How Tolkien Presents Ordinary People in "The Silmarillion" by Dawn Felagund  

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Fanwork Notes

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Inspired by collecting the prompts for the Everyman challenge, this essay considers how ordinary people are subsumed and silenced in The Silmarillion, which begins a three-book arc that ends with the rise of the humble and ordinary.

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Genre: Nonfiction/Meta

Challenges: Everyman

Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate

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Chapters: 1 Word Count: 2, 616
Posted on Updated on

This fanwork is a work in progress.

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How Tolkien Presents Ordinary People in "The Silmarillion"

Comments on How Tolkien Presents Ordinary People in "The Silmarillion"

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Aah, you were picking up that a lot of this is inspired by my union work and honestly my pro-democracy work with my students too! :D

The "murmuration" I noticed while going back through the prompts to write this. Like ... everyone is just in agreement? When have you ever known a group of people to act that way?? There is a lot of debate, but it always among named, noble characters—who are permitted to have variation in their thoughts and engage in rhetoric.

Just like the historical bias stuff I do, I was blown away at what I uncovered once I saw all the evidence lined up on the page.

Thank you for commenting! <3

I really appreciate your observations, especially since we tend to notice different things — and notice things differently — so I enjoy the fresh, inspiring perspectives.

I've always viewed The Silm as being from a bird's eye view, flying high above the land, seeing everything but only in broad strokes. And then fanfic came along allowing us to swoop down and witness the finer details, where those mass clumps of people become distinct individuals.

Thank you so much for this challenge and the collection of prompts, as well as your thoughts about them. It helped me see things in the canon I hadn't seen before. That is a very good point about the 'caused to be built' framing. Also a good point about the movement over the course of Tolkien's history from Doomed Hero High King Fingolfin to Elected Gardener-Mayor Samwise Gamgee, and how it's the latter who both gets a happy ending himself and points towards a happier future for Middle-earth.

Thank you for commenting! I adored your work when I was a fandom young, so I feel a bit starstruck! :D

One of the things I love about putting together a collection of all of the quotes on a topic (and this is not all of them, but it is a great many) is the patterns that emerge that are obscured when they are isolated in the text. This was a fun challenge to put together because it was brain-on the whole time, noticing patterns I'd never spotted before.

And I am a humanities teacher, passionate about student-led and democratic schools, and a union leader in my school, I'm always yapping to children about rights and freedom, so the authoritarian-democracy arc was particularly lovely to document beyond what Tolkien wrote in his letters.

Thank you for your thoughts on what you found in your search for Everyman and about your your selection of prompts, Dawn!

The bit that inspired one of my major OCs and which I read as a rare moment when ordinary people are maybe shown emerging a bit from their "murmuration" was this:

Many of Fëanor's people indeed repented of the burning at Losgar, and were filled with amazement at the valour that had brought the friends whom they had abandoned over the Ice of the North; and they would have welcomed them, but they dared not, for shame.

Admittedly, that could perhaps include Feanor's sons after all, and they do not actually end up doing anything (although my OC does do sneaky things that don't make it into the record).

 

You're welcome, and thank you always for commenting! You are a treasure. <3

That's a really interesting quote ... there were a couple like it, where I was curious (as you seem to be) about who exactly was covered by the umbrella "Fëanor's people" (and similar constructions): was it truly the people, or was it his relatives? I'm thinking of the "long debate" at Tirion, which seems like it should be all of the people (when the quote is taken in isolation), but in the larger context, in fact appears to be the princes of the Noldor + Galadriel. I ran into a few passages like this.

What also comes to mind is that it is interesting that it is Fëanor's people who break the murmuration, given my other research obsession of historical bias. Here, I wonder if this is meant to show the weakness of Fëanor's reign, like, "Look, this guy is so bananas that he's losing control of his people." (There are other passages like this, I recall.) Whereas Fingolfin and other leaders are depicted as creating cohesion among their people. They are so awesome that their followers can just shut off the need to think.

Also, another thought: it is not really an example of early democracy, probably, and also perhaps evaluated negatively, but this bit seems quite interesting; it comes at the end of the story of Amlach:

But those of his [Amlach's] people who were of like mind with Bereg chose a new leader, and they went back over the mountains into Eriador, and are forgotten.

There are also hints of democracy in some of the history of the Haladin, but it's patchy (some of it is very late and strictly HoME).

Yes, I am not well-versed in the canon around the Three Houses of the Edain, but they definitely give a more democratic sense, less bound to the concept of nobility. As I was working on this, I wondered if it was their mortality. The princes (and princesses) of the Noldor are of easily traced lineage; Fingon is the grandson of the guy who volunteered as an emissary to Valinor. That makes their noble status loom larger. Whereas the Edain are constantly intermarrying and mixing out of necessity due to their short lives, and whatever noble lineage they might have established just seems ... frailer somehow? As I was working on this, I found myself trying to define if and who among the Edain would even be considered "noble." It was (and is) hard for me to articulate because it is definitely a weak spot in my knowledge, but this passage is certainly an excellent example of why it feels that way.

January will be the amnesty month for the 2026 challenges, so it will come around again, and if you don't mind not getting a stamp, you can always create for challenges; they never close (we just set a cut-off for giving stamps).

I'm glad you enjoyed the essay. ^_^

Not sure if you want a prompt for the current challenge, but if you do: Turn over a new leaf.

I admire this analysis tremendously.   I think I was seeing the same thing subconsciously when I posited that quendi have a highly-developed, indeed, overwhelming, pack instinct, somewhat similar to C.J. Cherryh's atevi man'chi, that arises from their early history of "errbody pack up and follow this one guy as we all run through the dark woods before the monsters get us!"  

Atani, of course, have a completely different set of "banding" instincts that can intially be absorbed into quenderin social structures as what we recognize as "feudalism", but is NOT the same thing...which becomes more apparent over time as quendi fade and atani spread:).

Thank you! ^_^

That's a fascinating connection, re: the need to run from actual monsters, especially given that immortal people will necessarily have a component of any family/social group for whom that is living memory, and changing systems of governance is very hard.

Re: Atani, I commented to Himring above that this is a very weak area for me in the Silm canon. She picked up on more democratic tendencies, which was a sense I got as well without being able to articulate why (since my dataset was the prompts; I need a more comprehensive read). Not sure if you have thoughts on that, but I'd love to hear them if you want to share!

Thanks again for commenting!