This is fantastic! I read the Silmarillion when I was in high school, and while it was a bit difficult to get through at times, I was in complete awe of the world Tolkien had built. Seeing it all laid out like this is amazing.
(OT, but it looks like the page's character encoding is broken. And of course Firefox decided to ditch the ability to set the correct charset manually. The "Repair Text Encoding" button isn't working for me.)
The trick to reading the Silmarillion is to not read it from front to back, but first part 3 (Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age), then part 2 (Akallabeth) and only then part 1 (Quenta Silmarillion). Part 3 is a super condensed version of LOTR.
Would you still read the Ainulindalë and Valaquenta first, or would you save those for last?
I would also add that the chapter "Of Beleriand and its Realms" is OK to skip if it's not your thing, especially on a first read. It's mostly just describing what's on the map (of course it's still well written in Tolkien's prose). There are plenty of people that enjoy it, and there are plenty that don't.
An inconsistency Tolkien "solved" is most notably Glorfindel. The name was used twice in early drafts so he decided to merge those two persons even though they appears eras apart, and the first one had died. He did it by introducing the concept of reincarnation for the elves.
No need to bring magic in. Tolkien might have made a mistake in translating the original Quenya, or perhaps there were transcription errors among the Noldorin scribes. Other histories have these same problems.
Kinda related, it looks like there are a few new(ish?) "world building tools" for fiction authors now. Would be cool if authors started using these and made the databases available together with the works.
In like 15 mins I learned that Perin had a child that he named Farmir and that Aragorn (II) is a descendant of Elrond's twin brother who were both just half-elves themselves as their parents were both half-elven. And between Elrond and Aragorn there's like 60 generations of men.
Never really been interested in LotR lore, but I've read them multiple times and seen the movies many more times. Never seemed worth the times and sounded like dry work compared to the novels, but yeah this is pretty cool!
As siblings noted, there are some sprinkled through, particularly as the ages advance.
The out of universe answer is probably that Tolkien probably very much enjoyed making up these names, as an exercise in playing with and building his languages and world. He likely would have only fallen back to numbers either when truly and deeply stumped (I don't think this really would have happened often), or to signal something.
I also believe you can also see some of the Old English influence on Tolkien here. If you look at the Anglo-Saxon Kings, you see relatively little re-use of names. Instead (going off the top) you get Egbert, Ethelwulf, Ethelbald, Ethelbert.
The Balrogs (Sindarin for ‘Demon of Might’; Quenya Valarauko) were Maiar (“Ainur of lesser degree than the Valar”). Other Maiar were Gandalf, Sauron, Melian. Gothmog and “Durin’s Bane” are the only two named.
Balrogs would be under the Maiar category, but most have no recorded name. I suppose the one from the trilogy could have been listed as "Durin's Bane."
The Balrogs were Maiar, a category that includes the wizards (Gandalf, Saruman, etc.) and Sauron. The Balrog Gothmog is there, but not the one that appears in the Fellowship of the Ring, possibly because it isn't given a name.
As an (amateur) geneaologist I at once started looking for loops, and I was not disappointed. There seems to be some "endogamy" here, at least very distant cousin marriage.
I wonder if any book has actual, believable endogamy due to geographical constraints?
(OT, but it looks like the page's character encoding is broken. And of course Firefox decided to ditch the ability to set the correct charset manually. The "Repair Text Encoding" button isn't working for me.)