Nevertheless, I feel the weight of evidence leans to this showing a scene from The Years of the Trees sometime near the end of the Noontide of Valinor. I’m no ray-tracing expert, though! (If you are and have a better idea, let us know.) The sun should be so far behind the trees that any reflection should be much more muted than shown. Moreover, something about the way Telperion would be reflecting the sun just doesn’t seem right. Of the Flight of the Noldor, The Silmarillion. Yavanna arose and stood upon Ezellohar, the Green Mound, but it was bare now and black and she laid her hands upon the Trees, but they were dead and dark, and each branch that she touched broke and fell lifeless at her feet. In fact, Telperion’s trunk positively gleams. They are not “withered” and drained of life as The Silmarillion describes it. On the other hand, the trees do not appear lifeless stems. We do know from The Silmarillion that the trees were preserved: “their lifeless stems stand yet in Valinor, a memorial of vanished joy.” One the one hand, when you adjust the levels in the image and pull the brightness down, the light out of (or through) Laurelin dominates, while the glow emanating from Telperion is muted enough that it could simply be reflected sunlight. I’ve gone back and forth between the two opinions. Is this the Years of the Trees? Or is LOTR on Prime using a clever fake-out as Professor Corey Olsen suggested may be the case on TORn Tuesday? Is the scene actually set later - long after Melkor and Ungoliant have paid their fateful visit - during the Years of the Sun, and the sun just happens to be positioned behind Laurelin? The Two Trees closeup with level and brightness heavily adjusted. The next key question is whether the trees are alive in this image. And the silvery hue of the tree behind fits Tolkien’s vision of the Telperion much better. The dark trunk and boughs seem at odds with Telperion’s descritpion and the glow that emanates from it is a warm golden-yellow. Its shape more closely resembles that of the common beech ( Fagus sylvatica). My belief is that Laurelin - the tree of gold - is the one nearest the camera. No, these are the Two Trees and that means this is Valinor. However, they emitted no light and were located within the city itself, not out on the plain. In the hidden city of Gondolin in Beleriand, Turgon famously created his own reproductions of the Two Trees in silver and gold. The trees in the LOTR on Prime panorama cannot be anything else. ![]() ![]() Of the Beginning of Days, The Silmarillion. Flowers swung upon her branches in clusters of yellow flame, formed each to a glowing horn that spilled a golden rain upon the ground and from the blossom of that tree there came forth warmth and a great light. bore leaves of a young green like the new-opened beech their edges were of glittering gold. had leaves of dark green that beneath were as shining silver, and from each of his countless flowers a dew of silver light was ever falling, and the earth beneath was dappled with the shadow of his fluttering leaves. Laurelin at front, with Telperion behind.įirst, a description of the Two Trees of Valinor, taken from the same book. They’re also what firmly locates this panorama in Valinor - all our conclusions derive from their presence. The obvious place to begin is the trees since, as Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion, “about their fate all the tales of the Elder Days are woven”. So, if you’ve just started reading and you have no idea what happens and avoiding story spoilers is important to you, now is the time to step away! The Two Trees Rather than blather on with superlatives, let’s just dive on in, and take a detailed look at what it reveals.įair warning, though: there will be spoilers for some key elements of The Silmarillion. There is no doubt that the first promotional image from LOTR on Prime is simply amazing.
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