Verlyn Flieger picks up a question Shippey asked while discussing the poem, namely, what is the relationship of success and failure in the story. Shippey noted that on the one hand, Eärendil's Silmaril was called The Flammifer of Westernesse, the victory-emblem of Númenor; but that on the other hand, it was linked with loss and homelessness, with the weeping of women. Flieger writes that both in the poem and in The Silmarillion, light is a positive symbol of the creation, but the Silmarils have a powerful negative impact.