Headcanon explained/character study- Elu Thingol, part 8
Alone of the Elvenkings of the First Age, Elu Thingol did not underestimate Morgoth. When Morgoth returned to Middle-Earth, Melian recognised his dark powers at once, and told Elu immediately. Of course, they had both already dreaded it, with the number of orcs that journeyed over the Ered Luin steadily increasing, but that was still a grim conversation. Worse, the Eglath were not truly ready for open war as was soon declared upon them, and Elu had to leave Menegroth with very little time to prepare.
Galadhon looked forward to it, looked forward to driving the enemy once and for all out of the lands that were their home, and so did his son Galathil, but they were the only ones among the royal house of Eglador who did. Elu himself feared the war, the horrors he would inevitably face there, the destruction of his realm, but most of all he feared for the lives of those he loved the most.
He and Galadhon lead many long arguments prior to their riding to war, because Elu did not want his nephew to ride with him, but Galadhon’s mind would not be swayed. And with Galadhon being among his most able captains, Elu really had no argument against Galadhon’s riding to war- except that he simply didn’t want him on battlefield.
But Galadhon won, and rode to war, and so did Galathil as Elu’s banner-bearer.
It was a teary farewell all around, and Elu himself was no exception to this. Melian begged him under tears to come back to her, he begged her to keep their city and its inhabitants safe in return. But his heart still ached as they rode off, clad in the amour the Dwarves had made for them, sending desperate emissaries to Denethor in Ossiriand and Círdan in the Falas.
The battle went very bad from the start, for Galadhon fell even in the first onslaught. Elu, beside himself with terror and grief, knelt beside his dying nephew, and it was only thanks to Mablung that he himself survived that little stunt, for had not Mablung jumped off his own horse to parry every stroke the orcs aimed at his king, Elu would probably have died before Galadhon breathed his last. It was one of the more striking examples, as though needed, that Elu was not a warlord and would never become one, for while jumping off his horse to kneel beside Galadhon and pulling off his helmet so as to being able to talk more freely was a very normal reaction for a bereft uncle, it was an utterly idiotic move for a king- positively presenting his unprotected head and neck to the enemies.
Yet still, thanks to Mablung, Elu survived unscathed. Still adamant to protect Galadhon’s body from the orcs that raided the battlefield to feast on the fallen elves, Elu himself buried it, aided once again by Mablung. And though that was at least a small closure, it also proved to be another terrible mistake, again one very typical for Elu to make- he put his own family above the war (which in itself is not a problem, or it wouldn’t be a problem for anyone but the king), and so delayed riding on by an hour or so. And this hour cost Denethor, his guards and family, their lives.
It was at this moment, when he stood on Amon Ereb beside the bodies of Denethor and his house, that Elu reached his breaking point. Having fought for days, and been very stressed out for even longer, and then being subject to his own terrible grief and guilt, he snapped, chasing after those orcs that had managed to flee the fight. He killed blindly, without caring for neither his nor anyone else’s safety.
It was this reckless charge that earned Elu’s sword its name, Aranrúth, the king’s ire. He deemed it fitting, in the end. Not only because it had been rightly named, but also because this was how he viewed warfare in general- as an act of aggression and wrath, not one of glory. Something shameful. That was the meaning of battle for him from then on, a fact that would later influence both his actions against Morgoth and his attitude towards the Noldor.
After the battle, he retreated to Menegroth, and though he had been victorious, it did not feel like victory at all, not when he had the grim task to tell Elmo and Thônwen of the death of Galadhon, and Denethor, too. Worse, still, was the fact that he had survived more or less unhurt. It would have been different had he only just made it home alive, but he had won the battle, he was well, and as good as unharmed, while so many people who had fought for him had died. And seeing the pain in Elmo’s eyes when he delivered the news made him wish he was one of them.
He knew then that he would and could not ride to battle again. So he called everyone he could reach to the his forest realm that Melian then fenced with her enchantments, thus creating Doriath. Elu aided her in it, always having been her anchor to the ‘substance of Arda’, but he did so with a heavy heart. Most of all because that meant abandoning Círdan, his cousin, who had been so faithful to him that he had forsaken Valinor for him. Círdan whom he loved. But there, reason murmured. He had no chance to reach Círdan, and any attempt could only result in the death of many of his men. And after all, Círdan was safe behind the walls of Eglarest and Brithombar.
Still, that did not assuage his guilt, nor change the undeniable fact that he abandoned Círdan.
And into all this mess, the Noldor arrived, along with the sun and moon.
