#it should/could have been a silmaril so perfectly!

[actual-bill-potts]

The thing abt the nargothrond debacle that makes it endlessly fascinating as a character study is that there’s no good path for anyone involved, and so many of their actions (at least at first) have completely understandable motivations.

Like. starting from the very beginning: was it dumb for the sons of fëanor to swear the Oath? We can all agree it was. And there is some very interesting meta out there on what exactly the oath meant when it was sworn, but tbh in context it mostly reads as a declaration of war against morgoth. Fairly reasonable 🤷‍♀️

And, was it dumb for finrod to swear his oath to barahir? I mean…maybe! On the one hand, by rescuing finrod barahir was kinda just Doing His Damn Job, but on the other hand he did go above and beyond. And it was a very noble and kind gesture, which is the kind of thing finrod specializes in.

So then beren shows up and begs finrod for help, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. Now, do I wish that he and luthien had told Thingol to get fucked and gone off to live happily somewhere else? Sure! But the thing is, if they stayed in doriath Thingol was probably going to arrange a little accident for his least favorite son-in-law, and if they left doriath Thingol might well have declared war on whatever kingdom they took refuge in, so if beren and luthien had come to nargothrond to ask for shelter instead things might have been even worse.

And for beren, who’s been running a singlehanded guerilla campaign against morgoth forever, it’s actually not that unreasonable to assume that the full might of nargothrond could at least provide a convenient distraction for him to get in and steal a silmaril and then get the fuck outta there. Should he have resigned himself to being a wandering depressed bastard being fed by birds and having a price on his head instead of asking nargothrond to sacrifice many lives for his own happiness? Maybe! But like, the Elves were attacking angband anyway.

So then beren shows up and makes his request, and you gotta feel sorry for finrod because this is genuinely an impossible position. If he says no, he’s breaking an oath (which is not only srs bzns in beleriand, but also seems to be somewhat metaphysically impossible, at least I hope so for the sake of feanorian woobifiers everywhere). And it’s not only the oath; beren is the latest in a line of men who finrod has watched over for ages, a line of men who have loved and trusted finrod, and who have died for him. Since Bëor. Beren probably has bëor’s eyes or smth. He can’t say no.

But on the other hand, if he says yes, either:

a) they succeed, steal a silmaril, and bring it back to Thingol. At which point the wrath of the feanorians is going to fall on doriath, and probably nargothrond too. Right after dagor Bragollach, when things are already so fragile. Also, the feanorians currently in nargothrond are gonna be pissed the hell off.

b) they fail, and morgoth crushes them to death, and probably gets the exact coordinates of nargothrond out of them and crushes the whole realm.

But, the feanorians (Maedhros anyway) can probably be talked round more easily than morgoth. So I’m sure finrod was hoping for option a.

But THEN he breaks the news to c&c. And they can’t take it well; from their perspective, he’s setting his oath, which (presumably) doesn’t doom him to everlasting darkness if he fails, against theirs, which DOES doom them to everlasting darkness if they fail, and. well. that doesn’t seem very cousinly, does it?

It’s ALSO reasonable for the people of nargothrond (independent of c&c) to be a bit wary of their king wanting to go on a mad quest against morgoth when fingolfin JUST went on a mad quest against morgoth and lost rather spectacularly. and idk if finrod could do that much abt it, other than really guilt trip them.

(tbh it’s always seemed to me like finrod gave up real fast to c&c. possibly he figured it was actually better to involve as little of his kingdom as possible in his doom and make it so that the ire of morgoth and/or the fëanorians was focused on him and beren rather than the entire kingdom of nargothrond. and from a purely pragmatic point of view I don’t know that he’s wrong; celegorm and curufin are both good, experienced leaders, and presumably have been helping out around nargothrond anyway, and also there’s orodreth who seemed to do a fine job pre-túrin (the elves of nargothrond are remarkably gullible it must be said). granted finrod could probably have pulled Thingol into the union of Maedhros had he been around, but without the silmaril being stolen the union might never have happened in the first place. Also even if it had the union would have unquestionably still had nargothrond with finrod, which might have helped. but finrod couldn’t be expected to know that.)

anyway i think things went really wrong when c&c started making rash proclamations, and it’s interesting that curufin in particular is so passionate about finrod not going, when there was a different way: just have beren show Thingol the silmaril, then ask him to bring it back to the fëanorians, by theft if necessary. he could hardly say no to that after being helped so generously by finrod. you’d think curufin at least would have thought of that. but I think curufin was feeling so betrayed that finrod of all people was gonna leave and go after a silmaril that he stopped thinking clearly, which is something Elves and also people do a lot.

And of course when finrod throws his crown at their feet it doesn’t help. But again, pretty reasonable after they were like "if you succeed we WILL kill you and probably enjoy it. But you won’t succeed, cuz morgoth is scary and you’re all losers." And after they’ve sent him to his death, well, they’ve cast themselves as the villains of the story, and they have to see it to the bitter end. Not big on redemption and second chances in the first age, elves.

So in summary: no one was being all that evil in nargothrond, but unfortunately they were set at cross purposes by the Narrative, and neither finrod nor c&c were at their best when it came to being a Good Leader bc they were emotionally compromised, but they weren’t bad either…

And also if c&c were to be reunited with finrod in valinor eventually, I think he’d be much angrier abt curufin shooting beren than anything else. They had a point in nargothrond and might even have been playing into his master plan to go alone; shooting beren was just petty. And also a dick move considering finrod had just given his life for beren like 5 seconds ago, I mean come on guys. he ripped out a werewolf’s throat with his teeth, give his last wishes some respect.

So: the majority of the blame goes to the curse of the silmaril for fucking things up yet again, thingol for being a sexist dipshit and not listening to his wife, and of course sauron and morgoth for the whole. yknow. thing

#silm meta #my writing #the Silmarillion #finrod #curufin #celegorm #beren #lay of leithian

[the-elusive-soleil]

never wanna see the night

For @tolkienfamilyweek Day 2: Siblings

“Nelyo, what are you doing?”

Maglor had thought nothing of it when Maedhros staggered to his feet--he had not truly been able to pay attention at that moment, what with the burning of the jewel in his palm. But now he is paying attention, with his heart pounding in his throat, because Maedhros is--

He is so very close to the edge of that canyon of lava that had interrupted their frantic flight, making them pause long enough to take out the Silmarils and examine them.

Maglor is not sure what he fears--or rather, he knows perfectly well, but he cannot bring himself to put a name to it, although the fear has dogged his steps at least since Doriath, or possibly since the Nirnaeth. He makes himself stand up slowly, and move equally slowly towards Maedhros, both his hands outstretched and the Silmaril abandoned on the ground.

“Come here a little closer to me, Nelyo,” he says quietly. “Just a bit further from the edge. Please.”

“No.”

The single word, hoarse and barely audible, freezes Maglor where he stands. “What do you mean, no?”

“Don’t come closer.” Maedhros won’t look at him, his head hanging low; he’s clutching the Silmaril to himself even though it must be agonizing him. “I can’t--I can’t anymore, Kano. It’s over, and see what we have become in making it so. And what we have lost--our cousins, our brothers, our sons. There is nothing left.”

There is me, Maglor tries to say, there is still me and I still need you, am I not enough, but he is unable to make his voice obey him before Maedhros, on the very edge, shifts his weight and lets himself topple backwards into the fire.

***

“Elros, what have you done?”

His twin does not even have the grace to look shamefaced. Perhaps Elrond should have seen this coming--Elros has been spending more and more time with the Edain of the host as time goes on, and he has taken to dressing in their styles and tying his hair up to look shorter, but he could never have imagined that it was a precursor to something as drastic as this. How could he have guessed? They had never heard of any such choice being imposed upon peredhil before.

Then again, they are at this point the only two peredhil to have lived this long without being killed or ending up in Aman. 

Eonwe came and found Elrond earlier in the evening, when he was alone, and sprang the choice on him, and Elrond’s first reaction had been confusion. Why would he have to choose? He has always been both, and been content to let any metaphysical implications wait for when or if he died. But, made to choose, he’d chosen what seemed like the obvious option: elvenhood and immortality, to stay with their foster fathers and someday find their birth parents again, to have time for all the many, many things that had only just become possibilities again with the war over.

Apparently, for Elros, the obvious option had been different.

“How could you have done this?” Elrond continues, his voice rising. He and Elros haven’t yelled at each other since growing out of adolescence; the fact that he’s close to it now is making him feel unfairly childish. “We have never been apart, and now we will be separated when you go to this Isle of Gift, and then someday after that forever--”

“Not forever,” Elros says, in an attempt at reassurance. “They say that someday when the world is remade, elves and Men and all other kindreds will be reunited.”

“It is close enough to forever!” Elrond protests. “And for all that time, there will be nothing. I will be left alone.” His birth father left when he could barely remember, and then later his mother, and now his foster fathers have left him, and now Elros, who was supposed to be the one person who would never leave. 

“Elrond.” Elros’ voice is impossibly gentle. He reaches out and takes Elrond’s hands in his. “You will never be alone; you are much too good at gathering people around yourself for that to happen. And--I am sorry it must be this way, I am, but I could not be bound to Arda for eternity. It was different when we thought Arda was all their was, but now that we know what the Gift of Men truly is--that there is more out there? Elrond, there could be anything, and I want to know what it is. I need to.”

Elrond can’t speak, can only grip his twin’s hands as though that will keep him here next to him, here in Arda, after all. But even as he does so, it feels futile: the change of the choice has already come upon Elros, and he swears he can feel his brother already slipping away even as he stands right here.

#tolkienfamilyweek #silmarillion #maglor #maedhros #elrond #elros #brothers #parallels #cw: character death #angst #sadness #sorry guys i really made this one to hurt #soleil writes things #refracted (fanfiction)

[outofangband]

Unattainable

Angband World Building and Aftermath of Captivity Masterlist

General post Angband warnings for trauma, aftermath of captivity and torture, effects of extended enforced immobility, nightmares, implied abuse, fear of someone taking or moving mobility aids without permission (it’s an unfounded fear but based in understandable reasons, see my many posts on Maedhros and autonomy, etc)

I try to avoid rambling or meta about post Angband Maedhros in the story notes here hence why I link the masterlist but I have SO many thoughts as is well, obvious And always feel free to ask more

@tolkiengenweek day four, solo 💙

I’m taking requests for all Tolkien gen week prompts and very much want them!

Himring era, around the time of this story

Maedhros scrambled backwards, throwing his covers off. Gripped by an otherworldly terror, he could not decide whether to resume a defensive or submissive posture. On more than one previous occasion he had battled with himself even as he knew he had only seconds until the monster in the doorway was near enough to touch him. 

There was no monster in the doorway. 

But there was little relief in his heart. He let his eyes adjust to what was not Angband, trying to breathe. Pain

The darkness he remembered swallowed and contorted what should have been the peaceful stillness of his room. Maedhros lay flat on his back, his covers sticky with sweat and blood from an old wound he had inadvertently dug into. The winter was raging beyond the too fragile glass on his windows but his body had been burning upon waking. 

The pain licked at his stiff limbs like a slow fire and indeed the body of Maitimo had been exposed to the agony of open flames twice or more. The strange, uneven marks upon his skin easy to lose sight of among the litany of other scars he bore. The crutches were by his bed of course as always they were.

A reoccurring fear had been plaguing him, a paranoia really; that in the night one could move or take the devices and leave him near helpless. There was no one in particular he thought might act in such a way and little reason to believe that any would at all. Nonetheless it was always with an unease that he propped them up beside his bedside table before commencing his nighttime routine

He had dreamed that night of the throne room, of his limbs spread at obscene angles with thin chains, suspended above the floor in such a way he could not stand to look down without a piercing whine of vertigo striking him. His hair matted with blood stuck against the ice cold stone behind him.

Eyes open, little kinslayer. Take thy punishment as thou knows is right. ( In the waking world a small sound rose in Maedhros’s throat)

A frigid lash of pain landed over his thighs and genitals as the horrid whip they had brought out today hit him again. Those fingers had run ever so casually along the most recent smearing the blood over his thighs, stomach and parts more intimate. Maitimo convulsed in the iron clad grip of the chains that prevented any cover, any hiding.

It was the feeling of His hand Maedhros dreamed most of, felt even when no visuals accompanied it, sensed even in what should have been the safety of daylight. The Silmarils burnt the hands of the Moringotto and those hands in turn marred him. Even as he had slowly regained strength, he would still more often find the muscles of his arms, torso, and legs plagued by the phantom touch he recognized perfectly.

Maedhros steadied himself sitting in bed with both legs swung over, left hand on one crutch. There was a crevice in the other where he could let his right arm rest until he could limp over to where his prosthetic was kept. The morning would be difficult to detect amid the swirling gray of winter at Himring. The snow brushed tops of pine trees were just visible from the window, clustered at the base of the hill.

Morning has arrived however and the longer he lingered here, the longer he would stew in his thoughts and the agony of his old chains. Maedhros slowly stood, the first few steps slightly painful as he regained his balance, the proper positioning for his arms not yet muscle memory. It would be, in time.

The sky was a pale gray blue and the winds of the night had scattered pine needles onto the windowsill alongside the customary brush of snow. Maedhros took a breath to allow the outside to coat his mouth, the cold aching in his throat an unbearable relief.

#the silmarillion #maedhros #post Angband #short writings #himring #tgw22

[symphonyofsilence]

That Valar post… “it’s everyone else’s fault that Feanor is a dickhead who murders people over some jewels!”

OR

There is no: "Mom said it's my turn to be a dickhead!". multiple people can be dickheads at once. There is no correlation between people being dickheads. One person making their share of shitty decisions does not decrease the other's share.

For a situation to get that out of hand to result in a revolution and a mass murder quite a large number of people must have made their share of mistakes. And the Valar were the people who were in charge. If they were competent, one grieving man's passionate speech should not have moved so many people so much that they decided to rise against the gods and leave the heaven they'd been living peacefully in for years. And even if it was, if the Valar were really good leaders they should have been able to stop them.

True leaders show themselves at times of crisis and the Valar fuck up at every turn.

Though there is no denying that Fëanor had his own very large part of the blame for that whole mess, and indeed was the driving force and played the main role in it, the fiasco that was the flight of the Noldor was an unwillingly collaborative effort.

