Craig Answers Questions about Tolkien's First Age

Hello everybody, this is Echoes of War. I'm joined here yet again by my co-host, Gharav, how are you?

Hey Greg, great to be back and really looking forward to today's episode because it's Echoes of War with a different line of, or a different theme we are tackling. Different theme, completely different software. For those of you who don't watch us on YouTube, we've been using Zoom for a long time and yeah, the quality is terrible. Let's just be very blunt and honest about that. It's not good. It's not professional, even though I was paying for like the pro Zoom plan, whatever.

We're now using what I think a lot of people are using. It's Riverside. And we don't fully understand how to use this yet, but we're going to try and make do. But stating that there's gonna be a lot of pictures, I guess maybe maps in this case. I don't know if we'll have maps in this one. It's a weird subject. I think this is going to catch people off guard. Although I did do a few Tolkien based episodes in the past. I guess we're going to call this questions about the first age.

I don't know. This is a random one, to be sure. I think we are just trying to experiment, maybe going into the military aspects of fiction. Yeah. And history. I mean, if you ever wanted a fantasy series that at least is the closest possible to actual history, this is the one. Tolkien's work is ground in, every piece of it is ground in actual history, if you look into it.

But before we jump into this, of course, if you'd like to further support the channel, consider joining the YouTube membership or the Patreon over at www.patreon.com. By joining either of these, you get access to the exclusive podcast series. It's 28 episodes and ongoing by now. Get early access to all the content I make and voting rights for the subjects I will tackle next. Could be Lord of the Rings, if you really want. I have a lot of information.

You know, actually, maybe I'll just explain to the audience. Experience this isn't kind of like some rat you know really random oh we like lord of the rings let's talk about it moment as many of you know i work for kings and generals as a writer and narrator for the podcasts, I don't just write history for them. For their secondary channel, which is Wizards and Warriors, I write, I would say, the majority of their Lord of the Rings content.

There's a few other writers, but for all of the Army, Armies of Middle-Earth episodes, and for the economy of Middle-Earth, it's all me. And I've just been given more projects in the future that are interesting. Spoiler alert, if people are really interested, this is a cool one. There's an illegal book. It's not officially Tolkien. It was written by a Russian author.

It's basically the sequel to Lord of the Rings, and it's kind of, I don't know how you would call it, it's Lord of the Rings from Sauron's perspective, and it's a funny kind of Soviet look at anti-capitalism and stuff. It's crazy, this book. So I'm going to be writing about it. It's probably a series on their channel soon. It's going to be a lot of fun. Amongst answering all sorts of things, you know, from the Tolkien Legendarium.

Gerov recently read The Silmarillion, and he wanted to ask some questions.

And it kind of sucks for me because I haven't written about the First Age in almost two years at this point. I've just gone through the Second Age on their channel, and now I'm finishing up the Third Age for Middle-earth Armies. So my head is not in the First Age. And the First Age is the most complicated and abstract, we'll call it. So I can't answer probably all your questions. No, no one can. But I do consider myself like an amateur Tolkien scholar at this point.

Because I've read everything that there is. Personal letters. All of the extended books that came from all these other authors. You know, like Morgoth's Ring, for example. It's more obscure one that people should read. Unfinished Tales. Lost Tales. Of course, The Silmarillion. The Hobbit. Lord of the Rings. What else? Children of the Huron. There's so much Tolkien literature out there. Even his version of Beowulf, of course.

Yeah. Gareth, you're going to ask a bunch of questions. We're going to see where it takes us, but I'll try to answer as best as I can.

I much appreciate it because reading that piece of literary masterwork in its own way has completely rewired my brain, which I'm pretty sure many people will just agree with that sentiment.

That's extensive. All right. so i think let's start off with you know what do you call the main question is so we have our original dark lord saron's boss mongoth sometimes my friends have referenced him as the whiny angry kid that's a good actually a good reference yeah compared to saron yeah i mean yeah i mean saron was quite a seeming but so we know when the Eluitar created the Valar right. At that time, it is said, Melkor, as he was known then, was the first.

And all of the various Ainur represented a certain aspect of him, except Melkor, who was, I guess one way to put it, he was the jack of trades. He had powers of all the trades of the Iluvatar. All right. So when did he start, like when they were weaving the songs that would ultimately lead to the formation of Arda, What really caused him to really want to get so rebellious at that point? I think that's probably like the first part of the question.

Man, what a first question. Most abstract one, you could probably comment on all this. So Melkor represents a lot of things. Everything in Tolkien's Legendarium is a conflux of different parts of history, as well as religion. As you know, he was deeply Catholic. Anyone can easily look at this and you can point out, yeah, there's a lot of similarities between Melchor and Lucifer.

I'm not very religious, so I can't really speak as much as far as, you know, deep in depth looks into the Bible and such. But more or less, during this stage of the music, he kind of is embodying that Lucifer element. You know, he's the first one. He's the most powerful of the angelic spirits, we'll call it.

He immediately becomes jealous when the other Einar are participating in the music he himself wants to be I think initially closer to Lovatar because you know it's just like the same story as God and Lucifer right he wants to impress him and this becomes yeah sorry I was just about to say so he rebelled because he had that issues well yeah kind of actually yes yeah pretty much you know he and he wanted to impress him initially because jealousy turning into you know obsession and rage

these are kind of things that fuel tolkien's work ironically kind of if you if you like star wars some of the stuff that george lucas came up with actually came from lord of the rings as well so that's kind of a call that's a shout out well so i mean that's what sandboy did yeah exactly but so melkor he becomes jealous of the others and it he full he slowly succumbs To this jealousy It's almost like the freaking Yoda saying

at first it's like fear And then it turns into hate So he loses himself to his jealousy Of the others And then he is consumed by this need Not just to have his own independent personality.

Melodies in the music he wants to then just dominate the music so that he can prove himself to iluvitar he he wants like his rightful place in the sun so to say and if i'm not mistaken it was iluvitar who also told him that man way right is like his brother and to by the wording I think it's kind of implied that they are, to Illuvitar, these two are the top dogs. Yeah, but Manwe is chosen as the leader of the Valor over Melkos, of course.

True, it is, but this is before Arda is revealed to the Ainur. Of course. I guess that's why I'm not saying that he was chosen as the leader of the Valor specifically for that reason. But I guess he also kind of got annoyed that, yeah, I'm not sharing with Spotlight. Exactly. And, you know, they're the rivals in the end. I mean, to say that Uluvatar is not even present in the Legendarium is an understatement. He really isn't.

Like, in a lot of things, you know, Manwe is more of a physical presence, if that. He's not really physically there. But he becomes obsessed with Manwe and that kind of strings him along into what he does. And, you know, all he wants to do is dominate Arda going forward. But it all begins with the disturbance of his music. I thought it was interesting that Tolkien decided that the creation of the world was done through music. It's a very interesting way to go about it.

And it has a lot to do with his love of language. But yeah. Yeah, I think maybe this is just because you just mentioned the love of language.

I like the first time when you see the Lord of the Rings in the Fellowship, where Gandalf says, you shall not pass to the balrok right and you think this guy's a wizard why is he just like you know just shouting you shall not pass but when you read deeper into the tolkien lore you understand that words itself have so much power in his universe so the like for him to just say something like that you shall not pass if you like now apply that context of what you know how Tolkien valued the words.

It's equivalent to casting a very powerful defense spell, you could almost say. Yeah, absolutely. But I'm guessing when.

Melkor was he kind of like, you know, disrupted the music, he also was pretty successful at corrupting the other Maiar and what we will call the Valar, right? The greater spirits of you, Can you call them divinity, I guess? I mean, I'm not sure what would be the right word. Yeah, sure. And they're called Umar when they are corrupted by him officially. And it gets extremely confusing as to who these corrupted beings are, because you could have a very long list, but some of it is conjecture.

It's a lot of speculation because everyone needs to remember. Aside from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, nothing is technically canon. Tolkien never published any of these notes. These are all secondary. It was published by Christopher Tolkien. And many others after him. I mean, the grandson also. And then there's famous Tolkien scholars.

