#especially during the quest for the Silmaril

[fuckingfinwions]

"Good morning Curvo, do you have a minute?"

"Sure, we've got enough swords finally. what do you need?" Curufin said as he took off his forge apron. He was wearing only two bracelets and no rings, but the apron had hidden an intricate silver net that stretched from a necklace all the way down to fasten to his balls, held in place by delicate chains looping behind his back (and through half a dozen piercings) so it wouldn't get caught working in the forge.

"I want you to make another set of armor. Plain except for the star on the breast, and that raised as little as possible. All steel, no gems, no gold."

"What, did a Balrog damage your last one?"

"No, it's still in good condition. This armor would be for you."

"Absolutely not!"

"Curufin, please. You need to wear armor when going between cities."

"I already have a set of armor, made by the best smith in history."

"The armor Father made is beautiful, but totally impractical. The flames of the edge of the pauldrons are a perfect handhold for on orc to grab you off your horse. The relief of the palace is beautiful, but every one of the gems concentrates stress, and every thin spot is a place it will crumple. You know metal better than I do, you can see the flaws just as well."

"So it's a bit risky to wear. Living in Beleriand is a risk, leaving Valinor was a risk, every time you go out to charge at orcs is a risk. I'm not going to ruin our family's reputation just because I'm scared."

"I don't take risks unnecessarily, only to protect our people, and you shouldn't either."

"So our family name isn't worth protecting, not if the so-called king says so."

"Curufin, that's not what this is about. Fingolfin has nothing to do with this."

"Really? Less than a year ago, the pride of house Nolofinwe disappeared without a trace. And it's complete coincidence that today you ask me to dress plainly."

"I'm not asking you to dress plainly all the time, or to give up the armor father designed. You can wear it whenever you're at court, or riding within a few hours of a city where it should be safe enough. But when you're in the wilderness, or planning to go out and fight, no one's going to be thinking about your appearance. It will just be for some circumstances."

"So only some of the time I'll be humiliating our house, and most people won't notice. That makes everything better."

"It won't humiliate our house to do as the head of the house orders. And just like Father required that you wear an apron and nothing that dangles in the forge, I am requiring that you wear durable armor when in battle."

"Fine. I will make a set of steel armor for myself that has no gems, inlays, or flourishes."

"And that doesn't shine like a beacon, making a target for every orc in sight."

"Seriously? My apron is intricately tooled leather, and you won't let the armor even shine? Even though the first set of armor is already so form-hiding I could have a full body rash and a potbelly, and no one would know?"

"I'm serious. You have to wear it once, so I can see you actually made the armor. After that, if you think it's worth never going out of sight of Himlad, I won't force you to wear something so plain."

"I'm holding you to that."

"Of course."

[eri-pl]

So I was thinking about vampire, scion-of-Ungolianth Luthien from Unfinished Tales (as you do), and about Arwen as Luthien 2.0 and Elrond running a hotel, and about Beren being Just a Guy and I got some hotel Transylvania vibes. (it is something my kids watched)

Also, Luthien and Ungolianth, weaving shadows and stealing lights (to recap a post I saw a couple days ago); but also Miriel and Vaire weaving; Miriel and Luthien dying when they should theoretically not die. Also, Ungoliant almost ate Morgoth and Luthien pulled out a heist on him (both cases over the Silmarils).

There is something in there. I don't know what but something.

Also, we aren't told explicitly who sang what in the Ainulindale and I would assume many of the Ainur did at least some discordant notes, it wasn't a clear split through it all, it was confusion and sort of a clear split near the end. But Ungolianth being sung into (I won't say "existence" yet but... the draft of existence?) by Melkor, and in smaller amounts Vaire and Melian fits with all that.

(And even if we are told that "All the Ainur sang properly except those few that are now evil", it's elven censorship and simplification, and of course it isn't a fact.)

Also, wait, wait! Miriel. weaving and textile arts. Health problems. What if during the march West they passed a place where Ungoliant had lived before and Miriel found a lot of beautiful, fine webs, that were totally not subtly toxic, and gathered them for her crafts?

Health tip: spider venom is not safe for pregnancy. It can cause preeclampsia, post-partum depression and is mutagenic to the baby (for example making them a genius, but also emotionally instable and giving them fire powers).

And then in the Third Age we have Shelob, which... I have no idea if this gives us something interesting.

It could be interesting to have a fic where Arwen (for some reason, like "help my bf in his quest") joins the fellowship, but then splits with Aragorn, ends up in Cirith Ungol (somehow) and she can sort of command Shelob. Because. IDK why exactly, but because she looks like Luthien and something...? especially Arwen with the phial. Meanwhile, Aragorn isn't doing as well as in the books, so Arwen has to provide a distraction for Sauron. the distraction is a spider. (And also a dog. She should really, really get a dog.)

Some more crack: If Miriel was a spider, she'd eaten Finwe after Feanor-making and the world would have less problems. Hmm... Maybe not doing it was why she got sick?

Miriel the descendent of Ungoliant (Metaphorically, ok? Ungoliant bit her, Spiderman-style)! Feanor being part-spider! All Feanorians being part-spider! Maedhros would have more hands, this would help. Celebrimbor with a venomous bite. Spidermanelf Celegorm.

[that-angry-noldo]

1, 8, 14, 16

1. the character everyone gets wrong

ok sorry everyone but it's edrahil. there are so many people who are incorrect about edrahil! the "he would not have said that" is so goddamn strong with that one!!!

my pet peeve is everyone thinking edrahil blames Beren for what happened. besties he Would Not. his only lines in the silm are words of devotion to Finrod and his case, which means he has to share at least some amount of Finrod's ideology! and also no one that close to finrod could ever be indifferent to humans.

besides! edrahil is a grown man! finrod's ten are all grown people! they had a choice and they chose to follow! they knew they were going to what was most likely their deaths!

the Ten and Edrahil especially are Not normal about finrod and beren. i rest my case.

the rest under the cut!

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

"The Elves in Aman are suffering" / "The Amanyar are not able to understand people returned from Beleriand so they don't bother to even try" / "The Amanyar are inferior to Beleriandrim in every way, shape and form"

Actually the fandom is wrong about pretty much everything regarding Amanyar. Usually Valinor setting is explored either during the Years of Trees or in the fics centering on the characters returned from the Halls, and I have a special pet peeve with the latter - because, with rare exception, the elves of Valinor are portrayed as dull, emotionally unintelligent, dumb more often there not, holier-than-thou superior bastards. While there are a lot of differences in the mentality of Amanyar and Beleriandrim, I find it pretty disheartening to picture the differences in such way. Elves of Amanyar are capable of empathy and compassion. In fact, a lot of them fought in the War of Wrath - which may not be equaled to living in Beleriand, but they spent half a century there; that land became theirs too, in another, different way. When Beleriand sank, the grief was equal for both the Beleriandrim and the Host of the Valar.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

to second my first point. edrahil would not blame the quest on beren.

BUT ALSO. nothing makes me roll my eyes harder than author implying beren is to blame for the death of the Ten. was it beren who asked them to leave nargothrond? was beren forcing them to go? was it beren releasing the wolves one by one? was it beren who demanded the Silmaril in the first place?

The ten were all adult people who made their choice, as was Finrod, as was Beren. Beren, however, should absolutely blame himself for them dying. For maximum angst.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

fluffy kidnap fam...

like, i can't see it. first of all, i doubt M&M would have much time or resources for fluffy things, living in what was basically an apocalypse. second of all, it makes me chill every time. The image of kidnappers cuddling with the kids, giving the presents, etc - it's just. no. it almost equals horror genre to me, to be fair. on that note, i don't like overly dark portrayals of kidnap fam either. i think maglor was doing what he could, trying to ensure maedhros, the twins and their host survives as long as they can, and that isn't the most ideal environment to raise the kids. which you kidnapped, by the way.

