Silmarillion Stories - E10 - The Flight of the Noldor

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life! So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:35] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[00:00:42] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene-by-scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes.

[00:01:00] The Lorehounds' House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.

[00:01:11] Outdoor Simmer! Welcome to Silmarillion Stories. We're the Lorehounds, your guides to Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. I'm David. I'm John, and this is our podcast for Of the Flight of the Nulldor, the tenth portion of the Silmarillion.

[00:01:42] For this episode, we've got a special guest with us today, Marilyn R. Pukila. Marilyn has been a regular contributor to many of our shows, including this one and our coverage of The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin.

[00:01:54] You can find a link to Marilyn's website in the show notes below. In this episode, we are going to be discussing the theft of the Silmarils, the Oath of Feanor, and the first kinslaying of elves.

[00:02:06] And definitely send us feedback. We save it up between episodes. Send us an email to LOTR at the lorehounds dot com, or visit us at our website where we've got a contact form, or you can use the nifty voicemail feature.

[00:02:20] We've got a Discord server link also in the show notes, and we've got a great community with a dedicated Tolkien channel and channels for all the other shows that we're covering.

[00:02:30] You can stick around to the end of the podcast if you want to hear programming notes about the rest of our coverage for October and November. If you'd like to support us directly, head over to patreon.com slash the lorehounds.

[00:02:40] Ad revenues are fickle, and Patreon is really the best way to help us grow the podcast. For as little as $3 a month, subscribers get ad-free podcasts, early access to everything. We've got special live watch events and other exclusive content just for subscribers.

[00:02:58] David, it's time to bring in the one, the only, the oxen-mooded Marilyn Arpukila. Yes. Marilyn, how you doing? Good evening, gentlemen. I'm doing fine, thanks. How about you? I'm swell because I get to talk to you about nerdy stuff all night. I mean... What could be better?

[00:03:18] What could be better? Who knew we were so lucky? Now, Marilyn, you have mooted recently. I have. I guess it's not that recent anymore, but we put off recording this podcast. It was recent when we planned to do this podcast.

[00:03:33] You went to Oxenmoot, and you had a report for us to give. I know we mentioned it on our interview with Bear McCreary. That'll be out before this, actually, so you can go listen to it now. We dropped your name to Bear. Oh, did you? Yes.

[00:03:48] Bear was thrilled that you enjoyed his speech because I guess he was intimidated by the academia of the moot. He was nervous to talk to a bunch of academics. He's like, that's not really my world.

[00:04:00] And Bear McCreary does not seem like a man who has a nervous disposition. No. No, I'm astounded. I'm gobsmacked. Yeah, he is a man who commands thousands in an orchestra with his creative vision or whatever. But he did say he was a little nervous.

[00:04:19] And it's hard when you're presenting from a Zoom thing because you don't have that immediate audience feedback. Yes, yes. On a Zoom one-to-one. Right. But he was pleased to hear that he was well received. Oh, I'm so glad. No, I don't know what it is.

[00:04:35] Academics tie their shoelaces and eat three meals a day when they're fortunate and all just like anybody else. Exactly. I suppose some of them try to develop a reputation of that sort, but most of us don't have time for that.

[00:04:49] We're too busy enjoying ourselves and each other and all the people who love Tolkien. Can you maybe provide a little context for what Oxenmoot is when it happens? What's the upshot of it? What is its purpose or what's the whole deal for it? Sure thing.

[00:05:10] Introducing the Oxenmoot Report. Why did you scrounge up that? You've got to keep your eyes on John. He's going to keep you on your toes. He's a trickster. He's got a little Loki in him. Absolutely he does. Oxenmoot means moot, of course, like ant moot, a gathering.

[00:05:33] And oxen is derived from an old version of the name for Oxford. So it literally means gathering at Oxford. There you go. And this was the 50th anniversary. It is the annual gathering of the Tolkien Society, the international society that's located in the UK. Okay.

[00:05:54] Which is not, that doesn't represent the Tolkien estate. This is the friends of Tolkien kind of thing. Absolutely. The Tolkien Society is a charitable organization and its intention is educational.

[00:06:09] A lot of their projects center around introducing Tolkien to the world, providing everything from book lists to regular symposia and lecture series and so forth. The thing about Oxenmoot is it is a gathering of multiple types of people. Okay.

[00:06:27] So we were 350 strong in person and then there were an additional couple hundred attending online. So it was a major gathering literally from around the world.

[00:06:39] And so one of the major challenges is how do you figure out a schedule for people who are representing all the time zones, right? Right. And they do a fantastic job.

[00:06:49] They were entirely hybrid during COVID and since then, excuse me, entirely online in COVID, the first year of COVID in 2020. And then since then they've been doing hybrid-type gatherings. So there are papers, academic and fan.

[00:07:06] And I mean, I don't like these distinctions, but let's just say out of a very wide range on all topics under the sun. Right. I mean, you could go, it depends on the level of academic rigor.

[00:07:20] Are you citing your sources and are you providing an extensive bibliography or are you writing a personal opinion piece, if you will? I suppose that's a level of distinction, right? Well, they're also independent academics.

[00:07:33] I think the bottom line is if you are a credentialed academic kind of thing, then that's how you're making your living. Or if you have a sponsoring institution that you work for or write for. Yes.

[00:07:50] Although there are brilliant independent academics who do not have a sponsoring institution who are every bit as quality. Sure. As any of the other ones who are actually teaching and researching within an institution.

[00:08:01] Being the spouse of somebody who's writing a PhD right now, I can tell you the level of academic rigor for that versus say like a piece of business corporate annual report or something like that is entirely different sort of qualitatively. Definitely.

[00:08:18] So there were some invited guest speakers, including Bear McCreary, which was terribly exciting. They kind of hyped that for a while before they revealed it just before we all gathered. So people were very excited for that.

[00:08:33] Brian Sibley, who was involved with a number of different projects over the years. A lot of people maintain that his adaptation of Lord of the Rings is the best that has ever been. Okay. Whether visual or strictly audio. And the thing about it is it's a multiple event.

[00:08:52] So you have the papers, you have the invited speakers, but then you just have getting together with your friends who you haven't seen for a year.

[00:09:01] Or you have a Prancing Pony podcast community coming together full strength and going around to pubs and enjoying each other's company tremendously and having dinner together.

[00:09:12] I finally got to meet in person a bunch of people who I've only known via Zoom for the past three years or so. The Signum University, the online university that Corey Olson started, had a very strong representative group as well.

[00:09:29] But they also do... there was a fabulously funny parody of the simple Silmarillion, which involved the Silmarils represented by the bottom ends of three beer cans held together. Illithian, you know, released from bondage. Yes, they went there. Not distastefully, but still they used that particular pun.

[00:09:57] There's costume displays. There's the first night is the pub quiz, and that is famous for its level of difficulty. So it really is a combination of different kinds of events, and you can partake in as many or as few as you want.

[00:10:16] For me, one of the biggest... well, I'll back up a bit and say yes, I did present a paper, and it was on the literary sources for Borromeus Lament. And that was exciting and an honor, and it was well received.

[00:10:27] And got me some notice from a couple of places. I haven't actually had them contact me back yet to give them talks or appear on their podcast, but you know, stuff will happen. Did you introduce yourself as a co-host of the Earthsea Cycle podcast? Shameless, John. Shameless.

[00:10:46] No, I mentioned it in my description. We each wrote a little plug for ourselves. Oh, cool. Nice. How could I not? Come on, guys. Let's be serious here. You're the only one to call me your favorite Tolkien scholar. I had to mention that.

[00:10:59] Although I don't know if I did use those exact words. Anyway. We told Bear McCreary you're our favorite Tolkien scholar, so even he knows now. Golly. Maybe I'll meet him someday. That would be wonderful. He is a super nerd. He is. He totally is. Totally. Yeah.

[00:11:19] You talk to him and you're like, this guy gets it. Yeah. Absolutely. No, I've read his blog posts and any listeners, if you haven't read his blog posts and you're interested in this kind of thing, definitely check them out.

[00:11:29] He's so generous with his time and describing his process and so on. One of the big features though is Oxford. Oxford is a place unlike any other. I had been there a couple of times before in my life, but I was there with my partner.

[00:11:42] He'd never been before. We had wonderful, wonderful walks around, visiting different places. I had the privilege of doing a bit of research in the Bodleian Library before giving my paper because it was relevant to some of the things I was saying.

[00:11:55] We walked on Addison Walk, which is the famous pathway around the deer forest and the river Cherwell and so forth, where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and another inkling, and I always get

[00:12:12] the wrong one, so I'm not going to say which one, walked and talked until two in the morning. And this is what Lewis pointed to as a very important conversion moment for him to return to Christianity.

[00:12:25] And I've been there before, but it just is so moving every time I see it. And this time I was with my best beloved, so what could be better? Yeah. So that was a major pull. And then we also extended on beyond after Hawks.

[00:12:43] Oh, I must mention that the last day for many people, the highlight of the whole weekend, we go in buses to the Wolvercote Cemetery, which was the Catholic cemetery at the time when Edith was buried and then Tolkien.

