The Silmaril Awards are 10 years old. I participated in one of the earlier ones and posted how to write your name in a LoTR language. But this year, I’m here to help you decide who is the most faithful friend of all fantasy fiction!

How it works

First off, since this is my first time hosting, I thought I’d share how it works. But with that, since it’s the 10th anniversary, there are some special things as well. You can read all about it on the official website.

But in general there are two contests this year:

• A puzzle
• Voting

The Puzzle:

Follow all the nominating blogs, and collect the pieces of a J. R. R. Tolkein poem. Piece them all together for ten entries in the contest.

Note there are five (5) winners!

The Voting:

When you nominate a character via a comment on a blog (and submit your email), you’ll be entered to win the voting prize.

But wait…

There’s more!

Two names will be drawn from those who nominate, and all the blog hosts will be split into two teams for a LoTR trivia contest. It’ll be online Sept 26th.

Again, note there will be five (5) winners!

Silmaril Award Information

The most faithful friend award is for those side characters that everyone loves! They may be crotchety or beautiful, a gardener or a soldier, witty or quiet. Whatever they are, they are loyal to the bitter end.

But first…

The Guidelines

From the official website, I quote:

The Silmaril Awards are all about celebrating fantasy fiction. But whereas most awards go to authors or books, these awards go to the characters themselves! Sound like fun? Read on.

Started in 2016, these awards are a four week online celebration of all that’s best in fantasy literature. There are several awards in various categories given every year. The characters who receive them have to be from books generally considered to be in the fantasy genre. And a given character cannot receive an award more than once. These are lifetime awards.

Also, as Tolkien is, for us, the gold standard of fantasy, his characters are not eligible to be nominated. That’s because they’ll be the ones presenting the awards in this cross-dimensional online ceremony. 

Nominations are submitted on the websites of each of the presenters for that year. Anyone can submit a nomination and you can second (and third and fourth, etc.) any number of nominations besides your own.

After the nomination period (lasting one week), the five characters receiving the most nominations will make it onto the ballot and you’ll have one week to vote. After the votes are tallied, the winners will be announced, one per day, over the final two weeks of the awards.

The awards the winners will receive are silmarils, the otherworldly gems featured in Tolkien’s book, The Silmarillion. Though there were a limited number of these gems in his world, in ours we have found a great many more!

The dates for this year’s awards are:

Nominations week — Sept 2-6

Voting week — Sept 9-13

Awards ceremonies — Sept 16-27

The Rules

1. You cannot nominate characters from Tolkien’s works. The creators of these awards saw that Tolkien’s characters are the gold standard by which we measure these categories, and they’re the official presenters of the awards. In other words: they’re doubly ineligible.

2. These awards are for fantasy characters only; no science fiction characters are eligible. That said, we will consider characters from some sciencey books if there’s enough magic-y/fantastical stuff that it can be deemed science fantasy of some stripe. The primary example is characters from Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, which we’ve decided does involve enough magic that it’s basically science fantasy.

3. When you nominate your character, please mention which book they are from. Much as we all wish we had infinite reading time, most of us are mere mortals who can only devote so much time to devouring the entire contents of any library we can access. (And those of us who aren’t mere mortals are still pretty busy.)

4. You may nominate as many characters as you wish and “second” as many characters as you want, but you cannot second your own nominations. The top five MOST seconded characters will go on to the final voting round. (Also, as a request . . . please don’t say “I second all characters from [insert book/series here].” That makes it more difficult for the hosts, who now have to make sure they don’t miss any characters from that media. Instead, we encourage you to consider which character from that book or series best fits the category and throw your support behind that one.)

5. If you are an author, please refrain from nominating your own characters. You are welcome to encourage your fans to nominate them, however, and you are more than welcome to nominate others’ characters.

6. 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. Note: as of 2023, characters from The Chronicles of Narnia have been recognized with Lifetime Silmarils by the Silmaril Awards Council and therefore cannot be nominated again.

7. Please remember that these are Fantasy BOOK Awards. Therefore, a movie character is only eligible for nomination if they were in a book first!

8. Most importantly, have fun! We are celebrating our favorite characters and being a little silly in the process. And even if your personal favorite character doesn’t win or doesn’t reach voting, someone else’s did . . . and there’s always next year.

Past Silmaril Awards for Most Faithful Friend

Since you can’t nominate those who’ve already won, it’d be helpful to know who’s already won. The listing is impressive, but I know there are more out there. (Wayne Thomas Batson, H. L. Burke, Sharon Rose, and Annie Douglass Lima have wonderful characters.)

• 2024 Nugget from Wingfeather Saga
• 2023 Neville Longbottom from The Harry Potter Series
• 2022 Rose Red from The Tales of the Goldstone Wood
• 2021 Jewel from The Chronicles of Narnia
• 2020 Puddleglum from The Chronicles of Narnia
• 2019 Iko from The Lunar Chronicles
• 2018 Little John from The Adventures of Robin Hood
• 2017 Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride
• 2016 Reepicheep from The Chronicles of Narnia

Do you see why The Chronicles of Narnia was recognized with a lifetime silmaril? I have many faithful friends, I’d love to nominate, but I can’t since I’m hosting it. I look forward to your nominations.

Oh… But first…

Most Faithful Friend Puzzle Excerpt

2025 Silmaril Award Nominations

Let the nominating begin! Cast your nominations in the comments below. Be sure to go nominate for the other categories as well.

• Epic Heroes: Jenelle Leanne Schmidt
• Most Epic Heroine: Merie Shen
• Most Faithful Friend: Kandi J Wyatt (You’re here!)
• Most Nefarious Villain: H. L. Burke
• Wisest Counselor: Grace Tabor
• Silver-Tongue: D. J. Edwardson
• Most Magnificent Dragon: J. L. Mbewe
• Most Mischievous Imp: Sarah Taleweaver
• Most Devoted Couple: C. O. Bonham