#we are told that feanor and his sons rarely stayed in the same place for long

[soothingmoonlight]

#silm#fëanorians#the sons of fëanor explored all over aman in their youth they're used to life on the road#and specifically noted as “abode seldom in one place for long”#makes sense they'd have little diffculty adopting to the Laiquendi lifestyle#I mean even during the siege they're less stationary than eg the Nolofinwëans#constantly visiting each other and organizing patrols out into lothlan and ard-galen#(Celegorm and Curufin are off visiting Caranthir when Aredhel reaches their territory as just one example)

tags by @waitingforsecretsouls

A meta I must write, and will.. one day, is about how in the Silmarillion is stated that the sons of Fëanor were “scattered” after the Nirnaeth and, at first glance, the thing makes remarkably little sense, particularly since they apparently manage not only to keep their own safe while scattered (after a retreat to Amon Ereb), but also to have an army co-ordinated and organised enough to march on Doriath during the winter and win that war in unfamiliar enemy territory and, likely, heavily outnumbered.

Still the thing starts making more sense if we consider the perspective from which the “writer” of the Silmarillion writes: the perspective of Gondolin, a society founded around the city as a hidden haven, which sees (with its own reasons) leaving it behind as impossible, with Doriathrim influences, thus yet another culture founded around the concept of a “hidden haven” the fall of which would mean death. Yet this is not true for the Fëanorians, or even the people of Fingon and Fingolfin who, living in territories so near an active border, would have to have developed a “fallback plan” to use should the worst come to pass.

My theory is that the Fëanorian and the non-Gondolidhrim Noldor to a lesser extent, had planned a possible “nomadization” well in advance and thus their scattering served the double purpose of making them less visible to Morgoth and preventing them from ending up in a non-defensible position. Which would also explain how Maedhros can try and offer allegiance later to Elwing as a bargaining chip, and have an army strong and organised enough to survive on his own and even win armed conflicts.  Naturally becoming a nomadic people had its prices, particularly for the Noldor, still I think it was a smart move and a well planned one, particularly since Amrod and Amras already seem to lead a semi-nomadic people.

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Amrodnor

Amrod was on the ships, but when he saw Feanor approaching with a torch, he jumped.

He swam to shore. He figured is his family was going to kill him, he might as well leave - the plan had been to go back to his mother, but that was no longer possible.

He ran into a group of Nandor, and joined their community.

His old names didn't fit – he’s no longer the smallest Finwe, having rejected his house. He keeps half his name, and instead of Doomed or Upwards-Exalted, he becomes Exalted-by-Fire; the burning of the ships was what gave him the strength to turn from an evil path.

It takes him a bit to decide on this, dramatic Finwean he is, and in the meantime the Nandor called him Bright Eyes, for the Treelight reflected in his gaze. He says this is a more appropriate name for a horse than a person, and they compromise on calling him Star Bright

So Amrod hangs out is southwest Beleriand, avoiding Sindar and Orcs and Noldor and Men alike for over four hundred years.

The Bragollach, the Nirnaeth; Beleriand isn't safe.

The Nandor decide to go east across the mountains. Amrod decides to see how the Noldor are doing - despite himself, he hopes his brothers are okay. He finds Nargothrond.

He says he is Rodnor Gil-Galad, called in his youth after his hair.  

Orodreth doesn't recognize him - Orodreth is young, born after the division between their families was already stark. Orodreth rarely saw Amrod in Tirion, and everyone saying he looks just like Amras means the brown hair throws him.

Celebrimbor does recognize him.

"What are you doing here?" "I'm trying to avoid our family!" "I thought you were dead!" "Don't you dare tell anyone you met me!" - excerpts from the whispered confrontation in Celebrimbor's workroom

Eventually they agree that yes, Feanorians are terrible and blindly loyal, and they're both glad to be out of it.

They spend time together, a bit, more as escapees from the same cult than out of a desire to reminisce about Tirion.

Celebrimbor accidentally mentions Fingon as if they both know him in public. People ask how Gil-Galad knew him. He fumbles and says they're related. Later he slips and says Celegorm “turned out to be the family disappointment after all.” That makes him pretty obviously Finwean, though he still doesn’t admit who.

Someone tries to draw him out, and spends a whole conversation deliberately referring to Maglor Feanorian, Fingon Fingolfinion, and Finrod Finarfinion.

