#feanor did nothing wrong

[molteasee]

Silmarillion Noldor Kings summed up pretty accurately 😂

Fëanor

Maehdros

Fingon (imo the last of the great kings)

Fingolfin

Maglor

Finwë

Turgon

Gil-Galad

Elrond

[artanis-draws]

Soo here is some older piece I did with Photoshop and a Wacom Bamboo tablet! Feanor is one of my favourite characters from Tolkien-Universe. His name fits so well with his kinda fiery temper and I imagined him surrounded by -of course- fire. I think I am really into wild personalities. Thought of him fighting the second major battle of the War of the Jewels in Beleriand, the Dagor-nuin-Giliath (or the Battle Under the Stars).

->The pose was a reference from Pinterest! Thanks to the artist, but sadly he wasn't mentioned and I can't find the artwork anymore.

[eleanoraborealis]

The Sculptor and the Smith

[hongchenzhu]

[i-am-darth-feanor]

Guys omg I have two friends who are LotR nerds and one of them is mostly a movie nerd but he's getting through the books for the first time (he's currently on return of the king) and I convinced him to read the silmarillion oh my gosh

I'm gonna brainwash him into believing that Feanor did nothign wrong

[seithurwena]

Making memes .... 😌🔥✨ Silmarillion

[raointean]

Silmarillion Survey Essay!

My essay was due last night (submitted it with 6 minutes to spare!) and my professor said I could post it to Tumblr if I wanted to. It's divided into four sections, all marked. The first section is the introduction where I explain the point of the survey, who I studied, and why. The second section is the methods I used to design the survey, get answers, record answers, and control for variables. The third section is results, where I highlight several of the questions I thought would be most stratifying and explain what I actually found (it has graphs!). The fourth section is the discussion where I talk about what I found and what conclusions I drew from that.

I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on the results and my conclusions!

Introduction

            For this project, I looked into age (and length of time in fandom, in one case) affected knowledge and attitudes about fandom language. I investigated several terms and phrases, both from fandom at large and from the Silmarillion fandom specifically. The group I studied was the fandom of The Silmarillion on Tumblr because I am intimately familiar with that internet space (and could therefore phrase the questions in a way that would be understood) and because the majority of Archiveofourown.org (a popular fanfiction website) users are also Tumblr users.

            For the purposes of this paper, I am defining the Silmarillion fandom as a community of practice. The Wenger-Trayner article, “Communities of practice a brief introduction”, defines a community of practice as an entity with three parts: domain, community, and practice. The domain is “an identity defined by a shared domain of interest” (Wenger-Trayner 2). The domain in this case is The Silmarillion. As The Silmarillion is a history book set in a fictional universe, it is incredibly dry at times (there is an entire chapter titled “Of Beleriand and its Realms” which deals mostly with geography) so anyone who reads it by choice is necessarily interested in the work. The second part, community, is made up of “members [that] engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information” (Wenger-Trayner 2). Most fandoms engage in discourse/discussion, create transformative art (mostly written or visual, but I have seen musical as well) and exchange craft advice to better each other’s creative work, but due to the almost academic nature of the Silmarillion fandom, we exchange background lore knowledge, additions to Tolkien’s conlangs, translations, timelines, and character sheets in addition to the regular fandom activities. Finally, the Silmarillion fandom also has a shared practice, defined as “They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice” (Wenger-Trayner 2). As mentioned above, the Silmarillion fandom has shared resources (such as tolkiengateway.net, Nerd of the Rings on YouTube, as well as several established “fandom elders” who are happy to answer questions), stories, established characterizations for “only-mentioned-once-in-a-footnote” type characters, settled linguistic debates, and several research-oriented blogs (such as two of my own) that record niche or new knowledge about either Tolkien’s work or the fandom itself. Almost all of the above (with the possible exception of the website and the youtuber previously mentioned) is unpaid hobby work.

            When doing this survey, I expected to find a rather steep difference between older and younger members of fandom regarding their knowledge of fandom terminology. I expected the 18-25 age group to be the most knowledgeable of fandom terms with the under 18 group to be only slightly behind them and the 26-30 group a slightly further way behind the under 18 group. For the groups over 30, I anticipated that the rate of knowledge would sharply decline and that older fans would be unfamiliar with fandom terminology for the most part. I was… incorrect.

