The levels of various divine figures:

Ilúvatar, also known as Eru, the supreme god, the father of all living things.

Ainur, the "angels" created by the thoughts of the Great God, who through their music created E?, the universe, in which elves and humans will appear The place called Arda (Earth).

Valar refers specifically to the most powerful Ainur who entered the universe to maintain it. There were originally fifteen, but the most powerful one became Became the big boss in "The Silmarillion" - Melkor

(Melkor, also known as Morgoth). Among the remaining fourteen, the leader of the gods is Manw (Manw?). In fact, he and the Big Boss are brothers.

Maiar, the Ainur who also entered the universe, is the assistant and subordinate of the Valar. Gandalf and Sauron, whom we are more familiar with, are both Maia-level and equally powerful. One used to follow Manwe, and the other fell into Melkor's subordinates.

The issue of names is very complicated. Tolkien was a linguist who invented various Elvish languages ??and dialects of different races... For example, Gandalf, his Quenya name is Olórin, Sindarin

The name is Mithrandir, and the people in the north call him Gandalf. This explains why the Elf Queen Galadriel always calls him Mithrandir, because she arrived in China

Family inheritance

Let’s talk about the elves first, the firstborn children created by Iluvatar. At the beginning, there were three most important races. They migrated from Middle-earth to Western Valinor: Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri.

Noldor

"The Silmarillion" mainly revolves around the three sons of Finw?, king of the Noldor, and their respective families:

The eldest son was F?anor, who was much loved but had a bad temper and got into trouble.

The second son is Fingolfin, the father of the very famous King Turgon of Gondolin.

The third son, Finarfin, had a daughter who later became the only surviving Noldor royal family in Middle-earth. She was Galadriel (Queen).

The Teleri

Ben

came to lead the king of the Teleri tribe. During the great migration, he went for a walk in the forest and saw The beautiful Melian ran away with them. Later, that clan became the Sindar elves in the forest

(Sindar), also called gray elves. You must be familiar with one of these descendants, that is King Thranduil and the one in the movie He instantly killed the son of millions of girls - the elf archer Legolas.

Back to the Elf King who ran away with Melian. His and Melian’s daughter was the peerless beauty Lúthien, who was later captured by a great human Beren. After Kusu succeeded,

produced a domineering race that combined the genes of Maia, elves and humans. In the movie, we have also seen the descendant of this family-King Elrond.

This branch is called half-elves, because they are "hybrids" of humans and elves. They can choose to follow the fate of elves or humans. King Elrond chose to be an immortal elf and founded Rivendell

(Rivendell), while his twin brother Elros chose to be a human and founded the Númenor Empire ( Númenor), was deposed by his unsatisfactory descendants a long time ago. The descendants who escaped

established the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, which were separated in the south and north. Ten generations of reproduction... and then there was the domineering Aragorn.

King Elrond’s daughter is Arwen. At the end of "Lord of the Rings" they live happily together. (For more gossip, Arwen is the granddaughter of Queen Galadriel, because the Queen is the mother-in-law of King Elrond).

As the second-born children of Ilúvatar, death is a gift given to mankind. Elves "must live and cannot escape their immortal fate", and death has never been a punishment. Humans "through death can escape from this world and are not bound by it, whether it is full of hope or gradually destructive." As time goes by, even the gods will envy this gift.

That's why Gandalf's famous saying

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

So when try When the humans of Manor began to pursue immortality like the gods, and attacked Valar and the Elves with pebbles and rocks, it confirmed that all those who pursued immortality in history had embarked on the path of immortality.

Other races

1. The Hobbit

The Hobbit is a branch of mankind, but Thor said "Early history is impossible to know due to insufficient data"... However, he never hesitated to praise the hobbits, a group of cute people who eat seven meals a day and are full of love for life

Foodies, relying on kindness, bravery, good luck and optimism, often turn defeat into victory at the most critical moments, becoming a crucial character in the two adventure stories of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".