And Elu really had no idea what to make of it. For one, those princes came as warlords, with keen swords and shining armour, and the military force to drive back the orcs and make a true effort at defeating Bauglir. And they came out of the West, the Blessed Realm the Elu himself had failed to reach again, the Blessed Realm where Melian came from. To think that anyone would return with such anger burning in their hearts was outright frightening for Elu, for he had deemed the West a place free of warfare, of the necessity of weapons.
And they were Finwë’s people, and that was probably the most troubling thing about them. Elu had grown up with Finwë, knew him better than almost anyone else, and he knew of the heat that had ever slumbered in his friend’s heart, driving him to valour and generosity and passion, but also unthought-through actions and arguments that could grow to fights in the blink of an eye. And speaking of Finwë… if he had not lead his sons and grandsons back to Ennor, then what had happened to him? Could he not lead them, or would he not?
His wonder soon turned into outright annoyance, however, as soon as the Noldor freed the Falas and claimed realms of their own within Beleriand. Now, for the saving of Círdan and his people Elu knew that he should have been grateful. And he was, only… they were his people, and he would eventually have mustered the strength- maybe not to save the cities but at least to get whoever wanted to Doriath.
But it never came to it. The Noldor raided the lands, drove out the orcs and were greeted in gratitude and wonder by his people. Elu could not pretend it did not sting, even though he had simply not had the military strength nor the strategic skill to protect them as he ought to have done. It was that almost more than the realms they claimed that make him survey them rather grumpily, something that Melian seconded. She never trusted the Noldor, and counselled caution, to which Elu whole-heartedly agreed.
After all, even though the subject of Círdan irked Elu more than the invasion into his realm, that did sting, too. After all, they came here behaving as though all the Eglath were a bunch of uncivilised hunters and gatherers who needed saving, by sword as much as culture.
And then of course Angrod and Galadriel came to Menegroth, asking for entry and claiming they were Olwë’s grandchildren. Now this was something unexpected, strange, and yet very intriguing. For one, it meant that somehow, Finwë and Olwë had joined their houses, which was wonderful, it was what Elu would have wanted had fate somehow asked his opinion, and yet, it left him feeling rather lonely. Olwë had truly taken his place.
But that hardly mattered in the light of finding out how his brother fared, and though Elu saw Ingwë’s features in Angrod and Galadriel more than either Finwë’s or Olwë’s, Galadriel still unmistakably had Finwë’s eyes, and his fiery determination -stubbornness, one could say-, yet also his kindness. And Angrod, though golden-haired like his sister, so unlike both his grandfathers, twisted his fingers in precisely the same way Olwë did when he was nervous. And that more than anything else broke the ice between them.
So from the start, Elu had no reservations against the house of Finarfin, and gladly let his niece (well, niece’s daughter, but I have already stressed the point here a couple of times that generations really did not matter amongst the Elves) stay with him. Melian was more cautious, even though she quickly befriended Galadriel. She reasoned that there was an air of darkness even around the children of Eärwen, and that they did not yet know them. Elu agreed to this, though air of darkness or no, they were still family, and he did what he could to support them, be it with Galadriel or later Finrod, whom he told of the caves that would later become Nargothrond.
Ok, ok, can we pause the headcanon-telling here and just honour this fact? Like, Elu ‘But the lord of Beleriand am I’ Thingol tells Finrod where he can build his halls, where from he can rule, knowing full well that simply by Elvish law, Finrod is a king of the Noldor and will answer to Fingolfin as his High King, not Elu himself. And also, Nargothrond and Menegroth are fairly close to each other, so Finrod is in fact actively taking territory in the lands Elu claims as his own. Yet he’s fine with that.
And yes, this is important when it comes to understanding the character of Elu Thingol, because it once again shows that power doesn’t really matter to him. Family does. And also respect. Because what he tells Angrod to relay to his cousins was essentially that they must accept him as High King if they wanted to have dealings with his people or dwell in his lands, but nothing more. They were not required to swear fealty or pay any form of tribute, the only requirement was that they acknowledge him as lord. Finrod certainly did that, and Fingolfin (!) did that (says HoME), which allowed both High Kings to exist side by side. Fingolfin’s children may or may not have done the same thing- we simply don’t know.
What does that tell us about Elu’s character traits, then? We can safely say that he really didn’t care about power in the sense of ‘I’m the one who decides how everything goes’. He is not Sauron. He also is adamant that people should make their own decisions, and live under their own right. He says so when going on the March, he shows this in the way the Falathrim and the Nandor live under his rule, which is as an independent people, that have Elu’s protection (though this goes both ways, so there surely was some kind of a vassal-liege-system in place, but then again, these were his people from the start), but are free to make their own decisions. And it seems that those free decisions are really important to Elu, because that’s one of the things he explicitly tells the lords of the Noldor- that the freedom of his people who live in the north (yes, those northern Sindar for whom he ‘bore little love’) should under no circumstances be comprised. On the other hand, he did nothing whatsoever against those precise people choosing to live under the rule of the Noldor rather than his.