[00:12:58] And we visit their joint grave and the chair of the Tolkien Society does a reading and then wreaths are laid representing all of the different international Tolkien societies that have been present there. There was a Finnish Tolkien Society, Kylä, and a couple other nations represented.

[00:13:21] And then there's a man who for years has sung from memory, Galadriel's Namárië song to the music that Donald Swan wrote for it and that Tolkien gave such strong approval to. So it's very moving. And you can see the graves of his children, John and Priscilla.

[00:13:44] Humphrey Carpenter, who was the first and I think the best biographer of Tolkien is also buried not too far away from there. So that's, it's a very moving way to end. And then Bob and I went on to Birmingham, which is Tolkien's childhood home.

[00:13:59] And just everywhere you walk, you know, there's a blue plaque, and oh, Tolkien lived here for a year. Well, not quite, I exaggerate for effect, but it was just astonishing to actually be there to visit the oratory where the fathers who were his family after his mother died

[00:14:16] were to actually go to Sarehole and see the old mill where the two millers would frighten the boys. And so many moments of serendipity, my favorite one, we were walking back from Sarehole up towards the bus stop

[00:14:31] where we had to catch the bus to get back into where we were staying. And I had determined from a guidebook that there was an actual house that he and the house that he and his mother and his brother first lived in when they were in Sarehole.

[00:14:44] Wow. Very cool. Which was really remarkable. So we stood there on the sidewalk. It hadn't been altered very much at all. Took pictures and so forth. And then as we turned to go, there's a woman walking towards us.

[00:14:57] And it looks like she'd been out, you know, picking up trash because she had one of those gripper things in a bag and so forth. Right. So we said, hello, how are you?

[00:15:05] And I said, I suppose you're accustomed to people taking photos of this place all the time because it was Tolkien's childhood home. And she said, I know. I live there now. No. Would you like to see the back garden? No. Wow. Oh, that's nice.

[00:15:22] It's not like the Breaking Bad house where they're getting restraining orders. Well, I can imagine they might have to. Yeah. Yeah. I think the Brits are a little more polite about that sort of thing.

[00:15:33] But anyway, I mean, she didn't let us in the house nor would I have expected her to. Besides, I'm sure it's been changed several times since they were living there. But just to get a sense and feel for how big the plot was, we walked through Moseley Bog

[00:15:45] where they went gathering. I mean, it was really very, very special. Very cool. Yeah. It was a great time. Were there any standout papers delivered that really caught your attention or anything that any new lights shed on the works of Tolkien?

[00:16:07] Well, one of the keynote speakers gave a terrific paper about Tolkien and the Moon. Okay. She's an astronomer. She loves the way he includes accurate descriptions of astronomical phenomenon. And this was what drew her in in the first place. So yeah, that was a really delightful one.

[00:16:28] Very cool. There was a lovely paper on the folks here are queerer talking about queerness and how it was or wasn't represented. Basically focusing on the forming of a community of people who didn't necessarily match the normative standards of their community. A fellowship, if you will.

[00:16:55] A fellowship, if you will, precisely. I enjoyed Brian Sibley's talk. He talked about putting together his most recent book on Numenor. He pulled every single excerpt of every single text that described Numenor and put it in chronological order. Glorious illustrations by John Howe.

[00:17:15] It's been sitting on my to-read pile for far too long. I keep doing this podcasting stuff. I don't know what's wrong with me. I know. I know. My list keeps getting longer, too. It's hard to keep up. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:28] Then there were all the ones that were going on overnight when I was trying to catch up on my sleep. For those who were registered, the recordings will gradually be made available so you can see some of the recordings of the talks that you weren't able to attend.

[00:17:43] It was hot. Yeah? Yeah, not so much the weekend in Oxford. I mean, the week in Oxford, but then the following week in Birmingham. It got into the 80s for crying out loud. Wow, in England. This is England in early September. What is going on here?

[00:17:55] That's not normal. No. I'm not used to that. Definitely not normal. Definitely not normal. Things are weird. Things are weird. TV was not approved. Will you be attending next year? Or was this sort of a, you know, you fulfilled your pilgrimage requirement

[00:18:10] and you can complete that part of your faith journey? Well, if I do attend, I think it'll be, by assuming this time virtually, yeah. It's expensive, you know? It all adds up with the hotels and the flights. It all adds up.

[00:18:27] And in the end, a lot of the gathering I wasn't able to go to because it was after everything else, right? So people are heading off to the pub at 11 o'clock and I'm heading to my bed at 11 o'clock. Exactly. It's England for goodness sakes.

[00:18:41] David, I sent some business trip next year. There we go. You can write it off. But breakfast. Yeah, it's basically free if you write it off. You ever watch Chess Creek when he's like, what did you do with this? Oh, it's a business expense. I write it off.

[00:18:55] He's like, what do you think a write off is? Exactly. But to be able to have breakfast with one of the friends from the year-long Issues of Middle Earth class that I'm taking walked up to us one morning and said,

[00:19:11] okay, you're on my schedule to have lunch with you. Just being able to see people and talk with them. I think that's what a lot of people enjoy the most. And seeing the international representation. Oh, I mustn't forget the very, very beginning,

[00:19:31] the very first night after jet lag and working bodily and whatever, opened with this fabulous banquet. And I do mean banquet, a five course meal with port afterwards for toast. I mean, it was in Exeter Dining Hall, which was Tolkien's undergraduate dining hall. Before the meal,

[00:19:51] we were able to go to the Exeter Chapel and see the statue, the bust that Tolkien's daughter-in-law Faith Tolkien, Christopher's wife had made of him and then given to Exeter College, which is not normally available to be seen by the public. So that was a special treat. Fun.

[00:20:11] And the food was wonderful. And again, conversations with people. Yeah. I mean, we were punch drunk at this point. But it didn't matter. And that was Bob's introduction to Oxford. If somebody were interested in Oxenmoot and the Tolkien Society, I'm sure there's a website, tolkiensociety.org. Absolutely.

[00:20:37] Seems like a logical thing. And what are these things? These meal? Smile. S-M-I-L. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Terrible pronunciation. One of Tolkien's own words. The smiles are the local Tolkien Society groups. Anybody can form a smile if they want to.

[00:20:57] The first thing you do is to go online at the Tolkien Society website and see if there already is one in your area. And if not, they have suggestions and so forth on how to proceed to make an official smile. Okay. And they can be hybrid as well.

[00:21:12] Although, of course, the greatest fun is if you can gather in person. Right. Some of them are quite elaborate in their programming and all that kind of thing. So it's fun. Are you a member of a smile? Not at this point. I've got my PPP connections.

[00:21:29] I've got you guys. I've already got my Tolkien-ness in my life. We're an unofficial smile. Right. And we smile all the time. Very cool. One of us had to do it, right? Yeah. You gotta. That's great.

[00:21:46] So it sounds like it was a fun trip, especially for Bob to be able to enjoy, see some of your world. You get to share that with him. That's really special. Well, I'll be honest.

[00:21:55] He got up earlier than I did, so he certainly heard more papers than I did. So you should probably ask him about the papers and what's on. How are the PPP folks? Great. Everybody's well? Wonderful. Yeah.

[00:22:09] Well, some of them are having health issues and whatnot, but on the whole. Life continues. Life continues. Life continues. And just lovely to have somebody run up and give you a hug. Yes. Right. Even if you don't have a chance to spend any more time with them.

[00:22:22] Just that one thing. Oh, and there's this convention in English colleges and universities called the Porters. And I'm here to tell you every major organizational building type structure like this should have a porter. The porters solve problems. They have an office right by the gate.

[00:22:43] Everything from where do I find stamps to can you call me a taxi to my sink is overflowing to anything. All you have to do is call the Porter's Lodge or go to the border and say, can you help me with fill in the blank?

[00:22:57] And they're knowledgeable and they're kind. They're helpful. I mean, it's a wonderful, wonderful institution. We could use some of that here. Very cool. Yeah. Great. Great. That gives us the oxen moot report. Thank you, Marilyn, for all your insights into it.

[00:23:17] I hope to one day go to an oxen moot, to one day moot. I think everybody should at some point. I don't know if I qualify right now. Well, and there's plenty of moots in this country too. PPP is probably going to have a moot next year.

[00:23:29] I don't know where or when exactly yet, but keep an eye out for that. Maybe one day we'll have a lure moot. And Signum University throws moots all over the country. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And again, they can be virtual. They can be in person. Very cool.

[00:23:45] Keep us informed as we progress throughout the years. If there's anything interesting that comes up with any of these moots, then yeah, that lorehound listeners would like to hear. That's something to know about, definitely. Sure.

[00:23:59] And listeners, write in if there's a particular Tolkien aspect that you'd be interested in following because the coverage is wide and varied. I'm sure it is. Yeah.

[00:24:10] Especially with just the growth in the Tolkien, not only what was there, but as we've grown from the movies and the television shows, I wonder how many more people have entered into the world of Tolkien because of those things.

