to my self-curated collection of nonsense, Silmarillion and other fannishness, aroace/queer and adhd stuff, and whatever else I find of interest. Feel free to say hi!
Thank you to @balrogballs @tobermoriansass @annarobots @melians-griddle for the tag. I'm back on the train of Maglor and Maedhros and their "borrowing" of children (see the snarky Calma, Lambe, Lambe, Óre, and the fully romanticized A Touch Across Time). This one is Maedhros, again, but from Maglor's POV. Alas, Maglor is much more aware of the dubious things that others do than he is of his own failings. Sigh. Noldor! Have a snippet.
And Maedhros had his own small shadows: young ones salvaged from their fallen parents’ backs after skirmishes, or swept up in raids on the Enemy’s camps. Their claws clicked on the tiles as they straggled after him, and their eager spirits learned to match his twisted smile. Orcs were Elves, once, he would say, with somber pedantry. But then his eyes would twinkle, and he would laugh. And if there was romping in my brother’s study, and grilling of sweetmeats over his sitting-room fire, who am I to rue it? Those once-Orcs held Himring for him, clad in Fëanorian armor, when we marched out to what became the Nirnaeth. And they paid the price of their lives for it, one and all.
I threw them in his face, in Sirion.
You had your children, Maedhros, and from just such bitter circumstances. Do you truly think their mothers would have wanted you to raise them? So. The orphans we have made today are mine.
Tagging @starspray @thescrapwitch @hobbitwrangler @seaemberthesecond @polutrope @gaydhros if you feel like sharing...
Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.
Reblog if you're okay with people coming into your DMs with the "you seem really odd and your blog intrigues me, do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters"
a very quick sketch of The Bird Lady [Elwing] done with the single colour-pencil I found in the bottom of my bag on an overnight train from hell, drawn for @spring-into-arda Back to Middle Earth Month Basketball Championship for ✨ Team Idril ✨ for the prompt “Connection” + some fun prose I couldn’t resist
Here's some more orc reunion AU! I have finally conceded this is a real fic. I think what I'm going to do is clean it up and post it as an ongoing serial on AO3, and add chapters when I feel like writing this particular porn style. But for now, have the next bit.
2.2k under the cut, Explicit.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Fingon laughed. “Patience,” he growled, and fell at last naked to cover Maedhros with his body.
Maedhros – remembered this, because it had happened before; before, in Angband. An orc’s body over yours was not like an elf, most pervasively because of the feeling of wrongness, of the song of their existence warped and screaming in pain and the permeating sense of evil that came from them. This, Maedhros remembered but no longer much felt: Sauron had had this done to him too many times, in Morgoth’s company; and, too, Morgoth himself had...
Anyway, after that an individual orc’s feeling of wrongness really could not compare. Still, Maedhros was aware of the wrongness of Fingon’s skin texture and the hair falling in Maedhros’s face, of his clawed hands and long fangs, of the way his smell was wrong, primarily only strange, but with faint and disconcerting scents of blood and meat underneath.
“Stop thinking,” said Fingon, and sank his claws into Maedhros’s hip.
Maedhros whimpered. Still-- “Is this where I start to harass you about the details—” This wasn’t a scenario. “—When you last cleaned your teeth, and—”
Fingon laughed. “Not a very plausible scenario, is it? If one of us came up with this during the Peace, you would have had plenty to say about your motivations in coming – and how I just happened to remember...”
Fingon’s voice twisted, and his claws flexed in Maedhros’s skin. Maedhros had to pant for enough breath to speak, but he said, imitating his own past self as well as he could, “When did you clean your teeth, and with what? And as I assume you’ve had a chance to become acquainted with the infection potential from orc bites—”
Fingon grabbed him by the hair and slammed him down against the pillow, knocking his breath out. The eyes were still wrong, but the expression of him staring down in Maedhros, half-amused and half-threatening, was entirely right. “I have no need to be nice about this, anymore. I will beat you unconscious to shut you up.”
“No, you won’t,” said Maedhros, and gasped when Fingon shook him by the hair. “—I’m not any fun if I’m unconscious, am I?”
“I don’t know – you’re just as pretty that way,” Fingon said. He took his claws out of the skin at Maedhros’s hip – somewhat to his relief – and trailed them, bloody, up his stomach and chest. The smile was recognizably sardonic: Fingon reading diplomatic correspondence from Thingol, say. “Edible, even.”
“You’re not going to scare me with that,” said Maedhros, and brought his hand up to touch the bites at his shoulder, where Fingon had torn off flesh – mostly skin, he thought, or moving would be harder – and swallowed it. “I was in Angband... And you’d never dispose of me so casually.”
In fact he was fairly disgusted by both the subject and memories of what Morgoth’s fortress had done with prisoners unable to work, but... Fingon had seemed genuinely concerned about whether Maedhros wanted to have sex with him; whatever happened to others, here, hopefully Fingon would stop taunting him with it, anyway.
Fingon watched Maedhros start to turn his face away, and sighed, long. The smell of meat intensified for a moment, just on the edge of rotting, and made Maedhros wince. “For the record, one of the first things I did when Sauron gave me authority was get rid of the peacetime cannibalism, and we haven’t been at war,” he said dryly.
Maedhros relaxed immediately despite himself. “Then yes, you may taunt me with it.”
“Did I ask your permission?” said Fingon, almost playful, and tugged at his hair again, gentler, before he released it. “Should I tie you to the bed?”
“If you wish it,” said Maedhros. Deliberately he met Fingon’s eyes. “I won’t leave.”
This time Fingon gasped, and fell down upon him again to kiss him. Maedhros opened his mouth and tasted his own blood, over, again, that strange meat-scent. Fingon’s fangs were in his mouth, strange and sharp against his tongue and lower lip, and he could feel Fingon’s hard cock against his hip. Maedhros groaned when Fingon shifted some small angle in his mouth and his fangs cut into Maedhros’s lip, and shifted under him on the bed. Belatedly he brought his left hand up, and felt Fingon go still, almost as if he thought Maedhros was pushing him away. Instead, Maedhros buried it in Fingon’s loose hair, and groaned at Fingon’s knee settling between his legs, almost close enough to grind against.
“This really,” said Fingon into him, withdrawing just enough to speak against his mouth without slicing it to ribbons, “Feels good,” One clawed hand curled around his uninjured shoulder, while the other was spread on his chest, “To you?”
“Yes,” gasped Maedhros, not sure if he was responding to the words or everything else. He shifted down on the bed, trying to find purchase to grind against Fingon’s knee. “Yes, why wouldn’t it?”
Fingon dropping his head then and kissed down Maedhros’s neck, leaving slight scratches with the tips of his fings. “I can’t think of a single other elf who can stand being this close to me. There’s a healer here, and she tries to pretend but she finds it hard to be within a horselength. Stop that, I didn’t give you permission.”
Maedhros swore at him vilely but froze without considering it; either he was fighting or he wasn’t, with Fingon, and tonight he wasn’t. “—I told you more than once I was never the same after Angband. This is part of it.” He wasn’t sure, now, if he wished he had or hadn’t told Fingon about any of it – but there was always later. “If you’re not going to let me do it, will you please touch me?”
“I am touching you,” said Fingon, laughing now – harsh, again, and less like himself than his voice – and pressing another kiss to Maedhros’s neck, mouth fully open, now. Then he nipped it, sharp and shallow. Maedhros, gasping, felt blood trickle down to his clavicle.
“You know what I meant!” said Maedhros, and gasped again when Fingon dropped his head and bit into his breast. This felt deeper, more serious, and the gasp turned into a whimper as Fingon held his teeth in Maedhros’s flesh. Still-- “Please, fuck me?” he said, shivering under Fingon’s body and teeth.
Fingon withdrew – without tearing anything off, this time – and sat up. Blood trickled down from the corners of his mouth, and he licked it from his lips lazily, staring at Maedhros. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes.” Maedhros looked, then, although he was fairly sure of what he’d see, with his unfortunate prior experience: orcs were made from elves and Sauron hadn’t seen fit to modify the genital structures much, if at all. “Please, beloved,” he said, and made his face soften as he stared up at Fingon, as in Tirion, or really, as in Barad Eithel in the king’s apartments, during Fingon’s reign. “I’ve missed having you inside me.”
Fingon exhaled, and got up. “I’ll be back in a minute – do I need you to follow me?” he asked, half turning to look over his shoulder.
Yes. This was Fingon. In the aftermath of Angband and Thangorodrim, Maedhros had never felt safe without him, but mostly, he could conceal that and focus on his duty. During sex, it was – different. “I’ll be all right if you’re still in these rooms,” he said.
“I need to find something for it – unless you’re in practice?” Maedhros had to shake his head. “There’s oil in the other room. I haven’t exactly been fucking anyone, here. A moment, love, just a moment,” Fingon said, crossing through the open doorway and speaking from the other room, in precisely the way he would have before. “I’m afraid I shall have to order you to prepare yourself, as my hands are not now shaped for it... Let me see...” Maedhros heard a cupboard open and shut, and then a scraping sound he struggled to identify. “I’m coming back now,” Fingon said, and came around the corner with a small bowl filled with an unidentifiable substance.
“That’s oil?” said Maedhros.
“It melts – the rest of the way – from body heat. Some of the coastal Secondborn make it out of coconuts,” said Fingon, and shrugged, placing the bowl on the bed next to Maedhros’s shoulder. “It’s what I have in my rooms already.”
“Why?” asked Maedhros, scooping some of it into his fingers experimentally, though he was distracted as well by the other statement: “I suppose they’re vassals of Mordor, or is it something bought here in trade?” The memory of fieldworkers chained together rose uncomfortably in his mind, and he pushed it back. “The agricultural technology here must be very different from the north...”
