#out of Doriath

[sakasakiii]

a bit of a sketch dump, but ive been meaning to catch up with some doraith-related asks that ive been sent over the past years :D first i should probably clear up any misconceptions abt my version of luthien and daeron 😅 purely due to personal preference, i like daeron's actions in the story being motivated by a more familial love rather than a romantic one (where he's a suitor)... no specific reason why haha, maybe i just wanted more chances to draw pretty maia-elves?

here are some more general asks and doodles along that line! sorry for taking so long, anons, but thank you so much for your kind words and comments!! ❤️ i've always had them in the back of my mind in the time since, so in that vein, heres some mundane doodles + hcs about the doriathrim cast since i havent drawn them very much, plus several updated designs ^^

bonus: life hacks with beleg cuthalion

[inthiskingdomwewillendure]

Celeborn of Doriath's silver mantle, tunic & jewellery in 4k

[hellofeanor]

Objectively the funniest Reddit post I've ever seen.

[lyrien-arts]

Okay phew!! My biggest Tolkien-related art to date, part of a school assignment. featuring Mablung and Beleg and my OCs and one unnamed guy.

top row, left to right: Mablung, Lirien, unnamed elf, Taer, Faelon, Idhrenes, Beleg

bottom row, left to right: Pelinel, Pethron, Calithil

[thetiredprometheus]

Of Maglor and Celegorm

Celegorm and Maglor do NOT get along. They never have. While Makalaurë Kanafinwë is named for his loud voice, he prefers a quiet house. When Tyelkormo is born, he screams almost as much as Maglor did when he was a baby, and Makalaurë HATES it. Also this new baby is getting all the attention! No one has time to listen to his music anymore.

You'd think it would get better when Tyelkormo reaches toddler age and stops crying all day, but no. Now this little menace can walk and get into Makalaurë's things, which is bad because Makalaurë is very particular about every piece of paper having it's place, and Tyelko completely destroys any order, intentional or not. They both admire Maitimo and want to be his favourite. Of course Nelyo only smiles and says he loves all his brothers equally, but that only frustrates Makalaurë and Tyelkormo more.

Tyelkormo is now a teenager and they still don't get along. The birth of Carnistir has done little to change that, as little Moryo is a quiet child who prefers to be left alone. Makalaurë is Tyelkormo's favourite victim to annoy. He drags mud across the carpet of Makalaurë's room, "accidentally" pushes music sheets of the table, and hides frogs in his bed. Their screaming-matches are the bane of the entire family.

Things are a bit easier after Tyelkormo gets accepted into Oromë's hunt. He is in the woods more often than not and sometimes only comes home after months, and then only for a few days. They can keep the peace for that time, especially as Tyelkormo seems more interested in his newest younger brothers. Curufinwë has a sharp wit for his age and enjoys Tyelkormo's attention, and the Ambarussa are wild children who don't mind a bit of rough housing. Makalaurë locks himself in his room most of the time anyways.

After the kinslaying at Aqualondë Maglor is the most distressed of the seven. He cowers in a corner of the ship, shakes and quietly sings to himself. "Stop being so dramatic, Kano", Tyelkormo says. "It isn't that different from killing deer or rabbits. They also beg for mercy, and they bleed just the same." Maybe he wants to provoke Makalaurë to stop thinking about the pit in his stomach. Makalaurë doesn't talk much for the rest of the journey.

Their father is dead and Maedhros is captured. This means that Maglor is king now. Celegorm thinks a king must be strong, and he does not see strength when he looks at Maglor. He wants to take their soldiers and march on Angband. Maglor forbids it. To him it is because he can not risk losing another brother, to Celegorm it is weakness and cowardice. Celegorm pushes and prods and questions every single order Maglor gives. Maglor begins to truly resent him.

Maedhros is returned to them and while it makes somethings better, the tension between Maglor and Celegorm won't ease. When Fingon tells them how he found Maedhros through song Celegorm doesn't say anything, but the glare he gives Maglor is accusatory enough.

Beleriand makes them all cruel, but there's non of Maglor's brothers where it is as jarring as with Celegorm and Curufin. When they are driven from Nargothrond for their crimes, Maglor refuses to talk to them for a good few decades.

