About a month ago, I found copies of Morgoth's Ring and The War of the Jewels in a local used bookstore after many years of looking for used editions, and immediately snatched them up to go with the copy of Peoples of Middle-earth and the LOTR drafts I've had for years.
I don't have The Fall of Gondolin, but even so, I was kind of fascinated by the different variants of the story Tolkien was coming up with until very late in his life. Christopher Tolkien could pretty authoritatively date some of the revisions to the 70s based on the typewriter his father was using, and iirc it was the last First Age material (JRR) Tolkien worked on, and he seemed to really think he could get it done after not touching it for 20 years.
But between the different texts that I do have, there are so many different versions and ideas for the Maeglin backstory that it's pretty wild.
Eöl was captured by Morgoth at some point and his skills made him useful enough in Angband that he got some limited privileges among the slaves and prisoners there, and also he learned some of his craftmanship because he was there. He either escaped because of this or """escaped""" (unconsciously a tool of Morgoth still). JRRT really liked this idea on a narrative level but rejected it for being too similar to Maeglin's own story.
Eöl was a Sindarin relative of Thingol's but had always been a hater in general, and left Doriath out of some mixture of personal antagonism and not wanting to be limited by the Girdle of Melian. His incredible craftmanship had nothing to do with Angband; he advanced his skills through his friendship with the dwarves.
Or maybe he was never one of the people of Doriath, actually, but akin in a looser sense of the broader Sindarin kinship group. He was, incidentally, wrong about the Noldor stealing Sindarin lands; the Sindar weren't occupying those particular lands in the first place.
Eöl was actually a Noldo who refused the final step of the journey and trapped/misled a young Aredhel before the Noldor ever even got to the Undying Lands (thus denying her the sight of the Two Trees). The Valinorean Noldor look down on him for being personally a loser, but there's no racial subtext to it.
Separately from any of this, Tolkien keeps confusing the exact generations that the Nolofinweans and Fëanorians belong to, so there's a draft where Aredhel is accidentally moved up a generation and Eöl regards Curufin and Celegorm as his shitty nephews.
JRRT wrote a whole passage about Curufin's motives in his interactions with Eöl, what he knew or guessed at what point about just who Eöl's mysterious wife was, and the importance of showing the better side of Curufin's character (given how awful he usually is, esp in Beren and Lúthien's story) in his relationship to Aredhel and his distaste for Eöl, even if he remains arrogant. Although Curufin unfortunately doesn't choose murder on that specific occasion, his annoyance with Eöl does cause significant delay that buys some time for Aredhel and Maeglin's escape.
There's more, but those are things I found interesting!
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do you ever go back to the like crazy mv just to take a moment to appreciate how purposeful the casting of jimin's female foil was? i wonder how many photos they looked through before they found a bone structure similar enough you might mistake it at first glance. the small, delicate nose, puffy lips, soft cheeks over a sharp jaw. she is so intentionally another version of him, this reflection of opposite and self, even if we only ever get quick, dreamy glimpses of her actual face.
everything about this music video is such a good example of show, don't tell in storytelling and it's a perfect accompaniment to the song itself. gosh, i love it. (and by it, i mean park jimin) 🩵
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what is your favourite clois scene?
I honestly love all their interactions so much that I couldn't even decide on my top five, so I'll just talk about their opening scene in booster because I keep thinking about it and it really captures one of the main reasons I love them so much.
So they're both in transitional periods of their lives, with Clark trying to create a new persona for himself and Lois working towards a promotion, and they're just so... invested and supportive about it?? Lois is helping Clark with his body language and reassures him because he's feeling insecure but then he's like "forget about ME Lois you're up for that promotion!!!" and you can see on his face how proud and excited about it he is like, he's really her biggest cheerleader and I'm😭😭😭
They're best friends and they're in love and above all else they just genuinely want to see each other thrive and be happy and grow into the best versions of themselves and it makes me want to collapse on the floor in tears.
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