[actual-bill-potts]

For the Director's Cut game! I'd love to hear your commentary about the latest chapter of And All His Towers Cast Down, especially the questioning scene in Tol-in-Gaurhoth. That was brilliantly terrifying and this part in particular just lives rent-free in my head: “Finrod can feel the moment when Sauron realizes what he has done [...] he feels his face re-form, his bones knitting together - no - no, please - ‘I will un-make and re-make you, as many times as it takes’ “

thank you so much! and many apologies for my late response to these, afjdklsafd ive been sick and am now catching up on work and yes, Finrod and co ARE sitting in a corner staring at me as I determinedly ignore all my WIPs lmao but anyway. ok. going to talk about the entire chapter. under a cut as it's going to be a bit long lol.

So, chapter 13 was not initially planned at all. In fact (and you may be horrified to hear this), pretty much the entire first half of this fic has been mostly unplanned, because when I started working on towers I did not intend to include Finrod as more than a side character! You can kind of see it in this post which was what towers came out of - I wanted to write a story about Lúthien and Maglor, partly because they are a fascinating character combo and partly because I was really interested in the political implications of such a team-up for both the Noldor and the Sindar.

Like, with Finrod alive, Lúthien (presumably) feeling very positively towards at least one son of Fëanor, and Morgoth having been dealt a crushing blow by the combined might of the Noldor and the Sindar, does Thingol back down? Do Celegorm and Curufin? Would Lúthien and Beren feel the need to retire from the world if they had met more people who wholeheartedly supported their love, rather than being attacked at every turn? And (because this is a theme I remain fascinated by in the Silm) does any of it make any difference at all? After all, the Noldor are at war not just with Morgoth but also with the rest of the Valar, so how would being under the Doom play out during a Nirn that included the support of all the Elven kingdoms? These were the questions that I was really excited about answering when I started this fic.

When I began to write it, I was going to have the rescue play out in a chapter or two, max, and then have Finrod and maybe even Maedhros join the Silmaril squad. It was going to be so epic - but as I was writing, characters started to push back on what I was saying, lol. For instance, it took some convincing for the pragmatic Maedhros to want to even try to find out what happened to Finrod (never mind rescuing him!). No way, no how was he going to go to Angband. And after watching ten of Finrod's closest friends die for him, Beren would knock Finrod over the head with a chair and run away before he'd let Finrod follow him on any more of the quest. So that was right out.

And then the more I thought about the rescue, the more fascinated I became by Tol-in-Gaurhoth in general; it really represents a turning point in Leithian for a lot of characters. Lúthien and Huan come into their power and start taking control of the narrative; Finrod dies; Beren loses most of his agency (I find it fascinating that pre-Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Beren drives most of the plot - he becomes an outlaw, he makes it into Doriath, he decides to go on the Silmaril Quest, he goes to Nargothrond, etc - and afterwards he turns into something of a McGuffin for Lúthien, which is to say that most of what he does is either run away from Lúthien or follow her around); and Sauron and Morgoth go from having the upper hand to being caught by surprise over and over again. The difficulty in writing an AU about a key moment in the story - Finrod's death - being interrupted by new characters and events is that you still have to deal with the ramifications of that key moment, and now there are more people around, lol.

So anyway, after spending a lot of time thinking about this, I ended up wanting to tell two main stories with towers. The first is the story I originally meant to tell, that of Maglor and Lúthien wrecking Morgoth: but with the added twist that Maglor, particularly after watching how haunted Maedhros was in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, is motivated at least as much by guilt as he is by a desire to stick it to Morgoth and fulfill the Oath. He feels guilty that he didn't rescue Maedhros, and he feels guilty that he is going to Angband now and not then, and the sight of Finrod immediately post-Sauron's-hospitality is bringing a lot of painful memories back for him, so he is...not thinking very clearly. He is going to have to face a lot of that in Angband, both facing the stark reality of where Maedhros was for (REDACTED amount of time), and eventually accepting how fucking insane it was that Fingon's rescue actually worked.

The second story I want to tell is that of Finrod's reckoning with his own trauma and his own failure. Somebody else sent an ask about Finrod's character in this, so I won't go too much into all that here, but to summarize: Tol-in-Gaurhoth in many ways represents the failure and destruction of nearly everything Finrod worked on and valued in Middle-earth. Characters in the Silm tend to deal with failure by. well. murdering people. but our boi is pretty unique. How would he deal with being so thoroughly hurt in a universe in which he survives?

Both of these stories are about to actually kick off in the next few chapters (ahhh, chapter 14...where the original iteration of this story started...), but as I was working on chapter 14 onwards, I felt that towers as a whole needed a little space to breathe between the conclusion of what is essentially the World's Longest Prologue and the start of the "meat" of the story. Hence Maglor's conversation with Maedhros, which sets out the main (internal) conflicts their characters will be facing. For Maglor, it is:

Maglor drew a deep breath. "I only - the truth is that I should have done this - this quest - when you were captured. Thou art as precious as a Silmaril to me," he added, slipping into Quenya in the privacy of their chambers, "and I wish that I had had the courage to do as Lúthien did. That I am going now, and not then: it damns me. Did I care so little for our father's jewels - did I care so little for thy life - that I was content to sit behind walls until the daughter of Thingol reached out her hand and did what we could not?"

Maglor is intensely driven by guilt and a sense of competition with Lúthien, which will drive him to do. some Things.

For Maedhros, it is this:

Maglor laid his head on Maedhros' shoulder carefully. Maedhros felt his tears wetting his tunic; but he did not mind. "It is all right, Makalaurë," he said. "It is all well. Do thy great deed; and in fulfilling the Oath perhaps we will find a way to unmesh ourselves from Doom. I would like that," he added, very quietly, "for our younger brothers."

Maedhros, hearing about C&C's actions in Nargothrond, and watching Maglor be so torn apart by the Oath, is fully realizing here the impact the Oath is having on his brothers. A large part of his arc will revolve around dealing with the political and personal disaster that is Nargothrond; and he is counting on Maglor and Lúthien, maybe more than he himself realizes, to repeat Fingon's great deed.

And then we get to the Tol-in-Gaurhoth flashback! Finrod's arc in the coming chapters will be all about recovery and coming to terms with what happened to him - so it ought to be clear in the reader's mind what actually did happen to him. I tried to use my understanding of the characters of Sauron and Morgoth, as well as the canonical events of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, to work out what the experience most likely entailed (apart from the obvious, uh. getting eaten by wolves thing). We know that post-Silmaril-burning, Morgoth is incapable of assuming a fair form. From this we can extrapolate that likely those who serve him have something of a grudge against beautiful things - and Finrod is canonically very beautiful. So I think he would be a very tempting target for Sauron to smash into a pulp, alas.

Also, as several authors here on tumblr have pointed out, it's somewhat ludicrous that Sauron looked at the incredibly powerful golden-haired Elvenking in the company of a mortal and didn't recognize Finrod - unless Finrod managed to keep up some sort of enchantment that prevented Sauron from recognizing him. There's a lot of different ways this could go, but I essentially interpreted it as Finrod keeping up a spell of misdirection - Sauron knows there's something about him, it's on the tip of his tongue, but Finrod is preventing him from fully realizing their importance. So Sauron is essentially playing with his food here - I'm of the opinion that if Sauron knew what to look for with regards to Nargothrond, Finrod would stand no chance. Finrod certainly thinks so, anyway, and so he's using everything he can to keep Sauron from looking at him as anything more than a plaything. Unfortunately Finrod is a) very pretty and b) very much beloved, which gives Sauron lots of room for entertainment.

Unfortunately, and I do hate to admit this, the "unmaking and remaking" thing was almost a complete accident - I was almost done with the scene, and then I thought, "wait! I never mentioned facial injuries! fuck!" so. sauron got to be extra creepy to cover up for my lack of planning. xD

[imakemywings]

Honestly, it's such a disservice to Elrond and Elros' characterization when they are written like they don't remember who Elwing and Earendil were growing up. There is no way they forgot their mother (especially Elrond), how traumatizing the third kinslaying is. And there is no freaking way they are gonna call Maedhros and Maglor "father". There's a thing called boundaries and while there is love between them, it won't go far beyond that because the twins are gonna have these realizations and resentments about their kidnappers/caretakers the more they grow. So while I love indulging in these "kidnap fam" tropes, I always cringe when it is followed by the erasure of Elwing and Earendil or like the woobification of the third kinslaying and the traumas the twins endured. So, uh, there's that.

