#and anyone who questions your beliefs over HEADCANONS is objectively evil and manipulative

[katyspersonal]

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and still are kind and respectful to different takes are good and beautiful and lovely and Great Ones can't even help them to ascend any further because they are already perfect and they get so many bitches.

People that headcanon Maria as butch lesbian and/or Eileen as black woman and trash on different takes while accusing people of bigotries are terrible and dumb and absolutely repulsive and do not take homophobia/racism seriously if they think having different headcanons on fictional characters is any of these bigotries, they should stop using the pretense of caring about real world issues to get away with shunning, passive aggression, bullying and cruelty in the fandom for the "awful sin" of being different and Rom would never want to be friends with them

People that started to dislike these headcanons just because of bad experiences with toxic fans should temporarily stop keeping track on fandom updates so they can heal and rediscover them, contradictory spirit doesn't make you free from bad people but makes you another side of the bad people coin and true freedom lays in raging individualism, don't let them claim headcanons as their weapons because butch lesbian Maria and black Eileen did nothing wrong to you and exist to make people happy, it is their enforcers who are bad.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Headcanons - Maeglin

I suppose after my last post I might as well put this together. I would prefer it in the form of a post-canon fic, specifically a very uncomfortable conversation/confession between Maeglin and Tuor and Idril in (or more specifically, directly off the coast of) Valinor, but it’s not like the chances of that ever coming together are very high.

I go with what The Silmarillion says: that Maeglin did desire Idril and hate Tuor, and that that was a contributing factor in his betrayal of Gondolin to Morgoth; and that fear was also an element in it but, since the narrative says he isn’t a coward, the fear was not specifically of physical torture.

Additionally, because active and knowing collaboration with Morgoth is something otherwise unknown among the elves, by the time he came to the Halls Maeglin’s soul was, in effect, a orc. (This likewise applies to various of the Fëanorians, but somewhat less obviously visibly. They can still lie to themselves about what they are. Maeglin can’t. In some ways that gives him a better possibility of changing. Going by Celegorm’s clear hatred of Dior, it’s evident that he’s managed to rationalize himself as somehow the victim of the whole course of events in the Leithian and is pretty determinedly locked into that perspective of seeing himself as the wronged part rather than as one who did anything wrong. Whereas it’s nigh impossible for Maeglin to look at the product of his decisions and go yes, that went well; it is now patently obvious that Morgoth was never going to keep any agreement.)

So here is Maeglin’s story, featuring a scary and manipulative Morgoth.

He is captured and brought before Morgoth, and Morgoth does not torture him. Instead, Morgoth shows him visions of all that his curse did to Túrin and his family, the endless destruction of all that Túrin cared for, strove for, or sought to achieve or protect. And he says, “I have no intention of killing you. I will let you go, and I will do this to you. Your city, your friends, the woman you love, your reputation, all will be destroyed. It does not matter if you deny me; everyone will still think you betrayed the city, and loathe you. I have my own ways of finding things out. The city has no chance.” And he shows Maeglin the power of Angband, and last of all shows him the winged dragons, which could easily fly over the mountains looking for a hidden city. Morgoth’s not ready to reveal them outside Angband yet, but Maeglin doesn’t know that.

And then Morgoth says, “If you refuse me, the city will still fall, and every one of them will blame you. But, if you reveal it to me, I will spare you, and the king’s daughter, and some others that you may choose, and you may rule them. But I claim the life of the king, and of the would-be prophet; that must be your sacrifice.” And the last line twists the knife excellently, because Maeglin genuinely loves Turgon as a father, but he has no objection at all to Tuor’s death or capture by Morgoth; that’s a feature, not a bug, and Morgoth knows it.

