Silmarillion Stories - E23 - The Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad

[00:00:19] Welcome to Silmarillion Stories, where the Lorehounds, your guides to Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. I am Jon and this is our podcast for Of The Fifth Battle near Nayeth Arnoediad, the 23rd portion of the Silmarillion. In this episode we're going to be discussing the death of Fingon, the betrayal of men, and the torment of Hurin. If you want to get in on the Tolkien Talk, send an email to lotr at thelorehounds.com or visit thelorehounds.com slash contact to leave a voicemail or a contact form entry. And one more note, if you want to support us directly,

[00:00:49] click on the link here in the show notes and follow it to Supercast or Patreon where you can get early and add free access to our podcast plus bonus content like Second Breakfast and Elevensees. Today I am joyful because I'm joined by Marilyn Arbuquila, our favorite Tolkien scholar. Marilyn, welcome back. Thank you, Jon. It's wonderful to be back again. I always have fun with these. Even the depressing ones.

[00:01:15] I gave you literally the unending tears. Yeah, seriously. But isn't it fun to say near Nayeth Arnoediad? It really is. The minute you say that for the first time, you're like, oh, I can do this Tolkien thing. Well, anyway, what's your hot take on the near Nayeth Arnoediad? That feels so strange to say. Well, yeah, that's kind of interesting because, of course, I read it for the first time back in 1977.

[00:01:45] So my hot takes are going to have to be, you know, rewarned. Your most recent hot take, yeah. My most recent hot take. It bears rereading if only because I'm always seeing new bits and pieces and I'm going to talk about some of them tonight. It's definitely Tolkien, the World War I veteran. And that becomes clearer as one goes along. And it's devastating.

[00:02:14] You know, it's devastating. And you see the origins of a couple of very serious quarrels and the continuations of others. So, and overall, of course, it's funny, I almost said the curse of Feanor when I was thinking about this and realized, no, it was the oath of Feanor. But it seems to me that this particular oath is definitely a curse. It sure acts like it quite a lot. Absolutely. And the, you know, Mandos did not pronounce a curse.

[00:02:44] Mandos pronounced the doom that was going to follow from this choice. Not, you are now doomed by the power of whoever or whatever. I think that's right. And don't worry, we'll get into curses on the next episode. But on this episode. Oh, indeed we shall. No official curses. And I think it's the doom of Mandos because good things do come out of this, right? Like there are positives that come out of the oath of Feanor.

[00:03:13] And part of that, I think, is, and we've discussed before, I think, is, you know, maybe it was improper for the Valar to ever invite the elves over. And maybe they were meant to be in Middle-earth and they were kind of, the Valar were interfering with Eru's plan to have them be independent of the Valar. And so the oath of Feanor, well born of negative emotions, was actually part of Eru's plan anyway, you know, spibimi. Oh, well, spibimi, yes.

[00:03:42] I mean, if Eru has that, you know, multi-universal time whatever view, it's very easy to be able to go in and nudge this and move or that and so forth. But it's quite clear to me that the Valar never heard of the prime directive. The prime directive. No, they had never, never heard of the prime directive. That's for sure. And even I know that and I'm not a Trekkie. Best of intentions. No guarantee. You know. Yeah.

[00:04:13] Yeah, that's absolutely right. Intervention. Not this particular form of intervention. And yet, look what happened to them the first time they intervened. You know, continents were destroyed and seas rose and mountains rose and fell. And when Valar intervenes, it's not a quiet time. So there was that other side to things.

[00:04:35] And it was out of their desire because they have this wonderful trait, which I wish more people had, of loving that which is different. And wanting to be a part of them, wanting to see them and to know them and to cherish them. And yet, they had this overlay of, oh, well, this is the best thing for them. Right.

[00:05:02] When in fact, it was their own desires that were driving them. Right. So, you know, it's a complicated business. Let's be clear about that. It sure is. And we've got a complicated chapter ahead of us. We've got, I mean, look, this is Name Drop City, folks. And I have really tried to distill this and leave out any names that you really don't need to know because it's just so many. And we'll remind you later if, like, this person was at the Nirnaeth Arnodiad. Right. Which is also the fifth battle.

[00:05:32] Those are interchangeable. The Nirnaeth. Each one of these battles, like the Dagor Bragalok, things like that, they have these sort of elvish, dramatic names. The elves are very dramatic, as we know. And this was the Nirnaeth Arnodiad Unending Tears. Yes. The Battle of Unnumbered Tears. So let's start off with Luthien. We've, you know, last month and the month before with Silmarillion. I probably should bring that up right away.

[00:06:00] We did Silmarillion, and then I said, hey, we're going to have Maester Anthony on to discuss Barad of Luthien again. His availability got kind of shot at some point. So we are skipping over that bonus conversation. We're going to go right into this now. So spring semester for college professors. Right. Not the time in which free time is in abundance. So I totally get that. Right. I'm sure we'll have Maester Anthony on for a Tolkien conversation again, but not for Barad and Luthien.

[00:06:37] Mm-hmm. Well, I appreciate it. I got to send you the second one because it's not out yet. Yes, you do. When we're recording it. I'll send it to you after this. Okay. But for listeners, you've already heard it because this is coming out a month after that. And so we left off with Barad and Luthien. Barad's back. He's never speaking to mortal men again. But Luthien says, hey, got to go see dad. Got to make sure he knows I'm okay. And Luthien heads back to Doriath.

[00:07:02] And in a very Persephone moment, comes back and Thingol and Melian are like, things are cool again. The winter of Doriath is warming up. Marilyn, I know you know this as a mythological scholar, but for people who don't know, the myth of Persephone and Hades is that Persephone ended up through eating a pomegranate seed being stuck in Hades for half the year every year.