Personally I am not a fan of addressing either M/M with parental titles, but I can see how the twins as children might have a different view than they settle on as adults...I think it would be easier as kids to be resentful of Earendil and Elwing or feel abandoned by them, even if they recognize as adults their parents had no choice, and M/M had backed them into a corner where there were no options left. You know how it is as a kid--you get mad at your parents for not giving you what you want, and it's only later you realize that it wasn't possible.

I don't want to say Elrond and Elros never had a negative thought about their parents, because particularly in dealing with their trauma, they would have a lot of negative feelings, and they would have limited ability to direct those at the actual guilty parties, given that those are their captors/caretakers. Much easier then to lay the blame on people who aren't there, and who don't have the ability to harm them as M/M do, and M/M are probably going to care a lot less if E/E are nasty about their parents than if they're getting rebellious with M/M themselves (which is not to say they didn't--just that I could plausibly see it going either way).

It's very possible Maglor lied or glossed over things that happened during the Third Kinslaying, and depending on how young you believe Elrond and Elros were, their memories of it may not be very clear. I'm sure they would remember the fear, but the actual events (What did Maedhros say to Elwing before she jumped? Did Maglor ever mention finding a body?) might grow foggy as they age. So I can see as how in their youth between the immediate horror of the event and the knowledge and wisdom of maturity, they might be more sympathetic to Maglor and less sympathetic to their parents than they eventually become.

On that note, it's also possible they don't really remember that much about Elwing and particularly Earendil, who was often at sea :( I'm sure they have a general recollection, but if they were, say, six or so at the time, it would be really easy for them to have few solid memories of their parents by the time they were 10 or 11, and to even question the validity of those memories. It's one of the many things they lost during the Third Kinslaying, and I think it's something Earendil and Elwing would be keenly aware of: how little time they really got with their kids, and how young they were when they were taken, and consequently how little they might actually remember about Sirion and their family.

But I think it's crucial that their views do eventually mature, because I cannot imagine either of them as an adult laying blame on their parents for what happened. Earendil and Elwing are not the ones who chose to sack a city of refugees. It could make for a very interesting arc actually, the shifting of their views on the whole situation from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood, particularly as they're able to hear more perspectives on the quest for the Silmarils and the Second and Third Kinslayings, not just the Feanorians' (Did Maglor ever mention that Gil-galad and Cirdan sailed to the Havens to try to stop them?).

It's definitely a very complicated situation and I'm sure their feelings on it are and always have been complicated, but I think LotR makes it clear Elrond sees Earendil and Elwing as his parents and does not consider Maglor a replacement for either of them. What his views were when he was younger and less mature may have been different, or not--there's a lot of room for interpretation there. However, I think he has genuine pity for the Feanorians and what they allowed themselves to become.

[aureentuluva70]

I think one of the things I really wish we could've seen in Rings of Power was more references to the tale of Beren and Luthien, and especially the role that Sauron played in the tale. He was, afterall, one of the major antagonists of that story, and in one of his most important roles during the first age. I for one would LOVE to see some nods to one of Sauron's old titles as the Lord of Werewolves. (Imagine in the show Sauron stumbles upon some Werewolves and instantly tames them. Now that would awesome.) Other things like Arondir and Bronwyn talking about Beren and Luthien's romance, Elrond talking about being descended from Beren and Luthien, mentions to the Quest of the Silmaril, or even just seeing Sauron's mood instantly souring when he hears someone recounting the Tale of Tinuviel and praising Luthien, anything really.

Is that really too much to ask?

[animatorweirdo]

Hi! Sending you an imagine for the first time - hope this is alright :) So imagine a Pokemon trainer reader (Champion level) who falls into Middle Earth during the First Age and at first the elves are wary of her because of her Charizard (that looks like a dragon) - they could have the potential change the plot by having a team of strong Pokemon, especially if they have any legendaries, but also be helpless because one person and six Pokemon might not be enough to stand against Morgoth or change the fates of some characters. It would be funny if they had a Mew/psychic type that happened to be able to teleport them into Angband and steal the silmarils back before teleporting away.

Hi!

Uh, I've seen this idea before and Charizard is one of my old favorites. I can see the elves being wary of the reader and their Pokemon since they have seen a lot of violent monsters, so it would take a lot for reader to convince them that their Pokemon are harmless. I think the safest place for reader to end up is in Doriath since the Sindar elves are much more in tune with nature and I think they would be more fascinated with reader's Pokemons than scared. They might be more wary of Charizard and any other fire types in reader's teams since... fire.

I can see reader trying to change fate if they grew to care a lot about people. Or maybe they're friends with Luthien and join in her quest to save Beren and steal the silmarils. I can then see Mew appearing out of nowhere and reader has a special bond with the little Pokemon. Mew could definitely help them escape from Celegorm and Curufin and even save Beren and Finrod before they got mauled by the werewolf. Reader then definitely could save Finrod from his injuries by using one of their Pokemon or maybe get healed by Mew. They then go together to steal a silmaril from Morgoth. Reader fights off the monsters and then uses their flying Pokemon to fly out of Angband. Now in Carcaroth's hunts, there would be a lot of Angs but since Beren and Luthien do come back from the dead, everything would be fine and maybe reader adopts Huan into the team since he's a magical type dog 😂

Well, you look at that. There's a whole plot for a series. Hope you liked it.

[halfelven]

The post is from June, but you posted about Elrond meeting Earendil again and seeing his scars, and Earendil asking “were you loved enough?” Anyway, I kind of interpreted that to mean that Mae and Mags must have loved the twins in their own way? Or that Earendil knows Elrond may have some attachment to them? I’m rambling but I was wondering what your headcanons about how Earendil/Elwing/The Twins etc feel about everything that happened? I know people have different interpretations of Sirion/afterward, and I like to hear other people’s thoughts :)

I know you probably weren’t asking for an almost 4,000 word ‘essay’ but you hit one of my special interests (seriously I could go about this forever) Okay I wrote out like my reasoning first but I’m going to put it after because it’s long and concentrate first on the questions asked with longer explanations and thoughts below.

So yes, Eärendil was talking about Elrond being loved enough, especially in childhood, especially by Maglor and Maedhros, since he had to leave him and was never allowed to return to him. So here are my headcanons (and places where I’m not entirely sure on what version I like best...) for the aftermath and how it goes over the long years:

Elrond never forgets the violence he saw on the attack on Sirion. He is more desperate to live afterwards, and is the one who leans faster to Maglor and Maedhros, trying to get them to keep them alive, being fed, etc. He also allows himself to be ‘comforted’ in whatever way Maglor can manage. It’s not much. Maglor’s a mess. He’s choking out apologies and unable to answer the question ‘will you kill us’ because he doesn’t know. All he can say is he’s sorry.

Elrond never forgets this. He is faster to lean into Maglor’s love when it is given, but he never forgets that people will do desperate things that they would never dream of until they’re pushed. It leaves him the sort of person who will say things like, ‘don’t ask someone how they survived unless you’re prepared to hear the answer.’ And when people say they would never, never do something terrible or cowardly no matter what situation they’re in, he’s just like ‘you don’t know that.’ Hence why the fellowship of the ring weren’t bound by oath to their quest.

Based on Bilbo’s poem on Eärendil, I like to think that Elrond had some contact with Eärendil either during the war or after it, though I don’t have a firmly set idea for exactly when Elrond and Elros get joined with Gil-galad’s people. I do like to think that Eärendil was the one who told them about their choice of mortality or immortality and that he was allowed to at least see or speak to them, even though he isn’t allowed to return home. Ever. As punishment for saving the world…

Elros gets really fucked up by the attack as well. He resists loving Maglor and Maedhros longer. He is very protective of Elrond because he sees a gentleness in Elrond that he knows but also doesn’t know. He’s also gentle, but he has a desperation of not having enough time that Elrond never has. Elrond sees pieces of a future that Elros isn’t in. Elros think he’s going to die. He thinks they’ll both die. He hates that he pities the despair in Maglor’s eyes until he doesn’t. Then he realises he’s older, and he knows suddenly he’s going to make a choice he might regret and he’ll trust to something he doesn’t know for sure – that when he dies there will be a peace in the end. He begs Maglor and Maedhros to seek for forgiveness from Eru. He begs them. He says there is no way that Eru or the Valar would rather they continue to kill for the Silmarils. That there is a way that their words will be heard. He knows it. He has a faith that Elrond never has. He fights with Maglor and Maedhros. Elrond does too. They both grow up too quickly.

