Introducing the Silmarillion Awards!

Today I finally get to introduce the exciting thing I’ve been hinting at from time to time, that “Fantasy Oscars” sort of thing for beloved works of Fantasy, which I’m super excited to be a part of!

As you may or may not know… *cough* because I’m sure it’s not obvious or anything *cough* Fantasy is my favorite genre, and what better thing to discuss in fantasy than the awesome characters (and, in some cases, items) who inhabit it!

So that’s what these fantasy awards are for — highlighting our favorite inhabitants of fantasy books we love, in honored awards of various categories.

This is going to be awesome, guys! It’s just for fun so I hope you’ll all have a blast with it! 🙂 I know I’m going to. ^_^

The basic idea is:

• Fan-voted fantasy awards (this means you!)
• 10 categories (like “Most Epic Hero”, “Best Fantasy Mount” etc. …Full list below.)
• 10 bloggers are hosting these
• You nominate characters etc. by commenting on the 10 posts (or seconding others’ nominations)
• The nomination phase will last 2 weeks (so you have until July 1st for this one)
• Later there will be another round, voting from the top-picked characters — we’ll let everyone know when that voting starts
• The characters etc. who win with the most votes will have their award “presented” to them on the blogs by characters from The Lord of the Rings who are the standard for those categories
• It will be fun!
• It is not as complicated as it sounds! XD

Read on for further details; and the award I’m hosting is at the end of the post. 🙂

Welcome to the first ever Silmarillion Awards!

The Silmarillion Awards have been created by DJ Edwardson and Jenelle Schmidt as a way to honor J.R.R. Tolkien as the Father of Modern Fantasy, open up a discussion about some of our other favorite fantasy works, and to have a ton of fun this summer.

When we started thinking about creating a sort of “Fantasy Oscars,” we found it difficult to fathom any award that wouldn’t be won by a character or item from The Lord of the Rings… so, to make things a bit more interesting, we decided to call them “The Silmarillion Awards” and have characters from LOTR and The Hobbit present the awards as examples of the ultimate standard for each award. Hopefully that will even the playing field a bit.

Joining our team are eight other bloggers and authors who will each be hosting one of these awards, called Silmarils, on their blogs towards the end of July.

But before we get there, we need YOUR help! Starting today, June 20th and proceeding through July 1st, the nomination period for each award will be open. Please visit the participating bloggers (found in the list below), read the descriptions of the awards, and make your nominations!

Nominate characters in the comments of each blog post. If someone has already nominated the character you would have nominated, you may either second that nomination, open a new nomination, or do both. We will be picking the 5 characters with the most “seconds” for the final voting period that will take place between July 4th – July 13th, so you may also “third,” “fourth,” “fifth,” etc. any nominations you particularly like.

Fine print:

1. Please do not nominate anything from one of your OWN books!
2. You may nominate as many characters as you wish, AND you may also second (or third/fourth/etc.) a character someone else has nominated… but please only “vote” for each character once. (i.e. You cannot nominate a character and then also second that same character.)
3. Please share about the Silmarillion Awards on social media to spread the excitement far and wide across Middle-earth. Use the hashtag: #SilmAwards2016 wherever possible!
4. Don’t nominate a Tolkien character for the awards, as the characters presenting the awards are already the standard for each award
5. Don’t stress if a character you nominate doesn’t win this year. We are hoping to make this an annual tradition, and these awards are LIFETIME AWARDS, meaning that they cannot be won by the same character more than once!

Official Schedule:

• Phase 1 – June 20 – July 1: Award nominations open
• Phase 2 – July 4: the final nominees will be announced and voting will open and last through July 14th
• Phase 3 – July 16-28: Presentation of the awards, 1 per day; each award will be hosted on a different blog each day
• Phase 4 – Celebration! July 29th was the official publication date of the Lord of the Rings back in 1954. We invite you all to celebrate with us the 62nd birthday of this masterpiece of Fantasy Fiction. Congratulate the winners, take and post a photo of yourselves with LOTR paraphernalia, write a blog post about your favorite LOTR moment, scene, character, quote, or memory… get creative and have fun!

List of Participating Blogs:

• DJ Edwardson Hosting the Best Friend Silmaril
• Jenelle Schmidt Hosting the Most Heart Wrenching Death Scene Silmaril
• Deborah O’Carroll Hosting the Strangest Character Silmaril {You are HERE. ;)}
  
• Abbey Hosting the Most Nefarious Villain Silmaril
• JL Mbewe Hosting the Best Redemption Story Silmaril
• Tracey Hosting the Riddling and Poetry Silmaril
• Jack Lewis Baillot Hosting the Best Fantasy Mount Silmaril
• Madeline J. Rose Hosting the Most Epic Hero Silmaril
• Zachary Totah Hosting the Wisest Counsellor Silmaril
• E. Rawls Hosting the Best Fantasy Weapon Silmaril

So that’s the deal of what’s going on! 🙂

Award I’m Hosting: The Strangest Character Silmaril

I’ll be hosting the Strangest Character Silmaril Award here on my blog. Which means you get to start nominating characters for that award in the comments. 🙂

Below are the criteria for the sort of character who ought to be nominated for such an award. Keeping in mind that LOTR characters will be presenting these awards as the ultimate standard of Fantasy Fiction.

The Strangest Character Silmaril should go to a character who is quirky, eccentric, peculiar, or downright bizarre. This character doesn’t need to have a central role to the story, but should be memorable enough to generate discussions amongst audience members familiar with the story this character appears in.

This award will be presented by a unique, odd, and exuberant character from The Lord of the Rings, whose quirks include talking in rhyme and wearing yellow boots… (Just don’t expect to find him in any of the films! ;))

If you’ve read through all the details and still have a question about how it works or how to participate, ask away, or check in with DJ or Jenelle, and we’ll try to answer it. 🙂 (And remember that it’s all for fun! :D)

So, are you ready? Nominate your pick for “strangest character” in a fantasy book, in the comments below! 🙂 And don’t forget to check out the other posts!

EDIT: Nominations are closed — visit the voting post HERE to meet the top five nominees and vote for the next round! 🙂 Voting runs from July 4-14.