All the (Silmarillion) Feels is an emotion- and story-focused summary of The Silmarillion. You’ll get facts, but that’s not the point here. Let’s talk themes, meaningful quotes, and moments that made us go “WHOA.” I started this project after falling in love with The Rings of Power television show, so expect me to focus on things to do with Galadriel and Sauron.

Chapter 7: Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor

It is time! The thing this whole dang book is named after has finally arrived. Fëanor and Melkor continue with their will they/won’t they tension (whoops, sorry, I mean mortal enmity), and the peaceful utopia on Valinor begins to crumble.

Fighting Over Jewelry

In the last chapter, we learned that the Nolder Elf Fëanor is the best of the best, and he knows it. This chapter begins by describing his greatest accomplishment: the creation of three jewels called the Silmarils. They capture the light of trees of Valinor, and nothing else like them exists in all the world. The Elves and the Valar both are “filled with wonder and delight;” but Melkor is filled with envy.

Real talk, I love that the central conflict of The Silmarillion is about artistic accomplishment. Where other fantasy novels focus on sex and bloodshed, everything here hinges on the creation of something beautiful, and the ways in which envy and possessiveness can destroy the most fantastic of creations.

Melkor is Jealous

You’ll remember that Melkor is a Valar who tried to wrestle the song of creation away from Ilúvatar. He has always been enamored with the art of creating something, but without the flair to make something truly original. As someone with similar skills and limitations, I can confirm that this often leads to jealousy when others seem to effortlessly create things far beyond your ability.

What Melkor excels at, however, is talking (oh no, are we the same?). He represses his jealousy and instead foments distrust amongst the Noldor. He subtly insinuates that the Valar brought the Elves to Valinor because they feared the Elves would surpass them if left to their own rule. The book notes that “many who heard [his words] believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought.” He’s sneaky!

He also gets personal by exploiting the familial distance between King Finwë’s sons by other mothers. Fëanor hears that his half brother plans to usurp his line as eldest, and Fingolfin hears that Fëanor plans to drive them out of the city. Drama!

It is at this point that weapons are created, as Melkor helpfully suggests that they all arm themselves to prevent something terrible from happening. Spoilers, something terrible happens because they arm themselves! Funny how that happens.

Brother Against Brother

The whispers and rumors reach a fever pitch when Fingolfin seeks a private audience with his father, King Finwë, and Fëanor breaks in, accusing him of being a sneaky snake who would “be before me with my father, in this as in all other matters.” He draws a sword against his half brother twice, and this is the first time threatened violence against kin has ever happened! It is a big deal! The Valar punish Fëanor with twelve years of exile to the north, where his bad mood only grows worse.

Everyone does figure out that Melkor’s whispers and insinuations caused all this chaos, but he disappears as a thundercloud, and no one can catch him. He tries to befriend Fëanor, since let’s be real, they have a lot in common. But he slips by mentioning the Silmarils, and the Elf realizes Melkor’s real intentions. Without any allies and his cover blown, Melkor leaves, and we get this amazing final sentence of the chapter:

Bonus Foreshadowing

At the beginning of this chapter, we get a very interesting tidbit that hints of the final days of Middle-earth in some unwritten future: “But not until the End, when Fëanor shall return who perished ere the Sun was made, and sits now in the Halls of Awaiting…”

This is some Norse Ragnorak mythology! I love it! Spoilers I guess that Fëanor won’t survive, but like I said, this is written on page 69.

Tensions are at a boiling point, and they’re going to spill over in the next chapter: Of the Darkening of Valinor.

All the (Silmarillion) Feels is an emotion- and story-focused summary of The Silmarillion. You’ll get facts, but that’s not the point here. Let’s talk themes, meaningful quotes, and moments that made us go “WHOA.” I started this project after falling in love with The Rings of Power television show, so expect me to focus on things to do with Galadriel and Sauron.

Chapter 6: Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor

We started with the cosmic, zoomed in to the Elves, and now we’re narrowing our focus even further into a family drama and the introduction of one of the most important characters in The Silmarillion, Fëanor. At the same time, the big bad is back, and their showdown begins.

Introducing….Fëanor!

It was the best of times for the Elves in Valinor; they were mastering crafts, creating writing, and starting families. Finwë, King of the Noldor (crafty Elves), marries Míriel, and together they have a son. But even in the heavenly realms, there is apparently postpartum depression, because Míriel languishes after giving birth, to the point that her soul leaves her body and she effectively dies. There’s a weirdly magical aspect to this, as it’s hinted that she passed on too much of her life force to her son; “Strength that would have nourished the life of many has gone forth into Fëanor.”

