Fëanor The Elf-Lord, The Annatar Effect And Literature
Welcome to A Middle-Earth Edition of Feuilleton Friday!
My fellow Substacker and good friend,
, recently shared excerpts from his upcoming novel where J.R.R. Tolkien features as a character. If you’re a Tolkien fan, be sure to check them out at .With Tolkien on my mind - as well as current affairs - I felt the desire to pull out the good old feuilleton, put my nerd hat on after years of letting it gather dust; and ponder how the conceptual tools Tolkien gave us can assist us in better comprehending the art of literature. Especially at a time when we need it, like today.
Since my recent post on Dubravka Ugrešić was very long, I will skip any preludes to my own feelings about Tolkien and Middle-Earth and just say that Tolkien - as well as his universe - means a lot to me and has meant a lot to me for a very long time.
When the Elves were born in Cuiviénen at the beginning of the First Age, they were comprised of three different races: the Noldor (The Deep-Elves), the Teleri (The Last Elves) and the Vanyar (The Light-Elves). Cuiviénen was located in the farthest easterly expanses of Middle-Earth along an inland sea: once born, they trekked across Middle Earth so that the gods of Middle Earth, the Valar, could transport them to their paradisal homeland of Valinor once they grew aware of the danger posed to them by Melkor, the First Dark Lord. Already at that early stage Melkor’s creatures had abducted elves, corrupting and mutilating them into orcs. During the Great Journey, many groups of elves - including the Sindar elves of Mirkwood, Legolas’ people - decided to stay in Middle-Earth. This was motivated by either a fear of the journey or a growing love of the lands of Middle Earth.
At the time, the Sun and the Moon didn’t exist: two great trees lit the world of Middle-Earth. So trekking to Valinor was the same as trekking toward the sun and moon at the same time from the darkest corner of the earth. Most of the elves made it to Valinor and lived happily there for eternity. Until Melkor, with the help of the spider Ungoliath, poisoned the two trees and brought darkness upon the world. He also stole the Silmarils: three great jewels crafted by Fëanor, the greatest of the Noldor. Equal to the One Ring in importance, the Silmarils lent their name to Tolkien’s history of Middle-Earth, The Silmarillion.
The Noldor are the main protagonists of The Silmarillion. The major elf characters familiar to Lord of the Rings fans - Elrond and Galadriel - are of the Noldor.1 During the theft of the Silmarils Finwë, first of the Noldor and father of Fëanor, is slain. The Noldor vow revenge. They leave paradise - Valinor - and make their way back to Middle-Earth (via the icy Helcaraxë) to wage war against Melkor, who now goes by the name of Morgoth. The history of the First Age of Middle Earth is the history of the Noldor’s long, painful and tragic war and struggle against Morgoth, whose agents included Sauron. In the divine hierarchy, the Valar - of which Morgoth was one - are the first tier of deities. The Maiar - whose numbers include Sauron and the Five Wizards - are the second tier. Not as powerful as the Valar, but powerful in their own right. The balrogs, including the one in Moria, were once Maiar before becoming corrupted by Morgoth.
The First Age ends with the vanquishing of Morgoth and the Breaking of Beleriand, the subcontinent upon which almost all the First Age action takes place. The Second Age sees the beginning of the importance of Middle Earth as it was, topographically, at the time of the Lord of the Rings. The other important setting for the Second Age is the island of Numenor, a reward from the Valar to the race of men for their assistance in vanquishing Morgoth. That is a separate story, but from a geographical perspective “civilization” existed on the fringes: on Numenor and in Lindon/the Grey Havens, the major coastal stronghold of the Noldor in the Second Age. Most of the rest of Middle Earth was rural, remote and rugged. A true wilderness.
