“but Curufin was most interested in the alien language of the Dwarves, being the only one of the Noldor to win their friendship. It was from him that the loremasters obtained such knowledge as they could of the Khuzdul.”
This line is SO fascinating to me not just bc diversity win! This war criminal is autistic but imagine:
You’re an elf from the Third Age perhaps trying to build better relations with the Dwarves. You decide to consult the loremasters and they all tell you much knowledge about the Dwarves is lost and what they have is very limited. They recommend you some books and you spend a week browsing the archives.
The first book you read is about Dwarven traditions, written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. Well you don’t want to be politically incorrect and read a book by a Kinslayer so you find another book. Maybe about their language, you should learn their language. Perfect! There are a few books about Khuzdul. You open the book. It’s written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. Whatever, maybe the next one will be-
It’s written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. And the next. And also the next. Every single book you can find is written by Curufinwë Fucking Atarinkë. You are reduced to panicky tears.
But when you are about to give up Varda herself graces you a book NOT written by Curufinwë Atarinke and you read the whole thing in two days. You check the sources.
i keep thinking about eol and curufin’s meeting and just how ridiculous it is if you think about it because it establishes that
Curufin hates this random guy who was just introduced this chapter for seemingly no reason at all
Celegorm also somehow knows this guy and hates him. How the fuck did CELEGORM meet Eol??? Did Curufin complain about this stupid elf guy at Nogrod to him?
He SOMEHOW knew that said random guy kidnapped Aredhel and unconsensually married her but presumably couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.
Eol’s vibes ars SO bad and Curufin hates him SO MUCH that if he had actually accompanied Aredhel and Maeglin, Curufin would’ve told them all to fuck off (or some other mean thing)
This also implies that potentially Curufin disapproves of their marriage not just because it’s nonconsensual, but because 1. It’s Eol 2. He’s a Sinda
Once again he knew Eol kidnapped a daughter of the Noldor. HE THEN PROCEEDED TO TELL EOL WHERE AREDHEL AND MAEGLIN WENT ANYWAY.
There is a proper time for slaying as determined by the laws of the Eldar
Curufin invented the “Had It Not Been For the Laws of This Land, I Would Have Slaughtered You” meme in 1977
Part of Curufin’s complaint against Eol was that he did not give gifts
Even though this guy who clearly kidnapped his wife is now chasing his wife running away from him, Curufin is like “ohh… it’s too bad that they have family drama… not my problem lol”
being born a girl probably helped curufin elevate to feanor’s favorite status. suddenly she is the Special Daughter out of four sons and the Youngest and The Best and looks just like papa also!
and of course curufin still gets fed the you must be like papa thing. since you look just like your papa. but then suddenly little curufinwe is wondering if she is just like papa why is she not a boy
i imagine at first they try to get her to do embroidery and she hates it so much throws such a fit every time. the forge is what her heart yearns for. i’m not sure how gendered the society of valinor is so i will mostly leave societal gendering and gender roles out
but curufin dislikes being the only daughter very much. it feels weird and alienating and like she’s not like anyone else but in a bad way. she realizes this quite early on in childhood but doesn’t know what being trans of gender is
i think curufin would go through some kind of self discovery in elf teen years where he decides being a woman is wrong. This is all wrong. I don’t know what i am but i’m not a woman and i hate being a woman. And he is horrified to grow breast tissue and probably starts wrapping stuff around his chest to make himself seem flatter
Unfortunately Curufin still likes men. And he still thinks being gay is wrong. and when feanor arranges a marriage between him and a nice handsome man he is mortified on both fronts because men cannot like men. it’s wrong for a man to like other men. but then does that not mean he isn’t a man. it’s the most dysphoric situation he’s ever been put in and he wants to claw his face off. hates his husband even though he actually is attracted to his husband for once
and then the whole must make an heir thing is even worse. he likes the sex but it happened in his vagina which means he is Not A Man and he’s a Fake and a Disgusting Liar and (curufin has a horrible breakdown afterwards.)
