#silm morality kitchen sink

[edennill-archived]

...you know you can like Indis and think her stepson hating his siblings just for the circumstances of their birth was a jerk move and think Indis & Finwë & Míriel didn't handle things well and sympathise with Fëanor's position...

[edennill-archived]

Strictly speaking, Sauron is not humanity xd

uh-oh, people might empathize with sauron! uh-oh, people might have to consider that the people who cause insurmountable unfixable suffering are also people, that humanity is capable of enacting horrible things on each other, that we must constantly evaluate our own role in the cycle of violence lest it consume us entirely! uh-oh!

[edennill-archived]

The entire discussion was completely tangential to this but I partly misread a post as a joke to the effect that "Well, the people actually responsible for all the deaths in [game] are the devs", and tbh as a statement this is quite relevant to my main fandom.

I will write about it more at length one day, but to be concise — I do not think we can discuss questions such as "Why didn't the Valar do more?" and ignore the very doylist reason that if you've decided to have the spiritual embodiment of evil wage very physical war upon your heroes, you do have to come up with an excuse for why the spiritual embodiment of Good (I'm simplifying the moral pattern a bit here, but I don't want to discuss fictional theology at length right now and ultimately it all boils down to the same in this context) doesn't equally physically solve the problem for them — in order to even have a story.

As far as such excuses go, "the collateral damage — which the antagonist is the only one with approximately minus hundred reasons to care about — would be too high" is not a very poor one, but most of the surrounding discussion scrupulously avoids admitting why it even needs to exist.

[edennill-archived]

...also another reason why I like to maintain that (at the very least before the Leithian) the Silmarils are thematically about the duties of the artist and not about property rights, is that it works for my Fëanor as a romantic hero agenda

[edennill-archived]

people stanning the king's men because of having problems with religion is kind of ridiculous though. like, yeah, late númenor has a tyrannical cult that severly punishes dissidents instigated by someone with ulterior motives and it's not the faithful.

[edennill-archived]

To be honest, as one of those people, I simply... have the impression that it never actually occurred to Celegorm that Lúthien might not fall for him sooner or later. He has the vibe of someone who feels he's "God's gift to womankind", you know? Which doesn't mean she wouldn't have been in danger if the situation prolonged itself indeterminately, but I don't think that Celegorm planned anything at the time.

Genuinely do not understand those people who are like "but we don't know Celegorm intended to rape Lúthien!!!" What the actual fuck do you think he kidnapped her for... so he, Curufin and Celebrimbor would have a fourth for a bridge night???

[edennill-archived]

I vaguely kind of agree with this, but I have to quarell with the people in the notes because... Fëanor being "spoiled"/"favourised" is not incongruent with his father being selfish and his upbringing being directly hurtful to him. That's exactly how it works! Sometimes bad parenting is very much the result of your faults and the choice of the path of least resistance and/or a misjudged attempt to appease your own guilt/sadness/et cetera...

(I will also very strongly argue against the one specific comment that said Finwë was cruel to Fëanor specifically through... letting Fingolfin holf a position that allowed him to speak against his half-brother. I thought we cared about free speech and non-absolute rule here but whatever)

"finwë chose fëanor over and over again"

idk man it feels more like he chose himself over and over again

[edennill]

Honestly, I think that Tolkien himself isn't writing from a modern Western capitalist framework either! He's writing from within one, sure, but I'd argue the influence on his writing is minimal — on the other hand, the Catholic frame he usually worked from is in this case, as in many others, remarkably similar to the Muslim one.

Anyway, yes, my "the conflict over the Silmarils isn't about property rights, it's about the artist's relationship with the Divine!" agenda is still going strong.

If you felt like talking about it I’d love to hear your thoughts on the silmarils as (not) property! Only if you want to though :)

Well, my thoughts aren't really coherent enough to write a deep analysis about this or anything. To me, the whole debate comes down to three points: one, mass murder is not in any way justifiable, legally or morally, to recover stolen property; two, the Feanorians in my opinion forfeited their right to the Silmarils the moment they decided to go after Doriath instead of targeting Melkor; and three, the light of the trees is what made the Silmarils special and that did not belong to Feanor.