It’s fitting, then, that his nickname is Spirit of Fire, which hints at his ability to consume as well as create and refine. He is the golden child of the Noldor, described rapturously as, “tall, and fair of face, and masterful, his eyes piercingly bright and his hair raven-dark; in the pursuit of all his purposes eager and steadfast. Few ever changed his courses by counsel, none by force.”

I’ll show my hand; I really like Fëanor! He is one of the few Elves who is allowed to be morally complicated. He’s ambitious and stubborn as well as creative and high-minded, and I love this about him.

Fëanor marries Nerdanel, one of the only people he listens to (at least at first). We get this amazing description of her, which underscores my never-ending complaint about Tolkien: he knows how to describe an amazing woman, he just doesn’t give them any page-time to do anything! Anyway, here’s Nerdanel: “[She] also was firm of will, but more patient than Fëanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them.”

Fëanor’s father is also getting married, this time to Indis, with whom he has two more sons, Fingolfin and Finarfin. I have never, and likely will never, be able to keep these two straight. Fëanor has Complex Feelings about his dad’s new family, and he mostly stays away from them, preferring to pour himself into creating Elvish scripts and mastering gem-making.

And in the Other Corner…Melkor is Back!

From the time the Elves first awoke in Middle-earth to now, three whole ages have passed! I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I think it’s thousands of years. And that means Melkor’s prison sentence is up! He makes the most of the opportunity, playing nice and seeming repentant. A couple of the Valar suspect him, but most believe he is a good guy now, and he is slowly given more and more freedom.

He’s not a good guy, though. When he gets out of prison and sees this new world with thriving Elves, “envy was in heart,” “hatred filled him,” and “he lusted for [the wealth of bright gems].” He ingratiates himself so well that he’s giving advice and sharing skills with the Elves and Valar alike, and it gives me a lot of Sauron-helping-the-Elves-forge-Rings-of-Power vibes.

In all this time, very few suspect a thing…except for Fëanor.

There’s this great line where, foreshadowing future events, Melkor says he was instrumental in teaching Fëanor, but Fëanor is all like, “I never trusted you!” I think this is likely true, as he’s the one to give Melkor the name Morgoth, which I think we can all agree is a much more evil-sounding name. We’re also reminded that “Fëanor was driven by the fire of his own heart only,” so he doesn’t seem likely to accept much input; and if he does, he’s unlikely to credit them.

I cannot help but picture this as a scene from The Office where Melkor tells the camera how important he was to Fëanor’s future, at which point the Elf gives a Jim-like expression to the audience to let us know how he feels about that.

The drama! It is beginning!

Chapter 6 introduces us to our two antagonists, and in the next chapter we learn about the thing they will fight over. That’s right, we’re finally going to learn what the titular silmarils are!

All the (Silmarillion) Feels is an emotion- and story-focused summary of The Silmarillion. You’ll get facts, but that’s not the point here. Let’s talk themes, meaningful quotes, and moments that made us go “WHOA.” I started this project after falling in love with The Rings of Power television show, so expect me to focus on things to do with Galadriel and Sauron.

Chapter 5: Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië

This chapter title likely reads as nonsense, though admittedly, nonsense made of very pretty words. Chapter 5 is about how the Elves settled into Valinor and who the major players are going to be moving forward.

The Magical Ship-Island

We left the Elves on the western shore of Middle-earth eager to move to Valinor. We learn that there is a land bridge of sorts to the north, but it is full of dangerous “grinding ice,” so instead Ulmo uproots an island and moves it to the shoreline so that everyone can hop aboard. This is quite possible the coolest thing, and it’s stuff like this that makes The Silmarillion feel properly mythic.

You’ll remember that at first, only two groups of Elves made the full journey to Middle-earth. The Vanyar and the Nolder take the island-ship to Valinor. The Elves loved the light of the Trees, but they missed the stars under which they’d lived in Middle-earth, so the Valar create a deep valley that leads to the eastern shore of Valinor with a mountain from which one can view both their new home and their old. Upon the mountain the Elves built their city Tirion, and Yavanna makes them a mini-Tree that’s just as beautiful as the ones lighting Valinor, but without any self-giving light. The White Tree of Númenor is a descendant of this tree!

Even though the Vanyar and Noldar are having a good time in Valinor, communing with the Valar and learning all sorts of skills and crafts, they miss their kin. So let’s pop back to Middle-earth and see what the Teleri have been up to, shall we?

The Teleri Tarry

You’ll remember that the leader of the Teleri found himself in a love trance with Melian, and his people anxiously hung out on the shore of Middle-earth waiting to see if he would ever show up again. Ossë, a Maiar who essentially works for Ulmo, befriends them, and the Teleri become known as “lovers of water” and “the fairest singers of all the Elves.”

The cries of the Elves in Valinor convince Ulmo to take the ship-island back to Middle-earth to see if any of the Teleri want to make the second journey. It is unclear why the island couldn’t just perpetually float back and forth like a ferry, but Tolkien does like to focus on adventures that demand a choice, and regular travel options don’t really fit with that aesthetic.

