The Silmarillion-Very Dark Story

[Bronson]

oh, fingolfin had it coming, just for the goofy name.

Makes it memorable though.

[sologdin]

tolkien really excels at describing minor-triumph-despite-dreadful-tragedy. consider the end of the nirnaeth:

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. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.

bloody amazing, horrifying, inspiring--the series of reversals in the passage is perfectly manipulative. but "dark"? i'm not getting that.

[Bronson]

tolkien really excels at describing minor-triumph-despite-dreadful-tragedy. consider the end of the nirnaeth:

bloody amazing, horrifying, inspiring--the series of reversals in the passage is perfectly manipulative. but "dark"? i'm not getting that.

What writers do you consider to be dark?

[Billy Quizboy]

I read it many years ago and loved it, as much loved the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I know im going to get an earful by saying this , but I would like to see this book adapted in some form as a film or perhaps a series of films.

Not going to happen. Tolkien JR is adamant about it never being turned into a film of any kind.

[sologdin]

Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond all along?

no. cirdan gifts his ring to olorin upon his arrival in arda, saying:

'Take now this Ring,' he said; 'for thy labours and thy cares will be heavy, but in all it will support thee and defend thee from weariness. For this is the Ring of Fire, and herewith, maybe, thou shalt rekindle hearts to the valour of old in a world that grows chill.'

(silmarillion (1977) at 304). it's a slick bit, reminiscent of luke 12:49--

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Radagast get a tiny mention in LotR

yes. but he's a greaser.

what nature of being Sauron is

maiar, like these two:

Wisest of the Maiar was Olórin. He too dwelt in Lórien, but his ways took him often to the house of Nienna, and of her he learned pity and patience.

Of Melian much is told in the Quenta Silmarillion. But of Olórin that tale does not speak; for though he loved the Elves, he walked among them unseen, or in form as one of them, and they did not know whence came the fair visions or the promptings of wisdom that he put into their hearts. In later days he was the friend of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness.

(silmarillion at 30-31).

both a humanoid physical form that also exists in spirit and can lose the physical form yet remain in existence via the spirit?

something like that, yeah. he's a tricksy maiar.

[Newsun]

maiar were the lesser angels, yes? and valar being the superior cousins?

i believe the wizards were all maiar as well, like sauron, but i think they were lesser maiar or something like that, which explained the power difference compared to sauron. not sure, i dont remember it all very well. and i think for the good elves, maiar, and valar, they all survive in spirit or soul form in the halls of something or other?

[The Marquis de Leech]

Not going to happen. Tolkien JR is adamant about it never being turned into a film of any kind.

Christopher Tolkien is also 88 years old this year. We'll have to see what the next generation think.

[The Marquis de Leech]

So the three elven rings were w/ Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond all along?

Originally Gil-galad, Cirdan, and Galadriel. Gil-galad gave his to Elrond, and Cirdan his to Gandalf.

I still don't fully understand what nature of being Sauron is. Is he both a humanoid physical form that also exists in spirit and can lose the physical form yet remain in existence via the spirit?

He's a maia (think 'angel'). By the time of LOTR, he's stuck with a foul physical form (Sauron is not an Eye - that's just his symbol), and destroying his form forces his spirit to go lurk in the shadows for several more millennia.

[sologdin]

What writers do you consider to be dark?

it's not really a metric that i use, i suppose. the silmarillion definitely is a string of tragedies, saved at the end by divine intervention, then ruined & saved again in the margins by the unpublished second prophecy.

i'd adopt the clute & grant definiton of dark fantasy, maybe:

does not normally involve vampires, werewolves, satanism, ghosts or the occult, almost all of which are supernatural fictions [...] The term can sensibly be used also to describe tales in which the Eucatastrophe normal to most fantasy is reversed--tales in which the Dark Lord is victorious, tales in which the Land, normally an object of desire, and an arena for the working out of the desired Story, is itself an object of horror.

clute & grant cite donaldson's covenant books and ashton smith's zothique books as potential examples, but not without qualifying them.

i might include the elric stories in that--the end is not good for anyone, and the protagonist wars against his own memory, and memory in general, probably because he's such a total asshole that the regret is unbearable.

planescape: torment, maybe, to use a CRPG example?

i wouldn't want to use the term to describe books in which nasty things happen to people, or in which anti-heroes or other types of villain protagonists are given sympathetic treatment or are otherwise foregrounded. because the tolkienian eucatastrophe must be frustrated substantially in dark fantasy, we need to get to the end of the story in order to make the determination, usually. so: RSB might be doing dark fantasy--if the no-god kills everyone or if kellhus is worse somehow than the no-god. right now, though, the series is a gloss on the lord of the rings, but with postmodernist training and an interest in seminal fluids.

abercrombie, lynch, lawrence? no idea until they're done--but simply having asshole characters is not enough, i respectfully submit.

[sologdin]

Originally Gil-galad

forgot about that. see, there's always a bigger fish.

[Sci-2]

the end is not good for anyone

I'd agree argue one being makes out pretty good - "I was a thousand times more evil than thou."

[Billy Quizboy]

Christopher Tolkien is also 88 years old this year. We'll have to see what the next generation think.

I THINK it was actually a wish of his father's. I'll bug my Tolkien obsessed friends about it.

[Tears of Lys]

I remember when I first read LotR, I was driven to learn as much as I could about the history of Middle Earth, so that naturally led me to the Silmarillion. Like a lot of folks here, I adored reading about how the world began, the creation of the Dwarfs from the very clay!, how the land changed when Eru threw all the cards in the air, the Numenoreans and their rise and fall and how they came to the mainland and totally took over, the original love story of Beren and Luthien (the names on Tolkien's and his wife's tombstones) - so much detail! The Silmarillion fills in all the holes in LotR.

Dark? I don't think so. Yeah, there's much sorrow, but such riches! LotR hints at things that the Silmarillion reveals.

[Billy Quizboy]

You know what's really dark?

Space.

.....

I should go to sleep.

[Sci-2]

Actually, speaking of Elric being dark, just get to the end of Skrayling Tree. That epic melancholy of Elric goes from emo to heart-stabbity.

[Billy Quizboy]

Pfft, Elric's not dark, he just needs some damn paxil.

[Quentyn Baratheon]

Turin story would make a kickass movie. But then you realise you need Hollywood to bankroll it. it gonna get butchered. And PG13.

[JorahsMarmot]

Another good read for middle earth fact finding is "Unfinished Tales". Think of it as a book full of Tolkien's essays concerning middle earth.

[Lord Toblerone]

abercrombie, lynch, lawrence? no idea until they're done--but simply having asshole characters is not enough, i respectfully submit.

Maybe cynical fantasy is a better label for those?

[The Marquis de Leech]

i'd adopt the clute & grant definiton of dark fantasy, maybe:

clute & grant cite donaldson's covenant books and ashton smith's zothique books as potential examples, but not without qualifying them.

If we're talking the Land as horror: Dorthonian becomes Taur-nu-Fuin, the Forest of Deadly Nightshade, and Ard-galen becomes Anfauglith, the Gasping Dust. Morgoth's effect on the natural world is potent.

I'll note that a strict application of your definition renders the First Thomas Covenant series non-dark, and the Second as dark - simply because the latter has the Sunbane and the former doesn't. Neither can be rated as dark on the basis of Lord Foul winning, since both times he is defeated.