#aredhel and eöl

[darklinaforever]

Daemyra from GRRM reminds me a lot of Eöl & Aredhel from Tolkien. In the sense that both relationships seem to have been primarily distorted by propaganda. “Fire and Blood” and “The Silmarillon” both being a collection of so-called “historical” stories for their respective universes, written by people from the universe in question.

For the Dance of Dragons, it is the pro-Greens maesters who mainly write the story, hating Rhaenyra, obviously because of the misogyny. And Daemon, because of the prejudices against him, Otto obviously, because Daemon is from the Blacks team ; Him being the greatest supporter, defender and not to mention, Rhaenyra's husband himself.

Then, for the story of Eöl & Aredhel, it is said that Eöl fell in love with Aredhel upon seeing her wandering the woods, essentially kidnapping her and marrying her by force. Except that their history is written by the Noldor, including one from Godolin, where Aredhel, sister of the king, comes from, who write the story. However, you should know that one of the important laws on marriage among the Noldor is to ask consent from both families beforehand. Generally, no marriage is refused because elves marry for love and see little point in doing so otherwise. But not asking for the family's agreement is very badly received by the Noldor. In this story we therefore have an Elf, Eöl, who according to the version is a Sindar, or an Avari pimp, who marries a Noldor princess without asking her family's consent, which is necessarily very frowned upon by the Noldor, so the people who write the story. Then with Aredhel's character and it is clearly specified that she could ride alone on her side, it's hard to believe that she would not have run away if the marriage had not been agreed at all on her side. If the girl stands up to her brother the king, loses his guards and finds her way back, why the hell would she let herself be fooled by a stranger she met in the woods ? Add to all this a small note in a text, which could suggest that an Elf would not survive a rape, her spirit preferring to leave her body to join the halls of Mandos rather than undergo that (afterwards this is my interpretation). So if it is a forced marriage there is necessarily rape, and therefore Aredhel should not have survived the union with Eöl.

So, if we combine all of that ; the non-respect of marriage traditions among the Noldor, the writing of the story by a wise man from Godolin and a tragic end, well we can assume that the Noldor who wrote this story were very bitter and saw in Eöl a monster guilty of the worst atrocities from the start.

From my point of view, the two fell in love, got together, but their relationship deteriorated over time to end in the tragedy we know. This is where, on the other hand, it diverges from Daemyra for me in terms of tragedy, because for me, their story ended with a misunderstanding, Daemon having certainly never cheated on Rhaenyra with Nettles, in more beyond that, Daemon having never harmed Rhaenyra and having always been on her side, unlike Eöl who will end up harming / kill Aredhel. (Even if yes, killing Aredhel was an accident, let's not forget that Eöl was basically aiming to kill their own son and Aredhel intervened, taking the blow in his place)

This is all probably a very controversial opinion, but it's mine.

[mandhos]

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

If Tyelcormo had been there when Iríssë and Maeglin arrived at Himlad, no one would've ever found Eöl's body.

Maeglin would also have a new dad.

[anghraine]

In addition to the I'm Guessing Tolkien Had Some Hang-Ups About Pregnancy post, I also ran over some interesting but even more unrelated factoids in The Nature of Middle-earth that even I couldn't justify including in the main ramble.

So I made a separate post about those, which includes my favorite:

Arwen would have been even more exhausting for Celebrían to bear than a pair of twins because: Arwen was a "special child" of great powers and beauty The beauty I got from LOTR, but—without being dismissive about the banner—I really wish we had a clearer sense of Arwen's unique stature in her own right in LOTR. She's presented so much in terms of Elrond and Lúthien and occasionally Galadriel and Celeborn, but Elladan and Elrohir are Elrond's children and Galadriel's grandchildren just as much as she is. Yet here she's clearly framed as special and powerful in a way they are not and which drew so much from Celebrían's (and possibly Elrond's) spiritual reserves that they couldn't have any more children. That seems like a big deal! Tell me more! Epilogue: he did not tell us more

[tar-thelien]

Explayining my Eöl is a Maia propaganda because @dfwbwfbbwfbwf told me to go for it and it made my head do a happy flip!!

Going to keep it to topics so it´s easier to read :)

Kin to Thingol & Residence/Friendship/Smith/Sorcery & Enchantments/Aredhel & Maeglin/Gondolin

Kin to Thingol & Residence:

We know Eöl is a dark elf who´s also a smith and kin to Thingol, who somehow knows a lot more sorcery than any other elf. That could be because he decided to live in an already enchanted forest but with that logic, Aredhel would become known in sorcery too so there got to be more to it.

