Silmaril Awards 2019! Silver Tongue Nominations! (Closed!)

Welcome!

Welcome to the 4th Annual Silmaril Awards! (#SilmAwards2019)

The Silmaril Awards are fan-voted awards for the most outstanding characters in fantasy fiction — a sort of fantasy-book-character Oscars just for fun — and YOU, my friends, get to nominate said characters!

Characters from any fantasy books — unless they are written by J. R. R. Tolkien (since his characters are the Fantasy Standard for these purposes), or have already won the award before — are eligible to be nominated.

You can read more about this blog event at SilmarilAwards.com and check out the list of previous winners.

ALSO! New this year: A Facebook group! Go check it out. 😀

Keep reading for the links to other awards, the timeline, rules, and how to nominate, but first . . .

Here on my blog, I’m hosting . . .

The Silmaril Award for Most Silver Tongue!

This award was originally for Poetry and Riddling, but was updated to this name to include any character who can arguably be said to possess a silver tongue!

Previous winners of this award (who are therefore not eligible for nomination) are:

• The Sorting Hat (Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling)
• Mo/Silver Tongue (Inkheart by Cornelia Funke)
• Wizard Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones)

(And, of course, our own dear Bilbo Baggins will be presenting it.)

So that should give you an idea of the sort of characters who might be worthy of the Silver Tongue award. 😉

*silver trumpets sound*

Come one, come all!

Those gifted with a way with words!

Poet, bard, or minstrel!

Those whose speech enchants the listener!

Those, perhaps, who speak riddles, or are fluent in snark, or on whose every word the reader hangs breathlessly!

Readers, share your favorite silver-tongued characters from fantasy books, and may the most eloquent win!

Nominate away in the comments below!

Awards List

Be sure to check out the other categories in the list of posts below, on the other hosts’ blogs, and go share your nominations for those!

• Most Epic Heroine — J. L. Mbewe
• Least Competent Henchman — Christine Smith (She’s joining us this year for the first time! Hurray!)
• Most Magnificent Dragon — Kyle Robert Shultz
• Most Silver Tongue — Deborah O’Carroll (You are here!)
• Most Faithful Friend — E. E. Rawls
• Most Nefarious Villain — Zachary Totah
• Strangest Character — Tracey Dyck
• Most Epic Hero — DJ Edwardson
• Most Mischievous Imp — Madeline J. Rose
• Wisest Counselor — Jenelle Schmidt

Timeline

September 2nd: Nominations open!

Nominations run Mon., Sept. 2 – Fri., Sept. 6, so be sure to leave your comments (and come back throughout the week to “second” other nominations!) this week!

September 9th: Voting begins

September 16th-27th: Awards will be announced on the various sites of the various presenters each weekday during this time.

Rules

1. Again, Tolkien’s characters are not eligible to win these awards. We creators of the Silmarillion Awards see them as the ultimate standards for these categories already, which is why they are the Presenters of the Silmarils.
2. These awards are for FANTASY characters! This means no science fiction. However, if you can make a good, solid argument for the fantastical elements in a particular science-fantasy, then by all means, go ahead! We will keep a running tab on whether or not a book counts as “fantasy”. (For instance, The Lunar Chronicles has already been accepted as fantasy in this contest.)
3. Please mention what book the character is from in your nomination. While the hosts of the Silmaril Awards are wizards in their own right and voracious book dragons of speculative fiction, we haven’t all read EVERY book out there, and we might not recognize certain characters.
4. Authors are welcome to participate, but please refrain from nominating your OWN characters. You may, of course, direct your fans to this event, though.
5. Characters who have won in a particular category in a previous year are ineligible to be nominated for the same award again. The Silmarils are Lifetime Awards. For a list of the previous winners in each category, please check out our Hall of Fame.
6. Please remember that these are Fantasy Book Awards. Therefore, a movie character is only eligible for nomination if they were a book first!

How to Nominate

Nominations are now closed! Thanks, everyone!

• Leave a comment below to nominate the character(s) you think are most worthy of the title “Most Silver Tongue”!
• If someone has already nominated any of those characters, feel free to reply to the other comments and “second” those votes!
• You may nominate and second as many characters as you like.
• The top five characters in each category at the end of the week (the ones with the most seconds) will be the ones which progress to the second round, the voting round.

And now . . .

Nominate Away!

Get to it! I can’t wait to see all the silver-tongued characters you guys nominate! 😀 (And the other categories, of course!)

