The Hilarious Thing About Sauron Is That According To Most Versions Of The Legendarium, He Was Originally,

There’s some really disturbing stuff in The Nature of Middle-earth; I’m not sure whether these ideas were some of the ones Tolkien considered for how orcs were created, or if he saw them as something different, but he’s provided plenty of fodder for darkfic writers.

…it is recorded in the histories that Morgoth, and Sauron after him, would druve out the fëa by terror, and then feed the body and make it a beast…it [would become] an animal, seeking nothing more than food by which its corporeal life may be continued, and seeking it only after the manner of beasts, as it may find it by limbs and senses.

Jirt, that’s a zombie. It’s dead, non-sapient, still moving around, and only driven by looking for food. And typically created by an evil power through evil means. You invented Middle-earth zombies.

And worse, [Morgoth or Sauron] would daunt the fëa within the body and reduce it to a stupor of horror, so that it was impotent; and then nourish the body foully, so that it became bestial, to the horror and torment of the fëa.

This does seem like a mechanism for the creation of orcs. Morgoth takes an elf, overpowers the fëa so that it is no longer in control of the body, and then, well, the implication is that he feeds the body the flesh of elves or men to further torment the fëa. In the short term, the hröa is basically a beast under Morgoth’s control; over time, the fëa might become more active, but horrified, sickened, and twisted by the nature of the hröa and the purposes for which it has been used. It is evil because, outside of its control, it has done and been used for horrific things that it can’t process without becoming evil.

Brr.

silm fandom what's your wisdom?

@prekliata-bryndza I realize what gets to me about Elrond as specifically the minstrel of Gil-galad. Obviously I have thought about Maglor teaching him, but many people have already created works on this topic better than I can. Actually this makes me think of a scene I have had in my mind for quite a while but haven’t written yet. I imagine near the end of the War of Wrath, a ship full of refugees fleeing a sinking Beleriand lead by Elros at the front steering, and I imagine Elrond at the back singing to comfort the children and the hurt and the weary, and this is how I came up with a concept of this role that Elrond fulfills first beside Elros in practice and then beside Gil-galad officially that is more than knowledge and wisdom — the close companion of a king whose role is less decisive but less constrained than a king’s, therefore providing a balance to kingliness that Elros and Gil-galad and their peoples value and need.

You know those edits that are like "(fandom) + Greek words for love" usually being Eros, Ludus, Storge, Mania, Pragma, Philia and Agape?

Why oh why has no one done an edit that is like "Sons of Feanor + completely fucked up ideas about love"? I feel like this could be done

If you allow me to add to your Celebrimbor post... I think something that gets underestimate in just how effective Annatar was as a disguise is the fact that in any other occasion in which we see Sauron being his manipulative lying bastard self, he is up against people who EXPECT him to be just that. Clear example is in Numenor, where he has to start from the position of "dangerous captive enemy". But as Annatar, he starts as a blank slate, only thing going against him is a general mistrust in Demigods Walking Out Of The Woods. So I imagine him just starting by being nice, and observing, and then morphing his all mask in the perfect tool to manipulate Celebrimbor. This isn't a question of being stupid, it's a very experienced manipulator making himself into the perfect disguise (probably even including enough defects not to be TOO perfect). Incidentally, i also headcanon this as the reason why everybody else (Gil-Galad, galadriel...) mistrust him immediately: the disguise is tailor made to bypass all the defences of one specific person, cannot be one size fits all. So, yeah, our Feanorian boy is everything but stupid for not managing to see what is going on, and it's actually impressive he eventually manages to catch up with enough to decide to make the three in secret...

You are totally welcome to add anon!! 

ajfsjfd anon I just love this SO much, I don’t know where to start. Especially the part about Galadriel and Gil-Galad because I think you are so right. Annatar doesn’t need to fool them in the way he has to fool Celebrimbor. They can be suspicious, it won’t ruin his plan. 

And I completely agree. I love that you bring up Númenor because it is an excellent example of Mairon being Mairon since that is who he is supposed to be as you said. 

Anon everything you said here, I agree with so much. Especially the part about Annatar’s beginnings. He has to gain Celebrimbor’s trust so of course he’s going to be tailor-made to be someone who can be friends with Celebrimbor. I also don’t believe there is an exact date for this (please correct me if there is) but I can’t help but wonder if Celebrimbor had recently (recently for an elf) lost Narvi. I see them as being incredibly good friends and I think it would seriously hurt him, leaving him in a state of vulnerability. Annatar fills that void. Not completely, he’s not Narvi, but it’s something that soothes the rough edges and makes him feel less empty inside. 

But yes, Annatar is honestly a tribute to Mairon’s genius. It’s his greatest scheme. However, Celebrimbor, like you said, was still too smart for him in the end. Or smart enough. Either way, Annatar isn’t able to get what he wants and Celebrimbor has one small victory in the end. 

I just love the way you summarize all of this since I think it hits the nail on the head for all of this. Thank you so much for sharing!

Bilbo was declared dead while he was away in the Hobbit (and had to do a bunch of paperwork to get declared alive again) but there’s no indication he was formally declared dead after leaving the Shire, even though most people assumed he had died.

Therefore I posit: having a missing person declared dead in the Shire requires the consent of their next of kin. Whoever Bilbo’s next of kin was at the time of the Hobbit (possibly Otho? I’m not sure) had him declared dead at the first opportunity but Frodo refused to ever do it.

Frodo had anxious hobbit bureaucrats knocking on his door every couple of years like ‘Mr Baggins… blease… it’s been 10 years… he was eleventy-one… can we fill out his death certificate yet’ and Frodo was like ‘absolutely not’.

Early on he genuinely couldn’t bring himself too but after a while it was more that he enjoyed irritating the local magistrate’s office than anything else.

Currently thinking about a Maglor Requiem: the kyrie is a seven-voice fugue

why do the sons of Fëanor gotta...be like that

The difference between Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen is that the former follows the conventions of fairy tale and the latter follows the conventions of courtly love. In this essay I will