He does a similar thing later also with Haleth, but I will talk about Men in a different post, so that is for later.
But there’s a very interesting twist to this. Because while I don’t think that anyone who has actually read the Silmarillion can claim that he is after power, he IS quite touchy whenever his position is questioned, be that by the sons of Fëanor (or the Noldor in general. I love how he tells them essentially to watch their manners), or his taking offence in not being told about the appearance of Men, or Beren’s impertinence making an already stained encounter much worse, or even his reaction when Nellas tells him what to do (he is quite gentle there, and also essentially does exactly what she tells him, but still he insists on being the one in charge). Oh, and Túrin also, whom he tells -again very kindly- that he does not plan on entering open warfare in the foreseeable future when Túrin insists to go fight Morgoth.
Why, though? Why bother to insist on power he never plans on wielding? Is this just an ego-thing, then?
Maybe, but I don’t think so (no surprises there, of course I read him in the most lenient way possible), and I have textual evidence to support this theory, too. Again, he never insists on choosing for other people, he never claims to know better. Even when banning Quenya, even when demanding the Silmaril, he remains quite humble. Yes, I mean that (because I know some of you will just now have spluttered something like ‘Thingol and humble? Ha!’. He bans Quenya, but specifically says that ‘never again in my ears shall be heard…’. In HIS ears. He does not pretend he has power over what the Noldor do amongst themselves, as would be expected from someone who is too full of himself. And he also bans Quenya ‘while his rule lasts’. Now, he is an Elf, moreover one of the High-Elves, he does not have an expiration date, so to say. He could essentially do as Ingwë does and rule forever, through all the endless Ages of Arda, until the start of the Dagor Dagorath. Moreover, he has the protection of one of the Divine, there is no reason for him to anticipate that his rule could ever end. But he does anticipate it. He knows of his own fallibility. He knows that he can -and likely will- at some point find his end, and he plans on taking his ban with him to Mandos. It was a ban borne of a personal grudge and when he leaves Middle-Earth, so does all his legislation.
And when he asks for the Silmaril, which is without any doubt the most overbearing moment we see of him, he never asks it as bride-price for Lúthien. Yes, go on, get your copy of the Silmarillion and read again. It is Beren who talks of Lúthien as a possession, and the Silmaril as the price for her. Elu sells his permission for Lúthien to marry, not Lúthien herself. ‘…and then, IF SHE WILL (!), Lúthien may set her hand in yours…’. And no, Lúthien as his daughter does not need his permission to marry, Lúthien as crown-princess and sole heir of his throne does.
(Not saying that he was in the right there, though, not even remotely. Especially since he would have opposed that marriage with all his might even had he been an ordinary elf. And he would have done so regardless of who or what Beren was. Lúthien was his little girl and the idea of anyone touching her probably made him quite sick. He will not have been the first father, and even less the last, who has had these sentiments. Not that that’s an excuse, but just saying, it’s quite a common thing).
What is it then, if not ego, that makes him so insistent about the inviolability of his rule?
Insecurity. Quite plainly. The more insecure one is, the touchier. He does not sure about himself at all (we are going back into headcanon here, admittedly), and above all, he is not sure about himself the moment the Noldor arrive. For two ages of Arda, he ruled in (almost) perfect peace, and then Morgoth returns and brings the first battle upon Eglador. And Elu is not as victorious as the published Silmarillion claims. Yes, he survives the battle, and his army has the upper hand on battlefield, but that is about it. He is forced to retreat to the very core of his realm (we remember here, ALL of Beleriand was his), is cut off completely from Círdan and -worst of all- loses Denethor. Denethor upon whom he has called in the first place. Denethor who would very much be alive had he just allowed him to remain where he was.
Can you imagine the guilt? And yes, that Elu Thingol was by no means above guilt is hinted so heavily I would dare call it proven.
So really, Elu is not quite in the position where he can truly ‘hold his own’, to put it in Maedhros’ words. Melian holds their realm for them, or at least the small portion of it that becomes Doriath.
And into this, the Noldor come, and claim realms within his realm without really paying him much respect. We have already established that he had no problem with sharing power per se, but he is the one who has to grant it. He wants (and probably needs) control.
But I digressed quite a bit here, and there really are two more things I want to talk about, which is the Quenya-ban in more detail and his attitude towards Fingolfin and his people, which again tells us quite a bit about his character.