Let the Silmaril Awards BEGIN!

(EDIT: NOMINATIONS ARE CLOSED! THANKS, EVERYONE!)

Unpopular Opinions Tag

So, you know how I said I had one tag left? Well back up, I have an amendment to that statement. Why, you ask?

Because Cait @ Paper Fury just tagged me with the bookish Unpopular Opinions Tag! Which kind of makes my day/week. Thanks Cait!!

So, I am going to do that! (Which will nicely carry my final [?] tag-post to my normal posting day of Monday. I like tidiness, I do.)

At first I was thinking of not doing it, because I’m not naturally a negative person. But I decided to give myself license to rant a liiittle bit today. For therapeutic reasons, you understand. 😉 I hope I won’t offend/annoy anyone. o.o But… well… these are kinda my opinions and as Cait so wisely said, we can all have differing opinions on small bookish things and still be friends! (Mostly. Hopefully. I have learned such things the hard way. :P)

So. Let’s do this thing!

(Pictures from Pinterest and Goodreads. Yes I did just raid my entire store of gifs on Pinterest why do you ask… Gifs make everything better and are stupendous at lightening moods. *nod nod*)

The Unpopular Opinions Tag of a Bookish Variety

1. A POPULAR BOOK OR SERIES YOU DIDN’T LIKE.

Um… I’m not sure if they count as popular, but I’m going to pick two books for this.

The End, the last book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket — which I just hated how it ended and it didn’t explain ANYTHING and just gaahh. I kept reading the whole series, partly because they were amusing (in a dark way) and partly to find out what happened. BUT IT DIDN’T TELL US.

And Knightly Academy by Violet Haberdasher, because it had such potential to be awesome (I mean, a boy goes to school to become a knight in an alternate Victorian England? Sounds awesome, right?) but just UGH it let me down. I guess it’s just how all schools are with the bullies and the pointlessness and stuff. But I couldn’t see WHY the hero wanted to go to that school and he was so trod upon and it was sad and so annoying.

(Or… more like angry. But the gun shooting is accurate so…)

2. A POPULAR BOOK/SERIES EVERYONE HATES BUT YOU LOVE.

Again, don’t know if they count as popular, but…

The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison. I just loved it but nobody else seems to! What? PRINCE GEORGE, OKAY. He’s the best. And the story did enough twists and turns to make me rearrange my brain and just it was kind of amazing.

Also maybe Illusionarium by Heather Dixon, which might not count because it just came out but people seem to complain about it and I’m just sitting here going EXCUSE ME?? Aside from it being too creepy for me, it was SPECTACULAR. How can people complain that it’s… um… boring??

3. A LOVE TRIANGLE WHERE THE PROTAGONIST ENDED UP WITH THE PERSON YOU DIDN’T WANT THEM TO BE WITH.

(Is it bad the first thing in my mind at this question was a confused notion of Hawkeye? But he’s not a book character and I think I’m okay with it but I don’t know…)

I don’t know if I can think of one… I guess I don’t read much love-triangle stuff? But how about Halflings by Heather Burch — that has a love triangle and I kind of like both of the guys but Raven is kind of awesomer than Mace, so. And then I’ve HEARD suspicious things about Maria and Quinn and someone else later in the Destiny trilogy by Sarah Holman… so I’ll have to see. Ahem. I’ve only read the first in each series (I actually really liked The Destiny of One) so actually have no idea and am totally unqualified! But still.

But yeah. Love triangles in general… A mess.

4. POPULAR GENRE YOU HARDLY READ.

Dystopian! Just… no. -_- I DO NOT LIKE IT. I’ve read, like… three? The genre makes me shrivel inside and is thoroughly unpleasant and just it gives me this awful feeling and depresses me. No thank you. THEY ARE JUST SO… HOPELESS OKAY. Like, the evil people have everything and are rich and the good people live in the dirt literally and are oppressed and everybody’s grumpy and everyone dies and sure mayyybe eventually the good guys will win (maybe?) but who even cares by now? Life just doesn’t sound worth living. Blech. I don’t have anything much specifically against the ones I have read, I mean, they’re fairly good and all (Captives by Jill Williamson, and Swipe and Sneak by Evan Angler… and yes I will read the Swipe sequels because PECK. PECK PECK. Though I just remembered some others I’ve read and no). On the whole I’m just not a fan of dystopian and will only read them when forced. NO THANK YOU.

