#you: request barahir for character meme

[gurguliare]

If you're still in the mood, and if you haven't done him already, could you do túrin? Or Barahir, if you've already done Túrin/ if you'd rather!

HM okay I’ll do Barahir because I’m not sure I have the wherewithal for Turin at the moment

1-3 things I enjoy about them

Second son untimely promoted

I think literally every day about the lost tales version where he’s named Aegnor

idk sometimes I forget that “stay and defend a nuclear waste zone” was not actually Beren’s idea bc he took it to SUCH A DELIGHTFUL, LOGICAL EXTREME but Barahir is a fun dude, I like how he entrusted his preternaturally quiet 20yo son with key spying missions

Something interesting about them based on tenuous circumstantial evidence

idk I love that we get Barahir’s whole… compressed leadership arc in the background of, well, the ruin of Beleriand and the fall of Fingolfin; to me it’s one of the most cinematic uses of the interleaved relative timescales in the Silm, where it’s simultaneously like, one long, miserable battle, fluidly falling out from the eruption, the evacuations, etc., and also: Barahir inherits. Barahir receives Finrod’s oath. Barahir takes up the lordship of his house and almost simultaneously directs his people into exile, while resolving himself to remain. He recruits where he can. Fingolfin dies dueling Morgoth in a thunderous, operatic play-by-play, and the thing we come right back to is Barahir scrounging for some decisions in the newly-minted Forest under Nightshade. His band dwindles, his people escape, and if he half-expected reinforcements and a turn in the tide of the war, some kind of repayment for his incredibly additive sacrifices to date, then instead he gets the exact opposite of that—this unbelievable encroaching poison. It’s a lifetime in a couple of years, or at least a reign. This isn’t, like, an observation based on circumstantial evidence, I guess I should have put it under things I enjoy, but like, Barahir is not—Barahir is one character for whom the events of that chapter aren’t simply or manifestly hopeless, Barahir is like…. making tough calls while under the impression that there’s a future to plan against, and that’s interesting. It’s like having someone else’s version of the Darkening of Valinor happen in the background of Dagor Bragollach; for the Beorians, this is a kind of a first instantiating cataclysm of their lives in the west, obviously there was the terrible journey but (as with the Amanyar) I think that’s sort of faded out of immediate-immediate memory at this point, right, and besides was premised on the idea that this was going to be better, or at least different. So then darkness, fire, refuge, flight, and finally the bitter realization of the sheer extent of their betrayal, how utterly they’ve been failed by the land itself, all in a very different open space from that of say, the Noldor, who have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s great. I really love this chapter.

Also like, to be clear, I’m not arguing for this as the 1-1 equivalent of what happened in Valinor, part of what’s interesting about humans vs elves is like—humans carry it right through! if the Helcaraxe was terrible, how much moreso the whittling-down in Dorthonion; and Beren as the endpoint of that doesn’t find a new country to settle and a new purpose in battle, he’s thrown straight from [hideous trials made endurable by pride + grief] into the dream sequence of the various quests, and then again into death, without any delay—I don’t necessarily count the interludes with Lúthien because that’s more like, regenerating the faculties he even needs to live, you know, rather than gaining some kind of established footing or time in which to prevaricate. It’s a very different destruction-for-renewal narrative from the Noldor’s in a lot of ways. But like w an echo.

Hmm do you think while Barahir was courting Emeldir he used to run into Andreth at Emeldir’s grandparents’ house and not. quite. understand why she was there. sitting by the fire, at noon, with the drapes shut. but he was too afraid to ask

A question I have about them

What did Beren do with his hand. Bet he wished he’d kept that

A random relevant line I like

~Their bedwas the heather and their roof the cloudy sky~

My preferred version, if there is more than one version of their story (or part of their story)

Im not saying Beren as Andreth and Aegnor’s secret baby is GOOD im just saying it’s FUNNY,

Favorite relationship(s)

Beren, Emeldir, Finrod, Gorlim, GRANDPARENTS IN LAW ADANEL AND BELEMIR no idk

Reaction to Tom Bombadil

“help” and then Tom Bombadil helps but his influence only extends to the blessed outskirts of Aeluin’s domain which is where they live anyway so like, thanks, Tom