#not of Finwë and Indis

[yellow-faerie]

Ok so, follow up poll from this one (since I'm curious):

(please add any extra info on why/headcanons in the tags, I really wanna know since more people than I expected counted them among the best)

[gauntletgirlie]

Original from Reddit.

[anattmar]

no but that's literally them

[artist of the original illustration is Robert Maguire]

[softmoonlightmelody]

formatting requires pictures unfortunately :/. HOWEVER, here's a poem about míriel and indis.

[carmisse]

Of Caranthir.

Caranthir looks like Miriel.

Because even though Tyelkormo has the platinum hair of the Noldor queen, he does not look like his grandmother.

But Indis can see Miriel in Carnistir, when Fëanáro's son moves about the Finwë household, she is able to see her in the stubbornness that the prince dazzles and even in his angry outbursts, she can sense a gleam in the shadows of his eyes that she had only seen in Þerinde.

In the same way, Fëanáro can see Miriel when Carnistir is embroidering in the depths of his room accompanied only by a few candles that produce enough light to work without problems, he can find her in the meaningless humming of his son that many times have generated tears in his eyes.

Finwë can see Miriel when Carnistir smiles, he inherited her smile, and he can't help his heart squeezing when he sees his grandson with a clear joy in his face.

That's probably the reason for him to look up to him just a little bit more than his other grandchildren.

[beatx-mavie-archangelx]

"pronouncing 'Þerindë' as 'Serindë' is not that big of a deal" just say you've always been called right your whole life.

[mxliv-oftheendless]

Sometimes I think about Fëanor and Fingolfin and I wonder so much about them. Why did Fingolfin try so hard to have a good relationship with Fëanor? Was there some point in their lives when Fëanor treated him well and he wants to have that again? Was Fëanor distant with him and Finarfin and Fingolfin was just constantly told to keep trying? Did Finwë ever try to help his sons get along? Did Fëanor ever want to have a relationship with Fingolfin and Finarfin, or did he never want that? Did Indis ever try to bond with Fëanor after she married Finwë or was she pushed away? Did she ever try to help Fingolfin and Fëanor get along? I just—I have so many thoughts and emotions about Fingolfin and Fëanor 😭😭😭

[silmarillaure]

Even though I usually prefer purely Noldorin Míriel because I hate the idea of certain elf tribes having "exclusive" looks, her being a distant (keyword: distant) relative of the Telerin Royal family from who she get's her iconic silver hair can also be fun. Because then I can headcanon she looks like Elwë, Eärwen, Celeborn, & Celebrían and that Finarfin, Galadriel, & Elrond literally all have the same type as Finwë and it would also mean Indis has to see Míriel's ghost even in her own descendants, as if they were meant to be Míriel's all along.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

wait i thought i’d seen the full extent of the silm fandom’s misogyny but i guess the silm fandom can always hate female characters more because apparently?? people believe indis the manipulative malicious bitch came onto and cajoled and stalked finwe until he relented and married her all while specifically aiming to make it so that miriel could never come back and she could have finwe's dick for all of eternity and abuse poor helpless feanor to her black shriveled heart’s content??? apparently that is a take that exists and has shooters??? yall are truly smoking that good stuff

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Fëanor, upset that Finwë spent some holiday with Fingolfin's family, and Indis, pretending she forced him into it—because while she cannot be a mother to Fëanor, she can at least give him the best father. A father who never does anything wrong. A father who is devoted to his eldest son. A father who loves enough, almost, to make up for the lack of a mother.

[crownedwithstars]

Anyone who has followed me for some time knows that I like to complain about the treatment of women in fiction, and particularly in headcanons and fanon that treats a female character in a more venomous - and dare I say it, misogynistic - way than canon ever did. There are multiple instances of this in the Silm, but I think Indis is one of the female characters who gets done dirty most often.

The funny thing is, you see it often disguised as "giving her nuance", or as criticism. But when you look at what is presented as said nuance or criticism, and then consider what Tolkien actually wrote about Indis, too often these things have little to nothing to do with one another. In fact, "nuance" appears to mean making the female character more responsible for a male character's bad actions than she actually is.

