One corollary of the "conservatives can make good art" discourse that I haven't seen talked about:
If you, an artist, aren't conservative, someone who is conservative might still enjoy your art. That is ok. Just as you might appreciate art made by a conservative, or appreciate conservative art, someone who is conservative might appreciate non-conservative art. If it's your work they like? It is no failing of yours.
i think "conservatives can't make good art" is a generally juvenile and incorrect sentiment that you'll find debunked by plenty of good art made by bad people and bad art with good politics, but it is always really stark when a piece's most monumental failings all very obviously boil down to the fact that, like, the creator does not see or write women as people with any particular interiority or purpose beyond childrearing
But Gandalf lifted up his arms and called once more in a clear voice:
‘Stand, Men of the West! Stand and wait! This is the hour of doom.’
And even as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet. Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire. The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered, and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.
‘The realm of Sauron is ended!’ said Gandalf. ‘The Ring-bearer has fulfilled his Quest.’ And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.
This is just to remind you that I love Bones and your silvergifting and EVERYTHING ABOUT IT EVER, thank you for it! <3
Thank you so much so😭I was feeling pretty shit about it for a while (for some valid reasons; there's a lot I wish I had done differently in earlier chapters to set things up better), but I do have the chapter open right now and have written some words and rearranged some passages.
For the record, here is where I'm at on chapter 9 🤡:
pretty epic how felagund turning faltering into staying is—in a battle of song—reflected in what would be a rhyming couplet concluding in his failure being resolved into a triplet where he continues instead. like the power of the song is metaleptic. yippeeeeee
Gríma Wormtongue as the Obligatory Confidant
Gandalf as the Conflict
Aragorn as the Noble Monarch Who Is Totally Not Louis XIV
Sauron as the Deus Ex Machina
Stop, Gríma, and speak with me a while.
My eyes have ne'er seen a disaster so great:
My armies are scatter’d, my men are all slain
And Elessar the King is return’d to my door.
Shall I speak with the proud Maia who rides in his train
and what of the small folk who brought my tower low?
Alas, what ruin has come to Isengard!
O glories past, O hate, O my fallen pride!
SARUMAN
Restez, Grima. Bien que Fortune me ruine
je trouve encore besoin de vos conseils si dignes.
De mes armées énormes, nul homme reste vivant
et sur les plaines d’Orthanque triomphe l’arbre argent.
Or, dois je voir le roi, le puissant Elissar?
Et l’arrogant Maia, qui suit partout son char?
Ces qui m’ont renversé, les créatures petites?
(Cette tour de telle hauteur, ont ils aux sol réduite.)
Verront-ils Saruman en guise de suppliance?
Entendront-ils mes mots serviles d’obéissance?
Hélas, mon Isengard — quelle chute as tu passée!
O gloires toutes tombées! Tombée ma fierté!
One interesting implication of the Akallabeth is that we don't have a map of Middle-earth in the Second Age. I think we can assume that the interior of Eriador remains more or less the same, but:
And all the coasts and seaward regions of the western world suffered great change and ruin in that time; for the seas invaded the lands, and shores foundered, and ancient isles were drowned, and new isles were uplifted; and hills crumbled and rivers were turned into strange courses.
What I'd do with this exactly, idk, other than having tsunamis at the time. Maybe the Grey Havens were built in the early Third Age and the earlier cities were swamped, or suddenly inland and not on the coast? Idk, I'd have to check if that's consonant with canon.
Also interesting: some Dunedain circumnavigated the globe! And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning;
It's not that I don't understand where people are coming from when the Akallabeth is read as a tale of god's judgement and punishment for men daring to challenge him, a tale of the cruelty and indifference of the Valar. I don't even think it's a wrong reading, but it's a secondary reading that to me seems not the actual point.
The point is that Numenor went down into the Sea.
That's it, that's the main point, the beauty and terror and horror and destruction and tragedy of it all. Numenor went down into the Sea and now all roads are bent.
It actually kinda pisses me off that every time there’s an adaptation of some classic work coming out, there are takes like “maybe we should not judge the adaptation compared to the original”… I think if the creator doesn’t want their work to be compared and judged on comparison, they can make literally any other type of piece. I’m not arguing for a word for word adaptation - I think those are impossible, first of all, and just not fun to strive for. But slapping a recognisable title, names and plots into your work, and then turning around and asking people not to compare your work to the original is simply absurd lol
(Finally motivated to make this because someone said the Silmarillion elves committed 'all the war crimes', and while I know, I know they were just exaggerating for comic effect it still drives me up the wall.)