Even at his best Fëanor was not someone one could call a stable person, and after Finwe's death and the theft of the Silmarils, he had totally gone off the rails. I'm not trying to say that Fëanor was not at fault here when I say that trusting an unstable man who has just lost his father and gone mad with grief to control himself and not do anything stupid was not the best course of action that a group of divine entities in charge of ruling the world who have been around forever could have made. And maybe, just MAYBE, if someone has already gone mad provoking them further and fanning the flames by threatening them is not the best course of action. Again, expecting some supposedly wise entities in a position of management to have some skills in "managing" people is not the same as acquitting Fëanor.

If the Valar could only be good leaders when every single elf was behaving perfectly and one elf behaving badly was enough for them to totally lose control of the situation then they were not really good leaders.

And while Fëanor was a grown man accountable for his own decisions and mistakes, and his mistakes are his, there is no questioning that, well-adjusted people don't just wake up one day thinking: "It's a good day to do some mass murders." Usually, a series of unfortunate events contribute to someone reaching this point. Finding and recognizing the roots of someone's problematic behavior is not the same as excusing their faults. It explains their behavior, but it doesn't justify it. It's a study of human behavior that helps the society erase such problems so there'll be fewer people committing crimes.

#the silmarillion #tolkien #lotr #asks

[ibrithir-was-here]

TANWEN AND THE SILMADAUGHTERS !!

Ok, so this probably isn’t what you expected, but I was suddenly hit with the idea of Tanwen and Gilruin running around in the Last Age trying to find the other two silmarils Heist movie style 😅 (also I will never miss the chance to complain about the fact Tolkien never took the opportunity to retcon the Arkenstone into Maedhros’s silmaril >:[ )

#my art #tolkien #lotr #silmarillion #silm triplets au #the triplets can go into dormant mode when they’re in danger #and turn back into rock form #until they feel safe again #tanwen #the tale of tanwen #tale of tanwen #Gilruin #tanwen x gilruin #maiar of aule #the remaining dwarves are insanely excited to meet a messenger of Mahal #arkenstone #it should/could have been a silmaril so perfectly! #like #you can rewrite the entire Gollum riddle ending but you can’t retcon the magical glowing rock #into the other magical glowing rock? #missed chance prof

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Character Thoughts - Míriel ( @finweanladiesweek )

Míriel is said to have been the most skilled in textile work among all the elves, and also to have been notably stubborn; and both her skill in craftwork and her stubbornness she passed on to her son. Althought Fëanor was called Curufinwë, skill-of-Finwë, I haven’t found anything indicating that Finwë was unusually gifted in any type of craftwork beyond what was typical of the Noldor, whereas Míriel was exceptional; so I think his skill is primarily characteristic of his mother. My general sense is that Fëanor takes more after Míriel, Fingolfin more after Finwë (which would obviously bother Fëanor) and Finarfin more after Indis.

My headcanon has her as a perfectionist who knows exactly how good she is. She isn’t competetive; she’s simply the best, and knows it, and wants any work to be as good as it could be. She doesn’t finish with any project until it’s perfect (and she’ll keep working on it until then, and not move onto other things; again, in contrast to her son, who had proofs-of-concept and prototypes that he never got back to scattered around Valinor, with the palantiri being only one of many). She’s not all posessive with her work, and virtually every family in Tirion (and some Valmar and Alqualondë) has some of her work.

But she doesn’t have any textile works - whether clothing, tapestries, or others - done by other people in her home. There would always be something wrong, some little flaw, that it bothered her to have to be seeing all the time.

She wouldn’t volunteer criticism of others’ works, keeping her thoughts to herself; but she’d be unstinting with it if asked, because obviously if someone is asking, it’s because they want to improve. From time to time she critiques Vairë’s works, to Vairë’s amusement; from time to time, she’s right and Vairë makes changes. (One of the things I love most about the Valar is that they’re delighted when the Eldar surpass them and creat things they hadn’t thought of or couldn’t do themselves - see their delight and admiration of the Silmarils. This is in deep contrast to Greek mythology, which is full of tales of the gods inflicting dire punishments on mortals who challenge them to artistic contests.) But because her skills are in a specific area and not as all-encompassing as Fëanor’s, she’s perfectly able to appreciate and uncritically admire skilled artisanry and talent in areas other than textile work. And she’d be very interested in new innovations within her own field - among all the tales that her family comes into, I think she’d be intriguied by the tale of Lúthien, as Lúthien’s shadowy hair-cloak with its sleep enchantment is a very unique object and outside of Míriel’s experience.

Her stubbornness is a quieter sort than Fëanor’s; she doesn’t demand that others agree with her, but once she’s made a decision she won’t budged. But I think there’s more to the finality of her statement that she will never leave the Halls than just stubbornness. She’s exhausted. She can’t imagine wanting to be alive again. And if she just says, “Not for a long time,” then she’s opening her up to constant questions about whether she’s ready yet. After a century, is she ready? After a millennium, is ready? After 1500 years, is she ready? And all this when she doesn’t think she’ll ever be ready. Better to just make things final so she can be left in peace; and better not to give Finwë false hope.

I like that she isn’t jealous of Indis after learning of Finwë’s remarriage; and I particularly like this line:

How should I bear grudge against one who recieved what I rejected and cherished what I abandoned?

I like her fate of returning from the Halls and creating tapestries of the History of the Noldor; that she’s able to return to her craft and makes something that is accorded one of the fairest works of all the Eldar. Though Tolkien’s accounts are unclear and conflicting, I think that the house of Vairë is connected to the Halls of Mandos, and that spirits there can looks at Míriel’s works, and Vairë’s, to know what is going on in the outside world.

The People of Middle-earth meta series on Tor.com has a very detailed examination of Míriel’s characterization and how it changed over time in Tolkien’s writing, here and here.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #míriel #finweanladiesweek #character thoughts

[avantegarda]

Wonderful 1000: Family Reunion

@romanaisalive I have no excuses for why this took so long (other than spring break and a global pandemic) but you requested some Elrond and Maglor whatnot and I present it to you now!

--

Elrond had always known, essentially from the moment he was old enough to be aware of such things, that he had a strange family. Several strange families, in fact.

There were his blood relations, to begin with. His grandparents and great-grandparents, a strange mixture of Elven royalty and human adventurers; his great-great-grandmother, a Maia; his parents with their odd ancestry and thrilling adventures...right down to Elros and himself, identical twins who were so very different. 

Then, to make matters even more complicated, there was his adopted family.

Was “adopted” the right word, really? It was a frequent debate between Elrond and Elros as their time in the Feanorian household went on. Elrond, who frequently made up words, suggested “kidnapdopted” as the correct term, while Elros simply said they’d been “acquired.” Whatever the proper description, though, the fact remained that Earendil and Elwing had vanished, to be replaced by two of the continent’s most infamous characters.

Maglor and Maedhros were, it should be noted, never cruel to them. Maedhros was distant and often unintentionally frightening, but he was hardly unkind, and Maglor’s treatment of the twins was nothing but gently. That did not make the situation any less odd.

“What should we call you?” Elrond asked at one point. It didn’t seem polite to call an adult simply by their name, particularly when the adult in question was technically royal, but considering the circumstances…

Maglor had frowned, reflecting upon this, and then simply shrugged. “Call me whatever you like. Simply my name will do, if nothing else.”

Thus, for the next year, their guardians were simply referred to as Maedhros and Maglor, or occasionally, in whispered tones, them.

Until the nightmare.

Neither Elrond nor Elros was a stranger to bad dreams—and who could be surprised, after what they’d experienced in their short lives? And yet what seven-year-old Elrond experienced that winter night was different from any prior bad dreams. For what seemed like ages he was back there, at Sirion, watching the battle rage around him...and his mother was falling, and there was nothing he could do…

He woke up screaming. Screaming, and shaking, and sobbing, and all of Elros’ efforts to soothe him were useless. So as little as the younger twin enjoyed asking either of their guardians for help (after all, had they not been the ones who caused the nightmares in the first place?), he hesitantly woke Maglor and begged him to calm Elrond down.

Maglor uncomplainingly spent the rest of the night sitting with Elrond, singing to him in that magical voice of his, slowly lulling him back to sleep—and, at the same time, unwittingly planting the seed in Elrond’s mind that his guardian was Someone To Be Trusted. 

The next morning, Elrond had come down to breakfast, thrown his arms around Maglor’s waist, and declared “Good morning, Father!”

And the rest, as they say, was history.

--

As an adult, Elrond rarely discussed his upbringing with those around him, save for a few very trusted friends. How was he to explain, really, that two people who had caused so much chaos and destruction had raised him—indeed, that he’d loved them? Hardly the thing one talked about in polite company.

He didn’t have much of a choice in telling Celebrian, though. Partially because, even after only knowing her for three weeks he was already falling in love with her. And partially because she’d seen the painting in his private study.

Elrond had painted the portrait himself, not long after settling in Imladris, in a moment of panic that he was beginning to forget what Maedhros and Maglor had looked like. So he’d set to work, capturing their images just as he remembered them: Maedhros, tall and scarred and imposing, and Maglor, thin and pale, his dark curls unruly as they had always been. Elrond was proud of it, certainly, but always hesitant for others to see it—there couldn’t be any doubt, looking at this painting, that he thought of its subjects as family. 

“That’s a lovely painting,” Celebrian said upon sighting it. “Did you do it?” At his nod, she beamed approvingly. “It’s lovely. Beautifully done. But the subjects...they look familiar. Not my mother’s cousins, by any chance?”

“Yes,” said Elrond. And then, hesitantly: “My fathers.”

Celebrian’s brow creased just slightly in confusion. “Your fathers?”

“Yes, that’s how I grew to think of them. I’m under no illusions about their behavior, of course. Believe me, I am entirely aware that they did terrible things. And yet…” Elrond looked up at the portrait, unable to suppress a fond smile. “And yet my brother and I were alone in the world, and they raised us as though we were their own. They never pretended to be anything they were not, while still doing their best to make sure that we would never follow in their footsteps. Maedhros and Maglor may have been bad, Celebrian, but in their way they were good, too. I firmly believe that.”

Celebrian nodded, slowly, carefully. “I believe you. Mother, you know, doesn’t talk about her cousins much, but when she does it’s with more pity than anger. And...well, they raised you, didn’t they? And you seem to have turned out just fine. More than fine, in fact.”

Elrond had known from the minute he’d met Celebrian that he would be perfectly happy marrying her. Still, it was encouraging to have his first impressions of her character so soundly confirmed.

--

Centuries passed once again, bringing with them the usual upheaval: the horrors of war, the loss of loved ones. Yet in the midst of all the struggles, Elrond discovered two bright spots, that made all the loss nearly worth it: Imladris, and Celebrian.

It was Celebrian, really, who kept him sane during those difficult years. She’d waited for him patiently, never letting him doubt her love and dedication, always there to assist with what needed to be done. When their wedding day finally arrived, there was only one thing to dampen Elrond’s joy. One guest who was absent.

He’d held out hope, until the very end of the festivities, that his erstwhile foster-father might make an appearance at the wedding. Wasn’t that what family was supposed to do? Show up at important events, embarrass their young relations, and feast themselves into a stupor? But if Maglor was among the many visitors crowding the valley that week, he did not make his presence known. 

And so, with a heavy heart, Elrond decided to give up. If Maglor was unwilling to come to Elrond’s wedding, then he was clearly not coming back. 

Ever.

--

In keeping with the trajectory of Elrond’s life thus far, it was exactly when he had finally come to terms with his foster-father’s disappearance that Maglor came back—both unexpectedly and unwillingly. Specifically, he arrived via being dragged into the house by guards, who had evidently captured him on the edge of the forest.

“He doesn’t look too dangerous, but he’s refusing to let on who he is,” one of the guards explained with amusement. “So I thought you might want to have a chat with him, milord. Make sure everything’s as it should be...I say, sir, are you all right?”

Elrond was not all right. Quite the opposite of it, in fact. The minute Maglor had stumbled through his door, looking considerably worse for wear, Elrond had experienced more emotions in thirty seconds than he had in twenty years. Relief, fury, nostalgia...to name but a few. 

And love, of course. Strange, familiar, complicated love.

“What are you doing here?” he blurted out.

“Being taken prisoner, apparently,” Maglor said dryly. “Can’t say I’m enjoying it. Usually when something like this happens I’m on the other side of it.”

There was that famous Feanorian wit again. It was annoying, Elrond thought, how much he’d missed it. “Gentlemen, I thank you for your diligence, but this prisoner is an...acquaintance of mine,” he informed the guards. “It will be perfectly safe for you to place him in my care.”

The guards nodded and departed, leaving Elrond alone with his foster father for the first time in...Valar, what had it been? Three millenia? Something like that.

“I didn’t mean to come into your house, I hope you know that,” Maglor said suddenly. “I would never want to burden you like that. My only intention was to check in from afar, make sure you were all right…”

Elrond frowned, bewildered. “Burden me? Father, it’s not a burden to have you here. Far from it. How could you possibly think so? I’ve spent centuries thinking you were dead, or worse, and I’ve missed you, blast it all.” Tears were welling up in his eyes, and he blinked them away, desperately trying to stay calm. “I just...I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could possibly stay away for this long.”

“You don’t? Well, perhaps I should remind you,” said Maglor evenly. “Stealing the Silmarils. Countless deaths. The family curse. All of which is to say that you are much, much better off without me in your life.”

“Father…”

“Stop calling me that!” Maglor roared, causing Elrond to step back in shock. “How many times do I have to tell you that I am not your father? Your father, your real father, was a good man. A hero. Not me.”

“But you were…”

“I was what? Your guardian? Your captor, more like. Do you think Maedhros and I kept you out of parental kindness?”

“Don’t patronize me, Maglor,” Elrond replied coldly. “I’m not a child anymore, even if you insist on treating me like one. I know you and Maedhros kept us for political reasons, at least at first, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t become a family. It doesn’t mean that we are not still a family, you and I. Unless you plan to tell me that you no longer care about me.���

Maglor’s mouth dropped open in an almost comical expression of horror. “If I...how can you even suggest such a thing? You know—or at least I should hope you do—that I love you as much as, or more than, I could possibly love a child of my own blood. That is not the point here.”

  “It is the point. I can’t think of another one. You raised me, Maglor. For better or worse, you were my father. Our father.” Elrond sat down and put a hand on Maglor’s arm, making the other man flinch...though surprisingly, he didn’t pull away. “Believe me, I know Earendil is my blood. And I am proud of him, and admire everything he has done. But I have not seen him since I was six years old. I don’t know him. Everything I am, everything Elros and I became, is essentially because of three people: Gil-Galad, Maedhros, and you.”

“I don’t…” Maglor’s usually smooth, melodious voice cracked, and he shook his head. “I don’t deserve someone like you as a son.”