There's a, what's her name? Karen. Karen something wrote Nature of Middle-earth, which is a book I use extensively because she does a lot of homework trying to look into the geography of Middle-earth and basically trying to answer questions that Tolkien never even bothered to answer. Like, how were some of these populations fed? Like tens of thousands of people in an underground city, for example. It kind of doesn't make sense, right? But she did a lot of work.

I forget the name of the authors, excuse me. But yeah, there's a lot of people who've done a lot of work on this. I know. And I think that kind of makes it just so interesting. And I think when the world was revealed, right? As we know as RDoP. and we know not all of the greatest spirits went so those that remained and in the halls of Iluwitar as we could say were known as the Ainur and then Melkor, Manwe, Varda, Tulkas you know all these guys that end up going there they become the Valar.

And I think it was at this point also, Elowitar did mention that his children have already been feeded to the world, right? They are already ready. They just have to wake up. And it's honest, I don't think we should even get into this conversation, but I'll say this to the audience. For those who've read The Silmarillion, perhaps, or those who've just read Lord of the Rings, it's extremely complicated how Tolkien tries to explain the relationship.

And I'm not going to use the terms he uses because it'll be too complex, like Fea and stuff. He uses terms that are representing what is the physical body and the soul. And these are two completely different things in his world, which is very Catholic, mind you. And this is important for Melkor, who becomes Morgoth.

These are technically two different beings if you think about it, but all these greater Ainur, Maiar, Valor beings, if they were to encompass a physical body, it changes everything, and it isn't you're just having a physical body in quote-unquote Arda, you're part of Arda a little bit, and you can get trapped within Arda, which is actually what happens to Morgoth, it's kind of his downfall, and it gets more complicated than that, but I'll leave that in the background. All right.

I think maybe let's get into the first major race or species, right? The Alps, right? So they had already been fed into the world by Iluvatar.

Firstborn, but not the first to wake up. yeah true and we know that Varda created the stars right as a beacon like you could say they're literally the non-star for us like I think that's the best way for them to come to the light of the trees because by now Melkor has corrupted a lot of the land and he hates the elves he absolutely despises them only because his father created them that's pretty much the main reason again the first most powerful dark lord was guy with daddy issues

certainly good but maybe you could just give a bit of information about the three factions like just at a very high level because i don't there's only one house and faction that really really feeds into the story and we'll get to them all right can you see the picture i'm putting up which is the so this is a individual who went through the painstaking process of trying to make a coherent tree graph of the sundering of the elves. My God, this is so helpful in understanding it.

Yeah, that's why I was going to say, if you're not watching this, you should just watch this on YouTube because this is difficult. At least for this particular image. Whoops, one sec. I lost the ability to control it for a second there. Okay. Sorry, folks. It's the first time we are using Riverside. So bear with us as we try to learn the use of it.

Here i'm just gonna share again so i retain the ability to zoom in okay there we go yeah it's because for me your camera is right over some of them but anyways so the sundering for those understand that's like the dividing of these houses think of it as evolution so there is a group of elves that emerge they awaken and we'll call the the east in arda we'll call it middle earth in a place that you don't really need to know about because it's never really talked about again except for

like when other people wake up forgotten yeah but this group they get divided because of what you're saying there's these stars that are put up and it's basically a beacon that they're supposed to come west they're going to go to the you know the undying lands of man where all the you know valinor where all of the angelic spirits are basically and it's yeah if i'm not mistaken it is because orome the hunter spirit of the valar

found them because he was the only Valar that kind of really still was on this continent, not in Valinor.

Yeah. And the elves are not aware of any of this, right? They're not born with this awareness of who the creator was and all this. So like you said, Melkor, which he does, this is what he does always. He comes over and he lies to them and he tries to corrupt them against the will of Iluvatar. This is basically his thing. That's what he does. Yeah, actually, I remember reading someone or hearing someone say that he's never created. Illumina created a race of men. He can only corrupt things, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, at least Alway created the dwarves, so I'm going to give him that. Exactly. Yeah, so I've actually run into this because of, you know, just the English language. If I'm writing a script about the First Age, it's like, oh, Morgoth did not create trolls. He corrupted perhaps ants into trolls or some other being, we don't know, that made trolls. Like, in Tolkien's notes, trolls are a twisted version of ants to, like, make fun of them.

Whereas orcs was to make fun of elves or perhaps humans later. Yeah, I think that's literally mentioned in the, I think, Fellowship, when Saruman explains it to one of the Uruk-hai when he says how the first orcs came into being.

Exactly. Because to make things so much more complicated, not only is the Silmarillion and other works like this secondhand note information, if you even accept it to be the reality, it's written in a context as if an elf who might not know everything wrote the Silmarillion. So you can't even believe the author. It's actually really annoying.

It's actually, but it's, I actually find that so beautiful because we are talking about them as if we are reading their version of the mythology of events, right? Yeah, because ultimately what it's kind of supposed to be. So Tolkien was basing this, and this is just me spouting out, you know, kind of opinions, as if you found somebody at the library of Alexandria who was writing about stuff hundreds of years before his own time.

Sure, he might have some primary source of information, secondary source of information, whatever, but you can't really trust this author. He wasn't there, right? He doesn't know for sure. It's the same thing with the Silmarillion. Tolkien is literally writing in that sense, which is very interesting. And it shows his deep understanding of history.

Back to the house. So the elves, the first sundering is those who start this journey, we'll call it the journey just going west, they're going to be called the Eldar going forward. The ones who just stay back and they don't even bother to go looking for these lights, they're called the Avadi. And you can think of them as dark elves. For those of you who read other fantasy things like Elder Scrolls and all that stuff, they're not that kind of dark elf. It's completely different. Yeah, yeah.

It's very different. I mean, you think of Dark Elves or, like, say, Elder Scrolls, you think of it in Warhammer, like... Exactly. ...Vakari. Yeah. World of Warcraft. Or you think of, like, how you see them in... Shit. What is one... Great franchise. Oh, yeah. You know how they show the Dark Elves in Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yes. That's a good one. They're not evil. They're not evil.

Right? Because in these factions, they are pretty much the evil faction, the way they're portrayed and they operate. These are just dark, called Dark Elves, because they do not seek out the light of Valadol. Yeah. They live under the moon. And Tolkien based his elves off of, it's a blend of Norse with some kind of things hitting hitting at Celtism and all sorts of other things.

A lot of stuff that has to do with the cultures in modern day Finland and in the Finnish language, which is over my head completely. But yeah, his version of elves is not what we think of really in other fantasy novels today. They've really changed that. So anyways, the avari, they basically leave them aside for now. They're not really relevant for 99% of Tolkien's work. There are a few of Ari that like are kind of famous, but they're not really present, really.

The Eldar, they're at the front stage. For the Eldar, there's three sunderings that are important. There's the Vanya, the Noldar, and the Tellurie. Basically, to brutally summarize, the Vanya, they are like the first ones to make the journey. They go to the Undying Lands. The Noldar, the second ones. You could call them the most eager of the lot. Yeah. The Vanya and the Noldar, they all heed the call and they go to the Undying Lands.

The Tellery don't all heed the call. Actually, the majority don't. Some of them do heed the call. They're called the Famari and they're kind of like a sea-faring type of elf people that live on this kind of little special island and on the mainland of the Undying Lands. Let's put aside the Noldar and the Vanya for now because the Tellery are kind of more important. those of the Tellurie that decide to stay back, they end up forming other groups and other groups there's the Sindar and the Nandor.

Who will become, eventually in the Third Age, the Silvian Elves and the Lacandi. So we're talking like Legolas's, you know, the Mirkwood Forest Elves and stuff. Of the Sindar, there's the Eifrim, the Falathim, and the Elves of Mirkham. And it gets much more confusing because this goes into the Second Age and the Third Ages, but more or less, the Elves of Lothlorien and Mirkwood are all kind of the descendants of these ones.