Neither of them ever hate anyone completely, not even Morgoth. Not even Sauron. They grew up watching their captors (their fathers) falling to pieces around them, dying as they lived, hopeless, despairing, the world torn to pieces, the sea flooding lands, on the run, captive, loved, thrown around, hungry, starving, praying to their father because they both felt him in the Star of High Hope.

When Maglor and Maedhros choose to kill for the Silmarils in their last despair and Maedhros dies and Maglor disappears, they both go into mourning. Everyone is in mourning. No one asks them for an explanation.

Eärendil sees they are alive for the first time from the heavens when they are little children still with Maglor, and he weeps with joy that they are alive. He can’t stand. He weeps and watches them. He knows he will never set foot on their land again. (And he fights in the war, and Elros fights beneath his banner, and Elrond beneath Gil-galad’s and they are too young, but he was younger, and nothing about it is fair, so he’s just glad they’re alive.)

(They meet Gil-galad’s host in a battle? Maglor finds a safe way to send them away because they’ll be safer then? They run away? I wish we had more concrete answers on this but I haven’t made up my mind what happens with them yet.)

I like to think there is a way that Eärendil saw them before he left back to the skies. If he had real wings, as Bilbo wrote, that he carried them up to the heavens and spoke on his ship, but there is a nature to tragedy that might make that just a dream. (Or it might be real. He floats on angel’s wings and lifts his children – one for the last time, but he had thought before it was the last time, so it is enough.)

Of course, Elros would never see his mother again. He does hear how she convinced the shipbuilders to make the ships. He loves her. He loves Eärendil. He loves Elrond. But his duty lies with the mortals who he feels connected to, who have faced so much, died in such great numbers. He sends her his love. So does Elrond.

Elrond chooses to live forever because he sees a vision of hands he holds, he sees grey-eyed babies in his arms, and lives he will save. He sees a life that will be riddled with pain, but he thinks he is strong enough to endure it. Besides, all choices of the world have their own griefs.

And maybe it aches inside Elrond and Elros because they know that they aren’t as important as the world, but they know they aren’t. It’s a tragedy, after all. If Eärendil didn’t leave, they would be dead. If Elwing didn’t have the Silmaril when she jumped, they would be dead. There’s something noble in being able to give up everything you love to save the world. There’s something bitter in being the loved one left behind. It hurts, but so do many things.

When Elros dies, Elrond is there. And Eärendil and Elwing watch from his ship and weep together again for the death of one of their children, for sure this time. Eärendil wonders if he will ever meet Elros again. Maybe, maybe, at the end of the world. Maybe he will be free then, no longer bound to carrying light through the darkest and coldest parts of the sky, watching the pain and joy of a world he cannot reach. (I’m going to write Frodo meeting Eärendil soon. I know it.)

When Elrond leaves the grey havens, Eärendil watches, follows their ship. He can touch the ground of Valinor, so he can hold Elrond again. And he wants to know if Elrond was loved enough. If he was, if he was. If Maglor or Maedhros or anyone could give him enough love, and Elrond says he did, softly, though the love he got was patches and pieces, and it wasn’t enough, not really, and they left (Maglor left.) But he doesn’t say it out loud because his father is there but he’s also like a stranger, and his body is scarred because he nearly died fighting in the sky over a land he could not reach, as punishment for saving it.

It’s a tragedy. He doesn’t say that either.

When he first sees his mother her runs to her and hugs her so that she won’t question if he loves her. He does. Even in the distant way that it is, it is love. Maybe not how one loves a mother, but it’s enough, all in all, isn’t it? So he says, ‘I love you.’ and kisses her, and she weeps, and he weeps too, and that’s the first meeting.

And later he asks her, he has to ask her, why she left, why she didn’t try to save the. She thought he was dead. She thought he would be dead. It’s long and complicated and those are questions you aren’t supposed to ask (how did you survive? You don’t ask that, remember?)

She thought they were dead. Both dead. She threw herself into the sea on the chance that there was mercy from the Valar. She was right. She was right.

And it worked. It saved them. It saved the world. And there’s nothing else to it, in the end. What’s done is done.

Elrond hopes he’ll stop breaking down crying over everything lost, over everything taken, over everything, but he never does. It’s a tragedy. And Eärendil sails the frozen skies, and sometimes Elrond goes with him for he can endure the cold. He’s strong enough. And his sons, too.

It’s still a tragedy, no matter what light you paint it in, but the light of the Silmaril might be the most beautiful of all.

Here are my reasonings:

okay so I wish tumblr would let me tag answers before I post them but I’m gonna talk a bit about childhood trauma, child abuse, suicide, and unplanned pregnancy

(side note here that I pick and choose literally anything I like from the silm or home since I read the unfinished tales and the book of lost tales before the silmarillion and I can’t always remember which version of the story is from which) 

anyway, in this case, the “were you loved enough” is mostly relating to their childhood since Eärendil left them when they were very young. 

(by my calculations that I’m not getting into a lot of depth here with but draws from ages of elves, ages of mortal humans, and ages of the rangers would put Elrond and Elros at approximately 1 year old in human terms when he leaves and approximately 3 years old when they are captured. 

this ALSO makes Eärendil and Elwing a child marriage but I can’t see how they wouldn’t be given that Gilraen is mostly mortal and was still considered young to marry at 24 (which like I’m not going into the whole thing of how that connects to Tolkien’s personal relationship with marriage and his wife but it’s an interesting little note)) 

this also puts Eärendil and Elwing as teenage parents/rulers and Eärendil equivalently a teenager when he leaves on his search for Valinor and both of them in their early 20s when they do reach Valinor

(again this is based on a lot of estimates of aging for half-elves that we don’t have full answers to, but it does carry into how I view the entire situation)

anyway any way it comes out, they are extremely young parents (I also think that the pregnancy wasn’t planned, given their situation and the war and it happened in such a way because they didn’t realise Elwing, being partly mortal, wasn’t as in control of her body as elves seem to be and got pregnant in the middle of a war where they were all felt like they were doomed to die.) 

so these teenagers, basically, are trying to keep their people together and from losing all hope and etc. and Eärendil now has babies that he has to leave because the world is ending and they’re all going to die and his only chance at saving them is to go on a suicide mission to beg for help, even though he’s a direct descendent of the cursed Noldor and also would know that no attempts to reach Valinor have been successful and also pretty much all end in almost everyone drowning (not going to go into an essay on the connections between Eärendil and Frodo’s characters right now but there’s a Lot) 

so Eärendil looks at the world falling to Morgoth and that they have not enough strength to save themselves says basically I’m going to save the world or I’m going to die trying and leaves his young family in the hopes that somehow they’ll be able to live, even if that means without him 

so now we have Elwing, a young single mother basically, with twins, trying to keep her people from dying and losing all hope with the One thing that she thinks might protect them being the Silmaril and her people agree

now this is taking place in a world with curses and holy objects, ropes that burn, swords that glow around enemies, rings of power, etc. so when she says this Silmaril is holy and burns all evil that touches it she’s like actually right because we see that the Silmarils were hallowed and do burn everything evil that touches them 

kind of want to do another side-note here that it includes “mortal” flesh alongside evil and so forth which is Interesting “ Varda hallowed the Silmarils so that no mortal or evil hands were allowed to touch them without being burned and withered.” like Okay Then I guess mortals are evil or unholy~ 

(headcanon that Elros touched the Silmaril after he already chose mortality and it didn’t burn him) 

anyway so we have the half-elves, half or part mortals (!!!) trying to save the world or keep their people alive while also having babies in the middle of a war where they all are doomed (I could write an entire thesis on “fool’s hope” in Tolkien and the concept of “sisu” in Finnish culture but I won’t here) 

then the Fëanorians are like hey, Elwing you must give us this Silmaril the only thing you think will save your family and people and also we’re the people who killed your family/people and threw you out of your home but now give us this holy object that you’re praying will save you all from dying 

and Elwing is like um no I don’t want my people and family to die??? and doesn’t give it to them 

