The Silmarillion Discussion at The Hall of Fire

[superwizard]

Great post ath

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm going to open this up to comments about Chapter 20 - Of the Fifth Battle, without posting any kind of a detailed summary first. Maybe people will have more to say if we say less up front (though I can't promise that I won't post something closely approximating a summary some time down the line.

A couple of general comments I want to make. I want repeat what I said in my other thread, that I think that Christopher Tolkien did a superlative job of weaving three distinct sources together (the pre-LOTR Quenta Silmarillion chapter, the relevant portion of the Grey Annals, and a text that was part of the Narn, only part of which [the discussion between Húrin and Morgoth] was printed in UT) to maximize the dramatic effect of this chapter. This chapter has (in my opinion) two of the all-time great "moments" of Tolkien's work: the unexpected arrival of Turgon and the legions of Gondolin (10,000 strong, which was taken by the filmmakers and given to Aragorn in describing the size of Saruman's army), and the last stand of Húrin, Huor and the men of Dor-lómin, allowing for the escape of Turgon and the remnant of the Noldor.

[axordil]

One of the things that is difficult to remember is that the only victory the Noldor could have hoped for would be a return to the Siege, that is, undoing the material damage of the Dagor Bragollach. It is easy to get swept up in the narrative and think, were it not for the treachery of the Easterlings, or some other factor, the Noldor and Edain and Naugrim could have defeated Morogth.

At best they could have reset the game clock, so to speak. While Morgoth could be assailed, he could not be defeated. Whether Maedhros really understood this is another question.

[superwizard]

You are also forgetting the great stand of the Dwarves of Belegost and Azaghâl's great stand.

[MithLuin]

Actually...there were 10,000 Uruk-hai at Helm's Deep. Merry watched the army departing from Isengard, and reported this number to Aragorn et al. after the fact. I doubt he counted them all, of course.... The made-up movie number is 300 defenders .


Still, I agree that Turgon's arrival and Húrin's "Day Shall Come Again" rock.


Morgoth couldn't be defeated? Literally? I mean, I know the Noldor can't win. But...there is nothing that says they can't kill all the orcs and burst into the dungeons.... There was fighting inside gates of Angband during this battle, after all. They were hoping for more than a draw....they were hoping for victory. Morgoth emptied Angband in this battle, didn't he? And, if it weren't for the accursed Easterlings changing sides, his forces may have been defeated.

Sooooo....if the elves were standing victorious on a field of battle, what would keep them from ransacking Angband, again?

If Azaghâl's dagger had been a sword, Glaurung would have died - that is perhaps the most tragic shortcoming of the battle

[axordil]

It doesn't matter, Mith. Even if everything had gone right, the best the Noldor could have forced would have been a retreat by Morgoth deeper into Angband. (And isn't the description of Angband being emptied from the battle with the Valar?).

Anyway, the Doom of Mandos was explicit. Thus, everything could NOT go right.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Actually...there were 10,000 Uruk-hai at Helm's Deep. Merry watched the army departing from Isengard, and reported this number to Aragorn et al. after the fact. I doubt he counted them all, of course.... The made-up movie number is 300 defenders .

I know that. I was referring to the specific language "10,000 strong" which Tolkien uses to describe Turgon's army and which in the film Aragorn says to Théoden in describing the army of Uruk-Hai. It's not the number of troops that I was referring to but the distinctive language used in citing the number.

[Jnyusa]

Glad this thread has taken off again!

I think I must be unsuited to appreciate the Sil; the battle scenes in LotR were far from my favorite parts of the book. This last stand of the Noldor is another one of the gottendammerung moments that just didn't inspire me, even though I think the personal heroism rings through here in ways that it does not elsewhere. So much of the Sil is about individuals seemingly defeated by a personal fate, and in the last stand we get a better sense of the Noldor as a People confronting their karma, which appeals to me more for some reason.

Jn

[axordil]

Is there anything other than individual fate in the Sil? Even the Doom of the Noldor was aimed not at them as a people, but as a collection of transgressive individuals. It was only collective in that everyone upon whom it was pronounced was by circumstance one of the Noldor.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Morgoth couldn't be defeated? Literally? I mean, I know the Noldor can't win. But...there is nothing that says they can't kill all the orcs and burst into the dungeons.... There was fighting inside gates of Angband during this battle, after all. They were hoping for more than a draw....they were hoping for victory. Morgoth emptied Angband in this battle, didn't he? And, if it weren't for the accursed Easterlings changing sides, his forces may have been defeated.

Sooooo....if the elves were standing victorious on a field of battle, what would keep them from ransacking Angband, again?