First piece of housekeeping: Technically speaking war crimes are war crimes because they were defined as such in various treaties. You aren't technically violating the Geneva Conventions if you aren't signatory to them. But, they do often get talked about more like universally applicable rules.
Second piece of housekeeping: I think no one is actually accusing the Fëanorians of, like, cutting undersea communications cables or impersonating the Red Cross. There are some war crimes which are obviously not applicable and I'm not going to discuss them.
Third piece of housekeeping: There are a lot of provisions in the Geneva Conventions. Someone else can go through all of them if they like. So, I'm going to go with this list gleaned from the section of the Wikipedia page on war crimes about the international criminal court:
Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
Torture or inhumane treatment
Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property
Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial
Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer
Taking hostages
Directing attacks against civilians
Killing a surrendered combatant
Misusing a flag of truce, a flag or uniform of the enemy
Settlement of occupied territory
Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
Using poison weapons
Using civilians as shields
Using child soldiers
Firing upon a Combat Medic with clear insignia.
Summary execution
Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution or forced pregnancy
Fourth piece of housekeeping: I'm not just going to look at the Fëanorians. That's not fair. There's elves vs. other elves, elves vs. dwarves, dwarves vs. elves, Angband vs. everyone, everyone vs. Angband, etc. I should probably define some of these groups starting out but I'm not going to.
So. This will be long.
1. Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
I'm a little puzzled about this one, actually. I thought that was just… assumed to be part of war???
Killing as more than a means to some non-killing-related end???
At any rate I'm inclined to say everyone conducting war in the Silmarillion did this. I don't think anyone was trying to minimize military casualties.
2. Torture or inhumane treatment
Angband did this, obviously.
A lot.
Really a lot.
We don't have any record of any elves doing it, or dwarves, or Edain.
…Except Túrin's outlaws but they're kind of a weird circumstance.
3. Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property
(Seems like there might be a lot of wiggle room in 'unlawful'…)
Well, anyway, Angband also did this, obviously, a lot.
The dwarven sack of Menegroth counts as this.
Seizure of the swan-ships arguably counts as this one, though I'd actually hesitate on that one. I think that wasn't a war crime, that was a crime crime, because they weren't at war.
If the Fëanorians scavenged from Menegroth before leaving that probably counts, but that's speculation.
The Host of the West did destroy Angband, if you want to count that.
4. Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
Angband, yet again. It's a little less obvious here since it's not like they put prisoners in the regular army unless you count orcs, but brainwashing prisoners and sending them out as agents probably counts.
Also their treatment of prisoners of war generally violates a lot of stuff in the Third Geneva Convention.
I do not think we have grounds to say anyone else did this, partially because I'm not sure we have grounds to say anyone else ever took any prisoners.
Elrond and Elros are a gray area, but if they ended up fighting with the Fëanorians there's no reason to believe it was against anyone but Angband.
Oh, and I suppose the Host of the West took prisoners, but I'm sure they didn't do this.
5. Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial
I mean, you could say that prisoners of war in Angband got the same kind of trial that anyone else in Angband got?
But otherwise Angband again, yeah.
The Host of the West… I'm not sure. Do you count the judgments of Ëonwë as a fair trial?
Everyone else: No prisoners, not an issue.
…Look I don't know what to say about Túrin and Mîm. I'm inclined to say a lot of the outlaws' bad behavior was crime crime not war crime. I don't know.
6. Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer
Angband back in the definitely column here.
I don't think anyone else is. Sure, Menegroth and Sirion were abandoned, but it wasn't because the Fëanorians stuck around chasing people away.
7. Taking hostages
Angband, explicitly with Maedhros and I think implicitly elsewhere.
The Easterlings serving Angband also explicitly took hostages.
The Fëanorians took Elrond and Elros. It doesn't seem to have been terribly effective, but it was hostage-taking.
Celegorm and Curufin holding Lúthien could be this if you consider the Fëanorians to have been at war with Doriath at that point, but that's sort of dubious? Maybe a war crime, maybe a crime crime.
8. Directing attacks against civilians
Angband.
The Fëanorians attacked the entire communities of Menegroth and the Havens of Sirion. They may or may not have made any attempt to avoid deliberately killing noncombatants in one or both cases, but they were unavoidably attacks on civilians.
The dwarven attack on Menegroth is similarly an attack on civilians.
If you consider any orcs, trolls, balrogs, vampires, werewolves, etc. to be civilians, then the Host of the West almost certainly did this. You can argue that none of them counted as civilians; you can also argue that the Host of the West managed not to attack e.g. orc children, but I don't think that's very likely.
The Easterlings serving Angband did have civilians, but I think it's more likely the Host of the West avoided attacking those.