(could write another essay on how people blame Elwing for being attacked and how that is often deeply rooted in sexism bc it’s always like “hey how could this woman have prevented herself from being attacked” rather than “hey maybe this army shouldn’t have attacked these civilian refugees” and I’m not going into how people justify Boromir’s despair turning him to grasp for an unholy but still powerful object with force of violence for the literal same thing of “save my people” and are still like Elwing brought this on herself) 

so yeah they get attacked and all that Elwing has the Silmaril and throws herself into the sea, turns into a bird, etc. and then flies to Eärendil and becomes herself again. this is interesting because it means she had the Silmaril with her and also that she... threw herself into the sea without any real plan (also that very few people survived that attack) she also knew her sons had been taken but didn’t try to bargain for them with the Silmaril, which is interesting, but given that her brothers were killed by these people, she probably wouldn’t think they could be bargained with and since she thinks her sons are slain and there’s confusion in the battle I’m guessing that the Fëanorians didn’t offer a bargain? 

it’s a really confusing and messy battle with some of the Fëanorian’s soldiers turning against them because of the cruelty of it which is another Interesting point (because like they’re already the hated. where are they going after? do they get pardoned now? do they think they will? like I keep going off on side notes but this is really fascinating)  

but anyway I’m reading it like it’s a very messy battle, they’re probably taken by surprise, most of them die bc again most are civilians, Elrond and Elros seem to be taken quite fast, Elwing knows they are taken and thinks them dead, and then jumps into the sea (which is like... Elrond’s parents really lean into suicide) which is like really desperate and seems to be either she has a bit of foresight (runs in the family) and thinks she won’t die and the Silmaril is needed or she thinks they’ve lost everything and will all die, her sons are dead, so she’s going to die too and hopefully the tides will take her and the Silmaril away from them forever so they at least don’t get that 

okay so that’s how I view the attack on Sirion. like absolutely fucked up, despair on both sides and I know this is long but this is one of my favourite things to talk about 

okay so that’s where Elrond and Elros are taken. again because I like to pull things from different drafts, I go with the Maglor and Maedhros both take to them. (I’m really against the interpretations of Maedhros wanting to kill them bc I literally can’t imagine him wanting to kill Fingon’s great grand nephews. like even at that point. there’s no way I can picture it since he still is able to talk reasonably/rationally his points of why they have to do these terrible things or they will be forever doomed. I don’t have time to get into the theology here but it’s Fascinating as well) 

Elrond and Elros are somewhere around three years old in human terms but they’re half elves and part Maiar and we know that elves alone are able to talk well by one year old and have amazing memories and they’re six so I’m going with they are Aware they are captured and do have memories of their parents (though they can’t remember what Eärendil looks like)

However children are programmed to survive. and for reasons I will not get into in great depth but like this is where the warning for real life child trauma comes in I have taken care of children who were less than two hours before taken away from their parents by the police at gun point (also I was 17 so it is a bit fucked up all the way around) and yeah like it’s...

it’s literally like at one moment they’ll be like “I need food” and a minute later “are you going to kill me?” and Very protective of one another even though they /know/ they need you so it’s like this very fucked up point where kids will be grasping for help from people who they think might also kill them

it’s also noted that the love between them doesn’t come right away and grows after, which makes sense, since Elrond and Elros probably would have been at first like please keep us alive and Maglor is very sick in his heart from the oath and the violence and evil he’s committed

but yes that they do grow to love one another. there’s a gap of four years before Eärendil and Elwing reach Valinor during which they still think their children are dead, and then Eärendil refuses any of his crew (and Elwing) to set foot on the shore because he thinks that it will be death and he doesn’t want anyone but himself to die (again, they lean so hard into the suicide) and of course there Elwing refuses to part from him and also goes on shore but the rest of his crew never see them again (not really noted what happens to them. I’m assuming they go back to Middle-earth) but anyway my point here is that Elrond and Elros both really take after their parents in terms of like sheer bravery. And also fascinating that Elwing is immediately like if you die I die, and Eärendil later wishes to die as a mortal but takes immortality for his wife’s sake. 

Anyway the point of all this is that they love each other in a desperate way that is like on a level of tragedy with any of the great myths of our world. there’s another three years before the hosts of Valar reach Middle-earth after this and then a really long war and it is unclear at what point Elrond and Elros return to their own people (well, what’s left of them…). But they would be under Maglor’s care for at least seven years and most likely longer

anyway I know Tolkien has messy timelines and everything but there’s a slight problem in that Elrond mentions in the fellowship that he saw the hosts of Valinor and all their glitter and beauty but he also has enough memory of Maedhros and Maglor and the sickness of their hearts. So I don’t have an actual concrete timeline in my head that’s like canon on when and how they part from Maedhros and Maglor. I switch it all the time.

What I do have concretely is the idea that Elrond and Elros love their parents and count Eärendil, Elwing, Maglor, and Maedhros as their parents. (there’s also quite a bit of like subtext or just blatant Fëanorian symbolism in both Elros and Elrond’s symbols and associations that can back up they do count themselves as Fëanorians in some ways)

However Elrond has so much Eärendil symbolism in his household also that I don’t think he’s like “fuck you. You abandoned me.” notably with his daughter named after the evening star, and that he and his sons both wear white gems on their heads like Eärendil (both mentions are in rotk iirc)

I also don’t go with the idea of either of them hating Elwing for abandoning them either or the idea that she valued the Silmaril over the lives of her children or people. Again, it seems like she thought they were dead (like y’know her brothers.) And both Eärendil and Elwing have incredibly rough childhood trauma so it does feel slightly strange that Elwing decided to be counted as the Eldar (it just says “because of Lúthien” so maybe she thought she had to balance out Lúthien’s death?) And then Eärendil for his love of her chooses the same. Which is interesting because it goes back to the whole she chose to die with him when jumping after him into the foam and then the shore. Which is like just another side-note but mmm it hurts so bad that they were punished for all of that. Also Elwing is the one who convinces the Teleri to create enough boats and sail them over the seas to send the hosts of Valinor to save the world, even if the Teleri will just sail the ships and not themselves fight. Like, she has an important part in the whole “saving the world” that I don’t see often mentioned.

Also unless Bilbo was just making things up or it was metaphorical, both Elwing and Eärendil have wings and can fly (Eärendil’s wings coming from Varda, Elwing’s coming from learning from birds.) Just very cool that Elrond’s family is so associated with birds and flight (and Lúthien being called “nightingale” is just fun for me since a nightingale was my first part in a play.)

[atariince]

Hi! The same Anon here: yes, I'm in!!! And what can you say about Galadriel and Finrod, you mentioned that there are parallels between both, what did you mean? I know that Finrod wanted lands to rule the same as Galadriel...

Great! I’ll make a little announcement here about my Twitch channel when everything will be ready (probably within two weeks or so).

Now, concerning your request, I must warn you first, my answer, which takes the form of painstaking yet not exhaustive analysis, will be quite long, but (I hope!) not too tedious. 

[Finrod’s heraldry by J.R.R Tolkien, 1960, MS. Tolkien Drawings 91, fol. 29)

Felagund and Galadriel are alike in many ways, especially in their respective evolution, even though those two characters have quite different motives and temperaments. 

We’ve already talked a lot about Galadriel in my last post, so I won’t repeat it. As for Finrod, we know he was “like his father in his fair face and golden hair, and also noble and generous heart, though he has the high courage of the Noldor and in his youth their eagerness and unrest” (UT 2 Ch. IV). Both Galadriel and Finrod were proud, “as were all the descendants of Finwë save Finarfin”, “and like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage” (UT2, Ch. IV). 

Yet, although, Finrod “had also from his Telerin mother a love of the sea and dreams of far lands that he had never seen”, he wasn’t so eager to leave Valinor during the Rebellion of the Noldor:

“But at the rear went Finarfin and Finrod, and many of the noblest and wisest of the Noldor; and often they looked behind them to see their fair city…” (The Silmarillion, Ch. 9)

Whereas Galadriel “was eager to be gone” for the reasons we have already seen. 

