Background Mythos

I wrote a bit yesterday about my favorite authors. I don’t know if I quite did Tolkien justice. I’m watching a special on the History Channel right now about the mythos behind the stories. Despite the reputation of the History Channel for screwing up their source material, they aren’t doing too terribly with this one. They cannot pronounce any of the Elvish names, though. Most of us have all read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. However, something fantastic that I have noticed with great writing is that the back story is more interesting than the main plot. This is certainly the case with the history of The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion. In the Silmarillion, we learn the story of the First Age of Middle Earth. The biggest issue that I have with this is that we have a huge amount of history stuffed into the relatively modest sized Silmarillion. This is a shame, because the stories are even more compelling; particularly the story of the Flight of the Noldor, the Kinslaying at Alaquonde, and the subsequent Ban of the Valar. The Elves as we know them in the main published works of Tolkien are perfectly good. The Elves of the Silmarillion run the gamut between good and evil, however, their fell natures may be more a case of the tropes of the fair folk, and good is not nice. Even the noble Elves in the Silmarillion are violent warriors, skilled in arms and terrible in their wrath. One of them, Feanor, has a spirit of wrath so bright that when he is killed trying to recover his treasure, his body burns to ash with the fires of his soul. That is some pretty fantastic imagery. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll move on to George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire next for how back story is important. There is a richly detailed back story for his works as well. Aegon’s Conquest, Robert’s Rebellion, and even the Dunk and Egg novellas. I would recommend that anyone who is a fan of either series explore the incredible mythos that both authors have established. I hope that when I finally get my story together, I am able to have a back story a quarter as detailed.