There are rumours that Dior the son of Luthien has the Silmaril now. When he does not answer their letter, Celegorm speaks of war. Maglor, hating the thought of more blood staining their hands, begs Maedhros to try diplomacy once more. But Dior will not give in, and they can feel the oath tightening around them, so Maedhros orders them to march on Doriath.

Celegorm thought he wouldn’t mind dying on the battlefield. And he shouldn't. By all accounts it is a good death; being slain by Luthien's fair son in a glorious fight, dealing him a lethal wound in return... but somehow, as he lies bleeding out, he finds that he doesn't really enjoy dying after all. He knows Curufin is somewhere close, but he is out of reach and has already taken his last breath and so has Dior, and the only sound Celegorm can hear is his own rattled breathing. It is cold, and quiet, and terribly lonely... that is until he hears the falling of feet running towards him. A person sinks to the ground next to him. He cannot see clearly anymore, but then the person start crying and saying his name, and he recognises the voice as Maglor's. Bloodstained hands pull his head into his lap. As Celegorm's sight grows dark and he begins to drift away he feels warm fingers brush through his tangled hair, and hears a shaking voice sing him a lullaby that he hasn't heard since his childhood, and he thinks... maybe he doesn't mind his brother's softness after all.

Maglor holds Celegorm close, kisses his head and refuses to leave his side, until his little brother's corpse has grown cold.

[themalhambird]

Celebrimbor Week- Relationships

Finrod had welcomed him to Nargothrond with an embrace so violent it had lifted him up off the ground- pressed a kiss to each cheek and then sent him to sleep off the exhaustion and terror of flight in the King’s own bed while the King turned to greet Tyelperinquer’s father and Uncle in turn. 

And now Finrod was gone, and Uncle Tyelko and- his brother- were gone, and Tyelperinquer walked alone, step by trembling step, to sink to his knees and bow his head at the foot of Odereth’s throne. He publicly denounces his father as traitor, as murderer; he repudiates any notion of ties continuing between them.  

This done, he returns to rooms which- for the first time in his life- are entirely his, alone.

[elves-as-things-my-friends-said]

Daeron, done™️ with this shit: Lúthien inherited all of her looks from her mom. The only thing she got from her dad was stubbornness and a xeno kink.

[flying-mochis]

I just finished the Silmarillion so now it's time for me to loose my mind trying to discern the timeline changes in Rings of Power

mostly I was trying to figure out which "war" it was that Celeborn went missing in

but first I wanted to ground myself by figuring out when Finrod died- except that also isn't clear...

This is a very long, unedited stream of consciousness post, so I'll put it under Keep Reading. I also didn't really fact check any of this just going off my recent memory of just reading the Silmarillion so- If I got stuff wrong...woops

TLDR: Though Finrod originally dies in the Silmarillian during the Beren and Luthien, I think the RoP writers have changed his death to be sometime after the defeat of Morgoth as he's hunting Sauron. I think Celeborn went missing sometime before Finrod died, either in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (before the Fall of Doriath) or in the War of Wrath (the final defeat of Morgoth). Ultimately who knows but I'm excited to see what they do :)

In the Silmarillian, Finrod dies around late year 400 in the 1st Age protecting Beren in Of Beren and Luthien. He is killed by Sauron, as Sauron throws them in like a pit of death thingy.

but in Rings of Power, when Galadriel is giving exposition in the beginning, she basically says 'Then Morgoth was drafted, but Sauron continued to cause problems, and my brother vowed to hunt him down, then he died.' So it sounds like RoP Finrod survived the War of Wrath against Morgoth, but then died hunting Sauron afterwards.

This change would call into question how the events of Beren and Luthien played out in the RoP timeline- I guess it's not necessary for Finrod to die into order for that story to still have worked? Like maybe Luthien saved both of them or maybe Finrod never went with them. But...Part of the fall of Doriath in Hurin getting Finrods fancy necklace from Mim the dwarf after he's taken over Finrod's Kingdome in his absence- so if Finrod survived up to the fall of Doriath and past that- how would that work? I'm sure it could, there are ways to work around it so the story can still play out with those changes- or maybe they changed more major parts of the story like the fall of Doriath! That would be bold but not out of the question.

