#Maedhros's affinity is emotions I think

[eri-pl]

Re: Gandalf and Melkor

(idea: Gandalf was originally a Maia of Melkor. But now with more canon)

So from what I understand, initially the Ainur didn't have a hierarchy. The Maiar and Valar became a thing after Ea was made, which is after the Music, which is after Melkor's initial problematic behavior (I won't say "evil" yet, as this is arguable).

The beings that were Melkor's Maiar from the start are the Balrogs (and maybe possibly some other evil beings?). Already fallen.

And Olorin (the guy known as Gandalf) is not.

So, what is he?

I think that initially, even before the Music, the Ainur had certain resonances. Some just match some others better. And later, when some of them descended into Ea, this had an impact on which Maiar served which Valar.

Impact, but not 100% correlation. They have free will, after all. And they can serve more than one Vala, I assume it means one at a time, but they can change whom they serve.

And we know the case of Arien. She was a spirit of fire, like Balrogs were, but she chose to serve Varda instead of Melkor. And I don't want to believe that it was because she naturally resonated with Melkor less than the others.

They have free will.

She chose to not be evil. They did not. Not because they were made like this. They choose.

So, if Arien could not go with her just natural choice, because this choice was Melkor, why not other Maiar?

Olorin has qualities (mostly mentioned in linked post) that are similar to Melkor: likes to play with fire, likes to meddle, likes to show off his intelligence and be sarcastic, word puns, natural affinity to humans, too smart for his own good (mellon)...

(Melkor: rules over fire, likes to meddle, prideful and with insane language skills even for a Vala (that's canon), had an insanely steering emotional reaction to humans (hates them), too smart for his own good.)

I know Olorin's name is linked to Irmo (it means "dream / fantasy" more or less) but he took a name when language was already a thing, so of course it's like that, he served Irmo at that time I guess.

So the Maiar I see as naturally Melkor-vibed:

Arien (as said before)

Olorin (as said before)

Melian: she is weird. So odd that she must be reasonant with Melkor. Nobody remotely normal would marry an elf. Yes, that's opposite of what Melkor would do, but... He is the opposite of what he should be. So it makes sense. Just... she's just this exact "this idea hasn't existed before and warps the reality, let's do it!!" kind of weird. Also, see: Melkor's reaction to Luthien. Both in the sense of "he feels the resonance" and "Melkor and Melian were the only Ainur in the canon who wanted to marry an incarnate"

Curumo: proud, craftsy, proud, didn't seem to need much work to be corrupted TBH

"Not particularly Melkor-vibed, even though you might they are" think include:

Sauron (lawful, needed much effort to be corrupted, I don't see him as fire-aspected before the Ring, ymmv)

Radagast (not all Istari have to be in the list, and he has no reason to be on it)

Probably Osse too? I think he just has temper issues.

Other thoughts:

As I said in one earlier post, many elves and at least a few humans also have a discernable resonance to a particular Vala (Eol and Feanor to Melkor (maybe mixed with Aule), Maglor and Tour to Ulmo, Maedhros also to Melkor, Celegorm to Orome) but with Maiar it's more visible.

Also, for a non-Melkorian example of a mixed resonance, I would say that Tilion (or how do you spell the moon guy) is not only Varda, but also Irmo-vibed.

I'm not sure if this basic resonance is a thing that can change, but I doubt it. Olorin after countless years of serving the good Valar is still recognizable as odd.

It's like instruments.

When you play a trumpet with the violins a lot, the player and the audience get accustomed to it and hear it as more natural combo, but it's still a brass.

Maybe when Sauron got Numenored, and/ or when he forged the Ring. Those were big events.

Also, the Valar aren't a linearly independent base. Nienna and aule are closer to Melkor than, say, Varda or Ulmo. Still, this says nothing about their morality.

He chose to be evil. They did not.

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Silmaril Saga of Scholomance

Disclaimer: I have not read the Scholomance books

Feanor is brilliant. He has eight languages, but still went artificer track rather than languages because he’s even better at that. It paid off too. He made a dozen different mana crystals and power sharers out of what everyone dismissed as scrap glass, but his real triumph came in junior year.

The Silmaril.

It doesn’t just store mana, it makes it.

(The Silamril only works at the Scholomance, could only be built at the Scholomance. It pulls on the void and draws out mana the same way the Scholomance can spit out spells and homework, but without needing the tedious life support system as input.)

With the Silmaril, Feanor survives graduation.

When Maedhros goes off to school at age fourteen, Feanor sends him with the Silmaril. It's two kilos of his allowance, already stretched tight by his growth spurt at fucking thirteen causing last minute redesigns to the packing list Nerdanel started before his first birthday.

