#arda meta

[laoih]

I really like this take, thank you for writing it!

I just can't reblog it without comment because I would like to point out that the final message is not that all things fall apart, inevitably and irredeemably. There is an ongoing theme of hope (estel if you will) going through the stories for the First Age, and technically it's also at the end of the Quenta Silmarillion, just not in Christopher's revised version.

But the hope for a better future at the end of everything, the hope for the wounds of the world to be healed and redressed, is certianly there.

This does not change the fact that they keep going and enduring because it's the worth to keep going.

The reason I don't categorise the Silmarillion as grimdark - despite the relentless disintegration of both the characters and the world, the endless death and loss of self - is that it is a story about people trying.

Even in the middle of what, at the height of Morgoth's power, must have felt like the end of their world, the story is full of people who keep on trying to do something right. Fingon's forgiveness and rescue of Maedhros, Finrod's self-sacrificial friendship with Beren, Gwindor's determination to help Turin, a complete stranger that he literally met five minutes ago. Celebrimbor gifting the elfstone to Idril in the hope that it would bring her comfort, Maglor adopting Elros and Elrond.

Even the things that go really spectacularly badly, like the battle of unnumbered tears, are born out of a determination to keep trying, keep fighting, even in the face of impossible odds.

The final message of the Silmarillion, its literal epilogue, is that things fall apart, inevitably and irredeemably. And yet, in the middle of the falling apart there people fighting for love and forgiveness and brotherhood and every time one of them fails or dies or gives up, it hurts all over again, because they really wanted to keep going. Not even necessarily out of a hope that things would get better, but out of a belief that it was worth doing anyway.

Even if you lost.

[eri-pl]

It will be chaotic, because I can't force myself to make a structured post about it, I don't know why. Also sorry if my autocorrect does something stupid, I'm writing on the phone.

So, the Legendarium and causality, and good deeds, bad deeds and their results. This is the main topic of this post.

Is this post about the Legendarium? About real life? Both? Well, it surely is about the Legendarium, but not only. It's fuzzy. One of the things I like with tolkien is that such discussions get fuzzy and thinking about the books gives me insights about life.

There is a rule which I try to follow when writing or even planning something more serious (in the Legendarium context, but in general too, unless specifically going for a genre that's different): if a long-term success (in something that matters) is achieved by doing something morally wrong, those conditions must be fulfilled (not necessarily all clearly written out, but I must at least have a vague idea):

1. It could have been achieved in a good way, and it wouldn't be lesser. Or it wasn't really that important. (Because I refuse to accept "necessary evil")

2. Either something bad came out of it, or someone has to put effort into it not happening. I'm not sure how to explain it better (see later about handling other people's bad choices)... Anyway this makes the story feel more satisfying, more interesting.

3. How much of 2 is needed is proportional to how bad the thing was. Also if the character couldn't be expected to know much better, point 2 is less intense, though it's often still more interesting to have it.

I wonder how close to canon is this rule. Anyway I like it. Also, I tend to assume at least 1 when interpreting the canon, which likely influences my opinion about the Feanorians and the whole Silmaril business.

I'm not saying this is a 100% rule in real life, or even a technically 100% rule in te Legendarium, because omniscience is tricky… but it is a good rule in writing, I think, and even more so it definitely is a good rule in approaching decisions. If something can't work in a moral way, it won't work anyway or is not worth it. Nothing really worthy can be permanently lost by making the right choice. And so on.

It seems like there would be a symmetrical rule of good deeds not resulting in bad events but then we have the Children of Hurin. And what did Hurin do wrong? I have no idea.

But then, the Men are generally... And you could also look at Maedhros, but then, the exiled Noldor, and SoF in particular are also, hmm, I think "marred" is the word I should use here.

Still, I really prefer if there is something good coming of from good deeds, even distant and not seen by the person doing the good deeds.

Also, there seems to be is another rule, it's outright said. Things always turn out into a good ending, and you can either go with it or fall under it.

Example: gollum. He could have cooperated and jumped with the Ring willingly. He chose to betray Frodo, fell with the Ring anyway.

You also can, obviously, do a creative mix of going along and falling under. (Must I say: the two oldest Feanorians, it is this obvious?)

And falling under makes things more difficult for everyone, not just the person doing it.

Darn, I made this sound ugly and tyrannical. It's not. But I remember when I would say it is, and I can't explain why it is not. It's kinda like when you do a weird thing with your eye muscles and start seeing double. It's just not. I just can't explain it in a way this deserves. My apologies.

Anyway, bad choices make things difficult for everyone. Because we are connected to each other. I've already made a post about it long time ago, but generally...

Maybe if Saruman wasn't such a jerk weed have a Sauron redemption. (Maybe, it's always a maybe)

Maybe if Maglor didn't take pity on the twins, Númenor would fall much earlier and Sauron would be more successful. And so on and do forth.

It's always a maybe, and nobody determines anybody else's choices, but still, we do impact each other. It's hard to think about, because it's over if the places where a) it's worth to try b) there's no guarantee of anything... (Which are most places, I guess). Both on the Silm and in life, people are interconnected. But also everyone is responsible for their decisions.

It's hard to not blame characters (or people) too much. It's hard... In general it's wonderful but difficult, the whole concept.

And another thing tired to this very closely, tied to the interconnectedness (is this a word?) is unearned suffering and Hurin and Nienor and Miriel (both tbh) and Feanor back before he was a jerk and many others.

Sometimes we get the outcome of someone else's bs without even consenting to it. Why? I suppose it's because the connectedness is now important than "not getting random bs thrown in your life". Maybe. Probably. I'm not wise, ok? I'm not sure it's my heart, but something's telling me it's something like this reason.

And what can we do

Argue. Rebel. Just take it. There are many things we can do. I'm not going to go on a rant about what Feanor (or Finwe) should have done and so on because I don't want dfw and others to have a bad time listening to me criticizing their guy, and also I wasn't in his position so I shouldn't be ranting. I should go rant at myself or something.

But the things aren't going to solve themselves or disappear. So yes, just taking it is a very noble and beautiful thing to do (and hard as... Idk what's hard. A Silmaril is hard, I guess)

Because it's so very infuriating when someone else's bs lands on your head.

Oh how I wish I could handle it better.

Back to the Legendarium. Someone handling it better generally yields results, see: the Long Peace. And probably many other situations.

And of course there are situations when the bs you have to handle is your own and if you don't handle it, it will fall of everyone else's heads. This doesn't necessarily make it easier to handle. :( Sometimes someone helps, and that's nice.

Yet another question is how realistic a book should be.

Should it portray lots of undeserved suffering, of badly handled undeserved suffering (CoH), because it's part of life? Should it portray hope triumphing against reason (B&L, and remember that Beren was just as much a Man as Turin was), to give people an escape?

