#pengolodh

[tinwe-the-local-assassin]

I absolutely love love love the unreliable narrative of Silmarillion. It's a book from the universe itself, written by an elf who was isolated in a hidden city for the majority of the timeline, and one who is reasonably biased against certain people and groups.

The 'Do Whatever You Want' call is really strong in this fandom and I love it.

[exercise-of-trust]

do Enerdhil and Pengolodh in Gondolin please

"look at these respectable sages of the city," everyone says, "talking wisely amongst themselves about some great matter of lore or craft," and everyone gives them a deferentially wide berth as they wander the upper courtyards of gondolin, but really they're just taking their lunch break to gossip about their neighbors

(not currently taking requests; check back in like 3-6 months tho)

[inthehouseoffinwe]

Y’know how sometimes historians can be really petty.

What if Fëanor’s out and about happily doing his own thing, but refused Pengolodh’s requests for an interview. So he wrote that Fëanor’s still in the Halls just to Be Like That.

[artist-owl]

Ok but in Silm canon the crown passed from Fingon to Turgon to Gil-Galad. Already that shows some bias, since the rest of the Noldor in Beleriand almost certainly did not consider Turgon of all neri their high king, not when he was hidden up on his mountain and not ruling them. To everyone else, the line probably went Fingon to Orodreth to Gil-Galad. But fine, Pengolodh was the in-universe writer of the Silm, and he lived in Gondolin, so of course he called Turgon the high king.

Except in Silm canon, Gil-Galad is Fingon’s kid. (We’re ignoring the fact that since Fingon never married a nís he presumably picked up a random orphan off the side of the road to facilitate this.) So Gil-Galad ought to have taken on the title! Even if you assume that he was too young to actually rule (most guesses at his age put him in his late teens or twenties when Fingon died - since Elves come of age at 50, that would have been a child monarch situation) then Turgon could have stepped up as regent, but unless Gil-Galad formally abdicated, then he had no business calling himself high king.

That said, I do think I know why he did that - he straight up didn’t know Gil-Galad was Fingon’s heir. Or that he existed at all. He’d fucked off to Gondolin a long time prior, and Gil-Galad wasn’t at the Nirnaeth, which was the only time Turgon came down the mountain. Iirc sometimes the eagles ferried him news of the outside world, but who knows how comprehensive their summaries were.

Normally I consider Gil-Galad son of Orodreth to be the "canon" version, but now I'm starting to think that that was some historical revisionism propagated by the Gondolindrim to cover up the fact that Turgon accidentally usurped his nephew.

[pukiirice]

Pengolodh and Dirhaval

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

um actually ☝🤓 i believe the real creator of the silmarils is morgoth ☝🤓 and he was just taking back what belonged to him by property rights ☝🤓 and feanor and his sons were just throwing a hissy fit that the silmarils' rightful owner took them back ☝🤓 which btw morgoth was right to kill finwe while reclaiming the silmarils because finwe ☝🤓 was violating his property rights ☝🤓 that's ridiculous you say? why? because feanor is canonically the creator of the silmarils as per the source material? um actually ☝🤓 the silmarillion is a tertiary source ☝🤓 and pengolodh is biased against morgoth ☝🤓

[windrelyn]

Gondolindrim <3

Please do not re-up my art without permission!

The commissions are still open! DM me of visit my Ko-fi for more information!

[aotearoa20]

Pengolodh: Feanor was a key player in much of the early history if the Eldar

Pengolodh: He sucked but he was great

Pengolodh: But he also mostly sucked. But he was kinda great

Pengolodh:

Pengolodh: He was good with the sound off

[sallysavestheday]

First Lines Tag

Thank you to @dreamingthroughthenoise @starspray and @queerofthedagger for the tag!

I do like this one, as a writer of many little one-shots, because it always turns up something new.

The task: Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway. (I will adapt it to say you can also post the first line of your last several chapters, for those who, unlike me, write longfics - there's no reason you shouldn't also get to share!)

I had a bit of a dry spell after getting whacked by DOGE in January, but I'm back in the saddle again...mostly. Even cranked out some cheery bits this week in anticipation of upcoming fandom events. Resilience, dammit.

So here we go with the most recent 10:

1. For the Eldar in Aman in the Years of the Trees, death was an infrequent occurrence.

With All Due Reverence (G: 1,900 words). A little faux-academic reflection on funerary rites among the Elves, ostensibly researched and written by Erestor and Pengolodh. For Silm Epistolary Week.