Methods

            There are eight questions highlighted in this paper. The first chart (Figure 1.) is the total percentage of answers that amounted to “I don’t know”, filtered by age. The first table (Figure 2.) looks at the people who did not know the term “Isekai” based on whether or not they were native speakers of English or live in Asia (given that “Isekai” is a Japanese word). The second table (Figure 3.) compares the percentage of people who mentioned that the word “angst” is also present in everyday German, categorized by German speakers and non-German speakers. The third table (Figure 4.) examines attitudes towards the anti/pro-ship terms based on age. The second chart (Figure 5.) examines attitudes towards the term “omegaverse” separated by age. The fourth table (Figure 6.) compares groups of people who could define the difference between “peredhel” and “peredhil”, separated by how long they have participated in the fandom surrounding the Silmarillion fandom. The third chart (Figure 7a.) looks at people who understand the phrase “Fëanor did nothing wrong” as a joke, filtered by age. Finally, the fourth chart (Figure 7b.) shows the percentage of people who used the phrase “tongue-in-cheek” in the 31-40 group as opposed to other age groups (that one was not explicitly asked for in the survey; I simply noticed a steep trend while dissecting the results from the “Fëanor did nothing wrong” question).

            I compiled all of these questions (along with several others) in a google form as a three-part survey. The first part was comprised of basic demographic questions, the second of general fandom terms and phrases, and the third of terms and phrases specific to fanfiction of The Silmarillion. The 418 responses were recorded and examined in Google sheets, which I used to filter the demographic information for ease of synthetization.

            The group I examined was people who participate in the Silmarillion fandom on Tumblr. I chose this group because I am familiar with them, because they are the most likely to be aware of these terms (due to the large overlap between Tumblr and Archive Of Our Own), and because fandom language is (to the best of my knowledge) not well studied. I was able to isolate this group by only posting the survey to Tumblr itself. Tumblr posts are only viewable to Tumblr users, so even if someone were to post a link to the post elsewhere, the only people able to access the survey would be Tumblr users. I further attempted to control by including several fandom related and The Silmarillion-specific questions in the demographic portion of the survey. Anyone who completed the demographic portion would have been well aware of the nature of the survey by the end, regardless of how poorly they understood the original survey posting. These measures, of course, did not stop everyone. I had a few respondents who submitted only the demographic portion or the demographic and general fandom portions. Luckily, due to the Google Sheets functions, such responses were relatively easy to filter out.

Results

(Figure 1. A chart observing, out of all 16,065 answers, how many equate to “I don’t know?” Under 18: 14.24%, 18-25: 5.9%, 26-30: 7.43%, 31-40: 9.17%, 41-50: 13.63%, 51-60: 7.3%, 61-70: 9.7%)

(Figure 2. A table comparing different categories of people and what percentage of them are unfamiliar with the term “Isekai”; a Japanese term which is most commonly defined as “a trope in which a character somehow travels from the mundane ‘real’ universe into a fictional one.” 23.08% of native English speakers are unfamiliar with the term. 27.07% of non-native English speakers are unfamiliar with the term. 20% of respondents who live in Asia are unfamiliar with the term.)

(Figure 3. A table comparing different categories who mention that “Angst” (defined in fandom context as “dramatic, serious, and sometimes dark”) is an everyday word in German. 12.73% of German speakers mentioned it. 1.38% of people who either do not speak German, or did not mention it in their language background, mentioned it.)

(Figure 4. A table comparing the attitudes of different age groups to the terms “anti-ship” and “pro-ship”. These terms are hotly debated in fandom. Those on the anti side of the debate define anti-ship as “being morally against abuse and pedophilia,” and pro-ship as “excusing abuse and pedophilia in fandom.” Those on the pro side of the debate define anti-ship as “puritanical and chronically online people who can’t separate reality and fiction” and pro-ship as “letting people ship whatever they want and separating reality from fiction.” Those under 18 are 4% anti, 4% pro, and 92% neutral. Those from 18-25 are 2.44% anti, 29.27% pro, and 68.29% neutral. Those from 26-30 are 0% anti, 33.67% pro, and 66.33% neutral. Those from 31-40 are 2.2% anti, 26.37% pro, and 71.43% neutral. Those from 41-50 are 0% anti, 46.15% pro, and 53.85% neutral. Those from 51-60 are 12.5% anti, 37.5% anti, and 50% neutral. Those from 61-70 are 0% anti, 50% pro, and 50% neutral (although, admittedly, there are only two respondents in that group.))