I think there's a tendency in the fandom to view the text within a Eurocentric, capitalist framework. And I get that, given that that's how Tolkien was writing it, but as a South Asian Muslim, I just see things very differently. I grew up with the idea that the more private property you have, the greater your responsibility is to others, and that everything ultimately belongs to the Creator. So the Feanorians' actions to me are repugnant, and I'm not inclined to give them the leeway that most fans do. They could have tried to recover the Silmarils from Melkor instead, and died heroes or maybe even succeeded, but they didn't. My culture values martyrdom, so the way the Feanorians die, compared to for example Finrod or Fingon, is very dishonorable.

Also, the Silmarils don't have a will of their own the way the Ring does, but they do seem to reject or accept bearers. If it was as simple as them being stolen property and only the Feanorians having a right to them, then why were Luthien, Beren, Dior, Elwing, and Earendil all able to bear them? And why did they burn Maedhros and Maglor, the supposed rightful owners?

More importantly, the Light did not belong to them. Tolkien himself points this out. I think that the moment Feanor damns himself isn’t even the Oath, it’s when he refuses to give up the Silmarils to restore the Trees. It’s a direct parallel to Galadriel freely giving the Phial to Frodo, and Celebrimbor giving away the three Rings.

Of course this is just my perspective. I prefer to interpret the text within a spiritual/moral context rather than a legal/political one.

[edennill-archived]

Hmmm, my basic assumption was always that Morgoth was already acting a bit... untrustworthy. Not necessarily being anything else than charming, but just vaguely quietly stirring up trouble. So if you paid attention to that, you could distinguish a decrease in interpersonal harmony in places where he was and that translated as a bad vibe.

I don't unironically write pro-Melkor posts, and this one isn't what I would call pro-Melkor either, but…

I have a bit of problem with late YoT. Somehow, the Silmarillion seems to say both of those:

Manwë trusted that Melkor had changed, and this is a good thing on Manwë's part. (I know much of the fandom disagrees, I do agree, but anyway let's just talk about the book)

the Noldor (especially Fëanor) did not trust Melkor, don't give him any gems (which they happily gave to all other Valar) and Fëanor doesn't want anything to do with him. And that's… also good? Or at least not commented on in any way by the narrative?

I can see some solutions to this (in order of most likely to least likely):

Melkor was acting entitled. They would give him gems and what not if he behaved about it like all the other Valar, but he demended things, so was ignored. I could make a long digression here about being evil vs being shaped by your previous evils, and bad manners != bad morals, and "becoming better is a process" but let's now ignore this for sake of simplicity.

The Noldor should have been nicer (give him gems but fact-check his advice), but the book is edited by a Noldo (Pengolodh) who has a lot of trauma around Melkor (because the First age), so is understandably biased.

Some Noldor were in fact nicer to Melkor, but Pengolodh censored it for the abovementioned reasons.

The Noldor, especially Fëanor have a D&D-like "detect" evil ability and just knew that he was up to no good and Manwë should have listened to them

(Also, a more doylist explanation: Tolkien was writing the behavior of the Noldor based on his knowlesge of the story, not based on what they would realistically know, because genre.)

But even if the Noldor were acting lke this, being biased and discriminating against you for your past is not an excuse to murder someone's father (or anyone else) or to permanently steal their stuff. (Slightly messing with / displacing their stuff is debateable if a) you're probably designed to be the trickster of the pantheon b) the genre is somewhat fairy-tale-ish c) it may help them to learn to not value their stuff too highly — AKA my "Melkor stealing Fefe's stuff may have been a thing even if he got better" agenda).

Just in the same way as unjustly keeping your property is not an excuse for murder (no matter what oaths you swore).

Still, those behaviors aren't ok either.

(Please let's not quote the "jail-crow" situation in the comments to this: it happenned after it was known that Melkor was at his bs again, so is not really relevant. )

[eri-pl]

I have no idea.

… probably. It kind of worked with Númenor? But also the Valar did something more direct to them I think? But also it's not really their … ok I suppose they are allowed to give Men longer life when there's a good reason??? @edennill what do you think, did the Valar a) ask for permission, or b) can elongate the lives of Men just not too much, or c) longer lives were a direct result of… of what actually?!?

Edit: or d) the Valar did not expect the Númenoreans to live significantly longer. This is the most crack, but not impossible, and would be kind of hilarious.

TBH I'm leaning towards a) but Tolkien never says it, so probably b) (and it wasn't a great idea that they did it).

