what annoys me most about the silm fandom is the tendency to take opinions on controversial characters to one extreme side or the other, brushing all nuance and complexity aside. Fëanor is either an abusive father who never loved his sons and a genocidal fascist, or he’s the world’s greatest hero and every single death at his hands was fully justifiable and actually someone else’s fault. Thingol is either an abusive father and a cartoonish caricature of a conservative racist and misogynist who committed cultural genocide by banning Quenya, or he’s the holiest king ever who never made any short-sighted decisions and actually never played an antagonistic role in B&L and asking for a silmaril was actually the smartest political move ever

like idk man if you hate ambiguities and complexities that create multifaceted characters with both flaws and virtues then why are you reading the ambiguities and complexities book

Am I the only one deeply confused by Thingol and his line's theft of the Silmarill.

I can't be the only one who thinks that if I was in the Sindarin royal family's position, that I would keep a stolen item.

I can't imagine being Thingol, and keeping the jewel made by my friend's son, something my friend was murdered over, and thinking I had any right to it over my friend's tortured & grieving grandsons.

(I hope Finwë spit in Thingol's face, cussed at him in Quenya, & strangled him if he was able to. If Thingol is allowed to punish ALL the Fëanorians over C&C's actions, Finwë deserves to rip that filthy a-hole's hair out of his sculp & kick his face.)

I can't imagine being Dior and thinking that keeping that jewel from the sons of the person who MADE it, at the expense of my kingdom.

Elwing I'm more sympathetic towards, but it's still ridiculous to me that she believed she deserved the Silmarill more than the sons of the person who MADE it.

And yes, the Silmarill would burn the Fëanorians and they deserved to get burnt by it, but it should still be their property to get burnt by regardless.

If I somehow end up in the same afterlife as Tolkien, I need him to explain this to me so bad because I do NOT understand how it's justified to keep stolen property from the rightful owners.

I blame it on Melian’s eldritch influence @skaelds @dalliansss

Just saw a post babyfying Sauron and saying shit like “Oh he’s just misunderstood, he just needs to remember who he is, he just needs a hug, bla bla bla”

This isn’t some YA, you know? This is Tolkien. Do people know why he wrote LOTR? Do people know what Sauron is supposed to represent?

This is what rings of power has done. This is the world we live in now. The way it has been able to reduce such a monumental story, universe and message to fucking crumbs, I just…

Never ending sigh……

Now we get motherfucking Sauron of all characters being treated like he was written by freaking rian johnson or jj abrams or something.

Not to mention all the Sauron/Galadriel that keeps showing up for me no matter how much I block it. I just wanna gouge out my own eyes.

I thought it couldn’t get any worse than reylo and all that disney star wars crap but the universe decided to prove me wrong.

I don’t understand people who demonize Feanor pre 1st Kinslaying because genuinely what was he supposed to do?

How is he wrong for despising Indis who was creepily obsessed with his father even before his mother died and took her first chance to throw herself at his grieving father given the opportunity?

How is he wrong for not loving his half siblings who are a permanent reminder of his father & the Valar betraying his mother & leaving her to die?

How is he in the wrong for not giving up the Silmarills?

How is he wrong for wanting revenge for his murdered father when the actual villains are the Valar who doomed him, his kin, & his people for…. seeking justice for their king?

The Valar had the power to help this severely traumatized, depressed, & mentally ill person and guide him to be less destructive.

The chose not to. Every action between Feanor & the Valar are them actively making his life worse and then Manwe has the audacity to cry over him as if he couldn’t have prevented this tragedy.

While I think Olwe & the Teleri should have been willing to teach the Noldor to build ships at least, the 1st Kinslaying is obviously still unjustified since Feanor did have a way to middle earth without killing (the Helcaraxe), but before that everyone else is being a bigger asshole than Feanor and pushing him to his inevitable breaking point.

I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think Alqualondë was justified, or the other two massacres as well, but I also don't think there were really any better options available. It was between Bad, Pretty Bad, and Really Bad at Alqualondë. Fëanáro chose Pretty Bad, imo. Really Bad would've been to turn back to Tirion. Except he couldn't, because he and his sons were already banned.