Rodnor eventually says, “By that manner I suppose I’m Gil-Galad Erenion.” This shuts up the first guy for a moment, but people start speculating how he can be the descendant of multiple kings – did Thingol have any other kids?

 Turin arrives; Rodnor has no opinion of him or of men in general, and no official seat on Orodreth’s council. When the dragon kills Orodreth and kidnaps Findulias, Rodnor leads the survivors away to the south. He feels bad about abandoning them, but the number of soldiers they ‘d lose rescuing her is too high, and just because a life is royal (or family) doesn’t mean it’s more valuable. (Feanor burned a prince, his son, as easily as he killed fishermen.)

His opinion on royalty isn’t widely held though. The people of Nargothrond have decided he is Orodreth’s heir and started calling him Lord Erenion. He declares that Cirdan is lord of the Falas, which gets people to at least decide bring some of their issues elsewhere, and tries not to stress about the details.

So Rodnor is in charge of the Noldor in Sirion. Galadriel is in Doriath. They do meet when it falls, but only for a few hours as the Iathrim refugees settle in, and she speaks more with Cirdan than with him. He tells her of the Nandor tribe he was with and their plans for the journey, and off she goes to the East.

After the council is over and every newcomer has a bed, Rodnor goes to Celebrimbor. They mourn privately those who neither of them dare speak of publically. Rodnor is back in his own rooms long before morning. He spends the next few weeks solemn, but everyone is gloomy after news of another kinslaying.

Gondolin falls. There are suddenly a lot more Noldor in Sirion. Pretty soon they're calling him King. He considers telling them it's not true, that the succession hasn't come to him yet.

On the other hand, having a leader be whoever happens to be the son of the previous leader is kind of silly. The Sindar tribe he was with acknowledged Elwe, but not Dior. Your leader was whoever you trusted to do right by the community. When Denethor died, his son took interim authority, and then they all met and discussed it and decided that actually Enellas knew how to manage people better, and so Denethor’s son stepped down.

If Rodnor squints, this is the same. At the very least, if the Nargothrondrim hated him one of them would have proposed crowning the ten-year-old Eärendil instead. So King Gil-Galad takes up the throne.

 He was on Balar when the attack came. He told himself later he couldn't have stopped it, couldn't have helped. He could guess by how much more enchantingly beautiful the Silmaril around Elwing's neck seemed, that his brothers would attack soon, but not the month or day. And she was a queen, he could not order her to hand over the jewel. So all he did was warn her, not tell her his birth name, or leap across the council table and pull it off her throat. He could not have known there was no time to wait for Eärendil’s return. He had not set a watch on the island towards the city, but he had no reason to.

He did not want to kill his brothers, but he was a king and he could not let that make his decisions.

He can't stop himself from crying when he sees Amras's body. The Feanorians had tried to make a pyre, but must have left with it still burning and the wet sea wind had extinguished it, and the wood had barely caught.

"Relight the pyres."

"Your Majesty?"

"For the dead Feanorians, relight them."

"But they're murderers! They showed no such respect to us." Indeed, the city is still littered with the corpses of Noldor, Men, and Sindar alike.

"And we are better than they are. We will bury our dead, with a week of singing and lamenting, and tales of their deeds told by friends and kin. We will mark our people’s graves, and the Men will leave grave goods on theirs. And we will not leave the enemy dead to rot where they lie or be eaten by beasts, though they showed us not that respect." He sighed. "We have not fallen as they have, and we must hold onto that."

"Yes, your majesty"

"Have someone take a census of those who are left. And lists of the dead – ours and theirs." He needs to know how strong the rogue army was. If it is now leaderless, he would... he isn't sure. He wouldn’t have to declare a feast for victory over the Kinslayers, they'd lost enough of their own. But some kind of amnesty, with reparations, if any Feanorian soldiers wanted to rejoin... He thinks of the abstract plans now, while he is unsure, because he knows he'll barely be able to keep together if Maedhros and Maglor are dead and he is alone. (Three died last time.)

His eldest brothers are not among the dead invaders.

Lady Elwing and her sons are not found, either dead or living. Gil-Galad knows that his brothers would have no interest in taking her prisoner, for if she was under their power they could rip their glorious, wonderful jewel from her neck and cast her aside like so much wrapping. So he assumes that instead Elwing got away somehow, taking her sons with her. Whether the Feanorians have the jewel or she does is unimportant, he reminds himself, at least unless she returns. He decides then that Balar will never house the Silmaril – he'll bury it beneath the mountains with his own two hands if that's what it takes. His people deserve one place, just one, that isn't destroyed around them. Please Valar, grant them this, for Cirdan's sake if for none of the Noldor.

