silmarillion-stats-polls

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

What if Beren tried to kill Morgoth? Silmaril in one hand, knife clumsily in the other. He stabs him, let us say, not quite through the heart. So Morgoth wakes.

This will become a fandom choose-you-own-adventure.

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

When did the Fëanorians lose their right to the Silmarils ?

I had a brief conversation somewhere (can't find the post !) about this the other day, and so I was wondering today about when, exactly, did the Fëanorians (I'm using this term broadly, as you'll see) lost their right to the Silmarils.

I had thoughts about this, so explanations about the options I came up with below, and I'am asking the question from the point of view of the Silmarils (they're sentient, magical objects) :

I think that there are two things to take into consideration here :

a. What Eönwë tells M&M when they ask for him to return the Silmarils, which is the first time we hear the idea that they have lost their right to it ;

b. The fact that the Silmarils are magical, sentient objects, who might have their own ideas about who to reject /accept.

Eönwë tells the sons of Fëanor "that the right to the work of their father, which the sons of Fëanor formerly possessed, had now perished, because of their many and merciless deeds, being blinded by their oath, and most of all because of their slaying of Dior and the assault upon the Havens. (...) to Valinor must Maedhros and Maglor return, and there abide the judgement of the Valar, by whose decree alone would Eönwë yield the jewels from his charge."

He is right of course, the Silmarils reject them, but a few things to note here : he says they formerly had a right to them ; he says somehow the slaying of Dior is on equal par with all the rest of the killings they'd done ; and he concludes that it's basically the Velar's decision (he's pretty much just giving his opinion there).

So, I'm asking the question not from the point of view of the Valar, or property rights, but from the point of view of the Silmarils themselves.

Here is an explanation for the choices I came up with :

The Silmarils would reject Fëanor and his sons after he refused to give them up to heal the trees : we don't see Fëanor ever interacting with the Silmarils again after their theft, so maybe they would have rejected him on that basis. @eri-pl pointed out in a post that repeated mentions of Silmarils being put away in the dark when they were living creatures that loved light made her think about Bible verses using the same imagery of a 'light' being covered, hidden, which I think would explain why Fëanor's attitude to the Silmarils is referred to as "greedy", and would lead to the Silmarils eventually rejecting him.

2. They lose their right after swearing the oath :Eönwë mentions the oath, so maybe the "terrible oath" would have made Fëanor and his sons unworthy to handle the holy objects that are the Silmarils (which would make the rest of the story even sadder, given that they spend the book trying to fufill an oath to retrieve magical objects that would reject them on the basis of the oath.)

3. They lose their right after Alqualondë and first kinslaying, which does not get a separate mention from Eönwë, so seems somehow less important than the subsequent massacres at Doriath and Sirion. I'm of the "murder is murder" school of thought, so would personally be inclined to chose this one.

4. They lose their right after Doriath. Doriath is the first time that the sons of Fëanor kill specifically for the Silmarils, so that would be a good point. Make of Eönwë only mentioning Dior as a victim there what you will (he's the most important person in Doriath and therefore the only one the records care about / he's Lúthien's son and so somehow the only person the Valar care about/there actually weren't that many victims in Doriath, most of the fighting was between Dior, his guards whom nobody cares about, and the sons of Fëanor and the rest just fled away).

5. They lose their right after Sirion. Sirion is presented in the text as "the worst" of the kinslayings (highest number of victims ?) so that was the real turning point. For some reason.

6. After M&M attack the host of the Valar. Goes against what Eönwë says, but again the Silmarils have a mind of their own. I find this option interesting because here M&M are not just rejecting the Valar's authority anymore, they are actively fighting them, which would be an even greater fall from grace.

7. They lost their right to the Silmaril B&L stole. The Simaril just really likes B&L and decides to change owner.

8. They lost their right to all Silmarils after B&L stole one : the other Silmarils are jealous and all want to belong to B&L.

9. They lost their right to the Silmaril they were trying to get when attacking Doriath, but not the other two ones. Pretty self-explanatory.

10. They lost their right to the Silmaril they were trying to get after Sirion, but not the other two. Same.

And that's it :)

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The two winners will progress to the seventh round (final) :)

Yes, you must choose one.