[00:24:23] And the video games and the Magic the Gathering cards and all of those things will be covered. Again, it was a question of I cannot do all the things I want to do.

[00:24:32] I could have finally gone and sat in on a Magic the Gathering card game, but I just couldn't do it. Right. One day I'll teach you to play Merrilyn. Oh, I look forward to it. We'll do a Sauron deck.

[00:24:44] I'll turn the question around and say, when are we going to have a lorehounds moot? Yes. Someday. Someday. We've got to be a bit larger because it's sort of a percentage thing for those who have scheduling availability and whatnot. Sure.

[00:24:59] But I remember the first time I went to the Louvre and I walked in, I was there about 45 minutes and I was like, okay, I got to go. This is just way too much. It's so awesome. It's like my senses are on fire.

[00:25:13] I have to go calm down. I can imagine that a moot is not dissimilar. I had exactly the same experience the first time I walked into the Louvre. I understand exactly what you're saying. Yes, it is a little bit like that. Yeah.

[00:25:27] Just so many great jolly fellows running around the moot. Actually, that was another thing that they did that I really liked. There was somebody who paid attention to accessibility issues and things like this room and this building's identified as a quiet room.

[00:25:42] If you were ever feeling overwhelmed, this is where you go. Nice. They had vendors, they had crafting. I'm forgetting half of the stuff they had because it was just so much. Right. Huge deal. Cool. Awesome. Thanks for the report. My pleasure. Thanks for the interest. All right.

[00:26:06] Let's take a quick break. When we get back, we will discuss the actual reading. All right. We've read the chapter of The Flight of the Noldor, which is a massive behemoth of a chapter for the early Silmarillion.

[00:26:40] I know we were talking about it was getting easier to read for a while. I think that this chapter is a great read. It's just long. It's still not the begots anymore. We're on an adventure now, which is great. It's just sizable compared to the other surrounding chapters.

[00:26:58] It's almost three. You could break it up into sub chapters. There's so much packed into it. It just rolls from one topic to the next. Right.

[00:27:10] I know David has to leave us in a few minutes, but David, do you want to give some general impressions on the chapter before you head out? I think you pretty much summed it up. It was dense. It was packed. It was adventure filled. There were oaths sworn.

[00:27:25] There were evil monsters. There was ice chasms. I think when you think that you're going to read a Tolkien adventure, this is what you're more expecting than a lot of what comes before. It really feels like, ah, we've arrived now.

[00:27:46] There's been a lot of setup and a lot of context being given. Then this feels like finally there are some stakes that have been laid down. There's an inciting incident. There's the bad guys turning on each other. Okay, we've stolen the loot. Okay, we're getting away with it.

[00:28:07] This is cool. Hey, I want my cut too. Right. Yeah, maybe. Okay, here's a little bit. Well, give me the rest of it. There's all of the bad guys falling in on each other. The whole thing of blood oaths being sworn and kinslaying. It's got it all.

[00:28:30] It's a really cracking episode or chapter, I guess you could say. Yeah. The most infamous of the deeds of the Noldor, I would say. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. This is the stage setting for the rest of the book. This is how we get the rest of the book.

[00:28:53] This is where the mapping of the Noldor's fate happens. It's basically laid out in words of one syllable, well, multiple syllables by Mandos. Right. Mandos is like, yeah, I love Mandos.

[00:29:07] He's kind of just sitting off to the side like, I wouldn't do that, but it's just going to happen. Yeah. Oh, well. Yeah. I thought from the show perspective of Rings of Power, they have restrictions on, or they only have license to certain aspects of things.

[00:29:30] So I thought it was really interesting to listen to Feanor on the pursuit. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:38] And it really felt like they transferred that to Galadriel in the Rings of Power and having her little troop and they're off hunting and we're not going to let this guy, we're not going to rest until it's done. So it's interesting to see how Payne and- McKay.

[00:29:56] McKay are trying to sort of synthesize and take some inspiration and maybe move some things around so that we get a feeling of some of the stuff that they can't legally access. They're definitely adding in Galadriel's creepy uncle factor into her. Right, right.

[00:30:21] In the text, he asks her three times for one of her hairs and she's so put off by him, she refuses.

[00:30:28] And some say that it was her hair that inspired him to start thinking about another way of encasing the light from the two trees because it was said that her hair looked like the light of the two trees had blended and formed this amazing tresses.

[00:30:43] So it was the famous line from The Unfinished Tales is, they were unfriends forever. So Tolkien anticipated Facebook by how many decades? You've been unfriended.

[00:30:58] And you know, I love that it's kind of flipped on its head in Rings of Power because here we have an explicit statement, Galadriel did not take the oath. That's right. She was power hungry. You know, she wanted to have a realm of her own.

[00:31:13] But she even she young, you know, a young it sounds like she's basically a young adult, right? She's a young adult. She's really hot headed. She wants to rule and of her own. She wants to be independent. She wants to rebel against the authority figures.

[00:31:26] But even she's like, yeah, I don't know about going as far as this oath here, Feyenor. That seems like a bridge too far. And Feyenor and his sons really write their futures here. Yeah.

[00:31:40] And I think it's important to remember because some people kind of say, oh, well, he forced his sons. And I'm like, no. The sons freely they leapt up and took the oath right after him. There was no coercion.

[00:31:53] Now he does later on make it more explicit, but I don't want to spoil. So I will say no more for now. Yeah. The last kind of thought I wanted to maybe leave on was this question of odes.

[00:32:08] And when you know, you make these big proclamations and you and you swear and you you stake your your your purse. It's interesting because it's this question of your word and your word is that's all you have. That's all we really have as people.

[00:32:29] Oh, I'm going to show up tomorrow at four. Well, you know, you didn't show up at four. You never showed up. You never show up on time anyway. Right. So that starts to lead to how do we relate to each other? Are we people who keep our words?

[00:32:41] Are we people who who I give my word to you, but am I giving my word to myself? Am I honoring my word like myself? So there's this whole idea of of owes and the power of odes.

[00:32:56] And when you bring people together and they all swear an oath together and, you know, the kind of drama and the dramatic tension an author can juice out of that is really interesting.

[00:33:08] So that was the other part of this chapter that really got me was, you know, everybody swearing, you know, on upon their oath that they will do X, Y or Z. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun. Yeah.

[00:33:21] And the fact that you are calling upon the gods to witness, I think is what makes an oath an oath. People take vows a lot. Vows, oaths. Yeah. So what's the difference there? I think they're two different things.

[00:33:34] The vow is more to yourself or maybe to one other person like, you know, wedding vows, for example. Or a vow of silence or a vow of chastity or poverty. Right. Yeah.

[00:33:45] And I think that's what the author says when he's talking with Frodo after the reveal of the ring and so forth.

[00:33:51] He said, you know, I've already said to you even if I found it lying by the roadside, I would not take it before I knew what it was. But I would hold those words as a vow. Mm-hmm.

[00:34:02] That's how important it is to him to keep his word, that his self-integrity rests in this. Whereas it's interesting from a Quaker perspective, the existence of oaths implies lies. Yep. Mm-hmm. Because otherwise, you know, if you are known as a person for a word, you know.

[00:34:26] So Quakers won't even take oaths. They affirm instead because otherwise, you know, I'm saying, you know, the rest of the time you can't trust me. Well, you know, like Fatimer in a way, your word isn't just your bond, it's yourself. Yeah, exactly. Your word is yourself.

[00:34:43] And your contemporary pagan practices, they talk about your magic is only as good as your word because your magic comes from your words, from what you say and state. And so if you don't act on those, you don't fulfill them as it were.

[00:35:04] If you don't honor them or affirm them or whatever. Then you're going to have pretty wishy-washy weak magic because you yourself apparently are fairly wishy-washy.

[00:35:13] Yeah. And if you're not a practitioner, you're going to have wishy-washy relationships and people are not going to be able to depend on you. Exactly. And know you in a way that maybe you don't have an opinion of yourself. That's not what you'd want from your relationships.

[00:35:29] And yet at the same time, you look through the whole corpus of Tolkien's literature. I don't think he thinks oaths are a very good idea. No. I mean, Elrond shows that he's still recovering from the oaths of the Noldor. Exactly.

[00:35:44] He wasn't even alive for the oaths of the Noldor. But he sure was alive for their consequence. He sure was, yeah. Which is really – that's what I was saying before about the dramatic tension that you can juice – an author can juice out of a good oath, right?

[00:35:57] Because it's going to cause conflict. It's going to cause people to go, God, why did I swear this bloody thing? I'm going home, right? And like, no, you can't go home. You swore an oath. Exactly. Which is what the Oathbreakers learned to their cost. Exactly. At Dunhera.

[00:36:15] And they vowed to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the end of the world, vala, demon, elf or man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil.

[00:36:25] That time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession. Not a narrow oath. You touched it and you didn't bring it back to me, you're dead, right? Right.