I think (maybe it's rather obvious) that we need both, because depending on personality and circumstances, we need both validation and acknowledgement of our pain, and hope that things can be better. Both kinds of stories are necessary.

It may sound untrue, and sometimes I wish I was a kind of person who can live with only hopeful stories, because the day ones are what I need when I'm not doing well— but no. We do need both, at least in terms of "what most of the story consists of". We need ways to express pain without an immediate answer.

It's a sad song.

But we're gonna sing it anyway.

Until we finally get it right and the sad parts start making sense.

And let's not even get into "sad stories where people mess their lives up so much because that's how freedom works, yes, they can do that" because I have absolutely no idea what to say about those.

[edennill]

ok, but how much did the numenoreans know about the fate of men? because...

the thing is, when you share Tolkien's Faith, the way it's always presented as such a huge mystery is almost funny. because you can so, so easily guess -- well, not even guess, you just know what he meant; it has to be the same as ours, whereas in-world it's always "well, mandos knows, and maybe manwë". kudos for being aware of something most of the valar aren't, then.

but how much do the numenoreans know or guess? they say "we must die and go we know not whither" and I used to pity them a bit for that uncertainty -- which, of course, would not excuse anything, but might be disquieting, especially when you're placed next to the immortal elves. we seem to be pointed towards the edain of the first age having no beliefs they were certain about in regards to this, going only on hope -- one of the closest things we get is when hurin has his moment of defiance to morgoth: "well, you cannot keep on tormenting us after we die! then we're out of your reach", but interestingly, as far as what concerns us here, he replies to an accusation that he's just repeating what the elves taught him (which is not a valid counterargument, but never mind), saying that no, it just came to him in that very moment. in general, we get the idea that they know very little, though some of them vaguely hope for something good (and I do wonder whether news of Beren shook things up at all, even if he did not, after all, meet the full fate of men that first time, just waited in the hallway).

so far, so good, if a bit bleak, but then we get to The Mariner's Wife, and Meneldur's dramatic monologue:

'May Eru call me before such a time comes!' he cried aloud.

and

'I am in too great doubt to rule. To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood?

and you could read it differently; to be honest the polish translation gives less room for doubt, which may colour my interpretation, but it does seem that he knows, or guesses with seeming certitude, and that is such a different attitude from everything else I've mentioned.

what have I to say to this? nothing except that beliefs may have grown or changed. I am very far from an expert on this, but, within ancient Israel which might be the closest analogue, and was even mentioned in connection to Númenor by Tolkien, beliefs regarding the afterlife seem to have indeed evolved with time; compare, say, the Psalms with (2nd) Maccabees (*the latter is in the Catholic Bible, but not in the Protestant ones, if you're puzzled) or Wisdom?

yes, it's not much of a conclusion, l admit, but there isn't really anything else I might say, unless it were to add that third age gondor seems to be somewhere in between, with a vague and hopeful sense of something, aragorn's "and beyond [the circles of the world] there is more than memory" and faramir's "till that time, or till some other time, beyond the reach of the seeing stones of númenor" (italics mine) being the relevant quotes. (the rather dramatic, if you think about it, context for the latter, being that faramir is probably well aware neither he nor frodo are that likely to see the next month. also worth noting that the italicised phrase is in text paired with the image of an alternatively possible - though "beyond hope" - meeting where they could "laugh at old grief, in the sun")

(the rohirrim seem to have their own beliefs, but they also seem to come with their own traditions, which, while not on the most part incompatible, may at times have been different. on the other hand, what we have is not much less vague either, just cloaked in different terms, so there isn't much evidence either way.)

[aeide-thea]

this tolkien meta points out some parallels i'd never particularly considered before, but the main thing it made me realize, which is tangential (and also negative) so i'm sticking it in its own post, is���why is tolkien so obsessed with niblings?

thorin has nephews. bilbo has a nephew. théoden has niblings. and with both thorin and théoden we know they're the children of a sister who gets no screentime. (denethor's sons via a long-dead wife get an honorable mention in this category also.) and part of me thinks: isn't this basically, conscious or not, a strategy that lets tolkien write about dynasties while effectively eliding the sex and marriages—and women!—that produce them?

which is easy to shrug off with the argument that those things aren't the stuff of Adventure, but rather of the society the adventurers leave behind them; but at the same time, it's all of a piece with the deeply sexist, deeply catholic ('sex must occur only within the confines of marriage, which becomes a euphemistic container for it') sensibilities that permeate tolkien's work more generally. like—look at homer. look at vergil. the domestic and familial can absolutely appear in epic. women can appear in epic.*

and of course you can say, well, tolkien's work is really more in dialogue with anglo-saxon and germanic traditions, and i'd have to admit i haven't read those stories since i was a preteen (watch me now get really into the nibelungenlied/völsunga saga/eddas…); but iirc even those featured fewer women who were always-already-dead!

⸻ * obviously éowyn does in fact get significant screentime in lotr! and even in a way where she's involved in Actual Affairs and not, like goldberry and galadriel, just a pretty symbol of the adventurers' temporary reentry into a settled sphere. but you notice that she both has to take on a male role in order to take part—she can't just fight, she has to become 'dernhelm' to do it—and that she's restored tidily to proper wedded femininity by the end of the story (hoo boy can we talk abt faramir literally wrapping her in his dead mother's mantle). anyway. loved éowyn growing up and also very vehemently think people (often women!) who claim her narrative isn't in fact sexist because it's about tolkien ~valuing healing~ are closing their eyes to how that narrative functions when it's applied to a woman specifically.

[contemporaryelfinchild]