“Maedhros. Stop thinking,” said Fingon, laughing, and pushed him down again. Maedhros lifted his knees and had to scramble some, to spread the melted oil on Fingon’s cock – making him gasp, this time apparently in surprise – and then reach down to prepare himself. He would not describe himself as practiced the way he once might have, but he had sometimes, on the road and with an instrument, and--
“Here.” Fingon caught his single hand by the wrist when he lifted it, and reached for a rag deposited on the side table to clean it. Maedhros felt warm water and smelled coarse soap. He found his eyes stinging, suddenly, at that small and unexpected kindness, and then--
Then Fingon was lifting his thigh in one clawed hand, and he thrust into Maedhros. Maedhros whimpered, dropping his head back as he adjusted to the feeling of another living body inside him, and moving not under his power. He closed his eyes, hips moving with each thrust, adjusting naturally to open himself, to position himself for Fingon’s cock. The stretch was good, the long-established knowledge of their familiar rhythm together was good; being used for it was good, and felt right beyond that for its sheer familiarity. Maedhros tried to anchor his heels on the bed for leverage, but Fingon caught his other knee and lifted both legs until he stopped and lay on his back, shivering with each thrust. Maedhros closed his eyes.
A moment later the grip on his legs eased, and he wrapped them around Fingon. He felt a kiss pressed to his brow; then his shoulder, the injured one, and then Fingon bit down again, hard.
Maedhros screamed. Fingon still fucked him, holding onto his body with hands on his hips and his shoulder by the teeth, with tiny flexing movements that drove the pain home.
Maedhros was crying, and couldn’t think when the tears had begun. He was still very hard. His free hand lay splayed across the bed to the side, which he also couldn’t remember doing. He was shaking faintly under Fingon’s touch. After a moment, when he could think even a small distance past both Fingon’s cock and teeth inside him, he put his hand back in Fingon’s hair.
Fingon groaned into the wound, but didn’t release Maedhros from the bite. Maedhros felt a small and totally unexpected brush against his mind, strange and distorted but recognizable still, and opened it. Fingon said, in a voice that was really and entirely his aside from the abiding sense of wrongness to the touch itself, I scarcely believe in you.
You are you, Maedhros managed, struggling up to the point of words, and tightened his hand in Fingon’s hair. I am me.
Always, said Fingon, with lust and bitterness and love and anger wrapped together in his mind, and came inside him, teeth flexing further in Maedhros’s shoulder. Maedhros whimpered under him, and touching Fingon’s mind, felt the visceral response to it, shocked spike of arousal and possessive reaction, all very much usual for Fingon except for the way some part of his mind now met an elf whimpering against him with the sort of hunger satiated by food instead of sex.
Fingon opened his jaw, finally, and Maedhros collapsed, trembling, against the pillows. Trying to move his right arm produced only sharp pain, and he abandoned the attempt at once. Still Fingon did not withdraw, only dropped his head and licked the deep bites, stroking Maedhros’s hip mindlessly with one hand before he moved it to cup Maedhros’s cock. In Fingon’s mind, every spike of pain and sob mirrored by Fingon’s desire and pleasure, Maedhros came with barely a stroke.
The tears came violently then. Fingon pulled out and sat up, leaving Maedhros limp in the bed, bereft and unable to come up with a solution. He heard as noise the pouring of water and footsteps coming back to the bed; but Fingon kissing his hair was familiar, and pulling him gently up to sit.
The other cup, brought closer, smelled sharp. “For the bites,” said Fingon wryly, taking up another rag to dip in it. “I’ll call Umiē for you when I go, but leaving it to then would... not be smart. Here, love, lie back,” he said tenderly, and began to dab at the first bite at the side of Maedhros’s neck.
Pain flashed across him like lightning, and Maedhros began again to sob.
I was contemplating the problem of Elvish class society in Valinor in a post-scarcity world and realised there are a couple of clues in the Silm text that point to where class shifts from what Tolkien considers a harmless hierarchy* in a land where Elves are so rich there is diamond dust in the streets and the Noldor are giving the Teleri so many jewels they scatter them on their beaches; to one that creates concepts of entitlements, possession / ownership, debt and therefore the underpinnings of a war society.
High princes were Fëanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finwë, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions. ....
And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears. Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another; and these only they wore abroad, and of other weapons they did not speak, for each believed that he alone had received the warning.
The language of rights and possessions is interesting here, especially in context of proud and jealous. proud and jealous ofc suggest the establishment of barriers, of enclosure and fencing to prevent the blurring of boundaries and borders that denote "ownership" and therefore "possession". It also denotes a move from having wealth because this is a land of abundance, to displaying wealth as a means of status - which we can understand to mean that the accrual of more wealth than others becomes vital. In a land where hard work is immaterial to the gain of any wealth, we can infer that more wealth is generated by the process of creating scarcity: hoarding jewels (as Feanor does with the Silmarils & other jewels, later on), hoarding land, hoarding other natural resources, closing them off to public access and use. This scarcity must be artificially maintained, which means new laws to enforce new structures and to maintain a rigidity and separation between class structures, rather than allow permeability and mobility.
The language of rights also suggests several possibilities. One is the "rights" of a mere prince versus a crown prince, which I delved into more over here, so I won't go over it again. The other possibility is also the rights of a "lord" over his "following", not only in terms of obedience or nebulous "support", but specifically in commanding various feudal duties or aids: e.g. paying various fees and tributes, having the responsibility to raise a certain number of soldiers (or other resources; most likely swords / bows / axes atp), commanding various services etc. until this moment, we have a sense of the Elves as open-handed and generous creatures, who are happy to share without a second thought. Now we have this preoccupation with rights, which ofc raises the question of "whose rights"? And therefore, also, whether a prince and a commoner will have similar rights? If so, what distinguishes a prince from a commoner? What confers on him greater power and status in this society?
The natural fallout of this hardening of a class system into something that relies on delineating rights and possession (i.e. ownership) is the need to enforce these rights and ownership. The quick segue in the narrative into the accusation of theft and usurpation and therefore, into forging weapons, suggests that in addition to the inference we can make that new laws had to be created, force and violence is now seen as a possible avenue for enforcing these rights, entitlements and ownership. No one has to use it yet, because this is still at a nascent stage in a society where generosity rather than hoarding control has been operative; but it is beginning to emerge. It also means this is the point at which in Noldor society, a series of exceptions are being created and seeded: violence is wrong, except when it is a means of enforcing rights, ownership and entitlements. In doing so, it necessarily produces a subject against whom violence can be wielded, and whom it would be just to wield violence against: in other words, a subject who is less than the person who can claim to have faced an infringment on their rights, entitlements or ownership.
I am also very interested in "Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another". This suggests the point at which family (at large, versus just amongst the royal family) goes from a means of purely delineating kinship, to a means of organising society hierarchically. It suggests a proto-militarisation taking place, not only in actually arming themselves, but also in the sense of mobilising around feudal affiliations to houses and kindreds. Status is being displayed not only in wealth, but also now in military strength and the following that can be commanded. Affiliations are being narrowed down from a broader connection to "Elves" (or even just "High Elves") down to "Noldor" and now to specific factions / lords. In doing so, this paves the way for a certain level of dehumanisation to enter Noldor society specifically, ameliorated by the states of exception created under the emergence of a "rights" and "entitlements" framework. Not only may violence be wielded against those who encroach on rights, it may be wielded against anyone who is deemed to be on "the other side".
I think its important context within which Feanor drawing his sword on Fingolfin must be read. What Feanor is doing is not merely responding to provocation, but making explicit what is implicit in the newly emerging Noldor politic - that violence or the threat of it may be wielded in the pursuit of the enforcement of one's rights / entitlements (in this case, Feanor's right to the title, estate and power of being crown princes). It asks if people are prepared to follow this system to its logical consequences. Most of the Noldor clearly aren't ready for it at this point and cavil.
This is also, imo, the point at which the Valar make a crucial mistake in identifying Feanor alone as the mover of discontent, rather than identifying the situation as a structural problem that has been embedded deep into the Noldor. I think its very interesting to read this failure to identify what's happening against this little line, within the two pages covering these events: "he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own / for the Valar were ill-pleased that the Silmarils lay in Tirion and were not committed to their keeping". The light in the Silmarils ofc comes from the Two Trees, but the light in the Two Trees per Myths Transformed** comes from the Unsullied Light that Eru Iluvatar gives to Varda, who in turn sets it in the lamps, the stars and the Two Trees.
There's a lot to be said about this, but the shortest version is that what is implied to be going on here is also very much a contestation of ownership, but in this case who gets to be the one who "stewards" the Unsullied Light*** - the Valar position themselves as the ones who are the ultimate authority, Feanor contests this (reiterated in his speech to the Noldor, where he tells the Noldor they will be "masters of the Unsullied Light"), but in this act of contestation, the Valar establish a claim to ownership that is distinctly absent from Eru Iluvatar's original gift, i.e. they have created and are trying to enforce a scarcity which shouldn't exist, which is the very same thing the Noldor are doing. I think its possible that this is what makes it difficult for them to identify the broader structural nature of the fundamental shift Noldor society is undergoing.
Both, I think, lay the foundations for this society to fester and therefore for the final act in this particular descending series of events to take place: the First Kinslaying.
This is where the concept of a debt - and therefore an entitlement and right to repayment - is first articulated, then enforced with force:
You renounce your friendship, even in the hour of our need,’ he said. ‘Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores, fainthearted loiterers, and wellnigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still, had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.’
The articulation of debt is implied in "you were glad to receive our aid" / "you renounce your friendship". Friendship here is contingent on the Teleri giving their ships to aid the Noldor. When it is refused, the point is stressed that this makes the Teleri ungrateful, that they are breaking an unspoken social contract where they have received gifts from the Noldor, but are not returning these gifts when asked. In classic terms, this is a failure of the gift economy (actual gift economy, not its misuse in fandom), where the gifts that are assumed to have been freely given (the building of the city of Alqualonde; jewels) now take on the sheen of gifts that were given with a diplomatic purpose in mind i.e. to reinforce alliances, build relations and create a subtle debt which is to be repaid in kind at a later date. Feanor is staking a claim to the ships: because the Noldor helped you once, you owe us a debt [couched in terms of friendship] which must be reciprocated by giving us this specific thing we want. A debt is being generated on the spot and its payment is being demanded in fealty and material assistance.
