no matter how goth you think you are, melkor is morgoth

@thehydrostore380

Жыл бұрын

I stan for the dark lord, Morgoth is Melkor 💀

@rofflestomp684

Жыл бұрын

That's pretty dark.

@darkhobo

10 ай бұрын

This legit made me LOL

@darkhobo

10 ай бұрын

​@@thehydrostore380you're not hardcore unless you're Melkor. Something like that.

@jackthehumanofficial

7 ай бұрын

bro i just died 😂😂😂😂

I consider it to be a wonderful example of eucatastrophe that the Silmarillion didn’t get published alongside the LOTR. After I had finished reading the trilogy, I was so invested in Middle-Earth and the way it made me feel to have journeyed with Frodo and the fellowship that I became ravenous to experience more of it, which led me to a book called the Tolkien Compendium, which in turn led me to the Silmarillion. Had I not encountered these works in the order I did, I doubt the latter would have resonated with me so powerfully, which I imagine must have similarly been the case for many other Tolkien fans as well. This ordering gave us the opportunity to do something unique: historical research within the Legendarium. It helped the work of Tolkien become the gold standard of high-fantasy that it eventually became.

Your analyses are right up there with some of the university lecturers I've heard. Really fantastic work. Thanks for all you do.

"not daunting or anything" I appreciate your courage!

Can't say I've heard anyone refer to it as "The Silm" before today

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Five syllables may not be much for the Noldor but it's a lot for me 😅

Thanks for tackling this. On the "absurd" nature of Tolkien's original urges - I think we have to accept that creative efforts, especially those that span decades, inherently are not like mathematics. There is no need for, and probably cannot be in existence, a type of rigor, coherence, that one gets in formal logic and mathematics. We need to realize that Tolkien, like any author, is writing from an internal need that may not conform to others' desires for set goals and means. Agree that the preface (letter to Waldman) is used too often as a proof-text.

I love this breakdown! The letter is so underrated. Especially once he starts the paragraph on Mortality, the Fall, and the Machine. The footnotes are really interesting too, especially what the Light of the Trees (and therefore the Silmarils) represents.

@ghostdreamer7272

Жыл бұрын

I was miffed a bit at the spoilers for what I was about to read though, to be honest. I sort of knew, but then they were fresh in my mind as I was reading them.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it! And yes, the Trees/Silmarils being the pure, primordial light, making the Sun and Moon second-rate approximations and therefore NOT the summit of divine illumination is one of my favorite aspects of this mythology.

God bless you Lexi! This is a perfect intro into the subject. Jumping right into the chapters of The Silmarillion does seem rush. Since there is a lengthy context to keep in mind, and this you summarized in the best way

I read The Silmarilion right after it was published. I was not aware of this letter as a later preface. So your podcast was very new and informative. Greetings from the Netherlands.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Awesome, glad you got something out of it!

I'm really happy this is happening! Really impressed you didnt just launch into it because "its the silm, its dense so get ready lets just plow through." So, respect for taking even more time to do it right. You're easily my favourite Tolkien channel. And, I really like this backdrop, hope it stays.

Listening now. I like the fancy boat.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

It's a very fancy boat!

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

Just chillin' and dancing on the waves.⛵

Ooh that letter is amazing! I found it very interesting to see what Tolkien thought was the most important part of his writings and the constant threads. I might have to become a patron now to hear the rest 🤔

May Eru Ilúvatar guide you on this daunting undertaking!

What a fabulous video. Thank you VERY much for your passion and high-level analysis.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

So glad you enjoyed it!

I am absolutely Amazed by JRR tolkien's ability to create a world, a language, a history , and a lore behind it. all in his own mind.

Do you have a favourite Tolkien letter?