I want to say I love that it's an anime. I've actually always said that I think an anime adaptation of things from the Silmarillion for example would be amazing. I strongly disagree with one comment here so far that it's bad to adapt stories across cultural art forms or, Eru forbid, have non-european-styled characters or aesthetics in a Tolkien adaptation. The fandom has been doing that for a long time to really beautiful results. From the trailer this is very clearly based in Peter Jackson, Anglo Saxon inspired, Tolkien envisioned culture for Rohan. It's conforming shot for shot to the popular expectation of how everything should look and sound. It's not even playing with any of that. It does still seem to fall into annoying tropes, like which characters have face tattoos? Who has darker skin? What are we supposed to assume about them? (I hope that ends up being subverted come oooonnn, the Picts are right there for tattoos!) Even if this were an adaptation that radically diverged from Northern European aesthetics I'd still love that. As I said, fandom has been playing at that for a long time. There are two things that I think are simultaneously true about Tolkien. 1) As an epic and an incredible story there are elements of it that are universal! People from all over the world are going to keep enjoying it and putting their spin on it forever and ever and that's beautiful. I want more of that! I love how it speaks to people. 2) There are also real elements of it that will be English no matter what. No matter how you dress it up, the language, motifs, assumptions, and cultural context will always be baked into it. From mead-halls to song battles to dragons on hoards of gold. (Personally, I would LOVE an adaptation that actually tried to translate all the cultural elements to somewhere else as well. What would Chinese Smaug hoard as a river spirit? What would Daoist magic instead of music magic look like? XD I say go for it it would be a really cool exercise to see if you could hit all the same notes.) This is another adaptation, but in The Rings of Power I'm so exhausted by people complaining about a black elf! Oh no! (rolls eyes). It doesn't hurt you, it doesn't hurt the story (unlike the bad writing) and it doesn't even touch any of the cultural bedrock. Personally, I think like GilGalad could have been black. I think leaving all canon characters white was a cowardly cop-out. That's my 2 cents and if Giorgia Meloni would agree with your take maybe do more thinking. Okay rant about Tolkien adaptations aside and back to this anime! I think the trailer looks a little cheesy. Why is the Watcher here lol. And it seems like it's doing that thing that all Tolkien adaptations do now where they just quote the Peter Jackson movies and call it good enough for the money. Also I agree that this doesn't seem to be a shape of female character that my heart yearns for (omg give me a gender swap Tolkien adaptation someone pleeaassee. Someone give me a butch Rohimin lady plleeeaassee. Make a Grima Wormtongue like character who is a greasy evil woman. I'm just saying people like TazMuir are out here doing the real work.) But! There are some really beautiful shots. The animation looks lovely. It has the chance to delve into the history in the Appendixes and do really cool world-building to flesh things out. And trailers are often more cheesy than the real thing, it could be quite interesting! I'll try it when it comes out for sure.

Hey Tolkien fandom, how we feeling about this o.O

[outofangband]

I actually wanted to repost this ramble about Morwen with edits now that I’m almost done with one of the relevant posts 

It’s been awhile since I’ve rambled about Morwen being accused of witchcraft so I just thought I’d confirm that I’m still absolutely obsessed with it and all its implications and possibilities. It remains one of my very favorite details for so many reasons. 

I love that Morwen is genuinely feared by awful people and I love that their prejudices and superstitious, almost certainly ones Morgoth would foster and encourage as a being who delights in spreading discord and turning people against each other, actually work to protect her, at least in part. It’s thematically appropriate

I’m probably going to make another post about the linguistic implications from the line “Witchwife they called her and shunned her: Witchwife it is but elf friend in the new language”. I made one here already but I’ve done some more research to add. It’s such a fascinating word and the fact that human sorcerers of any kind are rare (in Arda) and the use of the word witch with with those gendered connotations is even more rare just makes it more intriguing 

Anyways as always my tag for this stuff is word ran among them if you want to blacklist it

[ospreyeamon]

the shape of arda

I've always had trouble deciding whether I prefer the cosmology as explained in The Silmarillion or one closer to the version in 'Myths Transformed' Tolkien began working on where Arda is always round and the sun and moon pre-date the Trees. On one hand I do like the idea of a world of eternal night and the first humans waking in the light of the first sunrise to hold it in adoration afterwards. But on the other hand there are things that annoy me about it, like how changing the shape of the world didn't destroy massive swaths of it in tectonic disasters, where the extra sea and land needed to cover the gaps came from, and that the sun first rises from the west.

O how I hate the idea of the sun rising in the west. The insistence that Aman is the ultimate source of all light and civilisation, flowing through the Eldar and Númenorians who have been uplifted by the Valar making them superior to all who refused it or never had it offered to them at all, is incredibly obnoxious.

While 'Myths Transformed' can be taken as proof of in-universe knowledge of planetary roundness, that does leave the question of how the mythic flat world came to be recorded by people you would expect to know better; the Ñoldor received teaching from the Valar who surely must have been aware of the shape of the world if they created it. However, I do have an idea about how it could have happened…

🎇🎆

Valar: Well done team – one circular world and it is absolutely perfect.

Melkor: What a stupid shape for a planet. I think *smash* that this *crash* will be a much better one!

Valar: ...let's try again somewhere else and pretend this never happened. If we refuse to accept the Marring of Arda and keep hope things will get better maybe the problem will magically fix itself through the power of positive thinking.

🌳🌴

Manwë: *to the elves* ...and all the layers of the Airs stretch as far as the Encircling Sea. They touch the Walls of the World, beyond which lies the Void where my beloved Varda’s stars shine.

Ulmo: Don't you think you should mention that this is only true for Aman and that Arda is round? And just because the sun and moon didn't turn out quite the way we hoped that doesn't mean we should encourage the elves to forget about them entirely.

Manwë: I think that the fact Arda should be flat is more important. The sun and the moon are old news; the Trees are much better. Just look at the way the light drips – Yavanna really out did herself with them.

1️⃣

Fingolfin's Host: It was amazing how the sun appeared just as we arrived in Middle-earth. Definitely an omen of the coming of good things.

Fëanor's Host: Actually, it was already day over here. You just didn't see the sunlight before you passed the end of the dimensional verge at the edge of the Hel... carax...

Fingolfin's Host: *glaring intensifies*

1️⃣

Ñoldor: Your ancestors must have decided to journey to Beleriand because at their awakening they saw the sun rising from the west and loved it as we love the stars.

Humans: Actually, according to our people’s lore the sun has always risen in the east and set in the west. The first elves we met – we have mentioned them before; they live beyond the mountains and don't have glowing eyes which is why we didn't realise you were related to them at first – told us that their kin had gone into the west to dwell in a land without famine or sickness where the dead can return to life. We thought that sounded like a really nice place to live.

Ñoldor: Let us explain to you why your traditions are silly and wrong.

2️⃣

Faithful: How could anyone doubt that the cosmology taught to us by the elves is correct? They were gifted the knowledge by the Valar themselves.

King's Men: A bunch of people circumnavigated the world by sailing across the Eastern Sea until they emerged from the Sundering Sea. They brought some weird birds they violently appropriated from a distant continent back with them.

Faithful: Clearly this is a conspiracy to trick us into breaking the Ban of the Valar so doom will fall upon us.

3️⃣

Third Age Scholar: It's strange how all these ancient texts describe the world as a disc even though we know it to be spherical. Perhaps the nature of Arda was changed during one of those continent-destroying cataclysms.

[amorbidcorvid]

Fibers in Fiction - A Silmarillion Writer’s Guide to Þerindë's Craft

It's the @silmarillionwritersguild's Meta Week, and I wanted to contribute my two special interests -- fiber art and Tolkien -- and my real world degree in Medieval European Women's History. So here's a essay with writing resources for Day 6 - apply real-world disciplines to Middle-earth.

Most of this I had sitting in the back of my head and do not have quality, academic sources for. Links are either to written or video resources, or to picture credits.

