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Kloess Productions presents the silmarillion in three minutes a condensed
version of JRR Tolkien's entire history of Middle-earth
Once upon a time, Eru/Iluvatar/The One created fifteen beings he
called Valar. There were called: Vairë, Mandos, Nienna, Irmo, Estë,
Ulmo, Melkor/Morgoth/The First Dark Lord, Manwë, Varda, Aulë, Yavanna, Vána, Oromë, Nessa and
Tulkas
So when Iluvatar creates the Valar he shares with them his big plan for the world.
One of the big things he tells them about is the "children of Iluvatar" (i.e. Elves and Humans). And most of
the Valar are all like
"sweet sounds cool".
But eventually Aulë gets all like, "seriously how long is this gonna take"? And so
he decides to make his own creatures-because super powerful Valar can just do that kind of thing.
So he makes dwarves.
Yep you heard right, dwarves are an unsightly blip in Iluvatar's plan for the
universe. Iluvatar doesn't like that Aulë made dwarves, but he's like "don't smite them,
beards are cool." But eventually "boom" the elves, the first children of Iluvatar, are created in Middle-earth.
So the valar send Ulmo "lord of waters" and he's like "Yo, elves! Come on down to Valinor where we
live, its way cooler than Middle-earth!" So the elves think it over, and some of them go
and some of them don't. Anyway, an elf is born of the one's who come to Valinor and he is called "Fëanor".
Fëanor is really awesome at pretty much everything (except maybe a little humility)
and he makes these really cool jewels called,
wait for it the silmarils! See that's why the tittle of the book is "The Silmarillion". 'Cause
it's all about these jewels.
Why are they so cool?
Well you see, one of the Valar makes these two trees that are really pretty, and everybody is like
"that's so awesome", because Valar and elves have weird tastes. And Fëanor sees the trees
and he puts light from the trees inside the jewels.
If this sounds strange, it is. Anyhow, pretty much the only guy who doesn't like these trees is
Melkor the spoilsport. And he brings a giant spider and she destroys the trees. Then
Melkor also steals the Silmarils takes them to Middle-earth. Then comes a "The Oath of Fëanor", which a
bunch of elves swear, saying they're going to get those jewels back or die trying.
And they do...
die trying that is. These nasty elves kill pretty much anyone who tries to stop them
getting those jewels, which is basically what the whole book is about.
Oh and at some point the second children of Iluvatar show up, and they're called men.
So anyway, the valar send a bunch of heavily armed help and there is a big
battle and Melkor gets his legs chopped off. Now the men who decided to help out the Valar
are given the reward of super long life and get their own special place called Númenor. Númenor
rocks and they like it a lot, but after while they get mad because the valar say only
people who are immortal are allowed to come to Valinor, the undying lands.
(Which kind of makes sense.)
Meanwhile in Middle-Earth, Melkor's right hand man is planning on destroying some of
the Númenorians' stuff.
What is this guy's name?
So the Númenorian king tells Sauron he has to stay on Númenor as a prisoner. But while he's there he
convinces them to be so evil that Iluvatar blows up the island. Thankfully, all the
Númenorians who decided to be good guys made it to middle-earth.
So they do lots of different things, and until Sauron comes back. See, even though destroying Númenor
destroyed Sauron's body, Sauron is a Maiar (which is like one spot down from a
Valar) and can't really be killed. So he comes back and everybody in Middle-earth has to go and destroy
him again.
But, hundreds of years later he starts to come
back once more. So the Valar send some help. The Istari. Their names where Olorin, Curumo,
Aiwendil, Alatar and Pallando?
Though you probably know these two chaps as Gandalf and Sauroman these guys
where Maiar just like Sauron was, so you'd think he would give up now, but things didn't
quite work out that way.
Most of the stuff after that is told in the Lord of the Rings, but you can find it in the
Silmarillion too.
Anyway, if you haven't already, go read the thing. There are all kinds of cool
stuff I didn't cover like Elrond being only a half elf, The fall of
Gondolin, Fingolfin's single combat with Morgoth, not to mention the forging of the rings of power!
Oh and for those who actually know how to pronounce these names,
don't mention it in the comments.