Some descend from the Dallery. Yes. And one thing that i'll note to the audience that many people might not know because i had to do extensive information on the military aspect of tolkien's every faction in tolkien's world, tolkien had this very weird thing where every time he sunders all the races and all the races have their sunderings like they're almost identical when you look at men men have the houses of men there's the

elves that we're showing here for the dwarves there's the houses of the dwarfs although we don't know much about most of them every time there's a sundering these groups of elves or men or dwarfs whatever it might be have unique preferences culturally and this has to do with their weapons so it's no it's interesting tolkien just randomly writes the vanyar they like spears the noldor they like swords the tellery they like

bows the same thing with the houses of men you find this yeah i guess it's kind of like makes sense right because like Nicholas is not good with a sword. And the Nandor are good with axes. So yeah, there are elves who use axes. That's another thing.

And elves hunt and eat meat. That's something a lot of people find bizarre. It seems like they look, they appear like they're vegetarians or not. Yeah, but I think that makes sense, right? Because when you see like in the start of the Fellowship, in the War of the Last Alliance, where you see the half of the Sylvean Elf, the High Elf army, they have those double pole arms.

And I guess that's the, mostly the Vanyar elves that we would see like at least those they were the guys in the front line and later when in the cinematics where we see Sauron appear you could see several elves with swords and shields so I guess they would be the Noldor and the Vanyar are only to my knowledge they only come to, Middle-earth in the War of Wrath they never come back so the Vanyar are almost not existent they're not present The Noldar are some of the most,

well, the most present aside from the Tellurie. And of the Noldar, there is a further Sundering. There are the Noldar in Exile and the Noldar that's Dayan Amman. Oh, I think now, Greg, since I guess if we are finished with this, like the Sundering of the Alps, I think we should talk about the real villain of the first stage. Okay, so let me just stop sharing. Sorry, the interface for Riverside is different. Okay, there we go.

You want me to get the image up? Yeah, sure, you can use whatever image you like. Yep, we have him. So you want to talk about Fanor? Yeah, like, as you also described it, he's like a real villain. So I want to start off by saying this is something that I think people will find interesting. Tolkien believes, maybe it's too harsh to say this. Tolkien's work presents evil being real. There is evil and there is good.

So it's not a gray world like all of our literature and all of our movies and stories today always seems to have to have this motivation for why a good person becomes evil, whatever.

There is just evil and such. feanor represents what was good but becomes evil so i guess he does fit modern contemporary stuff but feanor is a group of evil beings in tolkien's legendarium he's alongside saruman, melkor saron and feanor is one of the og like the original evils so people find that interesting but i mean if you if you read into him it's it's quite obvious he's like a fallen angel type But I think if you were to even attribute some characteristic or

trait onto what causes it, it's pride. But he is Melkor. He's the first. He's the greatest amongst his group of the Noldor. And when he feels threatened by his brother, Fingolfin, who he thinks might preserp him, ironically, because Melkor is lying to him and giving this idea, he becomes jealous. and this leads to rage and he wants to prove himself. So he is just the elven version of Melkor in a lot of ways. So daddy issues again. Yeah, no, that's it.

He fears that when his dad, who's Finway, will be gone, that he'll be usurped by Fingolfin and this is all lies of course that Melkor spread into him. But it's actually kind of true because it is known that even when the Noldor were in Valinor, a lot of them, they respected Feanor, but it is kind of like that respect that he would put for someone having power or an accomplishment, but. You would have called him a respected leader by the masses of the known.

I mean, until his actions, yeah, yeah, of course. But, you know, he's obviously, he's famously the one who creates the Simrulls. And this is his downfall because he creates something that consumes him. And it's, again, it's just this kind of repetition of the same story with Melkor. Melkor becomes, his obsession is to basically destroy all that was made from the music so that his music can take over. And Feanor makes something that he thinks is just perfection and it should outshine.

There you go, shine. The trees. Everything. Yes, exactly. So that's kind of this poetic rhythm to it. And it's said that no one even amongst the Valar could even craft something as perfect. And it was said even Feanor himself, he doesn't know how it really came to being that he was able to craft these magnificent jewels. but. It could never be done. And Melkor obviously wanted this. And, well, he has a great ally in Ungoliath.

We'll get to her in a bit, yeah. But just to explain the story a little bit, Melkor ironically becomes obsessed with the Simrulls also. So, like you said, he ends up killing Feanor's father and he steals the Simrulls. And Feanor then decides that he takes command of the Noldor because he is, you know, the next in line, which it's kind of like, you know, his entire fear, it's re-justifying his own perception of what was going on and that, you know, he has to seize the initiative.

But what he does is he takes an oath, and he places it upon all of his children, his seven sons. And while this is an oath of getting revenge, in essence, it's actually a curse upon him and all of his sons. So basically what the oath is, to brutally summarize, is they're going to get back the Simrulls after they get rid of Morgoth. This is actually where, after the heist, he renames Melkor to Morgoth.

Yeah and this leads him you know to do what is the the rebellion they go against the valar by leaving aman and in doing so they kill their brethren it's actually i have a picture this is like the first kinsling the first kinsling of the tellary elves who are less armed than noldar so they get pretty screwed up so they to steal their ships because they're the only ones with the ships to get over to uh you know middle earth and this is like point out what they about Thanos,

like, you know, the fact that he's so. Proud that he's blinded to any form of sense. Yeah. Because what after the heist, right, which Melkor took it, Ungoliat and Melkor also destroyed the trees. So at this time it was known as the year of the trees where there were like these two great trees that gave the light, right, before the sun existed.

Sun and the moon so but the silmarils had the light of the trees and barda asked for permission if she could take them so that she can recreate the light yeah to recreate the trees yeah and he said no you are like melkor you will steal it from me so if you try to take it by force you are basically like a melkor and right now none of these they don't know that actually melkor has, stolen the Silmarils so in the story he pretty much first sabotages the trees

and then goes to take the Silmarils which is in a different city because Faenor is officially exiled because of acting on the said lies that Pelkhor poisoned him with.

And he said and then what I find amusing is the Valar agree to his request they don't force him to, take the like you know give up the Silmarils they just said okay And he still goes and when he makes his great oath, he says that these guys are just like Malchor. Like, come on, man. Make up your mind. Yeah. But after he takes all the exiled, you know, he does much more unspeakable things like burning the ships so that Fingolfin and his people basically can't follow.

I think we should actually talk about the three groups of the Noldor at this point.

Yeah, sure. yeah so folks we said there were like three hosts of the no lord that were rallied so the first group which is led by faenor which consists of his sons and his most adherent supporters like you know these are the you can call them the faenor fanatics i think that's probably the best yeah yeah the faenorians yeah they are the most eager they're the most gung-ho and they're commanded by faenor and he's obviously going to make sure they get the

best of everything but it is a relatively small contingent. Amongst the three, it's the second biggest, but the main, the massive contingent, which is most of the Noldor, they are willing to follow him because they do acknowledge that by the lines of succession, he is the king of the Noldor because his father has been killed by Morgoth. And they are under the command of Fingolfin, who we definitely need to talk about because I love that guy.

But they are kind of reluctant to follow him through on this entire plan because Fano's group are willing to cut the ties of the Valor, just get out of Valinor and everything. They're the most aggressive. These guys are willing to follow, but you could say their motivation is pretty low or moderate at best. Well, when the Kinsling happens, it pretty dampens them, yeah. Yeah. And the third group, which is under Fingolfin's younger brother, they are the most reluctant to leave Valinor.

And when the kinsling comes, it's Faenor as she demands the ships and they refuse. Then he attacks. Fingolfin's much larger host then arrives and they are kind of misled into believing that Teleri attacked them first. So to them, they are just rushing to the aid of their kinsmen. And that's where which is the Valor? Is it? Mandros, right? Or Mandos. Maybe Mandos, yeah. He comes and curses them that you know you'll go off to Valor you're on your own we will not help you.

