Silmarillion Explained - The "Creation" of the Elves

today we are discussing the coming of the elves everything that I've laid out so far was necessary to discuss the coming of the elves because the coming of the elves is such an important part of the story that it could not have been explained in a vacuum everything needed to have been set up so far for the coming of the Elves and the importance of the coming of the elves to be understood you have to have understood who alatar was who the Valor are who melor is and the events that had transpired up until this point the way the world was created the locations of the continents all of this the the way the light worked all of these features have to be understood for us to even understand who the elves are and why they are the way they are it all makes sense all of these pieces work together it's the way the mythology works let me back up a little bit because there's still a little bit more you need to understand let's review some of the things that we discussed on the pre previous episode remember the orbs the orbs of light the one in the North and the one in the South that melor so uh so nicely destroyed and of course messed up the Earth well those are gone and melor of course is delved into the Earth in the far north created a fortress and has been corrupting the creatures of the world and the Valar have taken to a vast continent in the west they've hidden away built up their Fortress and created the two trees we discussed this on the last episode they have light over on their side of the world but that light only travels so far because the orbs that originally lit the entire world stood up on these lamps but the trees light mostly valenar and most of the world is dark and as orom the hunter yavana who grows and nurtures the plants travel around the world as they like to do visiting the creatures and the plants most of the Valor stay in valinor they notice that the world is dark and most of what they can see are the light of the Stars but it is dark and as they travel closer to the North they are bothered by the encroaching darkness and evil of mcor's influence on the world and it is getting worse he has not rested it is permeating the world there are dark creatures out and it is a problem and it is something that the Valor debate Tolus remember Tolus Tolus wants to take it to melor of course he's always ready to throw down but the rest of the V are saying no it's not time yet it's not time yet he's not really a threat he's off doing his thing we've got our stuff and we don't even know when the children will will show up and so they gather together and manway in his wisdom asks Mandos to speak remember Mandos Mandos is the one who looks over the hall the halls of Mandos and he's the one who understands the unfolding of time in the future these kinds of things he doesn't understand all of it but he has a sense of things and Mando says and this is a quote directly from the sil marilan in this age the children of alvatar shall come indeed but they come not yet moreover it is Doom that the firstborn shall come in the darkness and shall look first upon the Stars great light shall be for their waning to varda ever shall they call at need now doom and I've talked about this before the way tolken uses Doom is different than we tend to use it Doom usually has a negative connotation oh it's it's the Doom of the world the way the world is going to end and it's going to be terrible Doom in tolkien's writing typically means the foreshadowing the the way things will play out not necessarily a negative connotation so Mandos basically stands Among The Valor here and says this is the way things are supposed to be the children will come not yet but soon and they are supposed to come among the light of the stars and when they wne when they go away as we know in The Lord of the Rings the the elves are leaving Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings it will be during a time of [Music] light and they will ever call on varda and we've talked about this before varda elberth the songs that we hear in The Lord of the Rings that the elves sing to elberth and varda takes this to Heart in fact varda decides to go to work in the Stars not only does she and the other Valor create the trees and use that as light to help light the world and of course their home over in valinor but she decides that she is going to create light in the sky for the firstborn for the elves so that when they come into the world they will have ways of guiding them in the sky itself that the Stars will be designed just for them and I love this and she gives them constellations specific stars and constellations and they even have names so check this out out we have stars like the brightest star in the sky alarin which I think is how you pronounce it this is the Glorious in quenna that's the language of the elves it's one of the languages of the elves and we'll get we'll get into that kind of detail later but most of these words when when they're specific words for characters or items or things usually it's in quenna and this means the Glorious it's it's the briest star in the sky she also creates another star which may actually be a planet this one may be analogous to Mercury which is known as the Morning Star it's often the brightest object in the sky early at dusk seen near the Moon is alamir and that means star Jewel in quenna and she creates these and it's it's said that she gathers stars together she increases the brightness of some of the Stars she creates new stars she makes the sky brighter and then she creates constellations like will Warren the butterfly and Siro NuMe the Eagle West and talum menil the lover of the heavens and you can get some pictures in your head about what these constellations might actually look like an anorma the sun border also and this one might sound kind of familiar to you when I describe it Manar The Swordsman of the heavens with his belt and this one in particular is very interesting but before I get to the details around that I just want you to understand how very much the Valar were looking forward to the coming of these children everything they had done up until this point was for the vision of the alvatar and to make this Vision real it had to do with doing the things that they did well it had to do with living into who they were in making that concrete which has a little bit of personal investment in it of course but so much more it had to do with reveling in the glory of their creator and there was nothing more glorious and mysterious to them than the prospect of getting to meet the children of their creator that they had not seen yet and you have to remember this they saw and heard the entire picture so far in the music at the beginning