The Lord of the Rings is a big deal.
J.R.R.
Tolkien's epic fantasy created a genre, inspired a series of hit movies, and singlehandedly
altered the economy of New Zealand.
So you can imagine the excitement when HarperCollins announced that Tolkien's spinoff story about
lovers Beren and Lúthien is to be published as a standalone novel in 2017—exactly a
century after Tolkien started writing it.
Here's everything you need to know about the new Lord of the Rings spinoff.
Son rise
J.R.R.
Tolkien wrote numerous stories about the history of Middle-earth, some of them incomplete or
contradictory.
After his death, Tolkien's son Christopher edited a few of them into loose collections
like Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion.
Beren and Lúthien is Christopher's second attempt at editing some of his father's Middle-earth
backstory into a standalone novel.
The first was The Children of Húrin, a relentlessly miserable tale about a family doomed by a
terrible curse.
Fortunately, Beren and Lúthien is a lot more upbeat, though exactly what will be in the
book is a bit of a mystery.
Tolkien produced multiple versions of the basic story, including a draft in which Sauron
appears as an evil cat...
...and an unfinished poem that suddenly cuts off mid-werewolf attack.
Lore of the rings
Although Beren and Lúthien takes place in the same world as The Hobbit and Lord of the
Rings, it's set over 6,500 years earlier.
To put that in perspective, the land where the story takes place sinks beneath the ocean
in a massive cataclysm about four millennia before hobbits even appear as a species.
The world isn't even the same shape, since a particularly angry god violently changes
it from flat to round between the two stories.
In other words: you probably shouldn't expect your favorite characters to pop in for a cameo.
That said...
Return of Sauron
The only character to appear in both Lord of the Rings and Beren and Lúthien is Sauron,
who has the excuse of being immortal.
Interestingly, Sauron is essentially a second-tier villain in Beren and Lúthien..
The real threat in the story is Sauron's boss, a guy named Morgoth, the original dark lord
in Tolkien's mythology.
He's a being so powerful that a massive army of angels eventually has to invade Middle-earth
to remove him from the picture.
Even Sauron is terrified of him, and with good reason — as the ultimate source of
evil, Morgoth was behind the creation of dragons, orcs, werewolves, and trolls.
He even boasts a personal bodyguard of balrogs, each as powerful as the one that killed Gandalf
that one time.
Personal story
Tolkien's wife Edith was the inspiration for the beautiful Lúthien, whose songs enchant
Morgoth and move even the personification of Death to tears.
Edith met Tolkien when he was just 16.
His guardian forbade him to see her, but within hours of turning 21, he proposed and she accepted.
Tolkien later wrote to his son Christopher that the love story was:
"...first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire.
… In those days [Edith's] hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you
have seen them, and she could sing—and dance."
The two were eventually buried together, sharing a simple tombstone that bore the names "Beren"
and "Luthien."
Badass heroine
One of the common criticisms of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is that nearly all of
the heroes are men.
The book version of The Hobbit famously doesn't have a single female character.
Eowyn basically stands alone in the Lord of the Rings books, although Peter Jackson expanded
Arwen's role for the movies, while he invented Tauriel out of thin air.
Beren and Lúthien seems like it's heading in the same direction, when Lúthien's father
gives Beren a quest to win his daughter's hand in marriage.
In a subversion, Beren and his all-male band of companions fail catastrophically.
Lúthien has to escape from her father and personally face down Sauron to rescue her
warrior-in-distress from his dungeon.
For the rest of the story, she does all the heavy lifting, successfully stealing a priceless
jewel from Morgoth while Beren tags along.
Effectively, Lúthien takes matters into her own hands and completes the quest herself
to ensure she can marry the man she loves.
Eagles to the rescue
At a key point in the story, it seems certain that Beren and Luthien are about to be captured
— and then three huge eagles swoop in out of nowhere and carry them to safety.
If that sounds familiar, it's because Tolkien used the same plot device to save Bilbo and
the dwarves in The Hobbit.
And then he used it again to save Sam and Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings.
Thanks to Beren and Lúthien, we know the eagles have been pulling this stunt for at
least 7,000 years.
You'd think Sauron would forget invading Gondor for a while and focus on killing these eagles,
since they're clearly evil's most persistent enemy in Tolkien's continuity.
Cool new monsters
If you're bored with orcs and dragons, have no fear: Beren and Lúthien introduces some
exciting new creatures to the world of Middle-earth, including vampires and werewolves.
"I was thinking maybe I should just bring a broom down here for you if you wanted to
sweep up some of the skeletons."
Unfortunately, the versions of the story that have been published so far don't give us much
detail on what these creatures actually look like, so no word yet whether or not Middle-earth
vampires sparkle.
The original Aragorn and Arwen
One aspect of the spinoff that should be familiar to fans is the central love story.
Just like Aragorn and Arwen, Beren and Lúthien are a mortal man and an immortal elf princess.
"You said you'd bind yourself to me.
Forsaking the immortal life."
Like Arwen, Lúthien suspects the relationship will cause her great sorrow, but she loves
Beren and can't bring herself to abandon him.
And, just like Elrond, Lúthien's father Thingol is deeply opposed to the relationship.
In fact, Aragorn is very aware of the parallels, and repeatedly compares Arwen to Lúthien:
"Who is she?
This woman you sing of."
"Tis the Lay of Lúthien, the Elf-maiden who gave her love to Beren."
In fact, Elrond and Arwen are Beren and Luthien's descendants.
That's why Arwen is able to choose to become mortal at the end of Return of the King and
remain with Aragorn.
Luthien's sad song moved the godlike Valar to let her become mortal so she and Beren
could be together even in death.
The Valar then allowed their half-elf, half-human descendents to choose whether or not to be
mortal like humans or immortal like the elves.
While Elrond chose to become an elf, his daughter made the choice of Luthien, becoming mortal
to stay with her one true love.
"Some things are certain.
If I leave him now, I will regret it forever."
Kinda makes your singing Valentine's Day card seem pretty crappy by comparison, huh?
"I'm so excited and I just can't hide it."
"I'm about to lose control and I think I like it."
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