There is also the language that manouevres subtly to reconstitute the Teleri as less than the Noldor. They are not "kin", they are other, a lesser people who depended on the Noldor in their time of need and now are ungratefully rejecting the Noldor in their hour of need. It is the manouevering of a demagogue, repositioning the Teleri as subjects whose rights and entitlements to their ships are lesser than those of the Noldor, who perhaps would not have what they have if not for the Noldor. The rhetoric is squarely dehumanising - "fainthearted loiterers" "in huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still" - and positions the Teleri as primitive, childlike, uncomprehending, therefore also the other side of it: that someone else should be stewarding their resources for them, that perhaps rightfully all of this belongs to the Noldor since it came from them (Olwe's response in squarely saying the ships did not come from the Noldor is very telling). In doing so, Feanor has created the atmospheric precondition for violence: if the Teleri are less than the Noldor, if they wouldn't have what they have if not for the Noldor, if they are ungrateful to the Noldor, if they break a contract (which was never articulated before!) for a repayment of a debt, then it is legitimate for the Noldor to enforce their right to repayment with force.
We understand that with "...until his host was assembled. When he judged that his strength was enough", Feanor understands that this force will have to be enforced through his soldiers; we understand those soldiers are armed; we understand that on the basis of his response to Fingolfin and his willingness to use his sword on him to enforce his entitlement to the throne, that these swords are not only symbolic, but that they can be used as "force" in order to "enforce" a claim; we also understand those soldiers have been primed to think of their entitlements as greater than those of whoever is constructed as their enemies. Therefore, it is inevitable that the theft of the ships, repositioned as a repayment of a long pending debt in the eyes of the Noldor, will result in the drawing of swords, in order to enforce the payment of that particular debt. Therefore, when Feanor contemplates the theft of the ships, it is an act that is fully justified in his eyes & therefore, any means he undertakes to commit this is fully justified, even when if it means the use of force and violence to do so. Therefore, the conditions for the First Kinslaying were sown fully decades before they actually happened - because what each instance of rights, ownership, entitlements, enclosure, enforcement, militarisation, dehumanisation does is set in place the notions that there is a point where violence will not only be tolerated, but it will be necessary. Tragic, perhaps, but this violence will be necessary to uphold a constructed notion of "fairness" and "merit". It is simply part of the "war unending" that Feanor promises Morgoth.
*not my view, but for the sake of argument, I'm adhering to Tolkien's implications
**unfortunately also the round world version of the tale, but which i think is a good reference point for certain theological questions re. the Valar
***Tolkien calls this gift of the light a "peril… for without peril they would be without power" and describes the Trees themselves as having some good i.e. healing the hurts of Morgoth, but also "could easily have a selfish aspect: the staying of history — not going on with the Tale. This effect it had on the Valar."
#also incredibly fascinating idea here that the failure of the valar was in *entering the power struggle as participants*#the noldor (and feanor specifically as king) say ‘’this is our property/our right (not universal rights but particular)/our entitlement’’#and the valar respond not by rejecting that framework but by saying ‘’no it’s not yours bc it’s *ours*’’#(our light our rulership - manwe is the king of arda and not of aman only)#constructing kingship as coercive in the same way morgoth does! and arguably for the first time -#the invitation of the elves to valinor was noncoercive and they only got involved in the statute of finwe and miriel bc they were asked#and i mean it’s tricky to parse that out neatly bc tolkien seems to have an idea of noncoercive kingship#(his whole saying he leans toward anarchism but still wanting a king deal)#that’s like. plz elaborate sir. in a flawed world how does this actually *work*. (via potatoobsessed999)
right! And the other thing about the Valar constructing Manwe as king of Arda is that Tolkien himself, in Myths Transformed, points to the fact that the Valar have neglected their duties of kingship in their dealings with Middle Earth - choosing to retreat behind the Pelori with the Trees, rather than advance and heal the wounds of Middle Earth while Morgoth was in custody -
They became more and more enamoured of Valinor, and went there more often and stayed there longer. Middle-earth was left too little tended, and too little protected against Melkor.
and
Thus the ‘Hiding of Valinor’ came near to countering Morgoth’s possessiveness by a rival possessiveness, setting up a private domain of light and bliss against one of darkness and domination: a palace and a pleasaunce (well-fenced) against a fortress and a dungeon.
The latter ofc takes place after the Doom is placed, so all the rationalisations that follow in the text hold (i.e. that to make war on Morgoth would have been world destroying, v. a long war of attrition which weakened him), but it fails to account for the interim three ages in which the Valar have Morgoth in their custody, but don't really attempt to make an effort to go to Middle Earth and heal it, or to share the light of the Trees with Middle Earth in any meaningful way. And I think that also connects to the problem of the Unsullied Light, because in Valinor, the Unsullied Light is used to illuminate the world in a way where most of its "goodness" will accrue to the Valar first and then flow outwards to the rest of the world if at all* (with the only concession being the stars that Varda places in the sky).
Which, I think to bring it back around to the original point of this post - how might the High Elves have an understanding of the many other possibilities of existing in the world, when the Valar presented them with one that was squarely hierarchical, which was based on enclosure and which legitimated the hoarding of something that was meant to benefit all, even if there were many very "rational" reasons for doing so? The Valar very much do establish themselves as figures of greater authority and wisdom, with greater craft and skill, with deeper theological and cosmogonical understanding, and therefore possessing greater authority to define what the "correct" means of understanding the world is. In the face of this, it seems nearly inevitable that the Elves would have both internalised a hierarchical understanding of the world (in initially racial terms, i.e. the split between High and Dark Elves framed entirely in terms of proximity to a) the Unsullied Light and b) the Valar, but later inwards amongst themselves) and that there is nothing 'wrong' with enclosing resources from those framed as 'lesser'. An entirely systemic social failure at multiple levels.
*maybe understandable as a response to the destruction of the original lights and of Almaren, but maybe not the most "theologically right" response etc
I was contemplating the problem of Elvish class society in Valinor in a post-scarcity world and realised there are a couple of clues in the Silm text that point to where class shifts from what Tolkien considers a harmless hierarchy* in a land where Elves are so rich there is diamond dust in the streets and the Noldor are giving the Teleri so many jewels they scatter them on their beaches; to one that creates concepts of entitlements, possession / ownership, debt and therefore the underpinnings of a war society.
High princes were Fëanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finwë, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions. ....
And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears. Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another; and these only they wore abroad, and of other weapons they did not speak, for each believed that he alone had received the warning.
The language of rights and possessions is interesting here, especially in context of proud and jealous. proud and jealous ofc suggest the establishment of barriers, of enclosure and fencing to prevent the blurring of boundaries and borders that denote "ownership" and therefore "possession". It also denotes a move from having wealth because this is a land of abundance, to displaying wealth as a means of status - which we can understand to mean that the accrual of more wealth than others becomes vital. In a land where hard work is immaterial to the gain of any wealth, we can infer that more wealth is generated by the process of creating scarcity: hoarding jewels (as Feanor does with the Silmarils & other jewels, later on), hoarding land, hoarding other natural resources, closing them off to public access and use. This scarcity must be artificially maintained, which means new laws to enforce new structures and to maintain a rigidity and separation between class structures, rather than allow permeability and mobility.
The language of rights also suggests several possibilities. One is the "rights" of a mere prince versus a crown prince, which I delved into more over here, so I won't go over it again. The other possibility is also the rights of a "lord" over his "following", not only in terms of obedience or nebulous "support", but specifically in commanding various feudal duties or aids: e.g. paying various fees and tributes, having the responsibility to raise a certain number of soldiers (or other resources; most likely swords / bows / axes atp), commanding various services etc. until this moment, we have a sense of the Elves as open-handed and generous creatures, who are happy to share without a second thought. Now we have this preoccupation with rights, which ofc raises the question of "whose rights"? And therefore, also, whether a prince and a commoner will have similar rights? If so, what distinguishes a prince from a commoner? What confers on him greater power and status in this society?
The natural fallout of this hardening of a class system into something that relies on delineating rights and possession (i.e. ownership) is the need to enforce these rights and ownership. The quick segue in the narrative into the accusation of theft and usurpation and therefore, into forging weapons, suggests that in addition to the inference we can make that new laws had to be created, force and violence is now seen as a possible avenue for enforcing these rights, entitlements and ownership. No one has to use it yet, because this is still at a nascent stage in a society where generosity rather than hoarding control has been operative; but it is beginning to emerge. It also means this is the point at which in Noldor society, a series of exceptions are being created and seeded: violence is wrong, except when it is a means of enforcing rights, ownership and entitlements. In doing so, it necessarily produces a subject against whom violence can be wielded, and whom it would be just to wield violence against: in other words, a subject who is less than the person who can claim to have faced an infringment on their rights, entitlements or ownership.
I am also very interested in "Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another". This suggests the point at which family (at large, versus just amongst the royal family) goes from a means of purely delineating kinship, to a means of organising society hierarchically. It suggests a proto-militarisation taking place, not only in actually arming themselves, but also in the sense of mobilising around feudal affiliations to houses and kindreds. Status is being displayed not only in wealth, but also now in military strength and the following that can be commanded. Affiliations are being narrowed down from a broader connection to "Elves" (or even just "High Elves") down to "Noldor" and now to specific factions / lords. In doing so, this paves the way for a certain level of dehumanisation to enter Noldor society specifically, ameliorated by the states of exception created under the emergence of a "rights" and "entitlements" framework. Not only may violence be wielded against those who encroach on rights, it may be wielded against anyone who is deemed to be on "the other side".
I think its important context within which Feanor drawing his sword on Fingolfin must be read. What Feanor is doing is not merely responding to provocation, but making explicit what is implicit in the newly emerging Noldor politic - that violence or the threat of it may be wielded in the pursuit of the enforcement of one's rights / entitlements (in this case, Feanor's right to the title, estate and power of being crown princes). It asks if people are prepared to follow this system to its logical consequences. Most of the Noldor clearly aren't ready for it at this point and cavil.