“Perhaps not,” Elrond said gently. “Perhaps no parent deserves the children they have. But I see no reason why that should change things.”

Maglor’s eyes lit up—with that extraordinary light that could only come from someone who had seen the Trees—and rewarded Elrond with a rare, wonderful smile.

He said nothing. Because really, what more was there to say? Instead, he simply held out his arms. And Elrond, of course, responded by giving his foster-father the tightest hug he was capable of.

Finally, Elrond cleared his throat. “Listen, Father, I know you won’t want to go about meeting everyone in the house. But would you care to meet your daughter-in-law?” 

--

The poise Celebrian had inherited from her mother faltered only a little upon entering her husband’s study and being introduced to his father, a well-known disgraced prince. She bowed, of course, and greeted him politely, but her expression was distinctly apprehensive.

“You must be Celebrian,” Maglor said—despite his shabbiness, the manners he’d been raised with were not entirely gone. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you look very much like your mother. How is Artanis these days?”

Celebrian visibly relaxed, and treated Maglor to one of her glorious smiles that always made Elrond weak at the knees. “Mother is very well, though she would be terribly annoyed to discover someone still refers to her as Artanis. She’s got very strong opinions about her name.”

“She always was a stubborn young creature,” Maglor said fondly. “And yet it seems that out of the lot of us, she has done the best for herself. I’d ask you to give her my love, but…” He grimaced. “Anyway. It is very good to meet you at last. And I hope you don’t mind, but there is a question I wanted to ask you.”

“Of course.”

 “You lived in Ost-in-Edhil for a time during the last age, did you not?” At Celebrian’s nod, Maglor took a deep breath, as though bracing himself for pain. “Did you...by any chance, did you ever see my nephew?”

“Celebrimbor?” Celebrian said gently. “Yes. I was very young, you understand, and so I’m afraid we never spent as much time together as I would have liked. But he was always kind to me, I remember that clearly. I could tell you a bit about him, if you like.”

“I would be...extremely grateful,” said Maglor. “What a first-rate young woman you’ve married, Elrond. I expected nothing less.”

This time, the tears that sprung up in Elrond’s eyes were from the pure joy of having what little family he had reunited—and this time, he did absolutely nothing to suppress them.

#tolkien #silmarillion #elrond #maglor #celebrian #wonderful 1000 #my writing

[cad-faoi-maeglin]

So I’ve been thinking about Fëanor for the last few weeks and how much I love him as a character. What’s actually most interesting to me though is how much my opinion on him has changed over time and so I thought I’d share a few things!

I’ll admit that during my first reading the of The Silmarillion I was...not fond of Fëanor. He actually really annoyed me. At first, all I saw was a bit of a spoiled brat. Here was this fella, living in what is supposed to be the actual embodiment of heaven or paradise or whatever, who happens to also be a member of royalty (!!!) and he is complaining about not being free??? He rejects every attempt one of his brothers makes at being brothers and friends or just generally on good terms. He’s asked to share this one time, something that would benefit his entire community and he throws a wobbler. Nah, Fëanor was not for me. 

Now, that’s not to say that I hated Fëanor. I don’t really hate characters. It’s a waste of time and energy to hate someone who isn’t real as far as I’m concerned. It was more of a “When will this man stop talking?” kind of feeling. I saw the bad decisions he made and the problems he caused and decided that he was a nuisance whose dad should have sat him on the naughty step from time to time. I just had a general feeling of irritation towards him. You know, “X,Y and Z wouldn’t have happened if you just calmed down for two whole seconds!” kind of thinking.

The thing is, I didn’t stay thinking this way for very long. It comes down to a mixture of things I suppose? I had another reading of The Silm. I read other peoples’ opinions and interpretations and weighed them against each other and my own. But I think the biggest one is probably the simplest ! I simply became better acquainted with the goings on in The Silm. Be honest, who keeps perfect track of it all the first time around? I know for me that a lot of significance was lost due to mixing up people and events (I got Fingon and Finrod so mixed up that, for a little while, I thought this one guy died twice in two different ways! I was so confused...). So, as I started to get a better handle on who was who and when things happened, a much more nuanced understanding of different characters and events emerged for me. Fëanor is one of the characters who benefited from this.

In fact, he’s probably one of the characters who benefited the most! The man literally went from “Oh god, this guy’s on the page...” to “Fuck yeah, Fëanor’s on the page!”. Now, I have most certainly not switched to thinking he’s a poor little cinnamon roll who everyone wrongs and is innocent in everything. Far from it. I’m actually still a little harsh in my opinions of his actions, I have no problem admitting that. But! he is a character that I deeply adore. See, for me, liking or disliking a character has very little to do with whether or not I condone their actions and has everything to do with whether or not I find them interesting. So, of course, once it was out with the pure nuisance and in with the nuance, Fëanor became very interesting to me.

One of my favourite things about him is that I find it so difficult to put any absolute statements together on how I feel about his actions. For example: his family life is complex. Does he have the right to feel upset about the loss of his mother? Of course! Does he have the right to feel resentful towards the Valar for butting into a private matter and thereby forever changing the structure of his family? Absolutely! Is it understandable that he would cling to the surviving member of his family to a degree that other people wouldn’t? Definitely! However! Does that give him the right to begrudge his siblings their existence? No. Does his own grief give him the right to decide what his father does with the rest of his life and how he finds happiness? No. And so, even just looking at his familial relationships I’m already in two minds about him. His feelings are understandable (and valid and are not unusual) and they generally explain his actions but his actions aren’t always excusable because of them. But that’s just what I like about Fëanor! I like that I can sympathise with him while also sitting there thinking “Fëanor, no!”. 

I definitely view him and his actions in quite a grey way. He contributes great things to the world (a writing system, the palantíri, the silmarils) and great heartbreak (the oath, the kinslayings, the silmarils (yes I’m putting them on both lists, fight me)). He is wonderfully dramatic, yet if he took a moment to be a little less dramatic, things may have turned out differently. 

I find his world-view to be very self-centered. Fëanor thinks about Fëanor’s wants and needs, often ignoring those of others. He refuses to break the Silmarils because they are his greatest creation, saying that he’d die if he broke them, coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool, but then he turns around and steals the Teleri’s greatest creations and proceeds to set them on fire. His initial setting out is supposedly, in part, to take vengeance for his father’s death, yet he kills other Elves to do this. He knows, just before he dies, that the Noldor will never be able to take Thangorodrim but he still tells his sons to stick to their oath and to avenge him. Yet his story is so tragic that I can’t just sit here thinking that he’s this horrible person and nothing else. Despite his attitude, he actually had a lot going for him. He (originally anyway) still had his dad. I get the impression that Indis would have been a loving mother had he not rejected her. While not much is said in The Silm, I get the impression that at least Fingolfin would have happily been his brother. Fëanor had a loving wife and seven children. Yes, Míriel was gone, but Fëanor was far from alone. He was surrounded by family! He had a very successful career (if that’s what you want to call it). He lived in literal paradise and was royalty to boot! His life could have been wonderful but that’s not how it all played out. Everything fell apart through a mixture of his own actions and the actions of others *cough*Morgoth*cough* (I also kinda blame Finwë, the great enabler).    

I just find that things aren’t perfectly clear cut with Fëanor. I can sympathise with him for some things, I want to smack him over the head for other things. He’s a very complex character. There’s quite a lot of layers to his personality and situation, especially for someone who’s not actually in the book for very long! I just love that about him. He’s fascinating!

In sum: on this blog we stan a deeply flawed, spontaneously combusting icon!  

#feanor #silmarillion #tolkien #i said kinslayings plural because the others came from the oath #feel free to share your own opinions of him #but if you just want a feanor based argument i'd rather you didn't #this took me way too long to write #why am i like this #i feel like i used a lot of words to not actually say anything very specific... #ask if you want more specifics i suppose?

[fuckingfinwions]

Ooh gil Gilad origin

Gil-Galad is not anyone important. His mom is a Noldo who grew up near Formenos, dad is a Nando. They have a farm near Himlad.

One day, Gil-Galad comes in from doing farm chores to find they have a guest. It’s Lord Curufin.

(I’m not going into what fashions would actually be common, but here’s a modern equivalent: Fifteen year old Gil-Galad is sweaty, wearing blue jean overalls with no shirt. Basically-the-president is sitting at the dining room table in a perfectly pressed suit with a briefcase in front of him.)

Curufin says, “You had very high scores on your exams. I’m going to interview you to be my son’s private companion.”

Gil-Galad answers questions about how many languages he speaks, how strong he is, if he’s had other sexual partners, if he knows how to dance, etc. Curufin doesn’t ask Gil-Galad to strip or do anything indecent, because it would be awkward for Celebrimbor to have a lover who has been intimate with his father. Curufin does ask Gil-Galad to recite tongue twisters and do a backbend, so he can see that Gil-Galad has good muscle control.

When he’s done asking questions, Curufin leaves. He has more candidates to interview!

A couple weeks later there’s formal letter delivered to their door. Gil-Galad has been selected to be Prince Celebrimbor’s private companion, and so join the royal household. He should arrive at the castle in the Pass of Aglon no later than X date, and Curufin will send a someone to help on the farm before the harvest needs to be brought in.

This is a fantastic honor, and also a duty. Under the Noldor feudalism-ish, Curufin has just as much right to call on Gil-Galad for this as to call soldiers for a war. It really doesn’t cross anyone’s mind for Gil-Galad to refuse.

So Gil-Galad shows up. Makeover montage, fancy clothes, etc.

On Celebrimbor’s Sweet-Sixteen-equivalent, Gil-Galad is waiting (fully dressed in easy to remove clothing) in Celebrimbor’s bedroom after the party. Celebrimbor knew he would get someone as his private companion, but Gil-Galad is even prettier than he’d hoped.

Gil-Galad: “Hello, I’m Gil-Galad. Lord Curufin selected me to be your private companion.” He memorized that phrase and has been practicing it in his head for the last hour.

Celebrimbor: “You’re beautiful. Can I kiss you?”

Gil-Galad finds this reassuring that Celebrimbor thinks of him as a person who can have preferences and boundaries, and also is relieved that Celebrimbor isn’t asking him to do anything he doesn’t know how to do. He says, “Of course.”

That first night is kind of awkward, but very enjoyable. Celebrimbor is a very tactile person, and his hands explore every inch of Gil-Galad’s body. Gil-Galad jerks Celebrimbor off, and then Celebrimbor wants to see what he looks like when he comes in return.

(Celebrimbor also got a book of sexual advice/positions as a birthday gift, which will be helpful. Gil-Galad has kissed people before and exchanged handjobs, Celebrimbor has not.)

Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor become friends. Celebrimbor has lessons on politics and such, and Gil-Galad attends as well. It’s not much more work for the tutor to teach two teenagers instead of one, and Gil-Galad doesn’t have anything else he has to do.

Gil-Galad notices that he’s gradually getting less fit as he’s not working on a farm all day. Celebrimbor asks him if he’d rather work in the forge or train with a weapon, as ways of staying in shape. Gil-Glad chooses the latter, and when Lord Curufinwe’s only son wants someone trained, you can bet he gets the best weapons master available. Sometimes Lord Celegorm even spars with him, as they both favor spears

There’s a period of happy times. The have sex (Gil-Galad always submitting of course), and discuss Celebrimbor’s latest projects and news from across Beleriand, and go out to bars together. They’re basically friends with benefits. Gil-Galad would be shamed forever for breaking his word if he left, but he doesn’t want to so it’s okay.

When the Dagor Bragollach happens, a lot of people die. Gil-Galad’s family farm is destroyed by Glaurung, with his parents on it. Celebrimbor’s mom dies defending the pass. They head south to Nargothrond and safety.

Finrod treats Gil-Galad more like Celebrimbor’s friend from another noble house than like a servant Celebrimbor is friendly with. This means Gil-Galad is invited to the formal dinners and such, rather than attending the dancing later but staying away during important talks so he doesn’t distract Celebrimbor.

The Quest for the Silmaril happens.

Celebrimbor denounces his father and uncle. Celebrimbor is in a glum mood all day, but Gil-Galad doesn’t push because the cause is rather obvious.

That evening, Celebrimbor says what’s on his mind. “Since I disowned my father, I’m not a prince anymore.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“So you don’t have to stay. It’s not desertion to leave anymore, and a random blacksmith doesn’t need a private companion.”

“I hadn’t thought of that side of it.”

“Why not? It’s the part of this mess with the biggest impact on you! You weren’t close with my - Curufin and Celegorm, or with Finrod. Orodreth will run the city much the same as Finrod did, and all your friends are still here. The only thing that’s different for you from yesterday is that there’s no consequence if you walk out the door and never come back.”

“You’d be sad, and I’d miss you. Those are consequences.”

“You don’t have to care how I feel anymore. No one does! Curufin doesn’t have to care how I feel because I’m not his son anymore. Orodreth doesn’t have to care how I feel because his biggest political headache just walked out the door.”

“I still care about you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“You don’t have to care how I feel either. In fact, you never had to! You could have just ordered me to strip whenever you wanted to have sex. Or to work in the forge to stay in shape even though I hate the heat. I would still have done it, and no one would have stopped you.”

“That would have made you pointlessly miserable.”

“And I don’t want you to be miserable either.”

“I don’t want you to stay out of pity.”

“What if I stay because we’re friends, and friends help each other?”

“Okay.”

“Besides, Celebrimbor the blacksmith is still as handsome as you were yesterday.”

So Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor stay in Nargothrond and continue their relationship. After a couple weeks for Celebrimbor asks to bottom, and they start switching things up more.

Orodreth invites the two of them to regular council meetings. Celebrimbor is, despite his claims, still the person most in touch with the Feanorians who live in Nargothrond. Gil-Galad is there mostly because Orodreth knows it pisses Curufin off to have Gil-Galad treated as an equal to Celebrimbor, and he hopes word gets out. (Curufin would see at as bringing Celebrimbor down to a commoner’s level.)

By the time Turin arrives, Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor are established members of Nargothrond’s council, and Gil-Galad has shown a talent for political advice.

Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad argue about the Turin/Finduilas/Gwindor situation.

Gil-Galad says that Finduilas is betrothed to Gwindor, and she has a duty to obey her word, now matter what happened to him. Celebrimbor believes in upholding one’s word, but it’s obvious to him that nobles are allowed to take lovers before they’re married and then break up with them - why shouldn’t Finduilas delay the marriage by a year or ten for a fling with Turin? Gil-Galad says that you can’t have one set of morals for people with fancy grandparents and one for other people. Celebrimbor says obviously you can, just because he’s renounced his position at the top doesn’t mean he thinks there’s anything wrong with the system.