Lyric highlights below cut for those unfamiliar:

Soldier, Poet, King:

There will come a soldier Who carries a mighty sword He will tear your city down, oh lei oh lai oh Lord Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord He will tear your city down, oh lei oh lai oh Lord

Rule #36:

Was it wrong, was it right Should we be here at all We've caused pain Through our crimes How far will we fall

Oh we are a long way from home

The show must go on:

Another hero Another mindless crime Behind the curtain In the pantomime

Hold the line Does anybody want to take it anymore?

Show must go on

Broken Crown:

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down I'll never wear your broken crown I took the road and I fucked it all away Now in this twilight how dare you speak of grace

Seasons:

Now I wanna fly above the storm But you can't grow feathers in the rain And the naked floor is cold as hell The naked floor reminds me Oh, the naked floor reminds me

That I'm lost, behind The words I'll never find And I'm left behind As the seasons roll on by

Everybody Wants to Rule the World:

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you

Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on Mother Nature Everybody wants to rule the world

Clouds:

Clouds are rolling by I open my mouth and I breathe them right in All my thoughts slip away But I can't stop thinking 'bout your face I can't stop thinking 'bout your face

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OK, once again, with feeling…

I know some options are fuzzy. If you're unsure what counts as what, ask me in the comments. :>

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If you are confused, use your thinking brain.

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ao3 stats, taken as percentage of total works with character:

0.0025% of works feature Maedhros/Maedhros’ Wife. 0.008% feature Maedhros/OFC.

No works feature Celegorm/Celegorm’s Wife. 0.006% feature Celegorm/OFC.

No works feature Amrod/Amrod’s Wife. 0.0125% feature Amrod/OFC.

No works feature Amras/Amras’ Wife. 0.0079% feature Amras/OFC.

Edit: @dwarrowdelf asked why we’re assuming they have wives— mostly because I want to exclude Russingon.

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

Yes, you must choose one.

Lyric highlights below cut for those unfamiliar:

Soldier, Poet, King:

There will come a soldier Who carries a mighty sword He will tear your city down, oh lei oh lai oh Lord Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord He will tear your city down, oh lei oh lai oh Lord

Rule #36:

Was it wrong, was it right Should we be here at all We've caused pain Through our crimes How far will we fall

Oh we are a long way from home

The show must go on:

Another hero Another mindless crime Behind the curtain In the pantomime

Hold the line Does anybody want to take it anymore?

Show must go on

Broken Crown:

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down I'll never wear your broken crown I took the road and I fucked it all away Now in this twilight how dare you speak of grace

Seasons:

Now I wanna fly above the storm But you can't grow feathers in the rain And the naked floor is cold as hell The naked floor reminds me Oh, the naked floor reminds me

That I'm lost, behind The words I'll never find And I'm left behind As the seasons roll on by

Everybody Wants to Rule the World:

Welcome to your life There's no turning back Even while we sleep We will find you

Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on Mother Nature Everybody wants to rule the world

Clouds:

Clouds are rolling by I open my mouth and I breathe them right in All my thoughts slip away But I can't stop thinking 'bout your face I can't stop thinking 'bout your face

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

If you aren't sure where you stand on politics, take the test.

The goal is not to diss anyone or to prove Feanor was right or wrong. If you are curious, I am very moderate on the compass and quite moderate on Feanor too. My only agenda here is to understand why the fandom is so divided without judging it. (unless you say things are in the Silm when they are not, then I will judge it, even if you are myself ;P )

And to do chi-suare tests and colorfur charts because they look pretty and give me dopamine because you click the heart on them. ;D

I wish I could do more buckets. If a correlation appears here, I will probably do a follow-up poll.

Please no discussion of politics and no fighting about Feanor. I know the compass is not perfect, I did not make it.

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

The height order of Finwë’s house

listed below. There is unfortunately no visual representation (you draw thirty distinct people all in a line).

Argon

Turgon

Maedhros

Celegorm

Fingolfin

Caranthir

Finwë and Finarfin 

Angrod

Celebrimbor

Aegnor

Indis and Galadriel

Findis

Orodreth

Finrod

Anaire

Amrod

Idril

Feanor

Amras

Curufin

Aredhel

Celeborn

Maeglin

Eärwen

Fingon

Maglor

Edhellos

Elenwë

Lalwen

Eöl

Nerdanel

Celebrían

Míriel

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

Another thing which I haven't seen explored is the Noldor who had made the Great Journey and later joined Feanor in leaving Aman.