[00:07:29] And her mother, Demeter, is the goddess of, you know, Plenty, the harvest. She's the equivalent of Yalanna. Right, right. And so when Persephone is in Hades for half the year, Demeter is sad. And so we have fall and winter. And then when Persephone is above ground, when Persephone is in the main world, Demeter is like, cool, we can have spring and summer now. And this felt very much like that to me, right? Is Persephone coming home?

[00:07:58] Yeah, that was a really wonderful catch, John. I had never made that association in my 50 plus years or whatever it's been. Well, it's helped that I've read like four books on Greek mythology in the last month. Well, that's true. You're very definitely finely tuned to Greek mythology. Interestingly, Persephone was a model for the very earliest form of Nanda. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, she presided over her own kingdom, very dark, very cold, one single coal on this very cold fire. And she judged humans.

[00:08:27] Yeah. And it's very different Nanda from the one who comes out on the other end. So, Tolkien was a classicist and there's an awful lot of Greek roots in his stories that I think people don't really recognize unless they also have familiarity with the Greekness. Now, I will say one thing. She comes to heal Thingol in the Winter of Doriath. But she brings Malian the greatest grief that any being has ever known. Right.

[00:08:58] When Malian looks into Luthien's eyes and recognizes the choice that she has. Right. I will live forever and you will not. Right. But, moreover, this isn't how it was in the beginning. It's one thing if you've grown up with that, you know, all along. But suddenly, and I suspect that when Malian does spoilers finally leave Middle-Earth and return to the Valar, that she's probably going to spend some time with Nanda.

[00:09:28] Yeah. She's going to have a lot of grieving to do. Yeah. And I don't think Thingol is going to be without grief for this either. He didn't want his daughter to not live with him forever. Of course not. And I love the line, they return and go forth fearing neither thirst nor hunger. It's like, okay, we've been through it. We know what's going to happen more or less. And that's okay.

[00:09:57] We're with each other and that's all that matters. And eventually, we won't be. And that's that. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, look, if you've been through what Baron and Luthien have, we went through that and we had to do it in two episodes. It was so much. So, yeah, I would say, cool, cool guys. You guys are good for the rest of your days. And they completely withdraw. You know, Baron is never seen by mortal humans again.

[00:10:26] Although, he's seen by owls quite a bit. Mm-hmm. And even Luthien, well, this is getting too far ahead. So, let's pull back and focus on the Union of Maithros. The Union of Maithros. He is, he's getting a little feisty. He wants to take down Morgoth. And I think, I don't think this is explicitly said here, but I think Baron taking, Baron and Luthien together, taking the silver oil from Morgoth makes him go, huh? Oh, yeah. He's not infallible.

[00:10:56] No, it actually says that. It says that. Oh, it does say that. I miss that. He hears of what Baron and Luthien achieved and knew that Morgoth was not unassailable. Yeah. So, this is definitely what plants the idea in his mind. Yeah. Which, which I get it, right? Like, men are supposed to be weak compared to the elves in, in strength. And, and Maithros is like, if we're gonna, I always say Maithros because the original audio book I listened to always said Maithros. But I know it's Maithros.

[00:11:26] And, and one day I will fix it. It's hard with a, whatever got first introduced. I know. I know. It's a stick. So Maithros is, uh, he's trying to get the Noldor together, say, all right, let's, let's actually do this. Let's band together. And of course the Noldor, because of the Oath of Feanor, can't quite do it. Right. And even in recent history, they've been nasty to each other. Yeah.

[00:11:50] Um, togetherness is not something that the Noldor had really had in their DNA or whatever it is that elves have. No. Just, it was really, I mean, it was, of course, the result of the Oath. Um, but also, um, I think just circumstances. And I, you know, who knows how well they played together before they left Elinor, you know? Yeah. Lee, one of the, from the last two episodes, she said, beware the sons of Feanor, whose names start with C.

[00:12:20] And Celegorm and Curafin really did a number on Thingol and a lot of the other Noldor, uh, distrusting the other Noldor. Well, they, they were definitely the sleaziest and the slimiest. There's no doubt about that. The, the sea elves, the sea sons of Feanor. Um, it's interesting. I mean, when you have so many sons, um, it seemed kind of difficult for Tolkien to actually incorporate stories about them individually.

[00:12:50] So the only ones we hear about are the, the ones who were the real leaders and the ones who were the real stinkers. And, uh, not a whole lot in between. Right. But, so, Oradreth is really hesitant to come. Nargothrond's elves are really distrusting. Gwyndor does come. Gwyndor comes with, with a little company here. Yeah, but he has a, a personal vengeance reason for coming, so. Yeah. Put a pin in that.

[00:13:17] Uh, Dorothe doesn't send much because, of course, Thingol wants a Silmaril for himself. And he's also like, hey, my son-in-law, because now, now that, now that they've squashed their beef, he's like, now you're in the family, I'm going to defend you. My son-in-law got this fair and square. Yep. And, and the sons of Feanor tried to hinder him. Yeah, and let's all please remember that, you know, Luthien kind of had one or two things to do in this whole venture.

[00:13:42] I mean, it really is kind of unfortunate the way, uh, the elves seem to discount her contribution to the thing. Maybe it just, it's because it stings all the more that it was a quote-unquote mere mortal that, uh, accomplished this. And they, they tend to ignore that, you know, without Luthien, this thing would not have happened. And, oh, there's always Juan, too. So, you know, bad enough to be bested by a male human, but to be bested by a female elf and a dog. He's the best boy. He's the best boy.