The argument gets really personal, and they break up. They probably would have gotten back together after a few months to cool off.

But Nargothrond falls. They survive, and are suddenly the senior council members - everyone is looking to them for direction. Well, mostly to Gil-Galad, as Celebrimbor is still seen as too Feanorian. He remembers Orodreth talking about Doriath as exclusionist, but Sirion is nearby and Cirdan has a good reputation. Most of his folk fish, there will probably even be farmland available for the Nargothrondrim to use.

By the time they reach Sirion, everyone agrees that Gil-Galad is in charge even if they’re not sure why. Someone asks what house he’s part of, and Celebrimbor give the accurate but extremely misleading answer of “the royal house”.

#mayan sons #himlad in particular has something like the chinese imperial examination #everyone takes them at least once and you can resit them up to every decade #they're mostly used to find people to train for military officers and civil service #but Curufin was like hey I've got a method already for finding smart people #and it's easy to see in an interview if they're pretty enough #let me use this to find my son a boyfreind #a celebrimbor who was bon in Belraind is a change for me but it worked better #fucking gil galad #fucking celebrimbor #not archived yet

[sweetteaanddragons]

A Question of Precedence

I was having difficulty writing this one, and then I remembered it had been a while since I’d done a bullet point fic and tried to write it that way. Things went much faster after that.

Feanor is born too soon. Miriel dies within an hour of the birth. Feanor lasts only a day longer. The healers say that he might have lived if his mother had - that his spirit is still so closely bound to hers that she might have been able to sustain him. But Miriel dies, and a day later, her son follows.

(Finwe holds him from the moment the midwife hands him over to the moment his son takes his last breath. He’d have poured out every drop of his fëa if it would have saved his son, but there is nothing he can do.)

Miriel refuses to return, and Estë warns that without her, there is no point in returning Feanor to the world. He will die again just as quickly.

Finwe pleads with his wife to return for their son’s sake if nothing else, but Miriel refuses him.

Finwe cannot forgive her for this.

(Miriel wishes she could find some way to explain the cold weight and bottomless weariness even the thought of returning brings her. She holds the shade of her son in her arms and weeps for him, but no matter how she tries, she cannot find the strength to return. Not even for him.)

Finwe eventually remarries, though he waits longer to do it. Giving up on Miriel means giving up on Feanor too, but he has come to believe both are lost to him, and he can’t bear to face all of eternity alone.

Indis gives birth to Findis. Finwe is overjoyed both are healthy and secretly relieved it’s a girl. It’s . . . easier that way, at least for the first.

Then there’s Nolowfinwe, Irimë, and Arafinwe. All healthy. All safe.

But he never forgets Feanor.

Melkor is eventually released and inevitably stirs up trouble. This time, though, Feanor has almost nothing to do with it.

Finwe’s heir is still in question, though.

Findis is Finwe’s oldest surviving child. Many believe she should serve as his heir.

But inheritance is a rarely used concept among the elves as of yet. Nothing is set in stone. Should this be determined by birth or Finwe’s choice? And since all of their original leaders were male, should their potential replacements be male too?

More pressingly, Findis is . . . Well, all of Finwe’s surviving children are half-Vanyar, of course. But Findis is particularly Vanyar. She looks and acts far more Vanyar than Noldor, and the Noldor aren’t thrilled with that fact in a potential heir.

Nolofinwe, on the other hand, could easily pass as a full Noldor. And though his is loathe to do anything that could be at all construed as trying to usurp the crown from his sister, he has to admit, if only to himself, that he wants it, and he’s not at all sure that Findis does.

Findis doesn’t. Not exactly. She does, however, resent everyone that suggests that she couldn’t do a perfectly good job

(No one particularly considers either Irimë or Arafinwe since Irimë spends as much of her time as she can running wild through the forest, and Arafinwe is both the youngest and suspiciously Vanyar in appearance to boot. Both are fine with this, though Irimë occasionally likes to complain for the sake of it.)

There’s no open fighting between the siblings, but things get progressively more heated amongst their supporters. Indis wants Finwe to step in and officially proclaim a heir to make it stop. Finwe hates the idea of appearing to choose between his children. He quietly thinks that if Feanor was still alive they wouldn’t be having this problem; Feanor is his firstborn, fully Noldor, and to top it all off, male. That’s a wish, though, not a plan. His plan is currently just to live forever and render the point moot, a plan that, while flawed, is at least more plausible for elves than anyone else.

There are no Silmarils this time around, just steadily increasing tensions that finally erupt into a full-scale riot.

When the Valar intervene, Melkor’s intervention is discovered.

No one is exiled, but there is a reconciliation scheduled once tempers have cooled. They meet at the Trees.

Which Melkor destroys.

In the chaos, he also kills Finwe for the sake of stirring up trouble.

There is no possible way to avoid the succession issue now.

Nolofinwe is furious and grieved at his father’s death. He argues passionately that they should pursue his murderer.

Findis is more cautious. They should trust the Valar, she argues. Light will surely be restored soon. They cannot possibly hope to fight a Valar on their own.

The succession issue is resolved, more or less, by those who wish to go to Beleriand with Nolowfinwe following him to the shore and those who don’t staying under Findis’s leadership.

The Teleri refuse to give them the boats, but though it’s suggested, Nolofinwe refuses to steal them. Instead, they take the path of the Grinding Ice.

(By the time they arrive, Círdan’s forces will be long dead, as will many of the Avari. Only those within the protection of the Girdle or far from Angband will still be grimly holding on. Even with no Doom, there is a long hopeless war in front of them.)

Findis faces problems of her own. While many of those who stayed are her supporters, others stayed for other reasons and resent her rule.

And . . . all of her siblings have gone to Beleriand. She can’t help feeling that’s a comment on her.

Her mother, in her grief, returns to the Vanyar. Findis wishes desperately she could have gone with her and swallows down the feeling that she’s been abandoned.

Meanwhile, Finwe’s found Miriel and has told her everything.

And Miriel thinks . . . maybe. Maybe she can return to life, or at least something resembling it.

She goes to weave for Vaire.

And she takes Feanor with her.

He grows little by little. When he’s big enough, she knows he has to leave. This half-life is no place for a child.

So she sends him to the only family she can.

She sends him to Findis.

Findis has had the crown for a few years by now. She’s proven her point. She can do this. She just doesn’t want to.

And Feanor is the perfect excuse.

She invents the term regent and declares that Feanor will be the next king.

Feanor grows up with a good deal of curiosity about his absent siblings and a confused mess of emotions about his parents and step-mother. He wishes fiercely that he could have gone to Beleriand to fight, to explore, and to do great deeds and avenge the father he doesn’t remember. 

He’s as brilliant as he was always destined to be, but the Silmarils aren’t a possibility now. He makes lesser gems that capture the light of sun, moon, and stars, and wishes he could have seen this light that others mourn.

You saw it once, Findis reminds him. For just one day. I can still see the light of it in your eyes.

He does still invent Tengwar. It’s adopted quickly.

When he comes of age and Findis is convinced he isn’t going to burn Tirion down in one of his experiments, she abdicates and goes to live with her mother’s family. Feanor gets busy being king . . . and wooing Nerdanel.

Nerdanel is older than him, that’s true, but he’s determined not to let that stop him.

It does stop Nerdanel for quite some time. But with every decade that passes, the less significant the age gap becomes.

Eventually, she says yes.

They have seven sons.

The twins are still very young when Namo breaks his long silence on the fate of those in Beleriand and makes an announcement that causes the biggest stir Aman’s seen since the Sun came up for the very first time.

Nolowfinwe’s eldest son, Fingon, is dead.

And for the heroism he showed in Beleriand, it’s been decided that he’ll be returned early. This week, in fact.

Fingon emerges from Mandos’s Halls to be greeted by an uncle that is simultaneously far older and far younger than him and who is very, very eager to hear absolutely everything about Beleriand and everyone who’s there.

Fingon is bewildered by pretty much everything that’s going on, but he’s also very, very eager to share what’s going on, mostly in the interest of getting reinforcements.

Feanor isn’t nearly as hard to convince as he was expecting.

#feanor #miriel #finwe #findis #indis #fingolfin #finarfin #lalwen #nerdanel #fingon #valar #alternate universe #temporary character death #tolkien #silmarillion #first age #fic

[exercise-of-trust]

i. hm.

so unfortunately knitting means that i spend a lot of time rattling around in my own head, except when i’ve dropped stitches and have to focus on fixing that. anyway i’ll spare you all the horrible realizations i’ve had about myself over the past week, but today’s edition was, basically, why do i feel the way i do about the silmarils?

i mean, this blog has been loudly pro-feanorian since its inception. the blog i made before this one was, if possible, even worse. i know i’ve been pissed at the valar about this since, like, middle school. but i don’t know why. ‘cause at its heart - the silmarils are things. part of my - i don’t know, ethical system i guess? is that in the vast majority of cases no one can make the decision that a thing is worth more than a person except that person: e.g. there are some objects i could be convinced to die for but there is no object i would prioritize over the life of someone who is not me. and the silmarils are things. and murder is committed over those things. and i’m perfectly all right with saying “the kinslayings were Objectively An Evil Thing To Do,” but there’s also a very strong feeling within me that thingol & co. absolutely had no right to the silmarils in the first place. not that that excuses the kinslayings, because theft is bad but it does not warrant murder, see the point about people > things. but, it’s still theft and still Bad, not nearly as bad but bad.

which is a deeply weird place for me to be! because i have no problem supporting much heavier taxes on people and corporations with more money than god, so why do i feel like it was Not-Right for the valar to ask for the silmarils? is it because taxation is supposed to help fix that thing where people die because they can’t afford medical treatment, and because the silmarils aren’t saving any lives? i also support tax money going to less critical general quality-of-life things, so that can’t be it. is it because money is a numerical sort of thing, and the silmarils are tangible? is it because the silmarils are heavily implied to contain some amount of their creator’s life force? is it because money is made as a result of the labor of others and the silmarils were 100% one man’s invention? (and then we get into the argument about the light coming from the trees, so - i don’t know.)

emotionally, i am firmly rooted in the belief that nobody has any claim on the silmarils except the house of feanor. logically, i can’t explain why i feel this way in a way that is consistent with my equally strong feelings on what counts as an appropriate distribution of wealth in the real world. it does not feel like the governing body of valinor should have the right to tell people that for the common good they are required to give up something that, to whatever extent, they have made. i do not have the same feeling about how taxes work in the united states of america. i am not sure why these feelings are different, and it’s bothering me.

#now i'm thinking about that stuff from hpmor and lesswrong: #'let me not become attached to beliefs i may not want' #and 'what's true is already so; owning up to it doesn't make it any worse' #it's like that. i do not want to have feelings that are inconsistent with my other feelings #when i emotionally process the events of the silm my knee-jerk reaction is always 'hey no you can't do that' #but when i emotionally process the concept of socialism my knee-jerk reaction becomes 'hey that sounds like a good thing' #and that's really frustrating because it means something somewhere in my head is not working correctly #anyway if people want to express their opinions about any of this they're welcome to #but i'm not interested in getting into fights about things i'm in the process of evaluating #pros of knitting: sock #cons of knitting: this shit #/eli shut up #property law #it's apt but i might be regretting making that my feanorian-adjacent tag

[daywillcomeagain]

elwing

i’ve started a series in which i do retellings of the events of a tolkien character’s life, from their perspective, framed to make them sympathetic and help the reader understand their choices. you can read the others here.

2K words under the cut!

elwing is three years old when it happens.

she grows like a human, already toddling around, and so when it happens her parents give her the silmaril and tell her go with Brithiel, do whatever she tells you to, alright? and she is too young to understand the situation at the time but old enough to hear the fear in her parents' voices and nod without argument.

she may grow like a human, but she has the memory of an elf. for years later she will remember that day. the screams, the clash of metal on metal. the gurgling sounds of those whose lungs are too full of blood to scream.

she didn't hear the screams of her big brothers, so she clung to the idea that they were out there as tightly as she clung to the silmaril in her hand. that they'd come save her just like they did when they told her bedtime stories.

when she hears her father scream, she realizes that her big brothers are not coming to save her. it is only years later, long after she arrives at the Havens, that she realizes they are dead. she wonders if they were gurgling, or if they were just too far away. she doesn't dare ask. she knows that, if they had screamed, she would have known.

she throws tantrums on the road to the Havens of Sirion, at first. it doesn't take long for her to get tired of the novelty of adventure. she can't keep up with the adults, so she is held the whole way. they get worse and more frequent as the food supply shrinks. mostly the tantrums aren't about that, though, or the food or the songs or not being allowed to run around and explore. they're the same. i miss ada, i miss emë, i miss eluréd and elurín, and she fights against whoever is carrying her, as though she plans to run all the way back to menegroth, as though if she does so they will be there again. they just hold her tighter.

eventually they arrive. the Havens of Sirion. they are less impressive than she imagined. she had been imagining--well, she had been imagining home.

home is a palace. home is walls and tall buildings and soft pillows and servants and poetry and song bouncing off the walls.

this is--a refugee camp, trying very hard to pretend it is not. the silmaril that hangs down from elwing's neck is easily the nicest thing to be seen for miles; heads swivel to look at it. flags and scarves are everywhere, colored with bright dyes, but it is clear when you look at them what plants they come from: berries that are just that shade of purple, pinks reminiscent of the flowers that grow on the banks of the river, a flag flying in the wind that perfectly matches the color of the grass. people here have what they have carried, and no more. there is song on top of the cries of a baby being rocked to sleep, but there is no poetry being recited.

she should be excited, that she can finally run around without supervision, that she can explore and hear new voices and run as far as she wants and sing as loud as she wants. and she is. but she's--not sure if she's three or four, really, she tried to count days on the journey but she lost track quickly--and she can't help but feel a little disappointed.

they find her a house, of course. people deliver her meals, for the first few years, until she's old enough that she can be trusted to get her own.

she holds on to the silmaril, always. it's her last memory of her parents, of her ada pressing it into her hand before--before she doesn't see him anymore--before she hears him screaming--

it is about this age that she learns that the silmaril is why they died. she wears it tighter around her neck, after that, tight enough to leave pink marks when she takes it off to sleep. some days, she doesn't even take it off to sleep, just loosen the necklace.

when she is eight, more people come, a stream of them. the havens are crowded. people remark about measures to help with that, at least for the humans, who can get sick. the food is stretched thinner and thinner at first, but as the new people settle in they have more hunters and farmers and it evens back out. the rulers of the newcomers--idril and tuor--take it upon themselves to organize the Havens, giving orders, making buildings of stone. (stone will not actually stand up better than cloth if morgoth or the kinslayers decide to come, but it's nice to pretend that it would, so they all let themselves believe.)

when elwing is a teenager as the Men reckon it, she becomes obsessed with Grandmother Lúthien.

lúthien, who won the silmaril. who killed orcs and vampires, who defeated sauron and even morgoth himself. lúthien, who was shot at by the kinslayers and was not hurt, who won their dog over to her simply by being a better person than them. flowers grew where she walked; she could sing down buildings; she could sing the dead back to life.

elwing sings as loud as she can. the dead do not come back to life.

she hears that idril and tuor have a son, only off in age by her by a few months. idril is eleven--tuor is human--

she goes to find their son.

months later, they whisper long into the night, looking up at the stars:

"i was seven."