This is also, imo, the point at which the Valar make a crucial mistake in identifying Feanor alone as the mover of discontent, rather than identifying the situation as a structural problem that has been embedded deep into the Noldor. I think its very interesting to read this failure to identify what's happening against this little line, within the two pages covering these events: "he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own / for the Valar were ill-pleased that the Silmarils lay in Tirion and were not committed to their keeping". The light in the Silmarils ofc comes from the Two Trees, but the light in the Two Trees per Myths Transformed** comes from the Unsullied Light that Eru Iluvatar gives to Varda, who in turn sets it in the lamps, the stars and the Two Trees.
There's a lot to be said about this, but the shortest version is that what is implied to be going on here is also very much a contestation of ownership, but in this case who gets to be the one who "stewards" the Unsullied Light*** - the Valar position themselves as the ones who are the ultimate authority, Feanor contests this (reiterated in his speech to the Noldor, where he tells the Noldor they will be "masters of the Unsullied Light"), but in this act of contestation, the Valar establish a claim to ownership that is distinctly absent from Eru Iluvatar's original gift, i.e. they have created and are trying to enforce a scarcity which shouldn't exist, which is the very same thing the Noldor are doing. I think its possible that this is what makes it difficult for them to identify the broader structural nature of the fundamental shift Noldor society is undergoing.
Both, I think, lay the foundations for this society to fester and therefore for the final act in this particular descending series of events to take place: the First Kinslaying.
This is where the concept of a debt - and therefore an entitlement and right to repayment - is first articulated, then enforced with force:
You renounce your friendship, even in the hour of our need,’ he said. ‘Yet you were glad indeed to receive our aid when you came at last to these shores, fainthearted loiterers, and wellnigh emptyhanded. In huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still, had not the Noldor carved out your haven and toiled upon your walls.’
The articulation of debt is implied in "you were glad to receive our aid" / "you renounce your friendship". Friendship here is contingent on the Teleri giving their ships to aid the Noldor. When it is refused, the point is stressed that this makes the Teleri ungrateful, that they are breaking an unspoken social contract where they have received gifts from the Noldor, but are not returning these gifts when asked. In classic terms, this is a failure of the gift economy (actual gift economy, not its misuse in fandom), where the gifts that are assumed to have been freely given (the building of the city of Alqualonde; jewels) now take on the sheen of gifts that were given with a diplomatic purpose in mind i.e. to reinforce alliances, build relations and create a subtle debt which is to be repaid in kind at a later date. Feanor is staking a claim to the ships: because the Noldor helped you once, you owe us a debt [couched in terms of friendship] which must be reciprocated by giving us this specific thing we want. A debt is being generated on the spot and its payment is being demanded in fealty and material assistance.
There is also the language that manouevres subtly to reconstitute the Teleri as less than the Noldor. They are not "kin", they are other, a lesser people who depended on the Noldor in their time of need and now are ungratefully rejecting the Noldor in their hour of need. It is the manouevering of a demagogue, repositioning the Teleri as subjects whose rights and entitlements to their ships are lesser than those of the Noldor, who perhaps would not have what they have if not for the Noldor. The rhetoric is squarely dehumanising - "fainthearted loiterers" "in huts on the beaches would you be dwelling still" - and positions the Teleri as primitive, childlike, uncomprehending, therefore also the other side of it: that someone else should be stewarding their resources for them, that perhaps rightfully all of this belongs to the Noldor since it came from them (Olwe's response in squarely saying the ships did not come from the Noldor is very telling). In doing so, Feanor has created the atmospheric precondition for violence: if the Teleri are less than the Noldor, if they wouldn't have what they have if not for the Noldor, if they are ungrateful to the Noldor, if they break a contract (which was never articulated before!) for a repayment of a debt, then it is legitimate for the Noldor to enforce their right to repayment with force.
We understand that with "...until his host was assembled. When he judged that his strength was enough", Feanor understands that this force will have to be enforced through his soldiers; we understand those soldiers are armed; we understand that on the basis of his response to Fingolfin and his willingness to use his sword on him to enforce his entitlement to the throne, that these swords are not only symbolic, but that they can be used as "force" in order to "enforce" a claim; we also understand those soldiers have been primed to think of their entitlements as greater than those of whoever is constructed as their enemies. Therefore, it is inevitable that the theft of the ships, repositioned as a repayment of a long pending debt in the eyes of the Noldor, will result in the drawing of swords, in order to enforce the payment of that particular debt. Therefore, when Feanor contemplates the theft of the ships, it is an act that is fully justified in his eyes & therefore, any means he undertakes to commit this is fully justified, even when if it means the use of force and violence to do so. Therefore, the conditions for the First Kinslaying were sown fully decades before they actually happened - because what each instance of rights, ownership, entitlements, enclosure, enforcement, militarisation, dehumanisation does is set in place the notions that there is a point where violence will not only be tolerated, but it will be necessary. Tragic, perhaps, but this violence will be necessary to uphold a constructed notion of "fairness" and "merit". It is simply part of the "war unending" that Feanor promises Morgoth.
*not my view, but for the sake of argument, I'm adhering to Tolkien's implications
**unfortunately also the round world version of the tale, but which i think is a good reference point for certain theological questions re. the Valar
***Tolkien calls this gift of the light a "peril… for without peril they would be without power" and describes the Trees themselves as having some good i.e. healing the hurts of Morgoth, but also "could easily have a selfish aspect: the staying of history — not going on with the Tale. This effect it had on the Valar."
Hello! I'm sorry,, I know I keep asking random questions lol, but I'm really curious about your thoughts on the Quenya ban; both within the narrative and [most of] the fandom's reaction (deeming it cultural violence, etc.). Thank you!
Ooooh the Quenya ban lol, that can of worms.
I honestly don't think this is a particularly complicated thing to explain & the fact that it has become complicated in fandom is a result of the highly individualist lenses deployed - which I will tackle in another post bc this is long as it is lol.
Re. the ban itself - there's a few bits of important political context to why Thingol makes the decision he does, chiefly the Kinslaying & its cover-up, the military might & political tendencies of the Noldor and the rumours that circulate before the discovery of the Kinslaying, which are only reported to Thingol by Cirdan. I'm putting the whole of this under the cut but the TL;DR of my thesis is that:
a) a careful reading of the text indicates that the Quenya ban's primary target is fellow Sindar, not the Noldor
b) a contextualised reading will recognise that it occurs in the context of the Noldor asserting their rights to the lands of Beleriand because of the might of conquest by sword
c) that this might of conquest by sword is not innocent, but is drenched in the blood of the First Kinslaying, and therefore might generate some pause amongst the Sindar, because if the Noldor are willing to seize what they're entitled to by force and by bloodshed - an attitude they haven't departed from viz. their assertion of entitlement over the lands of Beleriand which were previously occupied by the Sindar - what might become of them if they refuse the Noldor what they feel entitled to in the future?
d) a close reading indicates that Thingol's wording is very diplomatically and politically considered, despite his emotional response, that still seeks to maintain diplomatic ties with the Noldor while demonstrating a show of strength & power that soothes Sindar anxieties aroused by the news of the Kinslaying & its implications for them
e) the Quenya ban is pretty much bog standard political grandstanding and sabre-rattling that every single state & territory does as part of its repertoire of diplomatic tools and elevating it to "cultural" violence is ridiculous, because Thingol does not actually have material and structural power over the Noldor & therefore the capacity to enforce it in any serious way, outside of the power he holds over the Sindar as their still sworn liege lord. Tbqh I think it really muddies the water re. understanding what cultural violence, oppression & genocide (as I've sometimes seen it put in this fandom) is & how it works, but that's going into part II of this.
1 - The Kinslaying: at the point where Thingol insitutes the ban, he has just received information that the Noldor committed a Kinslaying where, and I quote canon, "a great part of their [Teleri] mariners that dwelt in Alqualonde were wickedly slain." Lots of ways that can be read but "great part" suggests the death toll is not insignificant, and based on my calculations re how large the Teleri fleet would have had to have been to carry Feanor's people + all the Noldor cargo across, that's an estimated 1000 - 2000 deaths at least. This puts this on par with some of the most notable pogroms of the contemporary Indian history, for context.
I realise this sounds incendiary to say (and to be clear I don't think they're 1:1 in terms of intent), but I think it's worth saying because I do think that we gloss over what these deaths mean & how they would have been received by the Elvish mind. Bear in mind that till that moment, the most violent act and Elf had ever committed against another Elf was to threaten the other with death. Thingol doesn't have this context, where the possibility of such violence occurring is a spectre haunting them all. Thingol and his people live in a land where Elf on Elf violence is unimaginable because the very possibility of it has never haunted them until this moment, when they are confronted by the existence of a mass slaughter that's been kept secret from them for fully 67 years since the rising of the sun and the ~30 years before that. Moreover, it's not a mass slaughter of unrelated Elves. It's specifically a subsection of Elves who were his people, who left under his brother, but who nevertheless as a result would have had kinship ties with the Sindar of Middle Earth (and I use kinship here in the sense that we would, of families with blood or marital ties viz. uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents, children etc). It is not merely shared ethnicity, though that is part of it, but familial ties.
If we were to imagine the Sindarin reaction to such news, I think we could agree that their response would have been shock, horror, grief, anger (latter two straight up named in Thingol's response to the news) and also, I think, fear and paranoia: Elves who have killed kin once, have been willing to lie about it and appear otherwise unrepentant, may very well choose to kill again if denied what they see as their entitlements. There is no reason for the Sindar to believe themselves safe from the Noldor if they refuse them desired aid - unless they can demonstrate their willingness to retaliate if need be, and demonstrate a show of strength. There is no reason for the Sindar to identify with the Noldor as kin and therefore safe, because the Noldor have already disidentified from considering them kin, in having killed the Teleri for their ships.