(For the record, I do think the Teleri were justified to kill to protect their ships. I have things that are worth less that the ships to them, than the Silmarils to Náro, that I would kill to protect. Right to 'life, liberty, and property,' John Locke said. My problem stems from how little the Teleri cared about anyone else, including their kin in Beleriand. 'Oh, it doesn't matter to us that the Trees died. We like the stars more anyway, and we have plenty of fish, so we won't starve.'

(No one ever talks about how the Trees dying would've absolutely uprooted the Vanyar and Noldor's agriculture. Orchards and forestries and farms were probably devastated.)

I do think Náro was in the wrong for being cruel to his half-siblings because it wasn't their fault, but I do understand his point of view of not wanting anything to do with them.

Aside from the thing with the sword, which was semi-warranted(Fingolfin did go alone to his father prior to a public meeting to attempt to get him on his side as well as drive a wedge between him and Feanor), when was Feanor cruel to his half siblings?

Just saying no one is under any obligation to have a relationship they don't want to just because some blood is shared between them but I don't recall us having much evidence Feanor did more than grumble about them occasionally until near the end. He was under no obligation to have a relationship with any of them, not his stepmother or his half siblings. He seemed to have kept a relative distance for centuries but still allowed his children to have relationships with their cousins.

You know, here's a small rant from me: I hate it when Celebrimbor is shown to be a "softie-boy" or a "naïve child" or just... someone condescending and stupid. Like, yeah I'm guilty of it too (who isn't?) but it just makes me wonder why he's presented as that in fics anywhere.

I read this fic on AO3? Celebrimbor is a stupid duck. Or he's just very naïve and easy to prank. I read another fic? Celebrimbor is a whiny baby who can't stand up for himself. I read another one? He's a man-child.

Look, I get why he's presented in that way, but can we not do that? Especially considering the things this boy has gone through which really wouldn't make him a "child-like" person, but more of a mature adult who has experienced things no one should ever experience.

Before and during the First Age, he's experienced so much:

The Second Age:

Thank you for coming to my little rant as to why we need more fics that paint Celebrimbor as someone who isn't a stupid and naïve child, but more of a wiser version of Feanor and Curufin. He is not a tantrummy baby, for Ilúvatar's sake!

Harrowing: someone in your Fandom just made an innocuous and harmless post that nonetheless betrays a deep misunderstanding of the character and the character's narrative purpose and you just have to sit there and let them be wrong lest you be an asshole

Very funny how the Shibboleth points out that Galadriel’s early dislike of Fëanor was, in fact, not justified;

‘From her earliest years she had a marvellous gift of insight into the minds of others, but judged them with mercy and understanding, and she withheld her good will from none save only Fëanor. In him she perceived a darkness that she hated and feared, though she did not perceive that the shadow of the same evil had fallen upon the minds of all the Noldor, and upon her own.’

- she judges everyone with mercy and understanding - but she withholds her good will from Fëanor, i.e. does not judge him with mercy and understanding - she ‘hates and fears’ the darkness in him, which is in fact exactly the same as the shadow that has fallen on herself. Which I think works nicely with Galadriel’s reaction to hearing his speech in the Silm; inspired by his words about wide lands and ruling because they are really quite similar in their ambitions wrt ruling Middle Earth; ‘No oaths she swore, but the words of Fëanor concerning Middle-earth had kindled in her heart, for she yearned to see the wide unguarded lands and to rule there a realm at her own will.’

Her pre-kinslaying sentiments are a personal, and apparently not that justified.

I wondered why. I think part of it is that she might be close to Indis; they’re both athletes (Indis is a swift runner and Galadriel is noted for ‘athletic feats’). Then there’s that ‘Galadriel was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fëanor maybe.’ 

Not quite being acknowledged as the greatest because of that one guy seems like something that would make a competitive person a bit spiteful, so maybe that was part of it? The Shibboleth repeatedly calls her proud, moved by pride, etc. 

I think this bit is particularly funny because imagine how tiring this must have been to Finarfin, who really just didn’t want to get into any drama– I’m imagining her answering his þ with a very deliberately emphasised s and Finarfin just thinking… I moved here to get away from this. ‘Her father Finarfin, however, loved the Vanyar (his mother’s people) and the Teleri, and in his house þ was used, Finarfin being moved by Fëanor neither one way or the other but doing as he wished. It is clear nonetheless that opposition to Fëanor soon became a dominant motive with Galadriel, while her pride did not take the form of wishing to be different from her own people. So while she knew well the history of their tongue and all the reasons of the loremasters, she certainly used s in her own daily speech.’ 