2. Fist-sized lump of malachite layered with copper ore, from a deposit in the hills behind Mahtan's forge.

Contents of Nerdanel's Strongbox, Preserved When Her Studio Burned (G: 176 words). What it says on the tin. Also for Silm Epistolary Week.

3. Ammë, do you remember how, when I was small and fractious, you would break coimas into the bright blue bowl and add a little water from the springs of Taniquetil, blessing and softening the crumbs?

Tender on the Tongue (T: 1,200 words). Excerpt from Lalwen's journal of the Helcaraxë, written as a letter to Indis. ALSO for Silm Epistolary week. Great event! You should try it next year!

4. It is Celeborn she asks to prick the memorial marks.

Steady Hands, Certain Heart (T: 425 words). Celeborn declares himself to Galadriel.

5. Idril has shed her shoes in their flight to the tunnel’s mouth.

A Bitter Premonition (G: 1,000 words). Idril and Glorfindel, at the Fall of Gondolin.

6. Fingon has never looked more like his father, Maedhros thinks, and winces.

Lodestone (T: 2,000 words). Fingon's plans to marry break Maedhros' heart.

7. The night’s storms have torn the canvas covering off the skeleton of the ship and blown sand around and through its standing ribs.

Hear Me in the Song of the Waves (M: 1,700 words). Sexy Tuor/Voronwë, with feelings (OK, mostly about feelings), for My Slashy Valentine. Honestly a new personal fave.

8. It is hard not to shout their joy to the heavens when they are all still grieving their losses.

Settling in My Bones (T: 300 words). My annual Valentine's Glorthelion, as the latest installment of The Flower and the Fountain.

9. Not even a direct order from Manwë himself could have persuaded Gildor to be King.

No Lark So Blithe As He (G: 730 words). Gildor Inglorion backstory, tra la la lally!

10. Tornel is taken young, swept into the nets of the Enemy’s forces as they descend on the wanderers’ camp.

Your turn, @tobermoriansass @melestasflight @polutrope @grey-gazania @eilinelsghost @idleleaves @shrikeseams @hhimring @dragonridersofficer-fiammag @katajainen. Give us your last 10 openings - old, new, chapters, fics, whatever. I can't wait to read!

Dream Dust (G: 1,500 words). Another Gil-galad origin story, and my first OC-centric fic (with a tiny peep of Maedhros at the end). For the 2025 Poetry Fiction Challenge - another event I highly recommend! This year's inspiration was Langston Hughes.

[dawnfelagund]

I'm psyched that my paper "Grief, Grieving, and Permission to Mourn in the Quenta Silmarillion" is out in a special edition of the Journal of Tolkien Research, "Tolkien and Psychology"!

Here is the abstract:

Tolkien asserted on multiple occasions that death was a primary theme of his work, and there are over ninety deaths of named characters in the Quenta Silmarillion alone. In reading the Quenta Silmarillion as historiography, the universality and psychologically powerful experience of death, grief, and mourning allows the narrators of the Quenta Silmarillion to shape how readers perceive characters, events, and themes in the text. Assuming Pengolodh as the primary narrator, this paper investigates how Tolkien used a limited, flawed, and biased narrative point of view as a strategy to shape reader responses and theme. Characters who die in the Quenta Silmarillion vary in whether they are grieved and how they are mourned such that some characters are aggrandized and their negative deeds deemphasized, while others conspicuously lack any mention of grief or mourning, drawing attention to their negative actions and essentially dehumanizing them as people capable of being loved and grieved (or in some cases, capable of the normal human emotions of love and grief). The biased treatment of death by the Quenta Silmarillion narrator not only uses psychology to shape readers' perceptions but stands as moral guideposts to the fictional audience of later ages in the legendarium and creates the sense of untold stories that Tolkien used to create the impression historical depth in his work.

This paper started as a presentation at the 2024 Tolkien at UVM conference and kicked off 2024's obsession with Silmarillion death stats. (This year is Silmarillion dialogue stats.) In addition to the data, it considers in some depth the death scenes of Fëanor, Aredhel, Fingolfin, Finrod Felagund, and Elu Thingol.