[00:14:11] He really is. So, once again, we see that nobody listens to Malian. You know, she tries to tell Thingol, give back the Silmaril. It's just not a good idea. And how far does that go? Look, I know that, I know that the neighbor said that they gave you the tool, but if they're saying they lent it, just give it back. Let's keep peace with the neighbors. Seriously. But, you know, this, this raises a question for me.

[00:14:40] We're told that the Silmaril are holy because Varda hallowed them. But were they really good? I mean, consider the comment, such was the power of the Silmaril that Thingol could not resist refusing the sons of Fanorm when they demanded it. Even after the advice of Amaya, who, by the way, was also his wife. You know, what, what is it about the Silmarils? Are they really all that wonderful a thing?

[00:15:08] I think many good things could be used for evil. Well, there is that. You know, I, I do think they're good. Otherwise, I don't think they would be burning Morgoth and I don't think they'd be, you know, creating stars and whatnot. Like, they do end up being part of creation in a really holistic way. And, and so I, I do think that they are inherently good.

[00:15:29] But, absolutely, you can have evil deeds done for, you know, with the good intentions or for the sake of getting a good thing. Right? I also think there might be a subtext here of, um, these are so potent that they really are not appropriate for any other than the Valar and those who fate has chosen. Hmm.

[00:15:59] To carry them. I mean, clearly, Baron, mortal man, was able to take a Silmaril in his hand and he wasn't burned. Now, it's not because he was an immortal. It's not necessarily that he was particularly good. It's just that he was, he was, um, raised to this point of it was fated to be he that would rescue this gem, which will be used for extremely important purpose in the future. Stay tuned. Yeah.

[00:16:28] You know, he's got an infinity stone and he wasn't burned by it. So we knew he was, there was something up with him. Something up with him. No, I, I do think there's something in, you know, what Gandalf says when offered the ring, right? Like, don't, don't offer it to me. I would choose. Don't tempt me. I would, I would attempt to do good, but it would work evil for me. Right? Just, just this idea that like, there is no good way to wield that much power. Not for mortals. Definitely not for mortals, which of course then leads to the question.

[00:16:57] Well, how in the heck did Faron or manage to create them in the first place? Well, not alone for sure. Well, he created them alone. He didn't, nobody knew what the substance of that housed the light was. Yeah. The light was not his own. And so that might be sort of the, the core seed of the whole issue of, you know, who does really have a right to them. I mean, they, they went around claiming it because he made them. Yeah.

[00:17:25] Well, that, that's what I mean though, is like, he didn't create the light and he, he didn't hallow them. Right. There, there was divine intervention there. There's a legal right and there's a moral right. Yeah. And I think we're seeing that, yes, he did make something that could house the, the light of the two trees. That was his only contribution.

[00:17:47] And as you say, everything else came from immortals and it's very dangerous for mortals to get involved with immortal things. That's right. Well, speaking of mortals. Yes. The men help too. We get two names dropped here. Hurin and Huar are coming to help. Now they're not that important. This, well, they are a little bit important in this chapter, but they're going to be much more important next chapter on the chapter after that. Yes. Yes.

[00:18:15] And by the way, when I said that Silmarils weren't for mortals, of course, elves technically are immortal, but they're serially longevity and they're not demiurges. They're not angelics. They are created beings. Of course, so are them up fire. Anyway, I'm getting too technical. No, I hear you though. But yeah, they're created beings. They're outside of the, uh, the, the Holy spirit, if you will. Right?

[00:18:40] Like Eru is creating the Valar and the Maiar out of, out of this Ainur holy energy. And, and sort of, I see them as sort of like subdividing the holiness. Whereas. Nice. Whereas, uh, you know, the children of Lovatar are like, I'm going to fashion you holy out of different material. Right. You are something else. Right. Something in my mind alone. Yeah. Which is why they were so fascinating to Valar. Yeah.

[00:19:10] Holy other. And something interesting I see here is that, you know, in previous chapters we have, uh, Morgoth being too hasty. Yes. Morgoth is too hasty and he loses a lot, uh, especially when he goes up against Fingolfin. Mm-hmm. Uh, and here we have Maedros being too hasty. So it can happen to anybody, can it? Good or evil. Yeah.

[00:19:32] And then, of course, my first question is, well, what are your underlying emotional motivations that you set aside proper caution and careful thought and all that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Was it, again, that, that sort of goad of, well, Beren and Luthien with a dog were able to do this? So I guess, you know, Morgoth must be slipping. So therefore, you know, surely we can do it. Yeah.

[00:20:01] They said, did you see him in that debate? He's losing it. Yeah. Ouch. Too soon. So Morgoth might be slipping. We're going to go after him. You have some notes here all about the length of this battle. It went on for six days. But that is a reflection of many of the battles. Yeah. In the First World War, particularly along the Somme.

[00:20:28] So we really do, as I mentioned earlier, we have Tolkien, the World War I veteran here. Recalling some of his physical and emotional stresses of warfare, though, of course, the conditions in the territory were quite different. But this battle was actually named possibly as early as 1917. So it was very much apart from the very beginning.

[00:20:53] I mean, we usually tend to think of, you know, the fall of Gondolin as being the first tale to be developed. But if you look at the Book of Lost Tales, when they start to tell the story of Turin, they talk about the Near North or 90-yad, although they don't call it that. Obviously, it's Tolkien, so he had six or seven different versions of the name before he finally settled on one. Right.

[00:21:20] But it was probably first written down for certain between 1920 and 1924. Excuse me, 1920 and 1925. So I think about this as being the first major battle that we see Tolkien writing about. And then you look at the Hobbit, and there's some really distant echoes of this in the Battle of Five Armies.

