An Overview of The Silmarillion: Part Eight

Note:  This is the final part of my series analyzing J.R.R. Tolkien's greatest literary work.

The final section of The Silmarillion begins long before Númenor falls.  We review happenings upon Middle-earth during its rise and fall and in the days of Elendil in the Second Age.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch…With the destruction of Beleriand during the Great War of Wrath, the remaining Elves scatter across the refashioned geography.  Gil-galad leads many Noldor at the Grey Havens.  Teleri survivors of Doriath and Ossiriand move eastward into the wooded regions.  Eregion becomes a Noldor kingdom as well.  Here great craftsmen emerge with Celebrimbor, grandson of Fëanor, being the most skilled.  The Dwarves of Moria ally themselves with Eregion.

We are told that the downfall of Númenor “was more terrible than Sauron had foreseen.”  The Dark Lord survives being cast into the abyss that swallows the once great island nation.  He offers repentance to the Valar.  Tolkien tells us that “this was not at first falsely done.”  Sauron’s mind is blown by the extent of the Valar’s wrath and he genuinely fears them.  But when the powers insist that he return to Aman, he is “ashamed” and “unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence.”

Instead, Sauron secretly returns to Middle-earth and offers counsel to the Elves.  Though Gil-galad and Elrond in Lindon have nothing to do with him, Sauron is nevertheless a Maiar of superior power and his insightful counsels are soon accepted in Eregion where the Noldor learn the craft he teaches.  It is in this way that the Elves become skilled enough to create the Rings of Power – nine for Men, seven for Dwarves, and three for the Elves themselves.  These are truly the wonder (and bane) of the Age.

When the Three discover that Sauron has made the One Ring that rules them all, they remove Narya, Nenya, and Vilya, hiding them so that Sauron never touches them.  Whereas the Rings for Dwarves and Men were made by several highly skilled Elves, Celebrimbor creates the Three by himself, perhaps thinking of the three Silmarils of his grandfather.  Perhaps like his grandfather, he pays for their creation with his life.   Sauron attacks Eregion in an attempt to capture the Three, laying waste to the region and slaying Celebrimbor.  Moria is shut.  Just before he had to hide his Ring of Power, Elrond builds Imladris (Rivendell) as a haven harkening back to the greatness of the First Age.  Tolkien leans more toward the Elfish words for place names in The Silmarillion, whereas in the trilogy he leans more toward how Humans say things.

The Rings given to the Dwarves prove difficult for Sauron to control.  With the passage of time each of these is lost to dragons and so become trinkets in great hordes of wealth.  Somehow Sauron recovers a few of these though Tolkien never mentions how they are used, if at all.  It is interesting that Tolkien puts this little detail into the work.  He must have planned to do something with the fact that Sauron recovers three Dwarven Rings.  But it is only a passing fact.  It does not propel the story in any meaningful way.  Perhaps this is another little moment when the “unfinished” nature of the narrative peeks through.

The Nine rings for Men are easier to control.  Though all of the Men become mighty in their day they eventually become the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths).  Sauron’s “lust and pride increased” during this time, the Dark Years, when Sauron controls most of Middle-earth.  The Elves flee to Lindon but to the east and south Men fall under the Sauron’s power.

All this happens while Númenor grows in strength.  As is told in the preceding section, when Sauron challenges Númenorean interests in Middle-earth, he ends up becoming a prisoner and taken away to the island.  After his counsels there lead to a cataclysm, his spirit returns.  Elendil leads the Faithful to the shelter of Gil-galad.  Isildur and Anárion explore the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.  Many fortress towers are built for protection against Sauron.  Isildur resides in Minas Ithil where the fruit of Nimloth that he managed to steal before departing Númenor is planted and grows into the White Tree. Anárion stays at Minas Anor. 

In addition to the fruit of the White Tree, Elendil brings the Seven Seeing Stones (Palantíri) from Númenor.  These are scattered around the various fortresses in order to facilitate communication between all these places “but those who possessed great strength of will and of mind might learn to direct their gaze whither they would.”  There is an excellent short essay about them in Unfinished Tales.