Relative to the First Age, the Second Age of Middle Earth is comparably quiet. Morgoth has been vanquished but his agent, Sauron, survived the turmoil and - following the destruction of Morgoth’s fortress of Angband2 - sets up shop in Mordor. He is the successor of Morgoth. While the most powerful creatures of Morgoth - like the balrogs - have vanished except for a few in hidden hiding places (like Durin’s Bane in the mines of Moria, Smaug and other dragon in the northern mountains or Shelob in Cirith Ungol) Sauron controls orcs and other creatures of villainy. And if he is somewhat less powerful than his master, he is no less evil.
The two kingdoms of Men in Middle Earth - Arnor and Gondor - have not yet been founded. The Noldor are a shadow of their former selves but recuperate under the leadership of Gil-Galad, the last great Noldor king. And the dwarves go about their business as they always have. Khazad-dûm - later known as the mines of Moria - had already been prospering since before the return of the Noldor to Middle-Earth; it is older than Lothlorien. The balrog, or Durin’s Bane, would come later: in the Second Age, Khazad-dûm continues to be a powerful dwarf stronghold and a threat to Sauron. Attempts by Sauron to infest Khazad-dûm with orcs and goblins are unsuccessful.
Unlike Middle-Earth during The Lord of the Rings, the suspicions held between elves and dwarves and men are largely absent from this time. This includes relations between elves and dwarves. On the Western side of the Misty Mountains, an elf region called Eregion is founded close to Khazad-dûm. It is led by the elf smith Celebrimbor. Though a desolate land when the Fellowship of the Ring passes through in a different age, it is the setting for the most important event of the Second Age: the forging of the Rings of Power.
Powerful objects dominate the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien; and through them, the legacy of Fëanor even as millions of readers know nothing about him.3 In the beginning it was the Silmarils: three large jewels possessing the light of the two trees. Crafted in conditions of benevolence attractive to the good and the evil alike, Melkor included. Objects that, despite representing the absolute sublimity of beauty, brought downfall and doom to those who bore them. Whether Fëanor knew it when in his forge, the forging of the Silmarils also embedded the fate and legacy of the Noldor clan within them. This is a fate even the presence of Paradise - or Valinor - cannot change.
Apart from their physical indestructibility, the three Silmarils did not, as far as is known, bequeath special powers onto their owners. They did, however, have a safety mechanism: they could not be touched by the unclean or the evil and would cause their hands to be burned. They were also as beautiful as they were vessels of light, perhaps the most beautiful creations in the history of the Middle-Earth universe. The Silmarils, as a result, represent pure beauty in both 1) its practical lack of utility, and 2) our deep, inherent need of it. Even Freud understood this to be true.
Unworthiness is cited as the reason why they can’t be touched, but I would venture that the inability of evil to comprehend beauty is another factor. While Morgoth burned his hand terribly while handling the Silmarils (he had to place them in an iron crown forged specially for that purpose) they did not affect only beings of evil such as him. They could also affect unworthy elves, as would happen at the end of the First Age. Ergo, the unclean. Who, by being unclean in thought, soul or deed, lose their understanding of what is good and beautiful.
While our aspiration for beauty is essential we also have to deserve beauty. Much as I would like nothing more than to bring a gargantuan bulldozer, destroy all the ugly architecture they make nowadays and replace it with, say, a Neo-Baroque form of beauty (or implement the little-known plan by Michael Collins to introduce a Neo-Irish architecture to Ireland), such a desire may fulfill no such purpose to begin with. Would we even deserve the beauty that would come of such an endeavor? I would say no. Many of us complain day and night about ugly architecture; and yet we put up with it anyway. How do we really feel? Are we being honest with ourselves? I don’t know. But until we are, our bare hands will burn should we attempt to hold the Silmarils ourselves.