[00:36:42] And I have right after here, I have the Kindle version pulled up. For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken, and it shall pursue Oathkeeper and Oathbreaker to the world's end. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So either way, you're totally – you know why I did it.

[00:36:59] Indeed. Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, I think I'll bounce out of here. I hope you guys have a good chapter. I'm eagerly waiting for publication and so I can listen to the rest of it. And what are we – what's next, John, so that I can start reading?

[00:37:15] We've got Of the Sindar? Let's do that as its own thing, Of the Sindar. Okay. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. I will get to reading that chapter and I hope you guys have a fun and fruitful conversation. Sounds great. See you later, David. Thanks, David.

[00:37:30] I hope you feel better and get re-energized. Thanks. All right, Marilyn. I know a little bit has left us but we still have our oath to fulfill. And so we will begin talking about the chapter here. Sorry. I don't fulfill oaths, I affirm. Fair enough. Fair enough.

[00:37:46] You can be the Galadriel here. I'm going to give a quick synopsis of – I divided this into three parts. So let's talk about each part separately. I think that's the most productive way to do this. The first part goes like this.

[00:37:58] After the darkening of Valinor, Yavanna determines she can only rekindle the life of the trees with some of the light from them. When the Valar ask Feanor to provide them, he refuses. Meanwhile, Melkor slays Finwë and steals the Silmarils from Feanor's horde.

[00:38:14] Feanor renames Melkor Morgoth and seeks to rouse his people to action. He leads his sons in taking an oath to destroy any being that comes between them and the Silmarils. Notably, Galadriel is present but does not take the oath.

[00:38:30] So Marilyn, this is the inciting incident for the entire book now. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah. What a big moment. We finally got here, 10 episodes in. Well, it's important to establish things like what sort of Valar are there and how are they operating.

[00:38:52] There's a prior incident which gets this whole thing rolling, which is the Valar inviting the Eldar to come over to Valinor in the first place. And the Valar hiding the existence of men from them. Yes, and that is kind of an open question, isn't it?

[00:39:10] It's never, to my mind, really made clear. I think it was just a case of, oh yeah, there's going to be men? Yeah, didn't I tell you that? Yeah, no biggie. Yeah, yeah, probably.

[00:39:21] And it wouldn't have been a biggie if Morgoth hadn't picked it up and said, yeah, okay, here's something I can use for my own purposes. It's a means of implying that you can't trust the Valar because look what they withheld from you.

[00:39:36] And Morgoth does what any good villain does and makes you see the good guys as gray too. Oh, well, not just gray. And makes you see them as just as bad as the other side, right? Exactly. It's a tactic we see in politics.

[00:39:52] It's a tactic we see in the real world all the time. When you can't defend your actions, you throw mud at the other side and you try to make it stick. Sure. Or you start digging ditches underneath their feet.

[00:40:06] And I love that line that at first, long and hard was his labor at first, but eventually he could sit back and let others do the work for him. For he who sows a crop of lies will never lack of a harvest. Right.

[00:40:24] I think that was in the last chapter, right? That we discussed. Yeah. Which you were there for that one too. We keep having you back because we like having you. Yeah, that's a great one.

[00:40:33] I think Tolkien reuses a similar line in the A Calibath when he's talking about Sauron in Numenor, corrupting the Numenoreans. It's just very easy to take a few lies and turn them into self-fulfilling prophecies.

[00:40:52] Yeah, I don't know if this is true for Catholics during Tolkien's lifetime, but certainly I've heard the expression of Satan being the father of lies. That's interesting because that is the nickname, that's the epithet for one of the forsaken in the Wheel of Time, father of lies.

[00:41:15] Very interesting. So it's got a history. Yep. I don't know if Satan has the same reputation in Muslim tradition or not, but yeah, that seems to be... And a lot of resistance to Harry Potter in the early days was, well, he tells lies all the time.

[00:41:36] This is terrible, evil, blah, blah, blah. My first thought was, well, look at all the quote unquote grownups who've lied to him all his life. There's a lot of lying going on around here. Right, right. I'm not sure why you're criticizing so harshly this one child.

[00:41:52] He's swimming in lies. He sure is, yeah. And he doesn't have much room to swim in that cupboard. But here we've got the whole of Amun and it's all in the dark now. But something that I think Feanor has a point on this, and this is another...

[00:42:11] I think we can see several failings of the Valar here in maintaining the moral high ground. Feanor makes a good point. They created a light for their world and not for the rest of the world. Why did they do that? That's not a good thing to do.

[00:42:27] That was not a benevolent thing of the Valar, right? They created this holy light, but it was really for them. And sure, they shared it with the elves who wanted to come, but they knew men were coming. They had that problem to solve. They never solved it.

[00:42:41] Any other creatures that were living in Middle-earth had to live in the darkness. It's lacking. It gives Feanor more credibility to say they're not really on our side. Sure. If I remember correctly, after Morgoth destroyed the two lamps,

[00:43:01] the destruction of the land as a whole was so terrible that they decided to withdraw from it altogether because they had been preparing this place for the coming of the children. It's hard to remember how very little they knew about the children in advance, i.e. virtually nothing.

[00:43:20] Right. They're going to show up around these times. Right. And we don't know who they are. We have a vague idea of what they look like, witness Owl-eyes' creation of the dwarves. And they're concerned because of their mistakes, and they don't want to make more mistakes.

[00:43:37] And so it's almost like we're pulling back because we're so powerful we don't want to do harm. Now, I could have wished that they had spent more time and energy trying to reign in Melkor in some fashion. And heal Middle-earth a little bit more.

[00:43:52] Yeah, and maybe they needed to heal themselves too because they were expending a lot of energy before. But it is hard to comprehend why, particularly from Yavanna's point of view, because she'd already set trees and grass and animals and all this in the world. That was her creation.

[00:44:09] And suddenly, they don't have light to grow and so forth. And so that's not surprising that she is one of the two of the Valar who are most frequently in Middle-earth, the other being Orome, the hunter.

[00:44:25] And of course, you also have Ulmo who is present in all the waters and really knows what's going on where and when. But, yeah, it's very hard to comprehend that piece of it.

[00:44:39] I think, on the other hand, there is also, as I say, the fact that they knew so little about the children that they were really afraid of doing the wrong thing. And they did it anyway. So it was an attempt, but it wasn't great.

[00:44:54] Yeah, I think that there are a bunch of missteps here for the Valar that you can just see. Setting Melkor free at all was probably a mistake, but also it's a tough moral decision. Can you really imprison someone forever if that's not what you said you would do?

[00:45:07] Yeah. It's tough. Then you have the withholding of information. You have the light of the trees being only for a short period. You even have the Valar really pressuring Feanor to give the Silmarils, whereas if they would have let him…

[00:45:23] I think they basically treated him as a petulant child right away and made… They decided from the moment that they asked him, he's going to say no. Rather than that, they decided he owed it to them. Rather than graciously asking, we know you made these great things.

[00:45:44] Will you please be the hero we need right now and restore the light of the trees? They took away his opportunity to do the right thing, and they treated it as an order and a punishment. Only Aule speaks up and says, you don't know what you're asking him.

[00:46:00] Right, right. Well, there's also the fact that he pulled a sword on his brother and he'd been exiled for 12 years. Sure, sure. His previous record might lead one to think, okay, this guy needs some direction perhaps, for lack of a better word.

[00:46:17] But also, it's sort of like when you're raising a kid and the kid has acted up. The next time the kid has the opportunity to act up, do you treat them like they already did?

[00:46:26] Because that's just teaching them that they're the bad kid and that they should keep being the bad kid because they're already expected to be the bad kid. Right, right. If you say, that's not you. That wasn't you and you're better than that.

[00:46:41] That is an opportunity for them to tell that story to themselves. You are more than the worst thing you ever did. And the whole thing of restorative justice, these are very modern concepts. The idea of judgment and we almost expect judgment and right and wrong.

[00:47:05] We appeal to what we perceive to be the gods or the demiurges for quote unquote justice. Judgment is a very human concept. A lot of people think it flows from divinity. And my understanding in divinity, they're too busy loving us to judge us.

[00:47:25] We've decided judgment is a thing and what's fair and what's not fair. I mean, it's a very different concept. But Tolkien was working from a very traditional religious concept shared by the Abrahamic faiths. So why not? And they responded in kind.

[00:47:46] I also think of Tolkien, you know, Hulky Tolkien, who I always think of as a sort of an interesting version of Thor. Saying, well, who would deny Yavanna? Right, right, right. And so Aule is the one who steps in and says, look, you don't understand what you're asking.

[00:48:03] Aule, Yavanna's husband comes in. Exactly, exactly. And even Yavanna, because Yavanna says before any of this, I can only do this once. You know, there's some things I even I can only do once. Then Feanor comes in and says it's the same thing.

[00:48:19] You're asking me to save her one time deal with my one time deal. And then later on, Feanor turns around and makes the same ask of another group. But we haven't gotten there yet. So it seems to be, you know, asks all around. It's a cycle of abuse.