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Besides 131 I find myself making use of the ones to Naomi Mitchison and Peter Hastings for 'lore' purposes... but I have a soft spot for the letters he sent to Christopher in the 40s while he was trying to finish up LotR. Especially any time he mentions his chickens. 🐔

@stephenward4418

Жыл бұрын

Ah, my new favourite Tolkien letter is 55. 😄

@frankshailes3205

Жыл бұрын

The Father Christmas ones are fun.

Yes. This was what I've been waiting for.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Excellent 😊 hope you enjoy!

Such a creative idea! Start your video series on The Silmarillion with a whole video on the "Preface!" It was brilliant! We sometimes need to remember where Tolkien's ideas come from and what kinds of things were on his mind when he wrote, rewrote, rewrote, edited and left alone for decades before Christopher put them together in The Silmarillion. Thank you, Lexi. We all look forward to your analysis of this incredible book. Take as long as you need. Don't rush anything. 😁

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Thank you! ❤ I'm really enjoying the opportunity to go through it carefully (instead of my normal frenzied skimming for my favorite scenes or a reference I need).

i looove ‘having’ this intellectual conversation about tolkein

This is such an amazing breakdown. Thank you!

This is some of the most interesting analysis I've heard on this subject. Thank you for presenting it!

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

So glad to hear you liked it!

Listening to someone who not only agrees with me, on so many levels, but also makes a point of it, with such a pleasant voice - makes a day more tolerable.

This was a great listen - Thank you!

Ooh, looks exciting. I’ve followed a series of a similar style about the work of a different author and have enjoyed it greatly, so I’ll be looking forward to all of these.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Hope you enjoy it, working on these has been a lot of fun!

Very engaging commentary, which shows you don't have to bellow at people to get your point across. The other thing that struck me is sometimes publishers know best. Let's face it, if Tolkien had brought out the Silm first, it would've most likely have been met with puzzlement by those who'd read and enjoyed the hobbit. For myself, it took a bit of reorientating even to get into LOTR mode, especially when reading the preface (which you astutely point out makes a lot more sense after finishing the books). I was admittedly still a kid, but LOTR eventually hit the sweet spot, whereas the Silm needed more literary maturity to encounter. I'm also inclined to see the issue in terms of current LOTR culture wars around ROP, where some are bemoaning the loss of textual purity over the practicalities of bringing out a TV series that will have a more general appeal. This would be a similar problem to what Tolkien had with the Silm, and it seems he and the legions of impassioned (I was tempted to say 'rabid') fans, were not necessarily the best judge. The decision to introduce LOTR first was almost certainly the right one.

I'm loving this series - looking forward to more.

21:48 On the side of my maternal grandmother, I am from Westrogothia. I have briefly sighted the Kattegatt, which Beowulf was (according to the poem and its source) swimming across in a youthful prank only hinted at when he returns for more serious business.

This is so fascinating. Great video!

You are really great at this!!!!

Nice work thanks

Loved this breakdown. Really looking forward to your series. Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you!

Dear Eru, I'm so glad I found this video. I love when people give the Letters the attention they deserve.

That is a splendidly calming background to place to this video.

Great video keep up the good work, really enjoy your content :)

Excellent, thanks. Your channel is by far the best on Tolkien.

Glad to see this video! It's not just pretty good - it's entirely good!

"recent pupculture advancements" hahahaha

Nice work

My Silmarillion synopsis series is about to look very inadequate 😅. But I betcha can’t do the whole thing in an hour 😜. Just make sure you don’t read directly too much and run afoul of…no need to finish that sentence….

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Too extensively did I read, and awoke evil in the depths of the copyright... both shadow, and flame. 😂 My ultimate goal is The Silmarillion in under 60 seconds.

@TolkienLorePodcast

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor “Dude made some pretty rocks that got stolen by Satan and launched a war and everybody dies but one rock becomes a star and saves everybody from Satan and his dragons.” 🤣

@cally77777

Жыл бұрын

@@TolkienLorePodcast UGH, SPOILERS! I'm glad I already read it!