How different it must have been for them. It wasn't discovery, it was a return to their homeland (and much harder than the trip to Aman have been). And they remembered the Dark Rider. Not just a vague darkness, and the Trees dying and Finwë murdered (allegedely), but a very concrete experience (trauma) of losing their friends one by one, the anxiety, the terror.

do you think it was a thing?

No typical bald option, because I don't see how there can be a nuanced answer for this.

@dfwbwfbbwfbwf a bonus question for you: …some of the Teleri who had made the Journey; who remembered Thingol and others. Those may be (some of? driving force of?) the ones you wrote about, disagreeing with Olwë about the ships. This feels like something you could make a lot of interesting HCs, or even a fic about. Their relationship with Thingol, with other factions…

(the font here is Amatic; really nice font)

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Everlasting Darkness — poll results

From this and that.

"Where did Feanor got the idea of Everlasting Darkness from?" got 75 voters, "What is the Everlasting Darkness?" got 260. Which is an interesting difference because the questions are rather similar, and the polls ran simultanously. Yet the other one proved much more interesting.

Charts:

Thoughts:

Everlasting Darkness is the Void sweeps (147 votes, 56.5%, majority), with much more votes (78% of those 147) adding "but it is not outer space". Interestingly, in my "where was Morgoth thrown into and how" poll on @morgoth-into-the-void-week, 70.6% voters say he was thrown out of space and time (so, the void ≠ space), and 28.3% equates the coid with some area of (normal, physical) space. Which is a pretty similar proportion, and that is nice, because it means that you are consistent in your voting :)

The second winning option is "nobody knows".

Also, 26 votes for Everlasting Darkness not being true (at least mostly), 170 for it being real and rather precise, 21 for vegue options, 10 for a custom answer. (TBH, I may be misinterpreting some of the votes here, the options were sometimes fuzzy.)

As to how Feanor learned about it, there is no clear winner. "Directly from Melkor" (did they even talk this much?) + "it is an originally elven concept" are tied on the first place, with "indirectly from Melkor" just a stap behind them.

If I were to create a HC matching the poll, I would say Melkor told Fenor and other Elves about the Void, but the name "Everlasting Darkness" was something present in their culture from the beginning (because they're focused on stars etc) and those two concepts merged into one.

In the first poll, there were 33.3% (25 votes) for the concept coming from Melkor. In the second poll, only 1.9% (5 votes) for "Melkor made it up", so apparently he spoke about it but didn't make it up. He was at least partially telling the truth. This happens sometimes.

Detailed votes:

What is the Everlasting Darkness?

the void but it's not outer space: 114 votes.

nobody* really knows, but it's real, Feanor said it in something like foresight: 36 votes.

the void = outer space: 33 votes.

hell (in at least vaguely Christian sense): 14 votes.

not real, a concept Feanor made up: 13 votes.

a vague/corrupted idea about where Men go: 11 votes.

some other general suffering: 10 votes.

nuanced answer in comments: 10 votes.

a figure of speech: 6 votes.

halls of Mandos but permanent: 6 votes.

not real, a concept Melkor made up: 5 votes.

not real, a concept someone else made up: 2 votes.

Where did Feanor got the idea of Everlasting Darkness from?

It's elven culture/belief, uninspired by any Ainur: 13 votes.

From Melkor (directly): 13 votes.

Just a figure of speech meaning general suffering and doom: 10 votes.

From legit Ainur + some misconceptions by Melkor (directly or not): 10 votes.

From some legit Ainur (directly): 8 votes.

His own philosophical concept: 5 votes.

From some legit Ainur (via other elves): 3 votes.

Nuanced answer in comments: 1 vote.

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

Inspired by @eri-pl: Comment with the songs you associate with the Silmarillion. (Alternatively, the songs you would sing if you were trying to save a lost friend, Fingon-style). These will be placed against each other in a series of polls to find an absolute winner. Thank you.

Edit: Submissions now closed.