cuarthol's Favorites

After discovering an interest in female characters and femslash, Elleth used her enthusiasm for these fanworks to run multiple events that helped the Tolkien fandom undergo its transformation from dismissal of women characters to accepting and even celebrating fanworks about them.

He is dead. His heart is still beating, but he is dead.

Examining the relationship between Andreth and Finrod as shown in the Athrabeth.

After living for hundreds, never mind thousands, of years by the sea there's no way that Círdan wasn't a) as brown as a berry, and b) didn't invent surfing.

The fandom has become a friendlier place for writing women, but its hostile history toward women-centric fanworks continues to exert a chilling effect for some, while other creators see potential in the legendarium and fandom's traditional lack of women characters.

As one of the most beloved Silmarillion characters, Maglor is a bundle of contradictions undergirded by a complex textual history. Warrior, musician, wanderer, and survivor, Maglor brings to the fore key themes in Tolkien's early legendarium, such as the role of music, oaths, and exile.

Here is a song called Of Finrod and Bëor as was sung in Rivendell in the Third Age of the world. It is but a fragment from the Lay of Felagund, which told the story of Finrod Felagund in full. It was first cast into Sindarin in Imladris by some of the High Elves who dwelt there for a time, and later into Westron.

I: Of Finrod tarrying in Ossiriand
III. Of Finrod spying Men in the woods
III: Of Finrod's song of Valinor
IV: Of the waking of Men and the conversation of Finrod and Bëor
V: Of the disquiet of the Green-elves and the passing of Men into Beleriand
VI: Of the death of Finrod Felagund and the deeds of the House of Bëor
Coda

The majority of the Silmarillion was penned by a single Elf--an Elf who was so thoroughly written out as to appear only through the ways in which their perspective shaped the stories we see. This is their story, the historian's history, the Pennas Pengolodh.

An essay and commentary looking at the canonical facts about Finarfin in contrast to the neglect and hostility that his character is given by the Silmarillion fanfiction community.