andie, she/her, 26, united states. this blog is full of Tolkien. also other art, photos, fandoms, and big-eyes-emoji stuff, but mostly Tolkien. i tag! my girlfriend is bright ivanaskye, who is a lot, but not too much
“And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars.”
Eru Iluvatar. I have this idea that he has no face of his own, only two black holes for eyes which he often covers. When he interacts with someone, his face reflects their own, creating a sort of personal connection between them.
My BIGGEST pet peeve when it comes to Tolkien is how people will sometimes characterize Melkor’s rebellion as being about him wanting to do his own thing and rebelling against Illuvatar’s oppressive sheet music.
THERE WAS NO SHEET MUSIC! Illuvatar wasn’t forcing anything. The Ainulindale was improv. Illuvatar just gave them the theme, the idea, the feeling, the starting point. The Ainur were drawing inspiration from the thought of Illuvatar, sure, and so long as they were in harmony the music played precisely as Illuvatar intended because Illuvatar had created them and knew how they worked together. But the music of the Ainur before Melkor’s dissonance was quintessentially creative, as well as corroborative. It was spontaneous, perfect harmony of free individuals perfectly in tune with each other, whose improvisations were constantly building upon each other.
Melkor’s rebellion was not about asserting his freedom of expression, because his expression was already free. Instead it was explicitly about making his own voice louder and more important than anyone else’s, and subjugating the creativity of others to instead convince or force them to follow him exactly in repetitive unison. And so, when Melkor’s goal became drown everyone else out, instead of make beautiful music together, his music became less creative, less innovative, and less his.
So it kind of annoys me when people talk about Melkor like he’s all for freedom of expression when he’s pretty much the opposite of that.
How.many of y’all been in jazz bands and gotten lead sheets for a song? Just the chord structure, some rhythms jotted out and maybe a few bars of a unifying theme? I played in student jazz bands for 6 years and let me tell you, the truly good musicians listen and feel out the structure of the song and when it comes to their solo, they’re ready and their expression shines. But then you get that one jackass who pulls something weird out of his ass during a performance and doesn’t follow the chord structure and you have to either let it sound bad or drown him out. It’s not freedom or creativity. It’s just being an asshole because you won’t play well with others.
And what I used to wonder about re Elves going to Aman is if going
there once they started fading was (unlike in the 1st age) part of the
plan, or if it only became so after they went there the first time –
which is just hairsplitting I suppose. I also wondered about fading and
if it was always unavoidable
That’s my old childhood thing about wanting the Elves to stay in ME
talking, but now it does seem more likely that even if they all had
stayed in ME they still would have started to fade, maybe a bit later. I
mean, eanting to prevent exactly that sort of change is pretty much an
Elvish (or Noldorish) theme – along with the fact that they can’t.
hahahahahah you are definitely not the only one who wanted the elves to stay in middle earth (i don’t remember wanting it, but when i first read it i had a p different concept of what ‘going west’ meant).
anyway i don’t think it’s hairsplitting! but i guess i have always thought of eru’s Theme or whatever as being incredibly broad-strokes and laissez-faire outside of ‘curve-break! i fucked up, the earth should DEFINITELY be round and not flat’, probably bc i am….super-not-christian…..
And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: ‘Why hast thou done this? Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority? For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle. Is that thy desire?’
Then Aulë answered: ‘I did not desire such lordship. I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which thou hast caused to be. For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most part empty still, and dumb. And in my impatience I have fallen into folly. Yet the making of thing is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father. But what shall I do now, so that thou be not angry with me for ever? As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made. Do with them what thou wilt. But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?’
Then Aulë took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept. But Ilúvatar had compassion upon Aulë and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank from the hammer and wore afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to Aulë: ‘Thy offer I accepted even as it was made. Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.’
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, “Of Aulë and Yavanna”
i have read silmarillion only in finnish. finnish lacks gendered pronouns completely. and “iluvatar” reads as feminine name in finnish because -tar suffix is often used to create feminine versions of titles in finnish and many finnish goddeses have -tar suffix in their names.
so.. you can probably do the math. for long i thought that iluvatar was essentially a massive divine mom. you have no idea how devasted i was when i opened iluvatar’s wiki page to check something and i was greeted with picture of beardy man.
i still refuse to acknowledge this “truth” and i continue seeing her as massive divine mom and i still continue referring her with she pronouns and feminine words.
ephal ephalak idon hi-akallabeth 