And pretty much just puts what was the oath of the House of Faenor has become its curse. Exactly. As you said they all get transported kind of like part way to, the Middle Earth you can say and then as he said feynor and his host smaller host uh you know go and then he's in front of finco it's much larger host he just burns the ship as it's like yeah get lost yeah and then feynor and his sons absolutely beat the hell out of morgoth like they they are so powerful This is another thing.

The most time and the closer you are to the light, whether it was the lamps, the sun, for example, the trees or the simriles, the more powerful you are. Your physical power, we can even say magical power at this point. There is some magical aspects to this. And Feanor, when he shows up to Middle-earth, is the most powerful the El-Sar at that point. I mean, the Vanyar are going to be more powerful during the War of Wrath because

they were the closest ones to the trees and such. But anyways, not to mention, they are kind of like charging up on the super juice for years and decades. Yeah. But Ferenor, when he shows up, he is so powerful that Morgas orcs can't do anything. And it's it's pretty interesting, the first battles. Yeah, I think it's also fair to say that even though if you see the movie, they show like the orcs and Uruk-hai are able to like, you know, stand their ground against the men and elves at times.

But in reality, if you read the lore, it's kind of like just cannon fodder. Yeah, in the movies, the latest battle that they show is, you know, the last alliance.

So it's the siege of Barad-Dur during the late Second Age. At that point, the light is receding out of them. By the Third Age, you know, that's the whole point. We call it the waning of the Eldar. So, for example, Galadriel, she's always talking about how the light's going out of them. Because she's one of the older Noldor princesses, right? I mean, she was born in Valinor itself. Exactly. But they're losing their power. Yeah, they lose their power over time.

And I think even Elrond doesn't allude to that, right? He says, my people are leaving, we are waiting. But my point is, in the lore also, even like the men of Numenor, or like even the descendants, or even the Rohirrim men, who are not exactly Numenorean blood, they get slugged. One guy can easily cut down dozens of orcs. Orcs are really weak. It's not like in the movies where they actually Crooked legs.

So, just imagine if normal men could destroy dozens of orcs, what could these supercharged elves who just come from the light do? Yeah, no, there was no chance. But again, the curse of Farinor is what ends up, it's his downfall.

He dies pretty early on and then his sons they retain the curse all the way till the end even when they get their hands on some of the simurals it burns them they have to throw it into the ocean it's horrible, they all die horrible horrible deaths especially because they were not willing to concede on their oath even when this was like the last two sons of Faenor but.

Faenor did get his end at the hands of the Balrog commander god monk, yeah that's one of the big battles at the beginning yeah but uh Feanor again he he is a villain, of the story that's something a lot of people have a hard time kind of engaging with it's like he he is a villain yeah he is he I. Look when he murders the Tellery elves he blames Valar and calls him to be equals of Morgoth even though they did not force him to give up the Shilmer they act

They asked for it but they did not force him. And not to mention, he pretty much incurred the wrath of every Valar Maiar, pretty much, you could say. Oh, yeah. Because, though, I think, you know, at least his brother was a more noble man. Yeah, you want to talk about his brother Fingolfin, who, he's not exactly the stereotype reluctant king or anything like that.

But he ends up being the high king of the Noldor after Fëanor's death because Fëanor's children have to acquiesce that he was, you know, the third, sorry, the second born. Yeah, at that point. He was the oldest from Fenway's second wife because his first wife. The second wife, yeah. So he's the oldest from that line. And I think at that time, because, you know, I think one of Faenor's sons had already been killed.

Maedros, his eldest son, had also been previously wounded after being captured by Morgoth's forces. So I think they decided that they are. And by now, the bulk of the Noldor are pretty pissed off at the House of Faenor. If I remember correctly, Fenway's first wife is a Noldor. Fenway is pure Noldor. I think she was a Maiar, actually. Was she a Maiar? I'm pretty sure the second wife is Vanyar. So they're not pure Noldorians. Anyways, looking into the genealogy, this is ridiculous.

Yeah, but what we just know is about Fenway's mom. she died at Chadworth because of the shock that is there. And he kind of had a resentment to Fingolfin and his brother just because they're not his true siblings in his world. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, Fingolfin is thrown into a terrible situation where he now has to basically lead the Noldor minus the... He doesn't exactly lead the Finorians.

The Finorians are kind of this anti-social outcast group that they work with them, but they're not part of them, really. And yeah, but Fingolfin, but you know, Fingolfin, unlike Finn, or he's a little bit more balanced, he's trying to establish a realm. He's not just running to the gates of Angband trying to kill Morgoth all the time, like a lunatic. But of course, ironically, you know, Fingolfin ends up having this fight against Morgoth, where he basically challenges him to single combat.

And he does wound him, It gives him a pretty egregious wound, but he's killed in the process, horribly. Viciously killed. But, I think I have that image of their fight. Just give me a... Why don't that me? Shoot, I don't have that image in particular, but... Oh yeah, this is supposed to be like the fight between... I think it's pretty important, like we talk about the event that led to Fingolfin charging in such haste to fight Morgoth.

I think what we should say is there was a siege of Angban. So Morgoth was based in the city of Angban, which was his fortress in the north. And the elves, not only the Noldorian exiles that have come, which are now led by Fingolfin, but they also start collaborating with the other elves that have remained on the continent. Most of them tend to ally with them because Melkor, well, he doesn't care whether you're a Noldor, Banyar, Noldor, Teleri.

He just hates you the same. So they have a common enemy. They definitely are going to fight. So there was the Siege of Angband which was a massive long siege by the Noldorian elves to contain Morgoth's forces. And just in context it's a siege that lasted 400 years yeah and it was pretty successful. That's kind of like Warhammer 40k, Siege of Brax sorry not Siege of Brax, the Greek Civil War, 500 years.

But it ends with the dagger, Braggolach or the War of the Southern Flame, which is a war battle that Sauron, sorry Morgoth actually didn't even watch at that time because he was planning to unleash Glarong, the first dragon. But Glarong was not fully grown, but got eager and went. Got out, yeah. And he got shot at. Yeah, and his armor skills had not fully developed. So, got pretty injured. But even still, it was a huge battle. Many millions of orcs, it seems, right? Uncounted is a proper term.

And it is said that the Balrogs came in force. Yes. Now, it's never really said how many Balrogs are there. No, we don't have a... We don't really know, but yeah. It's probably like, I'm just going to go because why not? If you're counting uncounted orcs, I'll just say like there were battalions of Balrogs. Why not? Well, the Balrogs were captains of the military. So, for example, Sauron is the second lieutenant to Morgoth.

So he leads his own parts of the army. But there are Balrogs, like the leader of the Balrogs, Gothmog. You can think of him as like the third lieutenant. Or he's an equivalent, maybe an equivalent lieutenant to Sauron in a lot of ways. But from what we know, it's generally me that Morgoth did officially always acknowledge Sauron as his second command. Yes. I mean, Sauron is special. And we know that the Balrogs really just don't give a shit about anything unless Morgoth orders it.

Well, you know, remember all of the Balrogs, just like Sauron, just like Gandalf, all of these Imor, they were corrupted. They're Umar. So the Balrogs are as much as like the Estari in terms of power. They are significant angelic players in this with their own goals and stuff. So Sauron is one whom we know what his goals were. All of these Balrogs were just like Sauron in some way. They had some kind of desire that was corrupted by Morgoth some way.

So to give you an example, Saron was obsessed with perfection. He likes to make things perfect. Melkor, when he was Melkor, he corrupted Saron to believe that Arda, which is marred by Melkor, by the way, is not perfect. So Sauron becomes obsessed with, he wants to take control of it so that he can make it perfect. He actually, if you think about it, he has a good goal in some ways, but his... He wanted control. Yeah, yes, he's obsessed with this, but his methodology becomes,

well, destroying everything so that he can rebuild. Yeah.

But yeah, so these Balrogs have probably their own goals. We don't know them, of course. And as for Gralong and the dragons, Tolkien does not explain exactly what they are, but we kind of are to believe they are nearly identical to Baladogs. They are corrupted Mayar, maybe, in the beginning. Corrupted something. Yeah. Because we know that. Yeah. They mate, and they have offspring, which, again, it's this other thing that is very confusing in Tolkien's legendarium.