We can probably say they share this desire to rule over a kingdom of their own, even though it seems stronger in Galadriel, while her brother appears to be driven mostly by loyalty towards his cousins and his curiosity.

But beyond their temperament, there is a whole narrative arc that corresponds both to Finrod and Galadriel, and in order to try to keep it as clear as possible, we’ll go step by step…

Foresight : Fate and free-will

You have probably noticed that they both have the gift of foresight, which is mentioned, strangely enough, in two very different settings, and yet, the meaning of their words are quite similar. In The Silmarillion, (ch. 15), Galadriel asks her brother why he would not take a spouse, and

 “… a foresight came upon Felagund as she spoke, and he said : ‘an oath I too shall swear, and must be free to fulfil it, and go into darkness.’”

As for Galadriel, in The Fellowship of the Ring (ch. 7), after Sam had looked into the Mirror, she explains that 

“it shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be true, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them.”

As Tom Shippey explained in The Road to Middle-earth, here, “she articulates a theory of compromise between fate and free will”, and we find the exact same ambivalence with Finrod who should be “free to fulfil his oath” (although he can choose to not be free), while acknowledging his fate as something that is already written and from which he must not stray. In other words, it is his fate to take an oath that will drive him to his death, but he’s still free to ignore it, free to “turn aside from [the] path” that was appointed by Eru Iluvatar. That is where resides the tension of free-will. 

Leo Carruthers in Tolkien et la Religion explained how this notion of free-will is fundamental in Tolkien’s work: 

“If the heroes don’t have to make a choice because the path to take seems obvious… if criminals couldn’t repent, the story of the Lord of the Rings would be far less interesting” (Tolkien et la Religion) (my translation). 

According to him, we can understand the term “Free People of Middle-earth” as people who “can use their free-will to decide between good and evil”. It is, as Carruthers comments, to be understood through the Christian notion of salvation, because “if mankind couldn’t tell good from evil, they wouldn’t be able to choose one of the other.” (we’ll talk about salvation later). 

Coming back to Middle-earth, where fate has to do with the Tale of Arda as it was given in the Music. Finrod is free to follow the fate which appeared in his vision, or to refuse this role. 

And what is Finrod’s role in the Tale of Arda? To help in Beren’s quest for the Silmaril, a tragic quest, but which, in the end, enhanced the beauty of Arda through the marriage between a Maia-elf and a Man, through the Peredhil, including Eärendil and his settlement in the sky with the Silmaril on his brow. And remember that Eärendil is a figure of hope for both Elves and Man. 

Finrod knows the path of his fate will be a tragic one, but he also believes that there will be a happy ending; a happy ending which won’t happen if he decides to ignore his fate.

Estel and the eucatastrophe

And that’s what it’s all about : Estel, “a strong hope in Eru, which can’t be separated from trust”, says Carruthers, who then adds that it is obviously very similar to the Christian faith in God. 

Finrod accepts his fate because he has Estel, he has faith in Eru and in the Tale, and he acknowledges that his sacrifice will be part of something bigger, something beautiful in the end (the well-known “eucatastrophe”). Tom Shippey wrote :

”Tolkien of course, being a Christian, did in absolute fact believe that in the end all things would end up happily, in a sense they already had… the difference between Earth and Middle-earth, one might say, is that in the latter faith can, just sometimes, be perceived as facts.”( The Road to Middle-earth, Ch. 5). 

Estel means believing, it means having faith in the happening of a eucatastrophe, that is the “fairy-tale salvation” (T. Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth, Ch. 6).

I already talked a lot about Estel and Finrod in the past, and in an old post I wrote: “In the whole Beren-mess story I believe that Finrod saw himself as a sort of ‘martyr’, being convinced that he was accomplishing Eru’s will in helping Beren – Finrod clearly follows what I call the Estel-principle.” [I also already explained why I judged Estel to be an act of faith, so feel free to have a look at this other old post for more details.]

Remember his words in the “Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth”: 

“If any marriage can be between our kindred and thine, it shall be for high purpose of Doom.”  (HoMe X, part IV)

As for Galadriel, just like Finrod with Beren and Lúthien, she becomes a tutelary figure for Aragorn and Arwen: not only they pledge their love in Lothlórien, but more importantly, Galadriel gives her blessing to Aragorn in The Fellowship of the Ring (Ch. 8), when she gives him the Elessar as a bridal gift. Celebrian being gone, it’s the grandmother’s role to offer it. But the stone is also a symbol of protection towards the couple, although Elrond has not yet completely agreed since Aragorn is not king yet :

“Arwen Undómiel shall not diminish her life’s grace for less cause. She shall not be the bride of any Man, less than the King of both Gondor and Arnor” (The Return of The King, Appendix A)

Galadriel accepts the marriage because she believes that it shall happen “for high purpose of Doom”, just like Finrod about Beren and Lúthien’s. And it’s no coincidence if Aragorn is called Estel: he is the hope of Mankind as the Fourth age draws closer. It can even be argued that, if Aragorn hadn’t had the blessing of Galadriel and the certainty the he would be able to marry Arwen once king, maybe he wouldn’t have accepted the crown with such eagerness. 

Anyway, I do believe that Galadriel’s protection over the lovers is considerably important, as important as Finrod’s sacrifice for Beren’s life. Both become some sort of guardian angels for those two couples, and they accept this role (no matter the sacrifice they’ll have to make on the way) precisely because they believe in a happy ending, because of Estel, which is, in the end, the belief in a just retribution: if they don’t go astray, they will end up wiser and stronger, if not happier, whether in this life or in the afterlife (see Annie Bricks in Dictionnaire Tolkien, entry ‘Retribution’). As I said earlier, one of the most poignant embodiments of Estel is Eärendil, it is thus no surprise if Galadriel offers the Phial of Eärendil to Frodo.  

Friendships with Men 

If Finrod had long before his meeting with Beren become a friend of Men, Galadriel, on the other hand, hardly had any contact with mankind before the Third Age. It is thus significant that she, “the last survivor of the princes and queens who had led the revolting Noldor to exile in Middle-earth” (The Road Goes ever On), acknowledges and gives her blessing to the marriage between a Man and an Elf. 

It is also significant that this blessing is symbolized by the exchange of gifts, for, as Eric Flieller explained in le Dictionnaire Tolkien (Vincent Ferré et All, entry “Don”), exchange between Men and Elves are “signs of alliance between the children of Eru”, just like weddings. 

Moreover, Sébastien

Maillet ( (in “L’Anneau de Barahir”, Tolkien les racines du légendaire, 2003), noticed

that « finrod had received the difficutl task to guide men in their

discovery of Middle-Earth, while Aragorn accept the tole to govern them after

the Elves have left.”

Furthermore, another gift is present in the story of Aragorn and Arwen : the Ring of Barahir, the token of the union between Elves and Men, which Aragorn gave to Arwen, granddaughter of Galadriel, herself sister of Finrod who probably received it from their father in Aman (Finarfin being probably the one who crafted it), and who gave the Ring to Barahir, father of Beren, himself an ancestor of Aragorn and Arwen. (ha!) We go round in circle, aren’t we?

This ring is, according to Elrond’s words to Aragorn a, token of “their kinship from afar” (The Return of the King, Appendix A), a kinship which has been able to evolve (if not to exist) thanks to the protection and tutelage of the House of Finarfin.

In both cases we have an elven lord/lady, who is engaged in exchanges (of gift, knowledge, or assistance) with Men, with the hope (Estel) that it would save Arda from perils, and eventually lead to the accomplishment of the Tale of Arda. And for that they’re both ready to fight and to make sacrifice, of different natures of course.

Sacrifices

Finrod sacrificed his life in the pit of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Galadriel sacrificed something much more complicated to define : she accepted the fact that the role of the Elves in Middle-earth was dwindling, she sacrificed her pride and her ambitions.

 “She also possesses humility and a willingness to sacrifice her own desires for the greater good, as evidenced by her resistance to the temptation to take the One Ring from Frodo, even though this would make her the most powerful being in Middle-earth.” (source). 