Ships come one day out of the West. King Finarfin leads them, and Eärendil is with them. Eärendil says that his wife Elwing escaped, but not the boys. (Eärendil is politely told he must either take off the necklace, stay on his ship, or go to the mainland.)

Gil-Galad realizes where they must be. It's hardly fair, but he knows at least they're being treated as well as can be. Maedhros and Maglor did alright by the five of them, and have never been cruel to children.

No one else seems so optimistic, though they are willing to believe that the boys are alive, even after seven years, simply to avoid believing the alternative. Gil-Galad and Finarfin cooperate to get a letter and a messenger (a newly arrived Noldo) that will be demanding but – hopefully – not provoke violence.

It takes two years more, with messengers from both parties expressing grave concern for the boys’ safety on a journey and reluctant to meet the other too close, but Elros and Elrond are returned. They meet Eärendil again, but he is on the front lines and so they spend most of their time in the camp. Gil-Galad has them sit in on strategy meetings to keep them occupied.

 The war is over, Morgoth is defeated, and the Noldor are allowed to return.

Gil-Galad finds he doesn’t want to.

Returning had been as much about getting out of Feanor’s shadow as finding safety, and he realizes he has done the first and the second is near at hand. If he goes back to Tirion, he will be again Pityafinwe, one of Feanor’s youngest sons, half of the twins with a missing twin. The child so redundant his own mother had known so, and asked Feanor to leave her one of the youngest without care for which. Pityafinwe had led no armies, fought no battles, earned no praise. Pityafinwe killed Teleri and was murdered by his father, and did nothing else.

Sure, he could try to be both, admit he was Pityafinwe to start with, but no one will understand. The will see him as the usurper of the crown that should have gone to – Eärendil perhaps?  and then Elros? or Galadriel? Maybe they’ll weigh his victories in battle against his theft of the crown, and say they make up for it, but maybe they’ll say anyone could have done them, or he should have done them as a general in the real King’s army. So he’d be Pityafinwe, who pretended to be a king for a bit but understands now that it’s not his place, and that his place is to be the sixth-born son of the (dead, disgraced) Crown Prince.

Besides, they’re making the ‘leaders’ apologize for leaving, and Gil-Galad spent enough years wandering Beleriand safe behind Noldorin fortresses he can’t really be sorry they came.

Gil-Galad does write a letter though, to the Lady Nerdanel, his mother. He tells people that it’s commendations for her grandson’s valor, and assurance that Celebrimbor will be regarded on his own merits in the Age to come. The letter does contain those, but it also contains “You were half right about my mother-name; I was fated to die but leapt out of Fate’s way.” It’s rather blasphemous, but Gil-Galad isn’t going to be setting foot near the Valar again.

ao3

[sweetteaanddragons]

And Love Repaid

When he eventually returned them, Gil-Galad would accuse him of kidnapping the twins which Maglor thought was rather unfair. He was guilty of many crimes and had written a song that admitted to most of them, but kidnapping was still a crime that belonged solely to two of his brothers. Kidnapping required intent and a removal of someone from people or places they were supposed to be with, and by the time he’d found the twins, there was none of the latter, and he was barely in a state of mind sufficient to intend to keep walking forward, much less anything so complicated as kidnapping.

Kidnapping also failed to fully appreciate what had actually happened, although to be fair to Gil-Galad, only Maglor and the twins knew what had actually happened, and the twins had quite possibly forgotten. Maglor had never told anyone because it wouldn’t have been fair to the twins to tell the story that way, since - Since -

Since when most people heard what had happened, they pictured Maglor finding them quite intentionally and making the calculated decision to take them while the twins screamed and cried and struggled.

While what had actually happened was - 

Elrond had been crying, actually, which was quite understandable even setting aside what had happened to Sirion because his leg was pinned beneath a fallen rafter and was most certainly broken. Elros had been futilely tugging on the rafter. Given that he was six years old and small for his age, he had not been having much luck.

Maglor might have walked right past them, not for any reason, good or bad, but simply because in the blank numbness that came from the fact that two more brothers were dead, another city was sacked, and still they had nothing, he was in no real state to notice them.

Elros, however, was shouting at the top of his lungs for help, and when that didn’t manage to pierce through Maglor’s fog, he came over and started tugging demandingly on his clothes.