Intro

What is fiber art? My personal definition is the manipulation of some sort of fiber into something functional and/or beautiful. There are a few characters in Tolkien’s works that are associated with a fiber craft of some sort – Vairë the Weaver, Míriel Þerindë, and Arwen Undómiel come to mind the easiest. I've seen various fanworks that have Caranthir also be a needle-worker, but that's not canon the way these three women are. There's a lot to be said about the intersection between "women's work" and needlework and feminism, and Tolkien's inclusion of those patriarchal standards, but ... that's not this essay.

There’s a lot of methods and a lot of disciplines that can be put under the umbrella of fiber art. The purpose of this essay is to help fic writers expound on the process of a fiber craft using the correct terminology, gain an understanding of period(ish) appropriate tools/techniques, and the differences between some of the major forms of fiber arts.  

What is a fiber? 

Starting with the basics. A fiber is a material that is longer than it is wide and typically used in textiles or electronics. This is Tolkien’s world, we’re not worrying about electronics, so let’s turn to textile fibers. There are four main types of textile fibers: 

natural fibers - flax, hemp, cotton, jute

animal fibers - silk, wool, catgut (not made from cats), angora rabbit fur, goat hair (mohair, cashmere)

synthetic fibers. - polyester, acrylic, nylon, rayon

Metallic fibers - gold, silver, copper, mithril that have been formed into a very thin wire

Obviously, unless the Valar let Fëanor get into oil extraction, all those synthetic fibers are right out. Leatherwork does not count as a fiber art, since true leather is a processed animal skin. Cords can be cut from leather to act like string, but that’s not a true fiber. And don’t talk to me about pleather or vegan leather. That’s just plastic and it’s bad for the environment. 

Spin a Thread, Draw a Wire

For the three types of fiber that could be used in Arda, there are two methods to turn these materials into thread: drawing and spinning.

Drawing a wire: a small piece of metal is pulled through a device called a draw plate. A draw plate may have many holes through which the wire is pulled, each getting successively smaller and smaller until you reach the gauge (size) you desire. As you pull the wire through each smaller hole, the wire gets thinner and longer. Rinse and repeat until you have a wire of the desired thickness. If you’re combining a wire with some sort of flexible fiber (couching, weaving, etc, see below) it needs to be extremely thin in order to be flexible enough to bend with the fiber it’s attached to. 

You need a lubricant to ensure the wire doesn’t get stuck in the draw plate. Covering the wire in oil is a good way to go (this is called dry drawing. Wet drawing is when the draw plate and the wire are both submerged in oil as you work). Application of heat can make this process easier, but depending on the metal, you might not need very much. 

Gold, silver, and copper are all very soft metals in their purest form -- alloys will make them stronger, less malleable, and harder to draw. Mithril, given that it’s a fictional metal, I can’t confidently comment on, but it’s said to have been very malleable, so I would imagine that the same process for creating very thin wires would also work in the same way as it would for the other metals listed.

A spun thread is an assortment of individual fibers that have been twisted together to make a stronger unit. Natural, animal, and synthetic fibers can all be spun. 

Usually when we describe something as a thread, we’re talking about a spun fiber that is fine/thin and smooth enough for sewing or weaving applications. Spinning a thread involves taking a pile of washed and combed but loose fibers (a bundle of these is called a roving) and literally twisting it until it forms a thread. This can be done with a drop spindle or a spinning wheel. A drop spindle is the more mobile form of spinning, and simple enough that medieval families would often have children spin. With practice you could even do it while walking. Imagine, for a moment, Míriel Þerindë walking through Beleriand during the Great Journey, drop spindle in hand, making the thread she is known for. That’s some good stuff. I’m begging somebody to write this. 

Here’s some video tutorials on how to use a drop spindle and how to use a spinning wheel. I can’t explain it succinctly, and a visual is always a good tool. 

Plyed Threads Make a Yarn

Yarn is several threads counter-twisted around each other. Counter twisting is what holds the yarn’s structure. If the individual thread is twisted clockwise, the yarn must twist all those clockwise threads counterclockwise. The tension holds the shape of the yarn.

Yarns (usually made from an animal fiber like wool, goat, or angora) and twines (usually made from natural fibers like hemp or jute or cotton) are made the same way because they make the threads stronger and more durable than they would be as individual threads, but their material usually dictates how they’re used. Yarns are softer, better for knitting or crochet or weaving. Twines and cords tend to be rougher, better for securing things to other things, for outdoor use, or … you know. The things they do in Angband.

Weaving a fabric

So you’ve got your thread and/or yarn. Now what? Well, you can dye it now (see next section), you can start knitting a garment (you need good socks on the Helcaraxë), or you can start weaving a fabric. Fabric has two components, both made by individual threads in sequence. The warp is generally static, and the vertical thread in most diagrams, including the ones I’m including here. The weft is the thread that passes back and forth horizontally. You can have the weft go over/under/over/under like this diagram (this is called a plain weave) or you can have the weft skip over a number of warp threads to create a pattern or a texture (satin or twill or denim weaves skip warp threads). The pattern depends on which warp threads get lifted or lowered with each pass of the weft, which is typically attached to a shuttle that glides through the shed. 

Weaving requires a loom, but that loom can come in various form-factors. A backstrap loom maintains tension in the warp by the position of the weaver, who has a strap attached to the loom going around her back while she manipulates the weft in front of her. This was, and still is, commonly used in native South American communities.

Early medieval Europe typically used a warp-weighted loom, where the warp threads were tied to a loom weight that dangled off the back of the loom frame. This was replaced later with the horizontal loom, which included the invention of heddles (loops that lifted warp threads in sequence to make a shed (opening) so as to make a pattern) and treadles (foot pedals that control the heddles). 

Later, the horizontal loom gets mechanized, and somehow we got computer programs out of Jacquard looms. Fascinating, but not relevant here. 

One of my favorite types of weaving is tablet weaving, which instead of heddles or treadles to form the shed, uses square cards. Four threads go through the corners of the cards to form alternating sheds that can form complex patterns. Tablet weaving is great for decorative trim and edges. You can use a backstrap method, a warp weighted method, or an inkle loom to create tablet woven articles. This video is a gorgeous introduction, but a bit long. 

What about Vairë’s tapestries, I hear you cry out into the Void? See below :) 

Add a splash of color, become ungovernable 

Color! The world can create rainbows, and we’ve been trying to make thread to match for ages. Luckily you can make most colors with natural dyes. Purple is the hardest color to get with a natural dye, along with blacks; yellows and reds and browns are easiest.

You have to prepare your dye (usually taking some natural material (onion, cochineal insects, gallnuts, walnuts, marigold flowers, woad, madder, whatever you have) and your thread/yarn/fabric separately before combining them with heat. 