(Figure 5. A chart that shows the rate at which respondents cringed (using phrases such as “please don’t make me define this,” “oh god,” and “Nuh uh. Sorry man. Sweet baby rays good lord.”*) within their responses while defining “Omegaverse” (an erotica subgenre within fandom based on outdated wolfpack dynamics. Very popular, but also very taboo). Under 18: 16%, 18-25: 6.71% 26-30: 7.07%, 31-40: 6.45%, 41-50: 12%, 51-60: 12.5%)

*All real responses I received

(Figure 6: A chart exploring the differences between who can correctly identify the difference between the terms “peredhel” (half-elf, singular) and “peredhil” (half-elves, plural) based on how long they have been in the fandom. Those who have been in the fandom for less than a year are 31.71% correct and 14.63% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 1-2 years are 71.67% correct and 10% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 3-4 years are 74.44% correct and 7.78% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 5-9 years are 65.93% correct and 9.89% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 10-14 years are 73.85% correct and 12.31% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 15-19 years are 76.92% correct and 11.59% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 20-24 years are 69.57% correct and 13.04% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 25-29 years are 100% correct and 0% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 30-34 years are 75% correct and 0% incorrect. Those who have been in the fandom for 35-39 years are 100% correct and 0% incorrect.)

(Figure 7a. A chart observing who sees the phrase “Fëanor did nothing wrong as ironic” divided by age. Under 18: 23.53%, 18-25: 35.77%, 26-30: 36.9%, 31-40: 42.67%, 41-50: 22.22%, 51-60: 37.5%)

(Figure 7b. A chart observing the percentages of age groups who used the phrase “tongue-in-cheek” while answering the above question. 18-25: 1.84%, 26-30: 2.04%, 31-40: 9.78)

Discussion

            Observing these results, I can see that, while there is some level of stratification by age and length of time spent in the fandom, it is not nearly as dramatic as I had expected it to be. These results strongly demonstrate the power of communities of practice. These people, across ages and continents, communicate so often and so deeply, that nearly all terms are understood to the same degree by everyone, and nearly everyone has similar stances on divisive pan-fandom debates.

            Were I to do this study again, or a similar study in the future, I would probably narrow the purview by a lot. I would ask fewer questions (or at least, only ask questions of a single type), compare them against only one demographic question, and sincerely consider making them multiple choice. That being said, I do not regret this survey having short answer questions. There were several definitions of several terms that I never could have come up with in a million years. Synthesizing the short answers may have taken more effort on my part, but I learned a lot about my fandom.

@proship-anti-discussion (ship debate was mentioned)

[feanors-mom]

666 notes for ye old Feanaro, who would have guessed

Fëanor, Lord of the Lights

[braxix]

I love a Elrond kidnaps Maglor to take him to Valinor, or a Galadriel tracks him down and manhandles him onto a ship, but I want a Celeborn sees the pain of his family and dispite his own dislike and pain he tracks Maglor down and forces him to come home. I want a angsty hurt/comfort where Maglor thinks Celeborn is here to kill him, but Celeborn just hands him some bread and tends to his wounds. I want Celeborn deciding that the only way to stop the cycle of hurt is to forgive and to be the one to show kindness. I want the war in Celeborn's mind over the morals of doing this. I want the slips where Celeborn accidentally hurts him without realizing. I want enemies to friends. I want Celeborn to decide that, in the least, kidnapping Maglor can't be that bad. It's for the elf's own good and he talks himself into it by saying that it's a revenge kidnapping.

I want Galadriel to be so worried about where her husband disappeared to that when he comes home with a kinslayer trailing after him she's so surprised she doesn't even put on a mask of indifference and tries to keep Maglor out. She's more worried about what her husband is doing to Maglor than what Maglor could possibly do to Celeborn. Celeborn is the one to talk her into letting Maglor in, forcing her to let him stay.

I want Elrond's surprise/hurt/worry when he finally sees Maglor. I want him refusing to look at Maglor because he thinks Maglor doesn't love him because he stayed away. He thinks Maglor went to Galadriel before him on purpose and that because he wasn't told that Maglor wants nothing to do with him. I want miscommunication. I want Maglor thinking Elrond hates him. I want Celeborn to be so confused by what's going on between Elrond and Maglor because didn't Elrond say he wished Maglor would come home? Didn't Elrond say he misses the son of Feanor? Didn't Maglor talk non-stop the entire way home about how he doesn't want to be a bother to perfect wonderful Elrond? I want the realization. I want the tired of this bullshit sigh from Celeborn before he locks them in a room together so that they'll realize that they both miss each other dearly and want to be father and son. I want their painful realization of how deeply miscommunicated everything was. I want their fight. Their stories. I want them all to be a crazy family.