Maybe it's also possible that Finrod did still die during the Beren and Luthien story but that just happened after the defeat of Morgoth? IDK if that makes sense, because then how would Thingol have gotten the silmarill that leads to the fall of Doriath and all that stuff with Earendil and Elwing-? that has a lot more continuity changes so less likely.

Ok, moving on from Finrod. His death is at least canon from the Silmarillion, but Celeborn going missing is not. Or at least, it isn't mentioned. But one thing about Galadriel and Celeborn is that they were retconned into the story after most of the Silmarillion was written, so their presence it is extremely spotty and sometime inconsistent. It's basically mentioned that they fall in love when Galadriel and her brothers go to Doriath and she stays with him in Doriath while Finrod finds his kingdom, Nargothrond. Then she's mentioned talking to Melian like once after that right before the Dagor Bragollach (one time Morgoth surprise attacks a bunch of elf cities) and then...They basically disappear for the rest of the book until it starts talking about the rings of power in the 2nd Age-

So...There's already a lot of missing spots in there story. That's one of the reasons I think it's cool they made Galadriel a protagonist in RoP, because what she's doing in those times is very vague, though more so in the 1st Age than the 2nd- but her character could still shed some light on what she was doing then- Especially when Celeborn is introduced, cuz that's gonna require some background explanations.

So that's all just to provide the context that there is barely any context for what those two were doing before RoP takes place.

Another note about possible timelines for Celeborn going missing is its relation to Finrod's death. This is not confirmed, but I've always worked with the assumption that Celeborn went missing before Finrod died. This is based on some factors- such as Galadriel's seemingly more cheery nature when she calls him a "silver clam" before he goes off to battle---This doesn't sound like the traumatized, hardened Galadriel we know from her response to Finrod's death. Also, as other's have pointed out, if Finrod had died before Celeborn went to war and Galadriel had already become a warrior, why wouldn't she have gone to war with Celeborn? It's possible they were just going to different locations, but I don't think she would chide him to not join the fight is she was also doing so.

Running with that assumption- If Finrod did die saving Beren as he did in the Silmarillion, that means Celeborn would've gone missing in some battle before then, maybe the Dagor Bagollach. This would mean he would have missed out all everything with Beren and Luthien, everything with Turin, and everything else with the fall of Doriath at the hands of dwarfs and elves. Which I think would be a shame. There is still conflict in having missed out on a significant tragedy, but I think having him witness all those tragedies would be more interesting- and his bitterness towards dwarfs would be more understandable if he was physically there to witness their betrayal and slaughter of his people.

As I've said, its possible and probably likely that they'll change it so Finrod died much later, and this is another one for my reasons for thinking that. Aside from the other plot holes that creates, Finrod dying after the defeat of Morgoth opens up to possibilities for which battle Celeborn went missing in, so I'll continue with that assumption.

So, let's start with what Rings of Power canon we know. Not a lot, but in Celeborn's one mention in season 1, Galadriel says "When he went to [the War], I chided him." So he didn't go missing on some personal quest or whatever, he specifically went off to fight in "the war". One issue this raises is that Celeborn is from Doriath, and Doriath doesn't give a fuck. Doriath does not send any of its people off to any battles in the Silmarillion until it starts falling apart. The closest we get to Doriath elves fighting is when they hunt down the dwarves that killed Thingol and then defend themselves from the dwarves and the sons of Feanor.

One way to get around this could be making it so Celeborn and Galadriel left Doriath at some point to operate on their own. Maybe they went to live with Finrod in Nargothrond (I think it is mentioned that Galadriel stayed with Finrod there for a while, but Celeborn isn't mentioned? And I don't remember if that's in the Silmarillion or one of the unfinished tales- which are more subject to flexible canon). In which case, Celeborn could've gone off with Finrod to one of the battles- This is an interesting idea as it could show Galadriel and Celeborn being more independent and maybe dissenting from Thingol after his sus decisions with Beren and Luthien. The next battle after that story would be the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the unsuccessful battle with Morgoth right before the Fall of Doriath. The problem with him going missing in that battle, again, would be him missing out on all the drama of the Fall of Doriath.

