#as far as aranor goes it's like

[anghraine]

I know Aragorn/Faramir is a pretty niche pairing and f!Aragorn/f!Faramir is even more niche, but I’ve been thinking of the Aranorverse again and having feelings about ... Elrond?

I’ve mentioned it before, but one of the Northern Dúnedain’s main points of pride is that they’ve managed to preserve the direct line of the heirs of Isildur from father to son. With help from Elrond, this has continued for an incredibly long period of time: from Arvedui’s disappearance to, in this verse, the death of Arathorn.

He leaves a child, of course—a girl. Arathorn dying before having a son after all those years and generations would be a monumentally big deal. Aranor is far too young to have a husband to claim leadership through her, as her ancestor Arvedui did, so IMO the probability is that the chieftainship would pass to the nearest man in the male line from Isildur.

...if not for Elrond. The background story behind Aranor the eventual queen is that Elrond acknowledged little toddler Aranor as heir of Isildur. He took her into his household as Estel alongside Gilraen, giving Aranor a proper Elvish-Númenórean education and working to prepare her for the trials to come. The line about how Elrond loves Aragorn as much as he does Elladan and Elrohir is equally true of Aranor. He does love her dearly, and he gives her the tokens of her house and directs her to a great destiny, and ultimately comes to Minas Tirith to see Aranor enthroned as Queen of Gondor before finally leaving Middle-earth.

At the end of the day, honestly, a lot of people are going to owe an awful lot to the moment when Elrond considered thousands of years of patriarchy vs one two-year-old girl, and chose the girl.

#yeah you could imagine that middle-earth as less relentlessly patriarchal but i ... don't #*is #like arvedui's bullshit with fíriel's claim? only makes sense in an intensely patriarchal context #to me #as far as aranor goes it's like #i did want her overall arc to look generally like aragorn's—a large part of the appeal is how much harder her road would be #and how impressive her ultimate rise #and that meant someone with a lot of sway decided she'd be heir of isildur anyway and i just really like the idea #of that person being elrond and him being this wonderful (kind as summer!!) father figure to aranor #both in her youth and in her middle age #anghraine babbles #fic talk #aranor #legendarium blogging #aranor daughter of arathorn #elrond #genderbending #aragorn