oh dear he’s pregnant he is going to jump off the peak of taniquetil. this is the most miserable curufin has ever been. everything is wrong and he is Not A ManTM and everyone can see it. he hates his father for imposing something he’s never wanted, hates himself for coming out wrong and being wrong, hates everyone else for not seeing what he really is (a man)
curufin does not see tyelpe for the first few years of his life. he can’t deal with it physically or emotionally. nor does he want to talk about his son. tyelpe to him is everything that he both should be and can’t be because of his sex and he Hates That Stupid Child
whereas cis curufin does warm up to tyelpe, i think trans curufin’s always a bit distant. i’m sure this will be great for tyelpe’s mental health
lowkey i think when the oath started there was a bit of an expectation for curufin to stay behind with tyelpe. after all he’s a woman surely what business does he have fighting against morgoth. maybe he stays in the camps and helps with supplies at most. but no he is the first to raise his sword and swear the oath
the burning of the ships is also symbolic for him. he’s finally burning away the expectations of an identity he never wanted and never was. he can be just as much a monster as the men. in fact i think the kinslayings actually affirm his identity as a man because here he is. here he is, sword in hand, drawing blood and cutting down any that stands in his way. just like his father and his brothers. here he is, burning down the last thing tying them to the horrors of aman. beleriand is a new beginning for him and he refuses to ever be tied down by womanhood again
feanor dies. curufin is fucking devastated. he swears to himself to always follow in his father’s footsteps and act as he would have
I think feanor was very much like… an ideal version of what being a man is to curufin. he adopts feanor as an identity internally and it affirms his gender in such an addicting way that he doesn’t want to stop being feanor. he likes to be seen as dangerous and an actual threat. the power makes him feel more like a man. because i think by this point he’s realized that there is no place for women in the elven power struggle, even if his birth order means that he’ll never even be a candidate for the crown without four of his brothers dying. but he’s internalized power as masculinity so he seeks to accumulate more of it and feel that power to validate his identity
side tangent but trans curufin rarely has sex and usually avoids it. it makes him too dysphoric and the intersectioning of homophobia + his gender problems makes it completely miserable mentally even if he does physically like the experience. and being naked makes him feel too vulnerable which is in conflict with his need for power
tldr: diversity win! this trans guy is on a massive power trip and he fucking loves it
probably incoherent ramblings about Curufin (and Maedhros)
a lot of this is inspired by my convo with @gezelligheiid because marcus is so smart and cool and awesome. yay <3
Writing this in bullet points so my thoughts won’t have to be organized. I am terrible at writing organized metas.
also I have given up on giving this post a theme beyond Curufin Is Crazy so here is just me rambling for twenty minutes
Important context out of the way first: it is very necessary to me that Maedhros and Curufin are foils. What?? Maedhros in post about Curufin? I know! But Marcus is just so slay and epic and writes the only Maedhros ever so it’s okay don’t get too upset yet
Anyway Maedhros and Curufin are foils, both in personality and story progression and the way they fuck up their own lives. And even though they insist they hate eachother so much (and they do hate eachother but also they don’t. but they do) they’re very all tangled up in eachother’s messes
I think it’s very important that whereas Maedhros has a sudden goes up in flames and becomes a completely different person suddenly (yes over 20 some years but to everyone it seemed sudden), Curufin’s downfall is a lot slower and insidious, to the point where not even he knows it’s happening. Even as he’s bleeding out and dying in the second kinslaying he’s convinced that he’s always been like this, even though Curvo from five hundred years ago wouldn’t have even dreamed of killing Finrod the way Curufin did
They both think that they’ve been wronged in their lives but the way they handle it is so different. Mae may be a big rampaging beast but he has values he adheres to. Mae does not hurt the kids or the innocent or those who are hurt like him but Curufin does. Curufin, I think, indiscriminately blames everyone for all of his pain and he wants everyone to pay for it. He’s very good at hiding this part of him because he is aware that this is not how you make political allies, but the almost sensible and scheming Curufin is a mask to hide the amount of hate that’s been slowly growing in his heart. This is very important to how I write him— he’s not evil or a dick for no reason, he feels justified in doing all of these terrible things both because the ends will justify the means, but also everyone deserves the terrible things he’s doing. He’s been slowly unraveling for so long that I think he can’t recognize how far he’s fallen.