The second explanation for Celeborn going to war would be that he goes to fight after the Fall of Doriath. It makes sense that he would be more willing to fight after seeing the destruction of his people, even if that wasn't directly at the hands of Morgoth. Galadriel's joking disposition may not make as much sense in a setting after her husband home was destroyed and his family was slaughtered- but maybe everything still felt lighter back then as long as they were together. The most likely battle he went missing in after that would then be the War of Wrath itself, the final defeat of Morgoth.

Another possibility is he went missing during the Fall of Doriath, but that wasn't much of war as it was a siege, and I feel like Galadriel would have at least tried to help out in some way in those circumstances.

Overall, the two most likely battles I see him going missing in are the Nirnaeth Arnoediad (the 2nd to last attack on Morgoth) or the War of Wrath (the final defeat of Morgoth). The Nirnaeth Arnoediad, or some earlier battle, may make more sense for Galadriel to not go Celeborn as they hadn't experienced the tragic loss of Doriath yet, but I guess the same could be said for her not going with Finrod later.

I think I prefer him at least surviving up to the War of Wrath, as that means he was around to see the Fall of Doriath, and experience all the ~fun~ trauma of that, which is one of the things that could make him more unique as a character.

There is also the question of if Celebrian is even born yet and if so, where she is. As Galadriel and Celeborn's lives are so vague in the first two ages, so is Celebrian, their daughter. I don't think we know for sure when she was born, but I believe it is mentioned in Unfinished Tales that Celebrian was alive and with them by the time they first went to Eregion. Obviously much has changed as neither Celeborn nor Celebrian were present for the fall of Eregion in Rings of Power.

Personally, I don't believe Celebrian is even born yet in RoP. As other have pointed out, Galadriel starts the series as one who has lost everything, one who has no ties and nothing left to lose. This is fundamental to her hunt of Sauron and her eventual fall to the manipulation of Sauron. It doesn't track that she would be doing all this while she has a living and present daughter to worry about or keep her grounded. It's possible both Celeborn and Celebrian are missing. I feel like should would have mentioned that to Theo when she told him about Celeborn, but she's also managed to only mention her supposedly dead husband once in 16 episodes, so clearly she's a master at putting those particular traumas in boxes to never be spoken of. I feel like having both of them be missing to show up later would be a bit too cluttered and it'd be smoother to just say she isn't born yet, but anything's possible.

I'm pretty sure the "canon" about Celebrian being born before the fall of Eregion is from Unfinished Tales anyway? Which I think of as more like a draft of Tolkien's ideas for the family, not canon in the sense of the SIlmarillion or the published stories.

Lots of "canon" falls apart around Galadriel and her family as they were added in so late and Tolkien seemed to die before writing his "final" story for them. And this is an adaptation, they aren't meant to follow "canon" like the gospel anyway, as we've seen. As I've said, the very lack of solid story around Galadriel and her families experiences through the first two ages is more exciting than anything, as it leaves so much room for the writers to get creative them and write a thrilling story that we haven't seen before. This is a chance to shine light on characters that fall under the status of "unfinished" in Tolkien ever-changing world, such as Celeborn. The only "canon" (Silmarillion) information we have on Celeborn for the 1st and 2nd Age is that he lived in Doriath during the 1st Age, he was somehow related to Thingol and later Nimloth, and he and Galadriel were in love. There's other supplementary, unpublished notes that either expand on these traits or straight up contradict them.

Based on letters nearing his death, Tolkien was clearly still thinking of how Galadriel's families story could go, but as he never "finished" with them, if such a thing is even possible, we'll never get that "canon" story from him. So it's up to us- or, in this case, it's up to the writers of the Rings of Power. So we'll see!

Wow, that was a long-winded way to say "I dunno"

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

the more i think about it the more i believe doriath not letting the refugees from himlad - even pass through their lands, let alone shelter there, was perhaps a contributing factor to that part of the fëanorian host’s. virulent hatred of doriath

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

This description [of Menegroth] is remarkably similar to the description of Morgoth's stronghold of Angband (Canto XII, lines 3840-3903), suggesting that in a way Tolkien envisioned Menegroth its direct opposite as the symbol of the forces of light.

this note in menegroth's tolkien wiki page....... and you expect me not to stan the iathrim

[softlysilverfountainsfall]

Bear with me while I rules-lawyer the spirit of the Oath of Feanor because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Maedhros did.