[00:21:47] Because you have multiple armies coming in, some expected, some unexpected. And, you know, all the kind of stress and whatnot, goblins and orcs, you know, the same kinds of things. But until the charge of Thorin, and then after it, we don't really see many heroic deeds. And this is a lot, I think, of what this description is made up here, as, you know, this person did this heroic thing, and this person did this.

[00:22:15] And that is the saga tradition of how you depict a battle. And so there's lots of glorious moments where, you know, fighters cover themselves with honor by doing these amazing deeds. And, of course, Bilbo is there witnessing it as the hero and the viewpoint character. But he doesn't really do much heroic at all. In fact, his response is, misery me.

[00:22:44] I have heard songs of many battles. And I have understood, I have always understood that defeat may be glorious. It seems very uncomfortable, not to say distressing. I wish I was well out of it. And if you pause to reflect that Tolkien was writing this in the 1930s, with a certain figure rampaging across Europe and another war clearly on the horizon, and two sons who are going to be a call-up age.

[00:23:14] I think he was a lot less likely to be valorizing war, particularly in a children's fairy story. And yet there are still these resonances. And similarly, there's resonance of Aragorn rescuing Amor at the battle in our field. You know, coming unlooked for and unexpected and sweeping in, although in this case, of course, Aragorn managed to end the battle in favor of the ones we wanted to win.

[00:23:45] And so this wartime experience of his part is really woven into most of his storytelling. But it's interesting to trace how his depiction and discussion of it changed over time. That heroic northern courage was a really, really big deal for him throughout his life. But I think he finally kind of let go of, you know, war as being a glorious thing. Yeah.

[00:24:13] Certainly by the time he got to the Hobbit. I would think seeing trench warfare would do that. I think of, you know, especially when we get to the Balrogs and dragons all swarming, I feel like that is just him. I always heard he was terrified of machine guns. He thought that this was like devil incarnate, basically. Oh, yeah. And any aerial, you know, airborne fighting was just horrific. He called it immoral. He called air warfare immoral. Yes. Yes.

[00:24:42] If you're going to fight a battle, you have to do it face-to-face or it's immoral. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to see over time. And yet, Lord of the Rings, I think, in some sense, well, certainly was written in part in honor of his friends who died in war. Yeah. And there is one particularly glorious battle, the Battle of the Pelner Fields.

[00:25:10] And yet, I don't think he wanted to valorize it. He wanted to praise the courage of individual humans. Yeah. But he really did not want to put it forth as, hey, this would be a wonderful thing. You know, he was Faramir. He was not Boromir. And I like that we have his letters saying, yes, Faramir, this character who just appeared out of nowhere, represents myself in a lot of his opinions.

[00:25:39] Yeah. And this is a tradition that goes through other fantasy, too. You know, there is the fantasy that glorifies big battles. But I enjoy and appreciate fantasy that says war is brutal. Yeah. Like, don't wish for this. Right. Even in a fantasy world, is it going to be brutal? The Black Company is the thing I would most point to. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. It's written from the perspective of the physician of the mercenary group. Oh, yeah. And he is the analyst, too.

[00:26:09] And so he's just talking in first person about what he's seeing. Yeah. And it's brutal. Oh, yeah. And I'm also reading the first book of the Stormlight Archive right now. One of the characters is in the bridge crew. So he's in charge of running with people, no armor, just running to bring bridges to where the soldiers need to cross a gap. And he's like, I have no armor. They're shooting arrows at us. I don't know what to do. I'm about to die, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:37] And back to Tolkien again for a minute. In his very earliest versions of the Fall of Gondolin, he was describing dragons as these sort of multi-segmented things that could kind of curve up and down mountains. And they had hundreds of orcs clinging to their sides.

[00:26:58] And John Garth points out that this sounds an awful lot like the early tanks that were rampaging through the trenches and no man's land and all that kind of thing. So he kind of toned some of that down. But I think the essence remains. I don't think he'd be a big fan of drones based on his writings. Probably not. Probably not. And we certainly get plenty of horrific stuff here, don't we? We do. So let's go on to Fingon.

[00:27:29] Fingon's brought his own forces too. And he sees Morgoth go like, yeah, let's fight. And he's like, oh, this might not go well. He does have one premonition, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, thankfully, unsummoned and unlooked for, Torgon comes with his own forces from Gondolin. And that's kind of like Aragorn sailing up tide with the enemy's ship. Yeah. Morgoth then sends a feint of a host.

[00:27:58] He does this fake, you know, this small force that's really just to draw out the elves. And Huren's like, that seems not real. But he seems to be the only one who sees it, right? All the elves go for it. Yeah. Well, and there's also that moment that's so horrible when Gwyndor's brother is brought out. He's already been blinded and he gets, you know, hands and feet cut off and then head. I mean, you know, it's just awful.

[00:28:27] And, you know, what brother is going to stand for that? And charges and that, you know, suddenly the whole thing is done. I mean, and they almost, you know, they literally get to the gates and open them up. But of course, they did not count for the malice of Morgoth and his cleverness in withholding massive numbers of troops. Planning all the pieces.

[00:28:55] So, and of course, Gwyndor's captivity is going to have significant consequences in future chapters. Yeah, for sure. And, of course, there's a fake parlay too. It's like, oh yeah, let's chat. But I love, I love when the Noldor start fighting in this line. The light of the drawing of the swords of the Noldor was like a fire in the fields of reeds. Yeah. Great. Great line, Tolkien. Good work.