There are beings that are Mayar that will mate with elves. sweet there's plenty of them and that doesn't necessarily mean their offspring are part of that group they're like half hybrids but then further down the line how long does this go.

At some point you'll want to ask about ungoliance this is just like the dragon question she has offspring what are they to her what was she in the beginning and stuff like this we don't know exactly what the dragons were when he corrupted them but he made them out of something because he doesn't just make things he can't make things so led to believe probably myer corrupted yeah certainly glauron yeah so then back to the dagger braggolatch because i think after four centuries of successfully

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And a big thanks to Private Internet Access For sponsoring this video The sons of Faenor and their faction are just scattered Because it was such an overwhelming attack Well, I mean, if you have like Balrogs coming at you at force That's self-explanatory, and Morgoth he's a very dividing conquer just like Sauron is kind of guy and basically the siege has proven that when they are united he can't defeat them they are too powerful so he just tries over the centuries to figure out how

to divide them and like you said there is a divide between, those who are following Fingolfin and then the sons of Fanor like Maedrus and his company and stuff there's problems amongst them there's problems with the Teleri the Teleri don't like them Gondolin as well. Yeah. Gondolin. With his, you know, and there's much, there's more cities that come about Doriath, all these places. They all have problems. And like the curse of Fanor causes more kinslang down the road, of course.

So there's grievances that keep, keep on going. So the elves don't, I don't think the elves are ever fully unified. They're only fully unified in the war of wrath. Technically. I don't know, actually, because what it says about the War of Wrath is the Valar were moved by the plea and mustered. So, no doubt the Banyar and the Noldor who were in Valinor came to their aid. Yeah.

Now, these guys come and it is said that the Teleri and Noldors and you know, Sons of Faenor and their forces did join, but they were not explicitly asked to do so. They just tag along because to the Valar, they're like, yeah, we just need to do our own war. We're gonna go beat the crap out of Morgoth and they are pretty sure, I would just say Dulkars was probably the one Valar that was just relishing this.

He loved beating up Morgoth. Yeah, that's kind of the funny thing is that there's these extreme god figures that can just come and just bully Morgoth and do it easily because he's weak. He, over time, gets weaker and weaker and weaker. I don't know. I can actually explain. There's something I know about a lot. Why not? For the audience, I'll call this the difference between Sauron and Melkor.

It's, again, I brought this up at the beginning. Tolkien has this idea, I'm not going to use his terms, but of the spirit or the soul and the body. When Melkor becomes Morgoth, he is imbued into Arda itself. Everything that he corrupts, think of it as he's taking pieces of his soul. Like horcruxes, almost. Yeah, kind of like horcruxes. So it's kind of like just putting his souls into different aspects. To maximize his ability to manipulate the world, he makes more and more orcs, for example.

Every time he makes these orcs, it's taking away his own personal power, we'll call it. And he becomes weaker and weaker and weaker All the siege weapons, all the machinery The things that he builds, Angbad All these places, it weakens him. What happens is he ends up with a situation where he makes something that's called Morgoth's ring. Morgoth's ring is Arda. So he marred Arda. He broke it. It's his ring. Same as Sauron in the One Ring.

The One Ring is what defeats Sauron. Sauron imbued most of his spirit into the One Ring, making himself more and more vulnerable.

And he basically when you take your spirit and you imbue it into things to be able to manipulate you're making yourself weaker more vulnerable yeah i mean like the wandering was basically supposed to be a could say like that transmission transmitter to control the leaders of all the races exactly so melkor at the beginning was at his absolute most powerful he could challenge and probably beat some of the other valor easily as

soon as he becomes more goth and the more that he goes on with this he's unwittingly made himself easily defeatable if they actually were going to do anything they don't by the way they almost never do anything they could go and be kind of at that time they were more pissed off at the non-dark than more god exactly and that's that's its own story you know it's kind of that's a kind of an explanation for the old biblical thing if there is a god

why does he allow bad things to happen right that's that's kind of that uh it's kind of like but maybe just for the fun of the audience even before he became more god the elves arrived the Valar did wage a war against Melkor and it was pretty much Tunkas who just went up beat the crap out of Melkor and just dragged his ass back to Valinor.

He would have been able to fight better but at that time, during the time of the lamps for example, he was already corrupting and screwing around with the world so he was losing his power yeah but even though Faenor was definitely the most powerful of all the elves that ever lived like in terms of pure power he still wouldn't have been able to stand up even against no. Yeah they're light years of difference yeah of course but so I think back in

the aftermath of the Drago Belrock which was a stunning success for Morgoth and his forces I mean, he lost a lot too. Yeah, but to him, what is the, what is the use of seven, eight million orcs? It's true. It is true. He's kind of Stalin in a lot of ways. Yeah. He would, see, he would probably have heard definitely if he lost some of the Palrogs or Glarong and definitely would have had a massive blow of, say, by chance in that battle, say, Sauron and Gotsmong were killed.

That would have been a definite blow that he would not recover from. But yeah, about 10-20 million orcs, yeah, who gives a shit? I mean, orcs were literally like bred for at such alarming rates. Yeah. But regardless, the elves suffer a massive defeat because they can't replenish their numbers as quickly. That Finn Golphin genuinely believed as the high kick that there's nothing left out. People are doomed. And it's kind of like the mix of like rage, sadness. He just mounts his war horse.

Just, you know, rushes into Angband. Like, you know, just slaughtering anything static in his way. Standing in the front of the gates of Angband, he challenges Morgoth for combat one-on-one. And now if, just imagine, like, you know, you're the orcs that you see your head honcho being challenged and no reply is coming through. And this guy just continues to go against spearing itself at you. It's going to destroy the trust you have in your boss, right? Yeah. So Morgoth does want to do it.

Like, you know, he doesn't want to fight because he, this is actually where I think him being the jack of all trades of the aspects of the Iluvatar comes back to bite him. All the Valar and the Ainur who represented just one aspect, they only understand that one particular aspect. Avli understands creation. Orome understands the hunt. Tolkas understands strength.

Morgoth understands everything, every trade, everything a person of being can feel and that includes fear he is the only of the valor that is knows fear he knows to feel scared i mean and that is one of his powers too like the shadow it's as it's known it is but it's a double-edged sword he knows fear and he's also scared that is why he was very reluctant to face finn golfin but can you really you can't you lose face if you don't go out to face him.

And he's not challenging Sauron, he's not challenging Godmog he's not challenging Klarong he wants Morgoth and even though, like as you said, Morgoth and him are light years apart in power, right? Because Fingolfin is also a very powerful warrior in his own right, But he's also not as strong as Faenor would have been. He's still like, you know, he has that kind of like, you know, the willingness to stand up. And I think that's kind of like a multiplying factor, you could say.

Morgoth dons his black armor, you know, has the great hammer, which is supposed to be like the hammer of hell. Basically. Stowering over Fidgolfman. And they engage in a long duel. Every time he strikes the earth it's like supposed to be like craters are big formed and even still.

Six times Finn Golfin also wounds him pretty badly, permanently too I think it leaves him a little he can't walk properly basically because of it yeah there's a limp after that but that I said six because I know the seventh one is to come because he ultimately he injures him Critically seven times, right? The seventh one, which was at the last. But, and even then, he was knocked down three times and still stood up. But it's at the end of the battle, he's completely exhausted and spent.

I mean, guys fought like the Dark Lord, pretty much a god for a few hours. And he trips into one of these craters. And that's when Morgoth smashes him, which is like the death blow. And it's at that moment he stabs him for the seventh time with a sword, which was called Ringel, in his ankle, I think, which causes him to be, like, you know, walk in the lamp. I guess that's also like an Achilles heel. It is a nod to Achilles.

Everything is, there's always sprinkles of different battles with stuff, yeah. And not to mention the seven times striking the Dark Lord and three times being knocked down.