From Barad-dûr, Sauron attacks and manages to take Minas Ithil, destroying the White Tree.  Fortunately, Isildur, once again, salvages a seedling of what remains of the primordial Light.  Anárion holds Osgiliath and drives Sauron’s forces back into the mountains.  It is now that the Last Alliance of Elves and Men is formed. 

The Alliance wins the Battle of Dagorlad and lays siege to Barad-dûr for seven years.  Tolkien surely had the horrors of trench warfare in mind here.  Through the years, Sauron orders many sorties against the Alliance with Anárion dying in one of them.  In the final sortie, Sauron himself goes to battle.  Elendil and Gil-galad both die battling the Dark Lord.  But Isildur takes the shard helm of Narsil and cuts the One Ring from Sauron’s finger.  The Dark Lord “forsook his body, and his spirit fled away and hid in waste places.” 

So begins the Third Age.  “…for long the White Tree of the Eldar flowered in the courts of the Kings of Men, for the seedling which he saved Isildur planted in the citadel of Anor in memory of his brother, ere he departed from Gondor.  The servants of Sauron were routed and dispersed, yet they were not wholly destroyed; and though many Men turned now from evil and became subjects of the heirs of Elendil, yet many more remembered Sauron in their hearts and hated the kingdoms of the West.”

Elrond and Círdan both advise Isildur to destroy the Ring but to Isildur it “seemed to him exceedingly fair to look on.”  He decides to keep it and soon loses it when he is killed along with three of his sons in a surprise Orc attack at Gladden Fields.  There is also an extended account of this battle in Unfinished Tales.  Tolkien writes that the Ring “betrayed” Isildur.  It wants to get back to its maker.  But, instead, it is lost.

The Shards of Narsil are taken to Imadris where Isildur’s youngest son, Valandil, is under the watchful eye of Elrond, the brother of Isildur’s forbearer, Elros.  But gradually, the Númenorean line of Valandil and the Men of Eriador “became divided into petty realms and lordships, and their foes devoured them one by one.”  The northern kingdom of Arnor dissolves with the passage of time, its promise only remembered in Imladris.

For a time, Gondor grows in splendor but then it, too, wanes.  Plagues hit Gondor’s people and many die.  Its army eventually abandons its forts in Mordor and Minas Ithil.  Evil returns to those places.  The Nazgûl take Minas Ithil and rename it Minas Morgal.  Meanwhile, Minas Anor remains in a near-constant state of war.  Osgiliath is deserted and Arnor is renamed Minas Tirith.  Eärnur, the last King, goes into battle with the Nazgûl, is captured and never heard from again.  He has no heir.  With the line of Kings broken, Stewards take over the rule of Gondor and the Rohirrim come to Rohan.

Since Sauron is gone and the One Ring is missing, the Elves are able to make use of their Three Rings.  With them (with only two of them, actually) they fashion the last geographic points that resembled the First Age greatness of the Eldar.  Círdan does not have a Ring, but he remains at the Grey Havens which have been glorious for a long time already.  Elrond wears his at Imladris.  Galadriel wears hers in Lothlórien.  It is noteworthy that Galadriel was one of the first Elves born upon Middle-earth.  Outside of the Valar, she is the oldest character in The Silmarillion.

“Thus it was that the two domains the bliss and beauty of the Elves remained still undiminished while the Age endured.”  Being melancholy Elves, they know this will not last.  “…but in either chance the powers of the Three must then fail and all things maintained by them must fade, and so the Elves should pass into the twilight and the Dominion of Men begin.”

The Third Age is marked by nostalgia for the past punctuated by brief moments of splendor and the gradual decline of traditions into mediocrity and evil.  As such, the Age marks the rise of the Eastlings and lesser Men.  Few Númenoreans actually populate Middle-earth, the majority were annihilated in the abyss.  Tolkien specifies that, after that lengthy bloody siege of Barad-dur: “…of the Númenoreans and of the men of Eriedor there remained now too few to people the land or to maintain all the places that Elendil had built…”  Most of the Men at this stage of the narrative are arriving from the east or south. 

