#Just... I just... finwe's probably a fine guy who's just not suited to marriage! That is not a bad thing!

[shrikeseams]

I don’t understand this idea that Finwë is forcing Miriel into staying dead forever because he wants to get with Indis - the text makes it very clear that he tries for years to get Miriel to come back, and she consistently makes insists that she’ll never return. Why should Finwë stay alone forever for the sake of someone who never opens on coming back? The story even says that she doesn’t even consider coming back to life until until he dies himself. I don’t see how Finwë, and especially Indis, did anything wrong.

It's late and I'm tipsy, so this may not be my best effort, but here goes, and if you want clarification/further response you'll have to reply or reblog:

TL;DR: I have no issue with Finwe's remarriage. My issue is that his remarriage was conducted in such a way (by both finwe and the Valar) that a) functionally left Miriel facing all of the long-term consequences while Finwe got just what he wanted, and b) was conducted in unseemly haste for a species that is LITERALLY IMMORTAL. THERE IS NO REASON FOR FINWE TO BE IN A RUSH. HE HAS THE ENTIRE LIFETIME OF ARDA. And also, c) Finwe ultimately proves faithless to Indis as well, which (to me) suggests that this is a finwe problem. If he had just gotten a divorce and severed his fate from miriel's, I... would still not have a high opinion of him. But I wouldn't want to beat him with a 2x4, y'know? The real issue here is that true divorce is a positive social good, but that in its absence Finwe and the valar chose a course of action that only benefited one party.

TLDR-er: Just because miriel wasn't healed when it was convenient to finwe does not give him the right to steal her right to reimbody if and when she does heal. Even the act of asking is, to me, unforgivable. I don't think he was obliged to stay marrived to her, but what he actually did was to functionally ask her to die for his comfort. (Indis's only wrongdoing was bad taste in men. 😔)

TLDRest: I actually think it's worse to ask somebody to die/stay dead for eternity than it is to ask someone not to have a wife and more children! I kinda thing finwe should have looked into adoption and maybe joined a bowling league! The absence of his wife is not, in fact, Doom him to be Forever Alone!

TLDREST FOR REAL THIS TIME: Miriel's right to live (and therefore to eventually reimbody) supercedes finwe's right to remarry for any reason. And his willingness to compromise that makes me doubt his moral character.

Firstly, let's acknowledge my personal bias. Every time I think of miriel, I am thinking of her as if she were one of my friends. That is by basis for looking at the miriel-finwe-indis relationship: how would, personally, view finwe if he were the spouse of a friend? If you can't at least partway accept that premise then I do not expect that this will be convincing.

and because I know this approach isn't universal, my baseline reading is that miriel is suicidally depressed, in a situation where even a completed suicide does not release her from the pressures of her husband, society, and religion.

Now. Let's shift the circumstances a little, to a more real-world version. Let's say that Miriel just has extreme postpartum depression, and she's gone to a facility for inpatient treatment of her own choice. And then, because she isn't any better and still needs that extra support, she stays in that facility for years.

What would you think of a husband who repeatedly pressured her to leave inpatient care? What would you think of a husband who pressured his wife to leave medical care specifically because he wants more kids (the thing that put her into care in the first place)? Would you think well of him for using his political power♧ to functionally get a legal exemption for bigamy, under the condition that his first wife can't ever leave inpatient care (even if she heals)?

Now, take whatever emotional reaction you had to that scenario (which could be different from mine!) And bring it back to Arda.

And when you do that, please remember that 1) elves are immortal and literally have the option to wait for a spouse until the end of the world if they so choose. But ,y understanding is that the longest Finwe ever waited to remarry in a draft was Feanor's early adulthood. So you have a literal immortal who can't give his wife a few millenia of grace to heal. and also--

2) Finwe and miriel lived in a society where that was, in fact, the expectation. That was the deal they made when they married. That was the choice. Even if they married in Aman with expectation of eternal paradise, they both made the journey, and had lived in the real world, and presumably had at least some cultural scripts for the death of a spouse.

And keep in mind what finwe's remarriage isn't: it's not a divorce. It leaves miriel bound to death and finwe free to remarry. The only benefit to miriel was that everybody stopped pestering her to be healed already.*

With all that in mind--are you comfortable with finwe's choice? If Finwe were a friend of yours, would you think he had done well by his first wife? Did he honor his vows to her? Did he act in justice?

And does that answer change when he later abandons indis of his own free will?

♧ do you think finwe's petition would have gone anywhere but the garbage bin if he (and indis) weren't royal? Because I don't.

*i think this is technically a tangential thought but: is it ethical to ask a suicidally depressed personal, who literally already killed herself, to stay dead forever for someone else's benefit? Because to me, if she were healed enough to answer that question with a clear mind, then the situation itself becomes irrelevant. This is only relevant if you read miriel as depressed/ill in some way, I suppose, but there's an inherent catch-22 there that I feel like the valar and finwe handled in an intrinsically unethical way.