I want it to be because of Celeborn deciding to forgive, but not forget. I want it to be Celeborn who does this because he's the one who remembers all of the wrongs Maglor did, he has no reason to forgive, but he does. Celeborn stops the hurt. Celeborn's the one to bring him home, not Galadriel or Elrond or anyone related to Maglor. It's Celeborn.

[tolkieen]

Feanor did nothing wrong!

[eleanoraborealis]

Fëanor

🔥💎💎💎🔥

(The Jewlers pliers, you guys 😭 he's got everything he needs to get his rocks back on his silly utility belt, and he's got so much determination and hope, I simply cannot)

[papita474]

YES YES YES

i'm sorry but you will never convince me that feanor was a bad or unloving father and that he just hated on all his sons except curufin. they obviously loved him so much the way they were just unfailingly loyal to him and immediately jumped up to swear the oath with him? like they abandoned everyone else for him

bad brother? sure but not a bad father

[hongchenzhu]

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

I hope you don't mind me asking this, but why do you like Celegorm? I love that you're vocal about how stupid the Feanorian woobification in this fandom is because people who claim that they did nothing wrong or that they're not villains clearly hasn't read the Silm, but while there's still a level of sympathy to most of them, Celegorm is just genuinely the worst and I can't figure out what there is to appreciate about him lol. I'm sorry if this comes across as a bad-faith question, I really want to know how you like him while not ignoring, trying to deny, or worst trying to justify (which I have seen FAR too many people doing) his canon actions

you're totally good anon! i'd be happy to answer this. just want to preface, i perfectly get where you're coming from and why people hate celegorm, because he is, as you say, the worst. he's horrible. he's done awful things to countless people -- and by no means is he the only feanorian to have done that, obviously, but celegorm's actions in luthien's story make him a type of squicky that's unique even among the brothers. he, hm. how can i put this. he deserves nothing. and yes, people who try to justify him are just wrong. stop reading the silm if you want a mass murdering sexual predator to be glorified ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

that said! the succinct answer is that it's all about the vibes lol. all the feanorians are awful people, but celegorm is, imo, that particularly entertaining kind of awful. there's a certain interplay between his successes and failures that i find unbearably endearing (derogatory). he is canonically charming and magnetic and charismatic enough to sway people with his rhetoric, and i love that. i love that he's opportunistic, clever, and sly, and pounces on the chance when he spots it. the fact that his speech in nargothrond is explicitly paralleled with feanor's before the flight of the noldor says a lot. i find it compelling that while, in many ways, celegorm is the most distant from his family -- friend of a vala, a great woodsman and hunter which are two things that neither his father nor his brothers are ever even mentioned around -- he is the only one among the sons of feanor to be directly, textually compared to feanor, and feanor during one of his most pivotal and infamous moments, no less. the guy must be a force of nature when he really wants to be. yet at the same time, he's endlessly reckless, arrogant, and shortsighted, and he does not get to get away with his actions. his plans flop (just like he will continue to flop until his karmic and also really fucking funny death in about thirty years' time, i'll get back to that), his intentions are discerned, and he gets thrown out in disgrace for treachery with the embarrassing declaration "a maiden had dared that which the sons of feanor had not dared to do" following after him. it's that particular blend of hyper-competence followed hand-in-hand by prompt abject failure and humiliation that makes him so appealing to me.

oh and. another thing about celegorm is that he has the added charm of being a fucking sore loser and a petty bitch -- trying to kill luthien even though she spares his brother's life when she'd be justified throttling him and curufin with her bare hands and i just. he's sooo funny. what is wrong with him. so many things are wrong with him. tfw you kidnap and tried to rape this woman and she does you an untold, absolutely herculean grace and kindness that you know damn well you do not deserve and your reaction is to try to kill her for daring to show you compassion. he's insane.

then. then then then then. he gets chased by own dog and runs away "in terror." you know you've messed up when your dog finally has enough of your bullshit and runs you down because he's fed up with all the terrible things you've been doing. not to mention his dog also dies fighting next to a man that he hates, using his last opportunity of speech to say goodbye to said man. like. beren and luthien's story leaves celegorm, as skilled and magnetic as he canonically is, in absolute shambles and it's hilarious. how does one recover from that you may ask. and i answer one does not recover from that.

