Bully the Devil For Fun and Profit
The Five-Minute Silmarillion, Part 6
Time to Amp Things Up
Chapter 3 of THE SILMARILLION is called “Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor.” Lots to cover, but in the mass market paperback it’s only about 10 pages.
It’s important to remember that Tolkien didn’t sit down and hammer out this book all at once; it was the product of decades of work, almost six decades to be exact. I wonder at how Christopher Tolkien decided to compile his father’s work and in what order; regardless though, some of these chapters do cover similar material here and there, but we’re finally advancing the main timeline of the world.
The Valar have been in a holding pattern since Melkor destroyed the lamps at the North and South Poles. They have some light, while Melkor wanders the world in darkness, making it a breeding ground for frightful and terrible things. We hear about him creating the Balrogs, which once again are Maiar, and thus comparable to fallen angels. Because of his works, Elves—which have been created but don’t populate all of Arda yet—fear death, which is not what Ilúvatar wants for them.
Two place names that you get here are Utumno and Angband; the former is Melkor’s fortress, deep in the earth, and the latter is his armory, where weapons are made for him and his legions. He stays at Utumno while Sauron keeps an eye on operations at Angband.
Send in the Chad!
The Valar finally decided to do something about Melkor; they’ve got to rein him in before they can finish forming the world and sending the Firstborn (Elves) out into it. While the Valar outnumber Melkor fourteen to one (not including the Maiar on either side), they don’t blitz Utumno with numbers; instead they send in the 1980s high school bully, the Johnny Lawrence of Middle-earth itself, Tulkas. Remember how he used to beat up on Melkor whenever he caught him? LOL that hasn’t changed.
But at last the gates of Utumno were broken and the halls unroofed, and Melkor took refuge in the uttermost pit. Then Tulkas stood forth as champion of the Valar and wrestled with him, and cast him upon his face; and he was bound with the chain Angainor that Aulë had wrought, and led captive; and the world had peace for a long age.
-The Silmarillion, page 49, mass market paperback
Punked him right in front of his boys and everyone! Such a short paragraph, yet an epic image in the mind’s eye.
As punishment for his wicked deeds, Melkor is sentenced to prison for “three ages long,” and then he’ll be judged again. In the meantime, the Valar do a number on Melkor’s forces, but Sauron escapes. Does he immediately fill the power vacuum left by Melkor the Morgoth? You’ll see in coming chapters.
Middle-earth Under New Management
Since defeating Melkor was a job for the Valar, rebuilding Arda gets to be a job for the Elves (also called Firstborn, also called Eldar, also called a hundred other things). They’ll do so with the help of the Valar, but the process is supposed to help them heal their own hurts according to the book.
The last few pages of this chapter are difficult to summarize because they’re detailed and verbose, but the general idea is that the Elves start to subdivide into different groups with different names. Vanyar. Noldor. Teleri. Sindar. This part gets really complicated, and I know I’m trying to simplify it all for you—however I think overly focusing on this aspect right now would fail.
Not only do they form different groups, each group has more than one name. They have different attributes. The Noldor are the makers, so they’re more like Dwarves or men as far as their talents go; the Teleri are the “sea-Elves” because they end up isolated from other Elves and they live near the shores. Each clan follows a different powerful figurehead. It can get a little confusing so you might have to study and take your own notes when you read this chapter.
The significant takeaways will come as you continue reading, noticing which person is related to whom and what and where and why. Context clues and repetition will do more to clear this up than I can in a single section.
My Favorite Part
I love how simple and straightforward the writing is in the scene where Tulkas beats up Melkor. “Cast him upon his face” is equal parts Biblical and chat-room slang in terms of the picture it cooks up in my mind.
And it would be easy to assume that the transition from Melkor to Sauron as the Big Bad is complete, but there’s more to come on that front. We still have to meet Fëanor, who drives a significant amount of the story in the middle of this book, as he is a central figure around the Silmarils themselves—the gems for which the book is named.