Thanks. I appreciate your take on his motivation of the letters

I read the LOTR's, dug deep into the appendixes and in the same year the Silmarillion came out. Perfect dovetail. Lots of hullabaloo now adaze, but it works as is. The associated letters are great and the notes are fine too. But I think it is rather stand alone in it's own right.

Well this is certainly ambitious! I know I read the preface the first time but I don't think I did the second so my memory of it was really terrible. This was a really comprehensive recap and I love how much context you provided with different influences and things we know about Tolkien's perspective from other works. Also you are on FIRE with these posts lately. Always happy to see content from you.

I've read the rest of the LORT/Hobbit books several times, just never had an opportunity to get my hands on The Silmarillion. Planning on buying a copy soon so I can read it finally :) great video, GNG. subbed! looking forward to episode 2!

Wow, so clear, so thoughtf6l. Please count me in on this exciting Journalisten. Although I have read the Silmarillion and the Letter before, your reading of it, Illuminaten so many Aspekte I oversaw. Thank you

I found (re)starting with The Silmarillion made subsequent material feel significantly easier by comparison.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for Christopher to edit The Silmarillion. Between his reverence for his father's work, the immensity and difficulty of the task, and the very real sense that the material left to him was contradictory and incomplete... I don't wonder that he clung to using the actual material whenever possible, and IIRC later came to regret a few decisions where he edited some parts for coherence. So if the Waldman Letter is in some ways an unusual choice for a preface, I suspect he felt that whatever its drawbacks, the advantage that these were Father's own words easily outweighed everything else.

Thank you for this, I believe that your insight and opinions about Tolkien's works have a lot of value. We need more videos like this. P.S.: I'm one of those that read The Silmarillion first and I became inmediately obsessed with Tolkien. At the tender age of eleven my mom gifted me The Silmarillion for Children's Day. Total mad lass.

I read the Silmarillion first. But our translation is based of the 1st ed. and haven't caught up. I read the letter later in pdf from somewhere off the internet that supposedly combined all the available fragments from it. It really is exciting to have Tolkien explaining himself and all his Legendarium as a whole in one place. It is pity the 2nd ed. Silm. doesn't include the 3rd Age portion but I like it is included, though I do thing appendix rather than preface might suit it better... but again, as you pointed out, and as I reflect how I got into the Silmarillion blind, immediately as I stumbled upon it's existence, while planning to finally read the Lord of the Rings, irresistibly drawn to it so that I had to jump on it first, couldn't wait, having almost no context for it, starting with audiobook before I managed to acquire a physical copy, so drawn was I, so I even hadn't have the map or family tree nor knew of their existence... it was really a blind experience... the letter may have been useful, though the blindness was part of the fun. I fell in love with that book. Finished it with the physical copy once it arrived at the birthday I had it due and read it immediately again from the start. Read it maybe five times. In fact reading it again right now, in English finally this time.

Never have I seen such passion in Tolkien's words from having read this letter, and it's a brilliant summary and even fills in some gaps in the Silmarillion. In some ways this is another version of Tolkien's 1926 "sketch" of his mythology. In short it's an awesome read and a mini Silmarillion!

Super-dooper interesting! 😁

Going to be very interesting to take this journey with you and the crew. From my viewpoint, Tolkien in this letter reveals why he struggled the rest of his last fe with the Silmarillion, the wonderful background half hidden in LoTR is almost impossible to recreate. I was not really so interested in the collected letters, then I read the wonderful biography by Humphrey Carpenter, loved it, got interested in the letters because he edited them. Now I love the letters of course. When younger I used to love short story collections by Asimov,loved them because they revealed the man, how when and where he wrote the stories. I love the letters for the same reason. I am ready to be told I am mistaken,but I thought he published first time when the firm was called George Allen and Unwin,which did indeed later become Allen and Unwin. Thanks GNG and keep up the good work.