Our desire for a better world is all too often thwarted by our inability to behave as if we deserve a better world. Before Melkor and Ungoliant drained the Great Trees and stole the Silmarils their maker, Fëanor, had gotten into trouble with the Valar and the other elves for his arrogance and pride. Fëanor is the archetypal artist in Tolkien’s universe: creator of the greatest wonders - and deserving of his arrogance to this minimal degree at least - but one whose fate is ultimately tied more to his creation than to his people. So devoted is he to his creation that during the Flight of the Noldor one of the Valar meets with them, officially banishes them and lays a curse upon the House of Fëanor. (On the way out, they had unsuccessfully tried to steal ships from the seafaring Teleri and shed blood in the process) Evidently, more of the Noldor were inextricably tied with the fate of the Silmarils than just Fëanor alone. But that doesn’t change his role as the most important elf of the First Age in the entire Silmarillion. Without him, there is no Flight of the Noldor. Without the Flight of the Noldor in reaction to Morgoth’s foul deeds, The Silmarillion has no story.
Nor does Tolkien find it convenient to let the Noldor off the hook for Fëanor’s flaws. That is because the arts are a gift to society, a truth Tolkien no doubt understood from his study of the sagas and Anglo-Saxon. The Latin etymology for “to publish” is publicare, to make public. The corruption of Roald Dahl’s novels in the name of Wokeness is a crime not only to the artist, but to the public. You, me, the neighbor next door whom we otherwise can’t stand: all of us who love, appreciate and cherish the novels of Roald Dahl have had a crime committed against us whether we realize it or not. This is why the “it’s a private company” argument is not just a copout on the part of cowards, but an insult to both writers and the public irrespective of whatever utilitarian or legalistic case the moron making that argument attempts to prioritize.
Unfortunately, we do not know if Fëanor, having succumbed to feelings of arrogance and vengeance in his efforts to recover the Silmarils, would have been able to hold them in his hand. He never saw them again and died during the first battle between the Noldor and Morgoth’s forces, the Battle Under the Stars. He stood his ground the whole time and was ready to perish in pursuit of his beloved creation. For all his carelessness and the betrayals he went through to reclaim the Silmarils, he was loyal to his oath (and to his creation) until the very end when Gothmog, lord of the balrogs, slew the Noldor Lord. Fëanor’s spirit was so fiery when he died that his body was turned to ash.
Fëanor’s sons persevered throughout the First Age. But when they recovered two of the Silmarils following the eventual vanquishing of Morgoth, they were no longer worthy to possess them. The demands of the Oath and the damnation the House of Fëanor had gone through to recover them had rendered them unworthy. One of them tossed his Silmaril into the opening Earth during the Breaking of Beleriand, returning his Silmaril to the Earth. The other son threw his into the ocean, returning his to the Sea. The third Silmaril has a tale of its own (that of Beren and Luthien, for those familiar with the lore of Middle Earth) but eventually it was transformed into a star.
I would like to think the novels of Roald Dahl in their original form - or “classic” edition, as Penguin phrased it - would burn the hands of the traitors running Roald Dahl’s estate and those of their nauseating sensitivity reader cronies. Their hands are unclean and are not worthy to possess that which is beautiful. No amount of legalism or pseudo-moralistic excuses derived from the malnourished slop Western civilization has become can change that. Those guiles of humanity that enable the perversion of that which is good come from Sauron’s handbook, and not from the Valar.
Celebrimbor was Fëanor’s grandson, the last of his House. A House that had conceded the position of High King of the Noldor to a different House (that of Fingolfin) but stood apart from the rest of the elves throughout the First Age. Like his grandfather, he was a talented craftsman but fortunately lacked his grandfather’s arrogance and pride. He was the greatest smith of the Second Age. Even so, he was still of the House of Fëanor. And his story was equally tragic.