It was also there. and morgoth was so ashamed actually of this incident right like he's humiliated he actually like you know tears apart finn gulfan's dead body to feed to the world said it is actually at that time you know the thorandor the king of the eagles implied also that is sent by manway because while the balar are not going to interfere they have been no doubt observing and he sends to Andor who.

Slashed Morgoth's face to disorient him so that he can take away the two halves of Fingolfin's body for proper burial, which is what he deserved, because otherwise Morgoth was going to throw him to the wolves. But it was such an event for Morgoth that even though he won, he lost, because the orcs who love singing as well about their triumphs, they never sing about this. And the elves were too emotionally shattered by the death of Fingolfin. He died like a true hero, unlike his older brother.

I think this was the only second time before the War of Wrath where, you know, Manwe does actually send help to the Noldor. The first one is when Feth Gulfen's son goes to say Medros, the eldest son of Fëanor, who was like, you know, being imprisoned and tortured in Angband. And twice you know the son of engulfing is saying.

He begs to man like you know praise and he's not asking for any help to save him because he feels like you know with the damage that has been done to mage rose that please let me just kill him so that I can just give this mercy to him it wasn't like you know out of like spite or, you know wanting to do it he just wanted to put him out of the misery because felt like no one should be suffering this much. And that's where I think another set of eagles had come to help.

This was like well before Fingolfin's death. But this was the only two times I definitely know where the Valar did send some help because after the first kin slaying, they were pretty pissed off with the Noldor and Kostip. Now, I don't know. I think I'll just ask you this question, okay? Who is your favorite of the two Dark Lords? Sauron. There's no competition. no competition at all I don't think anyone would say Melkor Morgoth.

Yeah I'm with you I mean if you like Morgoth you are liking an emo angry kid with daddy shoes but you also have to acknowledge Saruman Saruman is a dark lord with a ring also technically, does he get a ring Saruman he has a ring yes it's very loosely talked about in the background in the notes basically when Saruman comes to Middle Earth he becomes as anyone people kind of get people even who watch the movies kind of get this understanding because Peter Jackson

did a good job portraying the characters very well Saruman becomes obsessed with the hunt for the ring and he becomes obsessed with ring craft he learns everything about how the rings were crafted and it is said that it's believed he created his own ring because he was trying to basically figure out how to dominate like Sarun did. So it's kind of his own one ring. Yeah. And the reason why It's not like a ring of powerbom.

It could be his version of a ring of power because we don't know what he learned. He learned as much as he could about the crafting of the rings of power. How far could he have gone? We don't know. But the reason why I give credence to this is Saruman has Uruk, his Uruk-hais that follow him. The Uruk-hais, why would they follow him? He's amplifying himself using the ring just like Sauron does.

And there's this very curious passage when Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are chasing the Urkai because they had captured Meri and Pimpin. Aragorn says there is some kind of evil magic making these Uruks move faster, not have to eat and do all this stuff. And this is kind of a hint. Bay in the sun? Yes, exactly. That actually was something like these. Creatures are not supposed to. Well, that's because he was breeding.

It's alleged that he's breeding half man half Uruks and that's what they are but we don't know because it's all conjecture in the end but the idea that he might have his own little ring of power it seems very likely because how can he dominate or influence Uruks far away from himself and stuff it doesn't really make sense because yes he promises them better things than what Sauron might but the fear of Sauron is what dominates the orcs and Sauron is dominating orcs as far as the

misty mountains in angmar it doesn't make sense that saruman was able to basically have such a large contingent of possibly 10 000 erics it doesn't really make much sense unless he did have his own one ring well ring yeah i mean i guess if we were talking about one rings if like because i've played like shadow of war and shadow mordor sorry yeah 100 percent of both the second game is a hard one to 100%. Man, the late game grind is real.

But I love that game. You know, I just hate the... After that, I'll just say this. I hate Calibre more. He's a dick in that game. Yeah, he's a real dick in the game. In the books, he's a very sympathetic character. Yeah, in the game, you're like, nah. Because in the aftermath, right? But he actually also doesn't get to go back to Valinor in spirit. Because he's also a descendant of the House of Faenor. Of course. But I mean, everybody who crafts things is, right?

So it's kind of... Yeah, but you got to say, right? Like, you know, the way... Because Talion's intent, he succumbed, right? to the rink. But his intention was genuinely noble. He just wanted to delay the arrival so that Gondor has a few more decades to prepare itself. So the guy definitely is a great one. But back to your question, why Sauron over Morgoth? Morgoth is almost comical. in how he loses because it's really stupid stuff.

Whereas Sauron, for all the things that you can point out as his faults, masterful strategy. Waits, very patient guy. He's extremely patient. He was able to defeat Numenor through patience. He was able to divide all of his enemies through patience. Not to mention, Numenor was so powerful in the second age that I think when Sauron declared himself the king of the earth, that really pissed off the game of Dominar. But I mean, he was doing that to piss him off, yeah.

Yeah, but they pretty much like marched through into Mordor, like just slaughtering everything. They just like. The way they describe it is like, oh yeah, they don't have a long battle of attrition. They were like, they just are smashing their way through. Yeah, if you read how the Numenarians fight, by the way, it's the second age stuff. We shouldn't jump into this. They're eight to nine feet tall.

They're giants that are said to have weapons that simply outrange the orcs so much, the orcs can't even get above their shields to fight back.

So they can't even confess them. they're just gods basically beat norcs down it's and that anyways i don't want to get into this the show the rings of power is garbage and one of the dumbest things the show does is they have the numinarians when they come over the regular size of everybody else it's it's such a glaring issue with anyway anyways i hate that show so yeah i gotta get it because you think of the Numenoreans you think of like these really epic soldiers who

are very powerful and noble and that's how they're described and even like the men of Gondor we see in the third age in the movies they're the descendants they are even still much stronger than any other of the race of men and each one of them is supposed to be like over six and a half feet tall or something like that because I'm just digressing a little bit but I remember this one passage, which talked about when 100 knights of Arnor came under Prince Imrahil to defend Minas Tirith.

Power, prowess was described, it felt like they're not sending like 100 guys it's like an army of 40-50,000 men marching down. I think that's kind of like a way to kind of like quantify. But yeah, let's not get into the Rigs of Power.

I've not watched it. we actually we glossed over you did have a question at the beginning that i i never got to about ungaliant so i just want to quickly because that one actually people are fascinated by that i actually made a youtube video before i was specific war channel on this quest on what is she everyone asks what is she it's very confusing and tolkien's notes contradict each other so to give people just.

The basics. Tolkien at one point writes that she is a being akin to the others just like Melkor and that she is just another Aenor that is corrupted by him and that she kind of willingly joins him on their ventures like when they destroy the trees and that and then she ultimately betrays him and she seems to be more powerful than him but again he's Morgoth.

He's weakened himself so he falls victim to her and his Balrogs have to come protect his ass while he's crying like a little girl as yeah that's that's actually a pretty much good way because I think he she bit his hand pretty hard right yeah exactly to get one of the two simurals it is he is a comical character if you think about it he's very funny but she beats him but there is I forget what book it is there's a very bizarre passage and it's

it's thrown away it's not in the Silmarillion because it doesn't make sense where she is amongst other beings that he's corrupted and they're all hiding in a cave and they're talking and that alludes to the idea that she is one of you know the the valor I guess you call it like she could be one of the strongest for all we know but she comes from this void right so in the Silmarillion Tolkien well it's Christopher Ferdalken gets rid of that aspect of the story and he basically just says she

literally comes from darkness itself from the void outside of Arda and manifests. Like some people have also called it like you know the true it's like an incarnation beyond yes. Some people I say like you know she's probably in terms of power would kind of almost be like well above any of the Valar and I love craftian basically she's like a love craftian horror yeah she's outside of what we call our realm. She's something else.

And I don't even like it because I find it's very bizarre in the grand scheme of things, but people now are so obsessed with that idea that if she is this other Lovecraftian being, that she's actually the counter to what's his name? Tom Bombadil.

