#why they keep giving Elrond character beats that he should already know

[superloves4]

Sooooo, the first three episodes have not yet changed my mind on the rings of power show

[arrivisting]

Can I request the part that starts with "Thats a fine ring you wear, my friend" from A wandering fire for the author commentary?

Let's do this! Sorry it's so belated - I wrote half an answer on my laptop but I don't have it with me today, so I'm starting afresh. I apologise for my natural tendency to talktalktalk! You can see why I had to write this on a computer, not my phone.

Anyway, I thought it was very interesting you picked that bit! That's the bit I had in mind most strongly in the first flash of inspiration. I will show you my first notes (which were mixed up with those for the dawn from on high, since they began as the same idea):

I just had this strong, clear idea of Cirdan watching the first people come from the West, and then watching the ship leave at the end of the Third Age (which I wanted to have Maglor on - the idea that Cirdan had seen him come and finally go, and everything in-between).

I didn't keep to the notes - I forgot that I meant them to talk about beards ("Gandalf taken a note from Mahtan"), and for Cirdan to look at his humble guise and think that the Eldar would never again trust a stranger arrayed in silks and jewels, never again after Sauron as beautiful as the morning at the gates of Ost-in-Edhil.

Anyway! Obviously the Maglor and Gandalf stuff split off into the dawn from on high, and what was left of the bookend-idea - the ships arriving - went into a file I didn't touch again for over a year. All there was of what became a wandering fire (which was the original title of the dawn from on high) was the beginning - from 'Fëanor and his seven sons and their followers had arrived in their stolen white ships at what had seemed Beleriand’s darkest hour, and their arrival had come as a great balefire' to 'Help had come from the West at last: but not in time for Beleriand'; and then part of the conversation you asked for commentary on.

The joy of scribbling on my phone and across various computers and Gdocs is that I can pull up the original version (and oh, right, I've just reminded myself that this story was originally to be called a fire in the heart):

“It was never made for my hand,” Cirdan said. “I have been holding it in trust and in safety. Celebrimbor meant to wear it himself. If it was in Feanor that the spirit of fire burned most fiercely, and in Feanor’s voice that the power to move others to action was strongest, it lingered to the end in his line; although fire had ceased to be a friend to them long before.”

Olorin looked at him under his white brows. “The power of Feanor is no gift to wield lightly.”

“Celebrimbor was many things, and not all of them were wisely chosen, but he meant the Ring to be something far subtler than Curufinwe Feanaro ever was. The Ring of Fire will not kindle a sudden flame in men quickly, and burn as quickly to ashes; it is a coal, burning not brightly but long, to warm hearts and not to scald them.”

“I regret that I am come too late to know him,” Olorin said. “Too late for Celebrimbor of Eregion, and too late for Ereinion Gil-gilad; but in good time, I fear, to face again the shadow that was their doom when it gathers itself in might once more.

This is the oldest bit of the whole two-fics mess, back to 2019. It needed a little refitting to go into the dawn from on high, not least that I took away Gandalf's name. Let's (finally!) look at the published version (everything not quoted above being new, only written this April):

“That is a fine ring you wear, my friend.”

It had taken the stranger many weeks to speak of it. Círdan turned his hand over to regard Narya as though for the first time. Such gem-work did not kindle his blood. He bore it only for Gil-galad, who he had loved as his own son, though he had known better than to give his heart to any of that line. He had seen them all come from the West, and he had seen them all die. All but Eärendil, who had been translated beyond the world, and who had deserved a warmer honour.

Because this was always meant to be about beginnings/endings, arrivals/departures, I didn't go a lot into the meat of Cirdan's life, although a proper Cirdan-story, in the way I wrote an Elwing-story and a Finduilas-story, would do that; I would have written much more about his time in Beleriand-under-stars, and building the Falas with Finrod, and his feelings about Thingol, and much much much more about Gil-galad and Earendil, and the kind of life they managed on Balar and at the mouth of the Sirion! It really had to be compressed into a few lines here, though a lot of the material about fallen Lindon and Cirdan's watch there is really about his sublimated feelings for Gil-galad, and I got in a bit in other paragraphs:

Eärendil, who Círdan had loved, and taught, had sailed away in the ship they had built together, a desperate hope hurled into that same impossibility.

