Hey guys
welcome back to JRR Tolkien’s answer to fun: THE SILMARILLION
Seriously
by the time you get three books into this
every paragraph is like fifty percent proper nouns
like I know you’re a linguist dude
I get it
I read about it on wikipedia
that does not mean you have to give everything THREE NAMES
DUDE DO YOU REALIZE
IF EACH THING HAS THREE NAMES
THERE ARE GOING TO BE THREE TIMES AS MANY NAMES AS THERE ARE THINGS
WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO PUT ALL THOSE THINGS DUDE
YOU ARE GOING TO NEED A WHOLE OTHER UNIVERSE
AND THAT UNIVERSE
IS GONNA NEED ABOUT THREE MORE NAMES

maybe it gets better, i dunno
you’re getting my gut reaction on this
which i am honestly playing up a little for comedic effect
shit i just ruined it

ANYWAY
last time I kinda glossed over the part about how the world got made
and this time I am not going to make that same mistake
so let’s see…
yeah so Ulmo is king of the water
he makes all the water stuff happen
and he’s sort of a loner
this is because of the fourteen major gods that have chosen to reside on earth
twelve of them are married
and the remaining two are Ulmo, god of water
and Nienna, goddess of CEASELESS WEEPING
and even the god of the ocean can have enough saltwater, you know?
anyway he’s not important at all to this story
because his job is pretty much to lay low
and make sure nothing catches fire permanently

speaking of fire
let’s talk about that dickhead Melkor again
he’s just arrived on earth
and he’s real pissed because of the sweet gems this dude Aule is making
he’s real pissed because out of all the gods
Melkor’s powers are most similar to Aule’s
Melkor’s being heavy metal
and Aule’s being, of course, hard rock
so Melkor starts tearing up all of Aule’s shit
and Aule is building it back up as best he can
when along comes this dude Tulkas
whose WHOLE JOB
is just to wreck Melkor’s shit whenever Melkor shows up
so he does that
pretty much singlehandedly
and Melkor runs away and hides in space

so everyone’s like sweet! Awesome!
now that we don’t have to worry about everything exploding
let’s pimp out this rad planet we got
so they start jamming out hardcore
this hippie chick Yavanna starts making all these plants and shit
Aule is stacking up sweet hills like geology tetris
and they put these two huge spotlights on giant pillars to illuminate everything.
they are making excellent progress
and in no time at all, everything is basically as sick as it can possibly be
but like, the good meaning of sick
the bad one comes later
i am sorry for the confusion, but i was running out of synonyms for “sweet”

with that finished, the gods shift their prime directive
to the time-tested pastime of gods everywhere:
PARTYING
HEARTILY
so they all head over to this giant feast at Manwe’s and Varda’s place
(Manwe being king of the gods, and Varda being the queen)
and they are all chowing down and having a great time
and Tulkas (who has been fighting Melkor pretty much nonstop for like a week)
and Yavanna (who has been making plants pretty much nonstop for like a week
and is also pretty stoned)
both crash on the couch
for some well deserved rest
and it is THIS MOMENT that Melkor chooses to strike.
Seriously
when we the last time you heard about a celestial hoedown
that was not interrupted by some sort of cataclysmic party-foul?
(I was going to link to another myth there too
a Sumerian one about the origin of fetal alcohol syndrome
but then i realized it is only available in my book
coming March 5th!)

But Melkor doesn’t try to crash the party
no, he’s to crafty for that
instead he takes all his dudes
(cause he has dudes apparently)
and he has them all burrow under the ground way up to the north
and they make a huge fortress there
then he changes his name to Morgoth
because Melkor was not evil-sounding enough?
also he knocks over the pillars with the big spotlights on them
and the spotlights are not properly secured
so they fall over and light everything on fire
which is why you should always have your light fixtures installed by professionals.

So the gods shrug off their big ol’ hangovers
and they are like shiiiiiiiit
how did all this evil get up in our land?
seriously
plants are dying
animals are growing gross horns and murdering each other
mountains are shitting out lava and exploding everywhere
I tell you, this land used to be sick as hell
but now it is AS SICK AS HELL.
(haha I told you that shit was coming back)

but they can’t do anything about it
cause Melkor is in this invincible underground bunker
and it’s not like these are the guys that shaped the earth or anything
they’re powerless to stop him
so they do the next best thing
which is they uh
leave

YUP
the benevolent creators and protectors of the world
when faced with the main thing the world needs to be protected from
move to basically middle-earth’s equivalent of the bahamas
surround it in an impassible mountain range
and then spend the next age turning it into a deathless party pad for them and their crew
NICE

during this time they do shit like
Manwe puts his throne on top of the highest mountain of all
so he can eat popcorn and watch the world burn
while eagles and ravens fly up to deliver him news
because Tolkien realized he wasn’t ripping off enough norse mythology
and also Yavanna makes these two trees
called Telperion and Laurelin
which are actually sort of gross-looking if you think about it
i mean one has gold leaves and one has silver leaves
and the flowers on each of them sort of
…ooze light onto the ground?
I don’t care if it’s light or marzipan or fucking thousand dollar bills
anything that trickles or oozes out of a plant’s orifice
I do not want.
but anyway those things are basically the sun and the moon
the gods put them on this crazy 12-hour dimmer cycle
and thus invent time
which is redundant
because in their new kindom of Valinor
every time is partytime

BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE
shockingly there are still people who give a shit
about how Melkor is fucking everything to death
for example Ulmo gives a shit
because he’s never invited to any of the parties anyway
and Yavanna gives a shit
because she’s a goddamn treehugger
and Aule gives a shit
because someone has got to keep the rock alive
and this guy Orome kind of cares too
inasmuch as he occasionally rides through Middle earth just killing animals
and most of those animals are mutant beasts so i guess he’s helping?
but none of that matters
because everyone else is too busy partying
and it is hard to save the world
when all your roommates just keep dropping acid and shitting in your fridge

so the moral of the story
is if at first you don’t succeed
relocate to the equator and drown your failure in orgies

THE END…?