A thread for King Excelent

Was Fëanor autistic

Curufinwë, can you tell the audience what it's like knowing that your children have not only been cucked out of your alphabet, but are speaking Sindarin? Your fifth son, your namesake, even dropped the final "we" of his name, and is going by Curufin. How does that make you feel?

What would've happened if Feanor hadn't been killed by the Balrogs half an hour after landing in Middle-Earth?

He would have done something similarly stupid leading to his death not long afterwards. Probably doing a Gwindor charge before Gwindor did it.

Alright, say he survives until Fingolfin arrives?

>Alright, say he survives until Fingolfin arrives?

He almost certianly can't, and if he could, it wouldn't matter anyway.. You're not getting it. Mandos has prophesied that the Noldor will fail; and ultimately, elves are slaves to fate. Something is going to go wrong. Something always goes wrong when the Noldor try to fight with Morgoth; because they're fated to lose.

Asking what would happen if he didn't die there is the wrong question, because somehow, fate would re-twist itself to ensure that he died in futility.

No, he was proud beyond measure

Aren't men supposed to be immune to that kind of fate? (I know this seems random, but bear with me).

youtu.be/pISzxdEgDCU

If we're defining "Men" as the second children of Illuvatar, humans, and their offshoots like hobbits, then no, they're not immune, although they do seem to be more resistant to that kind of thing than Elves or Ainur are. Think of the curse that Morgoth places on the family of Hurin.

I don't think anyone on Middle-Earth is immune to fate, such as it is. The entire history of the world had been sung out by the Ainur before it came into existence; and it will follow that script to the end of days.

>Think of the curse that Morgoth places on the family of Hurin.
Hrm, I see. Might put a bit of a crimp in my plans...

Where, generally, were you going with this theory?

IN a total aside, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to the speed of the Ride of the Rohirrim to Gondor; I just picked up a copy of the Atlas of Middle Earth, and for most of the trip, they'd have to be averaging 80 miles a day if they were to get there on time.

Given Tolkien's level of detail when it comes to other travelogue, and the lack of obvious magical means by the Rohirrim, I was wondering what anyone else thought of the impossible speed.

>IN a total aside, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to the speed of the Ride of the Rohirrim to Gondor; I just picked up a copy of the Atlas of Middle Earth, and for most of the trip, they'd have to be averaging 80 miles a day if they were to get there on time.
>Given Tolkien's level of detail when it comes to other travelogue, and the lack of obvious magical means by the Rohirrim, I was wondering what anyone else thought of the impossible speed.

>Where, generally, were you going with this theory?
Was wondering if the presence of any men with the Feanorians (right from the start, as opposed to about two thirds of the way in) would allow them to succeed in spite of the Doom of Mandos (cause of the whole "Men are not bound to fate" thing).
Well, you can see in pic related that the remains of the North-South Road/The Greenway, run through Rohan and to Gondor.

Considering the state of that stretch of the road, the Rohirrim could've used it to travel more quickly, perhaps?

Anyone care to share their experiences with playing Battle Companies? I will be playing as pic related.

>Was wondering if the presence of any men with the Feanorians (right from the start, as opposed to about two thirds of the way in) would allow them to succeed in spite of the Doom of Mandos (cause of the whole "Men are not bound to fate" thing).

Possibly, although

A) I doubt their relative protection would extend to a doomed elf; something would happen to ensure Feanor bit it while the men made it out.

B) Feanor doesn't seem the sort to accept help from men. He barely trusted other Noldorin that weren't in his direct family or bound to it.

C) To have the men awake requires the sun to rise earlier which changes everything.

>Considering the state of that stretch of the road, the Rohirrim could've used it to travel more quickly, perhaps?

More quickly, sure, and they go much faster than say, when they go through the path the Woses point out; but no modern horse can go 80 miles in a day carrying an armored rider (Let alone keep that pace up for 3 days straight) under any conditions, which is odd considering he's normally pretty good about distances covered by people traveling on foot.

And I mean, it's not like Shadowfax, which is an explicitly magical horse either.

>More quickly, sure, and they go much faster than say, when they go through the path the Woses point out; but no modern horse can go 80 miles in a day carrying an armored rider (Let alone keep that pace up for 3 days straight) under any conditions, which is odd considering he's normally pretty good about distances covered by people traveling on foot.
>And I mean, it's not like Shadowfax, which is an explicitly magical horse either.
Well, as I recall (I could very well be wrong here) Shadowfax is the greatest of a race of horses called the Meras, which are supposed to be as to regular horses as Dunedain are to regular men, right?

What if _all_ the Rohirrim's horses are Meras? That could allow them to cover that distance, probably.

>What if _all_ the Rohirrim's horses are Meras? That could allow them to cover that distance, probably.

The problem is that (Gandalf excepted) the Mearas only consent to be ridden by the kings of the Rohirrim, and are thus not the mounts for your rank and file warrior.

Even Gandalf riding a Mearas was considered a big fucking deal, and Theoden goes ballistic of him taking Shadowfax.

Ah, fair enough.

Not read the books in a very long time.

Although, now that I think about it, that doesn't discount the possibility that the Meras could've interbred with the regular horses, so that some of their traits are passed onto the "modern" mounts of the Rohirrim.

if i remember correctly, all the horses of the rohan descend from the Meras

Well then. My point exactly.

Have a picture.

NUMENOR SRTONK

Are there any in-story songs that the High Elves had in the first age?

I can't recall any written down in the Sil myself...

Same. I think that's because the silmarillion was mostly kind of a dry historical text than a cultural one.

At least in universe, a lot of the sub-stories in the Silmarillion are songs and poems that the Elves had of stuff going on. The Lay of Leithian and Narn i Chîn Húrin are both supposed to be Elvish songs.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of stuff that they'd have had *before* any of the cool stuff that the Noldor did in middle-earth had happened.

Probably just hymns and stuff, now that I think about it.

I'm sure there was stuff. For instance, the Teleri are mentioned as loving singing, and the Vanyar poetry, but offhand, I can't think of any actual songs or poems we as readers get except insofar that the Quenta Silmarillion itself is supposed to be Bilbo's collation and editing of Elvish legends and songs.
They're probably interwoven with the "original" Silmarillion.

Ah well, I'll think of something. I usually do.

...

Dozen of tavern stories later and dragon will be big as a mountain.

No, that was the joke, did you not see the filename?

Might Rohan also have a system of remounts?

There's certainly no mention of such. And if there was, you'd think that they wouldn't stress how light they needed to travel, such that even Merry's weight was considered too much to send him off.

I guess super-horses are the best answer then.

...

Except there really isn't much indication of super-horses, and I haven't been able to find a line in the legendarium that they were all descended from Mearas as per post Furthermore, other movements of the Rohirrim are more normal. They go much more slowly when they're doing the battles of the Fords of Isen and its aftermath, or the trekking to and from Isengard.