Silmarillion Writers' Guild

Tolkien's legendarium is sometimes criticized for a too-tidy binary of Good and Evil. While this is less true of The Silmarillion than the better-known Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the criticism can ring true there as well, perhaps best exemplified by the Orcs, who are depicted in the book as uncomplicated pawns for pure evil with few humanizing traits that invite empathy or even for readers to consider them as human beings.

In the newest addition to our Themed Collection series, Cuarthol has assembled ten stories, essays, and works of art that challenge the idea of Orcs as purely evil or unthinking, unfeeling pawns of Melkor. Introducing the collection, titled with the plainspoken and (in some circles) radical title Orcs Are People, Cuarthol writes:

Whatever Tolkien’s final thoughts, his works depict Orcs with an undeniable humanity—they sing songs, chafe against Big Bosses, and even seek vengeance for deaths of family or comrades. Whether by intent or no, they were people beyond being mere pawns driven by a Dark Lord’s will.

Fanworks, of course, provide one powerful means to transcend the depictions of Orcs that we see in Tolkien's published works, considering what the lives of Orcish people were like and what the dismissal of those lives in works told from the points of view of Elves and Men show us about the insidious power of dehumanization in our own world.

You can find Cuarthol's collection "Orcs Are People" here. Our themed collections are viewed as a starting point for exploring fanworks centered around a topic, so we encourage adding your own favorite fanworks that seek to (re)humanize Orcs as a comment on the collection. And remember we are always looking for new themed collections; find out more about how to share a collection of fanworks on your favorite character, pairing, genre, or topic here!

Almost since the SWG's beginning, we have run a mostly unofficial event each year called Akallabêth in August. This event started at a time when Second Age fanworks were relatively uncommon and sought to encourage not only their creation but support of the authors writing, drawing, and making them.

This year, for our very first Themed Collection, Himring has put together a collection of fanfiction and fanart for Akallabêth in August that focuses on the three ruling queens of Númenor: Tar-Ancalimë, Tar-Telperiën, and Tar-Vanimeldë. As Himring points out, the bar to writing about the ruling queens is set somewhat high, as most of the information about them is in Unfinished Tales. However, she points out, they offer fertile territory for writing about women who hold power—who are not exactly common in Tolkien's books—while the dearth of information about them allows fans to increase the diversity of Arda by representing the queens as people of color or LGBTQ+.

Our themed collections are not intended to be definitive in any way but to offer a jumping-off point for fanworks about a specific topic. Himring has shared links to eleven brilliant stories and works of art about the ruling queens, but we hope you will also share your favorites as a comment on the collection!

You can check out the fanworks in "The Ruling Queens of Númenor" (and add your own!) here.

Note that this is a new column in the newsletter, and we hope that Himring taking the brave first step to share a collection will inspire others to put together some of their favorite fanworks about a beloved topic. Check out our call for contributors if you'd like to put together a collection of your own!