But the Silmaril will be a whole lot more useful than a second shirt or pair of pants. And if Maedhros brings in the Silmaril, it will be there for all his little brothers. (Feanor and Nerdanel spaced them carefully, one every three years, so none of them but Maedhros will have to start Scholomance alone.)

Maedhros goes in with his entire body shaved an hour before induction, no water in the past day, and no food in the last week. That gives him enough of a budget for the absolute necessities.

Maedhros loses his right hand due to an agglo. The agglo picked up the Silmaril the one time Maedhros est it down for an hour, and Maedhros had to chase it to retrieve the Silmaril. He was so focused on not chasing the agglo into a crack too small to follow, he didn’t even notice the venomous mal until it bit him in the hand. But he got the Silmaril back, and managed to tie off his arm before the poison spread to his heart. He found someone to cut off the hand in exchange for his shirt, which was stained anyway at that point.

Maedhros then has no shirt at all. But it was fine, Maglor will be along in another month or two, with a promised shirt and larger shoes.. And his labmate in artificing now finds Maedhros handsome enough to want sexual favors in exchange for doing Maedhros’s Latin homework, so Maedhros now has more free time to gather mana.

Maedhros hands the Silmaril over to Maglor.

Maedhros graduates, and meets his youngest brothers, already three years old.

In fact, all seven of Feanor and Nerdanel’s children survive the Scholomance.

(Amrod carried the Silmaril out, as none of his siblings had children old enough to pass it along to. Practically overflowing with mana, it felt like half the mals in the graduation hall attacked him. In the end, Amras half dragged him out the door. He survived though, even if he walks with a limp now, and half his face was scarred by acid.)

____________________

A wizard with seven children is common. All seven living to grow up is practically unheard of. People start to wonder what exactly Feanor has that caused this miracle. Why he’s not selling it. If they can take it for themselves.

A Maleficer decides to find out. The wards on Feanor’s house are brought down with the malia from Finwe. The wards on the Silmaril’s safe are by passed with the malia from killing Feanor himself.

The Feanorians promise every wizard they can reach a substantial reward for the return of the Silmaril, though they don’t explain what it does. (Curufin has an infant son. He has already made four different plans for how his sons could use the Silmaril best at Scholomance, depending on his track.)

Luthien, of the Paris enclave, has a thirteen year old daughter and no other children. She hears that Feanor is dead. Feanor, who sent seven children to the Scholomance and got seven back. His sons are saying the murderer robbed him as well.

It’s not hard to put the pieces together.

Luthien has a mundane husband who trusts her completely and believes that their only child is at deadly risk with absolutely no explanation, simply because he trusts here so. With Luthien’s magic and Beren’s disbelief, they kill the maleficer. Luthien takes the Silmaril for her own.

(The Feanorians hear. They do not manage to convince Luthien in the months before induction.)

Luthien sends Elwing into the Scholomance with the Silmaril, even though neither of them know what it does. Elwing figures it out quickly though; the first morning, the Silmaril already has a tiny bit of mana that Elwing didn’t put there. She slept with it cradled to her chest, two feet above the void floor. That was enough for a trickle.

Luthien and Beren die in a car crash two years later.

Elwing find out when she graduates, and arrives at an empty house.

Elwing marries the boy who helped her in senior year, Earendil, from the Manchester enclave. They have twin sons.

Elwing does not return the Silmaril. Her boys will need it, and she has no belief that the Feanorians will return it to her once their child is through.

Feanor’s sons try to negotiate. They offer spells, and artifacts, and money. But none of those are guaranteed to keep a child alive, especially not when split two ways.

When Celebrimbor is twelve, the Feanorians stop negotiating. Celebrimbor waits with Amrod at their carefully warded manse.

The Feanorians wait until Earendil is visiting London, so there will be one less wizard at the house. They break into Paris, not caring that forcing the enclave door open lets mals enter as well.

Between the mals and the enclave’s wards, Curufin dies in the infiltration. He considers it a fair price, for his son to live.

Elwing escapes the Feanorians. More to the point, she takes the Silmaril with her, fleeing in a mad dash and using every scrap of mana she can to keep the mas away.

The Feanorians notice the safe is empty, but one room of the house has dozens of wards on it. Maybe the safe is a decoy, and the Silmaril is there.

The room does not contain the Silmaril. Instead it contains two six-year-old boys.

“Elwing’s sons,” Celegorm says. 

“So?” asks Caranthir, thinking of his own child, barely walking yet.

