For this day of @tolkienocweek I’m going to talk about another OC of mine who was only a name at first and then got himself a backstory.
This one is named Sartórë. He is very, very old. Not awoken in Cuiviénen old, but born when those awoken in Cuiviénen figured out how to make babies old. So he is a second generation elf born among people who will later become known as the Noldor.
He is a wordmaker and a storyteller, but of course he is forced to take up arms against the Shadow. He becomes proficient with the lance and the sword, but it’s always with great reluctance that he raises them.
He and his fiancée plan to marry and have many children not only by procreating but also by adopting the children whose parents are gone. But before they can, his fiancée is captured and taken to Utumno.
He never again starts a relationship with anyone after that, but he does take the role of the honorary uncle to the younger generations and becomes a mentor to many, including Míriel and Finwë.
On the Great Journey, they are attacked by a group of Orcs, and among them Sartórë recognizes his fiancée. He pierces her heart with his lance and sees the gratitude in her eyes. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.
He becomes very respected in Tirion and a close adviser to the King, but Míriel’s death and Finwë’s subsequent remarriage shatters the love and trust he has for the King. He mourns Míriel as he would his own daughter and becomes very protective of Fëanor. They grow very close and with time he becomes Fëanor’s confidante and adviser. Fëanor’s sons love him and treat him like another grandfather.
But his strong relationship with Fëanor, too, comes to an end, and they grow distant. Sartórë claims that the reason is because Fëanor’s views have turned too extreme for his taste, but the reality is that he is hurt as Fëanor consuls him less and less. He is especially insulted because Fëanor never asked his opinion while working on the Tengwar. Sartórë had no idea he was working on it until it became public knowledge. Even Rúmil himself consulted him regarding the Sarati, but not Fëanor!
He also takes great offense at the casual way Fëanor dismisses his suggestion regarding the þ > s issue. Sartórë proposes to keep the thorn for proper nouns and accept the s for the rest. He considers linguistics his area of expertise and like many Noldor, he is very proud and is wounded when Fëanor doesn’t even debate him, just says no and leaves it at that. It is especially painful for him because it feels like Fëanor also dismisses his love for Míriel and his grief for her death.
After distancing himself from Fëanor, he grows close to Maedhros instead. They were already close, of course, as he has known and loved Maedhros and his brothers since the day they were born, but now his role as a mentor and adviser to Maedhros takes a more official form. He starts claiming that he sees Míriel in Maedhros (even though Maedhros resembles his paternal grandmother neither in appearance, nor in temperament) and begins if not hinting then at least thinking that he would make a better king than his father. This latter idea is at least partially due to pettiness. He feels way more appreciated and valued by Maedhros than he did by Fëanor. Even if Maedhros disagrees with him, he does it so tactfully that Sartórë doesn’t take offense. He realizes what Maedhros is doing (he’s taught him some of those strategies himself), but he feels respected, so he doesn’t care.
When Fëanor rebels against the Valar and convinces the Noldor to leave Valinor, Sartórë is privately elated. He has been feeling sort of useless in Valinor for quite some time and he misses Middle-earth. So he stays close to Maedhros, kinslays alongside him and sails away on the stolen ships. He does speak against stealing and later burning the ships, but he is of course ignored.
In Middle-earth, he becomes even more indispensable to Maedhros as he has experience fighting Morgoth’s creatures and serves as Maedhros’s closest adviser and essentially as his valet. Their relationship also changes in a way. If before Maedhros treated him as an older family member, now they become close friends.
When Fëanor bursts into flames and dies, Sartórë mourns him deeply, but a part of him (a small but quite vocal part) is relieved. Relieved because now Maedhros will be king, which he believes will bring more stability to the Noldor. The fact that it will also allow him to have more say and more power is just a welcome addition.
When Morgoth invites Maedhros to a parley, as an experienced warrior and as Maedhros’s adviser, Sartórë accompanies him. He fights fiercely, even though he’s the first one to understand that they are doomed. He is also the only one to understand that Morgoth intends to capture Maedhros instead of killing him.
As soon as he realizes this, he turns his sword against Maedhros to save him from captivity. But before Sartórë can kill him, a Balrog strikes him down. The last thing he sees before death is the confused and betrayed look of the elf he loves as a son.
Milos vipers are from the Greek island of Milos. As you might have guessed from their coloration, these venomous vipers, and others belonging to the same genus, make their home in deserts. Primarily nocturnal, red and gray color morphs like you see here help to conceal the snakes throughout the day when they are dormant.
Photo by Joel Sartore - joelsartore.com
