Favourite moment in the Silmarillion

[Elmo]

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.

[Lalwendë]

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.

[Mithalwen]

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?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

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

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

Then Manwe and Yavanna parted for that time, and Yavanna returned to Aule; and he was in his smithy, pouring molten metal into a mould. 'Eru is bountiful,' she said. 'Now let thy children beware! For there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they will arouse at their peril.'

'Nonetheless they will have need of wood,' said Aule, and he went on with his smith-work.

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

[Elmo]

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

[Mithalwen]

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 ..

[Lalwendë]

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.

[Macalaure]

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.

[Thinlómien]

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.

[Břicho]

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.