“Leverage.” Maedhros declares. “Take them and trade them.”

“We’re out of the Scholomance,” Maglor objects. You can’t just kill people in the real world.

“Celebrimbor isn’t,” Amras reminds him.

The Feanorians take the boys with them out of the city. 

Celegorm dies fighting off a mal on the way out, unable to cast a spell properly with Elros weighing down his arm and crying in his ear.

__________________

For the first year, the boys are mostly ignored. They are fed and clothed and kept away from mals and foreign languages, but not much else.  All five remaining Feanorians are focusing on Celebrimbor. Training him. Comforting him over his father’s death. Teaching him last minute spells. Building up mana to exchange for the few things none of them make. Most of his kit was already planned of course, but Curufin had been halfway through a shield bracelet, and there’s an extra two kilos of unexpected room. More, when Celebrimbor stops eating out of grief.

The Feanorians keep sending letters to Elwing, to Paris, to Manchester. The deal they offer now is much less generous than before: the Silmaril for Elwing’s sons. The Silmaril will still be some help to Celebrimbor if it arrives when he’s a junior or even senior, though more years for it to build up mana is better.

(Caranthir sent out his own letters, to the smaller enclaves. He eventually found one that would take an unspecified two kilo package for $10,000, with $1000 a year guaranteed even if Caranthir has nothing to send. Celebrimbor memorizes dozen code phrases, and Caranthir tells half of them to the hired enclave. The others exist for proof of delivery, and for proof of Celebrimbor surviving each year until the month before graduation.)

Once Celebrimbor has been inducted, Maglor decides to educate the twins. Elwing is presumably smart enough not to pay for children who will die within the decade anyway, when instead she could have more and send those with the Silmaril. He teaches them math, self defense, three languages, extremely basic spells. Nothing proprietary, no secrets of the house of Feanor. But enough to keep them alive as long as they stay near an adult, and enough for Elwing to build on.

_____________

Celebrimbor was supposed to graduate when the twins were eleven. Elros was looking forward to it honestly, hopeful that the return of one child would make the Feanorians more willing to discuss sending him or Elrond to visit Manchester. Just to visit mind you, neither of them wants to lose the other. But maybe Elwing would return the Silmaril if her son asked, if he begged for someone to help him survive and get a proper education rather than being an afterthought.

Celebrimbor does not graduate.

The Feanorians blame it on the lack of Silmaril. Caranthir and Amras, with children of their own, declare that they will not let it happen again. If Elwing has not voluntarily returned the Silmaril by the time they need it, Caranthir will see if maleficing is enough to break London’s wards.

(Celebrimbor would not have survived even if the Silmaril. He was murdered by another artificing track student, killed in his sleep a week before graduation. Short enough time that Annatar hoped the malia wouldn’t drive him crazy. More importantly, he got all of Celebrimbor’s nearly-full mana crystals, to use for himself. But none of the Feanorians will ever learn the whole story.)

Maedhros declares that no one will be maleficing. Amras asks if he has a better idea. The argument lasts for hours. A lot of it is in Feanor’s own conlang, so Elrond and Elros hide in their room to avoid picking up dangerous vocabulary.

In the end, it’s decided. Elrond and Elros will attend the Scholomance. Each of the Feanorians is entitled to enroll one child; Maglor uses his slot, and Celegorm’s slot will cover the other twin. Elwing will be informed of her sons attendance shortly after induction, and that the Silmaril is her best shot of seeing her sons alive. She can watch the Feanorians send it in with a care package, and the twins will carry it out at the end.

(Caranthir makes very clear that if the Silmaril enters the Scholomance, it had better come to the Feanorians. If it doesn’t, everyone will hear that the twins died at graduation. If Elwing never hands it over, they’ll be free to go and live on their own, with absolutely no hep from the Feanorians or from either of their parents’ enclaves.)

The twins get a very intense education in the next three years. They have to survive at least the first year on their own, even if Elwing cooperates. They both learn Feanor’s conlang, because Maglor composed all his best spells in it. Elrond learns three languages more, as he’ll be language track. Elros will be alchemy, for balance, and is taught healing potion recipes until he can brew them in his sleep. (Elros thinks artificing would be more interesting, but he knows that wouldn’t be allowed. He’s not really Feanorian, even if they allow him the lagnauge, and they won’t risk him learning how to modify or duplicate the Silmaril. Never mind that Celebrimbor was artificing track, with a far better education, and presumably spent our years on the task and never succeeded.)

