The Silmarillion: Who Speaks? by Dawn Felagund

Fanwork Notes

Back in 2019, I wrote a blog post called The Inequality Prototype. As part of it, I counted a bunch of stuff related to the Valar and looked at how those metrics differed based on gender. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to extend this work over the entire Silmarillion, namely looking at who speaks in the text and who doesn't.

For Tolkien Meta Week, I began this work and am collecting my analyses related to it here. It is very much still a work in progress and will likely take me years to complete.

As with all of my data, I am making the dataset and analyses available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. What this means is that you can use my data as long as you're not profiting off of it and you also make your work available for others to use under similar terms. You can make a copy of it and build on it and post/publish your own work using it. You don't have to ask (the CC license is permission!) but credit me if you do as Dawn Felagund (in fanworks) or Dawn Walls-Thumma (in scholarship) and, if possible, link back to my website at dawnfelagund.com. I also appreciate if you let me know what you do with the data so that I can read it!

View the data | Copy the data

Methodology

I have used an unauthorized digital copy of The Silmarillion to perform word counts, using the Word Count tool in Google Docs. I own a Kindle copy, but Kindle imposes limits on how much text you can copy. I swear, Tolkien Estate, I am not illegally selling Silmarillions; I am just a data nerd. Given this, though, there might be minor discrepancies in word count.

When counting words:

1. Only dialogue (between quotes) is counted. Dialogue tags or interrupting action are removed before calculating a word count.
2. New paragraphs are counted as new dialogue (unless uninterrupted dialogue is divided into multiple paragraphs without interceding action; Fëanor has a couple of speeches like this, for example).
3. Thoughts in the form of dialogue are not included.
4. Remembered dialogue that repeats earlier dialogue is not included (e.g., Ulmo's warning to Turgon).

Project Progress

Phase 1

Phase 1 will document all dialogue in The Silmarillion. This is the current phase of the project.

• Collect all instances of dialogue from The Silmarillion using a search of the text for single quotation marks: Complete
• Check the first collection of dialogue by reading the text for dialogue: Not Started
• Classify dialogue by character, group, subgroup, and gender: Complete
• Classify dialogue by canon source and type of dialogue: Not Started
• Compile statistics on dialogue in The Silmarillion: In Progress

Phase 2

Phase 2 will document instances where a character is indicated as having spoken but is not given dialogue. Phase 2 has not begun.

Phase 3

Phase 3 will document instances where a character is indicated as not speaking or as staying silent. Phase 3 has not begun.

Fanwork Information

Summary: On ongoing project to analyze who speaks in The Silmarillion and who is silent. Major Characters: Major Relationships: Genre: Nonfiction/Meta Challenges: Rating: General Warnings: In-Universe Intolerance
Chapters: 1	Word Count: 745
Posted on 26 December 2024	Updated on 26 December 2024
This fanwork is a work in progress.