I agree re: why was this in the Silmarillion. That letter lays out the whole story of TLotR, which really is just not related to The Silmarillion. I mean, it's a FANTASTIC letter, but I just don't see that it belongs in that particular place. Particularly the expanded letter that goes into the Third Age - that REALLY doesn't fit in a Silmirillion preface. That said, it DEFINITELY needs to be "out there" somewhere - it's an extremely valuable letter, and particularly the expanded one. Also, I do agree that it could prime a child reader to be better prepared for The Silmarillion.

I just got the companion, Awesome work!

Ho boy, you're not wrong about the Waldman Letter being used to justify more than a few spicy-meatball hot takes from fans throughout the years in general, and right now specifically!

The yt subscribers are eating good this week. 🙏

Thank you! I feel much more learned after listening to this. Not intelligent compared to you but learned to what I was before listening to it.

Starting wit the Silmarillion? Lucky you!

Long may the thrones of the Valar endure!

Something poignant about the Letter 131 quote is that Tolkien mentions paint, music and drama - it seems like he had other artforms in mind, not other writers doing the same as he did. It's in interesting to see - both because we (luckily!) haven't seen any serious attempts at a major written work pretending to be part of the Legendarium, and because Tolkien adored music though he was not good at it, and one of the four works in the Legendarium published in Tolkien's lifetime is the song cycle The Road Goes Ever On (nowadays most famous for the latest published account of Galadriel's history and the nature of her exile) which Tolkien produced together with composer Donald Swann. As far as Tolkien's patriotism, Tolkien's central distinction is between Great Britain and its government (which Tolkien did not care for, because he thought of Man as unfit to rule over Man) and England as a non-political entity (which contains the landscapes and culture Tolkien loved).

Thanks lexi . The silmarilion no pressure. ( the people have spoken)

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Any time, Shane. Yes, I am a slave to my audience's whims 😅

@shanenolan8252

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor lol , a true artist must suffer for her art . ( they say )

@Anacronian

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor Nonono not a slave, we prefer the term "Indentured servant" :)

@annafdd

Жыл бұрын

@@Anacronian “Thrall”.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

@@annafdd Uruk. We prefer Uruk. 😌

One does not fully 'understand' the Tolkien Legendarium... I should know, I'm writing stories. I barely understand the finer details of it, and there no-were near as complicated as Tolkein's work! I'm certainly not a linguist for one thing!

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

The more I read about Middle-earth the less I understand about it -- and I actually think that's a good thing! Good art isn't easy to understand.

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

Hang in there!👍 Do what do need to do to make the best version of the writer you can be.😁

Insightful as always. I’m still hoping to get your opinion and views on the hobbit movies. Ouch

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

Very intriguing idea 🤔

OMG thank you for stating the real meaning of allegory, misrepresentations of it drive me nucking futs

Another perfect video, though I will disagree slightly in that I do think Tolkien truly meant to create a mythology for England, and that maybe to his mind there was no separating the English-people of England from the English language. Not sure how you might read this comment. That said, I think it was a beautiful acte one of pure love, with that said I do think that there was more to it than just patriotism or love for his people. As each individual story of the Legendarium seems to be connected to one particular person or people within Tolkien's life for ex; Luthien's tale being dedicated to Edith, the Hobbit & Roverandum (I think it is) were tales he told his children. You're thus definitely onto something when you say (or seem to say) that it was more complicated than simply saying Tolkien was creating mythology for England. He was obviously as you point out doing so much more than that, so that there is a definite nuance to the topic. Anyways loved this video, you are such an inspiration Lexi! Really hope to see more of your thoughts on the letters of Tolkien!

I had reread LOTR many times before I read the Silmarillion. I found it difficult and boring to tell the truth, but my takeaway was that the book was a spawning ground for a thousand LOTR style tomes.

