Aaaaand here’s part five of The Women Who Shaped Middle Earth (here’s where you can read parts one through four.) A five-part series, I’m looking at all the women who had a significant impact on Tolkien’s world. If you feel I left something out let me know, as I’ll be editing all of this before offering the complete version for download as a .pdf.

This guide, as well as one other guide (to be released later this month) is part of my contribution to Legendarium Ladies April. If you don’t already know about the event, definitely check it out! And if you have any lady-centric questions or issues you’d like to see me make a post for, now’s the time to let me know!

And if you think this is interesting, check out my already completed Atanamili: The Women of the First Age series, which covers all the (mortal) women of the First Age.

Hi, can you make a list of all the elves we know that refuse to return from Mandos and their reasons? Thank you so much!

Miriel, at first because she was too tired, and then later so that Finwe could re-marry Aegnor, because he doesn’t want to live in a world without Andreth Finwe, so that Miriel could return to the living I think that’s it… let me know if I missed someone!

tolkienreadalong:

Okay, I know that several of you re-readers mentioned that the influx of names in this week’s chapters have stumped you in the past, so in the interest of helping with that I’ve made the above infographics (I even wrote a limerick – suck it, poetry!)

I couldn’t think of anything for Finarfin’s kids, but I’ll keep working on it – and let me know if there’s another group of names you find especially confusing, and I’ll see if I can come up with anything.

((EDIT: Forgot to mention that this is all based solely on the information included in The Silmarillion, since it’s meant to help first-time readers of that book. So if you’ve read Tolkien’s other works and notice some details that are kind of… off (*cough*Orodreth*cough*), that’s why.))

It suddenly occurred to me that, even though I made these for the Silmarillion Read-Along, they’re technically educational enough for this blog (certainly more education than Azog Jesus, at least.) Part 2 will be up in a few hours.

My Opinion on Finwe’s Second Marriage

There are a couple different directions I could go with this question, so I’m going to very briefly address several of them, lol. What is my opinion on Finwe wanting to remarry? I think his reasoning was pretty fair. His situation after Miriel’s death was pretty depressing – not only was his wife dead, who’d…

Miriel’s Noldorin Heritage

In the Shibboleth of Feanor it’s said “She was Noldorin Elda of slender and graceful form.” And, since Tolkien never gives us any other information about her parentage, reader’s pretty much assume that she’s wholly Noldorin. However, it’s worth pointing out that many elves with mixed heritage are referred to by their patrilineal heritage (for…