I would now like to hear your thoughts on Thuringwethil please! I feel like you get her so so well!
oh haaaah i do not 'get her so well', she simply haunts me and is my blorbo, my mary sue, my silly rabbit......
What even are vampires in Tolkien? This is such a question because werewolves seem to just be large wolves. so should vampires just be large bats? Perhaps.
Personally, I enjoy taking everything about vampires in myth and just playing combo bombo: Thuri can shapeshift but only into people she's drank blood from; she can go invisible by blending with the shadows, she turns into a bat; she burns in the sunlight (which is also true of all of Melkor's followers); and she's a sexy little seductress but in a weird freak kind of way (i.e she's a creep, and monsterous, and a bit gross).
While i totally get making her a Maia and exploring which Vala she could have been servant to, there's something very fun about leaning into the thing set up via Ungoliant that evil women are 'other' and taking it further than a sex thing until they become a whole different race of creature. Listen, you can reclaim the sexism in Tolkien or you can push the boat further into the sexist waters and see what you haul up, i'm an explorer. So, i like Thuringwethil to be from the Void and run by eldritch, freaky, insect rules. Something i explore most in A Famished Kind of Love
The bat fell thing: Would love to ask Tollers how a dead vampire and a dead werewolf didn't decompose over several months while Beren was recovering from taking an arrow to the knee in the shoulder before they set off on the next part of the quest. And also who skinned their corpses? Why does Draugluin's skin disguise Beren fairly well but Thuringwethil's do nothing for Lúthien?
Personally, I've decided Thuringwethil doesn't die and that she simply sheds a leathery skin when she shapeshifts that has milder camo qualities. This is what Lúthien then picks up. It also allows for a version where Thuri willingly helps Luthien and crafts these disguises herself for them (we love her going good for gay). Or for her to be nowhere near the whole disaster and Lúthien.
I've referenced this in Our Antlers Tangled where she gives Mairon a cloak that hides his magical signature, in The Strangest Torment where she sheds her form and leaves Maglor holding a leathery skin, and fully explored it in Beast with Three Backs where Mairon questions her about it.
Loyalty: I've read versions of fanfic where Thuringwethil is loyal only to Mairon, since she was in his service in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and versions where she hates him and they catfight. Given that she's the one going back and forth between Melkor and Mairon i figure she has to be pretty loyal to them both, with enough of a preference for Mairon that she doesn't remain in Angband.
And the first thing that intriuged me about her was the bittersweet idea of her passing these lovenotes between Melkor and Mairon while being outside that relationship herself. I think that would be quite lonely and painful in a way that i like to explore. It's why i enjoy an angbangfang dynamic where she occasionally joins them for kinky times, but doesn't have a romantic place in their relationship. Perhaps some of my own aromanticism is transfered to her here, perhaps i just enjoy the dynamic of her and Mairon being sassy gay besties with benefits...
Sexuality: listen, i love lesbians as much as anyone, i do. but i cannot get my head around lesbian Thuringwethil for the same reason i can't do gay Mairon; i just think if you live long enough you end up trying everything. i've only lived thirty-odd years and i've identified as every part of the LGBTQA (not the intersex obvs, that requires medical tests). To me all immortals are bi/pan/whatever, especially the ones with strange relationships to their own gender. It just comes hand in hand. And i don't believe that has to exclude being on the aro/ace spectrum either.
Eventually, one day, i will write the dating Arien fic (Curse the Shadowed Sun) that gives me a reason to explore Thuringwethil's Void origins even further, makes for fun 'this is why vampires burn in the sun' lore (CAUSE THE SUN IS HER EX lol), and gives Thuri a reason to be pissed off with Melkor (for telling Arien she's a weird little Void critter and not a fellow Maia) while still letting him boss her around as her king (Manwë and co are not accepting of weird little Void critters).
And then there's the pre Númenor fic where she pops back into his life to console Mairon about Eregion and ends up following him to the island for fun cult of melkor times.
and then there's the Arwen/Eowyn fic where she could be a fun antagonist for them to overcome/seduce to their cause
Basically, I love her, and because of that I have massively overpowered her in my own headcanons and said this one lives forever, thanks. Which is hilarious cause the first time she's even mentioned in the Silmarillion she's already dead. Uno reverse, John.