There's this hilarious fan theory. Yeah, there's a hilarious fan theory that Tom Bombadil is like the opposite of her and that Tom Bombadil might be Iluvatar or whatever that Tom Bombadil here's a really funny fan theory Tom Bombadil and his wife are reincarnated versions of Melkor and Ungoliant goodest fan theory out there oh god their eternal punishment for their actions are to live out these really merry cheery lives in Arda it's a wild one.

I'm just going to remember But like Tom Pompiddle is just a guy who just has no care for anything except happiness for himself. But you do have to love that Tolkien randomly writes, oh yeah, we could give the ring to Tom Amado, but he would just stop caring about it and throw it away. Because he's so powerful. He's this weird being that's all-encompassing. Yeah, but then it kind of makes it feel like he's so powerful.

And one thing I would just say, if Angolaius is supposed to be a dark power from beyond the realm, way more powerful than any of the Valar, how could she just get smacked by the Balrogs? because ultimately the Baldrops are still Maiar. Yeah, and... But, you know... Maiar, we know why they're powerful. The difference between a Valar and a Maiar is quite a big one. And that, again, it brings up this issue. We don't have a concrete answer.

Could she have just been a corrupted Maiar? That's kind of the easiest answer, isn't it? Because it gives her a strength level that makes sense. The thing is, how was she able to overwhelm Morgoth, even though he is weakened?

He is you know he should be able to at least knock out a mire but you know he succumbs to her it is she is a very bizarre case many people have done tons of books and people have done youtube videos like me included on this it is strange what's even stranger is if you look into her daughter she love she love seems to inhabit the characteristics of a mire also doesn't make much sense and the game you know that we're talking about they presented her to be this

shapeshifter who goes from being this mayar yeah yeah so their interpretation is that she is a mayar so it's interesting but uh sure enough again she is i i think tolkien would have loved people talking about this because he would have been like i never thought about it he probably would he's like yeah you know i was into c lewis's stuff or something he's like i just wanted this unnamed, shadowy figure she's just from the void that's it there is no explanation,

well I guess one reason why Sauron sorry Malkor would fear her is if he knows to love and fear the shadow that she's also kind of like that essence of the fear she is the essence of the shadow yeah. And she, the explanation for her death is fascinating. She eats herself to death. So that's another biblical thing there. The lust for the one of the cinema rooms, right? I remember reading one guy, he was trying to make the case that there's characters

in Lord of the Rings that embody the seven deadly sins. Maybe. That's an interesting case for her. It would be possible though. I guess they, given like how, you know, the way Tolkien wrote his works with a lot of inspiration from many mythologies, it's not only Christianity, but he took inspiration everywhere he could. Yeah, especially when it comes to Nordic mythologies, Celtic, he really loved to play upon, like, for example, his version of the dwarfs,

very in line with what the Celts or the Nords would think of them. A lot of the same traits. Well, love the gold, love the mead. Yeah. By the way, he also, and this is not, people would almost take this as being an anti-Semitic statement, but Tolkien imbued an extreme sense of the history of the Jewish people within the dwarfs because there are people in diaspora, you know, they're sundered from their homelands, and then they go wandering and they're treated unfairly.

They are craftsmen, very successful craftsmen. Is it kind of like how men, you know, Thorin's grandfather lost the throne at the Lonely Mountain? You talked about that, right? Exactly. But what's funny is, I don't know if you've ever heard this story, but in the 1930s, the Nazi government, they wanted to endorse the Hobbit and to bring it to Germany. And then they asked Tolkien, they sent the letter to him, and they asked if he was, you know, pure Aryan.

And he sent them back some, or I don't know if they asked him if he had any Jewish blood or something. And he sent them back something like, I'm sad to say that I don't have any great blood from the Jewish people. I wish I did, et cetera, et cetera. And he like just basically shoved it in their face. And it's one of the best responses ever. And it just goes, it was awesome. It's fitting because he's a literary master. So, you know, he's hit them back with his, you know, potent weapon. Words.

And I mean, he had an understanding of history, whereas you look at someone like Hitler, he had no idea of history. The guy was just making shit up. No idea of history, no idea of politics, no idea of military strength, no idea of common sense. Yeah, that's another thing that people don't understand about Tolkien. They think because of the absence of detail about, like you said, certain things like military tactics, formations, taxes, taxation policies and such, as R.R.

Martin likes to poke fun at. It doesn't mean that Tolkien wasn't aware. It's just he inherently just made it as if it was something that exists. Yeah, it's kind of like saying that, yeah, you know, the kingdom of Gondor has been functioning for like, you know, 4,000 years. So, yeah, they're probably taxing the people and running a bureaucracy. We don't need to get into that. He doesn't have a specific passage where it explains how taxation works in Gondor.

But you can already look at it and say, oh, they have a fiefdom system like the Byzantine Empire. where they have these captains of the fiefs. There's a currency in Gondor, by the way. It goes all the way up to Arnor and to places like Bree. He does allude to trade. Yeah, you know there's trade. He does mention some of the caravan routes and such. I think some of the paths that Bilbo and his company did take in the Hobbit,

for example, were on established trade routes at the start of the journey, at least. Exactly. But here let's get to some of these last questions that's going on pretty long.

Maybe I think let's just sum it up with what brought about the end of the first stage so we can just focus on or unless you want to keep that one separate episode given the if we're going to do this again we'll see how the audience reacts because again it's a history channel so you always take a gamble when you jump in here but for those who don't know the war of wrath the climax of the first age I mean, it really comes about from Morgoth unbelievably being successful at Divide and Conquer.

He divides most of the elven realms. He destroys some of their famous, supposedly hidden cities, you know, like there's Gondolin, Doriath against actually destroy.

Destroyed by the dwarves, more or less, and Fanor's curse and stuff. And there's Hithlum, I don't remember my first age as well, because it's been so long since I've written it, but Morgoth's strategy of attacking, surrounding, and circling, doing these sieges is very successful. He has basically the elves and the men that are now residing beside them in pockets against the ropes, and all hope is lost, because, in one of the late battles, he manages to trick men by.

Basically secretly allying himself with this is going to confuse people, but in the first age, there's people we refer to as Easterlings. They're not necessarily the Easterlings that we know of the second and third age, but these are those led by people like Ulfang. They're kind of Mongolian-esque like people. They're very rustic people that come in very late in the first age. After the Three Houses of Men. And they betray everybody in this kind of very climactic battle.

Ends up seeing one of the kings of the dwarves get killed. I think that's where they kind of betrayed and were bribed off for lack of a better term. And I think that did cause the dwarves their cake as well. Yeah, and the dwarves basically go into isolation over this. So he has gotten the dwarves out of the picture. He has basically destroyed most of these elven groups. Most of them that are surviving have been surrounded and they're being squeezed.

The humans in the First Age are much more vulnerable. They're not dominant yet. So they're kind of clinging to life beside the elves. And they don't know what to do with themselves. And they're being enslaved now by the Easterlings. Or we can call them the Swarthy Men if you want. That's another name for them. And side note here, not all of these Swarthy Men end up being evil.

Some of them do retain faith with their brethren, so the Three Houses of Men, or the Adain, if you want to call them that. And that's a very confusing story, but their bloodlines actually might linger on with those men. They might become something called the middlemen of the Second Ages. It's a very confusing story. But anyways... Orgoth is basically, he thinks he's one. Gharov, if you want to lead us into the great little adventure there that leads to the War of Wrath, you can.

Should I start from, like, okay, I guess we need to talk about Erendil because he is the guy that is going to be. So he's a half-elf, half-man. So his father was Tuor, who was, you know, a member of the House of Hador. Now, this is like one of those great houses of men. And they were the, you can call them the ancestors of the Edain. Because even after the betrayal, they stayed completely loyal to the Noldorian cause and maintained the friendship and trust.

So, the Noldorians do respect these guys at least. So, we have Tuar who, you know, would, and his mother was Princess Adriel. She is the daughter of Tugrod and you know that is so she comes from the house of Fingolfin yes now and so Arendelle was born in the, age of like the first age year 503 and you know 8 in 510 Gondolin his home is sacked by Sauron's, sorry Morgoth's forces I'm so used to Sauron being.