Once he founded the elf kingdom of Eregion (a desolate waste when the Fellowship of the Ring passes through) Celebrimbor became friendly with the dwarves of neighboring Khazad-dûm (Moria). Celebrimbor also became friendly with Sauron who, back then, knew how to appear ‘wise and fair.’ Many of the Noldor (except Gil-Galad and Elrond) had forgotten him. This is the Sauron Aragorn refers to as ‘Sauron the Deceiver’ when explaining the origins of the Nazgûl to Frodo. Claiming to be an emissary of the Valar named Annatar (or ‘Lord of Gifts’), Sauron is interested in crafting rings and has come to Eregion to do just that. Sometime before then, Sauron - with a tinge of megalomania even his former master, Morgoth, did not possess - had fostered the desire to be Lord of the Earth. Naturally, we know him most often as Lord of the Rings. And as Gandalf had told Saruman: “there is only one Lord of the Ring. And he does not share power.”
As Tolkien explained in The Silmarillion: “In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself.” In the First Age, Sauron - Morgoth’s foremost agent - commanded all of Morgoth’s forces while he was away and even had a little fiefdom of his own: Tol-in-Gaurhoth, or Isle of the Werewolves. Before the Second Age, Sauron features most prominently in the legend of Beren and Luthien where an attempt to imprison Beren and his companion, the elf lord Finrod, on the Isle of Werewolves ultimately fails. (Though Finrod loses his life) Sauron remains quiet for the rest of the First Age (perhaps because of this failure) and feigns repentance before the victorious Valar before disappearing again. His arrival in Eregion is his first noteworthy appearance outside of Mordor and the lands of evil men - the Easterlings and the Haradrim - whom he had corrupted sometime before.
In Eregion, Annatar brought his knowledge to bear and crafted seven rings for the dwarves and nine rings for men. The lack of suspicion between the free peoples enabled such gifts to be given and the smiths of Eregion suspected no one. Sauron’s particular craft was therefore successful. Celebrimbor, for his part, had begun to distrust Sauron and forged the three Elven rings - Narya, Nenya and Vilya - without his knowledge and without his assistance. But due to the nature of Sauron’s “gift,” their fate was still tied to the One Ring Sauron had since forged in secret in the fires of Mount Doom. Even so, they remained uncorrupted and Sauron could never acquire them.
The second Sauron placed the One Ring on his finger, the elves knew they’d been deceived and who had deceived them. Celebrimbor therefore hid both the Three and the other rings from Sauron. Eregion was subsequently invaded once Sauron saw that they knew his plan and they wouldn’t just let the rings corrupt their bearers on their own. Sauron captured Celebrimbor and tortured him to ascertain the location of the rings. Though he confessed to the Seven and the Nine, he refused to reveal the location of the Three. Celebrimbor died as a consequence of the torture.
With his death also passed the House of Fëanor. Its torments were over. But the last mighty objects tied to his legacy - the Rings of Power - were only beginning to tell their own tale.
Few details are known of the Nine Rings made for Men. We know that the easily corruptible Men were transformed into the Nazgûl, completely evil and very powerful servants who lived only to do Sauron’s bidding. The Nazgûl are what we become when we become shadows of our former selves. But the details are less clear on what kind of Men he corrupted and who they even were. Were they Numenoreans? Kings of the Men he corrupted early on, like the Haradrim and the Easterlings? What little is revealed about the background of these “Kings of Men” suggests they were comprised of both, and that three of them at least were Black Numenoreans. (Corrupted Numenoreans who followed Sauron) But perhaps it doesn’t even matter. Just as the bubonic plague didn’t care where you’re from, so too does it not matter where these Men are from. They are all susceptible to the same weakness.
Unlike the elven rings, we also do not know the names of the individual Nine rings. But again, does it matter? When we buy (or pick up for free) plastic bags at the grocery store, do we give them names? It shows the Nine Rings were ultimately not worth whatever precious metals and jewels they were made from. There is a spectrum of worthiness in this sense: on one hand, Tom Bombadil for whom the One Ring really is just a band of gold. And the Nazgûl, for whom the rings are much the same but with the exact opposite effect. More on that in a bit.