The Oath is specifically targeted at anyone who "hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril" which I do not believe means anyone who touches a Silmaril, despite "in hand taketh" because all the other stipulations are targeted specifically at people who keep the Silmarils away from the Feanorians, by hiding, hoarding, keeping, or even throwing it far away. It would also just be bizarre if, say, a Feanorian follower returned the Silmaril to their lords and the Oath required that they kill them.

However, the strongest evidence for the Oath only applying (or being interpreted to only apply) to people who deliberately withhold the Silmarils from the Feanorians are Maedhros'/the Feanorians' actions before the 2nd and 3rd kinslayings: in both cases, they send a letter demanding the return of the Silmaril. Now, if by touching/posessing the Silmaril, the deaths of Thingol, Dior, and then Elwing are already demanded by the oath, why in the world would they send a letter (losing part of the element of surprise), not even to declare war, but demanding the Silmaril's return? Sending that letter implies that this can still be resolved peacefully if the Silmaril is handed over.

It's my interpretation that Maedhros/the Feanorians are rules-lawyering this tiny loophole in the oath (regardless of whether the oath is present magically/compulsive/just their own dedication) by deliberately closing their eyes to the fact that the current holder of the Silmaril definitely believes it to be their possession and is deliberately keeping it from the Feanorians---which lasts as long as that holder hasn't confirmed that desire.

After all, Thingol, Dior, and Elwing didn't steal the Silmaril, they received it from family members. If the Feanorians ignore the intent behind their keeping it (before that intent is confirmed by the holder's response to the Feanorian's demand), then they could consider Thingol et al to simply...coincidentally...happen to be holding a Silmaril, not possessing it for themselves and therefore not liable to the oath.

Actually, one line in the text from after Thingol refuses to return the Silmaril even hints that even after that, the situation might be salvageable if the Silmaril is returned by free will: "Celegorm and Curufin vowed openly to slay Thingol and destroy his people if they came victorious from war [this is pre-Nirnaeth], and the jewel were not surrendered of free will" (emphasis mine, Of the Fifth Battle, The Silmarillion).

Of course, the Oath drives the Feanorians to reclaim the Silmarils, and so I view the letters to Thingol, Dior, and Elwing as last-ditch attempts at solving this peacefully (via exploiting the above loophole). (Note: this is not necessarily meant to make the Feanorians more sympathetic, this is just me trying to figure out why they sent those letters.) However, this also dooms them to a kinslaying, because as soon as Dior and Elwing reject returning the Silmaril, they have explicitly or implicitly claimed it for themselves and have now "in hand taketh" the Silmaril instead of just touching it and happening to have it around, which means their deaths are now demanded under the Oath.

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Disclaimer that I might be wrong about this, only personal impressions etc., but I feel like there exists a tendency to often depict first age Galadriel as not only particularly distanced but also disdainful towards the rest of her kin, particularly regarding Alqualondë. Which is very interesting to me, if you consider that she's the one who gets a scene of direct and pointed questioning with Melian about the finer points of the exile and lies (even if by omission) to her face. Which occurs after she had already established a stable acquaintanceship with her.

Galadriel his sister went not with him to Nargothrond, for in Doriath dwelt Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol, and there was great love between them. Therefore she remained in the Hidden Kingdom, and abode with Melian, and of her learned great lore and wisdom concerning Middle-earth. -Chapter 13: OF THE RETURN OF THE NOLDOR

She furthermore also seems committed to letting bygones be bygones:

And on a time Melian said: ‘There is some woe that lies upon you and your kin. That I can see in you, but all else is hidden from me; for by no vision or thought can I perceive anything that passed or passes in the West: a shadow lies over all the land of Aman, and reaches far out over the sea. Why will you not tell me more?’ ‘For that woe is past,’ said Galadriel; ‘and I would take what joy is here left, untroubled by memory. And maybe there is woe enough yet to come, though still hope may seem bright.’ -Chapter 15: OF THE NOLDOR IN BELERIAND

Which is not to say that she couldn't have born a grudge about Alqualondë, but rather that she prioritized unity among the Noldor and Sindar over acting on said grudge and made the deliberate choice to try and move on, even at the cost of her personal integrity (since she presumable started her tutelage while the first kinslaying was still kept a secret which is...audacious to say the least).