It was entirely understandable, really. Maglor was so covered in filth that it was impossible to tell that he was in Feanorian red, and the boy was six. He had no doubt been told that if ever he was in trouble to find the nearest adult. Likely no one had anticipated that the closest adult would ever be a kinslayer.

So Maglor had done the only thing he could, really, and lifted the beam and then sang healing and painlessness to Elrond in a soft lullaby as he lifted him up in his arms. Elros had latched determinedly onto his cloak, and it was only then that Maglor realized that whatever Elros had seen, it had already been more than enough, and he shouldn’t have to see more. 

He crouched down and said, “You can climb on my back if you like,” and Elros had, and he’d even obeyed Maglor’s instruction to tuck his head down so he couldn’t see.

Elros hadn’t stopped talking the whole way back to the ruins of the main square where the remnants of their army was gathering - About how long Elrond had been there, what all Elros had tried to get the beam off, about how Elrond had only screamed the once when the beam first fell and never after that, about how that was a nice song Maglor was singing, only it wasn’t the one their mother sang when they were sick, that one went like this -

To this day, Maglor wasn’t sure if Elros hadn’t understood what was going on or had understood but been in shock. He never asked about it because - 

Well, because the typical image in people’s minds, of Maglor carrying off two valiantly fighting princes, one under each arm with a scowl on his face was easier for most elves, narratively speaking. Because it captured the core roles of each of the players better than the truth, which was that Elros hadn’t even known to be afraid until they reached the square and he’d looked up and hissed, “No, the other way, the bad men are there - “ before Maedhros, with relief in his eyes, had greeted Maglor, and Elros had understood.

He’d grown very, very still on Maglor’s back and then said, in a voice that shook remarkably little for a boy his age, “But I don’t want to die in the woods,” like that would make all of this somehow go away.

Maedhros had gone stiff.

Maglor had said, very firmly, “You aren’t going to die. In the woods or anywhere else.”

Which in hindsight had been a stupid claim to make, given everything, but it had been the truth for as long as Maglor had watched over them, and that was more than he normally got.

Later, most of those closest to him would come to Elrond with some variation of the same question: Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for Maglor again?

The answer, which he explained calmly, patiently, and above all repeatedly was that he hadn’t been. If he had, he very much doubted he would have found him.

He had looked for Maglor throughout much of the Second Age and had finally been forced to conclude that his foster-father had died in the sinking of Beleriand, or, if not then, in the later wars against Sauron. It was the only explanation he could think of for why no one had heard even a whisper of him. The Sons of Feanor were many things, but unobtrusive had never been one of them.

That Maglor would avoid Gil-Galad’s camp he understood; that he would avoid the remnants of his and his brother’s followers, Celebrimbor, Elros, and Elrond himself . . . That was less comprehensible.

He and Celebrimbor rarely spoke of him directly but given that Celebrimbor was not nearly as done with the house of Feanor as he sometimes claimed, Elrond did have to wonder -

- Well, Celebrimbor had been proud and had kept his family colors, and had been determined not to repeat his grandfather’s mistakes and so had trusted freely, and had, at the end, not gotten along with Galadriel, probably due to Sauron’s influence. One exhausted conversation was not enough to jump to any conclusions about just how desperate Celebrimbor might have been to cling to the last reachable remnant of his immediate family.

Regardless, the point was, Elrond hadn’t been looking for Maglor. He’d been looking for orcs.

He ended up finding both.

The general story that spread the quickest was that Elrond and the patrol that was with him had rescued Maglor from the orcs; the slightly subversive story he’d heard whispered suggested it was the other way around. The truth was not nearly so clear cut.

They had fought, hard and fierce until Elrond was forced to spring off his wounded horse and wade into the fray, and that was about the point that he’d noticed that there was one more elf whirling through their foes than there should have been.

Maglor wasn’t singing. If he’d been singing, Elrond would have recognized him at once. Instead, he was cutting his way towards Elrond with grim determination until they were fighting back to back. 

And then all the orcs were dead and Erestor, who meant well but did not always think quite as much as Elrond would wish before he spoke, said in a voice of incredulous accusation, “Maglor?”

Elrond turned to face his foster-father - Scarred, starved, and dressed in little more than rags but still with the light of Aman bright in his manic eyes.

For a frozen moment Elrond was sure the last son of Feanor would bolt, or that the wary positioning of elvish swords would provoke one last fevered kinslaying.