He was said to be "restless and ill at ease in Doriath" when Melian raised the griddle, might be that Tolkien seems to have Maia be slightly territorial towards each other.

Kin can mean someone married into the family, and if Eöl and Melian is as close as they seem in the books they probably think of each other as some kind of siblings.

Friendship:

Eöl doesn't really seem to mind of the other races, he´s close friends with the dwarves, it only seems to be the Noldor he has beef with, for the kinslaying.

I think the note about the sun is important as a lot of the Sindir seem to like the stars better, although the comment about his servants strikes me, they are said to be similar in nature to him after him being described as a borderline evil wizard, which could either be, if you took a dark turn, that he enchanted them he pulled a Sauron or he somehow "blessed" them by sharing some of his Maia magic or them themself are some sorts of weaker Maiar.

Smith:

He was a smith and he created a new form of iron that was the strongest ever found - "as hard as the steel of the Dwarves", he was not messing around AND he made to TALKING swords out of a fallen star!! Tolkien never again mentioned stars as anything you could hold if you were not of the Ainur, and Aule had a tendency to lose his Maiar... just saying

Sorcery & Enchantments:

In some versions, Eöl is said to rape Aredhel which elvers die from just as a violation of their Hröa, yet she lives on, just as the orcs did when Melkor violated them.

Eöl seems to control Nan Elmoth to an absolute, and not only with what magic reminds from Melian, but he also seems to control growth light and roads as well as openings.

He can also hold stars and give metal it´s own soul.

Aredhel & Maeglin:

It could be he was evil or the Sindir/Avarin has other naming ritual (I do believe that and I have a page here I need to rewrite about it) but he seems to have no idea about elven costumes except from what he has observed Thingol doing.

When Aredhel nears Nan Elmoth Eöl commands the forest to separate her for her company luring her into his forest because he likes her look (maybe he´s just autistic??) where he shows himself and welcomes her to his home which she accepts and then chooses to stay, of her own will or under magic depends on the version, he later takes her as a wife and "they wandered far together under the stars or by the light of the sickle moon" even after he gets angry when she asks if she can see her kin again (not leave him just see her family) where he tell her to "shun sunlight" and after that, it sounds as if Nan Elmoth grows darker.

Note that Eöl too bans Quenya and only names Maeglin after 12 years, for his sharp eyes. And not sharp as in they see things, probably that too, but sharp as in "more piercing than his own" we know of two other characters with piercing eyes, and one of them is a Vala, Melkor, who if you look into the eyes of you go insane soooo...

When Maeglin near the years of an adult he requests to visit Celegorm and Curufin which sets Eöl off he threatends to "set him in bonds" if he does, and tells him he is the "house of Eöl", not Thingol, which seems a bit weird when he does a lot of other things alike to Thingol, as if he´s almost worshipping him, or looking at him to know how to act. If he was as loyal to Thingol as his action is (he lives in the place where Thingol first went on a date at) he would probably had said house of Thingol, as again he is KIN to Thingol.

We also know that Maeglin is really skilled in sorcery and Ósanwë, which some of the Valinor elvers are too, namely Idril, and his skill seems to be hinted to come from Nan Elmoth, a Maia-

Gondolin:

We know no one could find Gondolin, yet Eöl does it by tracking his wife and kid who left a week before him if not more?? there has to have been magic in over that, also he convinces Curufin to let him go - note that Curufin did tell that he thought Eöl was trying to deceive him by magic or just words we know not, I also think it funny that Eöl briefly calls Curufin kin because of Aredhel, but it makes me feel like it´s more to honor a smith than marriage.

Note that Eöl did not find his way into Gondolin, as it likely had enchantments on it, but he knew the way at first guess, and he´s fast enough to catch up to Aredhel and Maeglin when they are entering, even if Aredhel and Maeglin left before him and likely with the fastest horses and wasn´t stopped like he was.

When he cosses death for him and Maeglin he makes it seems as if he´s convinced they will survive, as if he dosne´t care for Aredhel here or that he wants her to live on, but he cares for Maeglin in a corrupt way and wants his son to die with him or he simply knows they will serve where Aredhel will not.

