Feanor launder

the reason why I keep coming back to Tolkien is that the religious framework of goodness equalling hope equalling faith is too infuriating for me not to bump around at high speed within the worldbuilding box like a pinball, trying to find a farther limit and break free of the narrative.

#it's also why I grind my teeth so hard about maedhros and the burning silmaril#and keep underlining that the rejection is explicitly linked to varda's blessing#and not to the gem itself#there is a active divine narrative in place#a fate that is *explicitly* working to achieve something#and that is linked to SOME characters' intentions (eru is a character too)#tolkien maps his own subcreation onto creation and therefore to some extent#the internal workings of faith are mapped on the external#but this is a story and eru is a character#and the will of eru is a narrative decision not something that simply... exists on its own - @skyeventide

tyelkormo in all his valinorian glory 🏹

The thing about every modern Sherlock Holmes story is that it doesn’t understand that “disdain for the existing criminal justice system” is not only a fundamental part of the themes of the ACD stories it’s vital to making the whole concept work.

Holmes, when we first meet him, is on the bleeding edge of forensics for the 1880s, and this continues on into the ‘90s (the planted thumbprint in ‘The Norwood Builder’! the Sherlock Holmes test for hemoglobin in A Study in Scarlet! the use of pigs as substitute cadavers in ‘Black Peter’!) and beyond. He’s flippant about and disrespectful toward the police because he knows how criminology is a science and forensics matter and the cold hard facts are significantly more important than intimidating witnesses to extract coerced confessions, or deciding on a theory and bending the facts to make them fit, or relying on racist stereotypes to explain how people act and who’s most guilty (all things that really happen in the canon, btw). He’s smarter than everyone else because he’s doing things no one else understands yet, he’s made a study of crime and he understands how and why policing is a flawed institution.

This is why he’s not a cop, only occasionally allied with cops, and so often complaining or explaining that a moral injustice and a legal one are two different things. There are multiple antagonists (Sir George in ‘The Beryl Coronet’, Charles Augustus Milverton, Dr. Roylott, the parents in ‘A Case of Identity’) who he can’t catch in the jaws of the law but wishes he could, and at least one criminal he overlooks because he knows prison would only force them deeper into crime.

But. But.

In the 21st century, forensics are not only the backbone of police investigation they’re common knowledge to any average police procedural enjoyer or true crime fan. Holmes’s once-cutting-edge chemistry and geology are passé and ordinary now. If he’s going to be smart, he’s got to be looking ahead.

And what does that look like? It looks like knowing about the flaws in forensic analysis, like knowing about fingerprints maybe not being totally unique, like arguing over DNA evidence being misinterpreted and innocent people being sentenced for crimes they didn’t commit, like calling for the defunding and dissembling of police forces, like siding with the underclasses every. single. time.

Holmes shouldn’t be working with the cops, he should be trying to destroy them, and fighting to prove why they’re obsolete with science and quick thinking and research. Not doing that is spitting in the face of his roots and missing the whole point of what he’s working for.

YES YES YES YES YES

AND

AND

not only are there those cases where there are people he can’t catch but wants to...but there are also cases where he DOES catch the guy....and lets him go. “We don’t need to get the police involved.” “Come now, Watson, this man won’t reoffend. But put him in prison and you make him a jailbird for life.” “As long as you leave the country, the police won’t hear it from me,” etc. (The Man with the Twisted Lip, The Priory School, etc.). 

Shockingly, those people are almost always either poor or queercoded, or both.

He knows who he’s standing with and it sure as shit isn’t the justice system.

Every time she’s having any of her relatives over

Celeborn: Galadriel, do you really think it’s a good idea to invite people to dinner and then tell them exactly what they’re doing wrong with their lives?

Galadriel : Absolutely. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of food.

