The Silmarillion: Ainulindalë: The Music of the Ainur (Part 2)
An Unexpected Podcast: Talkin' Tolkien
Lord of the Rings
4.7 • 651 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 179 minutes
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Summary
In this episode, we explore Tolkien's letter 131 &The Ainulindalë, the opening chapter of The Silmarillion, where Tolkien’s world begins with music. Discover how Eru Ilúvatar and the Ainur sang creation into being, what the Flame Imperishable means, and how Melkor’s discord shaped Middle-earth’s destiny. Join us as we journey chapter by chapter through The Silmarillion—unraveling Tolkien’s myths, symbols, and hidden connections to The Lord of the Rings.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, let's, let's jump into the reread, guys. Here we go. So we're going to get into the Ina Lindelay, right? |
| 0:07.9 | I know Lindelay, Unilead, we all know Lindelay in just a minute. But, you know, we actually, so we had like this false start, right? |
| 0:16.1 | Where we kind of started into the Silmarillion. Was that like a couple years ago? |
| 0:20.2 | It feels like an eternity ago. I was going to say, too, before we get into this, I don't, I did not go back and relisten to that. I didn't either. I have no idea what we said. I have no idea. Was that intentional on your part? Yeah. No, I thought about it today. I thought, should I go listen to it? And I was like, no, I definitely don't want to. |
| 0:53.3 | But I was like, I should probably say something just to let people know. Like, I may have said something profound and have no idea. I may even say things that contradict what I said before, which I think will be interesting. I also thought, too, I'm like, I kind of wonder if I'm going to repeat myself. You know what I'm saying? I wonder how much stuff. |
| 0:57.3 | But at the same time, I didn't want to go back and listen because I was like, I don't want to listen to my own thoughts. |
| 0:56.3 | Even though. kind of wonder if I'm going to repeat myself. You know what I'm saying? I wonder how much stuff. But at the same time, I didn't want to go back and listen because I was like, I don't want to listen to my own thoughts, even though they were, you know, like our initial thoughts. I don't want to |
| 1:00.4 | listen to us, you know, because I mean, however many years later, two years later, whatever, we're |
| 1:05.5 | different people. For sure. So what we're going to pull out of this could be vastly different. It could be exactly the same. You never know. |
| 1:11.6 | Could be the same. |
| 1:12.6 | Yeah. |
| 1:13.6 | And this time as you were leading into there, we're going to start with the letter. I don't think we did that last time. We did not do that last time. I think we might have like glossed over it, but definitely we didn't like dig into it like you know, wanted to this time, |
| 1:23.8 | or at least kind of like pay some respect to it. |
| 1:26.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:27.2 | And in that end of itself, I mean, shows like as we've been talking, I found this letter |
| 1:32.5 | fascinating and it's an hour long listen. |
| 1:36.9 | And I believe it could be wrong. |
| 1:38.0 | People can correct me on this. |
| 1:39.5 | I think it's letter 131 according to some of the sources I have here. |
| 1:44.9 | Could be wrong about that. But the point is, is that it's letter 131 according to some of the sources I have here. Could be wrong about that. |
| 1:50.3 | But the point is, is that it's long. I don't even know that the whole thing is in here. |
| 1:57.9 | Maybe it is. Maybe I'm wrong. But it's, it's a freaking dense. It's a big one. It's a big one. And it does give you kind of the summaries of the first second and third age and there's there's a lot of conversations there |
... |
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