All in all I think it would make perfect sense if he was a Maia of Aule who either followed Melian to Beleriand or Melkor - if he followed Melkor who would later decide he wanted to go solo

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

as someone who has read your fics a lot (big fan hiiiii) and your tags (they're like easter eggs), i am now so curious about your controversial opinions and takes that piss you off because, i mean, i don't want to make a big deal out of it, but you seem to change your opinion on certain characters now hehehe

hi anon! thank you for reading my fics and the nonstop rambling in my tags, haha. i hope you have fun with them! i'm going to assume this is about the silm fandom because i've been rolling out the tolkien posts lately. i couldn't possibly go into all my controversial opinions or all the takes that i hate in one post, but since you're asking i'll give three of each. i'm gonna stick with things i haven't talked much about on this blog, because there are lots of opinions and takes (i.e. blaming thingol/b&l/dior/elwing for the kinslayings, claiming elrond and elros think of maedhros and maglor as their Real Parents, etc.) that i've already made my thoughts on abundantly clear, lol

controversial opinion #1: i don't think tolkien intended this to be the case, but the noldor have uncomfortably colonial overtones in their expressed intentions for middle-earth: 'long he spoke, and ever he urged the noldor to follow him and by their own prowess to win freedom and great realms in the lands of the east' / 'the words of feanor 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. of like mind with galadriel was fingon fingolfin's son, being moved also by feanor's words, [...] and with fingon stood as they ever did angrod and aegnor, sons of finarfin.' these are finwe's family, his son and his grandchildren. there is no way they aren't aware that elves already inhabit beleriand, yet they express zero consideration for what said elves' opinions might be on their sudden arrival and claiming of the land. it is... a Bad Look

controversial opinion #2: according to the narrative, the sons of feanor lost their right to the silmarils. regardless of who agrees or disagrees, that's what the text posits. the silmarils burned morgoth. they didn't burn beren, didn't burn luthien, didn't burn dior, didn't burn elwing, didn't burn earendil, and didn't burn eonwe. they burned maedhros and maglor

controversial opinion #3: eol is not unreasonable for his low opinion of the noldor. eol is unreasonable for almost everything else about him -- he attempted filicide, is at best a creepy stalker and at worst a rapist (aredhel was not "wholly unwilling"... wdym tolkien explain tolkien what do you mean she was not wholly unwilling), and he accidentally murders his own wife while trying to murder his son. like wow, pick a way to be a terrible person. these quotes though -- "all this land is the land of the teleri, and i will not deal nor have my son deal with the slayers of our kin, the invaders and usurpers of our homes" / "no right have you or any of your kin in this land to seize realms or to set bounds, either here or there." -- he's not wrong about the highlighted portions and he has every right to dislike the noldor for the points he brings up. (though he is wrong for believing the noldor are at fault for morgoth, since morgoth would have come knocking with or without them.)

okay now on to the takes that piss me off!

stupid take #1: that thingol and doriath were bigoted assholes that turn away refugees for not letting aredhel pass through. this was not a very nice thing for them to do, obviously, but equating it with a case of refusing refugees is ridiculous. to begin with, the iathrim and the noldor (save maybe for the nargothrondim, whose king -- finrod -- has a respectful relationship with thingol) do not have the best relations with each other, which is hardly just doriath's fault. then aredhel, one of the noldo whom the iathrim have tensions with, wants to travel through their kingdom to visit her cousin, another one of the noldo whom the iathrim have tensions with. (the worst tensions with, in fact, as thingol is markedly, and rightfully, more disdainful towards the sons of feanor in particular.) why is it so unreasonable that this would not go over well? the iathrim didn't force her to go the way she did either; in fact they explicitly warn her that that road is "the speediest way," but that it is "perilous". she had other options and she decided to go with the one that was reportedly dangerous. and on top of it all, aredhel is not in the same dire situation as actual refugees. turgon would have given her ample supplies for the journey since he was already so remiss to her leaving in the first place, plus he gives her "three lords of his household" as guards/companions. how come this instance, which is not a case that concerns refugees, is treated by some people as sure evidence of thingol's isolationism and "racism" towards the noldor, while an explicit instance where he does accept actual -- noldorin!! -- refugees is swept under the rug? oh wait i know. because this fandom loves making doriath into this discriminatory, uniquely nationalist kingdom that it canonically is not. if you want isolationism, gondolin is right there