except for some very specific things like the children they still had no idea what the Children looked like what they sounded like when they would show up what the full events of those children's lives would be like and how those lives would affect the future of Arda and this is the thing that they were waiting for imagine it how exciting is a story that you already know the ending to even if you love a great story it's not nearly as enticing or as exciting as a story that you don't know the ending to yet by a great author who you love so here she is creating the stars or recreating the Stars really the Stars had already been created but she she's rearranging them and she's working on meno mear this great warrior in the sky with a bow and a belt and as she's wrapping this up she's finishing this final constellation the quote here says it is told that even as varda ended her labors and they were long remember these time periods are extensive when first menal marar stro up the sky and the blue fire of helin which means ice blue it's another name for one of the specific stars flickered in The Mists above the borders of the world in that hour the children of the earth awoke the firstborn of alatar by the Starlet mirror of Cen water of Awakening that's what that word means they Rose from the sleep of alatar and while they dwelt yet silent by cven their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of Heaven therefore they have ever loved the Starlight and have revered varda ellent Above All The Valor now let's break this passage down a little bit because there are some very specific ways that this is worded and remember nobody edits Tolkien tolkien's a philologist he chooses his words very carefully every single word that he wrote was chosen because of its specific meaning the children here were awoken and the waters here the the location cenin or suven if that's the pronunciation this is the water of Awakening the the location is a bay they they are awoken next to a sea and it's and it's a lo location basically it's an inlet called The Sea of hellar and if you are one of those people who's in into maps and things like that this is a location that is described as far off in the East and the North and if you were to look at the maps and I always love looking at maps of Middle Earth and bararan and and all these locations this would be very very far off to the east this is way past the Misty Mountains way past the Lonely Mountain Way Off to the East and the North in a location that probably no longer has a actual sea there in any of the maps that we have that sea is probably no long no longer exists the world has changed since this time period and think of it as like far off the east side of most of the maps that we have and it's in this location that the children awoke it doesn't say were created or came into existence or appeared the word is awoke as if they were asleep and already existed and tolken when he talks about the elves in a lot of his interviews and in some of the extra books and usually when he describes them the elves are coexistent with creation itself they exist with the world and this is a very key key thing this is very important they their souls they themselves are coexistent with existence when they die their Spirits go back to the halls of Mandos they do not leave the world they do not have like a heaven that they leave the world and go off to that's somewhere separate from the world their Spirits stay in the world until the story is finished and then the world is done they coexist with creation and that's it the men are different the children of alatar come in two types The Elves and the men and the spirits of the men are different they are other than the elves because they live short lives they do not live forever me and when you talk about immortality in this sense we're talking about things that not only once they are born live forever but in this sense because the children awoke here it's as if they were always there from the beginning it's just that maybe the Valar didn't know where they were they were hidden from even the Valor so they were Immortal in both directions which is a really cool concept as the world when the world showed up right at the beginning and The Valor came into it latar had already deposited their Spirits into the world they were part of the world to begin with but man is different man did not exist yet at all and when man dies Mankind and I'm using the phrase man because that's what tolken uses man woman and there's there's gender stuff going on here because tolken lived you know a long time ago at this point but Humanity um when humans existed they exist for a certain period of time and when they die their spirits leave and they go where the elves do not know and we have to remember that these stories are written from the Elven P point of view and even the men if the men were to write these stories they wouldn't know either they don't really understand the full expanse of their own existence because the Valor don't know either there is nobody on Arda who has a full understanding of what's actually going on here only alvatar knows and he doesn't seem to be telling anybody so there was no booming voice in the sky from aatar announcing the presence or The Awakening of the children of the elves to The Valor there was no Beacon that went up in the sky or a narrator's voice letting them know what was going on and so for a Time the elves were alone in the darkness under the stars by the water discovering the world for the eles naming the plants and the Animals kind of biblical in this whole naming thing and themselves they named themselves the quendi those who speak and have voices because nothing else they met spoke or sang and another Point here Tolkien notes that they speak and sing from the beginning they in their own voices don't have to learn how to sing or speak singing comes naturally singing is something that happens creating music is the first voice from the beginning and so it is also with the elves another really cool Point here so for a time and who knows how long they sit and they discover and they think until one day orom on his horse hellar happened to be passing by this little location and the horse is the one who notices them the horse Nays and makes some sounds and then stops and orom stops and looks and listens and he hears singing and this this story right here has so many parallels in other stories that we will discuss in the future but also in stories in The Lord of the Rings most often times when elves are discovered in the forest the first thing people will notice is the sound of their singing think about it so many times in The Lord of the Rings this happens whether it's Hobbits discovering elves in the forest or