Instead, Maglor allowed his sword to fall from his hand onto the bloodstained beach. His knees hit the sand seconds after it, and he stayed there, silent and unseeing, until someone finally thought to move. 

“Are spiders edible?” Maglor asked with weary hope as he let himself into Maedhros’s tent.

“No,” Maedhros said without looking up from cleaning his weapon, but for a moment he sounded like the older brother Maglor still remembered instead of the brittle iron he’d been forced to become. He finally looked up with a frown. “I haven’t had to answer that question since the Ambarussa were seven. Why do you ask?”

“Because the scouts found a nest of them to the north of us,” Maglor said, “and we’re running out of other options.”

Maedhros’s face darkened. “Ah. That kind of spider.” He looked away. “It is . .  . possible,” he said. “But I would not at all recommend it. Ungoliant’s children devour hope as easily as their mother did light, and ingesting them only internalizes the problem, as it were.”

Maglor didn’t ask when Maedhros had learned this. He didn’t have to. Maedhros only got that look on his face when thinking of one forbidden period of time.

“He enjoys killing them as much as we do,” Maedhros said distantly. “I suppose it allows him to feel superior to Her.” Maedhros shook himself and some of the brittleness faded from his eyes. “We’ll keep heading south. There will be more to hunt there.”

They hoped, at least, much good it would do them. They could never stay south not long, not when their father’s gems called them from the north. 

“Until then, we’ll just have to cut rations again,” Maedhros went on, and Maglor was forced to step in.

“The twins are barely getting enough as it is,” he pointed out. He had seen some of the children of Men who had been given too little to eat. Seen how it had twisted their bodies and stunted their growth. He would not allow the same to happen to the children under his care.

“We will move quickly,” Maedhros promised. It was all he had to offer.

Maglor shut his mouth, nodded, and left to tell the quartermaster.

The twins’ rations were not cut. He cut the extra out of his own until Maedhros noticed and began to share a bit of his so that the difference would not be so great. Not long after, the rest of the camp noticed, and then they all went with a bit less to make sure that their bright gleams of hope endured.

But when rations had to be cut yet again, even the children had to make do with less. Maglor sang to distract them from their hunger, and it worked, more or less.

“You have to eat,” Elrond said quietly. 

Maglor just sat on the bedroll he had been given. If he recognized the bowl of soup in front of him as food, he gave no sign of it.

Whatever force had propelled Maglor to survive all these years on his own seemed to have deserted him now. Elrond was determined to call it back.

He began humming a song he’d not heard in an Age or more. Maglor used to sing it during mealtimes when food was scarce, and he hoped that somewhere Maglor would still associate the sound with hunger.

Maglor’s fingers twitched as if reaching for the strings of a harp to accompany it.

But he at last looked at the bowl and began to eat.

The cloak had once been as red as the flames of his father’s forge. By now, the color had dulled, and it was tattered besides, but it was still thick and long. Long enough that if he cut it carefully, he could, perhaps, manage to make two cloaks of it, one for each tiny elfling.

That would, of course, leave him without a cloak, a prospect that even an elf did not relish when faced with the Enemy’s bitter winters, but there wasn’t enough cloth to make two new cloaks, however small, without sacrificing something old. Elves bore the cold better than men did; who knew how the half-elven would fare? Elrond and Elros would need cloaks far more than he did, and he had not been overly fond of warmth since the Dagor Bragollach in any case.

It was, he determined quickly, the right decision. Even with their new cloaks, the twins grew cold quickly as the days shortened until it grew bitter enough to outweigh their fear and they took to pressing up against him to soak up whatever warmth they could.

He convinced Maedhros to help him hunt down enough beasts and cure enough fur to line their cloaks so they wouldn’t have to. 

The shivering lessened, but they kept doing it anyway, and Maglor couldn’t really claim to mind.

Elrond was almost of a height with Maglor now, so it was his own clothing he raided to give Maglor something better to wear for the ride back to Imladris. 

“You don’t owe him this,” Erestor pointed out from behind him. “You don’t owe him anything.”

Elrond wasn’t sure if that was true or not. He supposed it depended on your perspective. Regardless -

“It was never about owing.”

Elrond hadn’t cried since his leg had first broken. Maglor was fairly sure that wasn’t healthy. Elros had, some. Angry tears, mostly, but other, quiet ones too when he thought he was alone with his too silent brother. Elrond didn’t. 

