#mirielbeam

[catilinas]

thinking about uh. not answering and being silent as a particularly pointed form of rudeness in a culture that named itself after the ability to speak

NUANCE HOWEVER.

i just skimmed every use of the words ‘silent’ and ‘silence’ in the silm (i acknowledge there are other ways of describing this that i will have missed. they are for the reread). yes there are the passages above but there are also a lot of times where

a) the valar in particular will be silent, in thought or sometimes wonder

b) the text specifies mandos being silent, with the implication that There Is Doom He Is Not Saying On Purpose

c) other characters are silent while they think. they do reply after thinking for a bit. in some of these passages they might be pissed off and rude and Also thinking though.

but also look at this:

you could say the silence accompanies the death. you could say to not respond is to be as one who is dead. you could pessimistically [thinking of the silences of ajax and dido] read the silence of death as a deliberate rudeness of miriel towards finwë. you could say fëanor models his responses of silence on miriel.

also this:

which i categorise as a Silence Due To Thinking. but like. the mental image of melkor showing up at fëanor’s house and saying all this shit and fëanor just gives him a silent autism stare IS really good

[catilinas]

changing the trajectory of the silmarillion forever by showing miriel therindë a quenya translation of catullus 64

[catilinas]

do the right thing fëanáro kill your father etc

[catilinas]

it’s miriel all the way down babey

[catilinas]

do you guys remember alcestis from hit tragedy: alcestis. by euripides

[catilinas]

her high sharp cries / like shining needlepoints of sound ‼️‼️

[catilinas]

so basically i’m going to become the attacker

[catilinas]

melian WHAT are you doing. but also 🥺 fëanor giving jewels to the folk of lorien specifically? lorien where miriel’s body was? miriel whose name means what again? blows UP