#team edain

[anghraine]

I love the Númenóreans for a lot of reasons (peak problematic faves!), but a big one is how much they love the Edain.

[askandreth]

The Edain and the vassal system: a survival strategy

I am quite tired of some voices slandering the Three Houses of the Edain, criticising them for agreeing to be vassals to the Elves.

First of all, the Haladin do not pledge fealty to any Elven Lord. They have friendly relationships with Caranthir, and presumably with Thingol, but they do not wish to submit, and are left to their own devices. Their choice is respected.

Secondly, try to think about it this way. We know when the Atani awoke, only Morgoth came to them to offer guidance. The Three Houses rejected this and fled, crossed the mountains over to Beleriand, and this is where they were approached by the Elves. They had already experienced the Enemy and his tactics, they knew what he could do. So them agreeing to fight with the Elves was a wise choice.

Besides, and this is drawing from my own people's experience with the Romans, when faced with a group of people that are better organised and armed, agreeing to fight alongside then (this is important because neither the Bëorians nor the Hadorians were in the frontlines) in exchange for their protection is a smart survival strategy. They were mostly left to rule themselves, and only asked to assist in the war against Morgoth. This is a pretty sweet deal.

[tallshipsandtallkings]

Jokes that need to die in 2019:

1- Elrond should've pushed Isildur to the lava

2- Aragorn is a filthy man who never washes

[irisseireth]

The more fanfiction I write the more questions I have. For example, we know that elven typically lasts a year and they celebrate the conception, not the birth. Assuming that Edain pregnancy is the same as ours, around 38weeks How long does an interracial pregnancy last? Is it whatever race the mother is? Or the father? What happens in cases like Elwing who isn't exactly half and half? How long was Melian pregnant? And Lúthien? Did Melian freak out because she got pregnant? Did Lúthien freak out because it was shorter than expected? Did Idril? Did Dúnedain women have regular pregnancies? Did they get sick? Do elven women get morning sickness? Do they ever die of childbirth if they can't get ill? I need answers. I have so many questions.

[anghraine]

I enjoy the Dúnedain’s weird aging patterns, but I also enjoy its non-application to original flavor Edain.

Like ... yeah, there’s eternal or very long quasi-youthful beauty and I’m a fan in general, BUT some people really have to (visibly!) age into their looks to achieve peak attractiveness. Silver fox Edain are important, okay.

[askandreth]

The Edain of the First Age going from fearing Morgoth and blaming him for their misfortunes, to being responsible for his downfall like:

We are not here with you, you are here with us :)

Truly inspirational

[anghraine]

🔥 Silmarillion Elves

I really dislike the take that the Silmarillion is about “Elves behaving badly.” Apart from sidelining the Edain (much more interesting than 95% of the Elves, IMO), it downplays the reality that a few particular Elvish characters behave very much more badly than others. In fact, plenty of the Elvish characters don’t behave badly at all.

[anghraine]

under a cut for being a petulant joykill

People joking about how the Silm/First Age is all about Elves behaving badly or whatnot is not some great affront or anything. But honestly, there’s part of me that’s always a bit irritated. 

As far as I’m concerned, the Silmarillion is not all about Elves doing anything because it’s not all about Elves. 

Yes, many of the central figures are Elves and many of them do indeed behave pretty badly, at least at points. But reducing the Silmarillion to those people at those points is—right, okay, not really a big deal. But it bugs me personally that a pretty significant swath of the Silmarillion just gets overlooked or shrugged off to make everything about Elves at all times.