So Maeglin’s fall to temptation proceeds from two things. First, given the choice between doing right and being percieved by all as having done evil, and doing evil but being percieved as good, he chooses is the latter. [Is this partly inspired by Plato’s discussion of that concept in The Republic - the just man seen as unjust or the unjust man seen as just? A bit.] Second, the same cause as Anakin’s fall in the Star Wars prequels: valuing one’s ability to possess a desired person rather than valuing that person’s own beliefs, convictions, and desires. Idril would never wish to preserve her life at the cost of Gondolin, and would (and does) despise Maeglin for seeking to make such a choice on her behalf. Padmé would never wish to preserve her own life at the cost of the Republic, or of the lives of innocents, or of Anakin’s soul. But the men who desire them are seeing them not as individuals with meaningful choices, but as treasured objects to be clung to at all costs. (Obviously, the lack of reciprocation in Maeglin—>Idril is one of the things that makes it worse than Anakin/Padme.)

So Maeglin agrees to Morgoth’s terms, and betrays Gondolin. And having made that agreement, he has given Morgoth an inroad into his soul. His thoughts, his desires, his choices, are all more susceptible to corruption than they would otherwise be. Over the following years, he has intermittent doubts and regrets about his choice, but he can’t break away. It’s not impossible - he could - but only if he could bring himself banish all selfishness, to care solely about saving what can be saved of Gondolin, and not at all about the consequences to himself or what anyone would think of him. And he can’t muster that kind of purse sense of purpose. The way he descibes it in this conversation is as if an indolent man, without any prior exercise, set out to climb a mountain; unpractised and unready, he would be unable to muster the physucal strength to do it. Maeglin lacks moral exercise; he did not cultivate the needed qualities when he had the chance; he did not seek to restrain his negative impulses (desire for Idril, though she is a married woman with no interest in him; hatred for Tuor, though he has done nothing to deserve it); and now, when he needs that strength, he lacks it.

And the more the years go by, the more Morgoth’s power creeps into his spirit. (Do you know, Maeglin asks, what it is to feel you soul rot within you?) By the time the city falls, he retains little beyond his worst impulses: desire for Idril, and hatred for anything other than himself that she might love.

At this point in the post-canon confession/conversation, Maeglin turns to Tuor and Idril in turn. Thank you, he says to Tuor. Thank you for ending it. And to Idril: Thank you for saving what could be saved from my treachery.

And Tuor asks: What do you think would have happened, if you had lived?

Maeglin: He would have taken me, and completed in body what he had already achieved in spirit.

Tuor: You think he would have....would have made you an orc?

Maeglin: In the Halls of Mandos, the fëa, shorn of flesh, can no longer disguise itself. In every way that mattered, I already was.

The conversation goes beyond there, in bits and pieces, and Maeglin explains the nature of his recivery from orc-ness in the Halls, and they reach a form of reconciliation, but the part I describe is the part I’ve envisioned most clearly.

A bit of my other headcanon around post-Mandos Maeglin is that he is deeply, deeply uncomfortable around the Valar and Maiar, which tends to manifest in abrasiveness and apparent lack of respect about/towards them. After all, he hasn’t lived among them as the Noldor did; the only Vala he’s ever met is Morgoth, and that didn’t go well; and on top of that, he’s traitor; so the Valar flat-out terrify him, and since that makes him feel like a coward - which he already regards himself as - he compensates with some hostility towards them. He can’t offer anything like an apology to them because of the standing question (unresolved even in Maeglin’s mind) as to whether such an apology would be out of genuine contrition or abject terror. The Valar largely understand this and are willing to give him time and space, but some Gondolindrim (Ecthelion, particularly), take it as insolence and an indication that he’s not sincerely repentant.

The above conversation with Idril and Tuor takes place entirely upon boats, which only adds to Maeglin’s discomfort, since he’s particularly scared of Ulmo (as patron of Gondolin, Ulmo has particular reason to be displeased with him).

Okay, one final headcanon. Maeglin is literally the only person who Eärendil dislikes. This makes Eärendil very uncomfortable, as he’s not accustomed to disliking people. He doesn’t wish any harm to Maeglin, he wishes him well, but he would vastly prefer that Maeglin could have that good life somewhere with no reference or proximity whatsoever to Eärendil. Since Idril and Tuor’s situation and typical location is...peculiar, Eärendil is the one who - with great misgivings - arranges for Maeglin to have the opportunity to talk to them.