and

As though the great ships from Númenor might arrive again on the horizon with their holds full of strange things and strange stories! As though Aldarion might once more swing down from the deck of one, laughing, the image of Eärendil with his tousled blond head and his bright blue eyes, bellowing already for Gil-galad. As though Gil-galad himself still held court in Lindon’s empty halls, filled again with life and music; as though he would ever again put aside his work for this newest and youngest of cousins, and come sweeping down the halls in his robes of state to greet him, his eyes shining and his dark hair a floating banner under his silver crown and Elrond on his heels…

Oh, my Second Age feelings, and my curiosity about that world caught between apocalypses, and my wondering about what the fall of Numenor meant to that world, and to those who had known Elros, and many of his line.

We know Cirdan taught Earendil to build Vingilot, that Earendil was part of some of his swift ship attacks up and down the coast towards the end of the First Age: I wonder what it means to him to know that Earendil sacrificed everything for them, to watch him sail the heavens every night? I've said here he was translated beyond the world, 'and deserved a warmer honour', and my reading of canon is that Earendil is indeed beyond the world; that Elwing may fly to him, night after night, but that he himself never sets foot on land again. I hate that reading, though. I think it's in the text(s), but in my personal accounting Earendil is living his best life - sailing the skies, exploring the world from afar, and at times fighting bristling things in the Void - and still able to spend a day shift with his wife, in her Tower, and to see his family, to have a few snatched mortal joys. But I don't think that's what Tolkien meant for him.

Narya was always warm. It glowered in its golden setting, a clot of blood in a slice of sunlight.

What's funny is that this is a story about the Ring of Fire, but I got a lot of my Ring-feelings out after this idea, but before I posted this fic, in last love song for now. My stories are never in the same continuity unless I explicitly say so, put them into a series - I don't have the temperament for committing to a single reading of a scene or a character etc, not when there's so much room for play - but my Ring-feelings are pretty continuous. I think of Narya as Celebrimbor's ring, linked with fire-Feanor-heat, and I always have; though Tolkien never tells us it was meant by him for his own.

“It was never meant for my hand,” he said. “I believe Celebrimbor meant to wear it himself. It may have been in Fëanor that fire burned most fiercely, and in Fëanor’s voice that the power to move others to action was strongest, but those gifts lingered to the end in his line; although fire ceased to be a friend to them long before.”

You know, I think I like the original version better! Not all rewriting is good.

The Messenger’s brows rose in respect, and there was none of the usual flinching at the name. “The power of Fëanor is no gift to wield lightly.”

I wanted Gandalf to respond to this: I think this is a constellation of facts I'm pulling together here. Gandalf inherited the Ring of Fire, and wielded it; Gandalf spoke of Feanor's skill with real regret and wonder, with that catch-in-the-heart Tolkien quality that refuses black|white lines and sees the glory of the morning even after night has fallen; that remembers who Feanor was and who he could have been, and grieves for it:

‘No,’ said Gandalf. ‘Nor by Saruman. It is beyond his art, and beyond Sauron’s too. The palantíri came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them. Fëanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years.

and

"Have I not felt it? Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would—to look across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and mind of Fëanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!’

You give Gandalf the power to look back in time, and he would want to see Feanor at work! That's the most wonderful thing out of his grasp that he could imagine! That is I think part of the bond between Gandalf and Galadriel; who is in some ways what Feanor could have, should have, could never have been. I would have loved for Gandalf to meet Celebrimbor - not as much as he would have, though - and I think that is a huge motivation behind this scene.

“Celebrimbor was many things,” said Círdan, “and not all of them were wisely chosen. Yet he meant the Ring of Fire to be something far subtler than Fëanor Finwë’s son ever was. Narya will not kindle a sudden flame in others too swiftly, nor burn them as quickly to ashes; it is a coal, burning not brightly but long, made to warm hearts and not to scald them.”

Me, beating my drum: justice for Celebrimbor!!!!

I do think of Celebrimbor's life, up until the moment of his death, as such a willed decision to not be Feanor. To turn against his father and uncles; to open the doors of Ost-in-Edhil and to share skill with those who came; to share artistic credit: to refuse kingship, to share lordship. To be trusting rather than suspicious, open-handed rather than jealous. It is such a tragedy that living his life in that way - unpicking all the old patterns and turning them inside out - didn't help him; only brought him to his hideous death, only gave him fatal vulnerabilities through which darkness could enter. But I think that choice to open doors and hands and heart, to be vulnerable, was nevertheless an important one. Wise? Perhaps not. But sometimes there are more important things than wisdom. (Another reason I would have liked Gandalf and Celebrimbor to meet).

