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grundyscribbling · 7 years

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Any headcanons on Amrod/Amras? It's hard to get any grip on their personalities from Tolkien.

Interesting one, thanks, anon!

First, there’s tons of room for headcanon on this one, because Tolkien says so little about Amras & Amrod in canon. In the published Silmarillion, they’re really only ever mentioned as a unit, and are said to be alike in mood and face, and hunters like Celegorm. It is noted they “came seldom northward while the Siege [of Angband] lasted”. In the HoME books, it gets a little more interesting, in that there are some slight differences between them, and also the tale of how Nerdanel originally wanted to give them the same mother-name but then changed one of them to Umbarto, a name that only became clear when Fëanor burned him with the ships at Losgar.

So, to the headcanons - cut for length, because it got long!

Amros and Amrod had a happy childhood. They were the youngest of their brothers, and among the youngest of Finwë’s grandchildren overall. Both their parents and their older brothers looked out for them and tended to be protective. They were very close, even for twins, to the point that it made perfect sense to them that they would share a mother-name. (They always knew which Ambarussa they meant.) They were good friends with Aredhel and Galadriel, who were the youngest of their generation, and the four of them combined were all sorts of trouble.

They took more after Celegorm in their interests, though fortunately not in temper, so he got along well with them and spent a lot of time playing with ‘the babies’ and teaching them. (And Aredhel and Galadriel.) Whether this kept them out or trouble or just made it worse is debatable. But Celegorm was a far larger presence in their childhood than his older brothers. (At this point, Maedhros is spending most of his time trying to smooth over ruffled/hurt feelings in his father’s wake, and Maglor is newly married. Which is not to say they didn’t care or take an interest, only that Celegorm was the one around and doing things with them.)

There was more or less an unspoken agreement among the adults to keep the family quarrels/drama away from the kids, so Fëanor’s escalating fight with Fingolfin didn’t really impact the twins in any serious way until his banishment to Formenos. And unlike their older brothers, they tend to resentment about having to stay in Formenos - they love their dad, but they are really unhappy about not seeing Galadriel or Aredhel, not to mention their mother.

After Finwë’s death, the twins swear the Oath the same as their brothers, mostly because they’re upset and angry about the murder of Finwë, so they genuinely want to go after Morgoth. They’re used to following their older brothers’ example, so the Oath makes sense at the time. But they’re the first ones to have second thoughts about it, although they really only discuss them with each other.

Their involvement at Alqualondë is limited, first by their father and older brothers trying to protect the youngest ones (someone has to babysit Celebrimbor, who’s only a child and can’t be taken into tense/dangerous situations, and who better than his youngest uncles?) and then by the urgent need for someone to literally sit on Galadriel to keep her from running straight back to the fight after Curufin and Maedhros separated her and Celegorm from what was otherwise shaping up to be a duel to the death.

After Fëanor & sons reach Beleriand, I subscribe to the ship-burning version, because generally when faced with choices, I go with whatever ups the tragedy, and Amrod wanting to turn back and dying for it definitely fits the bill. Amras has a psychotic break in the wake of his twin’s death. He goes off on Fëanor, telling him the truth about what everyone thinks of how he’s treated his brothers and nieces/nephews, and that it’s only appropriate that he’s now treating his sons as equally expendable. In a terrible moment of foresight, he predicts that the rest of Fëanor’s sons will come to view his as the luckiest of them. He then spends the next few months basically catatonic.

Once he recovers, his brothers pretty much don’t trust that he won’t commit suicide if left alone, so they make sure he never is. He’s unexpectedly close to Maedhros after Maedhros is rescued from Thangorodrim, because he’s the only one of the brothers who has any idea what it’s like to feel like you’re missing a major part of yourself, and how hard it is to really heal and live normally after that.

Amras does his part in the defense against Morgoth, but he no longer cares about the Oath. His brothers don’t trust him on the front lines for obvious reasons, so he spends time at each of their strongholds in turn until the construction of Amon Ereb. His brothers may require his presence when they talk about the Oath or take action on it, but he really sees it as just them hauling him around like an accessory. Left to his own devices he’d probably head over the mountains into the East and not come back. Unfortunately, the best he can do is go roaming the woods and wilder parts of Beleriand (but always with a few retainers, because his most trusted followers have all had conversations with one or more of their lord’s older brothers about how he is not to be allowed to go off on his own, ever. His steward has actually heard it from all five of the older Fëanorions.)

The rest, I think, has mostly made it into fic - how he found Dior’s twin sons in the woods, but never told his brothers, and how his death at Sirion was an honest to god accident, but that he doesn’t seem terribly upset by it.

At some point in the Fourth Age or beyond, Amros and Amrod will return, and they’ll be good friends with Dior’s twins, to the intense discomfort of both Ambarussa’s older brothers and Nimloth, Elwing, and their kin. (Some will get used to it, others won’t.)

#asks #headcanon #amrod #amras

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