I am a weird one who read Children of Hurin before Lord of the Rings. : D

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

I am in awe of your perseverence, even as I wonder about the kind of person who can read Children of Hurin and say 'that was great, I should go read more books by this author; they're so life-affirming and inspiring." 😂

@ryanol

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor Well to be specific, it was the second book I read, after The Hobbit. My own personal reading order was The Hobbit, Children of Hurin, Fellowship, Two Towers, Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Return of the King, The Silmarillion, Beren and Luthien, Fall of Gondolin, Unfinished Tales. The History of Middle Earth is a future project. Btw, I adore all of your videos and I am particularly fond of this project. Please look forward to more likes from me in the future, and know that I look forward to see each of your videos in my YT feed.

Interestingly enough, I've never had a copy of The Silmarillion that included this as a preface.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

I don't remember if my first copy had it, or just Christopher'sforward, actually.... 😆 my second was more completionist

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

My current copy of The Silmarillion has the Letter in the "Preface."

❤

1st rate video dang good work counting my 2 big toes 4 big thumbs up

24:05 Indeed! CSL actually did write another work that was an allegory. There _is_ a one to one correspondence between the City of Claptrap and its head Sigmund on the one hand, and on the other a certain school of psychology and its head Freud. So, if you don't like Sigmund Freud, CSL and _The Pilgrim's Regress_ is a real go to for you, and it's an allegory. Narnia, all seven books, isn't.

@Hunter-tn7og

Жыл бұрын

It seems that many individuals will confuse that just because a character certain part of a story can appear or be allegorical when its symbolic instead. Aslan and Gandalf are very much christ like figures who inspire others with hope, love, and compassion, provide wise words of council when needed, never show their full power unless pushed too, and die then come back in a more perfect or at least untainted body, after a sacrifice to save others. Still doesn't make them allegorical of jesus, it merely makes it very heavy handed Christian symbolism.

@hglundahl

Жыл бұрын

@@Hunter-tn7og With the difference that Aslan is supposed to _be_ Christ, in a parallel incarnation, and Gandalf is supposed to be an angel of a somewhat lower order than the highest under Christ.

@hglundahl

Жыл бұрын

@@Hunter-tn7og But basically, I agree, that some confuse the prominence of an allusion with a grid of allusions in a one to one ratio and the latter is what constitutes allegory.

Have you read the expanded version?

👍👍

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

👍 👐

I need to go back and read this letter in full, I know I've read parts of it, but now I'm intrigued! I didn't realize this was where the mythology for England claim was made. I've always found that to be an interesting statement and an interesting way to view his stories, but like many little things Tolkien wrote at one point, people often take it and use it to try and prove or disprove someone's point. I think your point about that comment being made to try and push the publisher is valid. Not saying that I think Tolkien was lying or anything, but I'm not certain if I think that was his intent from the start. Anyways, I very much enjoyed this video and I'm excited to see the rest of this series!

@frankshailes3205

Жыл бұрын

Didn't Tolkien reportedly say the "legendarium for England" thing when he presented Her Majesty the Queen with a copy of LotR?

Blue Mars?

The part of C. S. Lewis, personifying traits, I don't think anything will ever surpass Pilgrims Progress in that, so heavy handed, you'd have to be illiterate to not get it.

"So even in his professional life, this was sort of the *angle* he was taking" 🙄🙄🙄 I liked the comparison to Arthurian literature in this video, because I feel it's a point of similarity and distinction that's even more applicable than lingual subject matter. Arthurian lore arrives with us through layers of oral tradition, literature, and other adaptation -- including echoes in Tolkien's work and other modern "romances" (think Star Wars, of course). This begs a thought or two about how expression and meaning might change in Tolkien adaptation during the future. I would argue that between his own writing and the New Line adaptations, Tolkien fulfilled his mission and has become canonised into a kind of modern and hypothetical Anglo-Saxon chronicler and folklorist. But this kind of adaptation faces struggle in the face of copyright law under modern capitalist context -- something I presume that Mallory and Chaucer were less concerned with.

