The Silmarillion tells the story of the world, Arda, from its conception to the end of the Third Age and the departure of the elves. Loss is woven into the world even before its creation. The Ainu Melkor creates discord in the music that plans the world, damaging it. Melkor continues filling the world with loss even as the Ainu work to shape it before the beginning of time, corrupting and destroying their creations. The people of Arda lose more battles than they win and struggle to prevail over the evil that invades them. Men and elves die violently, kingdoms fall, and the elven realms fade. Even the elves themselves, who are immortal, leave the world eventually. They learn that the world around them is transient, while they persist within it. Over their long lives, they become weary of the constant loss and change, and all choose to pass away to the ancient west, leaving only men behind. The novel spans thousands of years of Arda’s history as beauty, goodness, and wisdom are lost and then regained, though in a lesser form, in repeating cycles. Still, at the end of the world, when loss is absolute, the Ainur will sing Ilúvatar’s music again and remake the world without grief and decline. The Silmarillion presents a world in which loss is inherent and inevitable—everything fades in the passage of time and the presence of evil—but salvation is inevitable, too.
By rebelling against Ilúvatar and altering the Music of the Ainur, Melkor creates evil in the plan for the world. As Melkor’s theme competes with Ilúvatar’s plan, Ilúvatar adds a new theme to the discord that incorporates Melkor’s theme into itself. This new theme, “blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came,” introduces loss and sorrow into the world as a result of Melkor’s evil. Melkor’s actions constitute something like a biblical fall, in which the universe transitions from a state of innocence to a state of disobedience and guilt, making loss and sin unavoidable. Though Melkor creates evil, changing the world and forcing it into an inevitable decline, he can’t fundamentally subvert Ilúvatar’s fate for the world. The details of this fate are unknown to anyone but Ilúvatar, but the Ainur know that they will eventually sing the Second Music of the Ainur to recreate the world without Melkor’s influence. Every singer will fully understand their part of the music and perform it perfectly, restarting the cycle without evil, loss, and grief.
The world is marked by cycles of loss—the loss of morality, beauty, people, and nations—in rises and inevitable falls. Much of the sorrow and loss in Arda is the result of the losing fight against Melkor’s evil and corruption, both externally on battlefields and internally within individual minds. After the destruction of Almaren, Valinor rises, then declines with the destruction of the Trees and the Kinslaying of the elves. The elven kingdoms in Beleriand are nearly all destroyed by Melkor’s armies (such as Gondolin) or by his indirect influence (such as Doriath, invaded by the sons of Fëanor bound by their oath). Men and elves have righteous intentions but find themselves repeatedly corrupted by Melkor’s legacy: pride, suspicion, and evil. The kingdom of Númenor falls prey to pride that results in its total obliteration. Some, though not all, of the wisdom of Númenor is salvaged in the burgeoning nations of Arnor and Gondor, yet even they decline in a world marked by evil, where loss is inevitable. Despite the inevitability of the pattern, though, the forces of good still rise after a fall to try again.
Some loss—such as the fate of men to leave Arda when they die and the fate of the elves to reside in the Houses of the Dead if they’re killed—is inherent to the world and part of Ilúvatar’s plan. Elves watch the world around them change and fade, while men fade and die too quickly to truly understand the transience of the world. These losses are exacerbated by Melkor’s influence, which causes the world to fade and makes men fear death. Uncounted men and elves are betrayed and killed during the Wars of Beleriand and Melkor’s efforts to conquer Arda. The survivors must contend with the loss of their people, friends, and family, separated from them by fate and death. This loss, while painful, is only temporary; all Ilúvatar’s creations will be reunited at the end of the world.
The greatest indicator of inevitable loss in The Silmarillion is the departure of the elves and the fading of the other mythic creatures from Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age after the defeat of Sauron. The destruction of the One Ring means the weakening of the three elven Rings of Power that sustained Rivendell and Lothlórien. The elves, the first children of Arda, have no place on Middle-earth once the elven realms fade and the land itself stops sustaining them. Most of them have never seen Valinor and have spent their entire lives on Middle-earth—leaving means losing everything they’ve ever known, even if there is another land waiting for them in the ancient west. As the elves mourn the loss Middle-earth, Middle-earth suffers from the loss of the elves. When they leave, they take their great age, wisdom, and knowledge of Arda’s history with them, abandoning the land to men, who are called the Strangers because of their short lives on Arda and their correspondingly short memories. The cycles of loss imply that Middle-earth will continue to decline as generations pass and grow farther away from the wisdom and righteousness of the world’s earlier history. Though the world dwindles—losing more and more of itself until it reaches its inevitable end—redemption, unification, and healing are just as inescapable in the world’s remaking.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Inevitable Loss ThemeTracker
Inevitable Loss Quotes in The Silmarillion
Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased.