But also Elves→orcs seems to be less of a change than allegedly Men once → Men now? But also also how canon we assume the tale of Adanel to be… ok the "Men were og immortal" is in Athrabeth proper, at least it's suggested…

It is a complete mess.

But I would say: yes, this might work. Not as in "Tolkien would accept it" because it wrecks his need to have orcs as free-to-kill antagonists. But as "makes sense with the presented worldbuilding and metaphysics". I think it might work. Unless…

OK, the only way to make sense of why do orcs not revert en masse is to assume that Melkor put a big chunk of his will/whatever into them specifically (as a "species") and it keeps them stuck like that.

So no, if that's the case, then it would not work, well, unless something really weird happenned. But basically not.

It is a mess.

Wait, no, Orcs from Elves makes perfect sense!

"But"— you say —"Are the Elves not immortal? And the Orcs perish after but a few years."

Nay. The Elves are, indeed, immortal, but they do die from grief. And what is the orcish existence if not grief, spread out on days and months and years? They do not die from reaching their alloted end (though it does seem so to those who behold it), they perish from the amounted torment of their corrupted bodies.

[eri-pl]

I really like the take on Miriel!

I also get a vibe that her relationship with the — whatever to call it, religion??? — is complicated and has some bumps along the way. I'm not set on how exactly and clearly the bumps cannot be *too* big, but there sure was something going on.

I think she may be attracted to Pharazon even at the moment of marriage — she was in her youth, that is at least suggested. Maybe some bad boy crush vibes. Yes, I know she was old, but still. But surely she would be conflicted about it.

Palantir… Yea, I'd say a big part of the country did him wrong, and Pharazon did him wrong too. Or at least did his memory wrong or however to phrase that.

I agree that the Valar didn't, but for me this does go against the Silm. I think that being offended at him / at the whole nation would be wrong, and so "wrath of the Valar" is more than just an awkward phrasing. It's one of the places where I just chose to ignore the text and blame it on the narrative frame, because I think the text goes against Tolkien's stated goals and ideas (here: the Valar being the good guys close to Christian moral ideals).

But then we have the whole Atlantis thing, so… As I said today already, even the Silmarillion can't stand too much analysing it. As you call it rightly, kitchen sink.

Anyway I love your takes! Even when I disagreee on some, I love how thought out they seem in general.

PS: More regret for chartacters = good :D (put 'em to the salad spinner! for… idk the catharsis or something? that's what characters are for. salad spinner with a happy or bittersweet ending. the best.)

🔥 Tar-Palantir and/or Tar-Miriel

First of all, my deepest apologies for taking so long to reply — life stuff happened, but also I'm just simply awful at being punctual. In any case. Míriel (with a side dose of Palantir):

My key unpopular opinion about her is that I actually vaguely subscribe to the draft where she married Pharazon of her own will, mostly because it feels like the easiest way to make sense of the developments for me (I'm absolutely not saying there aren't any others, ftr, it's just a personal preference on my part).

And so, it follows that I think she was not entirely attached to her faithful heritage at the time she ascended to the throne. She saw her father's efforts achieve nothing except to bring him extreme unpopularity... she feels betrayed by the ones her father trusted¹ and yearns not to be reviled for once... The general idea behind the marriage is to unite the country.

That's how Pharazon presents it to her at least, and I'm not sure to what extent it is his true aim — he is certainly seeking power, but perhaps not yet aiming to outright usurp it. And he is passionate about her, while she isn't in love with him, but likes him more than other candidates for her husband. And of course, she's seen him be cruel before — but not to her.

By the time Pharazon's war with Sauron begins, however, it is long since she held any power, and as Númenor grows more and more corrupt, she slowly begins to return to her roots, because there is no comfort for her elsewhere. In the long run, I don't think it actually changes her fate much from the proper Silm version, save by giving her even more to regret.

¹My vaguely unpopular opinion on Palantir, otoh, could be that I don't actually think the Valar, or anyone, did him wrong. The Silm has some slightly awkward phrasing, but ultimately —a nation doesn't change in one day, and both Eru and the Valar respect free will. If the people of Númenor have spent a millennium festering in a state of decadent, grasping discontent... I don't think it's unlikely that it really was too late for one king's reign to change the course they were going.

Send me 🔥 + a character/place/theme/subject and I'll reply with a hot take about them