The same can be said about the Seven Rings for the Dwarves. In this case, however, the dwarves failed to become corrupted. According to The Silmarillion, the dwarves were made of sterner stuff. They were not corrupted and could not be perverted into the shadow world like men, although their greed for gold and other goodies one finds in mines increased; it is safe to say that the influence of the Ring of Power given to the Lord of Khazad-dûm had a long-term effect on influencing the dwarves to dig deeper in their greedy search for mithril. Even so, no dwarf Nazgûl ever emerged in Middle Earth. (Though wouldn’t that have been gnarly?)
The Forging of the Rings is fascinating. On one hand, Sauron’s motive was simple: an attempt to corrupt the free peoples of Middle Earth in the most effortless way possible; through their own greed. Their own sins, if you will. The scam was his idea as far as we can tell, but his friend Satan might have planted a seed.
On the other hand: what did the elves of Eregion feel they had to gain from forging the rings in the first place? Was it meant to be a simple act of generosity on their part toward races with whom they were at peace, and toward whom Celebrimbor - unusually free of biases for an elf - appreciated and respected? Was it an attempt to preserve a declining power among the free peoples of Middle Earth who - apart from the Numenoreans - were survivors of a torturous yet glorious first age? Or did they simply take pride in their smithying work and wanted to make them for the sake of the art of crafting and forging? Celebrimbor clearly understood that the Rings of Power were…well, rings of power. Could art for art’s sake really apply to something like the rings of power in the mind of an elf? Maybe.
The Silmarillion, for its part, doesn’t seem to give a clearcut reason apart from the Noldor’s inherent love of craftwork, smithying and lore.4 Sauron, as clever as he was evil, perceived that the way to corrupt the elves was to corrupt that which they held dear. The most visible manifestation of evil both in Tolkien and in the real world is perversion: you cannot have a black mass without the mass to corrupt in the first place. Evil is, at heart, a series of perverse reactions to what already exists; however seductive evil is, it is the seduction of the unoriginal. Evil, by definition, cannot be original; and if it manages to transcend unoriginality it is rarely, if ever, non-reactionary.
While Morgoth, a Vala unlike Sauron, had some original creations (the dragons are said to have been his creation) the Dark Lord was not able to create the orcs and trolls without torturing, mutilating and corrupting elves and ents respectively. No elves, no orcs; no ents, no trolls. We see the same thing happening today with pernicious ideologies.
Sauron, down the road, was a master of corruption but did not appear to do much outside of engaging in corruption. He could control his master’s creatures - like dragons - whenever they surfaced from their hiding places. But he could not, or was not interested in, breeding them. Those creatures associated with Sauron as Dark Lord - orcs, trolls, evil men, the Nazgûl, even the corrupt Numenoreans like the Mouth of Sauron in The Return of the King - are obvious corruptions.
It is here where I wish to introduce a new concept to my growing collection of literary measurement metrics: the Annatar Effect. Sauron as Annatar - ‘fair and wise,’ or so he appeared - corrupted noble elven crafts and sought to subvert that which was meant to be beautiful to the directives of evil and order. The relationship between evil and order as envisioned by Sauron is well established. The Annatar Effect, therefore, measures the stage in which an author corrupts the craft and how, in the era of the “progress religion,” authors hold their own against this corruptive force of ‘order.’ For it is worth recollecting one of my favorite quotes in this context from scientific philosopher Auguste Comte: “Progress is nothing but the development of order.”
Just as Middle Earth is the story of many different things, it is also the story of the clash between different metrics of quality that we often refer to as “progress.” As indicated by both the Shire and the timelessness of Elven realms like Imladris (Rivendell), Tolkien does not view progress as we tend to understand it today: a net good all the time no matter where it leads us. (The unquestioning and slavish subservience to progress is why I call it “the progress religion”) Rather, there was a good life we once knew and loved - that of the hobbits of the Shire. As long as the pipeweed was potent and the beer brewed was good quality and healthy, no progress was needed: as the old axiom goes, “if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it.” An axiom we’ve been trampling in the dirt for a long time now.