[elves-as-things-my-friends-said]

Glorfindel: oh no, are you crying? What's wrong dear? *gently* What are you thinking about right now?

Pengolodh: ...I'm thinking about the Silmarillion.

[eri-pl]

I don't unironically write pro-Melkor posts, and this one isn't what I would call pro-Melkor either, but…

I have a bit of problem with late YoT. Somehow, the Silmarillion seems to say both of those:

Manwë trusted that Melkor had changed, and this is a good thing on Manwë's part. (I know much of the fandom disagrees, I do agree, but anyway let's just talk about the book)

the Noldor (especially Fëanor) did not trust Melkor, don't give him any gems (which they happily gave to all other Valar) and Fëanor doesn't want anything to do with him. And that's… also good? Or at least not commented on in any way by the narrative?

I can see some solutions to this (in order of most likely to least likely):

Melkor was acting entitled. They would give him gems and what not if he behaved about it like all the other Valar, but he demended things, so was ignored. I could make a long digression here about being evil vs being shaped by your previous evils, and bad manners != bad morals, and "becoming better is a process" but let's now ignore this for sake of simplicity.

The Noldor should have been nicer (give him gems but fact-check his advice), but the book is edited by a Noldo (Pengolodh) who has a lot of trauma around Melkor (because the First age), so is understandably biased.

Some Noldor were in fact nicer to Melkor, but Pengolodh censored it for the abovementioned reasons.

The Noldor, especially Fëanor have a D&D-like "detect" evil ability and just knew that he was up to no good and Manwë should have listened to them

(Also, a more doylist explanation: Tolkien was writing the behavior of the Noldor based on his knowlesge of the story, not based on what they would realistically know, because genre.)

But even if the Noldor were acting lke this, being biased and discriminating against you for your past is not an excuse to murder someone's father (or anyone else) or to permanently steal their stuff. (Slightly messing with / displacing their stuff is debateable if a) you're probably designed to be the trickster of the pantheon b) the genre is somewhat fairy-tale-ish c) it may help them to learn to not value their stuff too highly — AKA my "Melkor stealing Fefe's stuff may have been a thing even if he got better" agenda).

Just in the same way as unjustly keeping your property is not an excuse for murder (no matter what oaths you swore).

Still, those behaviors aren't ok either.

(Please let's not quote the "jail-crow" situation in the comments to this: it happenned after it was known that Melkor was at his bs again, so is not really relevant. )

[gondolinweek]

Prompt #6

👤 - Ecthelion

📑 - “Then came there from the south of the city the people of the Fountain, and Ecthelion was their lord, and silver and diamonds were their delight; and swords very long and bright and  pale did they wield, and they went into battle to the music of flutes.”

📍 - The Fall of Gondolin

[artist-owl]

Maegin: *glaring at Tuor*

Pengolodh: omg...Maeglin still isn’t over his incest crush on Idril, he hates Tuor so much, he’s so jealous... *scribbles notes down*

Maeglin, going through a bisexual awakening: *still glaring at Tuor*

[pukiirice]

Pengolodh telling Ælfwine about the story of Dirhaval 🥺

[chiliadicorum]

Was Feanor's Death Anticlimactic?

(thank you to @ckgoksoy's artwork and @nyarnamaitar's tags on it that inspired this)

I’m sure the fandom has seen this idea floating around, that his death was quite anticlimactic*, a letdown after all his hype and drama, so I won't elaborate on this common opinion, one that I initially shared. I instead want to challenge it. Furthermore, I posit that not only was his death not anticlimactic, but that it was one of the most glorious fights in the whole legendarium. *(I'm speaking of the whole scene in general that ended in his death, not the outcome of it - let's be real, self-combustion isn't boring and that epic circumstance was unique to Feanor alone)

Buckle up.

I'm not going to dive into "narrative bias" - it's a touchy subject and a deep discussion in itself - but it does need to be acknowledged here however briefly because it's so glaringly obvious that it directly impacts how we the Reader interpret Feanor's final fight scene.

My belief of the problem is not that there wasn't anything significant to report about Feanor's fight with the Balrogs, but that it was deliberately withheld from us. Let's look at Feanor and Fingolfin, two incredibly imperative characters to the drama. Compare the scene of Feanor's fight to Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth. In the silmarillion, from the moment he elected to go forth to the conclusion of his death, Feanor gets 1.5 paragraphs containing 344 words. Fingolfin using the same window gets 6 paragraphs containing 766 words. Of those 766 words, for text dedicated specifically to the actual combat alone, Fingolfin got 261 words.