2 - The military might & general political approach of the Noldor so far: crucial to this aspect of showing strength is the fact that the Noldor very much do look on themselves as the military saviours of the Sindar, for having pushed back Morgoth's forces at a time when they were besieged and having delivered Cirdan's people, especially, from total annexation by the Orcs. They look down on Thingol as a two-bit king with little control (Maedhros' infamous a king is he who holds his own continues: "Thingol does but grant us lands where his power does not run.") Tolkien himself explicitly points out what Thingol's worry is:
Now King Thingol welcomed not with a full heart the coming of so many princes in might out of the West, eager for new realms
i.e. Thingol knows perfectly well that the Noldor are hungry for new territory, that they've already claimed territory where the Sindar used to occupy - which they fled only because of Morgoth's assault - and that they do look down on him as a ruler, rather than see him as equals. This is reflected very much in his response to the first diplomatic sally by the Noldor:
elsewhere there are many of my people, and I would not have them restrained of their freedom, still less ousted from their homes. Beware therefore how you princes of the West bear yourselves; for I am the Lord of Beleriand, and all who seek to dwell there shall hear my word.
This is a basic diplomatic response of reassertion of both power and territoriality, but also specifically in aid of ensuring the continued freedom of the Sindar outside of Doriath rather than their annexation under the Noldor & their military might. As inward political symbolism, it is a demonstration to Thingol's people that he will continue to look after their interests and will continue to lobby for them and represent them politically, even if they don't live within his borders - and crucially, that he isn't bending the knee to the Noldor and taking them as overlords just because of their military might, and therefore, that neither are they obligated to do so; the Sindar can and will remain a separate and independent peoples in the face of what seems to be a superior occupying force, barring a couple of hold-out territories.
3 - The rumours already floating around amongst the Sindar, that Cirdan brings to Thingol's attention, that finally prompts the confession:
It was not long before whispered tales began to pass among the Sindar concerning the deeds of the Noldor ere they came to Beleriand. Certain it is whence they came, and the evil truth was enhanced and poisoned by lies; but the Sindar were yet unwary and trustful of words, and (as may well be thought) Morgoth chose them for this first assault of his malice, for they knew him not. And Círdan, hearing these dark tales, was troubled; for he was wise, and perceived swiftly that true or false they were put about at this time through malice, though the malice he deemed was that of the princes of the Noldor, because of the jealousy of their houses. Therefore he sent messengers to Thingol to tell all that he had heard.
Lots of implications packed into this single paragraph. Its important to keep in mind that these tales and rumours exist within the context of the Sindar speculating why the Noldor have come to Middle Earth when they did - especially since they first believe that they come as emissaries of the Valar to deliver them in the time of need (Ch. 13, The Return of the Noldor), only for a) another group of Noldor to turn up after having crossed the Ice, b) to be seemingly at odds with the first group and c) both groups largely tight-lipped about the Valar in a way that would be surprising for "emissaries". It becomes very easy for Morgoth et al to get a foothold in there by asking whether this is "deliverance" or "occupation". If it isn't deliverance, if the Noldor clearly aren't there at the behest of the Valar, and if this is occupation - why and how? Why are these princes at odds with each other? What happened to drive such a wedge between them?
Its in this context that the implied existence of the Kinslaying begins to circulate amongst the Sindar specifically outside of Doriath i.e. the Sindar existing in closest proximity to the Noldor. If the princes of the Noldor are not from the Valar, are an occupying force, are at odds with each other and have killed fellow Elves in the past, what does this mean for the Sindar? Are they about to become "collateral damage" in a Noldor civil war? Are the Noldor about to annex them in competitive pursuit of individual power? Have they got rid of one threat, only to be visited with an even more dangerous threat? What happens if they refuse the Noldor? What happens if they choose the "wrong" side in what seems (to them!) to be a simmering Noldor conflict that could break out at any moment? Does their king know about this and not care? Is Thingol kneecapped and unable to respond to this because he's surrounded by the Noldor on each side? Is Thingol hiding this from them? I imagine these might have been some of the questions and rumours that might have been floating around at the time.
Its a politically tense and fraught situation that requires an immediate and decisive response that both reassures the Sindar that Thingol is not impotent, but also which demonstrates to the Noldor that Thingol is not impotent as well - that he still commands power in these territories even if its not obvious to them - and therefore, that if they so much as think about repeating such an act here, it will invite retribution. I wrote a little about this previously and what it symbolises in more modern political terms: i.e. that the expulsion of Finrod et al is very clearly an expulsion of Noldor diplomats much as modern states will engage in sabre-rattling by expelling each others' diplomats before coming to the negotiating table and hashing out a middle ground.
In that context, the Quenya ban, has symbolic value as an act of embargo to denote escalations & a breakdown of diplomatic relations between their people. It is first and foremost, an outward means of displaying displeasure. But no less important is the fact that it demonstrates to the Noldor that Thingol commands the loyalty of the many Sindar who range through their lands, and on whom, presumably, the Noldor are still somewhat dependent on for a) agricultural supplies and supply chain logistics for their huge armies and b) navigation through the unfamiliar terrain of Beleriand.
Its the first step in escalation against what can easily be read as an act of hostility/deception on the part of the Noldor, demonstrating to them that Thingol wields not insignificant soft power that has the potential to kneecap the Noldor. It is executed in the face of a) the scope of Noldor military power, b) the seeming intent of the Noldor to occupy and rule lands without much interest in the sovereignty of local populations and c) the cover-up of what is clearly considered one of the most awful crimes in Elvish law - but not just one murder, but mass murder.
However, the Noldor are not the primary target of the Quenya ban.
In fact, given that the Kinslaying targeted Sindar kin in Valinor, it is a very measured response and its primary target is internal i.e. the Sindar. It is a reassertion of Thingol's authority, a reminder of his strength & that he means to resist Noldor dominance, but it is primarily a reminder of kinship and ethnic grouping, loyalties & of the violence that has been committed against kin - not just in the sense of Elvish kinship, but specifically in the sense of blood & marriage. It is therefore, also a caution about what it will mean to swear full fealty to the Noldor:
But Thingol was long silent ere he spoke. ‘Go now!’ he said. ‘For my heart is hot within me. Later you may return, if you will; for I will not shut my doors for ever against you, my kindred, that were ensnared in an evil that you did not aid. With Fingolfin and his people also I will keep friendship, for they have bitterly atoned for such ill as they did. And in our hatred of the Power that wrought all this woe our griefs shall be lost. But hear my words! Never again in my ears shall be heard the tongue of those who slew my kin in Alqualondë! Nor in all my realm shall it be openly spoken, while my power endures. All the Sindar shall hear my command that they shall neither speak with the tongue of the Noldor nor answer to it. And all such as use it shall be held slayers of kin and betrayers of kin unrepentant.’
Now, we can take a very high-minded approach to this and suggest that Thingol should have seen the Noldor as allies in a fight against Morgoth. I want to stress, Thingol does just that BUT ONLY re. Fingolfin & Finrod's people: in our hatred of the Power that wrought all this woe our griefs shall be lost. He explicitly takes time to recognise that Morgoth is the originator of all these griefs. What he does not do is absolve the sons of Feanor of the Kinslaying - and frankly, neither does he have reason to.
Every instance of their recorded actions so far shows a disdain for the Sindar, a clear sense in their minds of "us" and "them" which they then attempt to enforce on Finrod et al in "choosing" the "right" side of their heritage. Between their high-handedness, clear drive for domination of territory and their willingness to conceal the Kinslayings, their actions only kind of hammer home a kind of entitledness driven by the might of the sword. The ethnic divide between the Noldor and the Sindar is born first and foremost out of the Kinslaying & its continued at least 67 year cover up. The us and them existed at the point at which the Noldor seized the ships at the end of a sword, came to Beleriand and then suggested they had the right to the various lands because of the might of their sword - something that containts the implicit threat of slaughter if not obeyed with.
The Quenya ban reinforces this divide, but it exists only in the context of the Kinslaying. It is not unprompted retaliation, but a considered reassertion of both authority and a reminder of kinship. At the end of the day, its primary actionable target is not the Noldor but fellow Sindar. It calls for, primarily, disidentification from the Noldor and Sindar unity, for the development of a Sindar national identity that stands oppositional to the Noldor identity. It does pre-emptively threaten those who are too close to the Noldor with the accusation of disloyalty - and there's a lot to be said about the classic "pick a side" rhetoric on display here & Thingol strategically using it in this moment against the Northern Sindar whom he distrusts, which is rarely if ever said :) - but at the same time, to do a reparative reading for a hot second, since we're VERY fond of reparative readings elsewhere: it equally serves as a warning that to get too close to the Noldor will eventually force them to choose between their kin & their sworn affiliation, and that when the time comes to make such a choice, they may no longer be in a position to refuse the Noldor and be free from being implicated in another devastating crime against people even more nearly related. And you know, in that regard, Thingol pretty much was right!
As for whether or not this is cultural violence or suppression or "genocide" (as I've seen it put sometimes): no it is not. To be very blunt, the fact that we are debating this is frankly ridiculous & I highly recommend everyone read the text more closely before running their mouths. Thingol himself recognises the limits of his power and only targets his fellow Sindar in this ban. The Noldor are only targeted insofar as he bans them from entering his realm, which he is perfectly entitled to do as absolute monarch of his realm, especially considering, you know, the murders. If we were to take any kind of political analogue, it would be the relationship between Edo Japan and its ban on foreigners, except through very specific channels & only with specific states e.g. the Dutch traders, during the European age of sail - i.e. a regional power putting in protectionist measures against clearly conquering powers with significant military might. Thingol does not hold structural power over the Noldor, except insofar as he can command the soft power of Sindar unity & kinship. The Noldor recognise it; Thingol recognises it. His ban is even phrased in a way which recognises it (and therefore pre-empts humiliation if the Noldor fail to comply). There is nothing Thingol can do to make the Noldor toe the proverbial line and the fact that the Noldor do end up giving up Quenya is solely because they have to communicate with the Sindar they depend on - and they were doing this anyway because this is what the Silm says about language use in the context of the Mereth Aderthad (F.A. 20):
it is told that at this feast the tongue of the Grey-elves was most spoken even by the Noldor, for they learned swiftly the speech of Beleriand, whereas the Sindar were slow to master the tongue of Valinor
(h/t to folks at the House of Mirdain discord for finding the exact reference)
So the Quenya ban really must be understood in terms of diplomatic and political symbolic value, than anything that has material enforcement. Because again. Both the Noldor and Thingol know that in a game of force alone, the Noldor would win.
