fëanor, so much energy has his coming into the world consumed.

The Noldor are master craftsman and Fëanor represents the pinnacle of their unearthly skill. Drawing on all his abilities he fashions the Silmarils, three gemstones which contain the light of the two trees of Valinor. They are a once in a lifetime creation whose beauty transcends the skill of their creator.

But the Silmarils are of course eyed greedily by Melkor. As I alluded to in my last post, Chapters 6-9 of The Silmarillion have a bit of an Empire Strikes Back feel to them: Evil arises from the ashes of defeat to shatter any illusions of triumph. In these chapters Melkor returns to wreak his revenge, of which Fëanor gets the brunt.

Chapter 6 of The Silmarillion begins with a time of bliss. The light of the two trees is shining on Valinor, and the Valar and Elves are at peace. Melkor, defeated by the Valar in the Battle of the Powers, is in chains. But his time of imprisonment (he got three Ages in the slammer for breaking the lamps of Illuin and Ormal, and causing general mayhem on Arda) is drawing to a close, and he sues for pardon. Most of the Valar want to keep him locked up, but Melkor’s words to Manwë are sweet, and he promises to use his powers in the cause of good. Manwë lets Melkor go and allows him to remain in Valinor.

Manwë has made an apparent grievous mistake. Melkor obviously still hates the Valar and the Elves, in fact more than ever after his imprisonment, and shortly after his release begins planning his revenge. Having learned a lesson that he cannot win by force, Melkor uses his sweet tongue to sow seeds of discord among the Noldor. He appeals to their pride, telling the Noldor that the Valar let them live in Valinor only so that they may keep them under their thumb. He tells them that they could be ruling in splendor on Middle-earth, masters of their own destiny, and not the whim of the Valar.

Ungoliant and the Two Trees, Ted Nasmith.

In addition to poisoning the minds of the Noldor, Melkor also wreaks more immediate, visible havoc. In Chapter 8 he flees Valinor, returns in secrecy with the great monstrous spider Ungoliant, and poisons and destroys the two trees of Valinor. He then adds insult to injury by slaying Fëanor’s father and stealing the Silmarils.

Fëanor is enraged. He curses Melkor, naming him Morgoth, the Black Foe of the World, and the Elves call him by that name ever after. Fëanor vows revenge, and against the counsel of the Valar leads the main of the Noldor on a mission of vengeance. He commandeers the beautiful swan-ships of the Teleri and slays a great number of the sea-Elves in terrible incident known as the Kinslaying at Alqualondë.

Fëanor’s actions earn him exile from Valinor. The Valar known as Mandos—aka, Fate—pronounces on them the Doom of the Noldor, which is pure poetry from Tolkien:

Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains.

All in all it’s absolute disaster for the forces of good, and it appears as though it’s all Manwë’s fault. Why couldn’t he have just kept Melkor locked up?

It’s largely a given among Tolkien’s readers that mercy is always the correct path to walk in Middle-earth. Recall Gandalf’s famous quote from The Lord of the Rings, “Pity? It was Pity that stayed [Bilbo’s] hand. Pity, and mercy: not to strike without need.” Indeed, Frodo’s mercy and pity for Gollum saves the Third Age from a long, dark rule under Sauron. But Manwë’s apparent mistake of freeing Melkor makes us re-think this long-held belief.

Of course, we don’t know whether Manwë’s act of benevolence will work out in the long run. Fate has a very long reach in Tolkien’s legendarium, and at this point in The Silmarillion it remains to be seen whether his choice to free Melkor will ultimately work out for good or ill.

—–

Fëanor: An exile of his own making?

As I mentioned at the outset of this post, Fëanor is three-dimensional character. He’s got grand ambitions and a fearless, take-no-prisoners attitude. He’s also riddled with faults, including a swollen pride and an attachment to the work of his own hands. He’s complicated, and damned interesting.

Personally, I find Fëanor’s thirst for vengeance rather sympathetic. When he says:

Here once was light, that the Valar begrudged to Middle-earth, but now dark levels all. Shall we mourn here deedless for ever, a shadow-folk, mist-haunting, dropping vain tears in the thankless sea? Or shall we return to our home?

My reaction is: Go Fëanor. Screw the Valar: Rally the Noldor and go kick some ass. In a book which doesn’t contain an identifiable main character in its first 50-plus pages, he’s a red-blooded hero we can latch onto like a drowning man at sea. I certainly did upon this most recent re-reading.