Feanor got 29.

That's quite a gaping difference, especially when it's between these two. But you might make the argument that these two combats had entirely different foes. Feanor faced Balrogs, but Fingolfin fought Morgoth, the Enemy, the only occasion in which Morgoth emerged to fight anyone, so of course it should shine in the spotlight with some detail as to how it went (and yes, it should). It has nothing to do with bias against who was fighting, but what they were fighting.

All right. I'll pretend that this distinction is important. Let's turn to the other recorded Balrog-fights. Again, not including all the narrative revolving around their fight & subsequent death, but specific to the combat alone:

Fingon got 94 words Ecthelion got 144 words Glorfindel got a whopping 210 words

Feanor got 29. Now, length is not the deciding factor in this, obviously. The content contained within is what matters, and that's the rub: there's content. Which is why I literally figured out the word-count dedicated to what happened within the timeframe of the combats. Length is not important, but the point I'm trying to make with highlighting the lengths is that some measure of detail of the combat was included for ALL the other deaths-by-Balrog. Except Feanor's. So the argument that it was because of what Feanor was fighting that we were left with a truncated account is moot.

And remember, the three other Elves above were each fighting a single Balrog whereas Feanor was up against many. And I'm to seriously believe that there was nothing noteworthy to write about that? This was Feanor. Because that's another thing. The other three accounts were of minor characters (and Ecthelion and Glorfindel were very minor characters compared to Feanor). This was the legendary Feanor, the greatest of Elves to ever live, larger than life, powerful, intelligent and skilled beyond measure, and without who's driving force we wouldn't have had a story...and a few dozen words only are dedicated to his demise?

Now to clarify, Glorfindel's and Ecthelion's fights weren't included in the silm. Like I said, minor characters, so it wasn't surprising their combats were cut from the final draft. Their word-count was pulled from their accounts in The Fall of Gondolin. So, to be fair, I took the (really long) time and looked up Feanor's death in every. single. book. and, much to my genuine surprise, the silmarillion had the longest and most detailed account. The measly 29 words. What were those words? I should probably include them at some point since I'm going on about it:

"Long he fought on, and undismayed, though he was wrapped in fire and wounded with many wounds; but at the last he was smitten to the ground by Gothmog"

That's it. No wonder people are underwhelmed when reading it. So vague and containing absolutely nothing specific after he was surrounded. And it says "long he fought on", which means this fight was no short thing. This is an interesting element, because even Glorfindel's fight, which was given the most detail, was described as a fast event: "Now there was a deadly combat upon that high rock above the folk [...] yet it was over ere Glorfindel's men could leap to his side." Long he fought on. Logic dictates that Feanor's fight therefore would have the most to report of what occurred therein, but all we get is "wounded with many wounds" and "wrapped in fire"? (though that's an awesome visual to imagine, I have to say)

Am I really supposed to believe that every Balrog-fight was interesting enough to spend time writing about it except Feanor's? Especially when he faced not just one Balrog but many? And not one at a time, but all at once? (because it says he was "surrounded") And when this combat lasted a long time? All of these factors tied together hint at something awesome that happened, and you want me to believe it wasn't a jaw-dropping showdown?

This history was written by Pengolodh who, with reason, had a very negative outlook towards Feanor and, while he was a brilliant historian, he wasn't wholly objective and one way I believe this manifests is, in fact, in his lack of documentation of this fight. I'm only highlighting this factor and not the narrative he penned about the people he was writing because, especially comparing Feanor's and Fingolfin's accounts, that becomes very problematic and is a separate post entirely.

Feanor only got 29 words for his combat. I'll even be generous and say it was 35 words if we include the preceding line where it explains that Feanor was surrounded by them. What would happen if we rewrote Fingolfin's 261-worded duel with Morgoth and condensed it down to something short and sweet? Something like this:

"Fiercely he fought in rage and grief, and with Ringil he hewed at the Black Foe ere Morgoth crushed him to the ground. Thus died Fingolfin before Angband's gates."

Kind of anticlimactic, isn't it? (and yeah, I made that 29 words)

What an astounding difference detail makes for the conclusions we draw about these two fights. Now, if Feanor had died straightaway at the start of the fight, then yeah. Deeming it anticlimactic would carry a lot more weight.