HEARTBREAKING: character actually mildly interesting to think about but I Dont like their fans

The Valar's mistake did not lie in seeing a possibility of good in Melkor. Rather, their mistake lay in not seeing the equal possibility of him remaining evil.

#no you’re correct #also you can’t be harsher on the feanorians than actual melkor sorry #either everyone deserves a second chance and restorative justice is real or you have to admit you don’t really believe in that #also yeah you can give even the worst guy ever to worst guy the chance to set things right. that’s fair. #but you DO gotta actually mediate things with the people said guy hurt and maybe take some responsibility for how you’re handling things (@nelyoslegalteam)

I keep saying this. It wasn't the Noldor who broke the covenant; the Valar broke it first.

It was pretty much a liege-lord/vassal kinda deal. The liege-lord offers protection and acts in the interest of their vassal, and the vassal, in turn, offers service and obedience.

Then the Valar shat the bed and let Melkor out without safeguards. He went and killed the Two Trees, killed Finwë, and nabbed the Noldor's greatest treasure.

Fëanor, then, rightfully expected his liege-lords to act on his behalf.

They did not. They did not go and retrieve their wayward brother, they did not offer recompense for a murdered king and stolen goods. This raises the "The Valar Shat the Bed" count to two.

So the Noldor as a whole thought to themselves, well, they promised us protection and they weren't even capable of protecting our fucking king. They will not act on our behalf and in our best interest. So, we're leaving the covenant.

Which is a vassal's right!

And then the Valar shat the bed again by ordering the Teleri not to lend the Noldor their ships. We will never know what they would have decided otherwise - would Olwë have wanted to help avenge the death of his friend? Probably.

The difference between a prison and a safe haven is that you get to leave the safe haven whenever you choose to. So effectively, Aman was now a prison for the Noldor - and you know what is entirely justified when being held by any means necessary?

Breaking out.

The Valar had effectively pitted Noldor and Teleri against each other, forcing the events that followed. They seriously messed up not just by our understanding, but by the rules of their own world and society.

And it's one of my biggest gripes with Tolkien's narrative, that they never have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

You know I have a lot of issues with the hallowing of Simarils, like for one there's the question of what exactly are the qualifications for someone being considered evil enough to be burned by them. We're not told, and quite frankly if it was meant to be something like having done a bunch of awful deeds, then at the very least Thingol and the Valar should be burned by them. 

I think though it's very likely just that they burn anyone who Varda doesn't want to have them.

There's also the whole disgustingness of people insisting that the sons of Feanor don't have a right to their fathers creations because they've done bad things (nevermind all the good they've also done) and that other people get to claim a right to them (even when those same people have also done bad things), but other people have made much better posts about that then I ever could.

What I really want to talk about though, is the fact that there is no way Feanor consented to the Simarils being hallowed. Like not only did he not like or trust the Valar even before everything went down with Melkor, but from what I remember, its either outright mentioned or at implied that part of Feanor's reason in making them was to preserve the light of the two trees so that he and others elves could take them and leave Valinor. 

There's no way he would go to the Valar and ask for them to be hallowed. There's no way that if the Valar showed up and asked if they could hallow them, he would say yes. The only explanation that makes sense is that Varda just showed up and did it on their own. 

Which really implies that they probably had designs on them from the beginning.

There is no words to say how much I despise the forced stupidity trope where one in the relationship is cunning and smart and the other is a himbo who’s “stupid.” Especially when it’s wrought upon fictional characters who have been painted as nothing but smart.

I hate it with all my soul, it’s infantilising, its the culture of glorifying stupidity because then those doing it feel better about themselves and feel smarter, it creates such an imbalance in the relationship— and it suggests that having specific features of character makes you someone stupid. Usually, it’s being kind, or being enthusiastic, or being energetic, or being impatient—> all those do not suggest stupidity and I am tired of those tropes where “Character A falls in love with character B because of how stupid he is 🤪🤪”