Long, long post about my very niche obsession. Original AU by @sweetteaanddragons can be found here.
Every so often when I'm listening to EPIC, my mind will play six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon and I'll end up back at this AU. This particular addition was inspired by my remembering that Achilles was a redhead (Or maybe strawberry-blonde, idk enough about the Greek language to say for sure. His son was a redhead, and he once went by the alias of "the redheaded girl.")
The morning after the sack of Troy is a somber affair, even, surprisingly, amongst the victors. The surviving Achaean princes limp their way back to the feet of the horse, finally able to take a headcount. Odysseus and Ajax the Lesser are missing, Neoptolemus is nursing a nasty leg-wound, and less concerning but equally inconvenient, Menelaus and Helen have absconded to Sparta to start their second honeymoon.
Neoptolemus, in particular, has been having a day. First he got paired with Odysseus, which he has come to learn means he's going to be acting as the muscle while the Ithacan takes the credit. Then Odysseus was granted the honor of ending Hector's bloodline, and Neo couldn't even say anything because the order came directly from the mouth of Zeus. (Odysseus already took his father's armor. Could Neo not at least be allowed his vengeance?) Then Hector's woman took a swipe at him with a dagger, which Neo handled quite easily, then a madman burst out of the crypts and nearly cut his leg off, which presented a bit more of a challenge.
The princes compare notes, slowly piecing together a picture of The Stranger who carved a bloody swath through their armies and then disappeared as quickly as he materialized. Finally, Eurylochus says what everyone else has been thinking (fearing). Towering in stature, redhaired, wearing armor that turned their blades and wielding a sword that pierced through bronze like soft clay? They all know who that sounds like.
Yes, the others reluctantly admit, The Stranger is most definitely the ghost of Achilles, returned from the grave to once again punish them all for the sake of some personal slight. (Neo can't stop thinking about the look in the man's eyes, that look of pity or maybe disappointment before he left the youth bleeding on the steps of Hector's tomb).
Diomedes is the only one to object. Aside from Neo, he was the only one to get a good look at The Stranger and live to tell about it. That wasn't Achilles. In fact, he made the man bleed, so he wasn't a ghost either. No one else seems convinced.
Neo confirms that Odysseus went into Hector's tomb alone, and only The Stranger emerged. Sage nods are exchanged amongst the other princes -- Achilles must have returned to avenge his old comrade, Greater Ajax. But then why would he kill so many Achaeans after presumably taking his vengeance on Odysseus? (Agamemnon scoffs. As if Achilles ever needed a reason to be a pain.)
Then a messenger arrives, breathlessly announcing that Ajax the Lesser has been found. Specifically, he has been found dead by a blow from The Stranger's magic sword, lying at the feet of a toppled statue of Athena.
Now that's clearly an omen of some sort, though no one can agree on what message to take from it. Athena is Odysseus's patron, but is the toppled statue a sign of judgement or of disrespect? Does this have anything to do with The Lesser's cousin The Greater? Nestor suggests consulting the Trojan oracle Helenus. They left the boy tied up on Agamemnon's ship after Odysseus finished with him, and he was still alive the last time they checked. Perhaps he can interpret the omen.
This plan only makes it as far as the beach, where the gang discovers that both the oracle and Agamemnon's flagship have been stolen.
Suddenly it all makes perfect sense. Diomedes explodes -- yet again, Achilles is punishing them all for the sake of his feud with Agamemnon. The High King sputters out a denial -- he and Achilles were square when the man died. His conscience is perfectly clean. He still looks as if he is actively having a heart attack.
Nestor attempts to intervene. Diomedes shouldn't jump to conclusions... But if Agamemnon knows of anything that might have brought a vengeful Achilles back from the grave, he really should tell them. They promise they won't be mad.
Agamemnon has the horrible, sinking feeling that this might be about the fact that he took a leak on the ashes of Achille's funeral pyre. But he's certainly not going to admit to that. Wounded or no, Neo has a good couple of inches on him, and the kid is built like he strangles oxen for a hobby. He has that same twitchy look in his eye that his father always had.
This man cannot have been Achilles, he insists, and Agamemnon is going to bring back his head to prove it! (No one else is willing to set sail while the son of a Nereid might be after their heads, and Agamemnon is quite sure that they're one more bad omen away from sacrificing him to appease Achilles. It's what he would do, were he in their position.) Eurylochus and his crew quickly get pressed into service -- they need a captain, and Agamemnon needs a boat. And don't they want to avenge their fallen king?
Neo insists on coming along, much to Agamemnon's horror.
Maedhros isn't ready to panic just yet. Disorienting as that first night was, he's now fairly certain that he knows where he is. He's on the eastern side of the Sea of Rhûn. This is an inland sea, and the climate and general look of the people suggest that he's somewhere south and east of Dorwinion. He's a long way from home, to be sure, but at least he knows how to get back. He takes a moment to privately curse that storm Maia for dragging him so far out of his way.
He's fairly certain that the woman he rescued is the baby's mother. At least, she seemed very relieved to have him back. So if he recalls the storm Maia's threats correctly, that would make her the prince's widow. The others seem to tentatively consider her to be in charge, and she's at least attempted to communicate with him. Maybe she can help him get his bearings.
Unfortunately, she doesn't speak any of the Easterling tongues he learned from Bór. That's not terribly surprising. Rhûn is a land of many nations, and this particular clan must be rather isolated if they're still casting weapons out of bronze. That's fine. He might not invent new languages on a whim as his father did, but he does enjoy learning them.
The golden-haired girl hasn't stopped watching him. She looks away with a pained expression every time he catches her at it, but even now he can feel her eyes boring into the back of his head. He saw eyes like that once before -- the first time he saw a mirror after Thangorodrim.
The others give her a wide berth, though she does nothing apart from sit curled under the mast, arms around her knees. During their flight, she broke from her stupor long enough to lead them to this ship -- the same ship where they found the prisoner who Maedhros assumes to be her twin brother. It almost seemed as if she knew where...
But that would be ridiculous. She couldn't have known. Maedhros rather forcibly shrugs the notion off. They're twins. He's seen Amrod and Amras do far stranger.
On his first night, Maedhros was too preoccupied to look up. Even had he chanced to look at the sky, the smoke of the city's burning would have blotted out the stars. He spends the following day tending to the wounded, despite having nothing but torn clothing and seawater, and offering what comfort he can, despite speaking not a word of their language. When the sun sets, he forces himself to stay awake. One look at the stars will give him his heading, and from there he can plan the route home...
Oh. Maedhros doesn't know those stars.
Maedhros is beginning to suspect that he isn't in Rhûn.
More coming soon, by request of @sweetteaanddragons !
tw: the section on Aphrodite brings up a dub/non-con curse
I haven't thought about the Iliad in years. Like a decade. but OH man this au has me so excited about putting Maedhros in this world!!! He's outside of Arda and the role he bound himself to within it, and he can do serious good here! Also, he can sow some serious confusion.
Somehow, Maedhros is even more lost than Odysseus was... What next, is he gonna get lost enough to land himself and his band of refugees in Ithaca? And what kind of advice can Tiresias give him for getting back to Beleriand?
The shipboard adventures are gonna go rather differently, with this crew. Circe, for one, may be less initially aggressive towards a ship full of refugee women and children; but, going by her other various exploits, quite probably not for long. There are several directions for that encounter that pop to mind, actually.
Circe as Sorceress Fatale is attracted to this exotic and unusual hero/leader now under her power, and she gets cursing-level offended when this interest is not reciprocated.
Something dealing with how Circe 'purified' the argonauts of murdering Medea's brother. While the ritual in and of itself is not super important to Maedhros, I think that it's super interesting how she both purifies them even before knowing what they did and then, after the telling, denies them hospitality. There's something there about personal forgiveness (she doesn't give it) versus offering second chances (the purification) and her not offering then hospitality to these people as the continue to pursue the pre-second chance goal. And I think that oath-bound Maedhros could have a very interesting discussion with her about second chances and the sunk cost fallacy. Especially this Maedhros, who has found himself lost in a world not his own, who has found himself outside of his oath-bound role for the first time in centuries and whose preconceptions about the world have just been rocked.
Also super interested in how Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus' attention will affect the adventures of our intrepid crew.
It could be fun if Hephaestus is curious about the metal alloy technology Maedhros is wearing. Also, if he knows that Maedhros isn't his son and figures out that Aphrodite genuinely does not believe him to be hers, he's in a position to be even more curious! Which is to say, Hephaestus chatting with and/or throwing 'little' challenges and puzzles Maedhros' way to try to figure him and his origins out.
Ares is also paying attention, which I think is hilarious. Or, at first I thought it was hilarious. Then I started seeing parallels. Maedhros' deeds of great valor and orc-terrifying ferociousness are very on-brand for Ares. The narrative is also very ambivalent towards him in much the same way as mythology is towards Ares, and for much the same reasons. The warlike attitude and aptitude to help defeat the enemy threat is praised, but, like the sons of Feanor on Doriath and Sirion, Ares can and will bring that same violence against his supplicants. And he's also often portrayed as humiliated by his pride... like the son of Feanor who for all his fearsome oath and deeds of valor did not damage Morgoth, attacked elves, and refused mercy only to kill himself.
So: Maedhros has got the courage and physical prowess and bloodthirsty attitude-- and he hates this part of himself and how he's turned it on his fellow elves. Meanwhile Ares is all for belligerence and warfare and has to be ritually chained-in-effigy in order to not continue causing strife after helping to repel enemies. They could have a really interesting dynamic. Like, Maedhros would absolutely despise Ares, but I think that Ares could roll with that enough to continue to initiate interesting interactions.