Is this story really an elegy for everything and everyone lost in the First and Second Ages? Yes; and Celebrimbor not least. Anyway, I think of the Ring here as a desire to perfect Feanor's skills; to crystallise that ability to rouse hearts and minds as he did in the Great Square after the death of Finwe, and to use it for good. To warm rather than burn. In the Appendices, indeed, that seems to be its function:

Take this ring, master, [...] for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

That's what makes Narya such a good match for Gandalf, for me: that link to what the Feanorians could have been, that refining of what was worthy in them that Celebrimbor strained from the ashes, kept in trust until it could be given to someone who understood that too.

The Grey One bend (that should be BENT, I must go edit) his head. “I regret I am too late to know its maker,” he said. “To know those already lost. Still I come in good time, I fear, to face again the shadow that was his doom as it gathers itself in might once more.”

I regret it too!!! Always too late, the Shining Ones; at least in my reading.

Círdan had known it when the ships from the West began to arrive, though they came so quietly, with none of Eonwë’s trumpets. He had known even as he had seen Isildur turn over the ring of Sauron in his bloody fingers.

Oh, Thingol; dear his lord, whose silver blood from before the coming of the sun still ran in the mortal veins of fallen Númenor’s children. Who had died for peerless and perilous Noldor gem-work, when he might have instead lived all the Ages of the World with Melian beside him. That Doom, it seemed, was not yet done.

I really like the idea of that dilute Maia blood spreading out through all of Elros's line, filtering in lesser and greater degrees through innumerable daughters and second and third sons of that house; otherwise how else do you get the tall, beautiful, dark-haired and grey-eyed Numenoreans? The Hadorians were blond; the Haladin a middling brown; the Beorians were dark, but the Beorians were almost wiped out. There were few of that House left when Elros founded Numenor with the Three Houses of the Edain. I like the idea of seeing Numenor as a personal, familial loss: I know part of the oddness of its fall, in a Doylist sense, is Tolkien working backwards to insert it into Middle-earth when it was separately conceived, but for me: how do the Eldar live with it? These are the great-great-great(-greats) grandchildren of Elros himself: these are the descendants of Earendil and Elwing, of Turgon and Fingolfin, of Beren and Luthien, of Thingol and Melian, Finwe and Indis.

Okay, yes, some of them have joined a goth death-cult and they're getting into human sacrifice and are all ungrateful and slamming their doors and saying they don't love you anymore (adolescence is rough), but how do you watch a continent get fed to the sea and live with that? When you're Cirdan, and these are all still Thingol's children from afar, when you've watched the generations turn and loved some of them (Elros, Aldarion) dearly?

I also like the idea of dying for sparkly jewellery being an inherited doom, from Thingol's side as well as Earendil's, not to be worked out of the line until Aragorn refuses the Ring.

Three times he had seen an Age die, and yet his own work was not ended, and neither was the loss.

“How long do we have?”

The Grey Messenger spread his hands. “I cannot say. It is only a shadow and a whisper even yet, even in the sight and mind of those whose power and wisdom far exceeds my own. But shadows grow, and whispers swell. As you know, my friend.”

why do I like Gandalf calling people my friend so much? anyway, even the Valar are fallible. That's why they're bearable. If they could see all of Eru's design, if they were all-powerful and all-knowing, I would have to hate them for what they do and fail to do; but because they are not, I can see them as very alien but well-intentioned powers, doing their best, and sometimes doing ill. Intention means a lot; and I do think there's a lot about the Children they do not and cannot grasp, which is why you get things that are clearly going to lead to great disaster or pain, like Finwe's remarriage, or Ulmo telling Feanor he is part of the dissonance in the Song, or Feanor getting exiled, or the Doom; or Earendil, fixed in the heavens, or the cruel choice of the Peredhel -

He had known in his heart when he had set eyes on the Grey Stranger and seen that strange knotting of mortal and immortal in him. He had seen Nienna’s servant, come in humbleness rather than glory, to help and to weep together. He had watched him delight in his first biscuit, and he had known what to do when the shadow came again.

