Tolkien’s Silmarillion is a masterpiece. Not because of how well it is written, how coherent the story, or how illustrious its characters. It is a work of genius because Tolkien actually took the time, thought, and care to craft 5,000 years of backstory to his main works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
5,000 years! Can you even imagine? That’s about as long as we’ve been recording our actual history as humans. Tolkien drew maps, family trees, even invented his own languages to give everything an original name yet one with a meaning we can comprehend.
Of course, like any human work, The Silmarillion is far from perfect. Compiled from endless of his father’s notes by Tolkien’s son Christopher, the book had to be whipped into shape. And of course, when you cover 5,000 years of history in 365 pages, not every character gets a full three-act treatment. Many have since been fleshed out in movies, TV shows, and fan fiction, starting from little more than the few sentences Tolkien originally dedicated to them.
But the fact that he devised not just a creation myth but an entire, five-millennia chronology for his work isn’t a fun piece of trivia. It’s a large part of the reason why what happens in the few years covered in his subsequent books resonates with millions of people around the world to this day.
When someone in The Lord of the Rings talks about the island kingdom of Númenor, the Balrogs of Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, or lembas, which is extra-nourishing Elven bread, all of those things mean something, and you can feel that meaning. You can look up each of those words and characters, and you’ll find more lore behind them—and regardless of whether you do so or not, the story itself hits different with all the weight of its backstory behind it.
Life is not just what we see. It’s also the invisible energy we put into what ultimately didn’t remain for the senses to witness. The backstory is the story—make sure you tend to it wherever you wish to tell a lasting tale.