I mean it doesn't happen in situations when the elves don't want to be discovered but in The Hobbit in the story of The Hobbit when The Travelers are making their way through merkwood the singing of the elves in merkwood and then they disappear and then the singing of the elves in merkwood and they disappear this story Echoes throughout time and this same thing happens to orom of course they don't disappear in the story but he hears the singing of the elves and he goes to them and it is wonderful he discovers the children of alvatar and they are beautiful and the quote here is is great orom looking upon the elves was filled with wonder as though they were beings sudden and marvelous and unforeseen for so it shall ever be with the Valor from without the world though all things may be for thought in music or foreshow in vision from afar to those who enter verily into AA each in its time shall be met at unawares as something new and unforetold and we explained here toen explains to us that the Elder children at this moment were stronger and greater than they've ever been at the very beginning here they are stronger and greater than they were ever they'll ever be but they were not more fair because in time through sorrow and wisdom it will enrich their fairness again sorrow comes up grief and sorrow lends to their fairness to their beauty and wisdom and this is a theme that I I discussed previously and and more deeply in in one of the bonus episodes um but Oro spend some time with them and then he hurries back to the west to valinor to carry the news to the rest of the Valor and say hey the children are here it is time what are we going to do about this and they have another meeting and at this meeting manway stands up and says in my heart I understand what alatar would have us do we need to protect the children of alatar there are too many dangers out in the world we have let melor go unchecked too long and we must welcome the children to the beauty of our home to the protection of valanor so we need to one tame the Wilds we need to get rid of whatever evil is out there and two we need to welcome them to our home because more than anything the Valar wanted to spend time with the children of alatar because it would help them better understand their father their creator and so Tolus was like yes it is time and before they went back to the elves in the Far East they headed north and they waged War again on melor they headed to his Fortress and from the elves perspective there was fire on the horizon and in the sky the Earth heaved they felt the movement and the Tremors in the land they didn't see what happened because it was so far away from them but the Earth trembled and we're told that the coastlines changed once again and melor was thrown down and another really interesting detail here is that Sauron is named in these stories he is Mel cor's Lieutenant he is the one who mans The Fortress of atno or utumno or something like that the pronunciations of course I'm not great with but Sauron is Manning one of the fortresses and we're given even greater descriptions at this point of some of the creatures and demons they're named demons at this point that melor has corrupted and created the demons that he's created the spirits that originally took to him when he convinced them to come along with him are also named they're given whips of fire and they're turned into all sorts of shapes and some of them are called ball rcks and what's amazing to think about at this point is that the majority of of melkor's Army and the creatures he surrounds himself with are things like ball rocks and demons these were not yet armies Of Orcs and goblins and things like that these are armies of creatures like ball rocks this conflict between the Valor and melor and his army shook the Earth and they delved they created craters in the north it is told that the reason the north is so Barren is because of these conflicts because of this right here and they were able to delve deep into the Earth and uncover melkor's hiding place and Tolus threw him down again and chained him and took him back to valinor and they put him in the halls of Mandos where he would remain because the halls of Mandos were created in a way where no Vala no elf no man could make their way out of he would be contained there and so for a time there would be peace but were also told that they didn't find all of the hiding places under the Earth and Sauron escaped and with melor now in captivity The Valor would feel safe enough in order to approach the elves again but there's one more piece of this story I haven't talked about yet remember that time when the elves were off by themselves before orom found them and before the Valar went to war with melor again they were off on their own and some of them wandered off into the darkness exploring and even when orom showed up some of the elves were afraid some of the more wise elves saw the light of valinor in or's eyes and understood that he was good but some of them were scared and we're told that melor took advantage of this he wasn't the only one who noticed the coming of the children you ever wonder how the Orcs were created well they talk about it in the movies they reveal this in the movies there's a line where one of the characters is explaining to one of the other characters that the Orcs were created by the dark lord and I think they say the Dark Lord but they don't mean Sauron twisting the elves torturing them mutating them changing them into Orcs And this happened at this time period because in the earliest days of the children some of the disappeared into the darkness and nobody knows exactly what happened but they were captured and they were enslaved and they were tortured and they were changed forever into vile creatures who only knew darkness and pain so much so that they hated the their Master these are the Orcs And it is thought of as the most terrible thing that melor ever did to spite his father to take his most beloved creation his children and to turn them against him next week we'll talk more about what happens next when the Valor approached the elves and offer them a journey back to valenar a long journey thanks for tuning in stay safe in Middle Earth and I'll talk to you next time thanks for listening to the Lord of the Rings lore cast if you'd like to learn more about other fantasy worlds check out my other 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Channel: Lord of the Rings Lorecast

Views: 12,072

Keywords: lord of the rings, lotr, lord of the rings lore, silmarillion, rings of power, lore, lorecast, lord of the rings lorecast, elves, the elves, tolkien's elves, lotr elves

Id: eehzin5lHh0

Length: 31min 11sec (1871 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024