I apologize, but you know, they flee right through a passage, but because of Maitland's betrayal, yeah someone should have, like, you know, I also don't like Maitland, but then he's a never-wool-shit, yeah, he's a little shit, yeah well, you know after he escapes Sack at the age of 22, he marries Elwing, the daughter of King, Diorz, and then you know, then later, in a way to try to break the curse he is able to get a ship and a crew and they set sail to Valinor and successfully reach there.

Yes. And there, you know, he, you know, he comes there and he meets, you know, the, sorry, the Herald of Manway, right? He's the first being because at the time I believe there was a festival going on. So when they reach actually the shows of Valinor, there's no one there. So they are wondering, have we, is no one there? But he goes and he, you know, he just asks Elving, his wife to wait. You know, she does wait loyally as well. And he goes and he makes a big.

Plea to you know you know like take an errand on behalf of the elves and men and he points out that me and my wife we are representative of both because we've descended from both species and that's where he also grants their sons the ability to choose whether they want to be elves or men, that's a gift from manway to just like his family in particular and that's pretty important because he is also I think the grandfather I'm mistaken for Eldrond? Yes.

And sorry of Arvid because I think his son is also Eldrond. Yeah this is part of a very long term thing that is the merging of them all back into the fold. So each time that there's an elf and a human who end up marrying and having a child there's even an aspect higher in there. It's the reconvergence of all of them together again. True, because we know that his other son would descend and become the first king of Númenor.

It's just pretty interesting that, you know, because Aragorn also is a descendant of Elendil, and Elendil also has the heritage of the kings of Númenor. Yeah, and Aragorn is technically related to Arwen. Arwen. If you think about it, yeah, yeah. It's just a few centuries but yeah it's there yeah okay i wouldn't say a few centuries it's like 6 000 years or something yeah on the man's side yeah and yeah so he does.

You know go and you know makes a very successful plea they do two things i think elving what habits to her is you know she became like you know the moon if I'm mistaken something like that. I don't remember that one. Yeah, I know Erendil is given one of the Silmarils and his ship sails across the sky because it's now high that neither Melkor and his forces nor the Sons of Faenor can reach.

And you know what? Unfortunately, the price for getting the Valar's support was they too would never return to their family in Middle-earth.

Well she i mean that is just you know go but they would be like you know they get to once their lives pass they did reunited the house of mandor so they at least they have their happily ever after but anyways that's not the point but the plea was so successful that you know manway is like yep guys we're marching to war now and that begins the war of wrath which is incomprehensible yeah it's there's not no conflict in the history of Tolkid's lore

or Narda that matches it's supposed to like if you take the strength it's supposed to say hundreds of thousands of elves dwarves and edain host of great eagles all the valor so you're gonna have like Manway Pandas Vardra Owlay Tolkas.

All of these guys have gone and even though Morgoth himself is mustered a very mighty host it's even larger than the one that was the that broke through the siege of Angband in the Draco Balak but interesting and one of the things that you definitely have to know is, this is like where the greatest eagle does like you know is found i was just gonna put up i'm just gonna put up a picture of it there is one painting,

Yeah, I was also looking for it myself. Because even here you'll have Dlarong also fighting and no doubt dying. But it was actually in this battle that we see the greatest of the dragons come forth. Because to Tolkien, most of his dragons are actually not even... It's a mix between what we kind of think as the wind dragons and the more eastern oriented dragons from the Chinese mythology which kind of move on the ground. And Klarong is also not fully armored, but Atalagos is here.

He is slain through a mighty effort. But this was such a significant event that half of Middle-earth, like all the land that was west of the Blue Mountains, was like destroyed itself. Because of him falling down on it too. It's the size of the dragon that breaks the mountains and takes away the two realms of the dwarves there, and they have to run to Khazad-dum as a result. Let's put it like this. Smaug is huge when we see him in the Hobbit movies.

Yeah, he's a tiny one compared to these. But Smaug is tiny compared to all these great dragons of Melkor and Morgoth. Smaug's like an ant compared to an elephant. And I think what I find more interesting in the aftermath of the War of Wrath, because I think it was pretty obvious that it's a victory for them given Morgoth has steadily weakened and they have still stayed in the light. So these are like, you know, supercharged elves and Valar and Maiar coming through.

You know, Sauron goes into hiding and everything. So, you know, the remaining elves were bidden by Aemir to return to the lands of Aman or Valinor. And most of the elves go, you know. But some did stay in the east, right? Like if you remember your chart, these were like part of the delivery that kind of would not be, you know, go back to the West. Now, it is actually here where Maedros and Malkor, the two last sons of Faenor, want to steal the last two Silmarils.

They know that one Silmaril is in the sky. They don't know it's Erendil and a ship, but they know the glow of a Silmaril from any other.

So they know that they cannot get that. and they because they made a oath which you know the sword in the name of Iluvatar himself it's not even though you know Manway said that you know that you know your oath is done you have to have nothing just don't do anything stupid they decide that you know they'll try to steal the simurals and literally in the victory camp they steal like kill several other elves to take the simpler routes. Exactly, of course.

Like, you know, they, and the kind of sad thing is, Maeglor was actually willing to kind of like, you know, maybe give up the oath. Yeah, he's the only one, he's kind of the only sympathetic one in the bunch, right?

He is, he's accepted it. He's like, and he, I think he genuinely would believe that, you know, their oath is no longer valid so they don't have anything to fear of like you know the oath breaking because if you see like in the ancient times taking an oath was immense yes if you read like in the Roman history like you know the mutinies like Scipio's having the mutiny of Sucra when he makes them take an oath of allegiance again

it's to us maybe today it's not as much of a big thing but to them it's massive, but yeah Maedros and Maglors, they take the Silmarils and they go in and kill people. And even though they were permitted to leave, you know, because of the wicked deeds of the king slings, they could not hide from the pain. And Maedro's cast himself into a kind of fiery pit, which was like in the aftermath of what he called, like, you know, the devastation that was caused during the war of wrath.

So he just falls to his doom and like the destruction of Batalhant. Yeah, it's falling into the ocean now. whereas Maeglor does cast it into the sea and I guess maybe Mando saw a bit of sympathy for him because he doesn't have like a horrible death but he kind of just wanders the shows for the end of time he's not fully forgiven but it says you know he sings and laments the loss of the Silmarils that's one theory or another says yeah he just died just to finish up on terms of the forgiveness.

Galadriel only feels that she's forgiven at the end of the third age, and like her ancestry you know it's like it's been a long time waiting but she'll eventually go back to the undying lands it's that curse that's a long one, I wouldn't say it's only it really applied to her No, no, it's applied to what people want. No, she was like the child of Phenarfin. But the curses really affected just the House of Fadon because those guys took that oath.

You know, the House of Fadon. Yes, but if you crossed over, you're... Technically.

But if you also see, at the end of the War of Wrath, the heralds of Manwave bade all elves to one day return to the West.

So i guess while it took a few thousand years for that she did ultimately heed that call and yeah i think this was quite a good i don't know what people are gonna i don't know what people yeah we'll see it honestly we'll see it here if if you enjoyed this you gotta really like let us know so please can you if you can find a way to comment through any of the podcast platforms go ahead, but the easiest way at this point really is just to go onto my YouTube channel and comment anywhere you see fit.

Latest video, wherever, I'll find it. I'll see it. Or if maybe you're from Spotify, if you listen to it and like it, if you could just go to the Pacific World channel and just, you know, send an email across. Because the video component on YouTube will come quite several weeks after the audio. Yeah, of course. So maybe if you could just send us an email saying you liked it, did not like it, what you liked, or what we could do, etc.

We really appreciate that. Because, I mean, at the very minimum, we can do another two, one hitting the second age and one hitting the third age by the way the second age is actually the one that confuses people the most it's kind of the least information there but i know much because i've been writing extensively about the second and third age right now i'm still i'm finishing up a script actually about the third age as we speak so it's more on my mind i'll have a better time

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