9. Killing a surrendered combatant
I don't think anyone is directly attested as doing this?
The overall impression one gets of the First Age is a general deficit of surrender.
But: if anyone surrendered to Angband's forces rather than trying to fight or escape until they physically couldn't, I'm sure some of them were killed (and some weren't, because Angband wanted slaves).
If any orcs/werewolves/vampires/trolls/dragons/balrogs dared to surrender rather than fight to the death or escape, I'm sure some to most of them were killed.
If any dwarves of Nogrod tried to surrender to Beren and the Ents, they were killed.
We don't know about the dwarven sack of Menegroth or any of the Kinslayings (on either side).
The Host of the West accepted at least some surrenders, but we don't know if it was all of them.
10. Misusing a flag of truce, a flag or uniform of the enemy
Angband doesn't get much of an opportunity for this because no one trusts their truces and it's not like switching flags or uniforms would help, insofar as there are uniforms.
But they did propose a negotiation under false pretenses.
Of course the Fëanorians also agreed to it under false pretenses.
The Silmaril Quest is absolutely full of people disguising themselves as Angband's forces. If you want to get pedantic about it uniforms and flags were not the key part of those disguises, but I think it's the same idea?
I feel like the Easterlings who announced their allegiance change mid-battle may also count as this?
11. Settlement of occupied territory
Angband generally prefers the scorched-earth approach, but they do settle their Easterlings in occupied territory.
No one else does this.
Like the Fëanorians had enough people left to 'occupy' anything.
(Or I guess arguably the Host of the West occupies Angband but not for very long and they definitely don't settle there.)
12. Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
Angband does some of this in the form of enslaving them back in, uh, Angband, but it's true that mostly it depopulates by slaughter and most of the survives flee with no deportation as such. It doesn't deport the Edain.
Again, most others have no occupied territory.
Though everyone does have to leave Beleriand. :( Should that be attributed to the Host of the West?
13. Using poison weapons
Angband: yes.
Everyone else: No evidence of this. I wouldn't necessarily rule out them trying it against Angband if they thought it would work.
Although I suppose you could argue that weapons inimical to Angband by nature could count as poison…? Naahhh.
14. Using civilians as shields
I don't think Angband did this one, actually?
Edain civilians as hostages, yeah, but Angband didn't have much in the way of its own civilians and didn't expect anyone to try to avoid hitting them.
Angband's Easterlings most likely tried to keep their civilians out of the way like sensible people.
15. Using child soldiers
Whether it was possible for Angband to do this with orcs depends on your interpretation.
Everyone else…
Not child soldiers in the 'take them from their families, indoctrinate them, send them out for shock value' sense.
But child soldiers in the sense of 'people we would consider children are considered adults and treated as such', yeah.
And I expect also in the sense of 'people who are not considered adults and who no one really wants fighting, but there is no true place of safety and no one wants them helpless, either'.
16. Firing upon a Combat Medic with clear insignia
Existence of combat medics with clear insignia is uncertain.
If they existed I'm sure Angband fired on them and tbh I wouldn't bet against anyone else doing so.
17. Summary execution
Okay, this can mean killing combatants who surrendered again, but to avoid double-counting let's say we mean non-combatants.
Well, Angband, regardless.
It would not surprise me if the Fëanorians did this in Menegroth, considering that Celegorm's servants expected to get away with murdering children, but that's not definite.
18. Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution or forced pregnancy
Angband's Easterlings did this in Dor-lómin.
The rest of Angband…
It seems likely? In one context or another. But I don't think there are direct statements on it.
—Or actually I guess they made promises to Maeglin about Idril! Not sure if that should count when they didn't actually do anything and I'm not sure they ever meant to.
Eöl and Aredhel in the worst interpretation was not part of a war. It was a crime crime and a diplomatic disaster.
Celegorm and Curufin's behavior towards Lúthien was only questionably part of a war and I'm not sure whether it qualifies here, so I'm going to say no.
Eighteen in the somewhat arbitrary list…
Fëanorians: Definitely four (1, 7, 8, 10), possibly/arguably as many as nine (1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17).
Non-Fëanorian Exiles: Definitely two (1, 10), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 9, 10, 15, 16).
Iathrim+Lúthien&Beren: Definitely two (1, 10), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 9, 10, 15, 16).
Dwarves of Nogrod: Definitely three (1, 3, 8), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 3, 8, 9, 16).
Host of the West: Definitely one (1), possibly/arguably as many as seven (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 16) (that's what you get for winning).
The Host of the West did destroy Angband, if you want to count that.