Prepping your dye depends on the material you’re using. Sometimes it’s just an overnight soak in a pot, sometimes it’s crushing beetle carcasses into a fine powder, sometimes it’s boiling. I leave it to you, friend, to research the exact color you’re looking to make with a natural dye and how to get that, but this chart might be a good start. 

Most thread/yarn/fabric needs a mordant. Mordant is a dye fixative. After all that work making the fabric, you don’t want that gorgeous Fëanorian red (madder root) to come out in the wash water, right? Mordants are acids that can be found naturally, either by processing some plant materials to create tannic acid (oak trees and oak galls) or oxalic acid (wood sorrels), or by working a chemical process using alum, chrome alum, or sodium chloride, or ammonia (stale urine was commonly used before modern chemical processes). Mordants stink to Angband and back, so historically dyers would be outside town or in their own district as to not offend everyone elses noses. 

You can get a richer, more saturated color by overdyeing – dying twice or even three times. Dyes are hard to color match; each batch is going to have its own variables (weather, temperature, concentration of the dye, concentration of the mordant, quality of the fiber, etc). 

I’ve found this website that goes into a lot more detail. I’m not affiliated with them, but it’s a good starting point.  

Tools

A non-exhaustive list of standard tools a fiber artist may use and material it could be/typically is made of: 

Thread, yarn, or fabric (described above)

Scissors/shears (metal)

Sharp sewing needle in various sizes (bone or metal)

Blunt needle in various sizes (sometimes called a tapestry needle, bone or metal)

Spindle (wood)

Loom in various sizes (wood, wire, thread)

Shuttle (wood)

Knitting needles (bone, wood, or metal)

Nalbinding needle (bone, metal) (nalbinding is a cousin of knitting and crochet, good for hats and socks)

Crochet hook (bone, metal, wood)

Bobbin (wood, bone)

Lace pins (metal)

Lace pillow (fabric)

Embroidery hoop (wood)

Embroidery frame (scroll frame, slate frame, wood)

Embroidery stand (wood, metal)

Thimble (leather, metal)

Fiber Crafts seen in the Legendarium 

Tapestry Weaving

Tapestry weaving is different than standard weaving, because the weft does not go across the entire length of the working area in a shuttle. Tapestry weaving typically uses many, many bobbins or needles of colored thread worked in a plain weave in small areas to make an image. In medieval Europe, tapestries would be used as a form of insulation, to keep the cold out, and as a status symbol. (All I’m saying is, give Himring more tapestries, and maybe the Ever-Cold fortress would be a bit more homey). Here’s this article from the Metropolitan Museum of Art about tapestries, and here’s a video about the making of large scale tapestries, which is the technique I imagine Vairë and Míriel use for the Halls.

Embroidery

Embroidery is the practice of taking individual colored threads (usually cotton, wool, or silk) and sewing them into a ground fabric to decorate that fabric with a design of some sort. There’s SO MANY ways to embroider things. Cross stitch, which is what your author started out doing, uses stitched squares on a grid to effectively make pixel art with thread. You can do blackwork (which doesn’t necessarily need a black thread) which makes a repeating pattern on a grid but doesn’t make squares. Or there’s more freeform embroidery which lots of people use for natural scenes (flowers especially) but can be used for portraits, landscapes, silly sayings – the world is your oyster. The Royal School of Needlework in the UK has a Stitch Bank which documents how to accomplish many, many, many kinds of stitches. 

I’m going to highlight a few stitches that absolutely should be in your writing toolkit if you are working with a character doing embroidery. I’m not going to describe every stitch, but knowing what a stitch is called is half the battle. Okay, maybe a quarter of it, you still have to either do it, or write a good description of doing it, which may be the other 3/4ths of the battle.

Satin Stitch - a good, all purpose filler. Made by stitching parallel lines of thread. Uses a lot of thread, since you should be bringing your needle up through the ground on the same side of the thing you’re trying to fill every time. 

Couching - another good, all purpose filler. Made by laying thread or wire flat on the ground fabric, then taking another thread (close in color or not, depends on the vibe) and stitching it down in place securely. This is the main filling stitch in the Bayeux Tapestry (not a true tapestry, it’s just a really big embroidery) and undoubtedly how Arwen made part of Aragorn’s banner with mithril wire. 

Straight stitch - makes a dashed line

Back stitch - makes a solid straight line

Stem stitch - makes a solid straight line that can easily curve

Chain stitch - good filler, makes interlocking loops

Daisy stitch - a chain stitch that doesn’t interlock the loops, but stitches down the loop so it doesn’t move. Makes good simple flowers

French knots - tiny filler, lots of good texture. Tiny knots made by wrapping the thread around your needle.

Stump work - 3D effects for ages. Want flowers or leaves to literally jump off the ground fabric? Stump work is your friend, and my personal nemesis. 

Conclusion

Knowing the terminology of a craft is integral to learning more about it, and writing it accurately. My hope with this resource is that you might have learned a new term or two, or gotten a few new resources to use in your writing. Even better if this is something you don’t know a lot about, or have never given much thought to, then I hope you’ve learned something valuable here. 

[soothingmoonlight]

#silm#fëanorians#the sons of fëanor explored all over aman in their youth they're used to life on the road#and specifically noted as “abode seldom in one place for long”#makes sense they'd have little diffculty adopting to the Laiquendi lifestyle#I mean even during the siege they're less stationary than eg the Nolofinwëans#constantly visiting each other and organizing patrols out into lothlan and ard-galen#(Celegorm and Curufin are off visiting Caranthir when Aredhel reaches their territory as just one example)

tags by @waitingforsecretsouls

A meta I must write, and will.. one day, is about how in the Silmarillion is stated that the sons of Fëanor were “scattered” after the Nirnaeth and, at first glance, the thing makes remarkably little sense, particularly since they apparently manage not only to keep their own safe while scattered (after a retreat to Amon Ereb), but also to have an army co-ordinated and organised enough to march on Doriath during the winter and win that war in unfamiliar enemy territory and, likely, heavily outnumbered.

Still the thing starts making more sense if we consider the perspective from which the “writer” of the Silmarillion writes: the perspective of Gondolin, a society founded around the city as a hidden haven, which sees (with its own reasons) leaving it behind as impossible, with Doriathrim influences, thus yet another culture founded around the concept of a “hidden haven” the fall of which would mean death. Yet this is not true for the Fëanorians, or even the people of Fingon and Fingolfin who, living in territories so near an active border, would have to have developed a “fallback plan” to use should the worst come to pass.