Now, I know there are many people who consider the ban of Quenya to be linguistic genocide, and I won’t lie, every time I read that I get rather angry. Not so much because the light it sheds on my favourite character but the implication it has for people who really fell victim to linguistic genocide, which is sadly a very real thing.
Linguistic genocide is committed by a government (be that an autocratic ruler or a political party) against a minority that lives within the territory of said government (and often has done so before modern borders were drawn), but either has another ethnicity or speaks another language, or both. Russia -both during Soviet-times and later- did this a lot to the finno-ugric people, as has China. Or -to add an example a bit closer to home for me- so did and do Austria and Italy. It is a means of weakening or entirely extinguishing minorities by forbidding them to speak their language, or -more commonly- simply not giving them the opportunity to. There is no television, no radio in said language, they are forced to learn and use the official language of the country to be able to have any dealings at all with administration or health-care, their native language is not taught in schools. This then leads to the assimilation of the minority into the larger ethnicity, and more often then not causes the language to go extinct. And with it die the folklore and customs of these people. And this is why we talk there about linguistic genocide.
Seems like the Quenya-ban? No, it doesn’t, actually. Quenya was -and is- still spoken in its native country, which is Aman, untouched by the ban. It was the Noldor who took their language with them back to Middle-Earth. They were not the natives there. Also, for many years before the Quenya-ban, the Noldor had already started to use Sindarin in mixed communities, not because the Sindar told them to learn the language of the country (which, while being an arseholey move is not linguistic genocide), but because they had an easier time learning Sindarin than the Sindar had learning Quenya.
Also, once Quenya was banned, it was banned only within the realm of Elu Thingol. The Noldor were perfectly able to use their language among themselves, and were only banned to talking to the Sindar in Quenya for as long as Elu’s rule lasted. And while this would be enough to kill off a human language, it is not enough to kill off an Elvish language. The Quenya-ban existed for roughly 500 years. No Elvish tongue goes extinct in 500 years.
And people -native to their lands or migrated there- who did nothing wrong whatsoever to deserve to be discouraged from speaking their own language, the Noldor did commit a crime, a crime that directly affected Elu and his people. The slaying of Elf by Elf is something the Sindar haven’t even imagined before hearing of it, which is something humans probably can’t even imagine. We grow up with the knowledge that murder exists, Elves before the first kinslaying did not. Also, the people that were murdered in Alqualondë had once been Elu’s own people, and he probably still felt a sense of responsibility over them. And even if he didn’t and the emotional side of it is only my headcanon, they were the people of Elu’s little brother. Yes, he was perfectly entitled to lay punishment on those who killed his kin -and the kin of his people- or ask for weregild. And with that in mind, the Quenya-ban was a) a very unbloody way of a punishment, and b) really more symbolic than anything else, because as I said, Sindarin was already the language in use by the time Elu heard of the kinslaying and banned Quenya from his realm.
One last thing to talk about here when talking about the Noldor (and I’m just now laughing a bit because this turns into defending Elu rather than being headcanon-writing, but I’ve simultaneously been working on my Mereth Aderthad-presentation and it seems that rubbed off), and that is his reaction to Fingolfin. When he sends Angrod and Finrod away after finding out about the kinslaying, he tells them that he will not ban them forever from his table (if they are willing to return. Ah, I love these little double-takes of his so much. He’s so careful never to force anybody and I really really love that), that he will not be angry at them for something they didn’t do, but he also says that he’ll keep friendship (albeit a rather cool one in my opinion) with Fingolfin and his house, because Fingolfin has payed dearly for the wrongs that he did. And this is rather remarkable, because he’s really angry because of the kinslaying, but he still feels that Fingolfin has already been punished enough by having to cross the Helcaraxe.
And this brings me back, only for a few sentences, to headcanon-telling:
Elu simply could not find it in him to cut ties with Fingolfin and his people as he did with the sons of Fëanor. They had payed enough. Just imagining crossing the Helcaraxe on foot, with all these people… he could not help but feel deeply sorry for Fingolfin. He knew it both- how hard it was to lead people on a journey that asked everything of them, the losses that could’t truly be mourned, the regret of having come at all, the gnawing uncertainty of what awaited them, or how many would be left when they finally reached their destination- and the bitter ice of the Helcaraxe. Because he, too, had once crossed it. Given, he had been on Nahar’s back then, and at least at times sat snuggled between his friends -they had taken turns so that everyone could properly warm up sometimes- and always well looked after by Oromë, but the Helcaraxe had still left its impression on him.
So he understood what Fingolfin had been through, and also that this was quite punishment enough.
(I haven’t done on of these in forever, mostly because I was kinda doing the same thing for my Mereth Aderthad presentation and paper, but now that’s over, I’m back at it)