"i was three."

"it's stupid, but--i still flinch from campfires, sometimes--"

"i hate the sound of coughing."

their hands brush. it was inevitable, really.

they get married when they are twenty-two. he has nobody to ask for her hand. she has nobody to walk her down the aisle. but sirion watches them, cheering, the people she has grown up with, and it is almost as good. her heart is light, and the silmaril around her neck shines.

later that year, idril and tuor announce that they are leaving. for valinor, they say. earendil is excited for them.

elwing--bites her lip. no ship that has gone to valinor has ever returned. there are two explanations for that, she does not say, because everyone knows it. instead, she says: and then we will rule the havens.

yes, eärendil says, i suppose we will.

they leave. elwing and eärendil rule, as best as they can. eärendil starts sailing, longer and longer, as though he hopes that if he sails far enough he will catch a glimpse of his parents.

the first messenger comes, from the kinslayers. give us the silmaril and we will leave you alone. she wonders if they sent that to her parents. she remembers the noises, of people choking on their own blood, of not knowing if those people were her brothers. they had seemed so old to her at the time, six whole years old, but now she thinks of them as the children they were.

she wonders if the messenger was the one that killed them before she sends him away.

they have two children. twins. elrond and elros. she sings, and recites poetry, long lays of sindarin, as she cradles them to her breast. when they are older, she teaches them the certhas, not the tengwar, first.

more messengers come. eärendil is gone more and more. he has finally admitted he is searching for valinor. they fight and reconcile and cry. she spends so much of her time crying now, before wiping her eyes and splashing her face with water and giving a speech to her people. everybody is too busy looking at the light that glows on her chest to notice. she stays up all night, watching the horizon for messengers or worse. her face is a mess of red skin and dark circles. she is thirty-five, though she looks younger, and she is unbearably tired. she would have given up long ago, were it not for her people, and then her sons came around, and she could no longer think of giving up.

she is the first one to see the banners. she runs first, not to the alarm bells, but to the room of her children. "hide," she hisses. "run. now."

they do, wide-eyed. they are older than she was. they are six: the exact age her older brothers had been. they were twins too. she knows the kinslayers will show no mercy. she has heard by now that her brothers starved to death in a forest, that they were not there that day. images flash through her mind: her sons, spluttering and aspirating blood. her sons, skewered like hogs. shot like deer. starving to death, slowly, so gaunt you can count their ribs--

--she does not do what her dad did and give them the silmaril. she keeps it herself, wears it bright. hopefully they will target her and pass them by. she does not wish to pass this life on to her children. the kinslayings over the silmaril will end with her, one way or another.

she is cornered on a cliff, swords cutting off any escape, and as her eyes flicker over them she wonders: which of you killed my mother? which of you killed my father? which of you drove my brothers in the forest to starve to death? which of you are going to kill my sons?

she knows that she is going to die. she knows that they will get exactly what they want, if she dies. she knows she will scream, on the point of their sword, and she does not know if her sons are far enough away not to hear. she knows that it has been many, many years since she cared about her own life here.

she jumps to her doom silently.

before she hits the water, she is flying, wings spread wide.

she flies and flies, west, west, as fast as she can, until she sees his ship.

she does not land; she falls in a tumble. she is so very, very tired. she sees his look of shock and recognition, and then she falls asleep.

she wakes up and she is herself again. it would seem a dream to her were she not aboard his ship. "here," she says weakly, unclasping the silmaril from around her neck, and putting it in his hand, "take it. i don't want it anymore."

they sail to valinor. she would be surprised when they dock in the sea leading to beaches scattered with gemstones, but stranger things have happened to her now. he tells her not to come--they are not supposed to be here, and nobody who leaves for valinor ever returns, and there are two explanations for that--and she jumps into the white foam beside him and takes his hand.

they go to valinor, and he begs. he begs pity for the noldor. he speaks of his mother, who walked for a decade as a child over icy wastes. he speaks of how gondolin fell around him when he was seven years old and how he still cannot look at fire without his stomach turning. he speaks of his grandfather's stories from the nirnaeth, of mountains of bodies. he says, if they could only have sent their children to be free of the ban and live safe here, you would have received boatfulls of babies, do not tell me now that this was a just punishment.

and, miraculously, they listen.

they give eärendil and elwing a choice: to be mortal or immortal, elf or man.

earendil says: i am weary of this world, but i never wish to be parted from you.

and elwing, who had such a short time ago been exhausted, thinks of luthien. she thinks of how the silmaril was said to have aged her, quickly even by mortal standards. she thinks of her exhaustion, her hopeless dive off a cliff, ready for death.

she imagines what it would be to spend an eternity unafraid next to the man that she loves, an eternity bathed in the radiant light of a silmaril, the entirety of forever stretching before them and the knowledge that they do not have to use a second of it watching for enemies. she has lost two homes now. she imagines what it would be like to live somewhere and know that it was permanent.

they call Valinor the Undying Lands. she realizes then that it is the proximity to death that she is weary of, not life. it was just that, before she stepped foot on valinor, those were the same thing.

she makes her choice.

eärendil’s ship flies through the sky at night. she watches it, and an ocean away, elrond and elros watch too.

#elwing #different names for the same thing #my writing

[grundyscribbling]

The Feänorians are an interesting bunch, no matter how bad they are they’re intriguing characters, but I was wondering what your opinions were of each of the brothers? Would you or do you have a rank from worst to not so bad (but bad enough)?

Opinions on Fëanorions? I think I’m in enough trouble for having opinions on Elwing today. But here goes…

The Fëanorions are tragic figures. (If anyone’s inclined to saddle up and call for their sword, please first look up the definition of tragic hero.) They collectively made a very bad decision at a moment when emotions were running high that determined the rest of their lives.

To be clear, I’m talking about the Oath. Without that, I think everything that comes after goes differently, even if Fëanor himself still swore to regain his jewels at all costs. But in their grief for their grandfather and loyalty to their father, the Fëanorions don’t think through the implications of committing themselves to such a terrible Oath, and after Alqualondë, there was no way back for any of them. (I don’t think they could simply forswear themselves. The Oath isn’t just words within the context of Arda. Look at Frodo’s warning to Gollum that the Ring was treacherous and would hold him to his word - and that was a promise by a fraction of the power of a maia. An oath that invoked the top two Valar and Eru himself would be truly fearsome in its potency. You don’t get to just walk away from it.) Then the Valar added the Doom, promising that they wouldn’t hear even the echo of their lamentation - meaning there was no way for them to beg forgiveness or to be released, no matter how much they might regret their words and actions.

I don’t really have a ranking from worst to not so bad, mostly because I see it as less a matter of ‘badness’ than who fell apart when - I think they all went slowly insane caught between the hammer of the Oath and the anvil of the Doom, and in the end, all but the twins recognized that they were trapped. (And yes, they inflicted incredible damage on everyone around them. I’m not overlooking what they did.) But I can summarize my opinions on them individually if you like. Bearing in mind this is largely my headcanons:

Amrod/Umbarto - uneasy with the Oath from the beginning, and the one who came closest to repentance. Might have actually tried to go back, but was burned at Losgar. (Yes, I subscribe to the ‘one twin died with the ships’ version.) May have been forgiven swiftly in Mandos, but it doesn’t matter given that he won’t return to life without his twin. Spends a lot of time with Finwë trying to understand where it all went wrong.

Amras/Ambarussa - had a full-on psychotic break after the death of his twin. Was the only one to tell Fëanor the unvarnished truth about himself prior to his death (and was actually heard.) Doesn’t really remember it, though, and spends the rest of his time in Beleriand being more or less babysat by his brothers, who worry that left to his own devices, he’ll end up committing passive suicide. Doesn’t give so much as a single tiny rat’s behind about the Silmarils after Losgar, though his brothers drag him along to Doriath and Sirion anyway. Fairly surprised to die at Sirion when he wasn’t even trying to. (It’s something of a relief. He missed his twin.)

Caranthir - Gets a worse rap than he deserves between the Ulfang thing and dying at Menegroth. Was not involved in his brothers’ shenanigans with Luthien, Beren, or Nargothrond, so should not be tarred with their brush. Commits suicide by Sindar in Menegroth because he’s just so done with the entire freaking disaster.

Curufin- Realized fairly early on in Beleriand how screwed he and his brothers were between the Oath and the Doom. Went a little crazy trying to keep the combination of both from rebounding onto non-Oath takers. (Didn’t succeed. Knows it.) From his own point of view, everything he did in Nargothrond or Menegroth made perfect sense. Dies thinking he was named perfectly, seeing how he ended up exactly like his father - his actions pretty much wrecked his son’s life. Probably spent most of the second half of the Second Age curled into the fetal position after he found out what happened to Celebrimbor.

Celegorm - I actually feel sorry for him. He was all about family and animals, and the Oath completely destroyed his family and lost him his dog. Lost Aredhel because he’s a hardheaded idiot - she didn’t wander into Eöl’s forest until after he’d pretended to be ‘out hunting’ for too long - then fell for Luthien, because he has the worst timing ever. Was mad as a hatter by the time of the kinslaying at Menegroth. Didn’t particularly care if he died as long as he killed Dior on the way out. Was actually kind of hoping for Everlasting Darkness/non-existence if it meant he didn’t have to remember anything anymore.

Maedhros - knew in Alqualondë there was no way this was going to end well. Tortured by Morgoth. Knows he was let go by Morgoth - understands he would do more damage free than as a thrall. Fails to stop himself from doing just that. Basically a self-loathing ball of depression hoping to die after the Second Kinslaying. Things get a little better for a little while after the Third, because having the twins around to look after gives him a way to avoid the reality of his situation and lets him feel like he’s doing something right for a change. Then after everything, when he finally gets his hands on a Silmaril and it burns him, he knows Morgoth won. Fully expects that his death will kill his last surviving brother, but can no longer muster the energy to care - he just wants the pain to stop.

Maglor - Held it together the longest, despite knowing no later than the time of Maedhros’ captivity in Angband that this is one big disaster and NOT what he’s cut out for. But he saw no way out. (Blames himself for every second his older brother remained in Angband and every injury to him while he was there. Fingon’s rescue just proves to him how utterly useless he is. Knows his uncle and cousins loathe him.) Misses the wife he left in Aman, but believes she wouldn’t want him anymore even if he were somehow permitted to return. Couldn’t even die right after regaining a Silmaril. Eventually fell so far down the rabbit-hole of self-loathing that he wandered around refusing all company for Ages of the world.

#asked and answered #fëanorions #tragedy

[myrkvidrs]

It’s been awhile since I dove into my Elf Problem with fic, but I’m not gone from the fandom and I’ve recently picked up some absolutely stellar fic that I have to encourage everyone to read with me! These stories are so good and do incredible jobs with the characterizations and also I will never, ever be over how much I love the Elves. Thranduil and Legolas especially, but if you spend more than five minutes around me, you’ll hear me cry about my feelings on pretty much every Sinda ever, and here’s some fic that will really help with that. :D TOLKIEN FIC RECS: ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda, thranduil & legolas & bard & gandalf & bilbo & cast, 112k    The Battle of the Five Armies, according to the book, from the point of view of the Elves. ✦ Oak and Willow by Potboy, celeborn/galadriel & thingol & luthien & melian & finrod & cast, 49k    The story of Celeborn and Galadriel - with the difference that this time it’s told from the Sindar POV ;) ✦ A Good Year by ScribeofArda, thranduil & legolas & elladan & elrohir & gandalf & elrond, 5.2k    Midwinter in Mirkwood: Elladan and Elrohir come to visit, Elrond and Gandalf argue over books, there’s ice skating and ice hockey and snow, and the beginning of a new year. ✦ The Bitterness of Mortality by Karri, aragorn & legolas & elladan & elrohir & elrond & thranduil, 39.6k    While visiting Rivendell, Legolas stumbled across a misplaced gift. Will he survive it? ✦ In the Service of the Elven King by artaxastra, thranduil & aragorn & gandalf, 2.1k    A short gen story with Aragorn, Thranduil, and Gandalf. This takes place in the decades immediately after The Hobbit. ✦ Learning to Live by Bodkin, oropher, valinor, 2.9k    Oropher is finding it hard to adjust to life in the Blessed Realm. Some solitary brooding. ✦ Adar & Ion by Sivan325, thranduil & legolas, 20.1k    Series of stories between King Thranduil and his son - Legolas, and Legolas is Greenleaf. Fluffy stories.rnrnFrom time to time guests joined the party. ✦ The Prince and the Pea by Karri, elladan & elrohir & aragorn & legolas & glorfindel & celeborn, 3.5k    Young Estel is led astray by elflords. TOLKIEN ESSAY RECS: ✦ The many faces of Thranduil ✦ What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex full details + recs under the cut!

✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda, thranduil & legolas & bard & gandalf & bilbo & cast, 112k    The Battle of the Five Armies, according to the book, from the point of view of the Elves.    You can also read the fic on FFNET, if you prefer! I fell back into Tolkien fandom again recently and happened to stumble over this fic again and started reading it, whereupon I promptly got sucked into this gorgeous fic and now I’m going to write a terrible rec for it. In a sense, it’s a fairly simple thing, that it’s exactly what it says on the tin, a retelling of the Battle of the Five Armies, but from the point of view of the Elves, as well as being canon to the book, rather than the massacre the movie made of the Elves’ characterization. But it’s a deceptively simple thing in theory and terribly complicated to pull off well in reality, but, oh, this fic did it. You absolutely don’t need to be familiar with book canon, this fic isn’t about rewriting those scenes, but instead filling in what was happening with the Elves in between the pages of canon–while some scenes are pulled from the pages of the book, most of them are glossed over a bit (in a way that really, really works, I don’t feel cheated by any of it!), and instead it’s a really satisfying, complete, whole story about the point of view of thesecharacters. And, yes, this is what the Elves are! They’re not perfect, they carry grudges, Gandalf is often right in his gentle suggestions that kind of irritate Thranduil, that their relationship is not that of easy friends, but they are true friends nonetheless and they value each others’ council and respect the sheer weight of history that each has been through.    It’s a fic worth reading just for getting some great Elven culture worldbuilding, as they struggle with this constant war against the Enemy (aka Sauron and his evil), what it has done to them and how it’s worn them down, what cost they pay, but also how they still have faith. The fic does a gorgeous job of showing Bilbo’s role as being so important and so inspiring in exactly the way it should be–not preachy, but instead kind and caring and such a good reminder of hope. The fic does a gorgeous job of showing that Gandalf cares deeply and has such a bigger view than many characters, that he’s seen so much more than any one other person, but that he also gets to leave when the battle is done, he’s not the one rebuilding. The fic does a gorgeous job of showing the Elves carry long grudges against the Dwarves that are not necessarily right, but that they’re never less than Good People who sometimes have too much on their shoulders. And, oh, if you’re interested in Thranduil’s relationship with his son, this fic is so incredibly satisfying for that as well, that he is absolutely a King and has Seen Some Shit and isn’t always nice (but is always Good), but he would destroy everything for his son, just as an Elf would. The moments of him worrying over Legolas, the stern king softening into a father’s fussing at times, before the mask must be put back on, are incredibly done and worth reading the fic for alone, I can’t tell you how satisfied I was by them.    This is a fic that is incredibly solid in its telling, it’s so very well-written and paced and structured, all the things a story like this should be, that it adds so much, that it stays true to canon while exploring a different view, giving more depth to it. It’s a fic that gives multiple points of view characters, that this is a story worth reading for the Bard chapters, if you’re a fan of his, because of the beautifully written struggle he goes through to decide whether or not to lead his people, the anger that he feels at what’s happened to all of them, and how he can be so very human and so very good at the same time, that it’s all part of his character. It’s worth reading for Gandalf and Bilbo’s roles in the story as well, they’re such valuable and important and fun to read about! It’s worth reading for Legolas’ characterization, who is such an Elf, that there’s so much kindness in him, that he is such a warm and caring character. It’s worth reading for his friendships with other Elves and for how he interacts with humans and hobbits as well. It’s worth reading for all these things!    If you’re a movies-only fan, you can absolutely read this fic just fine, and I think it’s one of the top ones I would suggest for showing why I got so frustrated with the movie, because this is the Thranduil I recognize. Every inch of his characterization is exquisite, it’s so perfectly understanding of who he is, what his role is, and what history’s weight on his shoulders means. The references to the First Age, to Doriath and Thingol’s kingdom, to the long length of his life and the long fight against the Enemy, the weight the story of the Silmarils still carries, all of it is perfectly used to give further depth and understanding to his approach to things. This is a story with soliditly and weight, it’s a gorgeous look at the Elves during the Battle of the Five Armies, it uses its handful of OCs incredibly well (I was absolutely invested in them by the end, that’s how well written they were!), and one of those fics that’s dragging me back into this fandom because it reminds me of everything that I love here. ✦ Oak and Willow by Potboy, celeborn/galadriel & thingol & luthien & melian & finrod & cast, 49k    The story of Celeborn and Galadriel - with the difference that this time it’s told from the Sindar POV ;)    This can also be read on FFNET. After reading “In a Field of Blood and Stone”, I was in the mood for another fic that told events of the Tolkien canon from the point of view of another set of characters, so I decided to pick this one up and I’m so very glad I did–I think it’s a lot more accessible to fans who don’t necessarily know a ton about The Silmarillion, because it really is a well-told story just on its own! But even more than that it does an incredibly gorgeous job of showing exactly what it set out to do–that the Noldor point of view used in the canon could easily be very different from what the Sindar themselves experienced, that they weren’t so much awe-inspired by the Noldor as being polite in front of company. That they weren’t savage so much as simply valued other things, had other history. That they weren’t hot-heads so much as the Noldor really did some bad things and came into their lands and started acting superior. This doesn’t take away from that there are many Noldor to love, the fic is obviously deeply fond of Galadriel and Finrod especially, both of whom really do try to understand the Sindar. And the fic is gorgeous for giving such depth and care and fascinating detail to the Sindar, to the point that I can’t help but see it as a natural extention of canon! It feels so true to canon, just from another angle!    Of course, the other thing you’re here for is the points of view and characterizations of Celeborn and Galadriel and, oh, the fic is so good with both of them, they’re such incredible presences, that this Celeborn is brilliant and wise, that this Galadriel is the titan of presence she is in canon, and you see why they’re drawn to each other, how they interact, her steely spirit and his strategic warrior’s mind, is spot on. Even their issues, that Celeborn has never seen the light of the Two Trees or that their cultures are so different, that her kin killed his kin, that the Noldor do not make it easy for the Sindar, all of that is gorgeous. Seeing Thingol’s ban on the Quenya language is amazing here because you understand why and how it’s a smart move–they’ve known there was Doom laid on the Noldor, they could see it (and I love love love how Tolkien’s Elves are so well written here that these things are woven so naturally into the story!), but they never expected this, nothing so horrible as this. The Quenya ban is such a fantastic stroke because it’s not just a random thing, it establishes that this is Sindarin land while also not turning away the Noldor completely, and it’s little things like that, told from the point of view of the Sindarin Elves, that makes this a breathtaking fic for me.    It’s one of those that I’d put at the top of any list of fic to read if you want to understand a bit more of the history of the Elves of Middle-Earth, I think it reads well, so long as you understand the context of it (that this is the other half of the coin that is canon, that each side would tell things differently) or if you just want a really incredible look at how Celeborn and Galadriel might have come together, in a way that does justice to the epic scope of these events. It’s beautifully written and beautifully characterized, I loved every single moment of it. ✦ A Good Year by ScribeofArda, thranduil & legolas & elladan & elrohir & gandalf & elrond, 5.2k    Midwinter in Mirkwood: Elladan and Elrohir come to visit, Elrond and Gandalf argue over books, there’s ice skating and ice hockey and snow, and the beginning of a new year.    This can also be read on FFNET. Oh, this was a wonderful story about winter in Mirkwood, how the Elves find joy in everyday life and it absolutely sparkled for everything the author put into it–Thranduil, Elrond, and Gandalf being the Old People who watch over the younger ones, their arguments hilarious and beautifully in character with each other over an old book of Thingol’s from Thranduil’s library, to the way the younger elves interact with each other and have such joy even as the Shadow is never far away. It’s one of those that seems simple on the surface, but has such charisma and talent in the telling of it that it’s an incredibly strong, good story! I’m having a terrible time writing a rec for this fic, but it is so very worth a read! ✦ The Bitterness of Mortality by Karri, aragorn & legolas & elladan & elrohir & elrond & thranduil, 39.6k    While visiting Rivendell, Legolas stumbled across a misplaced gift. Will he survive it?    I have two caveats about this fic–one, there are too many epithets that distract from the story and, two, the events of Legolas’ mortality are never fully explained why and you have to just roll with that. Those things said, however, you can definitely make some educated guesses and the heart of the story is on the relationship between Elves and Men and Half-Elves, which the story delivers on in a totally engrossing way. I ate this fic up, the balance of hurt/comfort and what mortality means in this world. The concern everyone has for Legolas, the way the twins and Aragorn fuss over him, the way Thranduil is distraught over the loss of his son, the way this stirs up such deep feelings for Elrond, all of that is done in such an emotionally satisfying way. It’s longish and just the right length for reveling in all the care being taken with dying!Legolas that I ate it up like delicious candy. ✦ In the Service of the Elven King by artaxastra, thranduil & aragorn & gandalf, 2.1k    A short gen story with Aragorn, Thranduil, and Gandalf. This takes place in the decades immediately after The Hobbit.    There are some timeline issues in this fic (largely that the Watchful Peace ended three hundred years before Aragorn was born, so Sauron had long been back by this point/had left for good after the events of The Hobbit) but they stick out more because the fic is otherwise so lovely. I greatly enjoy the reasoning here, that Gandalf brings Aragorn to the Woodland Realm, because Elrond is wise and can fight, but he is not a natural leader of an army, nor was he even a king. And a king is what Aragorn needs to learn to be, to have the bearing and presence of one, which is exactly what Thranduil has. A lovely fic on such great characters. ✦ Learning to Live by Bodkin, oropher, valinor, 2.9k    Oropher is finding it hard to adjust to life in the Blessed Realm. Some solitary brooding.    I’m not sure if I’ve ever come across a fic of a rebodied Oropher in Aman before, so I was intensely curious and wary at the same time. This fic does a beautiful job of balancing what it’s like for Oropher himself to deal with everything, what he does and doesn’t want from life, with the struggles of any Elf released from Namo’s halls and the choices an Elf must make. It’s not a long piece, but it was wonderfully written and made me instantly smitten with the author’s universe and wanting more! ✦ Adar & Ion by Sivan325, thranduil & legolas, 20.1k    Series of stories between King Thranduil and his son - Legolas, and Legolas is Greenleaf. Fluffy stories.rnrnFrom time to time guests joined the party.    I’m recommending this as a series because they’re short fics and all generally have the same tone to them and I read them in bunches. They’re super fluffy fics from Legolas’ childhood, the kind that are almost sugary sweet, but I am fucking here for that in fandom, so I eat these up like candy when I’m in the mood for that! :D ✦ The Prince and the Pea by Karri, elladan & elrohir & aragorn & legolas & glorfindel & celeborn, 3.5k    Young Estel is led astray by elflords.    This was a super cute piece with the twins and Glorfindel adorably teasing bb!Estel with how Legolas is a prince, as you don’t quite know how to feel for him being used to tease the cute kid. Except for that it’s pure joy and packed with love between all the characters and utterly sparkled. So, I loved it. TOLKIEN ESSAY RECS: (I generally reblog whatever essays I can about the Greenwood elves, there are some really lovely and well-researched posts that help give context to Tolkien’s world and what can be pieced together with it! But sometimes there are links outside of tumblr that I think are well worth reading, so consider this a sort of… set of essay recs, rather than fic recs!) ✦ The many faces of Thranduil    My favorite thing about this essay (which is a good overall look at the character) is that it makes clear the point that The Battle of the Last Alliance is the single most important thing to understand Thranduil’s character, because it shapes so much of everything he does and why he does it. The movies briefly touch on it, referencing that he’s seen dragon fire before and the spiritual wound (which word of god says isn’t actually physical anymore, but still lingers on his soul), but they don’t explain just how horrifying that war was, how much he lost in that battle. It’s more than just that his father died there, but also they came home with barely one third of the elves they started out with, all for a battle where Sauron was not defeated and Isildur never did destroy that fucking ring. So, every time he looks south to Dol Guldur (where Sauron was situated, which was the source of the Shadow and the twisting of the woods and the spiders and the orcs), he was reminded every day of that battle and what it cost, not even for an actual end to the battle. So, yeah, he’s really not going to jump into any unecessary battles. ✦ What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex    An incredibly well-referenced post about Elven marriage, romance, and sex, which I found super informative! The interesting things to take away are that Elves mate for life, they just don’t get remarried after they bond/get married (except for one time with Finwe which, well.), that they enjoy sex just fine for awhile and then sort of taper off once they’ve had their kids, and that you can’t really force yourself on an elf because they’ll die. Oh, yeah, and they’re hard-wired to find long hair attractive, which is why they all have it, and that is both great and hilarious.

#thranduil #legolas #galadriel #celeborn #elrohiri #elladan #aragorn #gandalf #elrond #fic recs #tolkien fic recs

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

i ain’t done anything for @tolkienocweek yet, mostly because my covid-induced neet-dom has decoupled me from any association with sidereal time and thus there’s no way i could guarantee getting something out on its specific day. still, i do have one character that could potentially qualify for day 3 (background characters) or day 4 (self-inserts), sorta. i’d like to introduce you all to the proprietor of the fëanorian ethics department, the as-yet-nameless fed elf

fed elf is a... moderately idealised self-insert of mine, though she’s taking on a life of her own

she’s also a noldo. of course she is

her Noldorin Craft™ is, as i’ve said before, arguing. she has very strong opinions about almost everything and will debate them at length

she’s moderately infamous for it in tirion

she’s especially fond of philosophy, in the ancient-greek asking-a-million-rhetorical questions style. what should we do? why do we do the things we do? why do the valar get to tell us what to do?