Nah, the property destruction rule is explicitly about ruining stuff you don't need to: fortresses, military airfields and arms factories are all considered legitimate targets.
no one is actually accusing the Fëanorians of, like, cutting undersea communications cables or impersonating the Red Cross. There are some war crimes which are obviously not applicable and I'm not going to discuss them.
Not the Fëanorians, no, but if you interpret the undersea cables rule as a general ban on destroying vitally important, hard-to-replace communications infrastructure, I think there's an argument to be made for Sauron's corruption of the palantirs.
Sure, Menegroth and Sirion were abandoned, but it wasn't because the Fëanorians stuck around chasing people away.
I don't know enough to say exactly which paragraph would apply, but "fucked up your city so badly that no one can live there anymore" certainly feels like the kind of thing that should fall under these rules, even if that wasn't the actual goal of the attack. The Fëanorians might have been able to claim ignorance at Menegroth, but not after that.
(Also, speaking of Doriath, Thingol's refugee policy and language ban.)
...do we actually know anything about Thingol's refugee policy?
---------------------------------------------
I love (in a very dark way) that Angband has committed pretty much every single war crime on the list.
...Tbh, Eönwe did offer a fair trial to a lot of people; it's not his fault that those people didn't actually want a fair trial, but for him to waive all consequences just like that.
And in general, I don't think we know enough about the actions of the Host of the West to pass judgement on them, although I'm inclined to think they went about everything as righteously as possible... *bites down impassioned defence* but I suppose you may regard it differently if it fits with your interpretations and not necessarily be wrong.
The Silmaril Quest is probably closer to spying than war, though even more than that a secret third thing...
"The Easterlings announcing their allegiance change mid-battle" is a hilarious way to phrase things, 10/10.
You can postulate that some refugees were allowed through the Girdle, either by the 'dire need' proviso or by Melian choosing to allow them in. It's a question without a definitive answer in the text and I don't think there's an authorial intent answer either.
Key points:
Beren got in but Beren wasn't supposed to be able to get in; dire need is not an automatic pass.
Celegorm and Curufin fled Himlad and ended up in Nargothrond, so they were either allowed through Doriath or forced to follow a dangerous path around it. In either of those cases someone should have brought it up during Lúthien's interactions with Celegorm and Curufin during the Silmaril Quest. No one does.
So I don't think there's a canon answer to that question and it comes down to your opinion of Thingol.
In the published SIlmarillion, Doriath explicitly allows in mass refugees on two occasions:
Sindar after the Dagor Bragollach:
"The most part of the Grey-elves fled south and forsook the northern war; many were received into Doriath, and the kingdom and strength of Thingol grew greater in that time, for the power of Melian the queen was woven about his borders and evil could not yet enter that hidden realm." (Chapter 18)
Survivors of Nargothrond:
"Now new tidings came to Doriath concerning Nargothrond, for some that had escaped from the defeat and the sack and had survived the Fell Winter in the wild, came at last to Thingol seeking refuge; and the march-wardens brought them to the King." (Chapter 21)
(Has anyone written a fic where Celebrimbor is one of those refugees yet)
Thingol also welcomes many Green-elves into Doriath in a similar mass refugee situation:
After the battle some [of Denethor's followers] returned to Ossiriand, and their tidings filled the remnant of their people with great fear, so that thereafter they came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy; and they were called the Laiquendi, the Green-elves, because of their raiment of the colour of leaves. But many went north and entered the guarded realm of Thingol, and were merged with his people.
There is, to my knowledge, nothing explicit about Celegorm, Curufin, and the people of Himlad wanting to be let into Doriath and denied it. They didn't go into Doriath (I trace their various movements here), but there's never any indication they try to enter.
Sheltering refugees from Nargothrond includes sheltering Noldor, fwiw.
i am probably going to regret making this post, but i think i understand where you're coming from op, in that it is extremely frustrating to see this fandom treat war crimes like they're a meme or joke & i would like people to stop making those jokes too. i would like the silm fandom to take the many instances of mass violence - and other violence - that occur in the textual work more seriously. i would like there to be no more tiresome war crime jokes. i would like us to not diminish the meaning of the phrase "war crime" and turn it into such a meme, that people no longer are even able to think about what this term implies both within the canon and within the real world.
however, i do not think we get there by litigating what a war crime is and isn't in this work of fiction - and personally, in doing so, i find this post ends up at a place that is even more upsetting than those terrible jokes.