She also sacrificed her granddaughter when she accepted the marriage, since Arwen would never be able to follow her family in the West. Bur more than simple “martyrs”, Galadriel and Finrod are also fighters. 

Fights : victory through defeat

Finrod actually contends with Sauron, during the famous song-battle, and soon after he has a real physical fight with the wolf sent by Sauron, while Galadriel’s own life isn’t directly in peril, and there’s no real face to face. In her case, it is a sort of a remote battle against Sauron through the Ruling Ring, its temptation and illusions. 

We must also stress that she fights against herself, her own delusions and desires. Yet, in the end, her victory helped nonetheless in the defeat of Sauron.

It would be a shame to ignore the words of Sebastien Maillet (in “L’Anneau de Barahir”, Tolkien les racines du légendaire, 2003), who noted that, while Felagund didn’t succumb to the temptation to appear as a god to the mortals when he first met them (they thought he was a Vala, remember?), Galadriel almost yield to this tempting desire when the Ring came to her. Nevertheless, by freeing herself from her own illusions and pride and by defeating the temptation woven by Sauron, she avenged her brothers.

Nevertheless, Galadriel and Finrod are both winners and losers: Finrod was defeated by Sauron’s song and died as he killed the wolf. He wasn’t able to see the success of the quest of the Silmaril. Galadriel left Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age, defeated like all the elves, by the growing power of Mankind.

In terms of fights, we can also mention the parallel between the way Galadriel cleansed Dol Guldur and the passage in which Lúthien cleansed Tol Sirion which was first and foremost Finrod’s dwelling. 

“Then Lúthien stood upon the bridge and declared her power: and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare.” (The Silmarillion, Ch. 19).

“They took Dol Guldur, and Galadriel threw down its walls and laid bare its pits, and the forest was cleansed.” (The Return of the King, Appendix B)

More than an echo, I like to see in this similitude a symbol of revenge of Galadriel in the name of her brother whom she couldn’t help in the First Age. The fact that both Tol-in-Gaurhoth and Dol Guldur had become Sauron’s fortresses is particularly poignant. 

Salvation

Beyond their half-defeat, they are still victorious in the end: Finrod’s sacrifice granted him salvation, just like the refusal to take the Ring in the case of Galadriel:

 “In reward for all that she had done to oppose him [Sauron], but above all for rejection of the Ring when it came within her power, the ban was lifted, and she returned over the Sea, as I told in the Lord of the Rings (The Road Goes Ever On).

We’ve already talked about that so let’s focus on Finrod:

“They buried the body of Felagund upon the hill-top of his own isle, and it was clean again; and the green grave of Finrod Finarfin son , fairest of all the prince of the Elves, remained inviolate, until the land was changed and broken, and foundered under destroying seas. But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.” (The Silmarillion, Ch. 19).

He’s the only Elda whose ending is given in such terms. Even Fingolfin’s afterlife isn’t mention, and the cairn made for him by Turgon isn’t described with such positive terms, it’s only “high”, whereas Felagund’s grave is “green”, inviolated”, “clean”. As for the mention of his walking with his father in Valinor, it is clearly an image of redemption. 

He has won, because his sacrifice saved Beren, while his sister won, protecting Middle earth from herself, approving and protecting the marriage of Arwen and Aragorn. 

In a draft for a letter to Peter Hasting (letter 153), Tolkien himself explains that:

 “The entering into Men of the Elven-strain is indeed represented as part of a Divine Plan for ennoblement of the human Race, from the beginning designed to replace Elves”. 

And from Felagund’s help in Beren’s quest to Galadriel’s farewell to Middle-earth while giving her granddaughter to Aragorn, the whole plan is made plain. (Ah!)

We must also mention other (aborted) elf-human love stories which involve the House of Finarfin: that of Andreth and Aegnor, and that Finduilas and Turin…If those two tragic relationships never actually happened (because it wasn’t for “hight purpose of Doom”), we nonetheless notice that the alliance of Men and Elves is being mainly constructed around the children of Finarfin and his descendants.

The betterment of the Noldor

Finally, all the tragedies Galadriel and Finrod encountered (including the Rebellion) are at the core of their own evolution: they grew wiser and more powerful than they would have, had they remained in Aman. 

Indeed, if Finrod seems to have learned a lot in the contact of Men since his meeting with the People of Bëor, Galadriel seems to have had only a few connections with the Second-Born before the Third Age. And it’s only after her acknowledgement of Aragorn as the hope of Mankind and Middle-Earth that she can humble herself, accepting that her place is no longer in Middle earth. 

That’s the power of Estel, which, for those two Elves, is also present in the songs they both sing to chase away darkness.

Songs of hope and “prayers”

In the song-battle against Sauron, Finrod tries to take the mastery by singing about “the birds singing afar in Nargothrond, the sighing of the Sea beyond, on sands of pearls in Elvenland” (The Silmarillion, Ch. 19). He here mentions his hope to escape, his hope to see Eldamar again : Estel. 

As for Galadriel, in The Fellowship of the

Ring (Ch. 8), she sings Namarië, which ends with some hopeful final

lines: “Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even though shalt find it.”

Tolkien explained that 

“The last lines of the chant express a wish (or hope) that though she could not go, Frodo might perhaps be allowed to do so.”

(UT 2 Ch. IV) 

Although

Even

if he then explains that the Quenya ‘Nai’ “expresses rather a wish than a hope,

and would be more closely rendered by ‘may it be that (though wilt find), than

by ‘maybe’” (The Road Goes ever on), hope is nonetheless present in this wish, if only for Frodo and for Middle-earth: if she asks for Frodo to be granted a ship to the West, it means she believes he will fulfill his quest and destroy the Ruling Ring. Her song reaches beyond the current, tragic situation, as if she was already expecting a happy ending, even if tainted with sorrow, just like in Finrod’s evocation of Eldamar during his fight with Sauron

in Tol Sirion.

Dreamlands and Craftsmanship

This powerful use of music is part of the powers of Finrod and Galadriel’s art, what the mortals call “magic”, that power of faëry (for more about this, see Tolkien’s essay “On fairy-Story”). 

We’re talking here of their capacity to create images, between dreams and illusions, as in Finrod’s song, again: 

“The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,

And all the magic and might he brought

Of Eveness into his words” (The Silmarillion ch.19)

or when he sings during the first meeting with the Men:

“Now men awoke and listened to Felagund as he harped and sang, and each thought that he was in some fair dream…” (The Silmarillion, Ch. 17)

Or when he changes the appearance of his companions when they approach Tol Sirion :

“Then Felagund a spell did sing

Of changing and shifting shape.” (”The Lay of Leithian”, canto VII, Home III)

In the case of Galadriel, this art of illusion is woven all around Lothlórien, also called “Dreamflower” by Treebeard, or “Dwirmordene”, that is ‘Phantom Vale’ in the tongue of the Rohirrim:

“Half in fear and half in hope to glimpse from afar the shimmer of the Dwimordene, the perilous land that in legends of their people was said to shine like gold in the springtime.” (UT 3, Ch. 2)

“…through the Dwimordene where dwells the White Lady and weaves nets that o mortal can pass”. (ibid.)

As Benjamin Babut explained in his article “Lothlórien la fleur des rêves” (in J.R.R Tolkien, l’Effigie des Elfes, la Feuille de la compagnie n°3, 2014), this word of Anglo-Saxon origin is to be related to “illusions, hallucinations”, which is to be connected to the name Lórien, originally the garden of Irmo, lord of dreams, to which Lothlórien is an echo. 

Lothlórien is a strange forest of gold and silver, the Valley of Gold apparently so different from the underground fortress of Finrod in Nargothrond. On the one hand: stones. Trees on the other. Do you see a pattern, here ? We’re not talking of opposite elements, but of two features that complete one another: Aulë and Yavanna. 