But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren.
Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord rose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first.
And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.
[…]
It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not. Whereas the Elves remain until the end of days, and their love of the Earth and all the world is more single and more poignant therefore, and as the years lengthen ever more sorrowful.
Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise.
Then perforce Morgoth surrendered to her the gems that he bore with him, one by one and grudgingly; and she devoured them, and their beauty perished from the world. Huger and darker yet grew Ungoliant, but her lust was unsated. ‘With one hand thou givest,’ she said; ‘with the left only. Open thy right hand.’
In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to burn him, and his hand was clenched in pain; but he would not open it. ‘Nay!’ he said. ‘Thou has had thy due. For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished. I need thee no more. These things thou shalt not have, nor see. I name them unto myself for ever.’
But at that last word of Fëanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: ‘So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Eä, and evil yet be good to have been.’
But Mandos said: ‘And yet remain evil. To me shall Fëanor come soon.’
Now the world runs on swiftly to great tidings. And one of Men, even of Bëor’s house, shall indeed come, and the Girdle of Melian shall not restrain him, for doom greater than my power shall send him; and the songs that shall spring from that coming shall endure when all Middle-earth has changed.
All these were caught in the net of the Doom of the Noldor; and they did great deeds which the Eldar remember still among the histories of the Kings of old. And in those days the strength of Men was added to the power of the Noldor, and their hope was high; and Morgoth was straitly enclosed.
Farewell sweet earth and northern sky
for ever blest, since here did lie
and here with lissome limbs did run
beneath the Moon, beneath the Sun,
Lúthien Tinúviel
more fair than mortal tongue can tell.
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dusk, the dawn, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien for a time should be.
This doom she chose, forsaking the Blessed Realm, and putting aside all claim to kinship with those that dwell there; that thus whatever grief might lie in wait, the fates of Beren and Lúthien might be joined, and their paths lead together beyond the confines of the world. So it was that alone of the Eldalië she has died indeed, and left the world long ago. Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, though all the world is changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost.
Thus was the treachery of Uldor redressed; and of all the deeds of war that the fathers of Men wrought in behalf of the Eldar, the last stand of the Men of Dor-lómin is most renowned.
[…]
Last of all Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Húrin cried: ‘Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!’
‘Farewell, O twice beloved! A Túrin Turambar turun ambartanen: master of doom by doom mastered! O happy to be dead!’
But Thingol perceived their hearts, and saw well that desiring the Silmaril they sought but a pretext and fair cloak of their true intent; and in his wrath and pride he gave no heed to his peril but spoke to them in scorn, saying: ‘How do ye of uncouth race dare to demand aught of me, Elu Thingol, Lord of Beleriand, whole life began by the waters of Cuiviénen years uncounted ere the fathers of the stunted people awoke?’
Then the lust of the Dwarves was kindled to rage by the words of the King; and they rose up about him, and laid hands on him, and slew him as he stood.
Then Turgon pondered long the counsel of Ulmo, and there came into his mind the words that were spoken to him in Vinyamar: ‘Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West, and cometh from the Sea.’ But Turgon was become proud, and Gondolin as beautiful as a memory of Elven Tirion, and he trusted still in his secret and impregnable strength, though even a Vala should gainsay it; and after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad the people of that city desired never again to mingle in the woes of Elves and Men without, nor to return through dread and danger into the West.
But the jewel burned the hand of Maedhros in pain unbearable; and he perceived that it was as Eönwë had said, and that his right thereto had become void, and that the oath was vain. And being in anguish and despair he cast himself into a gaping chasm filled with fire, and so ended; and the Silmaril that he bore was taken into the bosom of the Earth.
Yet the lies that Melkor […] sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.
But when all these things were done, and the Heir of Isildur had taken up the lordship of Men, and the dominion of the West had passed to him, then it was made plain that the power of the Three Rings also was ended, and to the Firstborn the world grew old and grey. In that time the last of the Noldor set sail from the Havens and left Middle-earth for ever […] and an end was come for the Eldar of story and song.