... you can probably tell which side of the fëanor/fingolfin debate she landed on, if it wasn’t already obvious

she’s not particularly close to any of the future capital-H House, but she is in their rough orbit. one of the miscellaneous guild trolls that form the rank-and-file of their initial expeditionary force

idk if she’s ~devoted to the cause enough to go to formenos, but when the trees get eaten and fëanor rolls up into tirion with the solution to all their spider problems, she is all for it

she’s a passing acquaintance of maedhros from those times when he’d show up in her guild hall for debate night, so she probably ends up with his crew, at least initially

... there’s a very good chance her first attempts at crafting a new noldorin ethical system happen on that horrible night aboard the blood-stained swanships of alqualondë

in any case, she gets good enough at murder to not die before the brothers hellspawn are divvying up east beleriand, and the formerly reasonably undelineated fëanorian host is splitting up into its various garrisons

most people stay with whoever they’re already riding with, but there are exceptions. she is one of them, as soon as she hears about caranthir’s Plans she immediately switches allegiance to the future lord of thargelion

he’s deliberately trying to set up on the trade routes! they’re gonna make contact with the dwarves! there are apparently trails leading over the blue mountains, links to communities of elves unlike she’s ever seen!

so many new people to argue with!!!!!!

so she heads up to lake helevorn, and helps with setting up the city. she winds up filling some middling role in east beleriand’s military bureaucracy, when she’s not on orc-killing duty

but her true passion is *~ethics~*

there is actually a practical component to this. due to Certain Events the noldor (especially the fëanorians) aren’t as-well suited to their pre-darkening moral codes as they might have once been

they need a new one, with contingencies for, like, murder, and all the other new situations they’ll encounter in this new world! the questions of what’s right and wrong have been blown right open, and fed elf is possibly the happiest she’s been in her life. they’re building everything else from first principles, why not this?

and the fëanorian host in aggregate does actually care about morality, even though outsiders never believe that. it’s what separates them from the orcs (in their minds at least); they’re doing everything for a Cause, not for destruction’s sake alone. say what you want about the fëanorians, their problem was never a lack of ideals

she gets people coming in sometimes, wanting to know what the right thing to do in a situation is. either that, or they think she’s wrong about something and want to explain why in depth, which is almost as fun

soon enough, there’s a small shop just off the main streets of lake helevorn called the fëanorian ethics department

(she’s the only one with a shop, but she’s not the only member of the host with Opinions. the guy on the other side of the market district whose system is fairly similar in the broad strokes but completely different in the details is her personal archnemesis)

for most of the first age, fed elf has it pretty good. by her standards, at least, and she’ll happily exposit at length as to why they’re the only ones that matter

the work on the system of ethics never quite stops, but it does slow down. she’s less prescriptivist than most noldor, so she does a lot of observation and interviewing and stuff, and also new things keep happening for her to cover, but she does manage to nail down the basics!

she does consultation, in varying levels of official capacity, but she’ll also just. answer anyone who comes in with a question. or asks one within earshot

it’s mostly noldorin fëanorians she has debates with, the sindar and atani generally prefer to ask her whatever they want to know with minimum fuss, but whenever she gets a real fight going they all join the crowd. watching fed elf argue with people is one of lake helevorn’s municipal spectator sports

she also has conversations with travellers! these usually start when some newcomer is staring in befuddlement at the sign outside her shop and she takes the opportunity to pounce

she asks them detailed questions about their own ethical systems, which she files away for potential future incorporation/argument ammunition. they fairly frequently ask questions of their own, most often variations on ‘you guys seriously have morals?’

sometimes this even turns into a proper ethical debate! these aren’t usually as well-argued or intense as the ones she has with other fëanorians, particularly if she’s not talking to a noldo, but when she meets someone who’s a proper match for her it is the highlight of her year

running the shop does generate a fair bit of paperwork she tends to be too emotionally invested in to deal with properly, so she hires help now and then. one recurring underling is a clumsy perpetually-ill atan who is nevertheless really good with the filing and holds fierce opinions of their own, even if they hide under the table whenever anyone so much as raises their voice

(that atan is me. much less idealised self insert)

like every other elf in the host, fed elf is still under arms. she has a unit, she’s part of the orc patrol rotas, when caranthir needs to do a battle she pulls her broadsword out from under her desk and reports for the muster. east beleriand is just a pretty violent place in general, and her most impassioned arguments frequently shade into all-out duels. east beleriand, where even especially the philosophers will knife you

but just like fëanor promised on tirion upon túna so long ago, she’s built a place where she can be the best version of herself, and she couldn’t be happier (marketplace douche notwithstanding)

like so much of the host, she has big plans for when they topple angband and reclaim the silmarils. it’s just, well

i am not entirely sure what fed elf’s fate is after the fall of thargelion. most likely she died at some point, because so do most of her peers and also because she has an aversion to cutting her losses that’s definitely gonna backfire sooner or later

it’s either that, or she abandons everything she ever worked out to flee over the blue mountains, or she sticks with the host long enough to see all their ideals and dreams burn to ash. out of all of them death is probably her kindest fate

if she does die - she’s definitely a kinslayer at least one time over, she is staying in the halls for a While. the local maiar completely stonewall her every time she tries to argue her way out, she has plenty of time to sit around and think

because yeah, the host’s century-long self-immolation has given her a lot to think about. she was wrong, it turns out, in several important ways, and from the outside she can see how much the ethical system she put her heart and soul into was bent towards destruction

if she ever gets out, it’ll be after a lot of self-reflection, a massive dose of humility, and her accepting her own small-but-not-insignificant role in the nightmare they created

the fëanorians as get let out of the halls of mandos are without fail less violent, more self-aware, and just generally more conscious of their actions than they were when they went in. fed elf is no exception to this

she’s also no exception to the rule that their time in elf afterlife therapy generally fails to lower their volume at all. soon after her rebirth, after some time spent rethinking her personal moral code, fed elf puts out a thesis as to why elwing’s refusal to give up the silmaril was perfectly justifiable under fëanorian ethical mores

this pisses off a measurable proportion of aman’s sapient population. soon the furious letters of rebuke are pouring in nightly

exactly. as. planned

#tolkienocweek #my terrible headcanons #my terrible ocs #feanorian minions #i have a lot of hcs about how they work that i tried to fit into here #in general i feel like their initial noldorin core is mostly made up of the family hellspawn's personal friends #just groups of buddies going off to war together! there's no way this can end badly! #my mental image of fed elf is way more defined than it has any right to be #i made her up to have a cool blog title and for absolutely no other reason #still it is oc week. y'all are basically asking for my ideas at their dumbest

[dawnfelagund]

[Written for Back to Middle-earth Month 2017, for the prompt "Analyze a Chapter or Scene" from the orange/nonfiction path.]

The Deaths of Kings: Historical Bias in the Death Scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin

For many years now, I have been making the argument--in both my nonfiction writing and my stories--that The Silmarillion was deliberately constructed by Tolkien as a biased historical text, and historiographical considerations should therefore form part of analysis of it. In 2016, I published an article in the Journal of Tolkien Research, Attainable Vistas, that made the case for historical bias in The Silmarillion (and also as a motive for creating fanworks, although that's not relevant to my point in this essay). The crux of my argument in that article was 1) The Silmarillion is authored mostly by Pengolodh and 2) Pengolodh is an untrustworthy and biased narrator because he spent most of the First Age holed up in Gondolin, a realm that was decidedly biased against the Fëanorians. As a result, The Silmarillion shows an overly simplistic, one-sided view of what happened during the First Age. As the data in the article shows, Tolkien was remarkably consistent in shaping the story according to Pengolodh's point of view, emphasizing the people and the places that would have mattered the most to him. This leads me to believe that Pengolodh's PoV--and bias--wasn't an embellishment but a narrative element of The Silmarillion that was very deliberately constructed and maintained and, therefore, deserves consideration when interpreting the text. I collected other data and evidence that didn't make the cut into "Attainable Vistas." One of those data sets looked at death scenes and funerary customs. In particular, I compared two death scenes: Fëanor and Fingolfin. Placed side-by-side, they are remarkably similar in plot structure, but in digging deeper into Tolkien's choice of language and details, the voice of Pengolodh once again emerges. In these scenes, we have an example of why Pengolodh is biased and untrustworthy, and why it matters. On the surface, the death scenes of Fëanor (which happens in the chapter "Of the Return of the Noldor") and Fingolfin ("Of the Ruin of Beleriand") are remarkably similar, following the same basic plot structure. (All quotes come from those chapters unless otherwise cited.) Both are also among the longest death scenes in the book, which for Fëanor's scene is remarkable because one of the ways Pengolodh's bias manifests is by simply ignoring the existence of the Fëanorians (and their allies; Fingon in particular gets the short shrift) until they do something nefarious enough to confirm his preexisting low opinion of them. But he spends an unusual amount of time on Fëanor's death scene, even allowing heroism to creep in. The similarities between the death scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin make them ripe territory to look at the more subtle ways Pengolodh's bias manifests.

I will use the plot formula from the illustration above to look at how Pengolodh manipulates language and symbolism to present two very similar acts in two very different lights.

The Emotional Provocation: Why We Fight, or OMG the Feels

The deaths of both Fëanor and Fingolfin are preceded by rash, emotion-driven pursuits of single combat with Morgoth. In fact, the wording used to describe their provocations is remarkably similar:

Fëanor: "For Fëanor, in his wrath against the Enemy, would not halt …" Fingolfin: "[Fingolfin was] filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him …"

Both kings are wrathful in their pursuit of Morgoth, so much so that they become unstoppable. However, the circumstances that produced this state are slightly different: Fëanor has just won against Morgoth, and Fingolfin has just lost, and grievously so. Fingolfin's pursuit is the more justified; Fëanor is simply unthinking, ensnared by hubris.

Given that both characters are described at first with the word wrath, their portrayals deviate sharply after that with no small amount of value judgment from Pengolodh. Fingolfin's wrath and rashness is presented as heroic, almost godlike:

He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Oromë himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.

The phrase "great madness of rage" is particularly interesting because, if you presented this phrase in isolation and asked me if it describes Fëanor or Fingolfin, I would choose Fëanor. Through language like this, Pengolodh does not shy from the irrationality--even destructiveness--of Fingolfin's decision. After all, this is the king of the Noldor, whose grief overwhelms him to the point that he essentially commits suicide-by-Dark-Lord, leaving a shattered and vulnerable realm without the experienced leadership he could have provided and throwing the sudden responsibility of rule onto Fingon. But look at what Pengolodh does next. He twists that madness into a metaphor comparing Fingolfin to the Valar. The morality and the implications of Fingolfin's decision are lost in that instant, as Pengolodh aligns him and his decision with the Valar, with the forces for good. The comparison suggests that we are to understand Fingolfin's decision as answering to a higher, almost divine cause. The actual, real results of that decision for his people become irrelevant thereafter.

Fëanor does not receive this dispensation:

For Fëanor, in his wrath against the Enemy, would not halt, but pressed on behind the remnant of the Orcs, thinking so to come at Morgoth himself; and he laughed aloud as he wielded his sword, rejoicing that he had dared the wrath of the Valar and the evils of the road, that he might see the hour of his vengeance. Nothing did he know of Angband or the great strength of defence that Morgoth had so swiftly prepared: but even had he known it would not have deterred him, for he was fey, consumed by the flame of his own wrath.

Fëanor's madness and wrath is no less than Fingolfin's, but Pengolodh does not make that essential pivot with him to align his pursuit with a higher cause. Instead, Fëanor's internal thoughts--which it's worth pointing out Pengolodh could not have known and so is inferring or simply assigning based on the impression of Fëanor he hopes to create--focus on vengeance and the petty satisfaction of having seemingly outsmarted the Valar. Remember that when Fëanor learned of Finwë's death and the theft of the Silmarils, he "ran from the Ring of Doom, and fled into the night; for his father was dearer to him than the Light of Valinor or the peerless works of his hands; and who among sons, of Elves or of Men, have held their fathers of greater worth?" ("Of the Flight of the Noldor"). Interestingly, this section of The Silmarillion would have been authored by Rúmil of Tirion, not Pengolodh. When Pengolodh takes over, the ostensible motive for going to Middle-earth and attacking Morgoth--the murder of Finwë--goes unmentioned; not even the Silmarils drive Fëanor in this scene. Instead it is silly, petty pride in having done what he was told he could not do. As Fingolfin's madness elevates him to a seat among the gods, Fëanor's reduces him to the triteness of a child.

The final point to make about the approach to combat concerns the relative ignorance of Fëanor compared to Fingolfin. Pengolodh acknowledges that "[n]othing did [Fëanor] know of Angband or the great strength of defence that Morgoth had so swiftly prepared," although he immediately negates that possible defense of Fëanor's irrationality by pointing out that it wouldn't have mattered anyway (which is, again, something he would have had no way to know. Pengolodh wasn't even born yet when Fëanor died, nor were the people of Fingolfin arrived in Middle-earth.) Fingolfin is assigned no such ignorance because, of course, he knew perfectly well what he was getting into; he'd maintained the Siege of Angband for four hundred years ("Of the Return of the Noldor") and doubtlessly had received intelligence from Elves who had actually been within Angband, not least of all Maedhros. Acknowledging and swiftly dismissing Fëanor's ignorance seems to be Pengolodh's attempt to quickly defang one of the strongest counterarguments against the characterization of Fëanor's mad dash after the Orcs of Morgoth as rash or foolish rather than the reasonable extension of a significant victory to bring an end to Morgoth early and once and for all. (One imagines what Pengolodh might have had to say if Fëanor had turned aside: "Though carried by momentum and certain of victory, Fëanor turned aside from the pursuit of the Orcs of Morgoth, and in the dark places of Angband the enemy festered; and a war that could have been ended upon Dor-Daedeloth that day stretched across the ages and well nigh the annihilation of the Eldarin people.") And Pengolodh's tactic works--Fëanor's ignorance transforms into irrationality--unless one remembers who is speaking here and that there was no possible way for him to know that Fëanor was too far gone to be persuaded by better intelligence.

Interlude: Fingolfin Is Awesome (and Fëanor Is …)

There is one significant passage in Fingolfin's death scene that does not have a parallel in Fëanor's scene. Between their headlong flights and the commencement of their final flights, Fingolfin is treated to a heroic description that both casts Morgoth as an overpowering foe and Fingolfin as his smaller but braver opponent:

That was the last time in those wars that he passed the doors of his stronghold, and it is said that he took not the challenge willingly; for though his might was greatest of all things in this world, alone of the Valar he knew fear. But he could not now deny the challenge before the face of his captains; for the rocks rang with the shrill music of Fingolfin's horn, and his voice came keen and clear down into the depths of Angband; and Fingolfin named Morgoth craven, and lord of slaves. Therefore Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armour; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowned, and his vast shield, sable on-blazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud. But Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star; for his mail was overlaid with silver, and his blue shield was set with crystals; and he drew his sword Ringil, that glittered like ice.

I quoted the entire passage here because the writing here is nothing short of luscious. First of all, Morgoth's courage is questioned by Pengolodh; he accepted Fingolfin's challenge only out of shame of appearing weak. (Pengolodh suggests that there is a source for this but doesn't tell us what it is.1 It reminds me of the kind of propaganda deployed the boost one's estimation by suggesting an otherwise formidable opponent is somehow cowed because of you and your awesome. Like when I lived in Baltimore and our football team would annually go up against the top team in the league, and that team always wanted to play "any team but us." Sure they did.) Most of the passage concerns Morgoth, and there is an interesting contrast at work here. He is depicted as imposing beyond belief--physically huge, comparable to things like towers and stormclouds--and yet he drags his feet. He "climb[s] slowly" to meet Fingolfin; his footsteps are described as thunderous, yet the word rumour is simultaneously deployed in their description: something subtle, insidious, uncommitted. Even the term "issued forth" to describe his appearance before Fingolfin is a notably weak verb: He does not charge or storm; he issues. (One can issue a newsletter or a dog license but doesn't usually think of it as a word fitting a heroic arrival in battle.)

Fingolfin receives little attention in this passage relative to Morgoth, but his brief appearance scintillates across the page in comparison, charged with symbolically rich imagery associated with light. The words star, crystal, and ice appear in the single sentence to describe Fingolfin. All of these objects share two significant commonalities: They are objects not necessarily dangerous but potentially so, and they are beautiful despite that possible peril. On the second point, their beauty comes from their interaction with light. Particularly crystals and ice reflect and refract light, making a meager supply seem more abundant and radiant. This is how we are to understand Fingolfin: beautiful and perilous, and again, we have Pengolodh making reference, through the light symbolism (for Light is a thing divine upon Arda), to a higher, even divine cause. The small scintilla of his fight against Morgoth, we are to understand, represents something larger, something cosmic in scope.

