Everyone Dies (Except Galadriel)

Chapter 14: Of Beleriand and Its Realms

So, we're actually over halfway through with the Silmarillion. Let me know if you want me to do The Hobbit and LotR next!

If you want to read a version of this story that has actually been edited and the chapters aren't in parts you can find me on AO3 under the name Sarisse_Silor. I've only done through Chapter 9 over there (as of today) but it's a lot less jumbled and clunky in some areas. 

I've ended up super bogged down writing this chapter, like we're talking months, so...sorry.

---

I don't know how to express how little I want to do this chapter. 

We're basically in for a Geography lesson first. I don't love the map a ton just because, with my eyes at least, I have a hard time reading it. Unfortunately, although I have been working on a replacement, I do not, as of right now, have one. 

I really don't know how to go into this without just repeating what Tolkien said. There's really quite little, if any story in this chapter, and although it's good to know where everything is there isn't much that I as a commentator can do with it. 

Melkor and Angband come up first, and I have the same problem with the map provided that I had with maps before: despite this being the abode of the main antagonist of the book and kind of the point of origin for a lot of the bad shit, it isn't actually shown on the map. 

Bear with me while I try to explain. 

If you look at where Hithlum is at the top left, that area is actually partially cut off. It should expand upward toward the Iron Mountains and along the coast farther northwest if I remember correctly. Then, if you kind of draw a line from to the northernmost part of Hithlum and go until you're kind of over the center of Dorthonion, and Thrangrodim is around there. 

(That's where they used Maedhros as wall decoration for a while)

Then go north from Thrangrodim into the mountains and there you go. Angband. 

Very strategically placed, actually; mountains in front, Dor Daidelos to your back...ambush is gonna be pretty tough. 

Explaining this makes me feel like Sauron on the phone with his Uber Eats driver whose GPS (probably voiced by Galadriel) took them to West Beleriand and I'm trying to give him directions to Angband before my nachos get cold. 

"Yeah, so when you get to Dor Daedeloch you're gonna hang a left at Thangrodrim and then...no...no if you're at Ard-Galen then you've gone too far. You can probably make a U-turn at Lothlann." 

And then when he finally gets here they forgot my drink. 

Anyway, Tolkien doesn't tell us too much more about Angband that we didn't already know. It's cold, dark, scary, and there are a ton of underground tunnels; he also literally refers to it as "hell". 

Fingolfin and Fingon were in charge of the area called Hithlum, which was the "land of mist" and was super cold and...misty. They also had a ton of super rad horses. 

Over yonder in Neverast, Turgon makes his original home. It's on the coast, and is pretty damp most of the time. Tolkien mentions that the Grey Elves lived there, which, again, is just yet another name for the Sindar; Tolkien says that they lived there specifically because Ulmo and Ossë had a tendency to visit "in days of old."

Interestingly, Tolkien introduced Ossë way back at the beginning in that really tiny chapter that I mostly skipped over. I skipped it because it didn't make much sense timeline-wise, and we already had so many names being thrown at us that adding some more in there felt like a bad idea. 

I think this is why so many people find it hard to read the Silm unless you have five family trees, two reference books, every Tolkien Wiki pulled up on your phone, and a notebook next to you, because he does this thing where he will mention someone like this once, in a way where it seems like you're never gonna see this person again, and then way down the line you're like "oh heck, who's that?" 

I don't really know WHERE a good place to go into Ossë's backstory would be, honestly, but all you need to know is that he's a Maia of Ulmo who really liked the Sinda and the Teleri, he preferred tidal areas, and he had a temper sometimes. 

Apparently, he also liked to show up in Neverast occasionally. 

So Turgon lives there for a while and that's really all we find out, except that his fortress was called Vinyamar, which I think is a cool name. 

South of that is Dorthonion, and in my original copy of the book which I'm using for this, I apparently scribbled "DOOR ONION HAHA" in the margins when I was 14, so...anyway, Angrod and Aegnor (two of Finarfin's sons) lived there. There were lots of pine trees. The land there was apparently pretty barren, however, and the area is described as "the great highlands."

There was a kinda narrow area squeezed between Door-Onion and some shadowy mountains is where the River Sirion is, and some of y'all LotR nerds might recall that that's where Minas Tirith is. Finrod actually built the watchtower there, though later he moved to Nargothrond (which he also built) and left Minas Tirith under the command of Orodreth. 

In the Falas, Cirdan the Shipwright lived and made boats. Cirdan is interesting mostly because he's the only elf to ever have a beard. I don't know why he had one but he did. He and Finrod were friends. Yay.

Oh my god, this chapter is so long--

You know what? Fuck it. We're almost at a thousand words. Y'all need something from me. I'll make a part two.