Much has been written about the symbolism of the Shire in this respect: I suggest checking out The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book To Rule Them All to peruse a few deep dives. There’s also an excellent essay about the Three Elven Rings and their relationship to power. Very insightful. The only reason I don’t use it here is because it would make this post too long. But I recommend it as supplementary reading.
There was also a time when we admired and cherished beauty, understanding that there was such a thing as objective beauty - the perspective of the elves. Progress as we know it is also absent from the ways of the elves. And yet metrics of quality still exist. Fëanor is objectively a better smith than all the rest of the elves. So is Celebrimbor in his time. Though not stressed, one could easily imagine age to be a meritocratic factor in all this; a young elf’s “elders” would be thousands and thousands of years older.
While one could call this recognition of merit in craftwork and lore a sort of progress in its own way, the differential here is that the elves aren’t ‘developing order.’ They have no need nor desire to develop order, and whether one should do so is itself highly questionable. Neither do the men, for despite their shortcomings relative to elves they worship Iluvatar (the creator deity of Middle Earth) as the Elves do. Cities like Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil (before its corruption) are objectively beautiful cities as well. Those men who accept Sauron’s ‘developing order’ are lesser men who have lost touch not only with good, but beauty as well. They are not just lesser because their lifespans are shorter: they are lesser because beauty is no longer important, and the path toward good has been abandoned for sycophantic worship of progress in the form of Sauron the Deceiver.
For what is the lion’s share of progress today but a deception? Every field of progress has its examples - medicine that extends our lives, only to die of more painful and ‘expensive’ diseases; technology that brings greater convenience to our lives, only to enable a surveillance state; utilitarian infrastructure reflecting cheapness over beauty, only to uglify the world that we’re supposed to enjoy living longer in.
But let’s stick with literature.
Whatever the flaws of the early 19th century, an objective appreciation of beauty was not lost nor abandoned in literature. It did start to become lost in other respects, especially as “progress” in the form of industrialization began. Green areas that were once pristine were destroyed. Whatever case could be made about the home-centered artisan industries destroyed by the factories, people in their homes had community, a closeness to nature and beauty. (Not to mention faith) Even in sizeable towns (like Chester) a beauty existed. D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers is interesting in this respect: the protagonist’s hearkening for nature and the pursuit of art away from the mining town was itself an implicit rejection of what Britain was becoming. I wonder what Tolkien thought of Lawrence. (Though as Tolkien wasn’t into modern literature he might not have even read him)
But in literature, it persisted. Its artistry at its best could encompass the entire world. If we compile all the 19th-century literature that falls into the category of sublime, sublimity was almost a yearly occurrence in those times. The “progress religion” was alive, but unlike industrialization it was very much a “death by a thousand cuts” situation for literature. Ism after ism, like a morgul blade, cut away at the sublimity of 19th century letters until World War 1 swept its punctured corpse in a mass grave along with the rest of the bodies. As Guy Davenport once observed: “the 20th century ended in 1914.”
Ideas of progress - usually Marxist but also just artistic and, in a tiny number of instances, fascistic - propelled literature forward from that point on. Literature that serviced the good underwent a slow marginalization, but marginalized it was eventually. Today, literature is nothing but a shell from which the juices have been drained by the Ungoliant of the “progress religion.” A dull tool that cannot dig a garden, let alone a ditch. And because the “progress religion” has done the same to society as a whole, literature struggles to gain sustenance from other parts of society. (This is part of the reason why Westerners need “migrants,” “immigrants,” name the synonym to give their empty lives meaning even as they have a rich civilization with lots of meaning as their birthright)
This has been in conjunction with a Marxist-driven desire to subvert literature - as Annatar did with elven crafts using the Rings of Power - and transform writers into Nazgûl (penwraiths?) whose only directive has been the servicing of ‘order development’ a la Comte. In this sense, it doesn’t matter if you’re a bestseller or an indie author; an artsy author or a banal, unoriginal one. Either you are a Nazgûl servicing the development of order, or you’re emulating the Noldor and are pursuing the art of literature as the elves would.