for one, i have to be frank: none of us are equipped to talk about what any of these war crimes are in order to be litigating whether or not our blorbos have committed them. this thread itself evinces confusion concerning the term "Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health", yet at no point does this seem to generate any sort of pause or motivate anyone to look up what the definition of willful killing is, which is both pretty clear and also evidently not integral to war if it was thought to be something which could be enforced. the section on false truce + false flag operations muddies the waters badly by its inclusion of the various disguises people use during the silmaril quest. none of this should have been said without a full understanding of these terms, because what this amounts to is the spreading of misinformation on a sensitive subject that people are already extremely liable to misunderstand or treat as a joke because of their own distance from this issue.
for another, there is no need for us to bring in very sensitive and loaded real world terms, with very real world meanings, into a conversation where ... i don't know. i don't know what this attempt at quantification is supposed to do or prove. is it supposed to demonstrate that our faves are equally implicated? is it supposed to demonstrate that the war crime framework has no utility in a work of fiction where the geneva convention does not exist (i don't entirely disagree in legalist terms, but more on that in a bit)? what are we doing here? because from where i am sitting, what it reads like is a bunch of people who will most likely never be at risk of experiencing war crimes in their life, cold-bloodedly trying to tally up what war crimes are committed by various groups of "faves" in "canon", without even really trying to bother to understand what acts of violence these terms actually refer to and how they have been interpreted historically. i am trying to reach for the right words to describe what exactly disturbs me about this, but i think it is the sense that this diminishes and renders almost fictional and unreal these terms that have very real consequences in our real world today.
i don't think this was the intention at all, mind you! and again, i want to reiterate, i AGREE that we use the term war crime far too loosely in this fandom, but i don't think the way it is being used here undoes that, so much as just reinforces it in some very unpleasant ways. there is a gap between intention and application and i do think we should be very careful about that, especially when we start to mobilise serious nonfictional issues in fannish discussions around fiction. i think we need to maintain that boundary and thoughtfulness very carefully and i don't think it was entirely achieved here, no matter how good the intentions were.
lastly, while i do think the war crimes bit as joke in fandom is offensive, i also think that people who do bring it up as an earnest framework are struggling linguistically to express this simple fact: the narrative of the silmarillion wants us to treat certain acts of violence as upsetting aberrations that represent a great evil in the ways in which it diminishes life. "war crimes" as we understand them in our world do not exist in the silmarillion for various reasons, but we are introduced to frameworks of violence that are deemed unacceptable in the moral framework of elvish protagonists that function as allegorical to what we understand as "war crimes" / "crimes against humanity". these are: rape/sexual assault (LaCE + Silm), torture (LaCE + Silm), the forcible reading of a mind & forcibly breaking someone's will (NoME essay on Osanwe), slavery (Silm), defiling of a dead combatant's body (Akallabeth), killing children (Silm) and kinslaying (Silm).
out of all of these, war crime as a term gets brought up most often in relation to the kinslaying and i understand the instinct, because kinslaying is the one term that we actually do not have a framework for in our real world. we do not conceive of the act of declaring war on another people as essentially one of the highest forms of moral depredation. there have been attempts to make it so, but none have rly succeeded outside of a general agreement that declaring war on "civilians" is wrong - a position which in the real world simply results in a constant redefinition of who counts as a "combatant". when fans refuse to take the moral framework of the canon seriously regarding the gravity of the act of kinslaying, or are incapable of imagining the act of kinslaying as one that ranks amongst the highest evils in the legendarium, other fans do end up reaching for inflammatory rhetoric in order to drive the point home, in order to make sense of what a "kinslaying" is. however, because most but not necessarily all of us will never be exposed to this kind of violence, its easy to turn it into an annoying meme or joke, which IS upsetting to people who take this stuff seriously - and then we end up here.
which is the crux of my point with this: we can push people to take seriously the moral framework(s) of tolkien's canon viz. war, which is a moral framework that we are completely unused to because we live in a very violent and war-torn world, in countries that have poured billions into manufacturing consent to much of this violence and war, but (mis)using the rhetoric and definitions of war crimes to do so does a serious disservice to a real world issue and we should do better. yes, even while trying to "explain" war crimes. what we should do is maybe push ourselves and our fellow fans to think through why they struggle to conceptualise certain acts of violence as immoral or wrong unless they are legible to us in our current legislative frameworks. we should push each other, i think, to take tolkien's framework of violence at its face value and use that to interrogate our own utter desensitization to violence.
and to bring it back to the "most but not necessarily all of us", i do think we need to be careful in how we talk about this stuff, because we genuinely do not know who is reading these posts and from where in the world - and therefore the hurt that carelessness and a lack of knowledge (no matter how well-intentioned!!!!) can result in.
tl;dr: can we be a little more sensitive in how we talk about mass violence in this fandom + can we maybe not bring the discourse of "war crimes" into the picture & instead take tolkien's frameworks re. violence a lot more seriously + if we absolutely must, can we at least familiarise ourselves with the terms and what they mean & not turn it into a sort of tally sheet?