Although the Hobbit

people are famous for their peaceful pastoral life, there is also an adventurous Took family. Bilbo's mother is a descendant of the Took family, and Gandalf chose him for this reason, stimulating his adventurous potential on the day the dwarves visited. Hobbits have two major skills. One is to walk quietly and not be easily discovered, and the other is to throw things very accurately. These two things helped a lot during the journey.

But there is also a Sméagol in The Hobbit

. At the end of the Second Age, Isildur cut off Sauron's ring-wearing finger. He had a great chance of throwing the Ring into Mount Doom for complete destruction.

In the end, he wore the ring under temptation. He ran away invisible, trying to escape by swimming in the river, but the Lord of the Rings betrayed him - he slipped to the bottom of the river and revealed himself, and was immediately shot to death by the besieging orcs. Many years later, Dego of a certain Hobbit clan discovered it at the bottom of the river

Sméagol, who was traveling with him, was tempted to kill Dego, snatch the ring, hide at the bottom of the mountain, and finally turned into Gollum. , chanting "My Precious!"...

2. Dwarves

Among the Valar under Manwe, one is the earth god Aul? , when the Middle-earth continent was still dark, he was worried about why the elves and humans hadn't appeared yet, and no one taught me my good craftsmanship. As a result, he created dwarves in a deep cave by himself. Probably because he didn't know what the children created by Ilúvatar would look like, he accidentally made them shorter...

The dwarves he created were very strong in mind and body. Strong, and because Aoli has a strong gene for craftsmanship. How could Ilúvatar not know this? When he was almost finished and satisfied, he came to educate him and not to exceed his authority...Aul? had a good attitude in admitting his mistakes, Ilúvatar He accepted the dwarves as "adopted children", but made them sleep until the firstborn child woke up, and was destined to have frequent conflicts with Ilúvatar's children.

Dwarves love gold and silver treasures very much. "Some of them are quite cunning and even a little bad." But even an honest person like Thorin is hearing He was furious when he offered a generous distribution of gold in exchange for peaceful advice.

I remember that a group of dwarves killed Thingol, the supreme leader of the Sindar elves, for treasure, so why do the elves and dwarves always dislike each other in the movies? Do you know why King Thranduil was so biting when he saw Thorin

You must be gnashing your teeth.

3. Big Bad Guys

When the elves were first born, Melkor, the big devil, captured many of them and imprisoned them for torture. Some of them couldn't stand it anymore and schizophrenia. Then he It was among those who were corrupted into slaves that the half-orcs Orc emerged.

Orcs were only transformed from elves in the early setting. Later, the old Tolkien himself rejected this setting because it was impossible to judge the return of the soul of the orc after death. After death, the souls of elves will return to Aman, and the main hall of Aman is holy and cannot accept any evil things. Half-orcs are actually elves who have been abused and turned into half-orcs, so are their souls contaminated? Or is it still pure? ——Old Tolkien himself

I found this to be a contradictory issue, so I changed it in the later revision.

The great demon Melkor used wolves and evil spirits to cultivate the werewolf Werewolf. The first werewolf was called Draugluin. He served Sauron in the first era. His descendants include the guardian Mir. Carcharoth of Kou's base camp also swallowed the Silmarillion.

The big devil also used unknown methods to breed Glaurung, the father of dragons. I guess Smaug in "The Hobbit" is probably his descendant.

Of course there are exceptions, namely giant spiders.

Tuo Lao did not clearly explain how the earliest giant spider Ungoliant came from. It may have been transformed by the fallen Ainur, because it "existed before the emergence of the world

". The spider encountered in the dark forest in "The Hobbit" and the Shelob that entangled Frodo in "The Lord of the Rings" and almost killed the hero are all its descendants.

The Balrog is also a fallen Maia. The important subordinate of the big demon at that time was Gothmog, the king of Balrog. In "The Lord of the Rings", the Balrog of Moria who has been lurking for thousands of years is the one who died together with Gandalf the Gray (the phrase "You Shall Not Pass!" echoes in my mind...)

4. Wizards

In the third era, a group of Maia were sent to balance Sauron’s power in Middle-earth, so Gandalf, Saruman and the cute Reda Here comes Radagast.