[00:48:37] Right, right. Right. And all initiated by this atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and right. So on by a father of lies. Right. I mean, look, Feanor clearly had a lot of anger issues and clearly was not the hero that he needed to be.

[00:49:01] He was he was certainly morally gray at best, really more morally on the bad side. I mean, by the time I would say at the point of refusing the Silmaril, he's morally gray. When you get to the kinslaying, he's on the villain side.

[00:49:16] He's really just going for it's beyond. It's beyond. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But it's interesting how Tolkien constantly. Ties in this notion of supreme creator with supreme fall. Mm hmm. Ali seems to be the only one who escapes that. Because of his humility. Right.

[00:49:39] And because his creation comes from a genuine love of creation and the desire to give away what he has created. Right. There is no possessiveness in him. And this is why, for me, the dangers of possessiveness is one of the nine themes of Tolkien. Right.

[00:49:54] I mean, look, look how the Simrels got stolen. They were in a hoard. Right, right. And Fanor became more and more suspicious, but his suspicions were being fed by other factors.

[00:50:08] But again, the loss that he experienced very early on did not give him a very solid basis for trust, I don't think. And then you have the whole discussion of was it right for his father to marry or not? And we don't need to litigate that again.

[00:50:24] And you did it in an earlier chapter anyway. But that is another piece that has an ongoing impact on him and his character. But then it just dissolves into jealousy and the hoarding of his father's love.

[00:50:38] And let us say Finwë bore some responsibility in this too, because he clearly loves Fanor above all his other children. Yes. And makes no bones about it. And so there's some responsibility there. Right. Which doesn't mean any of them deserve to be killed.

[00:51:03] What I love, there was another line in this chapter that I really, really liked, which was, I can't find it in the Kittle version that I'm looking at, but this idea of Fanor absolutely hated Melkor. Yes. And renames him Morgoth.

[00:51:21] But the words he says are straight from Melkor's mouth. Yes, it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant that we absolutely cannot see ourselves in those who we fear and despise. Right. Meanwhile, Melkor has so much influence over Fanor, it's insane. Fanor is probably the most influenced elf by Melkor.

[00:51:44] And he's the one who hates him the most. He's the one who gives him his cursed name. Definitely. Because he's the only one who's of any importance to Melkor. Melkor doesn't waste his time with anything lesser. Why should he? That's why he completely ignores the Teleri. Right.

[00:52:00] And doesn't even try to sow any lies or suspicion in them.

[00:52:04] And of course, the Vanyaar are beyond him because their whole thing is they are seated at the center of, for lack of a better word, divinity, although I don't like to use that because they are not gods. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that.

[00:52:21] They are created beings themselves and therefore they are flawed. And they make mistakes and they don't have full knowledge that we usually associate with the deity. Marilyn, did you ever watch Doctor Who, the newer Who? I watched some.

[00:52:38] I kept trying and I kept not getting beyond Rose's companion. I don't think I even finished that arc. Did you ever see River Song saying spoilers every time she's asked a question about the future? No, I didn't get to River Song, unfortunately. Well, I would recommend it.

[00:52:56] But my point is I think that Manwe, not Manwe, Mandoz is River Song going spoilers in the background of every scene. Fey and Orr goes, if you're going to kill me, I'll be the first blood. And Mandoz is in the background going, not the first.

[00:53:14] And they're all like, wait, what? What'd you say, buddy? Although I'm not sure how many people actually heard him say that, to be perfectly honest. Okay, okay. I misread that then. I thought that he's in the background just going like, not the first.

[00:53:28] Well, he is, but I think everybody's too focused on the drama. Fair enough. Maybe it's a sort of a Melian thing, you know? Nobody ever listens to Melian even though she knows stuff. Right. And so here's Mandoz and he only talks to the Valar when he's asked to.

[00:53:45] Right. And nobody asked him at that point, but he said that very thing when the Valar decided to invite, quote unquote, the children to come over in the first place. He says, hey, that's not a great idea. So it is doomed.

[00:54:02] You know, you want to talk about Oz and doom and all that. Right. That really was where it all started. So the Valar, you know, under the guise of, I think in their minds they believe we are inviting the elves here to protect them.

[00:54:20] And I think the intention was good. It was. But in the end, it was really an act of hoarding. You are hoarding the people there. You are keeping them under your wing. Exactly. And that's where the danger came in.

[00:54:32] They looked upon them and they loved them because they were other. That's not an exact quote, but it does say when they're describing the decision point, they were worried for their safety and they were enamored of them and wanted to see more of them.

[00:54:51] And this was the first new thing that they themselves had no hand in creating. And they loved that. They were attracted to that. They wanted to know more without ever considering is this going to be the best thing for them? Right.

[00:55:05] Just because you find a wounded bird, is it really the best thing to bring it into your house and so forth? No, it isn't. You go to an expert, you find a wildlife restorative area in your neighborhood, hopefully, and people who know what they're doing.

[00:55:19] But, you know, they didn't get a parental manual either, did they? The Valar? No, no. They make their own mistakes. Fully created from the beginning. They had no experience of stages of childhood and teenagerhood and adulthood and all the rest of it.

[00:55:36] So they were all learning by doing. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough as a parent myself. I mean, sometimes a situation presents itself and I'm like, I don't know, I'm still figuring it out for myself. You know, it's and I think that's part of the Valar. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:55:56] Why don't we talk about Melkor and Ungoliant for a bit? Oh, yes. Melkor and Ungoliant have a debrief where she demands payment for her services. Melkor pays her all the jewels he took from Faenor but withholds the Silmarils.

[00:56:11] Ungoliant attacks Melkor, but his Balrogs arrive to fight her off and send her toward Gorgoroth. Melkor then raises Thangorodrim and builds his fortress Angband. He sets the Silmarils in his crown. Can I say Thangorodrim is my favorite word in the entire legendarium? It's a great word, isn't it?

[00:56:32] It's fun to say. Yeah. It feels good in the mouth. Yeah. You can kind of chew on it. It sticks to the top of your, the roof of your mouth, you know? It's like peanut butter. Melkor and a castle of peanut butter. Interesting, interesting image.

[00:56:48] I mean, a lot of people get stuck in the prisons there. That is true. But hopefully don't stick to the roof of their mouth because, you know, that would be even worse. Yeah. Or maybe not. So Ungoliant, still hungry after all that light. Yeah.

[00:57:06] I mean, she's kind of an image of insatiable female, isn't she? I mean, it's sad to say, but when you consider there's so few women and female characters in the first place. And both the spiders are female spiders. Right.

[00:57:23] Do you believe Tolkien that he wasn't influenced by the spider that bit him? No. I'm sure he believed it. I'm sure he believed it himself. And he's always helping spiders out of the bath carefully and putting them out in the garden or whatever. Yeah. Yep.

[00:57:37] It was a very early trauma of shock and horror and overwhelming whatever. And as a three-year-old, two-year-old, I can't remember exactly how old he was. He did have a memory of running through the garden on a very hot day. Right.

[00:57:55] So I have a hard time believing that that didn't affect him. It could have been unconscious, and that's fine. I agree with you, Marilyn. I think he absolutely was influenced in it. Why else do you have not one but two giant spider monster women?

[00:58:12] Who say she'll be hungry, and all they want to do is to eat all the light and anything else that comes their way.

[00:58:17] Plus, she gives birth to a whole bunch of additional spiders, which are part of the madness of Nangarhgurtha between the northernmost and then the kingdom of Thingol and Malian. So that's where Beren has to travel and somehow survive. Right, right. Yeah, there's not a lot about this scene.

[00:58:38] There's really not a lot of lesson here, I don't think. The biggest thing, I think, is just that the Silmarils, even in a container, are burning Morgoth because he's just so dark and they're just so light.

[00:58:51] Well, and a lot of people try to point to this and say, see? See? Balrogs did fly. And because they had to go so fast. And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. They're Maiar. They can travel fast when they have to. No wings needed. Yep, yep.

[00:59:06] Is Ungoliant a Maia, do we think? The implication is that she came out of the darkness independently of Maiar. Like out of the void? Yeah, yeah. Okay. She was sort of this clot of- Was she an embodiment of the void? Darkness of the void.

[00:59:27] Did Nilfgaard take him back with her? Take her back with him? Some people say that she was sort of a detritus from Nilfgaard's evil thoughts when they were singing with the song. And so, that's part of it too.

[00:59:42] But clearly, they're not exactly connected to one another because he has to go and convince her. And she winds up almost eating him. As they say in the PPP, it was a horrible first date. You know, what is the reality? They do the Marvel What If series, right?

[01:00:05] What if Ungoliant successfully consumes Melkor here? Does she become the Dark Queen of Middle-Earth? She doesn't care. She does not care. All she wants to do is to consume. So, does she just eat the whole planet? Well, yeah.

[01:00:23] Because at the end, the theory is she eats herself in her extreme hunger. So, if you got that whole planet and light in particular she wants to eat. But she'll eat whatever else is around presumably because there wasn't a lot of light in Nangortheb.