Morgoth could not have been defeated. How do we know that? Because the Author says so("the Noldor did not yet comprehend the fullness of the power of Morgoth, nor understand that their unaided war upon him was without final hope, whether they hasted or delayed"). Even had they defeated Morgoth's armies they would not have been able to defeat Morgoth himself (and no it does not say anywhere that Morgoth emptied Angband, just that he released his main armies, and being the craven fallen Vala that he was, it can be assumed that he was have kept a strong guard around him).

Indeed, this is a critical point about the Silmarillion story. The Silmarillion really is about the "long defeat" that Galadriel refers to LOTR, which indeed provides a forum for people to confront their karma. I must admit I find it quite inspiring (perhaps because I tend to look at life in general as "the long defeat").

[superwizard]

Indeed, this is a critical point about the Silmarillion story. The Silmarillion really is about the "long defeat" that Galadriel refers to LOTR, which indeed provides a forum for people to confront their karma. I must admit I find it quite inspiring (perhaps because I tend to look at life in general as "the long defeat").

Don´t think about it that way V, look at it as a long victory (which is how I see it probably because I´m so young

[MithLuin]

No, it's okay, superwizard, he's right. Most likely, Tolkien did see history as a long defeat....but with a surprise happy ending . In the real world, this means Christ will come again. In his story...it means Eärendil will be successful, and the Valar will respond.

[Athrabeth]

I think this is the saddest chapter in The Silmarillion.

It doesn’t have the gut-wrenching tragedy of the Narn (that tale I have always found to be the most singularly difficult to read), but for me, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad is the real “heart-breaker” of the Sil, the point at which I always seem to utter the exasperated internal lament, “Oh you poor, bloody lot!”

It really is the Noldor’s finest hour…..doomed to failure, to be sure, but still a great moment of true alliance, of trust and loyalty, that overrides even the darkest designs of the darkest of Fëanor’s sons. It’s almost as if Tolkien couldn’t quite bear to allow the pivotal act of treachery to come from within the Noldorin ranks, and by making it an “outside job”, so to speak, firmly establishes on a grand scale, the deep and abiding bonds between Eldar and Edain that will connect their people for millennia (complemented and personified, of course, by the unions of Beren and Lúthien, Idril and Tuor, Elwing and Eärendil……..Arwen and Aragorn). The “knife in the back” is wielded solely by Morgoth through the corrupted Easterlings, allowing the alliance between the Noldor themselves, and the Three Houses of Men to stand (at last!) unsullied, like a flame flickering bravely and briefly before the tempest.

Then when Fingon heard afar the great trumpet of Turgon his brother, the shadow passed and his heart was uplifted, and he shouted aloud: ‘Utúlie’n aurë Eldalië ar Atanatari, utúlie’n aurë The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!’ And all those who heard his great voice echo in the hills answered crying: ‘Auta i lómë! The night is passing!”

This rallying cry strikes me as so different from the “Ride to ruin” mindset of the Rohirrim in LOTR (which is paralleled, I believe, by Fingolfin’s desperate personal onslaught against Morgoth). It is a cry of hope, of belief in the surety that light cannot be dimmed forever by the Shadow……like Sam’s star glimmering beyond the mists of Mordor. I think for this reason I can’t quite agree with Jny’s comment about the battle being just another Götterdämmerung moment: the Noldor and the Edain are not marching grimly towards the “world’s ending”, but towards a future they trust will indeed come. This, to me, is seen with poignant clarity in Húrin’s last cry of the battle, which beautifully and heartbreakingly echoes Fingolfin’s first call, “Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!”

Countering this mood of hope and trust, however, are perhaps the grimmest and “truest” details of battle written by Tolkien in the Sil. The shock of Gelmir being dragged out before the hidden hosts of the Noldor to be cruelly and slowly put to death is made even more compelling as it unfolds before the horrified eyes of his brother. And the death of Fingon is probably the most brutally described of all the falls of the Noldorin Lords. There is no eagle to bear his body away from desecration, there are none left around him to mark his grave and hallow the place of his death, there are no words telling of his time in Mandos to soften the horror and sadness:

Thus fell the High King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.

There is no glory in those words. They are cold and harsh and ugly, like such a death would be. And because of this, I think they hold a power even greater than the stirring passage of Fingolfin’s last stand. For a while, the grand and remote texture of myth becomes small and vulnerable and human, with a spotlight shining pointedly, amid the vast stage of the Sil, upon a single battered and bloody body trampled into nothingness. I find it to be one of the most profound moments of the entire tale.

