In Defense of Curufin

Or whatever. So, there’s always been a lot of animosity in this fandom for Curufin, some of which is understandable but some of which I feel is unfair. This may be long, apologies for lack of readmore on mobile.

I’m not trying to make people like Curufin. I’m not trying to say he did nothing wrong. I’m just trying to provide some balance in a really heavily skewed fandom.

A lot of Curufin stuff that I see tends to operate under the assumption that he’s not a very nice person, and never has been. Bad dad Curufin is really really popular, and it frustrates me because I really don’t see him being a bad father.

Tolkien himself states that he felt that Curufin came off much worse than he actually was in HOME 11 (the Maeglin chapter), and I’ve cropped out a passage from the pdf version here.

So, as can be seen here that Tolkien himself actually wanted to show Curufin in a more positive light, because although he may not be specifically nice, he is honourable and a better person than is shown in the tale of Beren and Luthien.

In regards to Curufin being a bad father, I really contest this. Curufin had an excellent relationship with his own father, so it makes little sense to me that his relationship with Celebrimbor (as so often portrayed) would be distant and cold. Celebrimbor certainly loved him enough to stay with him for the centuries leading up to Nargothrond, and even accounting for Celebrimbor’s distancing himself during the events there I think it’s important to note that you do not have to dislike someone to disagree with them.

There is little canon evidence for either argument, but I just wanted to put forward a different side, as I rarely see anyone arguing for him being a good dad. My own personal hcs are that while he may not have always succeeded, I think he tried the best he could and adored his son.

Nargothrond and the events of the tale of Beren and Luthien are often brought up when Curufin’s character is being questioned. Whilst them kidnapping Luthien is of course reprehensible, and I will not excuse that, often people cite his “betrayal” of Finrod as to why he is bad.

Finrod knows about the Oath. It’s also, frankly, a suicide run. Celegorm and Curufin don’t lie when they speak of the dangers ahead, and remind the people of Nargothrond of the actions they are bound to take under the Oath should a silmaril be found. The thing is, if anyone should be blamed, it should be the people of Nargothrond, who allowed themselves to be swayed. Again, I don’t want to fully excuse them as I still think it wasn’t exactly kind. But it also was true that trying to take on Melkor directly was basically suicide, and they tell the truth there.

I feel like a lot of the bad treatment Curufin (and by extension Celegorm) gets is unfair, because although he did bad things, this fandom is much nicer about the arguably much worse Maedhros and Maglor (who I love! But they killed so many more people than their brothers, and get let off because they’re sad and really sorry about it), and the definitely worse Sauron and Melkor.

As said, I don’t want to make people think that my goal is to say that people HAVE TO LIKE HIM. I just would like to lessen the climate of hostility and bad feeling around him, because it’s rather sad and lonely being a Curufin fan when a lot of what I see is people talking about how he’s a villain and a bad father. And that’s if they think of him at all.

I didn’t really want to delve heavily into my own hcs for this post, so I tried to stick to what I know to be canon. If anyone does want to hear my dumb curvo hcs, I guess i could do a separate post if there’s any interest :)