[01:00:41] My what if is what if she'd eaten the Silmarils? I think that would have imploded her. I think so too. And that was what Yavanna feared most was that they would have been utterly consumed and destroyed.

[01:00:53] But I think they probably would have basically powered their way out of her body by sheer force of light energy. Either that or I think they'd negate each other. This is the other possibility. Yeah.

[01:01:10] Well, I think if she had tried, she would have bit off more than she could chew, so to speak. Melkor is biting off more than he can chew though. He's putting it in a crown so he could avoid being constantly burned.

[01:01:22] I don't think it fully works though, right? It's always bothering him a bit. Well, it's a very heavy crown and he never takes it off even in sleep. And it's a weight and a burden. But it's a symbol for him.

[01:01:36] This is his way of saying to all of his minions who already knew this anyway, I'm big, bad and powerful because I stole these precious things away. But they certainly don't give him joy. He wouldn't know joy if it bit him on the butt. Right, right.

[01:01:54] So, his notion is to be king of the world, but he never leaves Angband ever again except twice. And once I think before this happened, but the other time was when he was challenged to single combat. And I'm pretty sure it was Fingolfin.

[01:02:12] Please don't at me if I'm wrong. I believe you're right. But I think it was Fingolfin. I don't have the text in front of me. Single combat, he gets injured and he never forgives him. Right, right.

[01:02:24] Well, and interestingly enough, even Melkor could not stand the notion of being called coward and not coming out to prove otherwise. Right. Partially because he knew if he did, he would lose a lot of his allies as it were. All right, so let's go back to Amun.

[01:02:42] Marilyn, you've told me that you brought the text of the oath from Morgoth's Ring, which is one of the volumes of History of Middle-earth. Yes. Is that right? Would you like to read it for us? I would love to read it.

[01:02:54] Disclaimer, this is not a real oath and Marilyn is not beholden to it. Thank you, thank you. Yes, this is not myself. This is me reading the words of Feanor. Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean, brood of Morgoth or bright Valar,

[01:03:12] Elda or Maia or aftercomer, man yet unborn upon Middle-earth, neither law nor love nor league of swords, dread nor danger, nor doom itself shall defend him from Feanor and Feanor's kin. Whoso hideth or hoardeth or hand-hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril.

[01:03:36] This swear we all, death we will deal him ere day's ending. Woe unto the world's end! Our word, hear thou, eru all father. To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth. On the holy mountain, hear in witness and our vow remember, to run away and Varda.

[01:03:59] I'd say he's serious. I think so. There's more than a touch of the Anglo-Saxon here. If you notice the alliteration, there's a lot of the multiple, dread nor danger nor doom itself. You know that, that kind of feel. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, very rhythmic.

[01:04:24] He is called, eru all father, translation of Eluvatar, and Allfather was the Norse name for Odin. So this is clearly from an earlier phase that Tolkien had. And I really wonder if Christopher decided not to include

[01:04:42] the entire text because it was so clearly from an earlier time than the subsequent rewritings and new ideas and so forth that Tolkien himself had done as he continued to rework the Silmarillion

[01:04:57] throughout the rest of his life. But I'm glad that he did publish it in Morgoth's Ring because whoever summarized it, as it were, in the text of the Silmarillion, it still loses some of the

[01:05:13] impact, I think. Yeah, I think this would have fit right in. I don't think that this would have taken away from it at all. I think it would have added. But we're not Christopher, and we're not

[01:05:22] Guy Gabriel Kay. Yeah, but again, I think of Elrond warning Gimli against, you know, swearing of oaths can strengthen Quaking Heart according to Gimli and according to Elrond or break it. Yeah, yeah. Can I tell you a fun fact I learned recently about the fellowship scenes in the

[01:05:43] Fellowship of the Ring movie? Please do. They apparently wrote all of Sean Bean's lines the night before, which is why he's looking down for the entire council. Yes, yes. I saw this interview

[01:05:55] recently and I was like, what? That's insane. Anyway, I needed to share that for our listeners too. He had the scraps of paper on the inside of his shield, tape to his knee. Yeah, yeah. And

[01:06:09] he's shading his hand. You know, one does not simply walk into Morstall. I know. It seems like he's brooding. He doesn't want to make eye contact with Aragorn and all these things. But then you

[01:06:20] find out they just didn't write the guy's lines until the night before. Yeah. I mean, talk about seat of the pants and both trusting but imposing rather heavily upon your actors. I mean, right?

[01:06:32] Right. Well, he did a great job. So good job, Sean Bean. He absolutely did. But then subsequently, blanking on the name of the actor who does Éomer, Carl, Carl something or other. Yes. Sorry, listeners. You all know who I mean. He's in The Boys too, which Marilyn,

[01:06:51] I do not recommend you watch. It's very, very violent. And I know you always ask me on shows, is it going to be a love gorge? Well, I also really enjoyed him in Ragnarok, Thor Ragnarok.

[01:07:03] It was a very different kind of a character. He's a great, Carl Urban. That's his name. Thank you, Urban. He does manage a wide range of roles. Anyway, he talked about,

[01:07:14] you know, he'd come on set in the morning and get ready to deliver his lines. And the guy said, oh, here we got some new lines for you. You got 20 minutes to memorize them. Crazy. Figure out how you want to present them, etc., etc. Right. That's tough.

[01:07:28] They all did really well. Well, Feanor had some lines to deliver and he didn't need any rehearsal because they came from the heart. They sure did. Anyway, so let's go back to Amon with that in mind. On Amon, Feanor

[01:07:45] seeks transport to Middle-earth and asks the Teleri for their ships. When they refuse, Feanor leads the first killing of Elf by Elf to take the ships by force. The Noldor are warned of the consequences of their actions, causing Fenn Arfin to return. But Feanor presses on to

[01:08:00] Middle-earth, burning the ships behind him so Fingolfin cannot follow. Fingolfin leads his group across the frozen bridge Helcaraxe, arriving in Middle-earth later. So this is what we saw in The Rings of Power. If you're at home and you're lost with us now for some reason, this is the

[01:08:19] intro to Rings of Power. Yes. We saw Galadriel and her crew crossing that ice bridge, which seems to be pretty modeled after the Bering Strait as far as real world history. Pretty much, yes. Pretty much. Although it's a

[01:08:36] little odd because of course then that means that Middle-earth is actually North America and I don't think he meant that. No, no. Sure he didn't mean that. Or is... Oh, I guess yeah, because the Bering Strait was going that way. Or are they going

[01:08:49] the other direction though? Are they going to Europe from Ammon, North America? We're living in the Holy Land right now, Marilyn. We didn't even know it. We didn't know. So that makes me think of Doggerland, which was that whole vast

[01:09:03] plain that is now the Netherlands but also a whole bunch of the North Sea and other areas that at a certain period of time was completely dry land and you could literally walk across from what we now call England to what we now call Germany or something.

[01:09:16] Wow. Yeah. The earth changes, you know, it just goes very slowly. And so does Arda, but less slowly because I don't know, the gods keep doing some nonsense to the world and changing it. Yeah, Melkor doesn't help. But they do seem to be into making and remaking.

[01:09:39] So we've got this ask of the Tolarian and I like this exchange where Feanor says, well, we helped you and you needed help. He's like, yeah, but you didn't teach us to build

[01:09:48] these ships. This was all the Valar as far as who taught us. We're still tight with them. We know that you're not really on their good side. Your friends say a lot about you, Feanor, and sorry, but you're not our friend right now.

[01:10:00] Well, and friends can upbraid friends, can criticize them. And it's part of friendship to say, look, this is ridiculous. What do you think you're doing? Just calm down a minute and

[01:10:15] think about what you're saying. I don't even know if they knew about the oath at that point, but still, as your friends, we can say to you, don't do this.

[01:10:25] Mm hmm. I mean, I will say it's not very it's not a very good look of the Valar to be essentially keeping them in captivity and saying you can't go back to Middle Earth, the land that was made for

[01:10:37] you. That's not a great look on them, but they don't say that until after Feanor has done all the things that he does. Sure. They never told them you can't go back. Right. But they they

[01:10:50] don't want them to go back. Right. Like they do not want the Noldor to leave Amun. They're worried about what might happen to them, but they did not in any way constrain them until after Feanor does these things on Feanor alone is my judgment placed.

[01:11:07] Manwis says at one point. And actually, the Valar are a little hurt that they're being accused of something that they don't perceive themselves as ever having done, which is to constrain them. Mm hmm. You know, and the whole thing about thralls, I mean, that's just absurd. Oh,

[01:11:22] that's absurd. Yeah. Yeah. I will say, though, like if you if you got these people here to help them ostensibly and you had to make an island to bring them over, it took an act of divine

[01:11:36] intervention to bring them over would be nice to give them an Uber home. You know, if they if they decide I'm not feeling this, I want to go home. Maybe you say to them, look, get a cooling off

[01:11:46] period, wait a week. If you still want to go, we'll we'll shuttle you back. I think that would have been fair. But the whole vibe was just aggressive at this point. And part of it is

[01:11:57] the oath. Right. I mean, yeah, you can't yell at your Uber driver and expect them to take you home. Yeah. Again, I just have to point back to Melkor. He is the responsible agent until he started

[01:12:11] talking about thralls, which nobody had ever heard of before. They had no concept of being limited or restricted. Right. With the possible exception of Fëanor again, because Fëanor. But for the most part and, you know, within his own people, there were plenty of people

[01:12:28] criticizing him and saying, hey, come on. Yeah. You know, not just as his brothers. Yeah. And even even Fëanorfin, right, is like, I'm done with this. Yeah. The golden house of Fëanorfin is staying in Amun.