Except he didn't.

Which brings me to my next three points. Because now after harping about the egregious lack of information, how can I dare suggest then that his combat with the Balrogs was glorious?

Ignore everything I've said up to this point. Dismissing the narrative bias completely, if I were of the opinion that it doesn't exist or its impact on the text is nowhere near as substantial as I've implied, the minimal detail of Feanor's death scene itself still convinces me that this scene was epic.

And yes, I do believe Feanor's fight was in fact glorious.

1: the Balrogs weren't able to kill him immediately

Those four words, "long he fought on" cannot be overstated. Fights with Balrogs in the First Age were fast, if you managed to live long enough to actually fight them, that is. And if you did, it was shortlived. Not Feanor's though. He was wounded with many wounds (so creative, Pengolodh), but he was never dealt the killing blow (I'll come back to this). The final wound Feanor received put him to the ground. Maybe Gothmog swept his feet out from under him with the fiery whip. Maybe this wound was to his thigh and caused him to fall to his knees. Maybe it took four of them converging on him with attacks for Gothmog to finally slip in. WE'LL NEVER KNOW. But he's on the ground and he's still alive. Still alive when his sons and army arrived to help and still alive when the Balrogs left:

"Then his sons raised up their father and bore him back towards Mithrim. But as they drew near to Eithel Sirion and were upon the upward path to pass over the mountains, Feanor bade them halt; for his wounds were mortal and he knew that his hour was come."

And still alive while they carry him away. Feanor didn't die on the battleground of his Balrog-fight. He died here, near the slope of the mountains. It says earlier in Feanor's account that he pressed on, thinking perhaps that he could reach Morgoth himself, which means they were far into the fields of Ard-galen, far from the mountain pass. From Eithel Sirion to the skirt of Thangorodrim's mountains, Ard-galen stretched around 70 leagues wide (one map has it around 100 leagues). Let's be generous and say this fight occurred at the midpoint; 35 leagues. If it takes an hour to walk a league, that's still 35 hours of non-stop walking without rest-stops, sleep or being weighed down by supplies and an army to get back to Eithel Sirion where Feanor died (some accounts have him being borne all the way back to Mithrim before he died).

At minimum, Feanor didn't die until at least a whole day later. He needed assistance getting up from the ground and moving, but he was very much alive, still talking, still coherent. Can you imagine how awful that was for his sons? The adrenaline of running as fast as they could to help him, the overwhelming relief that he was still alive, badly hurt but alive, they tend to his wounds as best as they can and get him out of there, probably smiling at their father being irritated by the outcome of the fight because that sounds like him, he's normal haha he'll be fine...But he's only getting worse with each league, face paler, can't move at all on his own, becoming so quiet. They keep tending to his wounds, try to keep him hydrated, steadily get terrified at how he gets weaker and weaker, and then he tells them to halt. The fact that he survived for a time, for many hours, led me to believe that whatever fatal wound he got, it caused severe internal bleeding, because his sons had plenty of time to patch him up and Elves' bodies are resilient and heal fast, but this wound was unstoppable.

Feanor fought against multiple Balrogs, and they couldn't kill him. He fought multiple Balrogs all at once, and they couldn't kill him. He fought multiple Balrogs all at once for a long time, and they couldn't kill him, one and done. He walked away from it, if for a short while, and that's amazing.

2: the Balrogs fled the scene

How has the fandom not lost their collective minds over this tidbit? Feanor gets struck down by Gothmog. He's on the ground, exposed, and it says he would have perished right then and there if his sons hadn't arrived to help. Feanor's vulnerable on the ground, unable to defend himself. Gothmog had to only strike him one more time and done, mission accomplished (he could've just stomped on him, just saying). Gothmog probably moved to do so, but didn't. Let me ask you a question:

What the hell did Feanor do in that fight to make the Balrogs AFRAID?

This was one Elf, a single Elf that they were all piling on, they finally get him to the ground...and they run. They can finally kill him, but at the mere SIGHT of his seven sons, the children of this one Elf running full pelt towards them enraged and desperate, they elected to flee instead of taking the two seconds to finish the job. I can see it; Gothmog's eyes blazing down at this prone Elf, raising his weapon for the killing blow, hears yelling, looks up, sees these Elves coming, takes a second to consider and then nopes out of there.