It is important to me that Gandalf learned much from Nienna. I do think it's why he wears grey. I like to think of him as her avatar, walking where she cannot, offering grace and mercy where she/he may. That is what makes Gandalf so successful an Istar; when so many other Maiar we see go wrong. Not that Melian herself is wrong, but she is almost too close to the Children (especially since Eru tells the Ainu that they are not to consider themselves the Children's parents; Melian literally becomes such), so much so that she is damaged terribly by the loss of Thingol, and her flight wounds Doriath. What happens to the Blue Wizards? We don't know; but not what should. The Brown Wizard hews too closely to Yavanna's creatures. The White goes too far in the other direction, in the path already beaten by Sauron and his Ainu kin before him: to power, and to might, and to ignoring Eru's will for their relation to his Children. I see Eonwe as too glorious and too distant for real connection. But Gandalf is neither too close nor too far: he is kind, and he can be powerful; he has humour, and a delight in small things. Age and experience have drawn him close. It hurts a little that his rebirth as the White takes a little of that humanity from him and replaces it with majesty, but the essentials are still there.

Anyway, that's why I wanted him already to be quite proud of his beard, and trying biscuits, and being delighted by them.

He slid Narya from his finger and watched surprise wash like morning light over the Messenger’s face.

This is a call back to the line "Too late, when great white Swan-ships arrived at last with the Valar’s blessings from the West, their white sails washed yellow-gold with the dawn." That was at the end of the First Age; now, at the beginning of the Third, we have another morning, and another start, and the Valar have refined their touch upon the world; it is much more careful, and their proxies (or at least Gandalf) better fitted to help Middle-earth save itself than Eonwe and his host of Vanyar were.

“It was made to be wielded by a counsellor,” Círdan warned. “Not a king. Never a king! Celebrimbor knew better than that. It was intended for guidance and for wisdom - in war, and in dark times.”

This is part of my thinking from last love song for now: that the most powerful ring was meant to be Vilya, and that the choice to associate fire (/Feanor) with a lesser ring was meaningful, and part of Celebrimbor's overall purpose. And again working with what little we know of Narya from canon: For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

The Grey One did not reach for it, though one hand had risen from his lap, age-spotted and painfully Mannish, and hovered in the air. “I am not of the Eldar,” he said. “It was not meant for me.”

“I have seen kings and lords enough rise and fall to know that the right to an inherited Doom is no recommendation. I have seen every arrival from the West since Fëanor, who came blazing and ended in darkness; and in Narya, you see certain of his gifts as they might have been. It belongs, I think, to the hope from the West that he should have been; to one who might use it to bring light to the darkness of this land where the Valar themselves will not come.”

Oh, so this is all newer stuff - and the right to refuse an inherited doom is meant to call to another new bit (Elrond refusing to be Gil-galad's heir in the mold of the High Kings). And you see again me beating the Feanor as he might have been; Feanor's skill at kindling hearts used wisely, sparingly drum. Oh, I'm subtle!*

*I am not

This is also a little bitterness that I don't know I necessarily think Cirdan feels - what patience there is in his long service! - but I have built in this a case for a little bitterness, at this moment, at the end of the Second Age. (To lose everything in one Age is accident; in two, incompetence!!). When the loss of Gil-galad et al is so recent, and so too is the loss of Numenor. If one is ever to feel anger at the Valar for their oscillating pattern of non-interference/over-interference, it is now.

“Cannot come,” said Nienna’s servant, and took the flower of so much Noldor genius and pain from Círdan, who had never wanted it. “They do what they can, Lord of the Havens. As do we all.”

But Gandalf is here! They've got the balance right, in him! He is going to warm the chill in your heart, Cirdan, and give you the strength to face yet one more long Age of slow bleeding-out and loss; and you will see an end to it. And again you see me beating my 'the Valar have good intentions, but imperfect knowledge and understanding, but they're trying' drum.

Sorry again this was so late!

[concerning-hobbits]

The Power of Friendship

Here is the response paper that I wrote for my Fantasy Literature and Film class in 2017. Note: At the time, I had no idea what happens in The Two Towers or Return of the King, and I also didn’t grasp that Sam was Frodo’s servant for some reason until later; I just recognized that he was a good friend.