[01:12:42] Yeah. Although his, you know, a bunch of his children decide to go. And so there you have sort of a generational split in a way. Right. But the thing about the Teleri is that they didn't

[01:12:54] listen to the lies of Melkor because he didn't even go to them. He didn't think they were worth his time. Right. At the same time, they are creators and they are possessive to some degree

[01:13:07] of their finest creations. I mean, we have again, I think I mentioned this earlier, you know, the finest two trees, the finest Silmarils, the finest ships. And they refuse to lend, to give away these things that we have made and we can never make again.

[01:13:23] You know, we didn't learn the craft from you, but from the lords of the sea, the timbers we wrought with our own hands and the white sails were woven by our wives and our daughters. Therefore, we will neither give them nor sell them for any league or friendship.

[01:13:36] For I say to you, Fëanor, son of Fëanor, these are to us as are the gems of the Nongdor, the work of our hearts whose like we shall not make again. So once again,

[01:13:49] the epitome of a creator and the preciousness thereby. Who knows under other circumstances, Aulim might have said, yeah, sure, take them. But he is the valor of creativity and so forth and has that spirit of generosity, which makes up for quite a lot.

[01:14:10] Yeah, it's tough. It's tough because the Teleri get a little hoardy here too. I think also though, beyond just these are our dearest possessions, this is a bad idea. Yeah. This is really stupid. We don't want to help you do this because we worry about you.

[01:14:28] We don't know what's going to happen and just there's no way this is going to end well. And we don't want to enable you. Right. Don't ask me to loan you 10 bucks because I know where it's going to go kind of feeling. Right.

[01:14:42] So everybody is caught to some degree, except the Vanyar. The Vanyar are just- They're just chilling. They're just monks on a hill. They're hanging out in the glory of whatever glory there is. They're listening to Bear McCreary soundtracks and just having a great day.

[01:14:59] Yeah. So I wonder what they are actually feeding on, what's the light of the trees is gone. Of course, there's Varda stars, but it's more than that, of course. They are the ones of poetry and song. And that's why

[01:15:16] Manoi loves them the most because Manoi air mental writing poetry stuff. That all ties in together. And there's no issue of possessiveness there unless they have copyright, which I don't

[01:15:28] think they do. But if it's a song or poetry is your creation, then of course you want to give it away because that's kind of the whole point. Right. It's to spread that joy. And yeah, I mean,

[01:15:40] it's through Tolkien's whole thing, right? Bilbo, the first thing he says to Frodo, I don't remember the first thing, but one of the first things he's like, yeah, I wrote a new song. Want to hear it? Yeah, it's through the whole Lord of the Rings

[01:15:49] through all of Tolkien's writings. Sure. Sure. Well, anything else we want to talk about this? We have the frozen bridge. Suddenly they would walk 500 miles and 500 more to be the elves that walked a thousand miles.

[01:16:09] Yeah. It's pretty brutal. And you can see why later Fingolfin's like pretty pissed at the the sons of Feanor. Well, yeah. I mean, he was only there by virtue of the fact of wait for it.

[01:16:25] And no, he took right, right. Half brother in blood, full brother shall I be to you from now on and where you go, I shall follow. And Feanor says, I hear you. Right. And then Feanor betrays him anyway. Right, right. Pretty crazy. I think Fingolfin would have reluctantly

[01:16:44] but faithfully followed Feanor. I agree, because that was that was the kind of person he was. I think also there was some support from his some of his children. Fingon was big in there. Those effing elves. I know. I know. I, I got very confused about

[01:17:02] Fingon versus Finrod for a while. And I finally have him straight after Rings of Power. Good for you. It took a while. It took a while. Definitely. Actually, that was a key feature of

[01:17:12] the, the parody I mentioned. Yeah. The Silmarillion. Yeah, they had a lot of fun with the effing elves. Yeah. I love, I love all the, the, the jokes where they have a list of words and they say, tell me is each one a Tolkien word or an antidepressant?

[01:17:29] Yes, yes. I've seen that. Yeah. It's fun. It's tough. It's honestly tough. So yeah, I mean, it's, it's terrible. And you see how this all goes. I can't wait to talk about of the Sindar. I believe that's the chapter where Thingol is

[01:17:47] talking to all of these, uh, talking to the house of Fingolfin and going, so what's up with the house of Feanor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It might not be that chapter, but I think it is. So come back

[01:17:59] next month if you want that discussion. Yeah. And I just wanted to point out, um, that we do have some gods who act against this or Demiurges or whatever, uh, that Olwe,

[01:18:15] who was the leader of the Teleri called upon Ossë, but it was not permitted by the Valar that the flight of the Noldor should be hindered by force. So there again, we're not constraining

[01:18:27] you, but Uinnin wept for the mariners of the Teleri and the sea rose and wroth against the Slayers so that many of the ships were wrecked and those in them drowned. Wow. So there is

[01:18:39] intervention there. And do you remember where we see Uinnin in the Rings of Power? Númenor? Was there a statue there? Hmm. In a very interesting location. Where was that? She is in what is now being used as a prison. Oh, wow. Once before had been,

[01:19:00] the theory is, um, a place where Númenoreans who were studying theology for lack of a better word, and they lived in these little individual cells. And so as the culture changed and suddenly they

[01:19:15] had a need to lock people up, they said, oh, well, let's use these. We don't have people studying those with our art anymore. Right. Except of course, you got Elendil just rocking it for the whole island, right? He's just really keeping that Elvish going, keeping the Quendi

[01:19:33] speech going. Well, and I love that connected with Elendil in the series was the first view we saw of Nien-Noor, that small altar off by the side. That just absolutely touched my heart. And it's

[01:19:48] interesting. We don't hear from Nien-Noor in all of this except for her weeping over the dead trees. But in other texts from the histories of Middle Earth, she has a fair bit to say.

[01:20:05] And of course, we know that she was not in favor of locking up Melkor and she was in favor of releasing him after those three ages and so on and so on. So, there is that side of compassion,

[01:20:16] of mercy represented in the Valar, but it doesn't exactly get equal time we could say. CB No. LS And I think that one of the things that we say is that the Valar and especially Manwë are naive because they don't understand evil. And his message

[01:20:45] to Feanor is only against the folly of Feanor shall my counsel be set only. Go not forth for the hour is evil and your road leads to sorrow that you do not foresee. No aid will the Valar lend you in this quest, but neither will they hinder you.

[01:21:05] For this you shall know as ye came hither freely, freely shall ye depart. But thou Feanor Finwë's son by thine oath are exiled. The lies of Melkor shalt thou unlearn in bitterness. Valar he is thou sayest then thou has sworn in vain for none of the Valar

[01:21:25] canst thou overcome now or ever within the halls of Eä, not though Eru whom thou namest had made thee thrice greater than the art. I don't think this is naivete. This is the utter

[01:21:37] necessity of free will. And I think from my mind, this is the underpinnings of how Eä works. That Eru's plan, for lack of a better term, the music can only come right if everyone's choices

[01:21:55] are freely made. Now you could argue Feanor's choices were poisoned by the lies of Melkor. And also I think that, and I pointed this out before, but it really was a near impossibility to get to Middle-earth for a non-deity, for a non-Ainu. It's impossible to get back to

[01:22:17] Middle-earth. Under the circumstances, they could have taken the ships with the blessing of Tel Auri. If they were saying, look, we want to go back to Middle-earth, we want to see if there's more new stuff to mine. We feel a commitment to the people we left behind.

[01:22:32] We want to see how Thingol is doing. There could have been any number of reasons for them. Did they know Thingol was around or was he just still MIA? They probably didn't until they went back. But still, I mean, it was...