This also goes for the identity of Nelyo vs Maedhros and Curvo vs Curufin. Nelyo and Maedhros are more two distinct identities, but Curufin isn’t that far seperated from Curvo. I think Curufin is more like a vine that has slowly enveloped Curvo (a statue left in some garden), because even as it grows and grows you can still recognize the statue for what it is. Until one day the vine has completely overtaken the statue and now you’re not quite sure what it is.
Curufin’s unraveling has always been happening too. I don’t think there is ever a moment where he isn’t slowly losing grip on who he once was, because that’s what the Oath does to you, but it grows exponentially worse after the Nargothrond incident
I think that’s the moment where he really begins to think that there’s nobody in the world he can trust that isn’t himself or Celegorm. And I can’t imagine Maedhros exactly reacted well to them suddenly showing up at Himring, but it definitely made Curufin’s problems worse.
And it makes them being foils even better because near the end of his life, after Mae and Mags steals the kids, Maedhros can at least get some of his old self back. He’s slowly getting back to who he used to be (for a while shhh shut) and he’s not so one track mind on the Oath now. But Curufin’s final moments are spent fearing and hating everything and everyone, including almost all of his own family members. And he dies with all that hate in his heart having gone nowhere
Unfortunately due to his various problems he is incredibly difficult to actually rehabilitate. I think he’s the type of person who finds it hard to let go of things. He’s been holding onto so much of his pain and his feelings and that mask he’s made of himself for so long that even if it does him more harm to keep carrying it, letting go would mean he’s made himself suffer this long for no reason. And then he would have no more reason to justify all the things he’s done. I don’t think Curufin is capable of this.
Which leads him to the decision of staying in Formenos if he does reembody. It’s not good for him at all, he’s the most isolated he’s ever been and he hasn’t recovered enough where Formenos isn’t just another reminder of his past, but also Curufin is trying to desperately to cling onto it because it’s really the only thing he knows.
And Formenos is also tied to his beloved and beloathed father who he has still not developed normal feelings about. Taking care of the fortress to him is like a way of keeping Fëanor’s memory alive, because Curufin is never going to see him again. So he stays in the old fortress like a ghost from a time that has long since passed, still unable to move on. Formenos is both a home and a prison to him, the thing keeping him going but also the thing that keeps him stuck. There’s both nothing here still worth keeping alive, but Curufin thinks if he leaves, it’s like killing a part of himself. Many feelings about this damn fortress. #HisFortress
No you cannot live with him. He wants no visitors. Not even his own brothers. He very much wants to be left alone to his own devices even if it’s not good for him, because he’s still convinced that eveeryone hates him for what he’s done (he may be correct). It’s easier to just stay in the prison he’s built than go “home” to have to prostrate in front of everyone for simply existing.
And this is where I bring Maedhros back again (yay!) because a lot of his Weird Feelings About Being Wronged come from Maedhros (double yay!). Curufin’s always felt like Mae hated him for reasons he couldn’t understand, for reasons not entirely his fault but whom the blame is placed on. I don’t want to make it out like Mae is solely why Curufin is so ill-adjusted because that’s also not true, but he has a hand in it. He doesn’t want to go back home just to have Mae despise him again for reasons he can’t understand so he just doesn’t go home, probably ever. Maybe he does if I want him to be happier but I think Curufin will always have a hard time feeling like he belongs anywhere that isn’t back in Formenos, rotting away by himself
Why doesn’t he have a happy end you may ask. Good question! And the answer is I really don’t know. He can have a happy ending, but I feel like it doesn’t suit him. I think his character development is that he struggles to have one, almost. He developes but he gets worse for it, not better. And in the end he’s stuck in a loop of can’t get better so he refuses to be better which puts him in situations where he can’t get better so then he further refuses to be better. He’s a beautiful funhouse mirror of his own demons called Being Stuck Forever.
Okay I think that’s it I have so much more to say but it’s just elaboration on things I’ve said. I love him so much your honor they don’t call me tumblr user curufiin for no reason
