yall you cant just cut clean through a bone
fingon had to saw that sucker off
other variations i have seen:
1. strong-arm chopped off with a sword
2. cut through through the wrist joint
3. breaking the bones first and then cutting through the flesh wtf
Uh, why would you NOT go through the joint, that just seems like the obvious thing to do? Who the fuck thinks lumberjacking through the damn arm with a sword whilst airborne is a good idea?
Oh right, Fingon, carry on.
I did a lot of research on this quite some time ago, because I’m a massive medicine nerd like that (not that that’s my day job or anything). It’s definitely easiest to go through the joint where the hand bones meet the wrist bones - least flesh and once you’ve addressed the outermost tendons, you could kind of “pop” the joint out with the right leverage on the blade. It’s called disarticulation.
Another method could have been to just take the thumb off and slip the cuff, because without the thumb joint most hands aren’t any wider than the wrist. There’d be some sawing involved, but through more meat than tendon (which is easier going) and the muscle is likely to be massively atrophied anyway, making it easier.
I’ve entertained that second option a few times because although what’s left of the hand is almost certainly dead and/or useless, it fits with one of the versions in HOME where Maedhros was maimed but didn’t lose his hand.
I like to think that Fingon did indeed do the amputation through the joint - and it was bloody difficult from eagle back, thank you - and then someone suggested ‘or you could have just cut his thumb off’ to him afterwards mostly just to watch the look on his face.