[imakemywings]

Aspec Arda Week Day 1: Asexual | Daeron

piccrew here

[lyrien-arts]

More OC art!

left to right: Taer, Lirien, Lirien again

details under cut

[mrsmiroir]

turin and nienor my beloveds…. i had. a vision and had to make this shitty ass plan. narn enjoyers am i cooking or is the kitchen on fire.

[iridescentoracle]

Hello! I am here to ask about your Dior headcanons re: the political cohesion of Doriath. 👀

Oh man, I didn't expect anyone to actually take me up on that!

(Okay so I got partway into writing this and then realized I should probably note up front that I tend to stick to the Silm (& LOTR/the Hobbit where applicable, but they... aren't, here) as the most authoritative version of canon, and I can get into why and where the nuances/exceptions are there (I do say tend to stick, it's not hard and fast!), but that's mostly a side note here: the point is simply that I don't really factor other drafts or the poetic Leithian into my take on Doriath, Thingol, Dior, etc, just what we're told in the actual Silm. I also read the Silm as an in-universe history text compiled by in-universe scholars, who, being people, are going to have their own biases and blind spots, even when they're doing their best to be accurate!)

So, this is a two-part thing: #1, there's the political cohesion of Doriath before & at the time of Thingol's death, which i talked about in the tags of the post that prompted this ask but is kind of necessary as context for the Dior part to make sense, and #2, there's the actual Dior headcanons. Both of these parts are very long because I've never really seen anyone else suggest any of this stuff and I want to explain where I'm coming from thoroughly enough that it actually makes sense to people who aren't me, but the TL;DRs:

TL;DR 1: I think Doriath was probably a hot mess politically after Thingol died, with tensions between various groups of Sindar and Laiquendi in the leadup to Thingol's death & Melian's departure, and more political tensions afterwards between those who wanted Beren & Lúthien to come be the new rulers, and those who thought they should stay gone, with someone still in Doriath taking over.

TL;DR 2: I think Dior became Eluchil, potentially at the request of some portion of the Iathrim, hoping to help prevent Doriath from devolving into civil war, and saw dealing with the Silmaril-Fëanorioni situation as a lower priority than stabilizing Doriath's internal political situation until it was too late.

1. The political cohesion (or rather, lack thereof) in Doriath prior to Thingol's death

So, okay, the thing about Doriath is that we don't actually have any real idea of like... how much the Iathrim liked being the Iathrim? We're never told about any intra-Iathrim conflict, but a) the Silm was probably compiled mostly by surviving Gondolindrim or their descendants, so they wouldn't know about anything liike that unless surviving Iathrim told them, and after the Second Kinslaying I don't imagine many Iathrim would've been eager to talk about how things had actually been tense/messy/etc when they could remember everything as having been perfect until it was ruined by the Fëanorionrim, and doubly so after the Third Kinslaying, so why would anything like that make it into the Silm?

and b) what we do know about Doriath is that it wasn't really Doriath as we know it until Morgoth came back to Middle-earth, and everything went to hell.

At the start of the first age, you suddenly get Doriath (the fenced land!) being the one protected area of a continent that used to be totally free and open. How many Sindar actually didn't particularly care for Thingol's style of leadership, or simply preferred to live nomadic lives, going basically wherever they pleased, until suddenly that wasn't safe anymore, and you were only guaranteed survival if you were close enough to Menegroth to be within the Girdle when it went up? ditto how many Laiquendi had no interest in swearing loyalty to Thingol right after their own king had just been killed, but again, made it to safety and stayed there over taking their chances on their own in the outside world? (None of this is meant as any insult to Thingol himself, by the way; he can have been a good king who did his best for his people and still rubbed some of his new subjects-by-necessity the wrong way, through no fault of his own or theirs.)

I think it's entirely possible that there were always potential political tensions under the surface in Doriath that just... never got written about, because they never boiled over into actual political conflict, and so it was never the sort of tension that had any bearing on the historical record.

Except then Beren & Lúthien happen to the world, and a few years later the Narn, and in the blink of an eye suddenly the only king Doriath has ever had is dead, and the only queen Doriath has ever had is gone and the Girdle with her—and more than that, the only rulers the Sindar had ever had for three thousand years before Doriath existed.

