Jaynaé Marie

Newsfeed #43 April 29, 2016

Thranduil Tárisil Oropherion: One Year Later–Happy Anniversary

It was exactly one year ago I posted this photograph as my Facebook cover as reminder to work on something totally unrelated to what I have been doing for nearly ten months. One day changed my life forever and I have never been happier. If you have been reading, milestones have been made and more are to come. When I can’t get to sleep because I just want to work on something, it is more than a drive. It is a love and a passion that is hard to describe. A year ago, I couldn’t imagine a life with Thranduil, and now I cannot imagine my life without him.

One of the biggest accomplishments (not surpassing the one to come on Tuesday), is the completion of the elves of the Woodland Realm–the genealogy of the families through their ages. It took longer than expected because everyone of them had to be purely original and come from Tolkien’s own etymology. So, not one of them came from the outside world–everyone of them has a name that is either Quendi or Sindar. You will not read of all of them–most of them will show up in the appendix. The reason for this is because there are at least 25 elves that were orphaned by the War of the Last Alliance that married into the existing households.

From Thranduil’s wife’s family, there is another story that will come to life in Book III: Beyond Eryn Lasgalen, so I won’t spoil that for you.

This final list does not make up every elf there is in the trilogy. We have Book I: The History of Eryn Galen to deal with next. They are also not all the elves you’ve read about before from other lands. This list covers what Thranduil knows and what has been chronicled by Iarûr or his son Súriar–both you will meet in Chapter XVI. This list does include the last elves that will leave Middle Earth forever.

To give you the full count of the work that has taken months to complete, allow me to give you the numbers:  3 (canon: Oropher, Thranduil and Legolas) 3 (mortals) 1 (half-elven) 146 (Elves) = 153 TOTAL (EG/MK/EL). 146 new elves (147 if you count the peredhel). Yes, Thranduil has 3 mortals in his “line”. Also in this count is some deceased elves prior to the birth of Thranduil and after (not including the ones that died in the War of the Last Alliance). Most importantly, the parents of Orísil, whom you learned about in the past chapters. He returns in the next chapters.

The hardest thing is to “explain” their elven heritages. Not all are Sinda or Silvan. There are Nandor and Noldor living in Eryn Galen/Mirkwood/Eryn Lasgalen. Not too odd. Elven brothers Haldir, Rúmil and Orophin of Lothlórien are Sindarwa.

This is just the elves of the Woodland Realm. With this number, (minus canonical characters) there are 9 new dwarves, 4 new mortals (minus the ones listed above), 1 elf from Lórien (WOTLA), 1 Maiar (Last of the Heren Istarion) and 11 new horses. TOTAL: 176 New Characters (Currently). We are nowhere near complete–not even close.

On this anniversary, Thranduil has come a long way from being the unnamed elven king in The Hobbit to being the father of Legolas in the Lord of the Rings (books, people) to being erroneously mentioned (most likely accidental as it was posthumously released after Tolkien’s death) in The Silmarillion (corrected in The Unfinished Tales with Oropher). Mirkwood (Taur-nu-Fuin) returned to its roots as Eryn Galen (Greenwood) before it was renamed Mirkwood and again named Eryn Lasgalen (Wood of the Greenleaves) after the War of the Ring. It has become somewhat of an epic within an epic. On this day, Thranduil would not have it any other way.–J.M.Miller, author of “The Kingdom of the Woodland Realm Trilogy”.

One year later: 146 new elves, 176 new characters total. Thranduil was a blessing I never deserved but glad I humbly accepted.💖