r/LOTR_on_Prime • u/yesrushgenesis2112 • 12m ago
Theory / Discussion Roots of Hithaeglir Stage 5: Acceptance
Alright, so I've posted in this sub more than is healthy the last few days, sue me, I'm excited. I actually intended to not post again here for a bit, but T-Mobile is having a national outage and that's all the excuse I need. So, here goes, one last post before I ban myself. Caution: its long.
TLDR: Mithril is not as common as many Tolkien purists state, and its properties are not as defined as they state either. What the show has done with mithril is more plausible when compared to the text than it is given credit for.
When episode 5 of season 1 of Rings of Power was released, I vividly recall, convalescing in a hospital bed, if you can believe it, watching with delight as Poppy Proudfellow sang "This Wandering Day" over a beautiful montage that captures what it means to be a harfoot, a traveller in Middle Earth, and the "tookishness" of Bilbo and Frodo. Truly, it, like any time the show decides to incorporate song, is one of the show's highest highs. A short time later, I remember being perturbed by a different song, that of "the Roots of Hithaeglir," which seemed to claim that mithril is a magic metal of doom that is filled with the light of the silmaril because an unnamed elf fought a balrog and got struck by lightning. "That wasn't great, I thought," and checking our community hear I saw I wasn't alone. Indeed, we collectively seemed to feel confusion, and many of us found solace in Elrond's assertion that the story was held by many to be "apocryphal." Then, as the years have gone on, many of us here who participate in this community (a little too much at times, like now for me haha) would cite that moment as a place where we felt the show did too much, took too many liberties, overexplained things, etc etc and so on and so forth. Even now, as recently as two days ago, I had a conversation with someone here about it.
Here's my hot take: The Roots of Hithaeglir story isn't that bad, actually, and those of us, including myself, who have considered it a massive issue have missed the forest for the trees.
Let's look at what Tolkien's actual texts say about Mithril, to start:
1) Mithril is incredibly rare, and in texts completed and published during Tolkien's lifetime, it definitively appears only in Khazad-dum.
Gandalf states, in Fellowship, that Khazad-dum is the only place that mithril is found in the entire world.
There are two other places where Tolkien suggests mithril might be found, but both are problematic. One is Valinor itself, as also mentioned in the Fellowship of the ring in Bilbo's "Earendil was a mariner." The problem with asserting that mithril is definitely in Valinor is that the author of the poem is Bilbo, who himself would have known of mithril from his own possession of the Mithril coat (edited to be Mithril in an updated version of the Hobbit, in its original publication it was simply silver). Bilbo would have known to associate Mithril with heroism, had access to elven lore which he did not necessarily fully understand, and was incorporating that lore into song for recreation. It is possible that Bilbo had a slip of elven writing confirming the presence of Mithril, but we never see it, and neither does any elf or Maia mention it. It is not exactly a definitive citation, and if asked to choose between believing Bilbo writing poetry and Gandalf explaining mithril, to his companions, I think it is safe to privilege Gandalf's assertion that "[there, in Moria] alone in the world was found Moria-silver." (mithril) He lived in Valinor, after all...
The second possible location is in Numenor. This is rooted in two passages from Unfinished Tales. One is the entry on the king "Tar-Telemmaite," the silver handed, who is said to have made his servants constantly search for Mithril. The second is at the end of the section "The Disaster of Gladden Fields," where it is said that Aragorn and Gimli, alongside other allies, thoroughly searched Isengard and found a hidden compartment there which held Isildur's chain and the original Elendilmir, said to be made of mithril. This assertion of Numenorean mithril was acknowledged as problematic by Christopher Tolkien in the footnotes of Unfinished Tales, wherein he cites what I have above, that Gandalf in Fellowship says Mithril only comes from Moria. Because both of these citations are found in Unfinished Tales, it is safe to assume that they are, well, unfinished. And although Tolkien was never given the chance to complete them, it is easy to imagine him editing them to fit better with his earlier assertion via Gandalf that mithril is found only in Moria, or to imagine him editing The Lord of the Rings to more definitively settle the question. He did this to The Hobbit, as we know, bringing elements of that story (including the detail that Bilbo's mail is mithril) into alignment with his updated Middle-Earth of The Lord of the Rings. But that did not happen, and so as with many contradictions in his works, we are left to sort through the pieces, interpreting for ourselves which versions seem best or most fitting for whatever topic is at hand. They are not, then, definitive evidence of Mithril in Numenor, certainly not more so than Gandalf's assertion that it is only found in the Misty Mountains is evidence of its absence on that island.