What in the world did Feanor do to them during their fight to make the Balrogs believe that fleeing from these coming Elves was the better option? They're Balrogs! Monsters, demons of living fire, the greatest of Morgoth's servants...and they run at the sight of Feanor's sons and the people with them. See now why I'm so desperate for details of that fight? Feanor put fear into them. There was really nothing worth writing about?

3: Morgoth was desperate

"[...] Morgoth was dismayed. Ten days that battle lasted, and from it returned of all the hosts that he had prepared for the conquest of Beleriand no more than a handful of leaves."

Morgoth was dismayed. Can we not appreciate the magnitude of this simple sentence? Appalled, apprehensive, frightened, nervous, shocked - Feanor and the Noldor made Morgoth, mightiest of all beings, dismayed.

This was a landslide victory for the Noldor, and it's often forgotten because of Feanor's death in the hour of that victory. The size of Morgoth's army here can't be disregarded. This wasn't a troop or two he sent to kill the Noldor, this wasn't a regiment sent to take over Mithrim. This army was of such a gargantuan size that Morgoth intended to use it for "the conquest of Beleriand". Not just the Falas or Doriath, the entire continent. It was THE army, that's how huge it was. And the Noldor massacred them to such a degree that "no more than a handful of leaves" returned to Angband.

And that puny remnant was running for Angband as fast as they could, because these terrifying Elves were hot on their tail, Feanor at the lead. And he runs faster, pulling ahead. (the Elves are hot with victory, how did Feanor manage to outrun them by such a distance? dang dude) He's coming for them. For Angband, for Morgoth, his father's slayer and thief of his treasure. Vengeance is nigh.

And from afar Morgoth sees Feanor coming. For him. His army is destroyed, gone, and Feanor, blazing like the Spirit of Fire he is, is charging for his fortress with the army of Noldor in his wake. And I absolutely love that Morgoth's solution to this wasn't to send one Balrog but several of them, including his General. That's what he deemed was necessary to stop Feanor. The Balrogs probably went out thinking "kill that one Elf? Easy, no problem", until they started fighting him...and struggled to do it.

It's interesting because Feanor wouldn't have been able to breach the walls of Angband. Not even the Valar could, and Morgoth knew this. He knew Feanor wouldn't stand a chance if he actually reached Thangorodrim. But such was his dismay that in his fear and anxiety, that fact no longer registered to him. He reacted instead, and his reaction is so telling. The Balrogs were a last resort, a desperate attempt to get these Elves to stop.

And it worked.

Thus why I say that details of his fight were deliberately withheld from us instead of the idea that they weren't worth reporting. The question, then, is why? Why withhold it? Feanor's death scene was never anticlimactic. It was instead given such a disservice in the tomes of history, for the historians simply neglected to report anything about it (for the sole purpose of making it seem unnotable perhaps?). This fight was badass. And side note: "wrapped in fire"? There's no sun or moon yet, guys, and that close to Angband I'm willing to bet even the stars were veiled by Morgoth's gales. It's pitch black on the Ard-galen except for what light the Elves carry...Try to envision what his sons saw as they were running to him, in the distance, the whirling inferno Feanor was engulfed in, that lit up the entire fields up to the skies. (Were they confused at first? Thinking it was simply a manifestation of their father's fire until they saw dark shapes moving in it?)

How could anyone omit information about such a marvelous event? Feanor died very early on, but he made sure his final stand was so glorious as to put fear into the Enemy. Think about it; this day was the first time Morgoth learned to dread the Elves.

29 words. Why oh why did you withhold everything else? Yes, all these factors woven together coalesce into an incredible impression of what transpired, but it's remanded unto our mere imaginations to guess and envision. I'm fully convinced Feanor's fight with the Balrogs was jaw-dropping, and I'm resigned to being forever embittered that we were given a lousy account of that event. There is one thing, though, that pacifies me and with it, I'll make my conclusion to this long meta. Why was it withheld? There's one detail written about this battle in The Quenta that I think provides the answer:

"no tale can tell the valour of Feanor"

Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Pengolodh for his lackluster description of Feanor's last fight. Maybe it was less of a passive-aggressive hostility towards Feanor...and more so the simple fact that no amount of words would've ever done it justice.