im constantly thinking of in the harrowing curufins little fits about his smithwork now hes in aman, and how supposedly no one has need of weaponry and how he doesnt remember how to make anything else and, ignoring partially how 'weapon' is likely being used here more as shorthand for efficient-person-killing tool, as a (very mediocre) bladesmith and knife enthusiast its so hard to read that as anything but Local Man Forgor Kitchen Knives. even putting aside the fact that a sword is just a long knife and that the mechanics of both are exactly the same with slight differences on whats prioritized, a knife is a knife is a weapon. and somehow you *can* have kitchen knives that are so so poorly balanced that i, at least, had to filter them put of my drawers because any time i picked one up i genuinely cringed it felt so icky. i knoww theres little reason for you to know anything about bladesmithing and that curufins fits are there for character growth and plot reasons. and yet i cant stop thinking about how hes having a fit when he could be making his mother a better set of kitchenware.
I mean, he fully could be making his mother a better set of kitchenware and his brothers some really excellent pocketknives, yep! His skills are transferable! Eventually, when he finishes grieving all the myriad stuff he's grieving, he'll probably figure that out!
But if you've been the guy making stuff that keeps people alive in battle, and you've spent centuries focusing on that and making it an important part of your identity, "just make a kitchen knife" is going to feel a bit like a bit of a letdown, yeah? Because he doesn't value or care about a kitchen knife the way he values and cares about a sword. He probably has a lot of very specific tricks and strategies for making really excellent person-killing tools, a lot of which are probably magic by our standards and thus not very transferable to kitchen knives. And even if they are transferable, they aren't going to save anyone's life in battle. They're just going to make chopping things nicer/safer. (Not a lot nicer/safer, probably. I'm sure Nerdanel knows enough smiths to own very good knives already.)
It's not just about the skill, it's about the lost context. The real problem is not actually that he doesn't remember how to do anything else; it's that he doesn't remember a world where anything else matters to him.
And that really sucks, and is definitely affecting his interpersonal relationships, because mindsets which are fine in a war are not always great in a domestic, non-war setting.
amandla
2087
ellievsbear
vaporwave
germansingergirl