Weirdly, the island gets all the way to the Bay of Eldamar (chapter title!), Ossë convinces them to stop the island and just…live on the island. It’s a weird choice to me, since it seems like the worst of both worlds. They’re no longer in Middle-earth, but also not in Valinor with the other Elves! But they seem happy enough, especially when the problem is solved by Ossë teaching them how to build actual ships. They can now make their way to Valinor and back to the island as they wish. Even when they’re in the Undying Lands, however, they like to stick close to the water. They build their own city called Alqualondë on the shores, and they take the gems that the Noldor give them and strew them along the beaches so that they positively glitter. UM, COOL. Tell me you’re rich without telling me you’re rich: “My beaches are full of gemstones.”

The Teleri Who Stayed Behind

Some of the Teleri chose not to go on either of the two island-voyages because they wanted to see if their leader would ever return. And eventually he does! After a very long time, Thingol and Melian come out of their love-trance and find the waiting Teleri. Thingol is disappointed to have missed out on seeing Valinor, but only temporarily, because the light of Valinor shines in Melian’s face. Cute, right? His time spent with a Maiar has changed him, and we get this juicy tidbit about his future: “Fair and noble as he had been, now he appeared as if it were a lord of the Maiar, his hair as grey silver, tallest of all the Children of Ilúvatar; and a high doom was before him.” I’m sure that’ll be fine.

The Family Tree You’ve Got to Learn

Everyone is now fairly settled; most of the Elves are in Valinor, although Thingol and some of the Teleri stayed in Middle-earth with the Maiar Melian. With everyone in place, The Silmarillion tells us about the family around whom the rest of the book is going to revolve, and spoilers, Galadriel enters the story here!

Finwë is the King of the Noldor, the Elves who befriended Aulë and loved to make things. His first son is born to his first wife Miriel, and this son is HELLA IMPORTANT. Fëanor, don’t forget his name. Miriel dies and Finwë marries Indis, and together they have two more sons, Fingolfin and Finarfin. Yes, there are a lot of “F”s this family.

We will go into a ton more depth with these characters as the story progresses, but take note! Finarfin’s youngest child is Galadriel, making her Fëanor’s niece and therefore tied up in all the ish that’s about to hit the fan.

Chapter 5 sets the stage for all the drama that’s about to unfold, and we’ll learn more about the main dramatist, Fëanor, in chapter 6!

All the (Silmarillion) Feels is an emotion- and story-focused summary of The Silmarillion. You’ll get facts, but that’s not the point here. Let’s talk themes, meaningful quotes, and moments that made us go “WHOA.” I started this project after falling in love with The Rings of Power television show, so expect me to focus on things to do with Galadriel and Sauron.

Chapter 4: Of Thingol and Melian

Short but Sweet

This chapter is a mere two pages long, but a lot of romance is packed within these pages. In fact, alongside Aragorn/Arwen and Beren/Luthien, I would say that Thingol/Melian is one of the most romantic pairings in all of Middle-earth. They’re all also about otherworldly women singing in glades while being beautiful, so clearly both Tolkien and I have a type!

Melian

Our first lovebird is Melian, who is unique in Middle-earth for being a female Maia. The Maiar are higher beings like the Valar, though one step down in the power hierarchy. For reference, both Gandalf and Sauron are Maiar. Like them, she chooses to spend her time in Middle-earth rather than Valinor, though when she was in the land of the gods, her preferred haunt was hanging with Lórien, the Valar of dreams and visions. She is similarly magical, though her enchantments involve singing and drawing nightingales to her side; she’s very much a Disney princess.

Elwë/Thingol

Our second lovebird is Elwë, the leader of the Teleri, the third group of Elves to journey across Middle-earth toward Valinor. During the journey, he leaves the group and is captured by the song of nightingales. Literally! Hearing Melian’s voice, “it filled all his heart with wonder and desire” to the point that he forgets about all of his friends, family, and duty. Meeting Melian the Maia is so powerful that he changes his name to Elu Thingol and never rejoins his clan. Instead, his brother Olwë becomes the leader of the Teleri.

A Magical Love

Elwë is lovestruck by the sound of Melian’s voice, and when she sees him for the first time, she is just as entranced. In fact, having laid eyes upon each other, “they stood thus while long years were measured by the wheeling stars above them; and the trees of Nan Elmoth grew tall and dark before they spoke any word.”

Guys, Tolkien was a capital R romantic. He loved love, and he wasn’t afraid to write about the wonder and desire that is so utterly captivating that you could spend literal years staring into your beloved’s eyes. Is it silly? Yes. Is it a little weird that all of his romantic leading ladies are chivalric queens to be adored and worshipped? Yes. But I love it!