I don't mean to say that you can't dislike Indis or that it's inherently misogynistic to do so. But it's good to realise the existence of internalised misogyny and how that impacts the way you expect a woman to behave - and if you're criticising her chiefly because her interests and actions are in conflict with those of a male character, it may be useful to examine that criticism more closely.

Some of the things I've seen Indis accused of are: she is creepily obsessed with Finwë (as if unrequited feelings for someone unavailable aren't a common enough phenomenon), her motive is (improper) sexual interest in him which may in fact be predatory, she bears more responsibility for Finwë's actions than he himself does, she actively schemes to make sure Míriel will stay dead so that she can have her man (even though she doesn't get involved with Finwë until after Míriel has declared her desire to remain dead and the Valar have given permission to Finwë to remarry), she may have used some magical means to enchant Finwë, she hates her step-son and is an abusive step-mother to him, and actually she's so terrible that Fëanor's downspiral is more her fault than the literal Satan figure's (who is in text explicitly stated to be responsible for the fact). Fëanor is also presented in the terms of modern understanding of mental health as if these could possibly apply (and as if we had enough information to diagnose him), and his issues are in large part designated to Indis and her actions.

Tolkien didn't really write that much about Indis - certainly not enough for most of the said criticism of her to be more than conjecture. What little he does say about her paints a picture of a person of sweet and joyous temperament who's not embittered in a situation that could have made her deeply unhappy. You can argue that she's selfish or at least inconsiderate of Fëanor - nevermind the fact that Finwë is bent on remarrying and would probably have done it with or without her - but the other way to see the situation is that she thinks she's doing a good thing for them both, helping a man move on and giving a motherless child a new caregiver. Obviously, Fëanor does not want that (although it would explain a lot about their relationship in a way that does align with canon without making one or both of them a bad person: Indis hopes to be a mother to him in a genuinely well-intentioned way, but he feels she's trying to replace his birth mother, and resents her because she's not Míriel). But nothing in the situation indicates that Indis herself has bad intentions, and it's not her or his fault that it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's just not anybody's fault. We don't even know what Fëanor's first reaction is upon learning that Finwë means to remarry: we only know that he does not love Indis or her children and that he moves out of his father's household while still young. It doesn't imply the degree of resentment applied to this situation by fandom.

The idea of Indis wanting to comfort both father and son is also conjecture of course, but it's no less so than any of the ideas listed above where she's presented as an unsympathetic, wanton schemer, and it certainly is no less plausible. Indis is a rather blatant example of how in too much media, women are allowed only two roles: either she's Madonna, or she's a whore, and this is determined by a male perspective. Indis clearly falls into the latter category as a woman whose chastity, obedience and willingness to self-sacrifice do not bend for the male favourite.

If you judge Indis, at least judge her fairly.

[yellow-faerie]

The Lady of Tartúrion

Fic by @yellow-faerie (AO3)

Art by @lidoshka (AO3) - Original art found here, here and here

Rating: Teen & Up

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Minor Character Death Off Screen, Depression

Relationships: Fëanor & Indis, Indis & Children of Indis, Indis/Finwë, Indis & Ingwë, Indis & Accalírë (OC)

Characters: Indis, Fëanor, Finwë, Finarfin, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen, Ingwë, Rúmil, Accalírë (OC), Other OCs

Word Count: 9.4k

Summary:

When Indis first met Fëanáro, she was still la Lady of the Vanyarin Court and had not yet met Finwë - the future love of her life - in anything outside of an official capacity.

-

In the aftermath of Finwë's death, fading in his sleep from his longstanding grief, Indis must keep it together for her children, and for the baby within her, and for Fëanáro - who does not particularly want her help. She has friends and her brother but it is still no easy task.

This is a fic for @tolkienrsb, for slide #48!

[anattmar]

Finwë • Indis • Míriel

[serene-faerie]

Since I feel like making another of these polls:

[valardynasty]

Finwë Dynasty

Finwë et sa première épouse Miriel Perindë avec qui il a eu son premier fils, Fëanor. Sa seconde épouse Indïs, avec qui il eut deux filles et deux garçons, Findïs, Fingolfin, Irimë et Finarfin.