#(honestly amras gets thrown off a lot for being annoying)

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

so i’ve been off-handedly referencing amrod having a wheelchair and burn scars and using sign language for a while now, and i figure i should get my headcanons re: him getting lightly toasted down fully somewhere? the twins in general have grown really strong really distinct personalities in my mind, i  wanna talk about them at some point, and since those topics inevitably bleed into each other i’ve decided to cover them both at once

first off: the crispening. i don’t think fëanor was trying to burn amrod alive - i actually read this post once that posited he’d caught wind that amrod was planning to go home and set the boats on fire partially as a panicked attempt to stop his son from leaving, he just had really unfortunate timing - but no matter the reason, halfway through fëanor and maedhros’ marathon argument someone notices they’re missing a guy. most of what the fëanorians remember of that night is fire and screaming, no one’s sure how they got amrod off the burning ship, but once the fire’d burned itself out he was in the hastily-erected medical tent, barely clinging to life

(for the hellspawn as a collective that whole boat episode was existentially terrifying on multiple levels. they gave up everything for his sake, but somehow they never thought he could hurt them)

amrod survives, because he is a calaquendë and whatever else you might say about them the valar did not skimp on the supersoldier budget. even so, his body is marred for the rest of his life. a significant portion of his left side is just solid burn scar, all the smoke he inhaled has massively fucked up his throat, his left arm is mangled, he’s blind in one eye, and his legs straight up can’t support his weight any more. if they were in valinor they could probably have fixed all this, but in beleriand they have neither the spare resources nor the time. the harrows of war will inevitably carve themselves into your very being; another lesson middle-earth is beating into them

but they can’t turn back, and anyway they’re noldor, they can work around this. if amrod’s legs can’t carry him, they’ll build him crutches and wheelchairs and specially train a horse to carry him around. if it hurts too much for him to use his voice regularly - well, they already had sign-languages back in valinor, since just because someone can’t speak doesn’t mean they should be cut off from the wonders of self-expression. amrod does have to adjust the one he ends up using to account for his left hand’s reduced range of movement, but he takes it up with appropriate flair and aplomb. there is panicking, there is pain, but amrod still refuses to give up. as they get further away from losgar, he reaches - maybe not a perfectly balanced state, but a sustainable one

(fëanor feeds the ensuing guilt to the sunk cost fallacy - If We Succeed In Our Quest, Telufinwë’s (i go by pityafinwë/ambarussa/minyarussa/amras and telufinwë/umbarto/nelyarussa/amrod, i know it’s not the canon formulation but it makes logical sense, fight me) Suffering Will Have Been Worth It. this is, of course, crazy person logic, but the only person with a hope of driving that into fëanor’s thick skull is currently in the halls of mandos. least amrod doesn’t have to put up with it for long)

time passes, and the fëanorians split up into their traditional groups to go do that whole terrifying warlords of east beleriand thing. amrod and amras wind up commanding a string of outposts scattered around ossiriand that amras is pretty much constantly circling through while amrod shuttles between the ones who need the most supervision. that’s always been their dynamic; amras is the excitable brash one who never shuts up and does lots of moderately stupid things, amrod is the sharp-eyed reserved one who thinks everything through and does a few incredibly stupid things. he talks more with his hands than he ever did with his voice, politely in sindarin and snarkily in noldorin

for a while, things are good. amrod’s bevy of mobility support devices and animals slowly evolve into a self-piloting war chariot, because not even losing the ability to walk is going to stop the boys from doing murder. he’s more of a tactics guy anyway, gets very into animal traps and firebombs. amrod does all the stuff amras lacks the patience to do, while amras does the things amrod isn’t spontaneous enough for; they both think they’re the one doing the real work, as is usual among the brothers hellspawn. they disagree often, they fight sometimes, but they always have each other’s backs. they cover for each other’s weak points, balance each other out, and from the shadows beneath the trees they lead their minions in raiding and subterfuge and mad science

then things go south, like the war. things don’t change that much for the twins after the bragollach, there’s just more fighting and caranthir’s lot being annoying, but it gets much worse after the nirnaeth. suddenly they‘re having to deal with all of their brothers and their minions stomping around wrecking everything the orcs didn’t already get, and everyone is at everyone else’s throats as it becomes increasingly obvious they’re going to lose the war. amras and amrod argue a lot more these days, partially because they’re both stressed out anyway, but partially because their partnership is breaking down under the strain. for all they’ve worked together, there are vast differences in the way they see the world, and it’s just so much harder to bridge the gap when everything they ever worked for is crumbling around them

but they try. they try until doriath, and it all goes to hell. rejected by their old allies, stuck in the same fortress, their last two brothers too busy with their own problems to act as a buffer, amras and amrod lash out at each other constantly. they understand the way each other’s mind works, know each other’s every horrible little secret, and grow more and more disgusted with each other every day. they go from working together with the tiniest hint of hostility to long passive-aggressive arguments about the most petty stuff to refusing to enter a room the other one is in unless they absolutely have to. when negotiations with sirion break down, amrod, ever the pragmatist, cooks up this plan to steal the silmaril with minimal losses on either side. before he’s able to convince maedhros it might work, amras, ever the idealist, rides his forces out for hope and glory

i don’t think amrod switched sides at sirion - the amrod who snuck onto the boats would have, but he’s a much worse person than he was then. still, i can’t shake the image of the twins dying on each other’s spears