[00:29:25] He can turn a phrase. He can. Yeah. I'm not sure I've encountered anything similar before. I mean, they talk about the light, you know, shining off of the swords and the spears and whatnot. But that, that's an amazing sentence. Yeah. And, of course, the Noldor of Nargothrond go through the Gate of Angband and are trapped and killed, basically. Yeah. Except that Gwyndor is taken captive. Yep. And we'll see if that goes anywhere.

[00:29:55] Yeah. As I say, watch this space. Yeah. All right, Marilyn, let's take a quick break and then we'll go to the rest of the episode. Okay. Okay.

[00:30:22] So, Fingon's troops get beaten back from the Gates of Angband, beginning the Nirnaeth Arnoidia, the Unnumbered Tears. This is the start of everything bad. Yep. I don't know if there's a lot more to say about that. Some of these are just going to be recapping the battle a little bit and then we'll talk more about the implications. Chorgon brings hope by aiding Fingon, almost winning the battle. Then Morgoth says, all right, I got backups.

[00:30:52] He releases everybody from Angband, right? He's got wolves, Balrogs, dragons, including Glauron, Lord of Dragons. He's the Lord of Dragons, right? He is. And Morgoth then divides the hosts of Fingon and Mithros, keeping the elves from uniting their force. Still, the elves almost win. Wait, there's more. Yeah, yeah. The elves almost win. They do.

[00:31:19] And then Morgoth pulls his trump card, which is that he had made a deal with the sons of Olfang and they went over to Morgoth's side, creating confusion. Nobody knows who they're fighting, what to do. And that really just absolutely destroys them. Of course, Older, the accursed is killed anyway. Morgoth isn't going to keep his deal. He's just going to make the deal.

[00:31:41] And with those who survive, he doesn't keep the deal with them either because they wanted to move into Beleriand and take over the nice places. And he says, nope, you're going to get shut up with all the mists and whatnot. Right, exactly. He reneges on his agreement with them. Yep. Yeah. But for the treachery of men, and this is probably the beginning point of the estrangement of humans and elves. Absolutely. With the exception, of course, of the three Edain.

[00:32:11] Even though most of the humans that answered the summons did fight alongside the elves that day, and the treachery of a few was balanced by the courage and the sacrifice of Hurin and Hur, who were one of the three houses of the Edain. And he really emphasizes this.

[00:32:34] The new strength of evil men came up that Uldor had summoned and kept hidden in the eastern hills, and the hosts of Medhros were assailed no one beside. Broke and scattered. Yet fate saved the sons of Feanor. And though all were wounded, none were slain, for they drew together, and gathering a remnant of the Noldor and the Nalgurim about them, they hewed away out of the battle, escaped away towards Mount Dolmen. So why do you suppose fate saved the sons of Feanor?

[00:33:04] They had a job to do still. Yeah? Yeah. They were still the only ones pushing back enough against Morgoth. They were the only ones keeping Middle-earth from being completely overrun. I mean, men were helping, but men couldn't do it alone. Sure. Sure. I mean, from now on, it's going to be battles of attrition. Yeah.

[00:33:29] And I think you're right that this is the beginning of the end of friendship between men and elves. I think I said on some Second Age podcast, or maybe on one of our coverage of Reeks of Power, it's just like, this whole thing where these men and elves won't work together, especially like Arendir's people watching the men of the Southlands, right? Yeah. This all goes back to the Neath Ardodi at a certain point.

[00:33:55] Yeah, and it's too bad because, again, you balance that with the ones who remain faithful. Yeah. And so... But elves say, we don't have that problem, right? They say, we don't have people willingly going over to the dark. Well, let's talk about what happens in future chapters, and I think you could probably have a little bit of pushback there. I agree I would push back on there.

[00:34:20] See, I don't think that elves can say none of us hurt each other and none of us do evil deeds, but I think elves can say none of us willingly align with Morgoth. I think that is true. Okay. Okay. And here we have, like, he's the literal devil, right? Like, this is... Right.

[00:34:40] As if Satan lived on Earth and you have people aligning with them, and they're saying, look, we might not be perfect, but you all, half of you, in this battle, align with the literal devil who is fighting against us. And that, I think, is... And also, this treachery, my god, I do think that that is the source of their distrust. Yeah, well, I'm also thinking back to a little number called, you know, the kinslaying and the burning of the ships.

[00:35:09] But still, they would... The elves, and I'm not saying that they're right to make this distinction, but the elves would say, well, that was to go get Morgoth, not to... And to keep people from keeping us away, not to align with Morgoth. Means and ends. Yeah. And it was also instrumental in keeping the different groups of elves separate from one another. Yeah. It set the seal on Thingol ever being helpful.

[00:35:36] I mean, you know, the treatment of Baron of Luthien by the sea, Feanor's sons, was just icing on that particularly bitter cake. But we do have another peoples that did themselves proud that day, and that's the dwarves of Belagost. The dwarves of Belagost. Yeah, that's... I have a note on that somewhere. No, I have it right here. None of the sons of Feanor are yet slain, and so they escape, as you said, to Mount Dolmed in the east.

[00:36:03] Which, again, folks, if you're here, just listen for the story. Do not remember Mount Dolmed. That's not going to come up again. Don't worry about it. But they escape to the east. And the dwarves of Belagost continue to hold off the dragons and whatnot, and the lord of Belagost is killed, but badly wounds Glaurung. Keep an eye on that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Azaghal the king came close to being Azaghal the dragon slayer.