I may or may not add onto this later in depth, but I do not have the words to agree with this strongly enough and @tobermoniansass eloquently, empathetically, and emphatically articulated something that's been gnawing inchoate in my mind in my loathing of the war crime framing.
Also... there are people in fandom who have been victims of war crimes and/or whose family, friends, or culture has been a victim of them. I think it behooves us to remember that.
(Finally motivated to make this because someone said the Silmarillion elves committed 'all the war crimes', and while I know, I know they were just exaggerating for comic effect it still drives me up the wall.)
First piece of housekeeping: Technically speaking war crimes are war crimes because they were defined as such in various treaties. You aren't technically violating the Geneva Conventions if you aren't signatory to them. But, they do often get talked about more like universally applicable rules.
Second piece of housekeeping: I think no one is actually accusing the Fëanorians of, like, cutting undersea communications cables or impersonating the Red Cross. There are some war crimes which are obviously not applicable and I'm not going to discuss them.
Third piece of housekeeping: There are a lot of provisions in the Geneva Conventions. Someone else can go through all of them if they like. So, I'm going to go with this list gleaned from the section of the Wikipedia page on war crimes about the international criminal court:
Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
Torture or inhumane treatment
Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property
Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial
Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer
Taking hostages
Directing attacks against civilians
Killing a surrendered combatant
Misusing a flag of truce, a flag or uniform of the enemy
Settlement of occupied territory
Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
Using poison weapons
Using civilians as shields
Using child soldiers
Firing upon a Combat Medic with clear insignia.
Summary execution
Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution or forced pregnancy
Fourth piece of housekeeping: I'm not just going to look at the Fëanorians. That's not fair. There's elves vs. other elves, elves vs. dwarves, dwarves vs. elves, Angband vs. everyone, everyone vs. Angband, etc. I should probably define some of these groups starting out but I'm not going to.
So. This will be long.
1. Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
I'm a little puzzled about this one, actually. I thought that was just… assumed to be part of war???
Killing as more than a means to some non-killing-related end???
At any rate I'm inclined to say everyone conducting war in the Silmarillion did this. I don't think anyone was trying to minimize military casualties.
2. Torture or inhumane treatment
Angband did this, obviously.
A lot.
Really a lot.
We don't have any record of any elves doing it, or dwarves, or Edain.
…Except Túrin's outlaws but they're kind of a weird circumstance.
3. Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property
(Seems like there might be a lot of wiggle room in 'unlawful'…)
Well, anyway, Angband also did this, obviously, a lot.
The dwarven sack of Menegroth counts as this.
Seizure of the swan-ships arguably counts as this one, though I'd actually hesitate on that one. I think that wasn't a war crime, that was a crime crime, because they weren't at war.
If the Fëanorians scavenged from Menegroth before leaving that probably counts, but that's speculation.
The Host of the West did destroy Angband, if you want to count that.
4. Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
Angband, yet again. It's a little less obvious here since it's not like they put prisoners in the regular army unless you count orcs, but brainwashing prisoners and sending them out as agents probably counts.
Also their treatment of prisoners of war generally violates a lot of stuff in the Third Geneva Convention.
I do not think we have grounds to say anyone else did this, partially because I'm not sure we have grounds to say anyone else ever took any prisoners.
Elrond and Elros are a gray area, but if they ended up fighting with the Fëanorians there's no reason to believe it was against anyone but Angband.
Oh, and I suppose the Host of the West took prisoners, but I'm sure they didn't do this.
5. Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial
I mean, you could say that prisoners of war in Angband got the same kind of trial that anyone else in Angband got?
But otherwise Angband again, yeah.
The Host of the West… I'm not sure. Do you count the judgments of Ëonwë as a fair trial?
Everyone else: No prisoners, not an issue.
…Look I don't know what to say about Túrin and Mîm. I'm inclined to say a lot of the outlaws' bad behavior was crime crime not war crime. I don't know.
6. Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer
Angband back in the definitely column here.
I don't think anyone else is. Sure, Menegroth and Sirion were abandoned, but it wasn't because the Fëanorians stuck around chasing people away.
7. Taking hostages
Angband, explicitly with Maedhros and I think implicitly elsewhere.
The Easterlings serving Angband also explicitly took hostages.
The Fëanorians took Elrond and Elros. It doesn't seem to have been terribly effective, but it was hostage-taking.