And where a few years earlier I think the Iathrim would probably have turned pretty universally to Lúthien, now she's abandoned them for her human husband—and while she's my favorite character in the entire legendarium hands-down and I don't blame her, I think that's another place there might have actually been some very mixed feelings among the Iathrim that nobody wanted to admit to later because how could anyone have been upset with Lúthien—and on top of her abandoning them for him, I think it's extremely probable most of Doriath did not actually get over their xenophobia about humans in general or Beren in specific when Thingol did (we know for sure at least some of Doriath didn't, cf. Saeros insulting Túrin's mother & sister to his face), but again, who's going to admit to having had a grudge against the holy couple of Middle-earth after the fact, you know?

Conversely, there could've been a sizeable faction of Sindar who had been totally loyal to Thingol until everything happened with Beren & Lúthien, but who found his actions towards them and/or Finrod to be where they drew the line, and while (unlike B&L themselves) that faction stayed in Doriath, there could've been a new, additional tension on that front.

Finally, for all we know there were multiple factions within the Laiquendi of Doriath, with political tensions stretching back to before their king died, rooted in who-even-knows!

2. Dior

All of that, of course, sets up a very, very messy political situation for Dior to walk into.

The Doriath stuff is arguably more speculation than actual headcanon, but here's where the unambiguous headcanons come in: I don't think "Dior Eluchil set himself to raise anew the glory of the kingdom of Doriath." Obviously that's how it got written down, but bluntly, I can't see Beren and Lúthien having a kid that stupid or, like, power-hungry and arrogant?

What I can see is a situation where the messenger that brought word of Thingol's death and Melian's departure asked Beren & Lúthien to come take over as the new king and queen, we promise we're not mad about you leaving and we won't be xenophobic to your husband anymore we swear it's fine now pretty please, Beren & Lúthien said no, and the messenger either asked Dior as a second choice, or said "okay fine none of that was actually true but Doriath is falling apart and we need a leader ASAP and there's about eight different contenders* (mostly kinsmen of Thingol or Laiquendi) being backed by various factions and it's going to devolve into civil war any minute so if you care at all—" and Dior said "would I do?"

(* Ask me about my Galadriel headcanon)

I don't think Dior necessarily wanted to be king of Doriath, and I don't think he saw the throne as his birthright or anything like that; I don't think anyone involved, from Thingol to Lúthien to Dior himself, ever considered the possibility of Thingol dying and needing an heir! I think it's possible he was asked, or at most that he offered, and either way, I think he saw becoming king as taking on a responsibility for the sake of others.

(Which, like, "well here's a potentially impossible task that I'm going to take up even though probably no one thinks I'm actually capable of it, but it's my duty to help others as best I can" sure does sound to me like an attitude one might develop when raised by Lúthien "I kicked Sauron's ass cast a sleep spell on Morgoth and persuaded the Valar to find a loophole in the fabric of reality" Tinuviel and Beren "I stayed by my father's side as an outlaw to give my mother time to lead the rest of our people away hopefully to safety knowing I would never see her or any of them again (and then spent several years being a giant thorn in Morgoth's side for good measure)" Barahirion, where "apparently my grandpa I may or may not have ever met died, guess that makes me the king of a place i may or may not have ever been" does... not.)

I also think he either took on the epithet Eluchil, or was given it by whichever factions of the Iathrim accepted him as king, when he actually became king. Obviously he's going to be referred to as Dior Eluchil even before that in retrospect because that's how he's thought of later, but that doesn't mean it was actually a name he always had, you know?

The final thing is, I think if Dior essentially walked into a political situation five seconds from devolving into civil war, it makes his inaction regarding the Silmaril prior to the Second Kinslaying make more sense: the Fëanorioni have been sitting around doing nothing about the Silmaril in Doriath / with Beren & Lúthien this whole time, the letter saying "hey that's our Silmaril give it back now" is probably just a formality, and Dior's only been ruling for a couple years, there's still plenty of people dubious about whether he should be king at all, he might well be subject to at least some of whatever xenophobia remains about humans in Doriath, and in general all the work he's done on stabilizing the kingdom will absolutely come undone again if he screws up; he's trying to keep a kingdom from falling apart, the Silmaril thing can wait.

Of course, it wasn't a formality, and it couldn't wait, but why would Dior have known that?