Three years of actually good education is not enough to make up for the five years of education before that was merely decent. But six years might be. The twins specialize, learning as little in common as possible, seeing each other at meals and when they go to bed but rarely besides. If Elrond learns everything possible about languages and incantations, and Elros learns everything possible about alchemy and chemistry, neither needs to know the other half. They both need to be in good physical shape of course, but Elrond can run laps while murmuring under his breath in Swahili, and Elros can lift weights while listening to a podcast on chemical engineering. Elros thinks he might have picked up a few too many Latin words, but it’s fine. He and Elrond will trade homework to their strengths. They both want to survive, and what else is family for?

(ao3)

[calaquendii-archived]

....i'm asking about your headcanons about elves

you are an amazing person, truly. 

(these are all about elves in my interpretation of the Silmarillion btw, which honestly only uses the canon as something like a guideline :D )

- physically, elves are huge. A short elf is still going to be over 6 feet.  Thingol is close to 9 feet tall, Maedhros and Turgon are pushing 8 feet. The half-elves may be a bit shorter, but they’d still be incredibly tall compared to men. 

- You know Dragon Age II? as far as i’m concerned, that is a GOOD elvish design. i like the almost cat-like face shapes. That said, i take it further bc, as you’ve probably seen in my art, i HC elvish eyes as being all one colour. The calaquendi have incredibly bright coloured eyes, whereas the moriquendi have very dark eyes with just a bit of colour around the iris. All elves have cat-like eyes, so they reflect light. bc that’s cool. Also, the EARS. The only elf in the movies with decent elvish ears is Tauriel, just saying.

- elves are incredibly telepathic. Galadriel talking telepathically with Gandalf at the same time as talking normally with Elrond and Saruman? totally normal. Most elves have a level of mental shielding - for lack of a better description - so that they don’t hear EVERYTHING. There’s also a level of empathy going on, so it’s pretty hard to hide your emotions around elves. Some are mentally stronger than others, e.g. Maeglin, as shown through this:  “Then he called him Maeglin, which is Sharp Glance, for he perceived that the eyes of his son were more piercing than his own, and his thought could read the secrets of hearts beyond the mist of words.” and this is Maeglin as a 12yo. Honestly. I also headcanon Caranithir (and i’m pretty sure i got this from a fic but) as being incredibly telepathic but not having much control, especially around mortals. Hence why he is in a bad mood all the time.

- The telepathy thing also accounts for how clannish elves are. This is based off a Maori concept of relationships, so i’ll try to explain (and this is an incredibly simplified explanation, i’m sorry). The Whanau is your close family, including extended kin such as cousins / aunts / uncles. Your Hapu is, for lack of a better description, your community. Your Iwi is your clan (or the canoe you trace your lineage from but that won’t apply to elves bc, you know, immortal). So if we take Feanor as an example, his whanau is the House of Noldoran, his Hapu would be his House and all the elves pledged to him personally, and his Iwi would be the Noldor. It’s not perfect and i need to think about it more, but essentially what i’m trying to say here is that clan ties are very important to elves and it’s more than just blood or allegiance, there’s a mental link there too. 

- each Iwi (again, using the maori term due to a lack of quenya) has an affinity to some element of the natural world. I.e the Teleri are tied to the seas, the Sindar to the woods, the Noldor to the stone. This affinity affects their magic. For example, the sindar /sylvan elves woke the trees and taught them to speak, can weave enchantments and illusions through their forests (see Eol and Thranduil), can generally speak to the birds and animals with ease. 

- also, although i tend to draw elves of as many skin colours and races as i can, i tend to base the aesthetic of each iwi on the aesthetics of cultures that i admire here in the real world. So the noldor are based off Indian aesthetics, with the bright colours, lots of jewellery, sari, etc. The Teleri are based off polynesian, the sindar off Maori, etc. Currently the Vanyar are based entirely off the Netherfield Ball scene in Pride and Prejudice (2005) but that will probably change. 

- Now i know Tolkien said that elves don’t really have magic, but really, fuck that. I want elves who are so incredibly magical by nature that mortals can’t comprehend it. i want elvish magic based in music and song. I want the noldor to sing power into their fortresses to enhance the strength of stone. I want elvish forges that burn hotter and stronger because of the magic sung there, and elvish weapons that can never be replicated because of the unique nature of the music that enchanted them. i want elves who can casually call on fire, or ice, or water, who know the secret songs of the world, who can hear the echos of the Ainulindale in the very matter of the world. 

la dee da, but this post is getting very long. There is more, especially in regards to individual elves (Hello, Maglor), but i think i’ll stop here. I’m not sure how well i articulated my headcanons, so feel free to ask me questions about these!!! :D