#silm posts

[and-the-times-we-had]

One thing that I think gets overlooked sometimes when we talk about the SoF during the time period in the text between the Nirnaeth and Sirion (especially when we talk about the Third Kinslaying) is the fact that they have also been displaced from their lands and homes ever since the Bragollach for some of them and definitely entirely so since Maedhros lost Himring to Morgoth's forces during the Nirnaeth. We have little to no indication in the text that they have any sort of home base/settlement/fortress/etc at this point in the story aside from a brief mention of Maedhros at Amon Ereb just post Nirn in the geography chapter. And I'm not sure if the text specified a fortress/building or if he was just in that general area. Point being that any time they are mentioned, the text describes them as "gathering from their wandering hunting paths" or something similar. It doesn't give me "we have a strong place that we are based out of to draw back to" vibes. I'm pretty sure they just spend like 60+ years just being nomadic post-nirn, pre-sirion. Honestly, I'm surprised they even had enough followers left to mount attacks at Doriath and Sirion at all.

It really just makes the Third Kinslaying sadder to me. It's two groups of people who have lost everything (from their perspectives) aside from the Silmaril and the hope it provides them and yeah one of them is the cause of that loss for the other but the desperation is so so clear in both of them. I'm just sad about it.

[and-the-times-we-had]

silm modern au idea where feanor and fingolfin both have to work in retail for the holiday season for whatever hardwavy reason

idk, I think it might fix them

[and-the-times-we-had]

feel like the silm fandom doesn't talk enough about the fact that Turgon enacted the first state sanctioned execution (whether it was deserved is irrelevant, it's just wild that he went for that as a choice to me) among the elves or the fact that the response of the people of Nargothrond to Curufin's speech about not following Beren and Finrod to get the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown was to "with stealth and ambush, with wizardry and venomed dart, pursue all strangers, forgetting the bonds of kinship" thus falling "from the valour and freedom of the elves of old, and their land was darkened".

some interesting choices happening in Nargothrond and Gondolin for sure.

[and-the-times-we-had]

The Oath of Feanor/the silmarils as metaphors for grief/loss and the inability to process and move forward is this anything because I'm having thoughts.....obviously they are very much their own things in the narrative but as I was thinking just now I was struck by this thought.

[and-the-times-we-had]

one of my persistent and recurrent headcanons about the first kinslaying is that one of the noldor who was "cast into the sea" was a young Celebrimbor (like whatever the elven equivalent of like 7 or 8 is). I'm picturing Feanor and Curufin working together with some of their forces to take one of the ships (the other brothers are on different ships with the rest of their forces), and they have Celebrimbor with them.

So anyways the ship theft is going down, they've made it onto the boats, there's pushing and shoving, maybe even some fist fighting happening as they try to take control of the ship, it's dark and no one can really see too clearly what all is going on amidst all the people. Celebrimbor, being a child and therefore smaller and even less easily seen, gets pushed towards the edge of the ship just by the sheer volume of people crowding the ships (both Noldor and Teleri) and no one really sees what happens exactly or knows who exactly is responsible for it, but the next thing they know, he's going over the side of the ship with a loud splash and a scream.

Now at this point, multiple things could potentially happen, but I'm generally picturing that a moment after hearing the scream amidst the rest of the noise, Curufin is the first to notice that Celebrimbor has gone over the side, and he dives in after him. Feanor draws his sword at that point, incandescent with rage at whoever has caused this and terrified at the possibility that he might lose more family members before they even make it to Beleriand, and slays the next Teleri mariner who comes his direction while Curufin is still in the water looking for Celebrimbor. Once Feanor has drawn his sword, the rest of the Noldor on the ship start drawing theirs as well, and it all spirals further from there with the fighting intensifying even as Curufin pulls Celebrimbor back into the boat. Eventually, Feanor sees that they are safe, but that is not enough to stop what has already begun.

(Other people are also being pushed off on the other boats and swords are being drawn there too out of fear, impatience, and anger in this headcanon of mine, but I'm just focusing here for now.)

[and-the-times-we-had]

one of these days I'd love to write a fic about the effects of the long term isolation of mandos on elves who are reembodied. because the psychological effects of that would be both horrifying and fascinating. especially in feanor's case since he's in there for so long. I know time in mandos is supposed to heal the elves who end up there (unless they're in there for doing bad deeds? is it different then?) but like...if the elves are a social species (which they seem to be) then isolation seems like it would just do them further harm.

[and-the-times-we-had]

hot (somewhat cracky) take:

nerdanel and anaire and the other finwean wives that stayed behind in Aman didn't decide to stay only out of pious devotion to the Valar or because they were more wise or more moral or whatever.

They just didn't want to have to put up with their husbands' constant bickering and fighting on an entirely new (to them) continent. If they stayed and their husbands left they'd finally have some fucking peace.

Nerdanel likes traveling all over Valinor, I'm pretty sure she'd enjoy exploring new places in ME. But not enough to listen to a bazillion more centuries of Feanor complaining about Fingolfin. And if Anaire has to hear one more time about how Feanor was always Finwe's favorite and why won't Feanor just see sense and let Fingolfin take over the duties of the crown since obviously Fingolfin is better suited to it she going to climb up the Pelori and live as a hermit and never return.

I'd stay too.

[and-the-times-we-had]

So having I was having a think about the "Feanor pointing a sword at Fingolfin" thing and it hit me that there was another option for who should be adjudicating justice in this situation other than the Valar.

Ingwe.

As High King of the Elves, it's kind of weird that the Valar don't have him deal with this situation. Even if Finwe is considered too biased to hold Feanor accountable, Ingwe wouldn't be, and it feels like something that should be within his authority. The Vanyar have also been largely removed from the Melkor situation, so he might have been a more unbiased judge for this as well.