My theory is that the Fëanorian and the non-Gondolidhrim Noldor to a lesser extent, had planned a possible “nomadization” well in advance and thus their scattering served the double purpose of making them less visible to Morgoth and preventing them from ending up in a non-defensible position. Which would also explain how Maedhros can try and offer allegiance later to Elwing as a bargaining chip, and have an army strong and organised enough to survive on his own and even win armed conflicts.  Naturally becoming a nomadic people had its prices, particularly for the Noldor, still I think it was a smart move and a well planned one, particularly since Amrod and Amras already seem to lead a semi-nomadic people.

[valacirya]

Indis appreciation post!

Disclaimer: All the canon info is taken from Morgoth's Ring and Peoples of Middle Earth. Also, this isn't a character analysis/meta. It's just a list of stuff I love (plus some headcanons) about one of my favorite characters in the legendarium.

1. She's athletic and outdoorsy. We're told that Indis is "exceedingly swift of foot" and that "she walked often alone in the fields and friths of the Valar, turning her thought to things that grow untended." When Finwe sees her, she's chilling on a mountainside. I love that she's associated with nature, specifically the wilderness. She parallels Feanor in her exploration of Aman and interest in the imperfect. Also, this is purely self-indulgent but ever since reading HoME for the first time, I've pictured Indis as tall and broad, and muscular beneath a layer of fat.

2. She doesn't let her unrequited love affect her life. "There was ever light and mirth about her." She's not the pining, languishing princess stereotype. She goes on. She doesn't let it make her bitter or depressed, and she is so restrained that only Mandos and possibly Ingwe are aware of her feelings.

3. Part of her attraction to Finwe is intellectual. In HoME we're told that his "mastery of words delighted her." Considering that Indis is also a poet/composer ("wove words into song") and that the Vanyar enjoy linguistics, it makes sense. It's also just really cute.

4. She's politically minded. Her reasoning for pronouncing 's' instead of 'th' is: "I have joined the Noldor, and I will speak as they do." This is the right thing to do to gain the respect of the Noldor and their acceptance of her authority. I also think she makes a statement with Fingolfin and Finarfin's mother-names. Arakano ("high chieftain") and Ingoldo ("the Noldo, eminent among the kindred") are not only powerful, prophetic names, they're also strikingly similar to Ingwe ("chief of chieftains") who is the High King not just of the Vanyar, but all Eldar. What a power move.

5. She's able to balance her own culture with the culture she marries into. Indis integrates into Noldorin society easily while remaining Vanyarin at her core, as is evidenced by Finwe saying that "above all her heart now yearns for the halls of Ingwe and the peace of the Vanyar." Her sons also respect and are proud of their mixed heritage; Finarfin "loved the Vanyar, his mother's people" and is said to be like them (as are Finrod and Galadriel), and Fingolfin's daughter-in-law is Vanyarin (plus the Nolofinweans have a special connection to Manwe).

6. She gets an awesome prophecy about her line. "But I say unto you that the children of Indis shall also be great, and the Tale of Arda more glorious because of their coming. And from them shall spring things so fair that no tears shall dim their beauty; in whose being the Valar, and the Kindreds both of Elves and of Men that are to come shall all have part, and in whose deeds they shall rejoice. So that, long hence when all that here is, and seemeth yet fair and impregnable, shall nonetheless have faded and passed away, the Light of Aman shall not wholly cease among the free peoples of Arda until the end." Fuck yeah.

7. Her name means "valiant woman." This is the only definition given in Morgoth's Ring, I believe. I highly prefer it over the "bride" meaning because it's a badass name and is similar to Artanis ("noble woman") and Astaldo ("the valiant"). A headcanon that I'm particularly attached to is that Indis's mother-name is Indome, meaning "will of Eru."

8. She's popular with most of the Noldor. We're told that "Finwe, King of the Noldor, wedded Indis, sister of Ingwe; and the Vanyar and Noldor for the most part rejoiced." The majority of the Noldor also follow Fingolfin and Finarfin instead of Feanor.

9. She's friends with Nerdanel. HoME states that Nerdanel went to "abide with Indis, whom she had ever esteemed."

10. She gets pissed off at Finwe when he sides with Feanor. So much so that he thinks she won't want to see him if he's re-embodied. I know this is from his perspective but I'm inclined to agree. [However, this is still very presumptive of him, and his comment that "Indis parted from me without death" is super shitty. Eugh.]

11. She's close to her kids. Finarfin takes after her, Fingolfin passes on the name she gave him, Findis lives with her, Lalwen goes by the name she gave her. Finwe also says that "she hath dear children to comfort her."

So there we have it! What little info we get about Indis is pretty awesome. And this is just a list; I could write a whole essay on her fortitude and unconventionality and my numerous headcanons about her.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Why do you think Aragorn as accepted as a King? They don't have blood tests to confirm his identity and he is not even from Gondor (was probally born here, but not raised)

Oh no Aragorn was not born in Gondor, canonically speaking he was born in the north amongst the northern dunadain and that is his cultural heritage. And not only that, Aragorn's claim to the throne is legally shakey at BEST. His only claim to the line of Meneldil (original King of Gondor after Anarion and Elendil's deaths) is through a female line, which used to be an accepted path to kingship in Numenor, but was since entirely discarded by both Gondor AND Arnor (so not even Aragorn's own direct ancestors agreed with letting women rule kingdoms) And a previous legal ruling on this PRECISE ISSUE decreed that Aragorn's ancestor DID NOT have a right to Gondor's throne. So yes it's a good question isn't it? There are two answers!

#1 Gondor is still a partial if not full theocracy. This is one of those aspects of the book that doesnt really make sense unless you understand all the character's actions through the lense of catholicism and religious faith in general. Aragorn is 'Estel' or 'hope', but when people say 'hope' in Middle-earth what they mean is faith etc.

In lotr meta-logic the divine right to rule is a real thing that actually exists, god (Eru) literally wants Aragorn to be king. The characters within the story are aware of this to varying degrees, Boromir being one of the few characters who properly disregards this and wishes to view Aragorn's claim on it's own merit. Even Denethor knows and understands that Aragorn is chosen by god, and he's very bitter and angry about it! (good for him). But in general, all other characters including all Gondorian lords are 'faithful' or 'elendili', and within this religion the only people who could be called 'priests', who can bridge the divide between man and god, are their Kings. So, religiously, if Aragorn IS sent by god to rule them, then they would be committing a kind of heresy to refuse him. And remember, god literally exists in Arda canonically and so therefore does sin and heresy, not just in a moral way but also in a literal like... fact of nature kind of way.

So when Aragorn arrives in Pelargir with an army of ghosts it gives Lord Angbor FAITH in him. When Gandalf, an angel literally doing god's will, is his friend and expressly supports his claim the other lords of Gondor also are inspired to have faith in him. Aragorn spends a good deal of time after the siege of minas tirith ticking divine checklists for 'guy who should be king', he is not making a legal argument for his right to the Gondorian throne, he is making a religious argument for his right to rule over the entire population of 'the faithful' which includes Gondor AND Arnor, destroyed or not.