Fëanor's foes--Orcs and multiple Balrogs, including Gothmog--are not described, nor is Fëanor granted a similarly heroic and deeply symbolic appearance in meeting them.

Fighting the Good Fight

Both Fëanor and Fingolfin are credited with putting up a good fight and, through strength of will, nearly prevailing despite facing foes much more formidable than they were. Fëanor is credited with a nearly superhuman persistence despite a crippling assault by the vanquished band of Orcs joined by at least a few Balrogs: "Fëanor was surrounded, with few friends about him. Long he fought on, and undismayed, though he was wrapped in fire and wounded with many wounds." Once again, though, Pengolodh's acknowledgement of Fëanor's bravery and persistence is undermined when he assigns blame to Fëanor for finding himself in that predicament in the first place. Fëanor had drawn "far ahead of the van of his host; and seeing this the servants of Morgoth turned to bay, and there issued from Angband Balrogs to aid them."

It's worth remembering here, however, that Fëanor is doing nothing more than what Fingolfin will do, some centuries later when he similarly rides forth alone and challenges Morgoth to single combat. Morgoth: whom the hosts of the Valar had to mount an army to defeat. In fact, goaded as he was by the routing of Morgoth's army in the Battle-under-stars, it's possible to argue that Fëanor's was the more rational decision, although you wouldn't know this from Pengolodh's depiction.

Relatively little attention is given to the battle itself between Fëanor and the Balrogs, although it is hard to imagine it unworthy of song. The attention Pengolodh does give focuses heavily on Fëanor's wounds and injuries with no mention--aside from the generality about his persistence--of any of his attacks against his foe. In comparison, Pengolodh spends two paragraphs on the lurid details of the fight between Fingolfin and Morgoth. What is worth remembering here, too, is that, unlike Fëanor's last stand, no one was present to witness this fight. One can only conclude that Pengolodh invented it himself (because he later claims of Fingolfin's death that "neither do the Elves sing of it, for their sorrow is too deep," which seems to eliminate that there was an extant tradition he was repeating or drawing from in his own writing; see Note 1 below).

So the fight scene between Fingolfin and Morgoth can be read as what Pengolodh wants us to take away from Fingolfin's death. First of all, Fingolfin is very nearly a match for Morgoth, managing to defend against his attacks while wounding him seven times, and "seven times Morgoth gave a cry of anguish, whereat the hosts of Angband fell upon their faces in dismay, and the cries echoed in the Northlands." Again, the prowess of Fingolfin is so devastating that, in addition to inspiring fear in the Dark Lord himself, he awakens despair that fills the north of Beleriand from the followers of Morgoth. But the outcome is what it is. Pengolodh must admit that Fingolfin "grew weary," although he is not willing to concede the fight yet. Fingolfin continues to persist, despite being battered beyond recognition by Morgoth's attacks, a situation very similar to Fëanor's being "wrapped in fire and wounded with many wounds." Even at Morgoth's death stroke, Fingolfin manages to have a final, lasting word, swiping his sword across Morgoth's foot and wounding him grievously and permanently.

This last detail is particularly important. We do not know what lasting impact Fëanor had in his final stand. It's hard to believe that he fought as long as he did without exacting some price from his foe, but we don't know what that might have been. (And while Fëanor may have had "few friends about him" at the time, the implication is that there were witnesses--we also know that his sons came up and dispelled the assault before Fëanor died--whereas there were no witnesses to Fingolfin's single combat against Morgoth. Therefore, it would have been possible for Pengolodh to find such information, assuming he was willing to reach out to the people, songs, and lore of the House of Fëanor. It's worth asking why he didn't want to share this information about one of the most decisive triumphs of the Noldor in the First Age.) In contrast, Fingolfin's last stand resounds into perpetuity: "Morgoth went ever halt of one foot after that day, and the pain of his wounds could not be healed." (There are additional examples of Fingolfin's lasting impact relative to Fëanor's, discussed below.)

In short, Pengolodh is assuring us that Fingolfin's rash action was worth it. No matter that he left his already vulnerable people in a politically precarious situation, his death was not for naught. Handicapped by Fingolfin's assault against him, Morgoth is a lesser enemy to all who will come before him thereafter. Symbolically, again, with the supernatural wound that won't heal, we are led to understand that Fingolfin's cause for riding forth is in service of something greater than him.

Extraordinary Deaths, and Fëanor and Fingolfin's Excellent Adventure into the Hereafter

Both Fëanor and Fingolfin experience extraordinary deaths. Fingolfin's--namely his zero-hour wounding of Morgoth's foot so deeply that the wound never fully heals and stands as a symbol of right against might to anyone thereafter who observes him hobbling through the halls of Angband--is discussed above, in the context of his performance in battle. After his death, Fingolfin's body becomes a potent symbol. Morgoth "took the body of the Elven-king and broke it, and would cast it to his wolves," but the ever-convenient Eagles come to the rescue, as Thorondor dares a volley of Orcish arrows and Morgoth himself to rescue the body of the Elven king and carry it to "a mountain-top that looked from the north upon the hidden valley of Gondolin" where "Turgon coming built a high cairn over his father." (It's worth remembering here that Pengolodh was a subject of Turgon in Gondolin. In "Attainable Vistas," I make the case that Pengolodh often devotes attention to matters of close personal relevance to him, and the attention he gives the death of Fingolfin seems no exception. No other death scene is so lavishly treated in The Silmarillion as Fingolfin's, but this is the father of Turgon, Penglodh's own king, and his cairn becomes a symbol particular to Gondolin.)

Fëanor does not die in battle; he is born away by his sons and dies a short time after. Yet Fëanor's death is, if anything, more extraordinary than Fingolfin's, as his body spontaneously combusts and the ash is "borne away like smoke." This detail is, of course, in accordance with Fëanor's depiction as the "spirit of fire" and symbolizes the impetuous ardor that Pengolodh has been so careful to convey in this scene, where Fëanor's greatness is always subsumed by his overzealousness. It also, conveniently enough, ensures that there is no physical body left behind to serve as a symbol of the triumph of Fëanor's people. I'll discuss this more below.

Pengolodh does not provide details on how Fëanor's fight against the remnants of Morgoth's Orc host and Balrogs fared, but he does know an awful lot about what Fëanor was thinking and feeling in his final moments before experiencing physical death. Once again, one has to question whether Pengolodh could have known this information, and one has to question why he chooses to provide details now when, a mere paragraph earlier, he merely glanced over one of the most decisive Noldorin victories in the First Age. As the sons of Fëanor bear their father home,

Fëanor bade them halt; for his wounds were mortal, and he knew that his hour was come. And looking out from the slopes of Ered Wethrin with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their father.

This passage is devoid of hope. At the threshold of the First Age, we are to understand that Fëanor believed the great battle against Morgoth already lost, a cutting comment from Pengolodh that seems to allude to the curse of Mandos against the Noldor, wherein all their efforts will come to naught because of the kinslaying. (In fact, the Noldor do quite a bit of good; the curse of Mandos seems as good an example of confirmation bias as one might find in a research design textbook.) In contrast, Fingolfin's rash death is rationalized as condemning Morgoth to unending pain. What is most notable about this passage, however, is that Fëanor's final words press his sons to keep their oath and, additionally, to exact vengeance on his behalf.

Again, there is a stark contrast between the Fëanor who fled Máhanaxar and pursued the journey to Middle-earth out of grief for his father, as told by Rúmil of Tirion, and the Fëanor who lies dying and mentions neither Finwë nor the Silmarils. Once again, in Pengolodh's telling of the tale, these motives are conveniently subordinated to lesser motives related to discrediting the Valar and upholding the Oath. It is easy to forget in this scene the strength of Fëanor's case against Morgoth and the full extent of what he has lost.

Now that Fëanor and Fingolfin are dead, Pengolodh turns his attentions to the consequences of their deaths. First is the reaction of those around them. Fingolfin receives a sumptuous outpouring of grief, as befits a valiant king and beloved father, grandfather, and brother: "Great was the lamentation in Hithlum when the fall of Fingolfin became known, and Fingon in sorrow took the lordship of the house of Fingolfin and the kingdom of the Noldor." As noted above, Turgon constructs a cairn for his fallen father, and the Elven people as a whole are so grieved that they cannot even bear to sing of it. Fingolfin seems to receive the full funerary honors and emotional effusion as deserving of a high king, and Pengolodh takes pains that his readers know it.

In contrast, Fëanor's death scene is utterly devoid of emotion. If his sons feel anything for their father's loss and the frightening, surprising immolation of his body after death, then we do not know of it. If Fëanor's people feel any grief for their fallen king, Pengolodh does not tell us. Instead, he sums up in a single tidy, dispassionate sentence: "Thus ended the mightiest of the Noldor, of whose deeds came both their greatest renown and their most grievous woe."

This creates an important effect in Fëanor's death scene. We see far less of Fingolfin in The Silmarillion than we do Fëanor--Fingolfin is mentioned fewer than half as many times as is Fëanor (see Figure 2 in "Attainable Vistas")--but Pengolodh leaves us with no doubt that he was a man worthy of both admiration and love. The grief of both his immediate family, particularly his two sons, as well as his people as a whole ensure that this cannot be questioned. Yet despite the fact that Fëanor has dominated The Silmarillion to the point of his death, and we know him better than any other character to that point, there is an emotional emptiness to his death scene that is hard to interpret as anything but bias on the part of Pengolodh.

By Pengolodh's account, Fëanor's sons do not mourn him. His people do not grieve him. If he is given any sort of funeral rites, suggestive of a desire to honor and remember him, we do not hear of it. If his death inspires any sort of folklore, we do not hear of that either. Much as his body is reduced to ash and borne away, we are expected to believe that the emotions surrounding his tumultuous and passionate life are likewise obliterated.

Perhaps the greatest effect of the omission of reference to grief or funeral customs involves the sons of Fëanor. No matter the complicated emotions the Noldor--even the followers of Fëanor--might have felt toward their spirited leader (although Rúmil, again, shows more generosity toward Fëanor when he names him "most beloved" of the sons of Finwë ["Of Eldamar"]), that his sons would have mourned his death seems obvious. After all, they chose, to a man, to follow him into exile. They chose, to a man, to join him in his Oath. Again, they are all at his side at his death. I have always interpreted this unanimity as clear evidence of their love for him.

But to mention that love--and the grief that must have come out of it--humanizes a group of characters whom Pengolodh is highly motivated to dehumanize and present as the enemy. I do not argue that Pengolodh was unjust in this--after the Fall of Gondolin, he lived among the survivors of the Second Kinslaying at Sirion's mouth and himself survived the Third Kinslaying at the Fëanorians' hands just short years later2--but his own emotions toward the sons of Fëanor, no matter how justified, may have led to narrative choices that do not do present the full picture. That seems to be the case here. When we are not even given the chance to glimpse the Fëanorians mourning their father--when they are seemingly unable to muster such pitiable emotion even for one so dear to them--then how can we believe that their later acts are any more complicated beyond their apparent inhumanity? Pengolodh seeks at many places in The Silmarillion to obscure the complexity of the sons of Fëanor, but forgoing any mention of their grief in this scene is surely one of the more blatant examples.

There is one final and significant difference between the extraordinary deaths of Fëanor and Fingolfin, again tied into the symbolism of these scenes. Through Thorondor's recovery of Fingolfin's body and Turgon's building of the cairn over it, the story of Fingolfin's death in single combat with Morgoth becomes attached to a tangible part of the landscape, which in turn attracts its own folklore:

No Orc dared ever after to pass over the mount of Fingolfin or draw nigh his tomb, until the doom of Gondolin was come and treachery was born among his kin. Morgoth went ever halt of one foot after that day, and the pain of his wounds could not be healed; and in his face was the scar that Thorondor made.

This detail accomplishes two things. It establishes the power of Fingolfin as so great that even death cannot fully dispel it; it lingers and continues to act upon the land, even after Fingolfin's feä has gone from that place. This elevates Fingolfin's deed beyond mere rashness, even heroics, to a sort of semi-divine act. Secondly, in establishing a protective influence upon the land, Pengolodh again rationalizes Fingolfin's recklessness as justified; after all, not only is he clearly carrying out a quest in pursuit of Capital-G-Good against Capital-E-Evil--a quest that can be easily viewed as sacred and beyond the earthly concerns of kingship with which he was entrusted--but his act persists throughout the First Age, not only protecting the land but serving as an inviolable symbol of the triumph of good over evil.

Not Fëanor. Fëanor, by virtue of being whisked away on the wind in a death equally supernatural, leaves behind no body to become a symbol and to generate folklore. Just as the fire of Fëanor's spirit overwhelmed his physical body, so the fire of his zealousness likewise immolates his legacy. Fëanor will be credited with no protective influence on the land or inspire hope in perpetuity. Pengolodh assures us that "his likeness has never again appeared in Arda." Fittingly, through his writings, Pengolodh seeks to ensure just that.

Conclusion

The death scenes of Fëanor and Fingolfin are constructed upon a plot formula and embellished by Pengolodh, the narrator of this section of The Silmarillion, with supernatural, folkloric elements. Yet Pengolodh carefully manages his use of those elements, deploying both language and symbolism to take two nearly identical acts--the rash pursuit of single combat against Morgoth--and give those acts very different meanings. In Fëanor's case, his rashness is an extension of the flawed essence of his character: one so impetuous that any potential toward good is subsumed by an essential violence in his personality. In Fingolfin's, that same rash act is rationalized as serving a higher aim as a battle in the cosmic war of good and evil. Not surprisingly, it is the second man who is missed and mourned and remembered. The first is cast away on the wind.

Notes

1. We are told, "Yet the tale of it is remembered still, for Thorondor King of Eagles brought the tidings to Gondolin, and to Hithlum afar off," which seems to imply Thorondor as the source of the story of Fingolfin's death. Yet it is difficult to explain why Thorondor would have so closely observed this scene but not intervened, especially when he does risk his life and intervene to recover Fingolfin's body after death. I think it's fair to interpret this line as meaning that Thorondor reported that Fingolfin died while fighting Morgoth in single combat, and Pengolodh embellished the details to make a moving tale out of that basic fact.

2. Tolkien provides biographical background for Pengolodh in The History of Middle-earth, Volume XI: The War of the Jewels, in the essay Quendi and Eldar, Appendix D (p. 396-7 in the HarperCollins paperback version). For more on what we know of Pengolodh's background, see my character biography of Pengolodh on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild.

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