A Plea

[roselightfairy]

This is posted to my personal journal as well, and only tangentially related to shipping, but it's the only LOTR community I'm in, and it does come-- even if not obviously-- from my own shipping... so I'm putting this out here as well.

I have accidentally embarked upon a personal project that seemingly requires background knowledge of eras in Tolkien's history that I never intended to learn about. And yet now, because of my sudden desire to investigate the personal history of an OC who was only intended to be a bit player in a fanfic series about the canon characters, I find myself needing to understand all this stuff about the end of the Second Age/beginning of the Third, the Last Alliance against Sauron, Oropher (who I used to pretend I didn't even know EXISTED), succession in the Woodland Realm, and all manner of other things.

Anyone have resource suggestions, or feelings about any of these things they want to share?

Comments

[paladinkit]

I know a really good place to start could be the Encyclopedia of Arda - it doesn't go into extensive detail on everything, but it's my go-to starting place for obscure Tolkien research! glyphweb.com/arda

[roselightfairy]

Thank you! I'll definitely use that resource!

[ilyena_sylph]

I have all the sympathy in the goddamn WORLD for you on the 'oh shit now research!' front.

No real advice, but soooo much sympathy.

[roselightfairy]

Haha, thank you. I have only myself to blame, really, but I'm definitely bemoaning my weird impulses! (What makes it worse is that even though this project is interesting to me personally, that intrinsic motivation is likely to be the only satisfaction I'll get-- I think my readers are slowly losing patience with my self-indulgence when it comes to OCs. ;) Ah well. Fanfic is for the id, after all.)

[asenathwaite]

"History of Galadriel and Celeborn" in Unfinished Tales is relevant to your interests.

[roselightfairy]

Oooh, thank you for the recommendation! I'll have to look it up!

[asenathwaite]

Tolkien rewrote it many times, so there are a lot of footnotes with alternative versions and Christopher's "Dad wtf" commentary. "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" in the Silmarillion might have some relevant info too. Canon is pretty vague on the Second Age outside of Númenor (I don't think Tolkien ever gave Oropher an origin story beyond "came from Doriath"), so you have a lot of room to fill stuff in.

[roselightfairy]

Christopher's "Dad wtf" commentary

I LOVE IT PFFT HAHA

Yeah, none of the wikis are giving me much information about him at all. Which is fine; I mean, I'm not setting out to write HIS life story, and I kind of enjoy the open-endedness. I'm more trying to figure out what the...prevailing moods and attitudes in the Greenwood during the Second/early Third ages would have been like, and that involves getting (or creating!) a sense of the dynamics between Thranduil and Oropher, and what their whole family might be like. But that would be a good thing to read, to understand some of the backstory behind this stuff. Thank you again!