Thuringwethil

A while back it was suggested to me that I try Thuringwethil, a vampire of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Sauron's messenger and - apart from Sauron himself, when the mood takes him - the only vampire mentioned by name in Middle-Earth, though never having actually been human, the "vampires" in service to Morgoth are more like demons than traditional vampires. For that reason (in addition, of course, to the brief but distinctly not humanoid description of her offered in the Silmarillion) a more Harpy-like form seemed appropriate.

In general the forces of evil in Morgoth's time seem more colorful, diverse, and more openly demonic than the rather lowly, regimented armies of orcs (and, dishearteningly, men) that Sauron employs in the later ages. Aesthetically, I'm very attracted to this idea of the evolution of Evil as a force in middle-earth; that the presence of ultimate, theological evil, mostly seen in visions and whispered in shadows by the time of LOTR, was much more open and visible in the days of Uttumno and Angband. The very first wars between good and evil, inestimable eons before elves or men came into the picture, were utterly lofty affairs, like the biblical War in Heaven between Lucifer's rebels and the good angels, or the primordial, earth-shaping wars between the gods and the titans that appear in many pagan mythologies. As time goes on in middle-earth (as in our world according to Christianity) it seems that the players on either side become more and more mundane and earthly; wars between good and evil angels, fought with nothing less than the building blocks of the Earth itself (or even with pure metaphysics, as in the Ainulindalie) turn into wars between elves and orcs, between good and evil men, and the lines become muddied; the Rohirrim for example are, as a culture, only more "good" in the absolute, cosmic, theological sense than the men of Harad or Dunland by mere degrees. by the end of the third age, only in rare moments like the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog or the contest at the gate of Minas Tirith do we get a glimpse of the conflict between Good and Evil uncloaked and re-assuming it's ancient grander and clarity, whereas in the Elder Days you can see, visible on the earthly plain, the loftier, more absolute good and evil (morgoth and his terrible servants, the valar and maiar) that are only invoked and called upon for strength in the later ages.

To that end, I tend to picture Morgoth's first servants, his rebel Maia - balrogs, sauron, ungoliante, the dragons, vampires, wargs, werewolves, boldogs, ect - as really hellish, like something out of a dark renaissance painting. They are fallen angels, assuming terrible forms on earth. Gathered in legion they would appear very much like the satanic bacchanal on Bald Mountain in "fantasia."

Part of the Weekly Tolkien Sketchblog.