Of course, such a perspective provokes a very serious question: if engaging in the corrupted art of literature is the same as wearing a Ring of Power while the One Ring is on Sauron’s finger, then is there even a way out? Can the art of literature even be saved? The rings can be worn, fortunately: but only the elf rings, and only when the One Ring is lost. And maybe the dwarf rings, assuming we are dwarflike in character. (Though I doubt many people are in today’s Western world)
There is also another to emulate: Tom Bombadil.
An awkward character for some - especially Peter Jackson, who omitted this very important character from the movies - Tom Bombadil is awkward because he is the only person the One Ring has no power over in the entire universe. As it is powerless against him, it also does not give Tom Bombadil its toxic benefits: being able to turn invisible, for instance. Tom Bombadil has no need for such a gimmick. Sauron is a very powerful Dark Lord. But he has no power over Tom Bombadil because Tom Bombadil doesn’t recognize his authority. For his part he lives a jolly life with his beautiful wife, Goldberry, in the Old Forest east of The Shire.
(Here’s a question for Tolkien fans much nerdier than I am: can Goldberry also wear the One Ring and have nothing happen to her? I suspect that she too would be unaffected)
Tolkien once said that Tom Bombadil is his embodiment of the English Countryside, while Goldberry closely resembles the river spirits of Old English folklore. If we take Tolkien at his word - and why shouldn’t we? - the directives of the English Countryside and the “progress religion” represented by the One Ring are thoroughly incompatible. I wonder how many eco-activists are capable of comprehending a truth this deep? And recognizing that they are walking contradictions just like the Green Day single.
Circling back to literature, it is clear that to avoid the Annatar Effect and to steer clear of corruption Tom Bombadil is the ideal role model here. I will end with a list of literary works and writers I believe occupy each particular stage. I just listed these authors off the top of my head so objections are welcome if you think an author belongs in a different category; although I hope literati perceive the commonality being cited here. I’m tempted to separate the Men category between Numenorean Men and Lesser Men. Let me know in the comments if you think that would expand the Annatar Spectrum or make it too tedious. Just remember: this is not 1) an assessment of pure talent or skill per se; 2) a favorites list, or 3) a political assessment, although those things aren’t unrelated. Though to some degree, one could use it as a rough reference to a certain side of sublimity.
Nazgûl: the Marquis de Sade, Karl Marx, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, postmodern philosophers, socialist realism, Millennial creative writing program automatons, Olga Tokarczuk, Bruno Jasienski, Jean-Paul Sartre, Don DeLillo, Elfriede Jelinek, Michael Moorcock, Adolf Hitler,5 Maxine Hong Kingston, Annie Ernaux, Andrzej Szczypiorski,
Men: Denis Johnson, Maxim Gorky, H.G. Wells, John Dos Passos, George Orwell, Bertolt Brecht, Jack London, James Baldwin, Dubravka Ugresic, Isaac Babel, Eugene Ionesco, Gunter Grass, Nikos Kazantzakis, Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth, China Mieville, Ernest Hemingway, Emile Zola, Slavenka Drakulic, Richard Wright, writers and bestsellers who live to follow the ‘happy directive.’
Dwarf: Mikhail Bulgakov, Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Mark Twain, Yevgeny Zamyatin, John Steinbeck, Henrik Ibsen, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Kerouac, Vasily Grossman, Charles Bukowski, Vaclav Havel, Albert Camus, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Janko Polic-Kamov, Andrei Sinyavsky, Mircea Eliade, Josef Nesvadba, Chester Himes, Can Xue,
Elf: Jorge Luis Borges, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Jose Saramago, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Stanislaw Lem, Eimar O’Duffy, Johannes Urzidil, Merce Rodoreda, Rudyard Kipling, William Saroyan, Mario Vargas Llosa, Vladislav Vancura, Curzio Malaparte, Zygmunt Krasinski, Shusaku Endo, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Mary Lavin, Frigyes Karinthy, James Joyce, Italo Calvino, Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan, J.G. Ballard, Osip Mandelstam, Victor Pelevin,
Tom Bombadil: Homer, Dante Alighieri, Joseph Conrad, Miguel de Cervantes, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lady Murasaki, Alessandro Manzoni, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Czesław Miłosz, Philip K. Dick, Mary Shelley, W.B. Yeats, Stefan Grabinski, Nikolai Gogol, Emily Dickinson, Witold Gombrowicz, P.G. Wodehouse, Eca de Queiroz, Friedrich Holderlin, Camilo Jose Cela, Flannery O’Connor, Par Lagerkvist, Heinrich von Kleist, Henry James, Bohumil Hrabal, Daniel Defoe, Boris Pasternak, Zsigmond Moricz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Cormac McCarthy, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Edgar Allan Poe, Bruno Schulz, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Hermann Hesse, Karel Čapek, Karel Hynek Macha, Omar Khayyam, Zora Neale Hurston, Johann Peter Hebel, Mervyn Peake, John Bunyan, Halldor Laxness (?), C.S. Lewis, the Norse sagas, Raduan Nassar, the Celtic myths and sagas, Beowulf, The Song of the Cid, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Erich Maria Remarque, Jan Kochanowski and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Comment away! If you feel like you get how the Annatar Spectrum works, please comment on where you think the following authors go: Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, Thomas Mann, Charles Dickens, Sholem Asch, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot, Clarice Lispector, Elie Wiesel, Ezra Pound and Junichiro Tanizaki. I can’t decide right now.
Legolas is an exception. Another exception is Cirdan the Shipwright, ruler of the Grey Havens. A minor character in LOTR but the oldest elf character in the entire canon of characters; he is of the Teleri, or Sindar.
Morgoth’s primeval fortress of Utumno had been destroyed earlier on by the Valar. When Gandalf calls the balrog “flame of Udun” in the movie, he is referring to Utumno by its other name.
It is worth noting that Fëanor is also credited in the lore for crafting the palantiri, or Seeing Stones - such as Saruman possessed at Isengard - long before they were given to Numenorean Men; they, incidentally, were imbibed with the inability to present false images or be used for lying. According to Gandalf, even Sauron and Saruman couldn’t overcome this; Sauron’s possession of the palantir of Minas Ithil (Morgul) still made use of the palantiri following the fall of Minas Ithil extremely dangerous, however.
While it is easy to associate these things with all elves due to the Noldor’s prominence in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, crafting and lore were particular to the Noldor. The Teleri, or Sindar, weren’t as strong in this respect but they did love the sea and seafaring. The Vanyar, who almost never left Valinor after the Great Journey, appear to have been content with just dwelling in the light of the Valar and of the Trees when they existed. They aren’t associated with any kind of craft like the other two clans.
Mein Kampf objectively belongs in the Men category since it was not an instrumental part of Hitler’s success. In fact, it drove people away from his party when first published. But not only will a bunch of people get butthurt if I don’t put it in the Nazgûl category: the darkness of the war had a strong influence on Lord of the Rings and I don’t want to distort that influence with something like this.
Wow, quite a lot here! Excellent Middle-Earth summary. Your new Annatar Effect scale, fantastic and, I think, helpful. Progress Religion, I think about this too. My elderly mother critiques medicine much as you cite here. Finally the location of famous writers on the Annatar Spectrum... a book-worthy topic for you. Much to ponder, wrangle, murmur.
Oh my goodness, that's a hell of a lot to try to think about. I'll give it another read soon.