Coda by Marta

Author's Notes

Author's Notes

It is always tempting to over-explain in a piece like this, to tell you my thoughts and the allusions (both real-life philosophy and Tolkien canon) that informed my thoughts. I'll resist doing that, because on some level what every writer puts down in a story has to stand free of notes. What follows is (I hope) unnecessarily to the reader particularly familiar with the Silmarillion, especially the Akallabêth. However, if it's been a while since you read that book, maybe a few of the more obscure references need some elaboration.

Nienna remembers a description Pengolodh wrote about her: "she weeps for every wound Arda has suffered in the marring of Melkor." Canonically, this is adapted from the Valaquenta. I am not sure who Tolkien intended as the author of the Valaquenta, but if it is not Pengolodh, it seems likely enough to me that Pengolodh could have borrowed the phrase, or that the author of the Valaquenta could have borrowed the phrase from him.

On the subject of Pengolodh, even if you know the Silmarillion from cover to cover, you may not recognize his name, but many of the historical texts we see in the Histories of Middle-earth are attributed to him. (I say historical texts because, much as Lord of the Rings is said to have been written by Bilbo, Frodo and Sam, the texts that give us the "history" of the earlier ages also have their author from within Middle-earth. Of course Tolkien is the "true" author, but working within his conceit that he is translator, Pengolodh is the primary author of much that we're told about the earlier time periods.) Very little is known about him, or at least known by me, so I have relied on the Tolkien Gateway biography of this character.

On Pharazôn's fate: Tolkien is a bit cryptic. We're told that the "fleets of the Númenóreans […] were drowned and swallowed up for ever. But Ar-Pharazôn the King and the mortal warriors that had set upon the land of Aman were buried under falling hills: there it is said that they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the Forgotten, until the Last Battle and the Day of Doom." Others might interpret this to mean that only the bodies were imprisoned, and that the men died but never received a fitting funeral. But that word imprisoned suggests something more to me; I take it to mean that Pharazôn and his companions were actually imprisoned and their souls were not allowed to escape to the Halls of Mandos.

There are other references both to the Akallabêth and the early parts of the Silmarillion, but I have tried to make those references clear through context. And of course, as is the case in any fanfic, I have also developed my own inventions where canon is silent.

Thanks to Dawn Felagund for organizing the 2009 Akallabêth-in-August project (for which this piece was written); to Dwimordene for initial feedback and discussion on the philosophy lurking behind this piece; and to Ithilwen for the beta. Any remaining errors and heresies are mine. :-)