the theme of the Silmarillion

[Narsil's weilder]

What do you think it is? I am doing it for a book report and this part has got me stumpted. :blush:

[Illuvatar]

Right on the front cover mate! History of the Elves and Middle Earth!

[Aragorn Isildur]

Pretty obvious....did you mean theme or moral?

Aragorn:king:

[Narsil's weilder]

Moral I guess.

[Orkybash]

I've always found theme a tricky thing to define, but I think I'd most closely describe it as the author's purpose for writing the book - what does the author want to tell us (besaides, of course, the story)? What idea does he conistently develop throughout the book? This *could* be a moral, or it could be a world view, or it could be any number of other messages. Also, there could certainly be more than one theme.

I'm not done reading the Silmarillion (I'm on "Of the Ruin of Beleriand"), so I'm not in a position to come up with a theme just yet. However, so far Tolkien seems to be saying that you should think about the consequences of your actions. For example, Melkor swears lightly that he will feed Ungoliant "with both hands," which later gets him into trouble. Feanor brashly takes the Noldor out of Valinor (and attacks the Teleri in the process), calling the Doom of the Valar upon him and making his people unwelcome in Beleriand. Obviously, I don't know how well this is supported throughout the rest of the novel, and that's just one of the possible themes you could write about.

Also, are you only considering the Quenta Silmarillion proper, or the compillation as a whole (including the ainulindale, the valaquenta, etc)? I would only focus on the Silmarillion proper if I were you - the other stories, though related, aren't the same work, and therefore might have unrelated themes.

[Finrod Felagund]

Pride and Greed will bring about your downfall and ruin everything and everyone associated with you.

Feanor and Co.: His pride caused majority of the suffering of ALL the Elves

Turgon: should have listened to Ulmo

Turin: Essay in itself, he should have stayed at home, convinced Orodreth to build that stupid bridge

Thingol: Beren never would have gone to retake the Silmarills>Finrod wouldn't have gone with him>Maedhros wouldn't have gotten any crazy ideas about beating Morgoth without Valarian help

Dwarves of Belegost: would have accepted payment, not killed Thingol, not turned all the Elves against them and not destroyed Menegroth

Celebrimbor and the whole Rings of Power thing

Just my $0.02 worth

I love topics like this, always lots of thought and sometimes a little flame
:thumbs:

[Narsil's weilder]

Thanks for your post so far. Keep 'em coming!

[Algamesh]

NW ...

The morale concepts of this have been address a bit already ... you may want to dig back to July and look at the following thread:

http://warofthering.net/forums/vbulletin225/upload/showthread.php?s=&threadid=118

:thumbs:

[Narsil's weilder]

What about summin it up? There are too many things I have to write :elfeek: that I can't put in one paragraph for my report. Any good ideas?

[Lady Melody]

Just about a buncha elves obsessed about 3 gems... lol lol lol
Okay, seriously... it's about how we get moonlight and sunlight in middle earth (which is so mistakenly named, it's supposed to be fruit-light and flower-light... muahahaha) and the people who lived in the land resulting...

Wait a minute, I'm not making sense!!

Simply said, it's the history of middle earth.... tada!

[Narsil's weilder]

Jewels, like crack for elves!