Anyway, Elwë becomes Thingol, and he and Melian make a home called Menegroth. They rule together for a very long time, and we will get to see them again in later chapters. They are also the ancestors of some of Middle-earth’s greatest; their daughter Luthien is the grandmother of Elrond and therefore great-grandmother of Arwen, wife of Aragorn. Of course, these are the generations of immortals, so from great-great-grandmother Melian to Arwen is thousands of years.

Chapter 4 was a nice little snapshot of individual characters, but chapter 5 will take us back to the Elves who are crossing Middle-earth in an attempt to enter Valinor!

All the (Silmarillion) Feels is an emotion- and story-focused summary of The Silmarillion. You’ll get facts, but that’s not the point here. Let’s talk themes, meaningful quotes, and moments that made us go “WHOA.” I started this project after falling in love with The Rings of Power television show, so expect me to focus on things to do with Galadriel and Sauron.

Chapter 3: Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor

Darkness Grows

As the chapter opens, the Valar are hanging out in Valinor, “dwel[ling] in bliss” like they do, while Melkor has free rein of Middle-earth, creating balrogs and giving strongholds to his lieutenant Sauron. The Valar are basically playing The Sims and getting distracted by a shiny new house and family after forgetting all about that first family you made whose kitchen is on fire.

Yavanna continues to be the standout Valar by demanding the group stop thinking only of themselves, saying:

There is intense ambivalence among the Valar, and they mostly decide to keep waiting around, although Varda does create more stars so that the Children will have better lighting when they awaken. Which they do, almost immediately.

The Elves Awaken

Naming themselves Quendi, the Elves begin their existence in Cuiviénen, and because the Valar put in the bare minimum in preparing the world for their coming, life is terrifying! Melkor “sent shadows and evil spirits to spy on them and waylay them” for YEARS before Oromë stumbles upon them. In the meantime, Melkor is also kidnapping some of them and creating his own race – of Orcs.

Yes, this is what Adar was talking about in The Rings of Power when he claimed to be the Father of Orcs!

The Valar Finally Do Something Helpful

Because their early years were full of terror, the Elves in Cuiviénen initially think Oromë is also going to hurt them, but some find the courage to engage with him and realize he’s a good guy. He returns to Valinor to urge the Valar to help the Elves, but as per usual, “they debated long” and Manwë “sat long in thought.” These are not the people to go to in an emergency!

After taking their sweet time, the Valar finally decide to go to war and defeat Melkor’s reign of terror in Middle-earth. Very slightly making up for their late arrival, they set up a guard around the Elves to ensure that they do not experience the effects of war.

Gods battling upon the land reshapes Middle-earth, creating bays and mountain ranges, and in the end, the Valar are successful. Utumno’s gates are broken, Melkor is captured, and he is “cast into prison in the fastness of Mandos, whence none can escape.”

Just when the Valar are looking pretty good, they get lazy again.

I’m sure that won’t lead to any problems.

The Great Elf Migration

One of my favorite things about The Silmarillion is that we get to see different kinds of Elves with different priorities and beliefs. They get to be diverse rather than the monolithically Strong, Wise, and Slow Elves that we see depicted in The Lord of the Rings movies.

After the Valar make Middle-earth safe for the Elves, they promptly invite them to leave and journey to their cooler, better digs aka Valinor. It is at this point that we get multiple Elf groups, and even though I’m salty about the Valar’s preference for Valinor over Middle-earth, there is very much the implication that the Elves that go to Valinor are better than the ones that stay behind. We have:

• The Vanyar, led by Ingwë. The smallest group, but the first to set forth. They hecking love Valinor and the Valar, and they never wanna leave.
• The Noldor, led by Finwë. Beloved of Aulë, this group is renowned in song for their labours, and they are going to be the focus of a LOT of future stories in The Silmarillion.
• The Teleri, led by Elwë and Olwë. The largest and slowest group, they loved water and kept stopping on their journey to enjoy the beautiful landscape.

These three groups are all called the Calaquendi, or Elves of the Light, because they went to Valinor and lived under the light of the Trees. In contrast, the Moriquendi, or Elves of the Darkness, stayed in Middle-earth and lived only by starlight. These were the Avari, who refused the initial journey and stayed in Cuiviénen, as well as anyone who set out but stopped along the way like the Nandor.

I’m a huge dork who enjoys all these details, but what you need to know is this:

THE SUMMARY

1. The Elves have arrived!
2. Melkor terrorized the Elves, and the Valar captured and imprisoned him.
3. The Valar invited the Elves to Valinor, and the story pretty much only cares about the ones who went.

This was a long chapter, but never fear, chapter 4 is only two pages long! Two really good pages, because in it is one of the great love stories of The Silmarillion.