“And Galadriel, like others of the Noldor, had been a pupil of Aulë and Yavanna in Valinor (UT 2, Ch. IV),

A fact that makes her, and her brother, friends of Dwarves. For Galadriel “had a natural sympathy with their minds and passionate love of crafts of hand” (ibid.), and we know that Finrod worked hand in hand with them in the building of Nargothrond and employed them for the crafting of the Nauglamír:

“In that labour Finrod was aided by the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains; and they were rewarded well…And in that time was made the Nauglamír, the Necklace of the Dwarves.” (The Silmarillion, Ch.13)

Yet, and this is interesting, if Galadriel acknowledges their value and the need to unite all people of Middle-earth against Sauron, she “looked upon the Dwarves also with the eye of a commander, seeing in them the finest warriors to pit against the orcs (UT 2 Ch. IV). 

In any case, she is nonetheless a craftswoman as well, she weaves the cloaks she gives to the fellowship, like she weaves webs of illusion around her realm.

By the Way, S. Mallet in his article also talks of the Ring of Barahir as a symbol of the illusion of Faëry…I think we’ve come full circle!

And now that all this has been said, I cannot emphasize enough Tolkien’s “near obsession” with the rewriting of the character of Galadriel ; he reshaped the character a lot of times after the publication of The Lord of the Rings; some texts are simply incompatible, and it would be purely vain to try to give a fixed, definitive depiction of her. 

I’ll put a final period to this quote (source) :

”Whatever the reasons, the great importance that Galadriel had for Tolkien throughout the many iterations of his legendarium and in his reflections on his sub creation should lay to rest any criticism that he paid little attention to female characters in his work.”

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Post-Mandos Headcanons - Thingol

I think that after Thingol returns from the Halls, he becomes King of the Sindar again. They’re quite distinct from the three groups of Amanyar elves - though the Teleri are close relations, they’re far more drawn to the Sea, and the Sindar to the woodlands - and I think they would want their king back. Kings don’t do very much in Valinor, but it’s a statement of cultural identity and makes the place feel more like home for the Sindar. And when Green-elves and Wood-elves, who have a lot in common with the Sindar, arrive in Aman during the Second and Third Ages, many of them choose to live in New Neldoreth as well. (I was mentally calling it New Doriath, but I realized that means ‘The Guarded Realm’ - or more literally, ‘Fenced Land’ - which no longer applies in Aman.)

When Thingol returns, he is quite eager to meet the youngest son of his friend Finwë, especially as Finarfin is also married to Thingol’s niece, and seeks him out in Tirion, but is surprised by the coldness of his reception. They exchange a few meaningless pleasantries and the conversation dies. Thingol thinks Finarfin may be displeased with the establishment of another kingdom near his own - after all, that’s what initially troubled Thingol about the Noldor’s arrival in Beleriand - and tries to discuss the subject, but is rebuffed. He leaves disappointed and returns to his realm.

After some time to think, realization dawns and he picks up that what Finarfin really wants to hear from him is I’m sorry that my idiotic Quest got your son killed. Which is an apology that Thingol is quite willing to make (he’d wouldn’t have been able to leave the Halls if he wasn’t). So he returns to Tirion and apologizes to both Finarfin and Finrod regarding the Quest of the Silmaril (with an additional apology to Finrod along the lines of I’m sorry my foster-son’s arrogance got your realm destroyed). Relations warm up considerably after that.

There are plenty of new people in Aman for Thingol to meet. He becomes good friends with both Orodreth (who he was already on good terms with in Beleriand) and Turgon. Shared grief for lost realms and lost daughters plays a part in it, as does shared loathing of the Fëanorians. Thingol absolutely dotes upon Elwing, as one of the few remaining members of his family; she’s initially not sure how to take it, but warms up to him in time. (Elwing doesn’t look like Lúthien - Lúthien was about seven feet tall, while Elwing’s a little over five feet. She takes after Beren in that regard.) He’s likewise delighted to meet Elrond when Elrond arrives at the end of the Third Age.

(In a similar sense to how Gandalf describes himself as “Saruman as he should have been”, Elrond is who Thingol should have been - welcoming and aiding other kindreds rather than barring them out, and letting his daughter make her own choice freely. The Halls of Mandos are in large part about coming to terms with your mistakes, so this is something post-Mandos Thingol would recognize and esteem.)

At some point there is also a conversation with Aredhel. She apologizes for Celegorm and Curufin’s behaviour (“Someone should,” she says, “and they never will.”) Thingol, in turn, apologizes for not doing anything about Eöl - Eöl was not quite his subject, but Thingol, as the one who gave him leave to live in Nan Elmoth, is to some degree answerable for his actions. This leads into them discussing her son and his foster-son (who have matching Eölian swords and some resemblances in personality) and how much it hurts to see your child go so utterly wrong. This does both of them good, especially Aredhel, who is still extremely broken up about Maeglin and has very few people she can talk to about him.

Everything is quite peaceful and everyone is getting along well.

And then, sometime in the early Fourth Age - and primarily due to the intercession of Elrond - Maglor shows up in Aman. And things get interesting.

(In addition to hating Maglor because of the First and Second Kinslayings, which is definitely the biggest part of why he loathes the Fëanorians, Thingol can’t help resenting that Maglor’s foster son turned out so well. He likes Elrond very much, of course, but the contrast with Thingol’s own foster son - and when Thingol was trying to do something good whereas Elrond came into Maglor’s life as a result of something horrifically evil! - it just doesn’t seem fair.)

[galsinspace]

who are the top 3 himbos of the silmarillion?

God what an EXCELLENT question! I've actually put thought into this before because it was a topic on @avantegarda 's tumblr. Let me post screenshots of two things I said to her first:

Now let's review the three necessary ingredients to a himbo:

Hot

Non-threatening

So, so dumb

Now I know what I said about Fingolfin but since he's still labelled the wisest, he can't fulfill point 3. Fëanor has maybe less braincells but is more threatening. Finarfin has too many braincells. I have also named Mairon a himbo before, but that was a grave error on my part, completely disregarding point 2.

Of course, we're gonna run into a problem here, seeing as pretty much every character in the Silmarillion can be pretty dang threatening, so I'll loosen that prerequisite to just mean like, will this person seem threatening when you just like meet them in a normal situation.

Now I THINK I actually have a top 3:

Third place: Beren. This boy saw a pretty girl in the woods and was immediately ready to die for her. What a mood. He goes on the worst quest ever. He makes puns about losing his hand. Idk how beautifu he is but really beauty is subjective, and Luthien probably thought he was hot! You may argue that he was a warrior and thus not non-threatening enough, but he doesn't really do that much fighting that I remember, especially once he has both an incredibly powerful wife and his wife's very good very big dog to protect him. Next to those two, why would you be intimidated by Beren? He's just a lovely himbo!

Second place: Celegorm during his Valinor days. I know, he becomes one of the most threatening characters ever. But in his youth, when he was just nature-loving hunter in a land where there is no armed conflict whatsoever? I may have just argued for Huan as an intimidating factor, but I think both he and Celegorm weren't like that at all yet in Valinor! Nobody had ever even drawn blood in Valinor, Celegorm was just a dude who loves his big dog so very much, and that is just so endearing to me. Plus, he's called "the fair", which we might interpret as him being blond, but I like to think he's also just very pretty. I refuse to believe he ever had any braincells though.

First place: Finrod. This man is beautiful, he's GREAT at making friends across species and language barriers so he's gotta be non-threatening af, he's good-natured and values his friends, and he manages to embark on two (2) absolutely hopeless quests that he had no chance of surviving - stealing a Silmaril and waging war against Morgoth in general. He's absolutely perfect and I love him so much, himbo supreme

[journen]

Lol so I wanted to have this drawing out during the Fëanorian week last week for the Curufin prompt, but I didn’t have time! Alas, it is finished now! Here is Curufin, his spouse, and baby Celebrimbor. The idea for this drawing is that Curufin is leaving his wife/girlfriend behind to look after newborn Celebrimbor while he goes off on one of his Silmaril quests with his brothers. Needless to say, she's kinda mad lol! I don't think Curufin was a very good guy, especially because its said out off all his brothers he is most like feanor and Fëanor was a bit of a jerk! XD So in many ways I think that Curufin would have put his son and his son’s mother second place to the oath and his brothers. I am also not sure how close I want him and Celebrimbor’s mother to be — if they are married, or if it’s a fling...I’ll figure it out! Anyhow, I really suck a colouring but I’m trying to practise and get better, so I hope it looks somewhat okay at least! XD