[00:36:33] Think about it. That's pretty good. Yep. That's pretty good. Yep. And he uses the classic dragon slaying technique of a sharp, pointy object to the soft belly. Stick him with the pointy end, we always say. Right. Stick him with the pointy end. I'm trying to think if he's the first person to do that in Belagost. I think he is. Because I think this is the first open battle that Glaurung has been in. Yeah, usually he just comes out to scare people, right? Right.

[00:37:00] And initially is released too soon and has to go scurrying back. But that scene where the king of the dwarves is killed and all of a sudden all the dwarves just stop. In the middle of battle, there's still a dragon rampaging around except he's at least rampaging on a tree. And they pick him up and make form of a line and they march off singing a dirge. Yeah.

[00:37:29] And nobody stops. Absolute chill. You know, it's one of the most powerful moments. You know, a chapter full of powerful moments. But it's so vivid in the imagination. And an interesting way to characterize the dwarves. What's important to them. And, you know, faithful unto death. And once their leader dies, that's it. We're out. Peace out.

[00:37:59] Yeah. Or fight out. Whatever. But there was also a lovely little Anglo-Saxon moment from Tolkien, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, in recounting this battle. The one between Gothmog and Fingon. That was a grim meeting. Love it. Yeah. Gothmog, of course, the Lord of Balrogs, arrives and tosses Turgon and Huron aside. I love to see him slapping them away, right?

[00:38:26] And Fingon fights with Gothmog, but then another Balrog comes and he's outnumbered and he gets killed. Yeah. He gets team tagged to death, unfortunately. This is one of those moments where I'm like, wouldn't it be cool to have animated episodes of the Silmarillion? Right? Just animated adaptations. I could totally see an animated fight between Fingon and the Balrogs. I'm sure you could. I'm sure you could. And that and Fingolfin versus Morgoth. That would be so great. That would be so great. Yeah. I'd like to see live action.

[00:38:56] I don't know if they could convincingly pull off the first stage in live action because there's so much more mystical and magical stuff. I know. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff. But with Morgoth in particular, you don't have to be very precise and clear in your representation of him. People talk about him as a massive volcano and all these other sort of metaphors.

[00:39:20] But wrap him in dark mist and uncertainty and have one bit of it sticking out for the foot. Anyway. Well, sadly, after War of the Roherum not doing well in the box office, I don't think I'm going to get my wish of more Tolkien animation. Yeah. It's a big leap, isn't it? It's a big transfer.

[00:39:40] But I think of Richard Wagner, who never thought that his operas would ever be able to be performed on stage in ways that his very careful descriptions of what was supposed to be happening on stage were brought to fruition. And some of the things that they do now are just really spectacular. Yeah. And if you ever get an operatic representation of it, yeah, I mean, sorry, a filmic representation of the opera. Look out.

[00:40:12] Well, we're going to cover War of the Roherum and it's going to come out before this. So if you are looking for War of the Roherum talk, then look on the Tolkien feed. Yeah. Horin sends Turgon away and Huar prophecies that out of Turgon's house will come a new star, the hope of elves and men, and then Turgon retreats. Yeah, it's interesting that Huar is given both the prophecy and the son who will bring it about. Yeah, right.

[00:40:41] Because he tells Turgon, out of your house and mine. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Shall come the future hope of elves and men. And once again, we read the sentence or hear the sentence. And Meglin heard, but said nothing. Totally creepy. Absolutely creepy. Meglin is the worst. It's just, ah. He's the worst. I really wanted him to be Adar.

[00:41:08] I thought it would be so fun for him to be Adar. Because his body is never found. Nobody knows if he died or not. Yeah, we're in an age now where if you don't have a body, you don't believe in the death, which, you know, we never have a body with Gollum. Do you really think he might still be hanging around somewhere in the ruins of Mordor? We saw him fall into the lava. That's fine. We saw him. I saw Meglin fall on the rocks and his body was broken in six places. He could break, but he's an elf. He's got good stamina.

[00:41:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would have bought it. I would have bought it. That's all I'm saying. I know. I know. Because you want it to happen. There's the last stand of the men of Dorloman. Hur dies. And Hurin stands alone and is captured. Aure and Tulova. Day will come again. 70 times for 70 trolls. All right. Start your number two. Come on. My number two? Well, you did one. Now go through two through seven. Oh, no.

[00:42:10] Sorry. No. I really would be ashamed to bore our audience in that fashion. I wouldn't be bored. Well, thank you. It's a nice, it is a nice chat. I like it. Yes. And what does it mean for the audience? Oh, day will come again. Right. I think I said that. I meant to say it. Apologies if I didn't. Morgoth considers the division of men and conflict with the elves. To be a success for the day. You don't say.

[00:42:40] He goes, you know, this is the best day I've had in a while, guys. I lost that Silmaril and I was on the down and out. But, you know, I'm starting to feel myself again today. I'm on top of the world. And as we mentioned before, he's going to completely dishonor his agreement with the Easterlings. They're not going to get a reward for their betrayal. Morgoth and honor don't belong in the same paragraph or the same page. They're by the same sentence. Absolutely.

[00:43:10] Many will flee to the havens, but Morgoth grows even bolder and he destroys them. But Gil-Galad is going to survive and sail off with Cirdan to create a new home. Yeah. I wonder if Rings of Power are ever going to bring that up in any fashion. Like, hey, remember how we had that old home and now it's a new one? And yeah. Well, technically, of course, they don't have the rights to it because none of this is mentioned in the things they do have rights to.

[00:43:38] But it would be interesting. It's an interesting factoid to color their relationship, even if they can't make it explicit. Yeah. And they've gotten stuff in from the Silmarillion on a case-by-case basis. Right. But how important would this be to them compared to other things that, you know, well, we don't know. We'll see. Yeah. It's certainly not important, but I do think this is the kind of thing that Tolkien Estate would be like, sure, add some color to it. Right. Add some detail. I'd like to think so.