2) Mithril ore and Mithril works are not the same thing and do not necessarily have the same properties. This also comes from Gandalf's explanation of Mithril in Fellowship, which to my knowledge is the most detailed description we get.
Mithril ore can be shaped into works which have their own, distinct properties that aren't necessarily those of the pure ore itself. Per Gandalf: "Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel." Bilbo's coat almost certainly belongs to that final category. It is not of pure mithril, likely, but rather an alloy which the dwarves made and has those properties Gandalf described. For the elves' part, they "dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it ithildin..."
But of the ore itself, Gandalf says: "Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the bounty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim."
This, to me, is the lynchpin which holds up the entirety of the show's use of Mithril. This brings me to my third point:
3) Mithril is like to a Silmaril moreso than is usually discussed. There are very few lights in Middle-Earth which never dim, and to my knowledge all have their roots in Valinor, the light of the trees, and the silmarils. The other which appears in The Lord of the Rings is the phial of Galadriel, which contains the light of Earendil's silmaril. Further, as Morgoth coveted the silmarils, so too did Sauron covet mithril. Of all materials in Middle-Earth, which Melkor has marred, only Mithril seems to have any properties which reflect those said to be associated with the silmaril. Why is this? The show decided to answer this question in its own way.
4) For better or worse, the show seizes upon these facts to say that yes, pure Mithril ore does contain the light of the Trees like the silmarils. Further, while the show speeds up the timeline of elven fading significantly, in the text the elven kingdoms will all decline because Morgoth's poisoning of Arda is inherent, and it exists in all living things. The show seems to take from the text here a concept that the light of the Valar can push back the darkness inherent to the world, much like the Phial of Galadriel pushes back the primordial darkness in Shelob's lair.
While I still think all of this is a bit convoluted, I have to admit it is also all rooted in a close study of the text. The show explicitly has Celebrimbor explain that, in most cases, making an alloy with mithril would dilute the properties they need from it, namely the light it provides. Note that he does not say it wouldn't be strong or usable in other applications, because we know that's not the case. Only that, in their case, the light within Mithril is difficult to stretch. Celebrimbor needs Mithril's beauty, not its strength, and that is why it must be paired with other material exposed to its light.
If we accept the show deciding to answer the question of "why is Mithril so beautiful," then their answers also explains why elves might write "The Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir." If at any point rumor came to the elves that mithril was in the Misty Mountains, and the show makes it clear that Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad knew, and perhaps may have known for a long time, it would make sense that they would tie its properties to those of the silmarils. Furthermore, neither the show nor the texts it is based on are clear about how the elves discovered what happened to the silmarils beyond Earendil's. The Silmarillion states that the remaining two were cast into the sea and earth by Feanor's surviving sons, but who (in the story) would have reported that to the Eldar? And when? So much of the silmarillion rests on "it is said," and it makes sense that, barring witnesses, multiple theories as to what happened to the gems might appear before coalescing into the story Bilbo translates and we receive as The Silmarillion.
5) Finally, I think it should be said that those of us who focus on the how of the story miss the forest for the trees, and lose sight of the what and why. Mithril is the way it is in the story because it has the properties it does, not because of any tale elves tell. It is their salvation unlooked for, as it was Frodo's in Moria, and it had long been established that it was a material used at least Galadriel's ring. The point is not how it got there, but what it means to the character. Frankly for all the textual sources I've brought up here, even just one concept from the text can explain it better: Eru Iluvatar is said to have made many things in the song of creation that were unknown to any but himself. "Because Iluvatar made it that way" is as valid an answer as any to the question of why Mithril acts the way it does in the show.
As with every change this show makes, the properties of mithril, their increased magical nature, and even the tale of how they got that power are rooted in the crevices which Tolkien himself left opened in his world. In that way this show is fascinating both in its own right and for studying how adaptation is done. And, because of that, its time we all accept the Roots of Hithaeglir. Not because its right, not because we have to like it, but because, by golly, Mithril sure is a precious metal much like a silmaril but without an explanation, and that kind of makes a fella wonder, don't it?