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

I swear the angle pun was subconscious 😰 Interesting point re the copyright considerations of a 'modern' author attempting to fill a legendary gap, and the ensuing adaptations complication. I'd also say that the fantasy 'genre' as a whole, as it currently exists, is a 'reskinned' version of the 'other minds and hands' homage/ elaboration Tolkien mentioned wanting. (Not to say he would, or did, approve of all such undertakings.)

@MadassAlex

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor I think that's correct. Even across mediums, something like Elden Ring falls authentically within a "Tolkienian" tradition, where other imitative works tend to struggle.

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

@@GirlNextGondor He certainly would approve of such undertakings since the last thing he said about it was a single-word sentence: "Absurd."

I wonder... could you set up a meeting/call with the Tolkien Estate to pick their brains? Or maybe the editors that Christopher Tolkien worked with?

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

I'd love the opportunity, of course, but as for the Estate I don't know that they're able to respond to inquiries from the general public. As for Chris's collaborators -- that could be a cool avenue to explore! I know Guy Gavriel Kay worked with him a lot, and he's still relatively active as far as I can tell. Surely there are others.

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

As far as I am concerned the Tolkien Estate was negligent in their duty to protect Tolkien's lore in the making of The Rings of Power. As soon as Christopher died (two years after the contract was signed), Amazon sped up production. Amazon must have had inside information from that traitor Simon Tolkien that once his father was gone, the estate would be okay with anything Amazon wanted to do. They thanked him by putting his name in the credits as their primary consultant.

Are you also "Exlibrismir"? The Instagram feed that keeps popping up in my facebook reels doing "tolkien tuesday" rants? The voice is substantially similar but I don't want to presume.

18:00 of course, Arthur is Romano-British and Welsh, not an English legend, as the Britons/Welsh were fighting the English (Anglo-Saxon) invaders at the time...

"Canon" , "canonicity" - maybe life will be better if we drop those concepts? They seem to be more than problematic, and I think people will be happier if they just let go of the need to control the playing field of discourse with such concepts.

@annafdd

Жыл бұрын

I don’t think that dropping it outright is the best way to deal with it. Maybe we need to have “canon” as some sort of mythical, probably non existent Platonic ideal, or maybe like a blueprint that one can scribble on, a music sheet open to interpretation…

@GirlNextGondor

Жыл бұрын

I've personally started to replace the idea of 'canon' with the idea of being 'Tolkienian' (or non-, or un-Tolkienian). The idea being, that we *are* better off if we stop trying to define one single version of events, in defiance of the text itself... but at the same time, we should allow that there is meaning and significance to what Tolkien actually wrote, and there are standards we can usefully observe.

@TheDanEdwards

Жыл бұрын

​@@GirlNextGondor Yes, I think that is a better approach. Just as we speak of writings/plays as being Shakespearean (because his writings have been adapted more ways that we can count), I think Tolkienian works well. From Tolkien's own letters (as compiled in the book that is widely circulated) we can construct the meaning of his fiction, and even put on plays etc about them. I for one do not think the Silmarillion can be adapted to a visual medium without a lot of interpretation, even more so than Rings of Power did for the timeline in the LOTR appendix which contains such. There is simply no way to deal with gods and spirits without a great deal of interpretation.

@Enerdhil

Жыл бұрын

Steven of The Red Book never used the word "canon " He dislikes that many lore fans use the word to justify what they post. It is a great point.

If you search for for this book on KZread in audiobook form there is a channel that does an absolute incredible job with photos and everything

And I was also very surprised at how similar it sounds to Catholic theology

I would also like to let people know that JRR Tolkien was very close with CS Lewis, and helped CS Lewis Define what his faith would be. And you could see totally why Tolkien would be good at that. You can see in all of tolkien's writings how good he is at laying the story out so it's easier to understand. I really can see why he had such a huge effect on CS Lewis's faith