[00:44:08] I'd like to think so because it's definitely gives you character stuff. Yeah. In a way that's not, you know, strictly battles and whatever. You know, what kind of a relationship is this like Kyrran a second father to Gil-Galad? Right. Does Gil-Galad look up to him? So when Kyrran comes along and says, yes, the rings are safe.

[00:44:33] He puts more weight in that word than in the word of Galadriel or of Elrond, who are on different sides of this question. Well, that's why Elrond goes to him, right? He says there's only one person Gil-Galad is going to listen to. Or only one person who he himself, Elrond, is going to trust. Yeah. Anyway, that's Rings of Power. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's good to link back. I mean, that's the origin story of this podcast. Fair enough. And my association with it, too.

[00:45:01] So, yay Rings of Power. And so the High King of the Nulldor is going to say, all right, let's send a bunch of ships west. Seven ships west. Only one elf returns, Varanway. Do you know, does this elf come up again? I don't remember ever hearing this again. Oh, he absolutely does. When does this come back? I don't remember. He has some things to do with the future of a human named Tur. Oh, okay. I did not remember that.

[00:45:31] So thank you for bringing that in. Yes, that's the thing that I mentioned about. It's Hur's son who helps bring about his own prophecy that he sees with the elves of death. Okay. I'm getting the connection now. I did not remember this Varanway connection. So that's why I have you on, Marilyn, is to educate me here. It's really hard, John. I mean, as I say, I've lived with this text for over five decades. So, you know, some of it eventually does start to stick. But it took a long time. Yeah.

[00:46:01] And coming at it from a lot of different angles. And yeah. And I liked it. Didn't they name one of the characters, one of the Numenoreans, Varanway? I think they did. It's... Or Varondale. Maybe they changed it a little bit. It's Varondale, yeah. Which is Isildur's son in the books. In the books, yeah. But I think... Well, anyway. Again, this is not a Rings of Power podcast. Yes. Varanway will have a crucial part to play.

[00:46:30] Yeah. And it's probably the reason why he was saved from the wrath of Osei. Well, we will definitely bring him back up when we get to Taur's chapter. Oh, yes, we will. Turgon, as I mentioned, becomes High King of the Noldor for the House of Fingolfin. And Morgoth is like, I did not like my fight with Fingolfin. And I feel like something bad is going to happen to me because of Turgon. I don't like this. Ruin is coming for me.

[00:47:01] Morgoth tortures Hurin because Hurin is friends with Turgon. And he's like, give me the information. And Hurin says, nah-uh. So Morgoth puts him in a chair to watch the world suffer, basically. Well, and to watch specifically his own family members. Well, we're getting there. Go through some terrible times. Next month. Next month, we'll talk about what Huren's going to watch on his own family. Yeah.

[00:47:28] Tolkien did a lot of foreshadowing in this aftermath of the battle. It's why I kind of gave up on having a strict spoiler policy on this podcast. Yeah, you kind of can't. It's just constantly like, hey, this guy is going to bring about Baron. Who's going to get a Silmaril? And you're like, okay. All right. Well, so we just gave up the whole game. Well, there goes that suspense moment. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on the other hand, you know, it's really hard to remember the name Voronwe, and yet he plays a crucial role.

[00:47:58] Right, exactly. So maybe it's just as well. By the way, folks, don't forget Voronwe. He's important enough that I'm mentioning it after this horrible battle. Well, but now he's foreshadowing in a direction because he says that every time Morgoth ran into Turgon when they were both in Valinor before everything blew up, he always felt like a shadow was passing over him. And he thought, oh, okay, I think there's something about this dude that's going to be good for me in the future. Yeah.

[00:48:29] So maybe it's Tolkien's way of just kind of giving us moments of hope. It's like, it's okay. This was our real downer of a chapter, but it's not over yet. Something's going to happen. Clearly the world survives this because we have the Third Age. Exactly. And the Second Age for that matter. And can I just say, I mean, again, this is looking forward to the next chapter, but we will have much to talk about concerning the title character.

[00:48:58] Of the chapter, you know, Turin of Turin, Turinbar. It's not really spoiling things to say that he is Hurin's son. And, you know, people have lots of questions about Turin and his motivations and is he good, is he bad, is he whatever. At this point, and they tend to blame him for a lot of stuff, forgetting that Morgoth has put a curse on Hurin and all his family.

[00:49:28] And this isn't just a, you know, a bar fight curse. This is, you know, the most powerful Vala cursing you. And I just have to say, you know, for all of his glory, Hurin probably did a silly thing by mocking Morgoth. Sure, resist him, refuse to answer, whatever. But he mocks Morgoth. And you actually get the text of that mocking in some of the other versions of this.

[00:49:58] I don't remember if it's Unfinished Tales or somewhere else. And it's really stupid. I'm sorry. But it's a really stupid thing to do. And so there's this word that Tolkien loved called Offermod, meaning you are so confident that you become overcome. Yeah.

[00:50:20] Now, it was probably partially just sheer terror that led Hurin to do this thing and maybe hoping to annoy Morgoth so much that he'd just smack him down and that would be it. But I think he underestimated who he was up against. And yeah, I mean, it's one thing for him to suffer.

[00:50:40] But golly, I sometimes wonder, would Morgoth have cursed his entire family if Hurin hadn't mocked him in addition to refusing to talk? That's an interesting question. I honestly, I'll push back on it a little bit since you've made a strong case.