Aphrodite... she is pissed, and she is powerful! There's some tension re: how powerful Aphrodite is, which we can see even in the Iliad, where she both kicks off the entire war with her curse and gets scolded by Zeus for getting injured on the field of battle, where she shouldn't be because she doesn't have power there. (But in other instances she is associated with battle thru Ares or even thru the physicality of battle itself-- and later from the influence of Venus Genetrix of Rome-- and in other hymns she seems to have great power over all things that procreate.)
In any case, her curses are potent. She needs to give Maedhros a good curse! This could be some awful whump scenario, or this could be a hilariously ineffectual curse to desperately and effeminately (going off of the idea of active/passive roles in male-male relationships and the domination of a woman by her husband or lover) long for a relative-- thwarted by Maedhros already being a sad widower for his cousin and liege. I'd consider the former more likely, except the latter would fit well with the themes of the narratives not knowing how to handle their swapped characters. Idk perhaps she ineffectively and hilariously curses him the first time, and when that doesn't work, she either curses him to have sex with someone/thing he'd really rather not or makes his dick fall off /shrug. But she can't like, gainsay her first curse, so she's stuck with curse options that don't change his amorous emotions/cause a permanent mental state that would make him forget his priorities?? So we can have the humorous moment, the acknowledgement of Aphrodite's power, and the fact that the way in which Aphrodite didn't understand Maedhros blunts her curses from 'chronic mindfuck' to 'serious trauma but at least it's not permanent mindfuck'.
Okay there's a lot of interesting possibilities here!
"I haven't thought about the Iliad in years. Like a decade. but OH man this au has me so excited about putting Maedhros in this world!!!"
Me too, friend. Me too.
"What next, is he gonna get lost enough to land himself and his band of refugees in Ithaca?"
The rule of drama demands that Odysseus manages to escape Arda, make his way back to Ithaca, and slaughter the suitors just in the nick of time as he does in canon.
The rule of funny demands that Maedhros makes his way to Ithaca out of sheer dumb luck, stops to ask the young man moping on the beach for directions, and, after hearing of Telemachus's woes, decides that he can spare a few hours out of his day to kill 108 assholes.
Regarding Circe, I think you're correct that she'd be less likely to clock a boatload of mostly women and children as a threat. She might also be hesitant to curse Maedhros, at least initially. To her eyes, he's clearly some kind of demigod, and she'd rather know who his divine parent is before she potentially starts a blood feud.
You're a genius for remembering that Circe can grant absolution/remove curses. Would she have the power to remove the Doom of the Noldor from Maedhros? She absolved Medea and co. of kinslaying and attacking under a flag of truce. Iirc, the Furies were responsible for directly punishing kinslayers, although they typically act at the behest of a god, not of their own volition. I know oathbreaking fell under Zeus's domain, and I think he punished kinslayers as well? If so, Circe is capable of punching well above her weight in the curse-removal department.
But would she be able to absolve Maedhros of the Oath of Feanor -- not a punishment, but rather a burden taken on willingly? Even if she did, would Maedhros willingly turn from that path?
@sweetteaanddragons brought up the idea of Cassandra telling Maedhros of his ultimate doom, which of course compels Maedhros to believe that he isn't doomed, thus potentially breaking him out of the sunk-cost-fallacy/self-fulfilling-prophecy. Cassandra + Circe + time away from Arda might be the secret formula to fix Maedhros.
The Ares/Maedhros parallels are definitely there. War is often a necessary evil. To the ancient Greeks, it was a way of life, a necessity for survival, a path to glory and remembrance. And Ares represents all the inevitabilities of war that even the most hawkish hate to acknowledge. Athena reigns over glory, strategy, honor, and righteous vengeance. Ares gets the blood and the grime, pain and panic. He does the work his father assigned to him, and he is despised and vilified for it. He may be less prone to introspection than Maedhros, but the "it's a shit job, but someone's got to do it" theme is definitely there.
Sidenote: Athena as the Golden Child bearing the full weight of Zeus's expectations, Ares as the forgotten middle child stuck doing a thankless job. Each thinking the other has it easy. Each thinking that the other could never understand the burden they carry. Zeus keeping them carefully pitted against each other, because he knows how utterly doomed he would be if they ever teamed up against him.
For that matter, one doesn't have to stretch far to imagine Zeus encouraging his family's disfunction in order to safeguard his own position. Sure, he could handily beat any one of them in a contest of raw power. Maybe even any two or three of them. But the day they realize that there's twelve of them and one of Zeus, he knows it's all over. He knows what he did to his own tyrannical father.
And so he lets Hera terrorize his mistresses and bastards, all the while subtly reinforcing that she wouldn't dare seek retribution against him. He pits Ares and Athena against each other. He encourages the others to bully Hephestus, ensuring that his most clever son remains outcast from his siblings. He banishes Hades to graciously gifts Hades the Underworld, sending him far afield so that he won't be too pointedly reminded of his little brother's authority over him. He uses Aphrodite as a pawn to keep his smartest son and his strongest son at each other's throats. He spoils Artemis and Apollo rotten to keep them happy, because those two tear shit up when they have a mind to. Because he knows that the second they all stop bickering amongst themselves, he's getting his balls chopped off and spending an eternity in Tartarus.
That's what he would do in their position. That's what he did do.
Ahem.
All that to say, yes, I am all for Ares as the patron of Maedhros. Yes, Maedhros would call him a bloodthirsty monster. No, I don't think Ares would be offended. He'd probably laugh.
"In any case, her curses are potent. She needs to give Maedhros a good curse!"
Agreed! Although I don't think the standard Aphrodite curse would translate well onto Maedhros.
Tolkien's world is significantly less horny than Greek mythology (most things are). While a love curse tends to be the prelude to multiple felonies in Aphrodite's world, in Arda such a curse is more likely to lead to pining, composing hauntingly tragic poetry, and wasting away as one wanders beneath the light of fading stars. She can't even fall back on the Glaurung classic, seeing as none of Maedhros's relations are even on the same plane of existence at the moment.
I'm picturing Aphrodite hovering just above the ship, waiting gleefully for Maedhros to fly into a bacchanalian rage... And he just looks a bit more sad than usual. He's switched from brooding to pining. It's a subtle difference, but it is there.
I could also see her curse being thwarted by the fact that he's simply incapable of viewing any of the Trojans as romantic prospects. Intellectually, he knows that those of the Second Kindred age differently than the elves. He knows that half of those he rescued are grown, by the reckoning of their own people. But he's at a point in his life where anyone under the age of 100 looks like a baby. His big brother instincts are out in full force. He wants to wrap them all up in his cape where they'll be warm and safe.
Now, Circe would be another matter. Aphrodite could engage in her preferred brand of life-ruining by causing him to become infatuated with Circe. I legitimately have no idea how Circe would take this.
Alternatively... What if it's Circe who's cursed to love Maedhros? Tbh I could see either ending in disaster for all involved.
Also, related to nothing, but I'm struck by the idea of Maedhros stumbling across Calypso's island, hearing that she's been imprisoned there because she followed her father into an ill-advised war against the gods, and deciding "Screw it, we're bringing her with us."
Thanks for all the fresh material! I'd love to hear more, if you have other ideas!
1) I absolutely take it as read from the myths that Zeus actively does not want a coalition of gods that would threaten his power. He repeatedly comes down like a hammer on individuals who challenge his authority or ‘takes care of’ those who have the potential to threaten his power— he’s a very paranoid ruler, that way. I don’t know where it ranked in his reasons for every individual decision, but he was absolutely incentivized to link Olympians to himself individually and not fix/actively widen fractures between them. And the Greeks telling and tweaking these tales were culturally if not personally familiar with these kinds of power struggles.
2) As powerful as Circe is in the curse arena, I don’t think she’d be able to lift the Doom of the Noldor or the Oath of Feanor. She’s not in Arda, and it’s not part of her narrative. However, as you pointed out, on top of the foundation of self-determination laid by @sweetteaanddragons ‘ idea about Cassandra telling Maedhros his Doom and just being able to be outside of his narrative role for a while, doing something that feels good (helping refugees) in the capacity of ‘outside of his fated role’—- I think Circe could help catalyze some thoughts about the sunk cost fallacy and rewriting one’s fate. In the Cassandra comic, Maedhros says that he may be headed to a bad end, but he’s making his own decisions and has self-determination. Perhaps Circe can get him thinking about how he can interpret and reinterpret the constraints of the role he has cast himself in.
I don’t think Maedhros, even free of his Oath, could avert all of the Doom of the Noldor— even if they weren’t fighting an evil god, they live in a world of conflicting needs, desires, and cultures, and they don’t die of natural causes. They die in conflict, the majority in conflicts that take great numbers of people at once— the destructions of cities and civilizations. And they tend to be egotistical, at-the-least-culturally imperial assholes. (I say this with affection)
However, I also think that the Oath’s power is more in the emotions and narrative role of the brothers as they swore, rather than specific wording. I mean, they were trying to fulfill it by getting the silmaril back, when technically it was just about vengeance and no clause about said vengeance ending with regaining the jewels. So while I think it would be a monumental effort over a period of time, I do think that Maedhros could try tying new bits of worldview into that eternally-present emotion and role to change his reactions. He tells himself that they swore over the damn rocks because Grandfather Finwe died over them, after all, and even now that they have so sworn and everything is tied up in them, their situation has changed and he *can* reinterpret the way he’s bound to the gems.
3) Aphrodite’s curse. It’s true that Tolkien’s world is significantly less horny than Greek myth, but an integral part of that kind of just curse is that the object is something or someone the subject would never have considered. That said, eternal pining and Doomed Love curses are very much within Aphrodite’s wheelhouse and she could go with one of those. It would be yet another layer of sadness, but Maedhros could deal with it. Or if she turned Maedhros into some kind of animal Circe might be able to help, considering her specialties in curse-breaking and turning people into things.
