Snowflake Challenge Day 3

[mishaday]

Day 3

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Tolkien's Silmarillion - I have a 1977 First American edition, and I admit, I've peppered it with penciled marks of my own.

I mean, I fully fess up to being hip-deep in dwarrow and dwarven mythology and playing in JRR Tolkien's sandbox. It's that flawed canon: I hated the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a kid: I stopped at the Two Towers and couldn't slog my way through until much later. And then I thought of it as bad songfic: the dude couldn't make a single page without breaking into song.

But then I found the Silmarillion, and WHAM - hit me with the nostalgia train coupled with a flawed and open canon caboose. I was such a nerd as a kid - read three different versions of Greek mythology, and nearly stole my mother's copy of Grave's Greek Myths before she bought me my own. The Silmarillion is right up that alley, with flawed history and gods and demons that inform more contemporary (Hobbit and LotR) stories.

It's reference and as foundational a source as any for contemporary fictional mythology: modern fantasy roleplaying games are built on it, so it's canon for two wildly different hobbies: RPGs and fanfic. And more: to me, it's where Tolkien's brilliance shone through. Best, though, is it's incomplete and flawed in the best ways - the ways that beg for fanfic.