Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
Current Challenge
Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
Random Challenge
Turgon's Rock Opera
On the anniversary of the publication of "The Silmarillion," we’re reflecting on the importance of music in Arda with prompts that come from rock songs. Read more ...
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
Subscribe to the SWG Newsletter
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
OMG! You killed me with this one. I think that is one plausible account of how it could have happened. [Just for my own sanity--fragile creature that I am--I prefer not to think that orcs constructed out of ruined Elves--oh, ouch!] If they were, however, and, for the sake of this story, I am willing to suspend disbelief and assume they are, this is a very powerful account of an orc ending up in the Halls of Mandos.
Well done. A more likeable Namo than many I have read also. Frankly, he scares the shit out of me in right kind of way. And do not like to think of him as a warm and fuzzy kind of creature, that would not fit with the Doomsman of the Valar either, but he works in this story for this poor tragic orc. Not warm and cuddly but perhaps offering some kind of way back. I like that it is not clear either. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for your kind review! Haha, the entire Silmarillion is one tragic clusterf*ck, so for me the creation of the Orcs is just added to the pile of hurt and pain and drama.
In my head(canon), Námo and his Maiar help to get the dead come to terms with their life, so that they can let go and move on, which is symbolized by being released from the Halls. I tried to write him that way; I am glad it came across! One thing to mention here is that for Námo, this is also one of the first times he has to guide a (broken) fëa back to itself, and for him it is too a process of trial and error; in the end, the fëa has to forgive itself, and Námo cannot help with that. So he prefers to remain in the background, so to speak, offering advice but not becoming 'personally' involved.
I think it is also important to note that the Orc in question is not aware that he is dead. Add to that that he has no idea regarding Ainur (he was taken before Oromë discovered the Eldar at Cuiviénen), and you get a confusing mess indeed. But this is just my interpretation; it is unclear so that everyone can have their own. I think it would have 'destroyed' the story if I'd given it a concrete ending.
In response to your response to my comment (that's a tongue twister):
When you said
In my head(canon), Námo and his Maiar help to get the dead come to terms with their life, so that they can let go and move on, which is symbolized by being released from the Halls.
I find that a powerful interpretation, much more tolerable than the punishment/purgatory conception which leapt to mind when I first read Tolkien on Elves serving time in the Halls of Mandos! (or there was a very popular writer of Namo, who wrote him as a kindly warden (unlikely!) of a Victorian orphanage/reform school--an interpretation which never worked for me at all) I tend to find the Valar not a lot more flawless than the Elves themselves, simply more remote from the incidents which might provoke or entice them. Obviously, when they fall they fall harder and do more damage (reminiscent of Paradise Lost). Even the oft-judge-as-wicked Noldor are fairly tame compared to Melkor or Sauron. So the Valar judging and dispensing justice over the Firstborn feels sort of like having a Supreme Court of Aliens interpreting right and wrong for a very human world.
Nevermind me, I am just blowing off. I did find your story provocative in a positive way and it made me consider this questions again.
I never interpreted a stay in Mandos as a punishment, for what about the Elves who, for instance, died fighting for the Last Alliance against Sauron? Their only fault was getting killed in battle; not something that warrants ages of imprisonment. I know a writer who writes Námo as all cuddly and concerned, which I don't mind reading, but that is towards his Maiar and not the Eldar in his care.
I absolutely agree with you that the Valar are not flawless - who ever thought locking Melkor up for three ages straight with no contact except Námo was a good idea? Even the strongest and good men would succumb to madness. They are, in some way, unable to look past what they themselved would do/would have done, and judge according to their own standards; the alien-metaphor is scarily accurate, as the Valar are an essentially different species. Thank you, and I don't mind the rambling; I love to hear what others think about these kind of issues!
I have read Paradise Lost and loved it; I even started rewriting The Silmarillion in that style (the rhyme and rhythm is based purely on what sounds right in my head; I have no idea how to incorporete different meters), but so far only have an introduction; I need to reread the book and line by line in order to contruct the poem.
What a chilling tale. Of course, if we accept the premise that Orcs were once Elves, it makes sense that the spirits of Orcs would receive the summons to Mandos also, and some would even follow it. Naturally, that brings all sorts of issues with it, and you tackle them very neatly: Would the Orc even understand where he is? (Apparently not!) How would the process of remembering their origins work? And is there any way for them to achieve some sense of redemption or at least closure? (You leave that open - fortunately - it would probably take a far longer story to explore that thought!) I like the way in which you let Námo operate here, and the thought processes of the Orc, albeit nasty, were really rather heartbreaking. Lots of food for thought here!
Thank you! I do not dare answer those questions - and even if I did, I wouldn't know where to start! This is just an idea that needed to be written down, my interpretation of Mandos' purpose: helping those in his Halls find peace. To be honest, this entire fic was very experimental for me, and I am glad you liked it and that it was able to draw out such a response!
This was interesting and thought-provoking. Thinking about the implications of Orcs being made from Elves gets very disturbing very quickly, but it's also a very good question what happens to them after death, and if they have any chance of being un-Orcified in all the time before the ending of the world (and if any of them would be able or willing to try). But surely the Valar would have to make some decision about them . . .
Un-Orcified... I like that word! It is my personal head-canon that Orcs are in fact immortal, just like the Eldar, but due to so much (internal) fighting only a few survive to great ages. The Vala indeed have to decide what to do with them - but I think that they'll choose the road of redemption, as they first tried with Melkor and later offered to Sauron (Eönwë did, right?). The only question is what the Orcs themselves think of it, but I remember I read somewhere that they hate all that is good and beautiful because they can't have it themselves anymore. I thought that was an interesting view to explore, that maybe they do still have that spark of Eldar inside, and what that might mean when they arrive in Mandos.
What a great story. I've often pondered the question of what happens to orcs on their death. I've been inclined to think they go to Mandos Halls as well. I really enjoyed your depiction of the halls and Namo. I also liked how you slowly brought realization to your orc of who and what he had once been. Great job and thanks for sharing.
Thank you! Orcs going to Mandos' seems to me to be the most logical, since they descended from Elves and mortality is supposed to be a "gift" to mankind.
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.