"The West" is a place numinous and longed for in Tolkien's world. It captures the sense that many of us have, standing on the shores of the sea and gazing at the pale line where sky meets sea, that something lies just over the horizon, just out of view yet somehow still perceptible as a longing in the heart. In Middle-earth, characters pine for the West. Who goes (and doesn't go) into the West is a big deal. Imagery of ships sailing toward that horizon, never to return, recurs throughout Tolkien's books, and the occasional characters allowed to transgress the boundary imposed by the sea and venture into the West act within key turning points in the narrative.
In this month's A Sense of History column, Simon J. Cook continues his series on the tower analogy in Tolkien's lecture-turned-essay "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," and this month he too turns toward the West. In 1936, two towers arose in Tolkien's writings, both coming from drafts where they formerly did not appear. There is, of course, the tower in "Monsters and the Critics," but a tower appears in that year too in The Fall of Númenor.
As Simon has documented in his series, Tolkien scholars have engaged in a "punch up on the lawn" about what the tower in "Monsters and the Critics" actually means. Simon makes the point that they are overlooking the key connection with The Fall of Númenor and Tolkien's other towers: those familiar within his imagined world of Middle-earth. The tower in "Monsters and the Critics," like so many others in the legendarium, was built with the express purpose of looking West.
You can read Simon's article "The Peaks of Taniquetil" here.
SWG News
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Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.
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New Challenge: Building Middle-earth
Let global architecture be your inspiration in this challenge, where you will work with a prompts that are architectural styles, locations in Arda, or both.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
New Fanworks
Explain This by Elrond's Library [Writing]
Melkor demands an account of Mairon’s failures.
Read more ...Message in a Bottle by StarSpray [Writing]
Over the course of his very long life he had found a handful of messages in bottles, but it had been a very long time. So when he found the glass bottle on his little stretch of pebbly beach, he picked it up with the intention of tossing it into his recycling. But it wasn’t, he found, just another beer bottle.
Read more ...Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard by Independence1776 [Artwork]
A Nerdanel/Nienna moodboard.
Read more ...Updated Fanworks
The Stars of Home by Idrils Scribe [Writing]
Elrohir has been found after his long abduction by the Black Númenóreans of Umbar. He comes home to Rivendell, but all is not well: the Elf-child that was taken is now a Man grown. War and darkness have left Elrohir deeply scarred, and even at home there is danger...
An alternate universe for the Under Strange Stars series, in which Elrohir goes with Glorfindel instead of running away from him after the events of Under Strange Stars. This story can be enjoyed without having read the original.
Many thanks to Grundy and Marchwriter for their excellent beta-reading and brainstorming.
Read more ...A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray [Writing]
When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow's reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.
Read more ...From That Rubble by StarSpray [Writing]
Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”
Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Read more ...Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael [Writing]
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously thought on the matter who the Ainur are, who Eru is, how he matches our own religious pantheon, and this has been conducted after serious research of many esoteric teachings of our own planet's heritage.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
Finwean Sibblings Prompt Fest 2026
A prompt-based fandom event aiming to focus on celebrating Finwë's children: Fëanor, Findis, Fingolfin, Lalwen, & Finarfin - ships, gen relationships, or character-centric
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Gigolas Week is a tumblr event focusing on the relationship between Legolas and Gimli
Innumerable Stars 2026
A character-based Tolkien fandom gift exchange is returning for another year of gifting.
Tolkien Sapphic September
Tolkien Sapphic September is a month long event focusing on Sapphic relationships and characters in Tolkien and adjacent materials.