Moving away from the battle, there are two scenes that struck me upon this reading. The first is when Melian counsels Thingol to surrender the Silmaril to the sons of Fëanor. I find this intriguing, as one would expect that the foresight of a Maia would at least reveal another, more “destined” path for the holy jewel. Does this have something to do with the passage Voronwë quoted in another thread – the words of Ulmo to Tuor concerning Fate and Doom:

‘But behold!’ said he, ‘in the armour of Fate (as the Children of Earth name it) there is ever a rift, and in the walls of Doom a breach, until the full-making, which ye call the End. So it shall be while I endure, a secret voice that gainsayeth, and a light where darkness was decreed.

So even though Melian could discern the power and importance of the “doom” Beren brings with him to Doriath, as well as the “doom” that Thingol sets in motion when he names the Silmaril as the price for Lúthien’s hand, she doesn’t seem to be able to discern the path by which the Silmaril will descend until it reaches Elwing, her great-granddaughter, or see beyond the terrible Doom of Mandos to that hope which resides hidden from, and “unlooked for” by even the Valar themselves. It is an interesting reminder of the limitations of the Ainur, who can see the vast unfoldings of the grand tale of Arda amid the innumerable stars, but not the small, individual turning points of the story that are set in motion by free will.

The second moment is a just a blink in the text, but it does, I think, reflect a precision of writing that beautifully unifies “what was” with “what will be”. It is the moment that Maegllin overhears Huor’s last prophetic words to Turgon, revealing that the final hope of Elves and Men will be born from both their lines:

And Maeglin, Turgon’s sister-son, who stood by, heard these words, and did not forget them; but he said nothing.

What a haunting echo of the three repetitive phrases we read back in the final passages of the chapter “Of Maeglin”, when he stands in silent denial of his father in Gondolin, and what a masterfully subtle chill it casts upon the hope that Huor speaks of. Without doubt, we now know that old Maeglin will have another part to play in this tale, and it is wrapped in treachery; and even after the sorrow of Unnumbered Tears, there will still be more darkness to face before the "day shall come again.

[Jnyusa]

Another post from you, Ath, that gave me goosebumps.

I love to read what you see in the detail of these passages. So much of the Sil passes over my head like water ... it is neither story nor style into which I have any insights ... and it is just a delight to watch you pull out all those individual currents and show where they begin and to what end they flow.

Jn

[MithLuin]

Melian may not have lacked foresight in suggesting that Thingol relinquish his Silmaril (indeed, I forgot she did so ). Melian may not care that Elwing should get the Silmaril....but she has more than a little intuition about what the Sons of Fëanor will do if they don't get it. Her people are the people of Doriath...not the Noldor.

I agree that 'Unnumbered Tears' is the heavy fall into bitterness....which will not go away. We still have Túrin, the Fall of Gondolin, and two more Kinslayings left

Huor and (on the next page, Rian) are the ones who die, but their end is hopeful. Húrin (and Morwen) live, but their lives will spiral into despair. I agree that Fingon's death is...brutal. Jenny Dolfen has a beautiful painting of it, but I know her depiction does not match the words.

[Athrabeth]

Melian may not have lacked foresight in suggesting that Thingol relinquish his Silmaril (indeed, I forgot she did so ). Melian may not care that Elwing should get the Silmaril....but she has more than a little intuition about what the Sons of Fëanor will do if they don't get it. Her people are the people of Doriath...not the Noldor.

Quite right, Mith. Although if the Girdle of Melian can protect Doriath from the onslaught of Morgoth, I doubt if the sons of Fëanor could make much of a dent in it. Perhaps it's even more personal than that......perhaps it is her love of Thingol and the looming shadow of his approaching fall due to the Silmaril that is the motivation behind the counsel to her husband.

[MithLuin]

Ah, true. After all, even her love for her people is secondary to her love for him.

[Alatar]

One of your best posts ever Ath.

Bravo.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

(and no it does not say anywhere that Morgoth emptied Angband, just that he released his main armies, and being the craven fallen Vala that he was, it can be assumed that he was have kept a strong guard around him).

I misspoke here, and Mith was of course correct; it does say that "Morgoth loosed his last strength, and Angband was emptied". I still hold that it was not possible for the Noldor and their allies to defeat Morgoth, if for no other reason then that it wasn't in the Song.

[MithLuin]

Well, it's true that it wouldn't happen...but that isn't quite can't. Also....I don't see how they would have dealt with Morgoth himself. But wiping out his army would have been a huge accomplishment, and worth the effort.

It just....wasn't gonna happen.

I guess I don't take the doom-and-gloom narrator at his word any more, because now I know the story as well as he does .