[00:51:00] But when Sauron, rather, and I don't recall who he had gotten to betray the other elves, he had this elf and he said, you know. Which time? He was an elf or a man, actually. I don't remember. I was looking in my notes. I was like, I wrote this down for a different episode.

[00:51:19] But there was this time where he goes, you know, if you do this for me, I will reunite you with your long-lost love who we have. We read that in the chapters of Beren and Luthien. Oh, it is Beren and Luthien. Okay. Yeah. And it's that elf, I mean, that human that betrays the location of Beren's little team. Right, right, right, right, right.

[00:51:45] So, you know, the guy tells him, yeah, they're over here. Can I go see? He's like, yeah, I'll bring you to her. And then he brings him to her in death. And it actually says Sauron put him to death cruelly. Yeah. So it's not like he got a quick death because he did everything he wanted. So I don't think that you ever really escape the claws of these people once you're in them.

[00:52:13] And I see your point about would he have taken it to the next step of going to the family? I don't know. I don't know how much of it was the mocking and how much of it was like, I am scared of Torgon. And I need to get on top of this. And I'm going to do anything I can to make this guy talk to me. Okay. I can see that. Yeah. I can see. But. And I think your case is strong. I just wanted to push back on it for those at home. No, I think the two work together, really. Yeah.

[00:52:44] Mordoros frustration. Why not both, right? Why not both? Yes. Fair enough. Morgoth goes, all right, you little shit starter. Of course, there's a hill of tears at the end. It has a few names, but I like the hill of tears the most because it goes nicely with the Nirnath Arnoidiad. Yeah. Where the orcs make a pile of elven and men bodies. Mm-hmm. There's probably some dwarven bodies in there, too. Yeah, yeah. I guess. Oh, true.

[00:53:13] But it kind of becomes hallowed, right? Like, they won't go near it after that. And it's the only place in the whole plain of dust and ashes that grass actually grows. Right. Now, you could make a practical argument of, yeah, well, there's a lot of fertilizer there, so. But it's still. I think it matters, yeah. It's symbolic. It's obviously. Right. A gift of Yavanna to the sacrifice.

[00:53:41] Suffering of the ones who are in the underneath the earth now. Right. Well, that's the chapter, Marilyn. Any other thoughts on it? Yeah, it's a downer. It is a downer. And listen, next month isn't going to be later. It's going to be a downer again. Oh, no, it isn't. But I think it's a more exciting downer. Next month or this month? Next month. This was a pretty eventful one, too.

[00:54:09] But I think the story of Turin Torumbar, which is what we're going to do next month, is really like an epic tale. As much as it is a downer. Yes. It's an epic tale that has its ups and downs, too. And it's so epic that one single inspiration from one epic was not enough. The character of Turin was built upon three epic heroes. Well, I look forward to you telling me who those epic heroes were. Yes.

[00:54:37] I'm stretching it a little bit to call one of them epic, but you'll see. We'll talk about it. All right. Well, I hope everyone will check out Marilyn's writings, Marilyn's other podcast, Rings and Rituals, which you can find in the link here in the show notes. And we'll link Marilyn's writings in the show notes as well. Until then, until next month, you'll have to deal with some programming notes here. I don't actually know when this is coming out.

[00:55:04] So I'm just going to say we are probably covering and or or the Wheel of Time is done and or or the Last of Us or both. Or maybe we're on to something new. But you can find everything in the link here in the show notes. You can find the main Lorehounds feed if you happen to be on the Tolkien feed right now. You can find the links to Patreon and Supercast to get bonus episodes. And you can find all the affiliates. We've got Nevermind the Music doing music and psychology together.

[00:55:31] We've got We'll Shift Dust covering things like Silo and Dune. We've got Rings and Rituals if you want more Tolkien. As I mentioned earlier, Marilyn and Dr. Sarah Brown are covering. They covered Rings of Power season one, the rituals in it and looking at it through the lens of ritual. And soon they'll be doing Rings of Power season two whenever we can get that scheduled. Well, we're going to do it so that it can be a lead up to the opening of season three. So about somewhere around that time.

[00:56:00] That makes sense to me. Yes. And other affiliates, Radioactive Ramblings. I don't know what they're going to be doing by the time this comes out. But they did Invincible. They're doing the Red Rising series, the Red Rising book series, which is a solid book series. And I don't know where they're at in their studio. Ghibli. I know everybody tells me to say Ghibli, but I'm going to say Ghibli. Studio Ghibli films. I say Ghibli. You say Ghibli. You say tomato. I say tomato.

[00:56:29] Properly Howard Movie Review, I believe, will be starting their new season soon, too. So that could be going. Anyway, just go to the affiliates in the show notes. Subscribe to them all. You'll get plenty of podcasts every week and you'll have a great time. Yes, you'll have trouble deciding which one to listen to first. That's right. That's right. It's free. I mean, just go subscribe to them. Yeah. Quick thank yous for everybody. Our Discord server boosters. Aaron K. Taylor the Thriller. Dork of the Ninjas. Dove 71. Athena A. Tina Lestu. Nancy M. Ghost of Partition. And Radioactive Richard. And our lore masters. Martian.

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[00:57:29] And Adrian. Thank you, everyone. If you're not on this list. And you've subscribed as a lore master. Since I recorded this. Sorry. Listen to one of the more regularly recorded episodes. To hear your name. This is recorded a couple months in advance. It's the timey-wimey stuff. Timey-wimey. Nonetheless, to all of you. Guitos balian. E glære. O light. That they light. What she said. In Finnish and in Konya. All right. We'll see you next month. Bye, folks. Thank you.

[00:57:57] The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening.