Ilya of Murom Is a Reasonable Man Surrounded by Capricious Wizards

So in Russia they have this dude named Ilya
he is a hero to the Russian people
which makes Russia the only country
as far as I know
to basically worship a dude
who spent the first 30 years of his life sitting on top of an oven in his mom’s house.

Yeah seriously
for the first three decades of his existence
one of Russia’s greatest heroes is basically the prototypical Hikikomori
because he is too week to be anywhere but on top of the oven.
Then one day his parents leave him home alone
probably hoping he will die and save them the food money
when jesus shows up with some of his dudes
(in disguise of course)
and jesus is like “Hey bro
me and my bros wanna get our bro on with some brews
can you bro us out?”
and Ilya is like “Aw man I would love to give you my dad’s booze
but I can’t leave this oven for some reason”
but jesus REALLY wants to get his drink on
so he magically heals Ilya’s illness so Ilya can get them all drunk
and after jesus and his dudes are done sippin’
jesus is like “Hey broseph
have a sip of this drank
it has my germs on it but w/e”
and Ilya drinks it and immediately becomes SUPER STRONG
so he’s like “WHOA
I feel like I could pick up the whole earth!”
and Jesus is like “aw fuck
here, gimme that drink back”
and then he drinks it again, and has Ilya drink it again
and Ilya is like “wtf
I still feel strong
but like less strong
and Jesus is like “HAHA BRO YOU JUST GOT NERFED
seriously though if you’re too strong the earth won’t let you walk on her
I did you a solid just now
anyway we gotta jet
we’re doing a pub crawl through random dudes’ houses
have fun being a hero
you’re basically invincible
as long as you steer clear of this massive hero named Svyatogor
plus one or two other guys.
Later!”

Ilya is super pumped, obviously
so the first thing he does is chop an unreasonable amount of firewood for his dad
to make up for thirty years of freeloading
then he buys and refurbishes a horse
and then he goes on an ADVENTURE.

The first thing he encounters on his adventure
is a gigantic fucking bed
because of course he does
it wouldn’t be an adventure without a preposterous sleeping apparatus
so without asking any questions
Ilya curls up and goes to sleep.
Holy shit, ancient heroes would just be the EASIEST PEOPLE TO TRAP.
Ilya has seriously wandered into the sleepy dude’s version
of a carrot under a cardboard box held up by a stick with a string attached
and SURE ENOUGH
a couple hours later, Ilya’s horse starts freaking out
because guess whose bed this is?
MASSIVE HERO SVYATOGOR, OBVIOUSLY
but Ilya keeps right on snoozing
until the horse is like “SERIOUSLY DUDE WAKE UP
IT’S ONE OF EXACTLY THREE PEOPLE WHO COULD MAYBE KILL YOU
AND YOU ARE IN HIS BED”
and Ilya is like “HOLY SHIT MY HORSE CAN TALK
THAT’S SO GROSS
OKAY LET’S GO HIDE”

So they hide
and Svyatogor shows up
and opens a crystal box which contains
HIS WIFE
so she pops out and makes him dinner
using all the food he keeps in the box with her
and he eats the food
and then
after completing his supernaturally sexist evening ritual
he goes to sleep
and his wife goes wandering around
enjoying the few hours of the day she gets to spend outside her crystal prison.

Obviously she finds Ilya and his horse
and she’s like “Hey dude
climb out of that tree
or I’ll go tell my husband you fiddled my nips.”
and Ilya is like “Wow that’s an awkward phrase
‘fiddled my nips’
I’m imagining just flicking your nipples with my thumbs
like an erotic XBox controller”
and the wife is like “DON’T YOU DARE, YOU GROSS ANIMAL”
and then she leads him out of the tree and puts him in her husband’s pocket.

So Svyotagor wakes up in the morning and is an idiot
as in, he has no idea there is a whole other dude in his pocket
so he puts his wife back in her box and gets on his horse
and the horse is like “Come on man
you’re twice as heavy today
because there’s a whole other dude in your pocket
owwww.”
and when Svyotagor gets done freaking out about how his horse can talk
he pulls Ilya out of his pocket like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY POCKET”
and Ilya is like “That’s a great question!
Your wife put me in here.”
so Svyotagor kills his wife
thus ending her wretched imprisonment
and also preventing us from ever knowing
why the fuck she put a dude in her husband’s pocket.
But he doesn’t kill Ilya
instead he teaches him all about being a hero
like how to lift heavy shit
and keep your wife in a box with all your camping equipment
and murder her at the drop of a hat.
He even takes Ilya to meet his dad
who is blind
and has Ilya heat up a big piece of iron
and give it to the dad instead of his hand
so that his dad will be like “OH YEAH WOW WHAT A STRONG HAND.”
there’s no reason for them to do this
dude just likes lying to his blind dad.

So they leave Svyotogor’s dad’s house
and start walking through the mountains
because Svyotogor is so strong he’s not allowed on normal ground
and they find this coffin in the middle of the road
which says “Hey, whoever fits in this coffin has to stay in it forever”
so Ilya gets in the coffin
because mythical people just LOVE weird coffin parties
but luckily he doesn’t fit
otherwise his saga would be very boring
so then Svyotogor is like “OOH OOH LET ME TRY”
so he gets in the coffin and it fits him exactly
so he’s like “WELP, GUESS I GOTTA SHUT THIS COFFIN ON MYSELF”
and Ilya is like “No dude no you don’t”
and Svyotogor is like “IT’S A HERO THING
YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND”
so he shuts himself inside
and then he’s like “AAA, AAA FUCK
THE COFFIN WON’T OPEN”
and Ilya is like “Dude what did you think was going to happen”
and Svyotogor is like “DUDE FUCK YOU JUST OPEN IT”
and Ilya is like “I can’t, bro
you’re stronger than me and you can’t
so I can’t either.”
and Svyotogor is like “OK HIT IT WITH MY SWORD”
and Ilya does, but that only makes a little crack in the coffin
so Svyotogor is like “OK DUDE COME PUT YOUR FACE BY THE CRACK
I WILL BREATHE MY STRENGTH INTO YOU”
and Ilya is like “You mean the strength that makes it so you aren’t allowed to walk on the regular earth?
No thanks dude, I think I’m ok.”
and Svyotogor is like “NICE
I WAS ACTUALLY JUST GOING TO BREATHE DEATH ON YOU AND KILL YOU
BUT NOW I’M JUST GONNA DIE INSTEAD”
and Ilya is like “We’ve been through a lot together
and I just want you to know that you’ve been a terrible friend.”
Then Svyotogor dies and the world is slightly better because of it.

The moral of the story
is never let a dude in a coffin breathe in your mouth.

The end.

Hi’iaka’s Quest Just Barely Passes The Bechdel Test

Phew, Silmarillion’s over
gonna take a break and tell some short myths
while I work my way through Moby Dick.
In the meantime, today’s myth is from a very special mythos
requested by majority vote from my Patreon patrons.
(GIVE ME MONEY GIVE ME MONEY)
The mythos of the month is …
*drumroll drumroll drumroll*
HAWAIIAN

I’ve only done one hawaiian myth before
and it was unbelievably badass

but there are other Hawaiian heroes besides Maui
and some of them are even FEMALES
so let’s hear about one of those.

Okay so there’s this chick named Hi’iaka
She has a sister named Pele
who is basically the goddess of lava
and Pele has just finished digging a big hole for her whole family to live in
because I guess housing prices are too high.
Digging a family-sized hole and putting your family inside it is hard work
so immediately after doing it
Pele falls asleep HARDCORE
she falls asleep so hard that her soul ACTUALLY LEAVES HER BODY
AND FLIES TO ANOTHER ISLAND
AND FORMS ANOTHER BODY
AND GETS FUCKING LAID.

Yeah, Pele’s spirit shows up at this wicked luau on Kauai
and since she is basically the goddess of lava
you can bet that the body she forms is suffused with really unhealthy amounts of hotness
so she sidles up to the king of town
whose name is Lohiau
and she’s like “hey baby
wanna get married?”
and he’s like “oh god yes”
so they do that, like immediately
and they also do a lot of other things
but then Pele’s alarm clock goes off and she wakes up
and her hot ghost disappears from Kauai
leaving Lohiau all alone.

So Pele is like UGH WHAT THE FUCK
I WAS HAVING A REALLY GOOD DREAM WHERE I WAS SNOGGING THE KING OF KAUAI
I need someone to go all the way to his village
and tell him to come back here so we can bang some more.
It will be incredibly dangerous and I am offering like no payment
who’s in?”
and Hi’iaka is like “God dammit, sis
you know I gotta do it cause you’re my family
but I am seriously so tired of being your supernatural wingman
supernatural titcaptain*, sorry.”
And Pele is like “GREAT
YOU CAN START TOMORROW
YOU HAVE EXACTLY FORTY DAYS AND YOU CAN’T TWIDDLE HIS WANG AT ALL
IN FACT, YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX WITH ANYONE
GOOD LUCK”
and Hi’iaka is like “what?
ugh.
why do chicks always have to be virgins to do anything cool?
whatever, fine, I’ll abstain
but you gotta give me god powers.”
and Pele is like “Wait, you’re my sister
don’t you already have those?”
and Hi’iaka is like “You would think so, huh?”

but whatever, Pele gives Hi’iaka god powers
and Hi’aka gathers a bunch of her ladybros
with all different skills and backgrounds
and they proceed to trek across the entire Hawaiian island chain
beating up sharks and dealing with street harassment
except instead of the street it’s usually on rivers
and the dudes are in boats
so … boat harassment?
fishcalling?
watersports?
unbridled douchebaggery?
whatever it is, Hi’iaka is having none of it.
At one point she and her crew have to cross a river
but they don’t want to get their clothes wet
so they take them off and hold them above their heads to cross the river
which is pretty impressive and hot
but this ghost god called Hinahina-ku-i-ka-pali starts being a total prude
like “NUDE WOMEN IN WATER?
UNACCEPTABLE.”
so Hi’iaka tells him to get bent
and they do it anyway.
boom
problem solved.

Hi’iaka and crew have a ton of adventures
but I don’t really feel like listing all of them here
(although maybe I will recount individual adventures at a later time)
they basically all boil down to one thing
which is that Hi’iaka is the baddest bitch and you should respect her
the important thing is that when she arrives at Kauai
after deliberately choosing all the most difficult routes
it turns out Lohiau is dead.
He died because his hot wife disappeared and he was sad.
But Hi’iaka is like “Whatever, it’s fine
I’ll just grab his soul and stuff it back in his body
oh, what, two chicks stole his body and hid it in a cave?
I’ll just kill them and take it back, nbd.”
So she does all that, and Lohiau comes back to life
and she’s like “Come with me if you want to get laid.”
He does not need very much convincing.

Here’s the problem, though:
because Hi’iaka has chosen all of the most difficult routes this whole time
the 40 day time limit has long since expired
so when she gets back home
after flipping off more magic sharks
and not touching Lohiau’s weiner even a LITTLE BIT
Pele is like “YOU’RE LATE
FUCK YOU
I BET YOU BANGED MY HUSBAND YOU PIRATE SKANK”
so Hi’iaka is like “Okay first of all
pirates are awesome so you can’t use that word to insult me
second of all I didn’t even put my tongue on this guy
let alone bang him.”
and Pele is like “LIES!”
so Hi’iaka is like “You know what?
Fine.”
And then she fucks Lohiau right in front of her shitty sister
making fierce eye contact with her THE ENTIRE TIME.
So Pele is like “OOOOOOOOOOOH THAT DOES IT
GODS!
SET THESE PEOPLE ON FIRE”
but the gods are like “No, Pele
you are being unreasonable.”
and Pele is like “FINE
I’LL SET THEM ON FIRE MYSELF
I’M THE GODDESS OF LAVA
I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY I ASKED YOU.”
So she sets them on fire
but she forgot that she made Hi’iaka immortal earlier
so only Lohiau gets killed.
This dude is seriously having the worst week.

You know what, though?
Hi’iaka don’t care
she grabs a shovel
and starts literally digging her way into the underworld
going through layer after layer to get to Lohiau’s soul.
On the fourth layer she runs into the ladies she killed to get his body
and she’s like “Fuck it, you guys are alive again, have fun.”
And she makes it all the way to level ten
when one of her friends is like “This is probably a bad thing to be doing.”
so she stops
and it turns out Lohiau’s soul wasn’t there anyway
so she just grabs it out of the air and stuffs it back in his charred body
and they presumably have really weird and painful sex forever.

So the moral of the story
is you should never rely on your little sister to get you laid.

The end.

Tolkein Told You That WHOLE OTHER STORY So He Could Tell You This One:

Wow I totally forgot to post a myth on Monday.
Here it is.
After this I’ma tell a myth from a specific mythos
hand-selected by my 5-dollar and up Patreon backers
HEY BY THE WAY YOU SHOULD BACK MY PATREON
Anyway
let’s wrap up the fukkin Silmarillion
with this story about evil fashion accessories.

So right after Morgoth gets banished
Sauron starts freaking out
and he actually tries to repent for all his sins
but ultimately there’s just too much paperwork
so he goes back to being evil instead.
Sauron rocks at being evil
because he can shapeshift into a hot dude
and everybody trusts hot dudes.
So he goes to the elves like “Hey let’s be bros”
and the elves are like “sure, you seem hot.”

So Sauron hangs out with the elves for a while
and he convinces them to start making RINGS OF POWER
the elves seriously make so many rings
they are just cranking those fuckers out
but then Sauron pulls a dick move
(the only kind of move he is capable of pulling)
(I just got an image of a guy standing in front of a mirror
practicing dick moves)
the dick move is to go back to his evil castle
and make one ring
ahem, I mean One Ring
that basically just has root access to all the other rings
but the elves realize what’s going on
and they all just take off their rings
and Sauron is like FUCK
and he tries to kill them and take their rings
but mostly they destroy them
and they keep the last three
which are pretty nice rings
but they can’t wear them because of evil.

So Sauron learns from his mistake
and tries the exact same scam with the dwarves and the humans
giving them seven and nine rings respectively.
this works perfectly
because men are stupid and greedy as fuck
and dwarves are dwarves.
The rings make the dwarves lust for gold
which is like if you forged a ring to make soup hot and wet
and then gave it to a bunch of dwarves
who proceeded to fuck it because dwarves fuck gold.

The humans are the worst at ring-having.
The dudes who have the rings turn into crazy powerful sorcerors
who can turn invisible whenever they want
but then suddenly they’re invisible all the time
and they have to do what Sauron says
and they’re all like “Aw jeeze.”

Sauron gets sick of rings though
and decides to just kill everybody.
The humans of Numenor try to stop him from doing that
but we already know what happens to them.
After that, his evil ghost runs back to Mordor
and he builds himself a new body out of steel and hatred.

Meanwhile, a few dudes have escaped the destruction of Numenor
Most important is this dude Elendil the tall
(he’s important because he is tall)
Elendil has two sons: Isildur and Anarion
and they become co-rulers of the survivors
and build two huge towers to live in
called Minas Ithil and Minas Anor
and spend most of their time looking into crystal balls
until Sauron finally decides to say fuck it and kill everybody for real

But it’s totally fine
because the elves and the humans totally team up to smack him down
after a SEVEN YEAR SIEGE
except it’s not super fine, because Elendil and Anarion die
and Elendil’s sweet magic sword gets broken.
but it’s fine after all, because Isildur kills Sauron
and cuts off his ring hand with the shards of his dad’s magic sword
and takes his One Ring
and when Elrond, one of the elf-lords asks him to destroy it
by throwing it into the volcano it was forged in
he’s like “naw” and keeps it
and then he gets killed by some orcs when the ring betrays him in a river
and the ring escapes and gets found by some dumb fisherman
who turns into an evil ghoul and lives in a cave for a century
thus ensuring that Sauron’s power will remain in the world
and guaranteeing his ultimate resurrection
so
ultimate verdict
NOT FINE AT ALL.

Oh yeah, remember those three elf rings?
Those are still around
apparently just having them nearby makes your city last forever
which means it’s really easy to spot where they are.
Elrond has one of them
Galadriel has another one of them
and the third one
?????
Who knows.
Probably somebody who wasn’t in the movies.

Anyway, Sauron starts coming back to life
like everybody knew he would
and gathers as many rings to himself as he can
including the nine rings from the humans
and three he managed to get from the dwarves
and he’s looking SO HARD for that one ring
but like, why though
he already has 12 rings by my count
that is too many to wear.
Oh well
I guess loving bling isn’t a crime.
I mean, wanting to end all life on earth is a crime
but whatver.

Surprisingly the Valar actually get off their asses and do something about this
… kind of
I mean, they don’t come to Middle Earth themselves
but they do send a bunch of old dudes to make sure things are okay.
These old dudes are called Istari
which is just a fancy word for FUCKING WIZARDS.
One of them is Gandalf
one of them is Saruman
one of them is a dirty goddamn hippy named Radagast Shitrobe
and there are a bunch of other ones too but they don’t matter.

So Gandalf spends all his time wandering around fighting evil
and figuring out what Sauron’s plans are
while Saruman wastes absolutely no time getting corrupted by Sauron
and searching desperately for the One Ring so he can use it to screw everybody else in the entire world
like he’s forgotten the first rule of wizardry:
“bros before eldritch artifacts of practically limitless power.”

Meanwhile, the nine humans who got corrupted by the rings come back
they’re called the Nazgul now, and they look exactly like how that name sounds
and they take over Minas Ithil and rename it Minas Morgul
because bad guys get to name things too
and Minas Anan, not to be outdone, renames itself to Minas Tirith
And at this point everything is pretty well set up for the lord of the rings:
Bilbo the hobbit finds the ring in the cave
gives it to his son Frodo
Frodo flails and whines his way to Mount Doom and destroys the ring
A dude named Aragorn turns out to be the direct descendant of Isildur
and reforges the sword that got broken in that battle all those years before
Gandalf solves basically every problem anyone ever has
and everybody lives happily ever after.

All of that isn’t important.
What’s important is that after all that
it turns out that Gandalf was the dude who had the third elf ring LIKE THE WHOLE TIME
and he didn’t tell ANYONE
so you know that scene near the beginning of Lord of the Rings
when Frodo tries to give the ring to Gandalf
and Gandalf is like NO I CANNOT ACCEPT THAT MUCH POWER?
What he really meant was
“Nah thanks bro I’m good I already got one.”

It doesn’t really matter though
because once the one ring is destroyed, the other rings don’t work anymore
stupid proprietary technology.
This means that all the elf cities are doomed to fade away and die
so the elves are like “You know what? Fuck it.
Middle Earth has been an endlessly shitty place for as long as we can remember
let’s fulfill the promise of our ancestors
and go live in an immortal party castle forever.”
So they do
and now it’s just humans
sitting around in the ruins of another massive world war
but it’s joke’s on the elves
because at least humans get the gift of death!

Welp
That’s the end of the Silmarillion
which is basically a story about how the world was prophesied to suck
and then ended up sucking, just like the prophecy said
all because some jerkass couldn’t play along with the band during rehearsal
so ultimately, according to Tolkein
the root of all evil
is death metal and fancy jewelry.

Man, dude would fucking hate glam-rock.

THE END.

AKALLABETH, or: The Valar Are Poor Communicators

AH FUCK
IT’S NOT OVER.
Tolkein straight up added more book after the end of his book.
It is as if the Silmarillion is a huge, complex wordburger
and the Akallabeth is an extra patty he just threw on top
getting your fingers all greasy
drawing unwanted attention to your already unhealthy meal.
It’s a pretty sweet story though.

So after the Valar come over and fix everyone’s shit
they reward all the humans who helped them
by giving them their own party island off the west coast.
This island is called Hawaii
oh wait no it’s not
why would it be called Hawaii
it’s called like four thousand other things
but none of those things are Hawaii
even though that’s exactly what it fucking is
but in case you’re taking a class on this or something
the island is actually called Numenor.
The elves also get an island called Avallone
but it’s slightly closer to Valinor
and everybody real estate is all about location
plus the elves can never die so that’s sweet too
oh and also the Valar tell the humans that they aren’t allowed to go west at all
because that would take them closer to Valinor
and humans are too gross to go to Valinor.

The humans are pretty stoked to be where they are
FOR A WHILE
but then people start to ask a very reasonable question:
they’re like “Hey
how come the elves can come over and party with us on our island
but we can’t go over to their island?”
and the elves and the Valinor are just like “Uh …
you just can’t, okay?”
and the humans are like “But that’s so unfair!
Why do you guys get to be immortal
while we are doomed to die in all the lamest ways?”
and the Valar are like “Are you guys kidding?
Dying is a GIFT.
We would LOVE to be able to die
the burden of generations of wisdom and partying can be too much at times
seriously we don’t understand what you’re complaining about.”

Obviously this answer does not please the humans
but they know better than to fuck with the Valinor
so instead they take out their aggression on the humans of Middle Earth
because those guys are all still hungry and confused
due to the aftermath of the huge war that just happened.
So after centuries of enslaving other humans and demanding tribute
the people of Numenor naturally become shittier and shittier
and their kings become the shittiest of all.
There’s a brief moment of non-shittiness
when this dude Tar-Palantir becomes king
but then he dies and passes the crown to his daughter
and his shitty brother forces her to marry him
which is illegal on SO MANY LEVELS
but I guess it doesn’t matter because then he’s king.
His name is Ar-Pharazon
and he is the last person who gets to be king of Numenor.

See, here’s what happens
Sauron, Morgoth’s most devoted follower
didn’t get banished when his boss did
so he’s just been chilling out in Middle Earth
making things objectively worse for everyone
and finally he raises an army
and gets real arrogant about it
and starts calling himself the king of men
but Ar-Pharazon is like “NUH UH
YOU CAN’T BE THE KING OF MEN
IIIIIIII AM THE KING OF MEN.”
and Sauron is like “Oh dang, you’re right
I’ll stop opposing you immediately
in fact, can I just come and live at your house
maybe be your trusted advisor?”
And Ar-Pharazon is like “Hmmmmmm
YES.”
You don’t become king of Numenor by being smart, friends
you become king of Numenor by heredity
and also by forcing your niece to marry you.

So now Sauron is Ar-Pharazon’s most trusted advisor
which means we all know where this is going already.
Sauron’s like “Now I know you’ve been worshipping the Valar
because of their benevolence and whatnot
but you know who’s even better?
MELKOR
Like, do the Valar demand human sacrifices?
NOPE.
Melkor does though.
SO METAL.”
And Ar-Pharazon
who definitely aspires to be the most metal king of Numenor
can see no problem with Sauron’s terrible advice.

So Sauron and Ar-Pharazon build a huge temple to Melkor
and start sacrificing all the nice people inside of it
and they burn down their copy of Celeborn, THE TREE OF LIFE
although some dudes manage to save a fruit from it first
and grow a little tree out of it
but that doesn’t matter basically at all.
Everybody’s lifespans start getting shorter
terrible diseases abound
people go crazy and murder each other
getting struck by lightning becomes a common occurrence
things become worse in pretty much every conceivable way
other than metalness, I guess.

But Sauron has not fucked up enough shit yet
so he goes to Ar-Pharazon like “Yo
You’ve been doing a pretty terrible job at king
but you know what buddy?
I believe in you.
You can do way worse.”
and Ar-Pharazon is all “SHIT YEAH I CAN
I’M THE KING OF MEN
I CAN DO ANYTHING.”
So then he decides he is actually going to ATTACK VALINOR.
Luckily, not everybody in the kingdom is as dumb as he is.
There’s this dude named Amandil
who grabs a bunch of other non-idiots
and he’s like “Okay, guys
I don’t know how shit got so bad
maybe it’s a combination of boredom, inbreeding, and arbitrary rules handed down by distant, uncaring gods
but whatever
the point is that shit is about to be horrible
and you guys all need to live.
I’m going to try and sail to Valinor and talk the gods out of doing something rash
because that ALWAYS WORKS.”

So Amandil’s sons head to Middle Earth
Amandil heads to Valinor
and so does Ar-Pharazon’ WHOLE DAMN FLEET.
Ar-Pharazon lands on that Elf island, Avallone
like “HAHA, MINE!”
and Manwe sees that and goes out of his fucking gourd
he calls up Iluvatar
who he hasn’t talked to in AGES
and is like “Yeah dude, just kill everybody.”
So Iluvatar
who, remember
has not interfered with creation SINCE THE BEGINNING
is just like “Yeah, okay”
and straight up splits the world in half
just to keep humans from getting to Party Island.

So Ar-Pharazon dies
all his dudes die
all the elves on Avallone
plus a few stray birds, but fuck birds.
Amandil’s guys are fine
because they got out while the getting was good
and Sauron is chilling in his temple in Numenor
laughing his ass off over this catastrophe
when all of a sudden
WHOOPS
Numenor falls into the fucking abyss
and Sauron does that thing Wile E. Coyote does
where he sits on nothing for a minute with his eyes closed
cautiously feeling the air around him with his feet
before resignedly opening his eyes and falling to his death.

EXCEPT HE CAN’T BE KILLED.
His hot bod gets destroyed, sure
but his mean ghost is fine
so he just runs back home
and turns into a GIANT FLAMING EYEBALL
which goes on to cause a lot more problems
but I’ll tell you about that shit next week.

So the moral of the story
is that you should probably just let your friends party at your place sometimes
because otherwise
some day
you may have to destroy them.

Earendil Drives a Boat into a Fucking Dragon

ARE WE DONE YET, TOLKIEN?
HAVE YOU SAID ALL THE FANCY NAMES YOU WANT TO SAY?
CAN WE GET TO THE PART WHERE SHIT DOESN’T BLOW?
Yeah?
Ok cool
awesome.

So Tuor and Idril sail off in a boat and escape the story
ditching their two kids in the process
and one of their kids
Earendil
isn’t too jazzed about that
so he builds ANOTHER boat
and HE sails off to look for his parents
/find Valinor and ask the Valar what’s up
/have orgies in their party castle forever
ditching his wife Elwin in the process
along with the Silmaril she’s guarding.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS FAMILY
DO THEY LOVE BOATS SO MUCH THAT THEY FORGET THEY HAVE RELATIVES?
GUESS SO.

So while Earendil is gone
the sons of Feanor hear about Elwin and her Silmaril
so they send a strongly worded letter to her
like “Hey, that shiny piece of garbage is actually ours
give it back or else
love,
the source of basically every single problem in this story”
and Elwin and all her friends are like “Hmm
we could just give them back the Silmaril
but it’s REALLY shiny
so let’s just keep it.”
and the sons of Feanor are like “Ok, awesome
we’re getting really good at killing our own kind anyway.”
So they slaughter most of the people in Elwin’s city
except for Elwin’s kids
and also Elwin, who throws herself into the sea
and then Ulmo is like “Okay, this is fucking dumb.”
so he rips a page out of Zeus’s book
and turns her into a bird
with the Silmaril embedded in her chest
so Maedhros and Maglin
(the two surviving sons of Feanor)
see her flying away
while they murder the last of her friends
and are just like “AWW, CRICKET-DICK”

So Elwin meets up with Earendil
who is actually on his way back to see her anyway
and she tells him what’s up
so they decide to fuck off to Valinor together
and fuck everything else.
No one has successfully made it to Valinor so far
but Earendil has a secret weapon:
the Silmaril.
So he straps that shit to his face
and uses it as a magic head lamp to get him to Valinor
and then when they get to the shore
he gathers up Elwin and the crew like “Sheesh, guys
thanks so much for helping me sail here
but this magical island of orgies and fun
is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
and it would be shitty of me to subject you to that sexy danger.
What am I, Odysseus?
Nah, you guys stay here
I’ll bbn
(be back never)

but Elwin is like “Aw hell no
you’re not keeping me out of party kingdom
I’m coming with you
fuck your danger.”
and Earendil
who was looking forward to sleeping around at least a little bit
is like “Ugh, fine
you have to let me go talk to the Valar alone though
because you are being so fucking suffocating right now”

So Earendil shows up at Manwe’s house like “Yo
I brought you a Silmaril
get off your radiant ass and kill Morgoth already”
and Manwe is like “Oh shit, okay.”
So he gives Earendil a rad flying boat
and glues the Silmaril to it
and Earendil flies it over Middle earth
so the children of Feanor can see it and be like “Whoa
that looks like a Silmaril
I wonder if we can like …
jump real high and steal it.”
and then Manwe sends all the armies of Valinor back to Middle earth
to show up and ruin Morgoth’s shit.

Morgoth is not expecting this
he’s pretty sure the Valar have forgotten about the world altogether
and retreated to a life of opium smoking and sex magic
so when this huge radiant army shows up
ready to romp and stomp him in about fourteen new ways
he loses his shit
and just throws his whole army at them.
His whole army is made of dragons, so this is a problem for everybody.

NOT A PROBLEM FOR EARENDIL THOUGH
He just crashes his boat straight into a dragon’s face
while surrounded by an army of screaming birds
lead by Thorondor, KING OF EAGLES
and demolishes that giant fire lizard.
If you do not yet understand
why birds terrify me so god damn much
this episode is all you need:
a dragon
A FUCKING DRAGON
just got reamed by a flying boat and a bunch of feathered wastrels.
the book is not super detailed on this point
but i am p. sure they eat their way in through the dragon’s eyes
and then just go crazy on his organs.

So eventually they chase Morgoth down
and fail to kill him for some reason
but they do tie him up in a super embarassing way
by turning his crown into a collar
and then they throw him out of the universe
lock the door behind him
and guard it forever.

So the end, right?
Morgoth is dead, everything is awesome.
Well yeah
but Feanor’s kids aren’t done being assholes yet.
See, Morgoth still had two Silmarils
and the invading force from Valinor took them
so Maedhros and Maeglin send ANOTHER strongly worded letter
but the Valar are just like “Um guys
you have done literally nothing but murder your own guys
for CENTURIES.
You’ve straight up murdered more guys than Morgoth
what
in the WIDE WORLD OF FUCK
makes you think you deserve a prize for your behavior?”
and Maedhros is like “FUCK YOU, TAKIN’ EM ANYWAY”
and the Valar are like “Noooooo”
but then it turns out Maedhros and Maeglin can’t even hold the Silmarils
because the Silmarils don’t like being held by jerks
so the jewels burn their hands like magic hot potatoes
until they both freak out and throw them away
and one ends up at the bottom of the ocean
and the other one ends up AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
so now nobody’s happy.
Nice job, Feanor’s kids.
Way to squeeze in one last fuck you before the end of this story.

Because yeah
that’s the end of the Silmarillion
Morgoth/Melkor is out of the picture
and everything is going to be great forever

… OR IS IT?

Anyway
the moral of the story
is that your cease and desist letters become a lot more effective
when you can back them up with murder.

TO BE CONTINUED.