The War of Wrath, or the Great Battle, is a key plot development in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, portraying the final war against Morgoth at the end of the First Age.
Elrond, at his Council, makes comparison to the Last Alliance of Elves and Men of the Second Age in The Lord of the Rings saying,
I remember well the splendour of their banners ... It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken...
In the Tale of the Years it is called the Great Battle and the army, the Host of Valinor. The best known and most poetical account is in The Silmarillion, itself closely drawn from the earlier Quenta Silmarillion. The most detailed account of the course of the war is in The Later Annals of Beleriand. Other accounts and fragmentary details about the war are scattered, appearing in the earliest versions of the legendarium.
The experience of distance to the War of Wrath is greatest in Lord of the Rings, drawing nearer to it in The Silmarillion, closer still in the Annals and Quentas of the History of Middle-earth and closest, in aspects, in The Lost Tales.
Read more about War Of Wrath: The Silmarillion Account, The History of Middle-earth Accounts, Impact On Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words war of, war and/or wrath:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“In health of mind and body, men should see with their own eyes, hear and speak without trumpets, walk on their feet, not on wheels, and work and war with their arms, not with engine-beams, nor rifles warranted to kill twenty men at a shot before you can see them.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“The gods being always close to men perceive those who afflict others with unjust devices and do not fear the wrath of heaven.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)