Not until that winter, curled up against Maglor, right after Maglor had started a cheery song about home.

Maglor’s voice faltered

“Don’t stop,” Elrond whispered.

Maglor sang on.

Elrond hadn’t meant to let his composure slip in front of Maglor, but there was only so long it could hold before that blank mask.

“Ada,” he whispered, voice breaking a little. He started to turn away so that Maglor wouldn’t see his over-full eyes.

But he saw a flicker of movement and stopped.

Maglor had frowned and then -

Then he started humming, every note still perfect, and Elrond recognized it as one that sang of home.

[tolkien-fandom-history]

Interview with Jenny Dolfen

Much thanks to acclaimed artist Jenny Dolfen for doing this Tolkien-fandom-history interview!

Jenny is a German artist and illustrator. Her art is well known and much admired in the Tolkien fandom. She won the inaugural Tolkien Society award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour “Eärendil the Mariner" and is nominated for that award again this year for her artwork "The Hunt."

Jenny also published a book of her art in 2016. “Songs of Sorrow and Hope” contains sketches and full color artwork dating from 2003-2013. The book includes many of her Tolkien inspired works as well as works inspired by fantasy, mythology and Jenny’s own work “The Rhyddion Chronicles.” It is available in her Etsy store.

Jenny's art can be found on her web page https://goldseven.wordpress.com/galleries/tolkien/ as well as her Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/JennyDolfen and her Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/jennydolfen

She does YouTube tutorials as well--it's fascinating to watch her creations come to life in the videos. https://m.youtube.com/user/GoldSeven/videos

Jenny can also be found here on tumblr @goldseven

(Interview by @maedhrosrussandol)

TFH: When did you originally become involved in Tolkien fandom?

Jenny: I’ve been a Tolkien fan for most of my life (my mother introduced me to the Hobbit when I was six), but I didn’t know there were any other Tolkien fans until I discovered the Internet in the early 2000s.

TFH: What was your initial experience with the online fandom? Did the advent of the LOTR movies have an effect on you?

Jenny: I have treated and still treat the books and the movies as two very different things. The movies interest me as much as any movie I enjoy; the books are a major part of my life. I encountered the Silmarillion fandom around 2003, and above all, was amazed by the fact that there were people who had read it (I had only met one in my life).

TFH: How do you feel the Tolkien fandom has changed since you initially became involved in it?

Jenny: I don’t feel it has changed much. If I had known it before the films, it might be different, but I still see the major groups there that existed in the early 2000s – film fans, book fans (which minor crossovers), fanfic writers, and scholars.

TFH: In the mid-2000s, it often seemed that there were two groups of people creating fan art. There were the artists sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate--Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith--who were mostly men, and then there were the so-called "fan artists," who were mostly women. The latter group were also often professional artists and were much more widely embraced by the fanfic community (for example, you and Kasiopea seemed much more instrumental in determining how Silmfic writers saw the characters than Nasmith, and your name is probably more readily recognized by Silm fans today than Nasmith's). Did you perceive this as well? If so, do you have any thoughts on why the Estate and fanworks creators might have had so little overlap in their visions of Middle-earth and its characters?

Jenny: I have actually talked to Ted Nasmith (whom I met at Return of the Ring 2012, a perfectly wonderful bloke!) about this very thing. Ted told me about his illustrated Silmarillion, in which the Estate had been very clear on a policy that follows what we know from the “Big Three” (John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith): a lot of location, a bit of characters, and absolutely no monsters!

In a panel at Return of the Ring, which I attended together with Ted, Anke Eissmann, and Ruth Lacon, the same question was asked, and it does seem to fall along gender lines. Typically, characters are more often and more prominently portrayed by women, and many viewing habits seem to follow a similar gender divide on the audience’s side. It makes sense, then, that the Tolkien Estate, under the firm influence of Christopher Tolkien, would favour the a more setting-oriented approach that depicted the scope and poetry of his father’s work, while other artists explored the characters in a more intimate and obscure way.

TFH: I'm interested in your experience with both the artistic and writing sides of the Tolkien fandom. Were there differences in the respective fandoms when you first became involved and in the response to your works in the two mediums?