Celegorm and Curufin holding Lúthien could be this if you consider the Fëanorians to have been at war with Doriath at that point, but that's sort of dubious? Maybe a war crime, maybe a crime crime.
8. Directing attacks against civilians
Angband.
The Fëanorians attacked the entire communities of Menegroth and the Havens of Sirion. They may or may not have made any attempt to avoid deliberately killing noncombatants in one or both cases, but they were unavoidably attacks on civilians.
The dwarven attack on Menegroth is similarly an attack on civilians.
If you consider any orcs, trolls, balrogs, vampires, werewolves, etc. to be civilians, then the Host of the West almost certainly did this. You can argue that none of them counted as civilians; you can also argue that the Host of the West managed not to attack e.g. orc children, but I don't think that's very likely.
The Easterlings serving Angband did have civilians, but I think it's more likely the Host of the West avoided attacking those.
9. Killing a surrendered combatant
I don't think anyone is directly attested as doing this?
The overall impression one gets of the First Age is a general deficit of surrender.
But: if anyone surrendered to Angband's forces rather than trying to fight or escape until they physically couldn't, I'm sure some of them were killed (and some weren't, because Angband wanted slaves).
If any orcs/werewolves/vampires/trolls/dragons/balrogs dared to surrender rather than fight to the death or escape, I'm sure some to most of them were killed.
If any dwarves of Nogrod tried to surrender to Beren and the Ents, they were killed.
We don't know about the dwarven sack of Menegroth or any of the Kinslayings (on either side).
The Host of the West accepted at least some surrenders, but we don't know if it was all of them.
10. Misusing a flag of truce, a flag or uniform of the enemy
Angband doesn't get much of an opportunity for this because no one trusts their truces and it's not like switching flags or uniforms would help, insofar as there are uniforms.
But they did propose a negotiation under false pretenses.
Of course the Fëanorians also agreed to it under false pretenses.
The Silmaril Quest is absolutely full of people disguising themselves as Angband's forces. If you want to get pedantic about it uniforms and flags were not the key part of those disguises, but I think it's the same idea?
I feel like the Easterlings who announced their allegiance change mid-battle may also count as this?
11. Settlement of occupied territory
Angband generally prefers the scorched-earth approach, but they do settle their Easterlings in occupied territory.
No one else does this.
Like the Fëanorians had enough people left to 'occupy' anything.
(Or I guess arguably the Host of the West occupies Angband but not for very long and they definitely don't settle there.)
12. Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
Angband does some of this in the form of enslaving them back in, uh, Angband, but it's true that mostly it depopulates by slaughter and most of the survives flee with no deportation as such. It doesn't deport the Edain.
Again, most others have no occupied territory.
Though everyone does have to leave Beleriand. :( Should that be attributed to the Host of the West?
13. Using poison weapons
Angband: yes.
Everyone else: No evidence of this. I wouldn't necessarily rule out them trying it against Angband if they thought it would work.
Although I suppose you could argue that weapons inimical to Angband by nature could count as poison…? Naahhh.
14. Using civilians as shields
I don't think Angband did this one, actually?
Edain civilians as hostages, yeah, but Angband didn't have much in the way of its own civilians and didn't expect anyone to try to avoid hitting them.
Angband's Easterlings most likely tried to keep their civilians out of the way like sensible people.
15. Using child soldiers
Whether it was possible for Angband to do this with orcs depends on your interpretation.
Everyone else…
Not child soldiers in the 'take them from their families, indoctrinate them, send them out for shock value' sense.
But child soldiers in the sense of 'people we would consider children are considered adults and treated as such', yeah.
And I expect also in the sense of 'people who are not considered adults and who no one really wants fighting, but there is no true place of safety and no one wants them helpless, either'.
16. Firing upon a Combat Medic with clear insignia
Existence of combat medics with clear insignia is uncertain.
If they existed I'm sure Angband fired on them and tbh I wouldn't bet against anyone else doing so.
17. Summary execution
Okay, this can mean killing combatants who surrendered again, but to avoid double-counting let's say we mean non-combatants.
Well, Angband, regardless.
It would not surprise me if the Fëanorians did this in Menegroth, considering that Celegorm's servants expected to get away with murdering children, but that's not definite.
18. Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution or forced pregnancy
Angband's Easterlings did this in Dor-lómin.
The rest of Angband…
It seems likely? In one context or another. But I don't think there are direct statements on it.
—Or actually I guess they made promises to Maeglin about Idril! Not sure if that should count when they didn't actually do anything and I'm not sure they ever meant to.
Eöl and Aredhel in the worst interpretation was not part of a war. It was a crime crime and a diplomatic disaster.