After entering Yiya, all the Ainur can choose to become flesh in the way they like, just like Gandalf chose to become a kind old man. They can change. For example, Sauron once used his handsome appearance to deceive many humans who didn't care much about their faces. They will also be weakened. For example, Gandalf will be exhausted and die in the battle with the Balrog. Although Sauron escaped at the last moment of Númenor's sinking and destruction, he was unable to gather into human form for a long time and never again < /p>

Can become as beautiful as a flower.

But they will not die. Melkor was finally locked in the void outside the universe; Sauron put a lot of his own energy into forging the Supreme Ring. With the destruction of the Ring, he lost his power and became a lonely man in the wilderness. soul. After Gandalf and the Balrog died together, his soul was sent directly out of the universe to the presence of the great god Ilúvatar. He was granted greater power by the great god and returned to his physical body to replace the rebellious Saruman the White. Become the leader of wizards.

Thorondor, the Eagle King, was created by Manw?, the leader of the Valar and the Lord of the Winds, and was sent to monitor the Noldor elves returning to Middle-earth

And the movements of the big boss Melkor, he has saved many important people (such as Beren and Luthien), let off guard in the hidden kingdom of Gondolin, and even scratched Morgoth's face. After the war, he returned to Valinor, but his descendants stayed in Middle-earth. The later Eagle King Gwaihir had a good relationship with Gandalf and helped each other save several times.

As a follower of Manwe, I think the Giant Eagle is more like a sub-god-level existence? But in fact, in the book, the descendants of the giant eagles living in Middle-earth do not have extraordinary abilities. They are just a family of residents from all sides. They are unwilling to send members of the expedition team close Anywhere inhabited, for "they would shoot at us with huge yew bows, for they would think we wanted to catch their sheep." Thinking about it this way, the image of the aloof giant eagle

instantly became cute...

To the elves and humans, Vera is more like an elder or a guide, rather than a manipulator. Their masters, so when they deal with matters between elves and humans, they focus more on persuasion and guidance. Even if they are disobedient, they cannot force them with all their strength - because the results of doing so are often bad. Not ideal. Gandalf and other Maia were sent to Middle-earth to encourage "elves, humans and all good races" to fight evil together and "perform brave deeds".

The Story of the Lord of the Rings

In the second era, Sauron was still as beautiful as a flower and could seduce people everywhere, so he guided and improved the jewelry-making skills of a group of elves. Many "Rings of Power" were created. But how to control so many rings that are already very powerful

? So he silently ran back to his hometown, built the Supreme Lord of the Rings in Mount Doom that could "control the crowds", and poured most of his strength and will into it. He snatched the remaining ones and gave nine to some leaders of the human race, who then degenerated into the Nine Ring Spirits; seven gave to the dwarves, but they were later destroyed by the evil dragon. , that is, it returned to Sauron's hands.

However, there are also smart people among the elves. After Sauron left, they secretly forged three and hid them without being stained. But there was no way to pass on Sauron's skills, so only the Supreme Lord of the Rings was still there, and these three were still under control. After Sauron failed in the Second Age and the Ring fell to the bottom of the river and was never found, the place where the Three Rings of the Elves were once again prospered with its power.

The three elven rings are:

The sapphire-set air ring Vilya is kept by King Elrond, so Rivendell has become a particularly beautiful elven valley. , the expedition teams from the Lonely Mountain and the Lord of the Rings all passed by to find supplies...

Nenya, the diamond-encrusted water ring, was kept in Lothlorien by the Elf Queen Galadriel. (Lothlórien), "the dreamland of blooming flowers", she and King Elrond do not live in the same place... In the movie, the Elf Queen wears Nanya, which can only be seen by Frodo, who is carrying the Lord of the Rings.

Narya, the ring of fire set with rubies, was kept by the shipbuilder King Cirdan. Later, he saw the importance of Gandalf in the future and gave the ring to him. .

Destroying the Lord of the Rings, Sauron also lost his power. However, no matter whether the Lord of the Rings is regained by Sauron or destroyed, as long as it returns to the world, the three elven rings will lose their power. The elven dwellings maintained by the power of the ring are about to decline and fall, so in "The Lord of the Rings", they all evacuated Middle-earth.