Favourite moment in the Silmarillion
 

Reading the thread about how difficult the Silmarillion is to read it got me thinking about how many great moments there are in that book. So what is everyone's favourite moment in that book? My favourite moment has to be when Fingon makes that speech at the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears. It s so stirring its just brilliant.

For me it's when Eol sees Aredhel in the woods and entices her to him. I love that - it's just like something from the Perilous Realm, from Faerie. It reminds me of the ballad Tam Lin and is a rare incident of Tolkien creating a Byronic male. Lovely. ;)

Of the more cheerful moments, probably Thingol being transfixed by Melian. Of the less cheerful ones Glaurung's conversations with the children of Hurin linger in the memory.

And the funniest is Aule's response to Yavanna about the need for wood - Cosi fan tutti? :p

Oh, I love that too! Let me quote it for everyone's fun:

I can picure him in his shed, getting on with something Important on the workbench and just ignoring her. I'm surprised he doesn't ask her for a mug of tea, too :D

"Get us a cuppa love, there's a good lass" :D

Yes and I forgot that when I postulated my theory about the Noldor being shed husbands par excellence and that the Silmarilli and Palantiri were the overdesigned responses to Nerdanel's requests to Feanor for night lights and baby monitors for the nursery .. ;)

Tolkien does quite a good line in Sheddies, actually. I wonder was he writing from experience? He was known to be pretty good at DIY after all (and I can vouch for the fact that the trellis he put up on the fence at Northmoor Road sometime in the 1930s is a sturdy construction because I poked at it), and all those late nights in his study...these characterisations of masculinity could be based on experience. :eek:

;)

This are serious thread ;)
 

I'll take the scene where Beren is taken before Thingol. Amazing dialogue.

Then there's all the monologues of Fëanor.

But what I love most are the stories which are only hinted at. I especially like "the sons of Fëanor wandered as leaves before the wind" after the Nirnaeth. It's nebulous and very sad to see them like this after all the ambition and hope and valiantness they had put into that battle. And then nothing more is told about them for a long time, leaving a hoard of imaginations.

I've always loved Feanor's rebellion speech, Finrod and Beren in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and the short opassage that tells how the people of Haleth fought and how Caranthir came and acknowledged their courage.

edit: Oh, and I love reading the early doings of Noldor in ME... The burning of the ships is impressive, and the rescue of maedhros, and Maedhros' yieldment (???) of power to Fingolfin.

There are so many. The Eol and Aredhel tale always sticks in my mind. Something very primal in that story.
AS does, for some reason, Brandir randomly slaying some guy in the woods in his grief.

When Sauron sent his army one by one to their deaths and then got his rear kicked by a dog. I've never, ever taken Sauron seriously whatsoever after reading that. He's pathetic. It is my favorite moment because I started a thread about it on the Mordor LOS boards and basically made all the Sauron lovers feel stupid. Crying emotes ran rampant. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

My favourite Silmarillion story is the duel between Fingolfin and Morgoth. I always keep hoping that Fingolfin will win each time I read it. (much like the Great Escape, surely THIS time they'll get away)

You have to admit there's nothing as cool as that. Especially since Hurin then kills seventy trolls single-handedly with a balrog or twenty staring down at him. :smokin: Hurin is my favourite character by far.

How about:And then Turgon's army appears in all its spendour.

For my favourite moment, I'll go for Fingolfin's dual with Morgoth. Pretty darn amazing that an Elf lamed an Ainu.

mine would have to be the coming of the host of the Undying Lands during the War of Wrath, i thought that moment was splendid washing away and ending the tricky business in Beleriand

I am surprised to see that no one has mentioned the end of The Silmarillion. Of course, the whole book is great, but the last sentences are nothing but wonderful. If I had to choose just one moment, then it would be that one.

"In the twilight of the autumn it sailed out of Mithlond, until the seas of the Bent World fell away beneath it, and the winds of the round sky troubled it no more, and borne upon the high airs above the mists of the world it passed into the Ancient West, and an end was come for the Eldar of story and of song."

The Beginning of the End
 

I would say my favorite moment is when Feanor first eyed the peaks of Thangorodrim and realized that his oath would never be fulfilled by either himself or his sons. Then he continues to fight on, which shows the fire that was within him.

This is a very stirring moment that sets the stage for the next 500 or so years of First Age history. It seems to me that all the other great heroic events over the next 500 years occur in the context of that moment of realization for Feanor. My feeling is that despite his brave and heroric actions, in his mind Feanor says "What have I done? I have committed my people to this certain doom"

Sends chills down your spine eh?

"The challenge of the trumpets of Eonwe filled the sky"

Oh, YES! http://www.comunidadp2p.net/images/s.../notworthy.gif

I'd have to say that the Fall of Numenor underneath the waves was an intense moment.