Celegorm and Curufin's behavior towards Lúthien was only questionably part of a war and I'm not sure whether it qualifies here, so I'm going to say no.
Eighteen in the somewhat arbitrary list…
Fëanorians: Definitely four (1, 7, 8, 10), possibly/arguably as many as nine (1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17).
Non-Fëanorian Exiles: Definitely two (1, 10), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 9, 10, 15, 16).
Iathrim+Lúthien&Beren: Definitely two (1, 10), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 9, 10, 15, 16).
Dwarves of Nogrod: Definitely three (1, 3, 8), possibly/arguably as many as five (1, 3, 8, 9, 16).
Host of the West: Definitely one (1), possibly/arguably as many as seven (1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 16) (that's what you get for winning).
The Host of the West did destroy Angband, if you want to count that.
Nah, the property destruction rule is explicitly about ruining stuff you don't need to: fortresses, military airfields and arms factories are all considered legitimate targets.
no one is actually accusing the Fëanorians of, like, cutting undersea communications cables or impersonating the Red Cross. There are some war crimes which are obviously not applicable and I'm not going to discuss them.
Not the Fëanorians, no, but if you interpret the undersea cables rule as a general ban on destroying vitally important, hard-to-replace communications infrastructure, I think there's an argument to be made for Sauron's corruption of the palantirs.
Sure, Menegroth and Sirion were abandoned, but it wasn't because the Fëanorians stuck around chasing people away.
I don't know enough to say exactly which paragraph would apply, but "fucked up your city so badly that no one can live there anymore" certainly feels like the kind of thing that should fall under these rules, even if that wasn't the actual goal of the attack. The Fëanorians might have been able to claim ignorance at Menegroth, but not after that.
(Also, speaking of Doriath, Thingol's refugee policy and language ban.)
...do we actually know anything about Thingol's refugee policy?
---------------------------------------------
I love (in a very dark way) that Angband has committed pretty much every single war crime on the list.
...Tbh, Eönwe did offer a fair trial to a lot of people; it's not his fault that those people didn't actually want a fair trial, but for him to waive all consequences just like that.
And in general, I don't think we know enough about the actions of the Host of the West to pass judgement on them, although I'm inclined to think they went about everything as righteously as possible... *bites down impassioned defence* but I suppose you may regard it differently if it fits with your interpretations and not necessarily be wrong.
The Silmaril Quest is probably closer to spying than war, though even more than that a secret third thing...
"The Easterlings announcing their allegiance change mid-battle" is a hilarious way to phrase things, 10/10.
You can postulate that some refugees were allowed through the Girdle, either by the 'dire need' proviso or by Melian choosing to allow them in. It's a question without a definitive answer in the text and I don't think there's an authorial intent answer either.
Key points:
Beren got in but Beren wasn't supposed to be able to get in; dire need is not an automatic pass.
Celegorm and Curufin fled Himlad and ended up in Nargothrond, so they were either allowed through Doriath or forced to follow a dangerous path around it. In either of those cases someone should have brought it up during Lúthien's interactions with Celegorm and Curufin during the Silmaril Quest. No one does.
So I don't think there's a canon answer to that question and it comes down to your opinion of Thingol.
In the published SIlmarillion, Doriath explicitly allows in mass refugees on two occasions:
Sindar after the Dagor Bragollach:
"The most part of the Grey-elves fled south and forsook the northern war; many were received into Doriath, and the kingdom and strength of Thingol grew greater in that time, for the power of Melian the queen was woven about his borders and evil could not yet enter that hidden realm." (Chapter 18)
Survivors of Nargothrond:
"Now new tidings came to Doriath concerning Nargothrond, for some that had escaped from the defeat and the sack and had survived the Fell Winter in the wild, came at last to Thingol seeking refuge; and the march-wardens brought them to the King." (Chapter 21)
(Has anyone written a fic where Celebrimbor is one of those refugees yet)
Thingol also welcomes many Green-elves into Doriath in a similar mass refugee situation:
After the battle some [of Denethor's followers] returned to Ossiriand, and their tidings filled the remnant of their people with great fear, so that thereafter they came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy; and they were called the Laiquendi, the Green-elves, because of their raiment of the colour of leaves. But many went north and entered the guarded realm of Thingol, and were merged with his people.
There is, to my knowledge, nothing explicit about Celegorm, Curufin, and the people of Himlad wanting to be let into Doriath and denied it. They didn't go into Doriath (I trace their various movements here), but there's never any indication they try to enter.
Sheltering refugees from Nargothrond includes sheltering Noldor, fwiw.
jbbartram-illu
areudirty
snowghoul
stormborns
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
vaporwave