"you can't just relate everything back to this ship" prepare to be stunned and amazed at how little control i have over my own brain

There are of course many problems with the construction of the second kinslaying chapter in the Silmarillion, but today I raise the grievance that Dior should’ve gotten to be as snarky as he is in the tale of the Nauglafring

“Dior returned no answer to the sons of Fëanor” (Silm)

vs.

“Dior waxed wroth, bidding [Curufin] be gone, nor dare to claim what his sire Beren the Onehanded won with his hand from the [?jaws] of Melko - ‘other twain are there in the selfsame place,’ said he, ‘an your hearts be bold enow.’”(The Nauglafring, BoLT vol. 2)

Okay, more seriously, this reflects a common failure mode of diplomacy where the sides do not understand each others’ real interests and goals, resulting in tragic miscommunications.

Dior clearly thinks the Fëanorians want *a* Silmaril, and are jealous of him having one thanks to his parents’ valor. That’s a conceivable reading for someone who wasn’t born yet during the Darkening. It’s also not what the Fëanorians actually want or why they want it, and the idea of reclaiming something stolen that belonged to their killed family member is clearly not on Dior’s mind as a Fëanorian motive.

This in no way justifies the Fëanorians showing up and killing him and most of his family. It just explains why the issue was not solved during the fairly lengthy negotiations that preceded the violence of the Second Kinslaying. They’re talking past each other.

I can’t help but think Lùthien and Beren would have been better people to negotiate with–but the Fëanorians totally failed to raise the issue in the couple’s short lifetime, burned out faster by the Silmaril’s presence. They were busy with the Union of Maedhros at the time anyway–which just adds a greater sting to Dior’s words. I can actually see this being what Maedhros snaps over after Fingon’s death attempting to defeat Morgoth.

Dior is basically a kid by comparison, very young, very brave, a bit callow and not, I think, in any way aware what buttons he’s pushing here.

The tragedy of Dior is that he’s never given the chance to grow up any more than this–he’s forever Dior the Beautiful, young and valiant and snarky (Thingol must have taught his that, considering his parents died when he was still young and Thingol made him his heir). He’s forever 36, not even very old by human standards, let alone elven.

Elwing, the lone survivor of this massacre, will be wise beyond her years and full of grief and determination. At 35, one year younger than her father ever will be, she confronts a similar situation, but knowing this time she’s confronting hardened killers. At the time of the Second Kinslaying, the Fëanorians as a group have not done anything like that since before they reached Middle-Earth–Celegrom and Curufin’s personal misdeeds aside. But when Elwing confronts them, it’s a very different prospect with proven high stakes.

Even at 35, Elwing is never as callow, as naïve, as protected as Dior, child of the greatest romance Middle-Earth ever saw, had been. And her desperate leap brings with it survival, for herself and, as it turns out, her children too.

Obviously re-embodiment makes Dior’s death less tragic, but to his daughter he’s still lost during her growing up.

@thearrogantemu reminds me that Melian has recently left and Thingol been killed in an unrelated-to-the-Fëanorians incident, so Dior also feels he can’t be pushed around by outsiders while establishing his rule. What, is he some kind of pushover on the world stage, that people can show up demanding his prize heirloom? She points out that neither side is thinking, during negotiations, about what the other side has just lost to someone else.

It hadn’t occurred to me before to think of it in these terms, but each side is recovering from a crushing cataclysm almost completely unrelated to anything that’s going on with the other side. Both of them have just lost their King! In disputing over the Silmaril, they’re disputing over a kind of hope, an identity, a future - we cannot let them take it from us, when we have lost so much already. And they’re both fatally unaware, I think, of how similar their perspectives are.

So uhhhh

You might think that Fëanor’s brief time in Beleriand was spent drawing up battle plans, fighting orcs, leading an army.

Nope.

It was spent digging for metals.

Oh this is back, so I’m going to add a crack headcanon. There is absolutely no evidence that there’s any iron ore in Thangorodrim whatsoever, but Fëanor’s sons had to take desperate measures.

Maedhros: Where’s dad?