[01:22:42] Yeah, the nice idea of visiting their friend. They knew they'd left some of their people behind. And gosh, maybe I should find out what happened to great auntie so-and-so who just decided her arthritis would let her make... Oh no,

[01:22:58] sorry, elves don't get arthritis. But then Feanor's ignorance, but also his prophetic vision his response is, if Feanor cannot overthrow Morgoth, at least he delays not to assault him

[01:23:13] and sits not idle in grief. And it may be that Eru has set a fire in me greater than I knowest. Such hurt at the least will I do to the foe of the Valar that even the mighty in the ring of

[01:23:26] doom shall wonder to hear it. Yea, in the end they shall follow me. Farewell. Now that is prophetic because they do follow him in the end. Probably not under the circumstances that he envisioned,

[01:23:38] because by that time he is on his unending stay in the halls of Bandos when they finally do follow. Right. But his ignorance is that they're sitting there idle in grief. And we'll hear more about that

[01:23:53] in the next chapter, I believe. He's making assumptions based on what he sees. But he also, after the, we get that incredibly dramatic moment of the doom of Bandos, tears unnumbered shall you shed, which eventually becomes the name of the worst battle of all, the battle of unnumbered

[01:24:13] tears. The Nirnaeth Arnoidiad, which I practiced for months to be able to say on a podcast. Well done, sir. Bravo. But he says, therefore I say that we will go on in this doom I add,

[01:24:28] that the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda. To my mind, this is Tolkien speaking from his World War I experience, that one of the ways to

[01:24:43] redeem irredeemable loss is to honor them in song. And I'm interpreting song loosely here because it could be poetry. Again, the act of creating can in some fashion ameliorate all the horror,

[01:25:04] all the harm, all the loss. And Monoi will address this again in the next chapter that you read. And it will talk about how yeah, they weren't actually sitting there idle. Right. That's just Feanor's limited vision. But it's interesting as you read through the three

[01:25:25] great works of the legendarium, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion or whatever order you read them in, time and again you hear characters saying, at least we shall make an

[01:25:36] end that is worthy of a song. Treebeard says it. The Rohirrim say it. It comes up over and over. Denethor does not say it, however. And that is another way of distinguishing Denethor from

[01:25:49] our heroes as it were. So that's also an important thing to keep in mind. Mind you, I'm not sure that I... And I'm a musician and I love singing. I don't know that I agree with

[01:26:00] Feanor that all of the tragedy and suffering is worth a song myself. But this is the northern-ness coming out again, as well as the post-World War I and of course World War II as well. Right. At least... Experience.

[01:26:16] Even if it was tragic, it deserves to be remembered, I think is the sentiment. Exactly. Exactly. Right. But it starts here, or so it seems to. I think that's a good note to leave it on, Marilyn. Fair enough.

[01:26:31] Thank you for all your contributions today. It's always a pleasure to talk Tolkien with you. Oh, absolutely. You've been with us since the beginning. It's so cool. It is. It is. All because of the Barovian, honey. That's just amazing.

[01:26:45] All because we couldn't use Google to look up the word Barovian. Well, it's been a pleasure talking about The Silmarillion with you. We don't have any feedback this week, this month, I guess. But you can always send that

[01:27:00] to lotr at thelorehounds.com. You can go to thelorehounds.com, go to the contact form. Leave us a voicemail even if you want to hear your voice on the pod. We always love doing that.

[01:27:09] Or you can head to our Discord server, which is also in the show notes. You can chat with us in real time. Marilyn, you're active on there. I'm pretty active on there. Yep.

[01:27:17] David's on there. We got a lot of people talking about Tolkien and all the other things that we're covering. So speaking of what we're covering, I want to talk about our affiliates quickly. We've got Properly Howard Movie Review. They finished their first season of, or their new

[01:27:32] season of determining whether remakes of movies are better, worse, or on par with the average Ron Howard movie. That is their shtick. They're having a great time. They are covering, they did Sorcerer,

[01:27:47] they did Dune, which we were on. They did Robocop, The Thing. That was a really funny podcast. Yeah. They got a lot of stuff in there. It's really great. We just announced a collaboration

[01:27:59] with them. You can find that in the show notes too. We're going to be covering Severance season two with them. They're currently covering Severance season one. So you can get weekly coverage of the first season of Severance now. You can also hear this really fun promo

[01:28:13] where we discussed whether we'd want to be severed while we're pooping, while we're having sex, or while we're eating. We all had to answer that question. It got pretty funny. It got pretty light.

[01:28:28] So definitely check that out on the Severance feed. You can find that in the show notes or by looking up Severance, The Lorehounds, and Properly Howard on any podcast platform. Alicia is also back on

[01:28:38] her Wolshift Dust feed. She is covering the fall of the House of Usher, the new really excellent Mike Flanagan show on Netflix. Before this podcast is out, there should be a podcast on our feed

[01:28:49] where Alicia and I talk about it. That's about an hour. Then she's going to have more coverage with, I think her sister is her co-host on that. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. I'm

[01:28:58] probably going to listen to it before bed tonight. I'm really excited too because the series was so good. Marilyn, it's another one I won't recommend to you because of gore. I was going to say, Edgar Allan Poe, you're really going to use that to fall asleep.

[01:29:10] There's a lot of gore in it, I'm going to be honest. But it's really well done. I remember reading Edgar Allan Poe in my high school days. The show really weaves together all of the hits of Poe. It's not just the fall of the House of

[01:29:24] Usher. There's a cask of Amontillado there somewhere? There is a cask of Amontillado. Oh, well, okay. Then they're doing their job. Yep. Yep, there sure is. It's actually pretty omnipresent. It's all over the show. Anyway. What do they do with ravens?

[01:29:41] You got to watch it, Marilyn, if you want to find out. There's a character named Verna, which is a main character who is an anagram for raven. Oh, okay. There we go. Yes, well, protect your eyeballs and keep all the grapes and cherry tomatoes out of the way.

[01:30:00] There you go. It's very good. It's very, very good. Check that out. I know she's going to be covering Beacon 23, which is another Hugh Howey series, which is coming out on MGM+.

[01:30:10] Soon. So check that out. Subscribe to that feed in the show notes or wherever you get your podcast. Wolveshift Dust is the name. Also on our feed, we have Loki season two going. I'm actually enjoying

[01:30:22] it as not really a Marvel fan. So definitely check it out if you're at all into MCU stuff. It's much better than Secret Invasion was. I promise I did not like Secret Invasion and I am really liking Loki. Marilyn, you're on Loki, right?

[01:30:35] I think it's really well done. I'm enjoying it tremendously. It's not my usual cup of tea. I'm not comfortable with the whole multiverse. Now you see it, now you don't flash what's going on. I'm really confused then. But they have enough through line to keep me going and

[01:30:53] enough little bits and pieces. But the production values are superb. And Tom Hiddleston was not to love. He's great. He's great. You got plenty of great cast in there. Owen Wilson's there. You got everybody. So check that out. As far as our less regular shows, we're doing this,

[01:31:11] Silmarillion Stories. We did an Earthsea episode which should be out before this. We did a Creator One-Shot. I say we, I wasn't on it. But David, John and Alicia did a Creator One-Shot. I just recorded an episode of the Lorehounds play with Brandon. We discussed the

[01:31:27] RPG Skyrim, which is a long time coming for us. Of course, we're covering a 12-year-old game because what else are we going to do? And yeah, we just got plenty of stuff going on again. It feels like

[01:31:39] we've woken up after our triple coverage was kind of putting everything else to the side. Yes. Yeah. Marilyn, it's always a pleasure talking to you. But it's also a pleasure to thank our patrons. Definitely.

[01:31:54] And they are the ones who keep this podcast going and make sure that we can keep doing fun projects like the Silmarillion Stories podcast. Bravo patrons. Absolutely. So our Patreon Loremasters, our top tier patrons get as part of their benefits

[01:32:07] a shout out every single episode. They are Samartian, Cyrus, Mark H., Michael G., Michelle E., David W., Brian P., Nick W., S.C., Peter O.H., Bettina W., Adam S., Nancy M., Lavinia T., Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H., Sarah L., Gareth C., Eric F., Matthew M.,

[01:32:28] Sarah M., DJ Mua, Andra B., Quang Yu, Laura G., Dead Eye Jedi, Bob, Nathan T., Alex V., Aaron T., Sub Zero and Adrian. Now that I have to take several breaths throughout the list, it's a good feeling. It's really nice to have this long term support from people.

[01:32:45] And thank you to you and all our patrons for helping us get going. Something I didn't mention, we just recorded another second breakfast, which was over two hours because that's what we do. And it was really fun. We talked about The Witch, the horror movie. We talked about

[01:33:01] Pokemon cards. We talked about some... We went all over the place. We were talking about leftovers for breakfast. It's a lot of fun. Oh, it's leftovers. Okay. Yeah. And may I say, since this is a Tolkien podcast to all of the top level,

[01:33:17] top tier supporters, Light at the light at the egg. That's from the field of Kremlin. Go look it up. Okay. Well, Marilyn, thanks again for being with us tonight. Always a pleasure to talk to you. And

[01:33:28] I hope we can have you on again soon. I know we will with Earthsea, but I hope hopefully we can have you on another Tolkien one soon. Anytime. It's a delight. I really enjoy it. All right. Have a good night. And you.

[01:33:39] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com contact. Get early and ad free access to all Lorehounds Podcast at patreon.com slash the lorehounds.

[01:33:54] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black. John, my soul is as black as night.

[01:34:18] Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting. I thought this is where HBO wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod,

[01:34:30] but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons.

[01:34:46] And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive. Plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot, but

[01:35:01] probably positive takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption. Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a heartened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin.

[01:35:12] Dragon seeds may experience burning.