Tolkien does not provide many details about them except, with a few exceptions, they tend to be treacherous and uneducated.  A few learn from the Númenoreans, of course, and achieve a higher standard of civilization.  But mostly Eastlings seem to be tribal and nomadic in culture.

Now the narrative shifts gears a bit.  With the downfall of Númenor, Aman is removed from the world to prevent Men from being tempted to sail there again.  But the Valar are not completely out of touch with the Third Age.  They send the Istari to aid Middle-earth against Sauron.  They are known to Men as “wizards.”  Chief among them are Mithrandir and Curunir (Gandalf and Saruman).  Radagast is another, but he is so enchanted with birds and beasts that he remains aloof within the natural world.  Curunir arrives first and spends most of his time among Men to begin with.  Mithrandir prefers the company of the Elves, especially Elrond.

They arrive as a “shadow” falls upon the forest of Mirkwood.  The Shadow is another classic Tolkien theme.  Curunir openly doubts it is due to Sauron, whereas Mithrandir is inclined to believe that the Sorcerer has something to do with it.  Gandalf searches Dol Guldur and whatever evil presence is residing there escapes.  Peace remains upon Middle-earth for a while longer. 

The White Council is then formed consisting of Elrond, Galadriel, Círdan, Curumír, and Mithrandir.  Galadriel wishes Gandalf head the Council but he refuses.  Saruman is the eldest and knows the most craft.  He takes that position.  But, in a now familiar refrain throughout The Silmarillion, Tolkien tells us that Saruman’s “pride and desire of mastery was grown great.”  The head of the Council begins to study the Rings of Power and their history from his tower, Orthanc.

Gandalf’s watchful eye realizes that some evil has returned again to Dol Guldur.  He advises immediate action.  But Saruman urges them to wait and observe, learn what they can before acting.  This seems perfectly reasonable, the One Ring is missing.  What should the combined powers of the Council fear from Sauron without it?  In truth, Curumír deceives everyone.  He hopes Sauron might discover where the Great Ring is and that he should take the Ring from Sauron for himself to “order all the world to his will.”

But the evil in Mirkwood and Don Guldur grows more menacing and the entire Council now urges Saruman to act.  Unable to advise caution any longer lest he give himself away, Curumír agrees.  This is the last time he aids those allied against the Dark Lord.

All the while, Elrond has a foreboding that the Ring will be found and, indeed, it is discovered “by a chance more strange than Mithrandir had foreseen; and it was hidden from Curunir and from Sauron.  For it had been taken from Anduin long ere they sought for it, being found by one of the small fisher-folk that dwelt by the River, ere the Kings failed in Gondor.”

The Ring turns up among, of all people, the Periannath, as the Halflings are called in Sindarian.  In this way, mere chance plays the greatest role of all in the future of the Ring.  Had Sauron found it, he would have wielded its power to the great conquest of Middle-earth.  Had Saruman gotten it first some similar calamity would have happened.  But since it is found where no one expects it to be, and since Mithrandir had long befriended the Periannath out of his own amusement, the Ring’s discovery came about in a manner where it could cause the least harm. Surprises of chance are yet another theme within Tolkien’s work.

Mithrandir and the remaining Dúnedain keep watch upon the land of the Periannath and bide their time.  “But Sauron had many ears, and soon he heard rumor of the One Ring, which above all things he desired, and he sent forth the Nazgûl to take it.  Then war was kindled, and in the battle with Sauron the Third Age ended even as it had begun.”

It is important to note that, had the Ring never been found, Sauron might have yet won the Age.  The fact is Tolkien tells us that in the last battle before the Black Gate of Mordor the Gondorians and Rohirrim “looked upon death and defeat, and all their valor was in vain; for Sauron was too strong.”  And here is where Tolkien places his sense of hope.

Throughout The Silmarillion the themes of mortality and desire and pride and power dominate the narrative.  But always in the end some hope, often unexpected and surprising, manages to strike through and linger.  It is only through the greatest suffering and the direst circumstances that salvation comes to those who choose to carry on despite seeming hopelessness.