but that's not even all. after that saga of blunders he hangs around for about three decades doing absolutely nothing of note, then in his attempt to regain some relevancy winds up having the most mortifying death ever. my dude you were the "let's ambush doriath guys" spokesperson. you campaigned for that shit. this was your desire. this is what you wanted. and you walk in there and the guy who's *checks notes* THIRTY-SIX compared to your one-thousand-something KILLS YOU. elves are not developmentally matured until they're a hundred. your killer is like thirty. this is, generously speaking, about an eight year old by your standards. a fucking eight year old kills you. yes i know dior was not actually a child at the time but the fact remains that celegorm quite literally has more life experience than the entire human race and he's done in by the son of a human. then to add second insult to first insult to extreme injury, two of your brothers are also killed in this battle and in the end you all don't even achieve what the fuck you came there to do. THIS WAS YOUR PLAN. how do you lose that badly. holy hell. if i were him i'd stay in the halls of mandos forever out of pure embarrassment. you simply would never see me again. you think i'm walking out into society and showing my face around the block when an eight-year-old ended my life? nah. no sir not me

plus well. on a more serious note, dior is luthien's son. luthien, whom celegorm thought he could control, whom he saw as an object to further his aims and to lust after. he's killed by the son of the woman he tried to rape, and there's nothing more fitting than that.

so! there you have the basic rundown of why i like what's explicitly laid out about celegorm in canon. he's an objectively horrible man, it's just that i find the way he goes about being objectively horrible extremely funny. but i also think he is ripe for exploration in the realm of speculation -- and that speculation enhances what we do know about his actions during b&l and after until his death. aside from the kinslaying at alqualonde wherein all the sons of feanor participate, we see him and curufin acting unambiguously villainous a good bit before the rest of their brothers -- at the very least, they are clearly more willing to do horrible things at the point of time of b&l when compared to the likes of maedhros and maglor. like, they are out here committing actions that no sane person can rationalize as being anything other than abhorrent. it's clear that they've already given up on the idea of being "good"; they've already given up on keeping their hands clean and they've already shed whatever qualms they might have had in the past.

my thoughts on why? this is by no means canon, but tolkien does seem to like giving the legendarium's major villains some sort of arc and some type of insight into what they become (melkor gets history, sauron gets history, maedhros and maglor get history), so i don't see why celegorm should be any different. and for me, celegorm and curufin, especially celegorm, give the impression that they fell into despair and disillusionment far before the other feanorians did. and their response was to accept that they have no way of going back to the people they used to be, that they've already been rightfully damned, and if they've come this far they may as well do whatever they can to achieve what they fell so low for, because what does it matter anymore? it's part of why i think celegorm sees maedhros trying to look at beleriand and the war against morgoth from a larger perspective than just the silmarils, and both disdains and pities him for it. they've already been doomed and they already can't hope to make amends. they should do what they're here for -- and while, in celegorm's eyes, maedhros isn't willing to do what needs to be done, he is. i think that sort of mentality is fascinating. in a way, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy -- maybe if celegorm thought there was any meaning to him being better, or even just any meaning in not being nearly as awful as he resolved to be, then he wouldn't have stooped so low. but he did believe there was no hope for him, he did believe that he could never be forgiven -- and in believing that, he did go past the point of no return, beyond which he truly, legitimately couldn't hope to be forgiven. also, i just personally like the "well i'm a terrible person so i'm going to act like a terrible person"-type villains better than "oh no i'm a terrible person it makes me so sad and full of despair"-type villains (looking at you, maglor). again, none of this is canon, but it's my reading of celegorm's character, and i think it sheds some light on why he's so awful in b&l and afterwards. in his mind, it's already over for him anyway.

i hope this answered your question anon! i like celegorm, and i enjoy his character, because there are shades of a sad tale behind his descent to being the worst, he's entertaining while he's being the worst, and most crucially of all, he gets his comeuppance for being the worst in an extremely satisfying way. i definitely wouldn't like him (or the silm at all) so much if he'd been, like, successful in anything -- but thankfully he is written by an author who knows full well what an utterly reprehensible character he is. and boy does tolkien not spare him from that karma. he is simultaneously a singleminded and relentless fallen prince, a repulsive monster, and the story's laughingstock (one of them anyway). honestly, none of the feanorians tickle my brain quite like he does. i love him and i would beat him with a shoe