There WOULD be discussion though! Not everyone in Gondor is dunadain and not everyone is faithful in the way that the dunadain are faithful. Culturally the northern and southern dunadain have been seperated for 3000 years and a lot of people would have issues with being ruled by someone so other to them, even if he had lived among them for 10 years (though that does help). But in the end the lords of gondor are almost all dunadain and they all have to abide by the tenets of their faith, or '''fall''' and become '''lesser men''' than even the rohirrim (terrible I know 🙄) so they really had no choice but to support Aragorn in the end.

However, reason #2

Minas Tirith's armies were absolutely decimated after a weeks long siege and war before that, and what few soldiers were left were exhausted and barely functioning. Aragorn arrived at their gates and broke the siege with a full army who'd only done ONE fight and told everyone he was king of Gondor. What was Imrahil gonna do, say no?

[iridescentoracle]

There definitely are meteorites on Arda, which we know specifically bc there are swords notable for being made from meteoric iron!

per “Of Túrin Turambar”:

[Anglachel] was a sword of great worth, and it was so named because it was made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star; it would cleave all earth-delved iron.

Another thought (actually the reason I got on lead poisoning in the first place): Did the elves use metal in Cuiviénen?

There are three… three and a half? options here:

No, not at all

Yes, but only metals found in mostly-pure "native" form, chiefly gold, silver, copper

Yes, they'd invented smelting

Yes, they'd also started producing alloys

The argument against smelting is that it doesn't really fit with the one-with-the-world, pastoral vibe of Cuiviénen. Smelting takes a lot of fuel (axes! oh noes!), it often produces toxic byproducts, it's kinda (shudder) industrial. On the other hand, on Earth it developed a very long time ago it's not the only kind of early material culture production process that gets icky… (Tanning, prominently, but you can use hides without tanning them if you maintain them carefully so that's not necessarily present.)

Most important teaching the Valar offered: the cheat codes to engage in metallurgy, tanning, etc. without poisoning themselves and their surroundings? Or you could say the elves already knew how to get metal to do what they wanted without all that.

So:

Kinda want to do another poll on tanning now…

[dawnfelagund]

Back in 2019, I wrote a blog post called The Inequality Prototype. As part of it, I counted a bunch of stuff related to the Valar and looked at how those metrics differed based on gender. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to extend this work over the entire Silmarillion, namely looking at who speaks in the text and who doesn't. For Tolkien Meta Week, I began this work and am collecting my analyses related to it here. It is very much still a work in progress and will likely take me years to complete, but I'm going to post interesting data as I discover it.

This project, like all of my data projects, is available to use under a CC license for others who want to play with the data: View the data | Copy the data | Methodology, progress, etc.

---

Dialogue does not occur evenly across The Silmarillion. While a little over 5% of the words in The Silmarillion as a whole are used in dialogue, this is very unevenly distributed across the chapters, with some chapters about half dialogue and six chapters containing no dialogue at all.

There is a lot more work to be done to tease out trends and patterns that might have some meaning, but just glancing at the graph above, some of those patterns do begin to emerge. First, dialogue increases as The Silmarillion progresses. In the second half of the book (calculated by chapter, not page or word count), only two chapters have no dialogue and only four chapters (inclusive of those two without dialogue) fall below the median of 5.3% dialogue. Put another way:

In the first half of chapters, 71% of chapters are below the median.

In the second half of chapters, 29% of chapters are below the median.

Why is this? My tentative theory is that we see the book moving from the realm of the mythic—from events that are passed down through the oral tradition and ancient written traditions—and into the historical, where the narrator has a greater array of sources, including eyewitness testimony, and begins to write with greater immediacy rather than the arm's-length style of myth and ancient history.

What I am curious about: As I dig deeper into these data, will I see this theory bear out in which episodes or characters/groups are granted actual dialogue? In other words, will characters and peoples lost to the mists of time speak less, as I would expect? Or will the type of dialogue (e.g., a formal speech that may have been preserved vs. an extempore conversation that would not) vary based on narrative distance? I have documented in the past that the narrator of The Silmarillion uses the "it is said/told/sung" construction more with characters who are less accessible, so there is evidence that Tolkien manipulated writing style based on what his narrators' access to various sources. Does he use dialogue similarly to communicate that "mythic distance"?

There are also chapters that are more expository in purpose (Valaquenta, "Of Beleriand and Its Realms") that do not contain dialogue. Without digging deeper into the chapters themselves, most of those without dialogue that aren't similarly expository are chapters where the material would be less accessible to Pengolodh as a narrator. Whether this bears added scrutiny remains to be seen!

Finally, in discussing these data on the SWG's Discord, polutropos noticed something interesting, which is that the chapter with the most dialogue—"Of Aulë and Yavanna," where almost 57% of the words of the chapter are given over to dialogue—was not in fact written by Tolkien. As document by Douglas Charles Kane in his book Arda Reconstructed, "This chapter is completely manufactured by Christopher, though using his father's own writings" (page 54). Where Kane usually includes a chart pointing to the source for each bit of The Silmarillion, his chapter on "Of Aulë and Yavanna" contains no such chart because, while he is able to document where ideas came from, Christopher actually wrote the chapter.

Interestingly, "Of the Noldor in Beleriand" is the chapter with the second most dialogue and, according to Kane, "The changes made in this chapter are among the smallest anywhere in the published text" (page 154). So Tolkien does sometimes write dialogue-heavy chapters—though without data to back me up (yet! it's coming!), most of that dialogue appears to come in the form of lengthier speeches, not necessarily the debate/conversation format of Of Aulë and Yavanna."

The biggest impact of the dialogue-heavy "Of Aulë and Yavanna," I suspect, will emerge as I dig more into the data on gender and who speak in The Silmarillion. Yavanna is one of the women who speaks the most in The Silmarillion, but almost all of her dialogue occurs in this chapter. If this chapter is constructed by Christopher, how does that impact the amount of speech women are permitted by Tolkien? Polutropos' observation spurred me to plan to document the source of the various dialogue sections: Are they original to Tolkien's writings or added? Kane, interestingly, is critical of Christopher Tolkien in Arda Reconstructed for what he perceives as Christopher removing women characters from the text. In this instance, we see a significant example of the opposite: a woman's role is not only expanded, but she is given an opportunity to speak.

[edennill]

to quote this post (basically about a conceptual golden age empire; people have already been tagging it as númenor), which got me thinking:

none of it is sustainable. it's collapsing under its own weight and the rot eating at its heart, its bottomless hunger barely kept at bay. it's a society that isn't built to last or be outlived.