Curufin: Mining

Maedhros: Mining??! Why does he think we have time for that?! We have a war to fight, plans to go over, an entire host of people to command!!

Curufin: -shrug- I don’t know, you talk to him then.

Maedhros: -going over to Fëa- Hey…..dad. Do you know where the BEST iron ore is in these lands?

Fëanor, eyes sparkling: WHERE?

Maedhros: In Thangorodrim.

Fëanor: -already halfway to the tent- SHOW ME THE BATTLE PLANS WE ATTACK AT DAWN

Feanor: How did I not see this earlier? Angband is called the Iron Hell, of course it would be great for mining!

I guess I’m making this a thing now

fuego take: Celegorm and Huan get re-embodied at the same time; Huan is Celegorm's parole officer

Via @kanafinwe-makalaure

hmm Fingon as the embodiment of hope in the Silmarillion and Maedhros as the embodiment of despair. something about how the only time Maedhros did dare to hope – when putting the Union together – it resulted in Fingon’s death and large-scale catastrophe, the death of hope in Beleriand. something about how Fingon goes to his (fiery!) death still filled with optimism – utúlie'n aurë! – and Maedhros goes to his (very fiery!) death with only desolation. something about how Maedhros begs for death on Thangorodrim, but is rescued by the combined efforts of Fingon and an Eagle – the literal embodiment of eucatastrophe, hope unfounded, the thing with feathers – and, in the end, chooses death anyway. something about how, if the silm were not a tragedy, hope would have outlived despair, but instead it is beaten into the dust of the Anfauglith and the banners trod into the mire of its blood. idk is this anything.

I was rereading the Nirnaeth chapter last night, and it struck me how many brotherly vibes are present throughout.

How Gwindor goes completely savage after Gelmir is massacred and pursues Morgoth’s heralds all the way to the very stairs of Angband, and even ‘Morgoth trembled upon his deep throne’ as he heard Gwindor’s people banging on his doors.

How Turgon opens the leaguer of Gondolin after 356 years and risks everything he has built to aid Fingon. How even on the last day of the battle, when he probably knows that everything is lost, he ‘hewed his way to the side of his brother.’

How Maglor, the mightiest singer of the Noldor, slays Uldor the Accursed when he draws near the standard of Maedhros.

How Húrin and Huor decide to stand together until the very end, and neither of them leaves, even when ‘all the hosts of Angband swarmed against them, and they bridged the stream with their dead.’ How Húrin screams ‘Aurë entuluva!’ seventy times as he takes down enemies only feet away from where Huor lies dead with all the people of their house.

The fact that every pair of brothers loses one, other than Maglor, and even he would not be certain all his brothers live in the midst of that chaos. And that does not stop them but propels them further until they have given it all.

The battle begins with Gwindor and ends with Húrin. Those who have lost a brother. Those who will now be thralls in Angband, and even that will not be their final end.

Goosebumps. Every. Damn. Time.

One of Tolkien's lesser known works.

Background by steamey on DeviantArt. (With thanks to soothingmoonlight for the artist name.) Don't know who made it into a meme.

Finwions in the night sky.

I did some kind of poster for Turin

im so normal about this book

very intimidating, guys

edit: omg i forgor to give him a prosthetic hand bye

soooo cute!

Art by Jenny Dolfen

I haven’t read much Silmarillion fic recently so I’m not sure if this is still the case, but I remember the Russingon segment of the fandom had a thriving by-line in fics/fanart that were like… Maedhros somehow managing to get back and find Fingon’s body/banner despite the fairly important canon plot points that:

Like. DESPITE all that, the poor already-sad Russingon fans said you know what we need to make this (and Maedhros’s subsequent behaviour) worse. A scene where Maedhros tenderly cradles Fingon’s corpse. It’s just like,

And you know what. They’re right.

i see the tragic gay corpse cradling and it’s so valid but also consider

Maedhros desperately sifting through the bodies and being unable to salvage what’s left of Fingon except for Fingon’s ribbons.