Oh lord now I’m picturing the comedy potential of Maedhros being transformed into like a bear or smth on the ship in the middle of the ocean. (Donkeys are associated with Hephaestus and also funny, but bears are scarier to nearby humans and I for some reason associate Maedhros with bears a bit. Large, powerful, a symbol of might. Found in cold forests (at least, the Eurasian brown bear). Their pelts make quite the hunting trophy.) you wake up and there is an entire BEAR on ur boat. What do you even do? At least with no way for a bear to have gotten there overnight, Maedhros missing in a confined space, and knowing that the gods are meddling, someone’s probably going to go, wait, …. Maedhros? Is that you? they don’t know how much of their savior’s mind is in there and how powerful his new instincts are. Everybody trying to stay out of bear!Maedhros’ way and appease him with food. Some brave soul continues to try to communicate with charades.
Circe cursed to love Maedhros… that would absolutely end in disaster. She does Not believe in ‘the one that got away,’ wow. Also rather tragic if Circe had helped catalyze Maedhros starting to self-actualize and reroute his oath by this point and THEN jealous love disaster.
4) Maedhros & Calypso: ohhh you are onto something. Maedhros: fuck the gods, I stabbed Zeus in the eye already with zero regrets. Come with us!
5) Maedhros, listening to Telemachus: wow, this tragic and devotedly monogamous weaver would have triggered my dad so hard.
He can take a day to put the fear of himself into 108 assholes. He is very against forced marriage.
Maedhros: if you wait here for me, child, I shall fetch my arms and armor. Then you’ll show me to your home.
Telemachus was predisposed to think this 7ft redhead appearing on the shore was special and took a chance on getting him sympathetic, but he wasn’t prepared for a stranger to immediately offer to take on 108 men for no reward. That’s not how the world works. And it has suddenly occurred to him that if this clearly important stranger joins the suitors he and his mom are in even deeper shit.
Telemachus: I’m not a child— wait, er… are you sure you want to just…
Please understand that when I say "fix Maedhros," I mean "get him just enough character development that he might not be completely doomed," not "magic away all the issues of the Noldor overnight." Where would be the fun in that?
In canon, Maedhros did have a potential out fairly late in the game. Maglor very nearly convinced him to return to Valinor and beg the Valar (and possibly Iluvatar himself) to release him from the Oath of Feanor. Maedhros ultimately declines due to a combination of pride, sunk cost fallacy, belief that he's too far gone for forgiveness, lack of trust in the Valar, etc etc. While the centuries of bad blood and conflicting goals of the Noldor won't be undone by anything accomplished in the AU, Maedhros's personal hangups could be.
Interestingly, Maedhros reinterpreting the oath does have precedent in canon. The goal of the Union of Maedhros was to protect the rest of Beleriand from Morgoth -- a defensive war isn't bringing Maedhros any closer to the Silmarils. But he justified it with the fact that Morgoth has the Silmarils and he's fighting Morgoth, and therefore not technically in violation of the oath, even though he could be doing a lot more to pursue it.
Bear!Maedhros is my new favorite thing. Expect art sometime in the near future.
Of course there would be an initial panic. There's a bear on the boat. He's big enough to risk capsizing them by simply walking too far to one side. Cassandra points out that their situation hasn't really changed -- he seems chill now, but he could kill everyone on the boat if he felt so inclined, they don't know what he wants, and they can't communicate. So they're exactly where they were when they first escaped Troy.
But still, the others protest, he's a bear. It's only a matter of time before they run out of fish to placate him, or one of the kids pulls his tail or pokes his eye or something, and he becomes decidedly less chill.
Alright, Cassandra concedes, he's a bear. None of them know how to change him back. What do they want to do? Kill him in his sleep? Try to force him overboard?
Neither Helenus nor Andromache are down for that. He did save them. Even if he is a bear, he hasn't hurt anyone yet. No one really wants to hurt him.
The idea of finding a nice island where a bear could live comfortably and then trying to lure him off the boat is tentatively put forward. Cassandra responds that it's going to be hard to find such an island if she sets fire to the sail.
(Cassandra has spent her entire adult life under the specific brand of hell where you know something bad is coming and you have no idea how to stop it. Sure, she tried telling her family. She couldn't entirely quash the hope that someone might finally listen. Sure, she tried setting fire to the Achaean's horse, but that went nowhere. Mostly it's just been pure, paralyzing dread. For ten years.)
(But now she knows that the future she sees can be changed. She saw Astyanax die. But now he's alive and well, and the walls of Troy are growing ever more distant. She saw herself die alongside Agamemnon dozens of times, but those visions stopped the night The Stranger arrived.)
(She doesn't know if Maedhros is the relevant variable here, or why he seems to so easily defy the will of the Olympians, but she's not letting him out of her sight until she figures it out. His being a bear is just a temporary setback. You know how in Groundhog Day timeloop stories the protagonist eventually reaches a point where their sense of self-preservation dulls and they just start throwing everything at the wall to try and alter the loop? That's Cassandra right now.)
Bear!Maedhros is the happiest he's been in centuries. Having been brought down to the level of a reasonably smart dog, he's lost the higher reasoning necessary for feelings like guilt, existential dread, etc. He does vaguely miss his brothers, although he can't remember why. He knows that the people around him are his friends and they keep bringing him fish. Mostly he's just enjoying taking a long nap in the sun.
Initially it seems that the Trojans are in a bind. Maedhros was the one who knew how to work the sail (no Trojan has touched a boat in ten years), and there's no way two dozen or so women, children, and a handful of injured men are making it any great distance rowing a warship.
Then the wind picks up. They fix the sail as best they can, and despite the fact that no one really knows how to steer the wind keeps them moving in more or less the same direction. Soon an island appears on the horizon, a tropical paradise that seems like the perfect spot to rest and renew their supplies. Perhaps one of the gods still favors them!
In the clouds above, Eros wonders why his mother dragged him out here. She didn't need him for the bear curse -- Ares did that, and it didn't take much to convince him that having a bear for a son was even better than having a seven-foot demigod son.
Of course Aphrodite insists that The Stranger is Hephestus's son, not hers and Ares'. Eros concedes that it's kind of nice to see her showing some regard for -- or at least possessiveness towards -- poor Hephestus for a change. Or at least it would be, if such feelings had not been manifested in Aphrodite kicking down the door to her son's palace and flinging bags of millet seed at his wife while accusing her of stealing her man.
At least she seems to be in a better mood now. In fact, she looks like a cat that's eaten an entire aviary's worth of canaries as she watches the Trojans explore the island and stumble upon Circe's palace. They have two oracles of Apollo amongst them. It doesn't take them long to deduce whose island they've landed on.
As they plead with Circe to break the enchantment on their friend (They think he's a son of Prometheus, and thus a distant relation of hers. She's a bit confused as to why they want a perfectly good bear turned back into a man, but seems willing to help nonetheless), Aphrodite nudges Eros to take up his bow.
"Pay attention, sweetie. Mommy's about to show you what's called 'a pro gamer move.'"
Long overdue, but here's a quick doodle of Beardhros (and Cassandra). Might do some more later.
Helenus: We're certainly not going to hurt him, but if we could just find a suitable island to leave him on...
Cassandra: Absolutely not.
Helenus: It's not safe to keep him.
Cassandra: The visions only started changing after he arrived. He stays, or I'm going to start lighting things on fire.
Andromache: Cassandra, he's a bear.
Cassandra: So you're telling me that we have no means of speaking with him, his intentions are inscrutable to us, and, while he seems amicable to us for the moment, he could kill everyone on this ship if he so desired?
I somehow never saw that @catcas22 had replied to my reply in the first place. Yeah, Cassandra is desperate. She is guarding that bear with her life. She is... actually, is she leading the charge to go to Circe to get him turned back? Considering her foresight, she may well see the results Aphrodite's curse for Circe & Maedhros ahead of time. OTOH, she knows that Maedhros is correlated with horrific visions not coming true, even if not necessarily their cause; and that possibility of causation is enough for her to do most anything. I can see her foreseeing horrible consequences of bringing Beardhros to Circe, but gambling on the hope of person!Maedhros being able to prevent the worst of them once reverted. Not that anyone else would listen to her warnings about Circe anyway, but Cassandra actively petitioning Circe, trying to avert her horrific vision by leaning into it instead of trying to warn people... Cassandra's stubborn as hell, continuing to try to warn people, trying to set fire to the Trojan horse. What a part of the story that would be, Cassandra white-knuckling it through petitioning Circe for aid, knowing it will likely end in the wrath of a sorceress, but that there is the potential for her to circumvent fate, as she has never stopped trying to do. And this time she succeeds!
Alternately, the idea of Cassandra and her Attack Bear is hilarious to me.
The @tolkienekphrasisweek week prompt for fiber arts was about collaboration-- the impressive effort and collaboration that go into fashion and fiber arts; and the way that this group effort can be elided in favor of the narrative of a lone fashion auteur. I thought that the rise and fall of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain really embodied this. They accomplished such heights of learning and craft together as a brotherhood! And they fell at Sauron's violent insistence on his sole ownership of the ring lore.
I 'faceted' the capelet with metallic embroidery floss, to represent the jewels of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain, and embroidered a spring of holly on the lapel. The 'faceted' design on the back is based on the side view of a princess cut diamond. Bunn carved the buttons of holly, Eregion's namesake. The wood for the buttons was sourced from Bunn's instrument-maker friend, furthering the theme of collaboration and friendship.
THREE buttons:
1 for elven kings
1 for dwarf lords
1 for mortal men
The holly wood was grown, cut and seasoned in the West, was sent across the sea, given in England to make parts for harpsichords, given again in Wales to make buttons, and then given a third time back across the sea.
Thank-you to all of my new Internet stranger friends for being so gracious about having my post shoved onto your dashboards. I loved reading all of your kind tags and comments! Both Martin and Bosco have been gone for several years now but for 24 hours, they felt very present in my life. I greatly appreciate this gift. ❤️