5. A POPULAR/BELOVED CHARACTER YOU DISLIKE.

Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I’m sorry, people, but I cannot abide characters who pine away and make themselves ill for love, especially for love of someone who’s a complete jerk, especially when there’s a really nice guy in plain sight, especially when all she’s doing is being a burden to her sister and mom and basically being worthless and it’s just stupid stupid stupid. I’M SORRY OKAY but I just can’t understand why anyone likes Marianne Dashwood. To me, she was just extremely unlikeable. I’m sure everyone else is seeing something I can’t and I’m just sitting here trying to figure it out…

6. A POPULAR AUTHOR YOU CAN’T SEEM TO GET INTO.

Suzanne Collins? I haven’t read the HG books yet but I read Gregor the Overlander years ago before HG was even a THING and I just… couldn’t get into it. Or Orson Scott Card with anything other than Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow.

7. A POPULAR TROPE YOU’RE TIRED OF READING.

The tough girls. Maybe this is extreme, but I’m very very sick of the so called tough heroines who think they’re so awesome (but are in reality even whinier than their more timid counterparts) and are all “I can be one of the guys and awesomer than they are and yeah I’m so tough.” I’m sooo tired of those. Ladies, you can use weapons and stuff — that is awesome, I have no problem with it, go you — and fine you can wear trousers if it’s more practical (though usually it’s more to make a statement) but can we please have enough of this attitude and making a big deal of everything? SERIOUSLY. -_-

8. A POPULAR SERIES YOU HAVE NO INTEREST IN READING.

Um… Twilight? Though I almost want to read it just to see what everyone’s deal is with hating it so bad. 😛 Almost. Recently I would also have answered this with Harry Potter and the Hunger Games trilogy. I guess they would fit under the question actually because “no interest in reading” which is rather true of me, but maybe someday I might end up reading them anyway just to see what on earth is up with them, peoples. Y’know, some decade when I actually have time and if they ever actually take priority over books that I’m excited about and WANT to read… Ha.

(Yeah, that’s funny…)

9. A SHOW/MOVIE ADAPTION YOU LIKED BETTER THAN THE BOOK.

The Princess Bride, and the 1990 Treasure Island with Christian Bale and Charlton Heston. OKAY I SAID IT. There are a couple movies I like more than the books. But this is really extreme. 😛 I do love both the books too though! But the movies were just… aaahh, so awesome! Of course the screenplay of The Princess Bride was done by the author, which is cool. I as-you-wish The Princess Bride. ❤

And Treasure Island, especially with its epic music by The Chieftains and just I loved all the casting and whatever changes they made I mostly liked and it was just awesome. And Charlton Heston as Long John Silver was awesome and Christian Bale as Jim Hawkins was perfection, and I kind of really loved Captain Smollet for some reason. It may have been his hair, or accent…? Anyways nobody really knows about it because I think it was a TV movie, and maybe it’s a bit violent but I kind of just loved it.

10. A POPULAR STYLE OF COVER YOU CAN’T STAND. (Cait’s addition to the tag)

I’m… not much of a cover connoisseur I’m afraid, other than unashamedly loving gorgeous dresses on covers… But it kind of annoys me when part of a face is missing… And mostly I think minimalistic sort of covers, popularized by The Hunger Games methinks, are super annoying. Like… a black background with some words and maybe some sort of icon thing. *shrug* It’s kind of boring I’m afraid. I wouldn’t say I “can’t stand” it but yeah. LET’S HAVE PEOPLE ON THE COVERS. DRESSES. WEAPONS. I DON’T KNOW — SOMETHING INTERESTING. Oh, and also, in general, covers that looked like they were made by a three-year-old. They make me sad.

***

There are no specific “rules” for this tag, so again I’m not tagging anyone — those who like stating their unpopular opinions are likely to take it anyway, and those who are more timid about it (like me…) might be torn about doing it.

So! Once again, if you would like to do this, play snag-the-tag! It’s a fun game, I assure you.

There is my post. I have now gotten my bookish negativity checked off my list for the next… hopefully year. 😛

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?
Have I done an unsafe thing by stating unpopular opinions?
WILL I BE SAFE AT NIGHT? O_O

(I guess we’ll find out… I keep a dragon under my bed as a burglar alarm. I do. His name is Flame the Frabjous and he’s very well trained against bilboes and other less harmless things that go bump in the night like frumious bookworms out armed with weapons of revenge that cause paper-cuts.)