Jenny: I have always kept a slight distance to much of the fanfic side. There are several fanfics I have enjoyed, but even in some of the ones I did, slash was never far away, and it just makes me uncomfortable. (The fact that it’s mostly gay sex is secondary, incidentally. I simply feel that sex in the exploration of those characters is as irrelevant as exploring their, say, bathroom habits. I may be pretty alone in this as a female recipient of Tolkien’s work, but his characters strike me as rather asexual on the whole.)

On the art side, I find that the response from and interaction with the fandom has been overwhelmingly positive from all sides. I have formed long-lasting friendships with other artists and fans.

TFH: There has been tremendous expansion of artistic interpretations of Tolkien’s work in recent years--through Tumblr, DeviantArt, weibo--how do you continue to reach your audience and interact with those who have an interest in your art?

Jenny: I consider myself very lucky, in that I have stayed in contact with a large and wonderful group of people over all these years. I had the good fortune of being recognized quite early on, and while there has been some fluctuation, an amazingly strong core of my audience has stayed with me.

TFH: In what other Tolkien-related events, gatherings or challenges do you participate? How is it interacting with fans at such events?

Jenny: I try to make it to the major local events – Tolkien Tag, organized by the Dutch and German Tolkien Societies – and I’ll be at the (British) Tolkien Society’s Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham next year. Apart from that, my job as a teacher and my two young children mean I can’t travel much.

I hugely enjoy those events – to interact with other fans usually feels like a breakaway together with people I rarely meet in the “real world”.

TFH: What drew you to Professor Tolkien's work originally?

Jenny: I have loved mythology from a very young age, devouring classical, Germanic and medieval folk tales since primary school, so Tolkien fell squarely into those preferences, and continued to do so when I got older and became a student of literature rather than just a consumer of Fantasy books.

TFH: Which of his characters are your favorites? Why?

Jenny: It will come as absolutely no surprise that it’s Maedhros son of Feanor. He stuck in my head even when I first read the Silmarillion, standing out against that huge cast of often-confusing people. He’s like a Greek tragic hero, trying to do the right thing and striving to justify his means, and dragging everyone else into ruin with him. His fate is heartbreaking, and I love heartbreaking tales.

TFH: Why do you love Tolkien's universe? What inspires you?

Jenny: It’s always been mostly about the characters, but I find that, as I get older, other aspects of the legendarium speak to me more strongly than before. When I was a child, I used to skip the descriptions of landscape; today, I both read them closely, and find that I appreciate beauty in nature far more than I used to, which I then translate into my art (my older work, up until I was about twenty, usually featured characters standing around in a perfect white void).

TFH: To what extent do you think it is important for a fanfiction writer or fan artist to follow and respect the original author's work and concepts?

Jenny: First off, I think for a fan creator, there are, by definition, no such constraints. Preference is another matter entirely. Personally, I enjoy writings and works of art that, in my subjective view, feel close to what Tolkien might have meant, and thus strike a chord with me.

When we extend that question to any matter that is supposed to be a more general representation of the original work, I feel it’s essential to be faithful to a common theme and feel. If we take Peter Jackson’s movies, I do think that he managed it in many places in the Lord of the Rings; his Hobbit, from what I have seen of it (I haven’t watched the second and third films), felt weirdly like the output of an Instagram creator whose fanbase latches on to a very small part of his original body of work, and who then suddenly starts churning out more of the same, comical, self-referred spoofs which feel like a continuation to him and to his base but really leave most of the essence behind for everyone else.

TFH: Which was the most unexpected occasion, the most unusual platform where you have ever encountered one of your artworks?

Jenny: Thaaaaaaat would have been a Russian porn site. I get around, you know.

TFH: Which one of your drawings is most special to you and why?

There are a lot of drawings I’m very attached to. “In pain and regret” is probably far up the list, as are the more recent “The Hunt” and “And the Orcs fled before his face”. The one I’ll mention here has to be one where I, probably accidentally, nailed Maedhros’ face for the first time. I drew it in 1995, when I was twenty, and I remember that this was a piece that told me that I was still improving. As a young artist, you often think that one day, you’ll be a grown-up, and that’s that. At twenty, I had just moved away from home, and had subconsciously felt that I was now finished, feeling some regret at the belief that my art would no longer improve – and suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been. It was an eye-opener for me, artistically.

The artworks and book referenced in this interview are as follows

Jenny Dolfen's book "Songs of Sorrow and Hope" featuring the cover art of Maglor "The harp no longer sings":

"Earendil the Mariner":

The 1995 artwork referenced:

"And the orcs fled before his face":

"The Hunt":

"In pain and regret":