Though he’s an Elf, Fëanor doesn’t deliberate or take the long view, but chooses to act, and act like a Man. When the herald of Manwë warns Fëanor of the folly of leaving Valinor on his mission of revenge, Fëanor states that he’d rather find ruin in Middle-earth than sit idly by in paradise:

“If Fëanor cannot overthrow Morgoth, at least he delays not to assail him, and sits not idle in grief. And it may be that Eru has set in me a fire greater than thou knowest. Such hurt at the least will I do to the Foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear it.”

In other words: I may perish, but I’m doing some damage on the way down. I like this attitude: It’s got a northern, hopeless, death-wish feeling about it.

But Fëanor is not without faults. He’s selfish and rather vain, particularly when it comes to his own skill as a craftsman. He lacks humility in the face of his betters: When he utters that the Noldor shall become “lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda,” he has stepped over the proverbial line in the sand and crossed into Valar/ Ilúvatar territory.

Fëanor also seems to lack an altruistic bone in his body. He leads his people into exile not out of a desire to save Middle-earth, or to get revenge for his father (though these certainly add fuel to his fire), but because he wants his Silmarils back. When you get to the heart of why the Noldor leave Valinor, it’s over possessions. Contrast this with Galadriel: She also chooses to join the Noldor in exile, but is motivated by her love for Middle-earth. In this respect, she’s closer to Ilúvatar—to the land, his primary creation—and not a lesser Elf-made subcreation. Thus she is in the right, even in choosing exile.

Ted Nasmith - The Kinslaying at Alqualondë

Later Fëanor goes fey, stranding Fingolfin and some of the Noldor whom he deems unworthy (including Galadriel) on the barren coast of Araman. He burns the stolen swan-ships of the Teleri to prevent his people from returning and helping their brethren, which would potentially slow down his mission of revenge. Fingolfin, Galadriel and the abandoned Noldor respond with a quiet, heroic endurance, eventually reaching Middle-earth (though not without great loss) after a long voyage by foot across grinding ice. In contrast, Fëanor’s brash, brazen, martial quest is not half so noble.

While Tom Shippey explains it far better than I in his seminal work J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, Tolkien performs a neat trick with his depiction of evil throughout his legendarium: He leaves it up to the reader to decide whether evil is an actual force acting upon us and influencing us, or whether it is of our own making. Shippey calls these two opposing theories Manichaean and Boethian. The Manichaean school holds that evil is a real external force that can influence or overwhelm us, while the Boethian view holds that there is no such thing as evil, that it is an absence, and that “evil” arises out of selfish decisions.

Applying Shippey’s theory to The Silmarillion raises an interesting question: Is Fëanor a victim of Melkor’s Manichaean influence, or a reckless Elf bent on his own destruction? Did he rebel against the Valar and choose exile because of Melkor’s poisonous lies, or did he succumb to his own selfish desire to reclaim the Silmarils, to show up the Valar, and to be a master of his own fate, forsaking the wisdom of the gods?

What do you think? The text seems to support both interpretations, so we can’t be sure, but one thing is certain: Tolkien makes us think in The Silmarillion. This is always a good thing.

Terrific Tolkien: Morgoth dissed

The Lord of the Rings contains a great scene in which Aragorn rides up to the Black Gate and orders Sauron to come out of his dungeons to “have justice done upon him.” It’s an incredibly brave and brazen act, this mortal man issuing marching orders to one of the Maiar.

Yet Aragorn’s act pales alongside the verbal dressing-down Melkor/Morgoth receives in The Silmarillion. No Man or Elf in Tolkien’s legendarium would dare diss a Valar to his face, save one alone: Fëanor.

Here’s the set-up: Shortly after he is freed from his imprisonment in the fastness of Mandos, Melkor comes to Fëanor’s home in Formenos in an attempt to recruit Fëanor to his side. Melkor’s poisonous lies at first find a willing ear: Fëanor’s heart is still bitter from his humiliation at the hands of the Valar, and the smooth words of Melkor, the mightiest of the Valar, seem to promise powerful aid and allegiance.

But when Melkor’s conversation turns to the Silmarils, Fëanor sees through the dark lord’s disguise, and dismisses this greatest of the Valar with a contemptuous send-off that surely echoes throughout fantasy literature:

“Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!” And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä.

Wow … naming Melkor, lord of darkness and the equivalent of Milton’s Satan, a jail-crow of Mandos, and then slamming the door in his face? That takes some serious stones.

Fëanor... fuck around and find out.