The White Tree Isildur planted in the courtyard at Minas Amor is the singular narrative thread stitching The Silmarillion together.  The Tree is prominent through the Third Age.  It is a seedling of the Tree at Minas Ithul, which is bore from the fruit of Nimloth, which is a seedling of Celeborn, which is a seedling of Galathilion, which was made by Yvanna from Telperion.   As such, Light and nature are themes of hope, diminished but glorious nevertheless.

Splintered Light (2002) is a good representation of serious Tolkien scholarship.  It covers the theme of fragmentation of Light as well as other aspects of Tolkien’s entire body of work.  Tolkien’s work is more than just a heroic story with some fancy linguistics thrown in.  There is an underlying inner turmoil and uncertainty mixed with the surprise of hope.  Near the end of The Lord of the Rings the Light continues as a seedling planted by Aragorn at the beginning of the Fourth Age.

But the surprise of hope in the case of The Lord of the Rings (the destruction of the One Ring) lies in a race that merits mention on only one page of The Silmarillion.  Where does hope lie in the grander epic?   It lies in Men, of course.  The Eldar of Tol Eressëa give the Light of the Tree of Tirion to Elros.  First, Númenoreans then Gondorians keep the lineage of the Tree (and, hence, the Light) alive in Middle-earth.  After all this passage of time, Humans are entrusted with the lineage of the original Trees of Light.

World War One seemed reckless and hopeless to many in the trenches of 1917.  Millions were being slaughtered on both sides in the most horrific industrial warfare the world had ever known.  But Tolkien survived.  All his friends were dead but he had other friends, and family, of course.  He knew it was not the heroes that went over the top and made the charge and died.  It was the simplest of ordinary men.  And that is how the war was won, by grand charges made by common men, some of whom did not die.  Some of whom lead the way to victory. 

Tolkien was a pessimistic person really.  He saw the inevitable fruits of the Industrial Revolution upon agrarian culture.  But he applied his Catholicism to the end of the world as he knew it.  Through all the Ages, somehow or other, one can never see it coming, we manage to find our way.  And the good outweighs the bad in those moments just enough for a ray of greatness to part the fabric of time and show us now something wondrous from long, long ago.

In the case of The Silmarillion that takes us back to the Ainulindalë, to where everything that happens later through all these Ages is but a manifestation of the singing of the Ainur.  Melkor sang the loudest and with discord and yet, upon the ending of the Third Theme, Ilúvatar: “raised up both his hands, and in one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light in the eye of Ilúvatar, the Music ceased.”

Then Ilúvatar declares specifically to Melkor: “…no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.  For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.”

To “devise things more wonderful” is the fundamental hope expressed in The Silmarillion.  Throughout the narrative every destruction is overcome with renewal into something surprising and, often, glorious.  The key, apparently, is when you achieve the glorious, don’t take too much pride and desire from it.  That brings the bulk of misery and, eventually, the end of the world as we know it.    

   

For all its minor imperfections, The Silmarillion is a monumental achievement in 20th century literature.  The story of creation and the Silmarils and the first three Ages is epic and adventurous.  The themes Tolkien considers in the narrative are fundamental to human experience.  Whatever you might think of his perspective, these themes are nestled in a well-crafted world marvelous and terrifying.

The Silmarillion is more of a feast for the expansive mind than it is for the yearning heart.  I cannot say it resonates with the reader in the same way The Lord of the Rings does.  The Hobbit and the trilogy allow for character development and affect the reader emotionally.  The Silmarillion has little emotional appeal to it because it does not take time to develop the characters.  And even the most developed ones like, say, Fëanor give the reader very little to connect with compared to, say, Frodo or Sam.

It is presented as history, which was Tolkien’s preference.  Any emotional relationship to it is purely big view, metaphysical emotion of nostalgia or sadness sweeping through time.  Therefore, it is truly “monumental” as a history of a fantastic world.  But this does not detract from what the work accomplishes.  The depth and breadth by which Tolkien’s imagination and vision philosophically collides with the existential questions of modernity is a rarity.  The history, as his-story, is competently and creatively told as the grand struggle all global history seems to be.