[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, together, the Maiar and the Valar are called the Ainur (Holy Ones) and are noted to be "The offspring of His thought." You can think of them as gods and demigods subservient to the overgod, but they're actually closer to arch-angels and angels of Judeo-Christian theology, in that they're directly subservient to the godhead and exist to serve Iluvatar as the divine governors of Arda (Middle-Earth) [/theology nerd] [/Tolkien nerd]

I always found it fascinating how almost none of this info is present in the text of LotR, and yet, once you read the Silmarillion and go back to LotR, it all fits in perfectly and certain things make a lot more sense in context.

[Serra Britt]

So if you're really interested in the history and mythology, it sounds like the Silmarillion is the way to go?

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Yeah, I'd so. The other books all build off of the Silmarillion, but they're even less coherent. In the form it's published in (which was arranged by Christopher; who knows what J.R.R. intended) the Silm. is at least a more or less complete story, even if it skips huge chunks of time and flips between dozens of different characters.

It's not an easy read by any means, but I found it really rewarding once I got a grasp of what was going on and who was who. And weirdly, while it's really light on character development, some of the stories are a lot more emotional and hard-hitting than anything in LotR. It's also a lot less black and white than LotR is, in terms of morality.

[Serra Britt]

Less black and white is always good. I do like stories with clear cut good/evil lines, as they are a nice escape from reality, but stories with grey areas are more fulfilling overall.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That's actually one of the ways it adds to LotR, in that you get a deeper understanding of the elves and the position they're in by the time LotR roles around. Knowing what they've been through for the last 10,000 years really fleshes out their reasons for being so melancholy and wanting to leave Middle-Earth.

[Serra Britt]

Oh right I forgot about the exodus they did. But it's been so long since I read the books and I don't remember the movies touching on that part. Not that the movies didn't leave out a lot of important parts anyways while fleshing out useless stuff :P

(It's been 2 years since I saw the movies)

[Suzerain of Sheol]

No, that's just one of many nuances the movies missed from the books. Their leaving Middle-Earth in the films seemed pretty arbitrary and without justification. It makes a lot more sense in the books, especially with the framing of the Silmarillion's tragedies.

[Serra Britt]

I know you hate the movies and all but if they were renamed with different characters and not associated with LotR how would you feel about them as standalone movies?

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, that's the thing. I don't hate them because they're different from the books, I hate them because the story they tell is inferior, in my opinion. I find the characters shallow, the plot nonsensical at times, and certain aspects of the setting, particularly the distances between places in the movies, really unsatisfying.

Maybe one of these days I'll type a long review of the things I don't like about the movies, but I should probably watch them all again if I'm going to do that, as it's been at least a year since I last saw them.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

The Silmarillion is my dad's favourite of all the books and he reads it every two years or so. It's one of the things we talk about a lot. I left my copy of Children of Hurin for him to read when I was last visiting. The story appears in The Silmarillion as a chapter I think (checks with Suzerain :p). We mostly talked about reading perspective since we both had different thoughts when reading the book. I looked at it more from the perspective of Turin, the son wandering around. Dad on the other hand, being a dad, looked at it from the perspective of Hurin, who was "given the eyes and ears of Morgoth" so to speak, and was made to watch everything that happened to his children before being let go at the end of the book.

Like everything else in the collection, Children of Hurin (one of three stories Tolkein intended to expand on, so says Christopher) ties back to the Silm. with it's other details. One of the characters, Beleg, uses a sword that was forged by a particular elf who's story is told in the Silmarillion, a dark elf apprently and the sword itself is somewhat malevolent in nature. His story ties in with the elf king who raised Turin and who's name I can never recall. Thingol? The guy in the forest with the maiar for a wife who casts the girdle around it for protection. Sheol, help?

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That all sounds about right.

Gurthang is Turin's sword, means "Iron of Death," forged by Eol the Dark Elf (not like DnD dark elves, just an elf that never set foot in the Undying Lands, and hence was never infused by the Light of Aman). I believe the sword is forged from meteoric iron and is semi-sentient. I think it had a sister-blade as well, but its name eludes me.

Elu Thingol rules Doriath with his wife, Melian, a Maia, and yes, she upholds an interdiction around the entire realm.

The worst part about that story? Hurin eventually, inadvertently enacts both the Siege of Gondolin and the Ruin of Doriath after he gets free. The guy just can't get a break.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Yeah, the sword was formed from a meteorite. The fall of Gondolin was another of the three stories that Tolkein apparently intended to write in more depth. The three were listed in the foreward to Children of Hurin. I think the third might have had something to do with Luthien and Beren.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

The Fall of Gondolin is kind of a mess the way it's written. It's clearly an earlier piece. The most egregious issue is entire armies of Balrogs being present, as it was only later that he made them corrupted Maiar and, arguably, the most powerful of Morgoth's servants.

I wonder if he'd still have Glorfindel, Ecthelion and the like killing them if he'd ever gotten around to rewriting it.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Dunno, but I think we can -or according to Chrispher we might be able to - expect a new novel version of the story. I'd have to check my book again, which is currently 800 kilometres away, but I think he intended to flesh out each story in novel form. Children of Hurin happened to be the most fleshed out of the three from the notes.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That's possible. I just wonder, if he's planning to do that, why he hasn't done so already. It's been a fair few years since Children of Hurin was published.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

There really isn't any reason to hurry given what's already out there is likely more than whatever is going to come from the next novel. I guess it depends on how much commercial value Christopher and the estate are expecting from it.