***

I think that the last generation of númenor knew that it was to be the last.

they never tried to ensure a hypothetical future -- there wasn't really a new generation growing up to take their place. some scattered children, yes, but the concept of children and heirs implied that they wouldn't after all be immortal, and that was something they would not countenance. said out loud or not, the feeling went: either we live forever -- or après moi le déluge. after me comes the flood.

I think that had he not set off on his disastrous venture, ar-pharazon would have begun executing people left and right when he realised his death was near, out of mere jealousy at the fact that someone might live and enjoy life when he could not. if he could have ensured for númenor to be destroyed, he would have done so.

***

and that other fundamental instability -- of conquest... they had subjugated half the world already, and were running out of space. what sauron promised them, after all, was at least as much about new worlds for conquest as about immortality.

what they craved, in the end, was not life. it was ever-increasing power. that was why they were afraid to die -- that out of necessity it put a cap on one's ambitions. sure, you were encouraged to put hope in whatever awaited after. but you knew, deep inside, it would not be that which you had, because what you had was built on greed and on pride. you were never encouraged to put your hope in vices.

[and-the-times-we-had]

Have some meta about Feanor, Indis, and Finwe I guess:

I can't help but think that Indis was in no way equipped to actually handle the fraught family situation she got herself involved in. She had no examples to go on on how to be a stepparent.

I think a very plausible scenario would be one where Indis resents Feanor just as much as Feanor resents her. And no, I don't mean this in the "Indis is a horrible evil stepmother" way, that's ridiculous imo. I mean that they both get in the way of the other's idea of what they would like their family to look like. As far as Feanor is concerned, the only family he has left is Finwe, and Indis is encroaching on that bond. As for Indis, even though she knew that Finwe had a child and that that child would be present in their relationship, maybe she didn't expect him to be present quite so strongly or to require quite as much of Finwe's attention as he seems to. LaCE seems to imply that Elven children are pretty independent, so it wouldn't be odd for her to expect this. Or maybe she expected that Feanor would more easily come to accept her as a maternal figure simply by being present where Miriel could not be. She probably ends up having to majorly shift her expectations of what her marriage to Finwe will look like.

I think it's also possible that she resents Feanor's resentment. From her perspective, all the adults involved in the remarriage consented to it, and she has chosen to be there with Feanor and Finwe while Miriel has chosen to stay away. Why should Feanor resent her or resent her children, she might say to herself, resentfully. It's very common for adults to not really be considerate of children's concerns regarding the life altering decisions of their caregivers, even in real life. And I can't imagine that Finwe did very well at explaining the whole situation to Feanor either.

Perhaps all this leads to an Indis who, instead of trying her best to be nice and reasonable all the time, is instead more likely to respond poorly to Feanor when he responds poorly to her or to ignore him entirely in favor of focusing on her biological children.

Indis doesn't have to be a perfect person in this situation, and honestly, I think it would make more sense and be more interesting that she isn't. Not because I think she a horrible, malicious person but because being a stepparent is hard even if you aren't part of The First Blended Family In Arda and mistakes get made easily in complicated, emotional family situations even if they are not malicious or intentional.

Idk, man. I just think that no one in that family was having a particularly Good Time.

[eri-pl]

So I was thinking about Mandos and afterlife in Legendarium (as you do), and I came up with some HC/thoughts about Men.

Warnings: ghosts. Implied possibility of Hell??? (Those are two different things). Should this be a warning? It's creepy. And typically not talked about in the context of Legendarium, except some really weird questions people asked Tolkien and that one fic?

Those are all HCs based on vibe + what seems to make sense to me + what fits for me with other things. I think none of them contradicts canon, but they aren't very supported either.

First: ghosts. I wish I came up with it earlier, now it's probably a bit too late…. still, I hope to see that story someday!

So, Men have the thing that I quoted earlier today:

have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else

I read it as the Men can do a lot of things with their fate that the Elves cannot, and while they can't permanently bind themselves to Arda and become immortal, they can, in some circumstances, bind themselves temporarily. I'm not sure if it can be done on purpose, maybe it can (counterargument is that the Numenoreans tried to find a way to do it and failed), but we've seen it done accidentally.

We've seen: Aragorn's ghost army of Men who bound themselves to their oath (you know, who can't bind themselves to an oath this strongly? Yes, those 8 guys. Because the Men have safety switches turned off and can do more, for better and for worse.), Gorlim who bound himself by breaking his loyalty (idk if there was a formal oath involved), the Nine who bound themselves – well, accepted Sauron binding them, but it's much the same thing — with the rings.

Sidenote: The Norns are three kinds of (fate? something): things that have happenned, things that happen now, and debts/obligations/"should" (it's etymologically that!)

TBH I know very little about them, so I maybe misinterpreting. anyway, the point is that debts, oaths and obligations are a form of a self-imposed destiny. Or at least let's assume that they are.

So yes, Men can linger as ghosts if there's something keeping them: some debt or obligation. And only as long as this thing is keeping them. When it ends, they land in the normal situation, same as Men who have just died.

And, strangely, I don't think Námo has a lot to do with those ghosts. Based on thematic and visual elements I would say: Vaire if any of the Valar deals with it. Because she reminds me of the Norns. (But this is a purely aestethical choice: you could have Námo managing all of those situation and it would still work. Just… debt-ghosts and Men who die properly are a different pipeline in the Halls.)

Námo deals with processing the Men who are leaving, not the Men who are bound (until they are not longer bound). And now we get to the stranger/less canon-based part: Men too can refuse the call of Mandos.

Why? Because I said so because this leaves space for … things I won't write about anyway? IDK. It would seem strange to me if the elves could and Men couldn't.

However, unlike Elves, they cannot linger on their own (as in: without the circumstances mentioned above), and the call is a one-time event for them*.

(And the debt-ghosts get the call when their debt is gone. Earlier it... blosks the call, sort of? Postpones it? IDK but it makes sense to me.) Edit: OK, this doens't make a lot of sense probably... Probably it makes more sense to be call→they talk with Námo→sent to linger because of their stuff→deal with their stuff. But this makes it harder to write. Or at least less fun to write because the ghosts don't have the type of agency that I like when writing? Hmm... I'm not sure I'll probably edit this part some more.

So the Men either go to Mandos, are processed (with more or less arguing with Námo and difficulty) and leave; or they refuse the call, but can't (as in: it's a law of (meta)physics, not just a moral law, Iforgot the Tolkien word… axan?) stay on Arda, so… something else happens with them? Probably not pleasant? I won't delve deeper into this question.

*For Elves the call of Mandos canonically a permanent thing and they can follow it at any time, it is said in one of NoME or similar book. If they don't follow it immediately, it's bad for their state and for their chances of reembodiment. And they can be caught and necromanced. But still, they can go to Mandos late.