There are many instances in The Fellowship of the Ring that demonstrate the importance of fellowship. Without his friends, Frodo never would have made it as far as he did. They were always willing to stick with him, no matter what. They all knew the journey was going to be very dangerous, but that’s exactly why they couldn’t let Frodo go alone. When he tried to dissuade Merry and Pippin from coming along, Merry said, “We are horribly afraid – but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds” (J.R.R. Tolkien 105). Merry and Pippin were upset when it didn’t look like Elrond was going to choose them to be part of the Nine, so Gandalf wisely pointed out that no one quite understands the danger ahead and that it would be better to trust in their friendship than great wisdom. “It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy” (Tolkien 276). It really is remarkable what these hobbits are willing to do to stick together and be of help to Frodo. Hobbits are the type that aren’t usually into adventure, but enjoy peace and safety. Going on this journey puts their lives at risk, but these hobbits push aside their fear because they are loyal and they care about their friends’ safety as much as they care about their own.

It is also clear that Sam couldn’t bear it if he was kept from staying with Frodo. He as well as other characters knew that, and his actions certainly speak louder than words. He ended up going in the first place because he eavesdropped on Gandalf and Frodo’s conversation about the Ring. He had been upset to hear that Frodo was leaving, and when Gandalf told him his punishment was to go along, he was very excited. Then later he snuck into the Council of Elrond, and in the end when Frodo tried to leave the others and go the rest of the way alone, Sam ran after him, even jumping into the river and almost getting himself drowned. There was no way Sam was letting Frodo get away without him. He wanted to go alone before the Ring brought his friends to more harm because he cares about them, but he really was glad to have Sam come with him. Also, while the Fellowship was speculating why Frodo was taking so long to decide what to do, Sam is the one who figures out what was really going on with him. Though he would very much prefer not to die, it’s doubtful that Sam would not sacrifice his own life to save his friend. He’s already going way out of his way to be there for Frodo.

Everyone else in the Fellowship is quite selfless as well. For example, they were all quite distressed at the sight of the Balrog; however, none of them ran away when Gandalf was going up against it. Though Gandalf said it was a foe beyond any of them, no one would leave him to face it alone. In addition, none of them were bound by oath to go the whole way to Mordor, but they all agreed that it would be cruel to abandon Frodo. None of the characters ever let their fear stop them. They keep going on because they know the importance of the Ring being destroyed, but ultimately they go on out of loyalty and care for each other despite the reality that any or all of them could be killed at any time by the many dangers they face. In the film, Merry and Pippin were attacked by the Uruk-hai when they ran to search for Frodo and Sam, and Boromir was killed after he came to help the hobbits.

Friendship is definitely the central good of this tale of light versus the darkness. The darkness and evil seem to be overwhelmingly present, with Sauron, Saruman, the Black Riders, Gollum, the Balrog, the Orcs, and the Ring itself. If it wasn’t for friendship, the good wouldn’t likely be found anywhere. Without his friends, Frodo would definitely have been turned into a wraith after being stabbed by the Morgul blade, and so the Ring would find its way back to Sauron. They all risk so much because they know they need each other in order to fight the darkness and win. One can’t defeat the darkness all alone; it’s much too difficult. Sam knew that Frodo would not, in fact, be safely on his way if he went alone to Mordor. He needs help, and looking ahead to the whole point they are even going, he is surely going to need help letting go of the Ring. It’s also worth noting that he couldn’t bring himself to throw it in the fire at home. Bilbo struggled to let it go, and he wasn’t dropping it into the fires of Mount Doom. None of this would have even had to happen if Isildur had just dropped it in long ago. No matter how good someone is, that person has to gather up a lot of strength of will to resist and overcome the desire for the Ring, probably even more to let it be destroyed. Adding to that, Bilbo has been the only one so far to willingly give up the Ring. He couldn’t have done it without Gandalf, and Frodo just might be able to do it with Sam’s help.

The evil of the Ring is overpowering, and that’s why neither Gandalf nor Galadriel would take it when it was offered to them. They would start off doing right, but they would not stop there. Frodo thought Gandalf should take it because he is wise and powerful; but he refused and said, “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly” (Tolkien 61). It’s clearly not good for it to be in the hands of either good or evil. The only thing the hands of good can do is—with the help of friends—beat the challenge of the darkness and destroy the Ring.