stupid take #2: that luthien's victories over sauron and morgoth are proof that she's a mary sue. tolkien calling her "luthien the mere maiden" is annoying, but more accurate than the complaints about her being op. she doesn't even fight either of them. with sauron he jumps at her and radiates so much Hatred that she faints, but she manages to cover his eyes with her cloak and make him sleepy for a moment. huan takes the opportunity to jump in and they start fighting. with morgoth, her disguise doesn't work on him. instead she uses his arrogance and lust to her advantage, bides her time, then seizes the opportunity to put him to sleep with her cloak. and when he stirs, she and beren run for their lives in terror! when people say luthien winning against sauron and morgoth is plot armor, what they really mean is that their faves don't have the guts she has to go up against extreme odds and the brains to effectively use what she has going for her to her greatest benefit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

stupid take #3: that luthien cast an enchantment on celegorm to make him lust after her. or even anything adjacent like luthien's maia blood enchanted celegorm though she wasn't doing it intentionally. not even going to bother debunking this kind of thing because it's a genuinely braindead take that reeks of misogyny, victim-blaming, and desperate whitewashing. fuck all the way off

i get the feeling you're talking about the sons of feanor on that part about changing my opinion on certain characters? which you'd be right about, the fandom has majorly turned me off from them. they used to be nearly the center of my interest in the silmarillion and its events, and now, while i still like them as they are in the story, i barely look at fandom content of them because the apologism is extreme and ridiculous. also funnily enough, my ranking of the individuals within the blanket of "the feanorians" has shuffled a lot too. maedhros and maglor used to be my favorite, now i've had enough maedhros and maglor to last me... maybe not a lifetime, but a good long while. (i dipped out of the tolkien fandom about two/three years ago, which was the time i got tired of m&m content. to this day i'm still tired of them.) and celegorm, the piece of shit that he is, used to be among my least favorite and now somehow shot his way up to my favorite <3 he's ambitious. he's charismatic. he's impulsive and arrogant. he's a wreck. he's funny. he's the absolute worst. love him

[welcomingdisaster]

somewhere in the darkness of nan elmoth the housekeeper is keeping the fireplace lit waiting for the lord and lady of the house to return

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

[camille-lachenille]

Ok, idk where I’m going with this but fourth age Valinor fic where everyone get released from Mandos.

Aredhel and Celegorm are besties again and Curufin basically adopted Maeglin the second he stumbled out of the Halls. Celebrimbor loves spending craft days in the forge with his new ‘baby brother’.

One day, Aredhel receive a note from one of Námo’s maiar that Eöl is soon to be reembodied soon and she is expected, as his wife, to wait for him out of the halls. She, understandably, has a huge meltdown, and her brothers are ready to march on Mandos and send Eöl right back into the halls the moment he’s out.

But Aredhel doesn’t want Turgon to be judged for kinslaying or something like that. So she decides to elope. The status of Míriel and Finwë is a very clear precedent that, if one remarried, the deceased spouse must remain in Mandos forever. So, she and Celegorm vanish for a few days for a ‘hunting trip’ and return married. The Valar are tearing their hair at this new situation, fearing Maeglin will turn into a Fëanor 2.0.

I don’t know how it would end but Eöl is stuck in the halls, Turgon’s very angry to learn Celegorm’s his new brother in law (he does concede he’s still better than Eöl) and Aredhel is very smug to have tricked the Valar the way she did, and she also gives a giant middle finger to Námo.

[carmisse]

Celegorm the Fair.

Vána : Your beauty is beyond compare with shining locks of silver hair with ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.

Eöl : Your smile is like a breath of spring your voice is soft like summer rain and I cannot compete with you Celegorm.

Nimloth : He talks about you in his sleep and there's nothing I can do to keep from crying when he calls your name Celegorm.

Celegorm : ...

[foedhrass]

"But Eöl was (…) a tall Elf of a high kin of the Teleri, noble though grim of face; and his eyes could see deep into shadows and dark places. And it came to pass that he saw Aredhel Ar-Feiniel as she strayed among the tall trees near the borders of Nan Elmoth, a gleam of white in the dim land. Very fair she seemed to him, and he desired her."

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

Aredhel: Noldorheart

Eöl & edit: Foedhrass

Photo: Goldiepond

[dfwbwfbbwfbwf]

Hot Eöl Take

I'm going to preface this by saying you're probably a grown adult, so don't be rude just because I have a different opinion.

Eöl and Areðel's wedding was consensual. He thought she was beautiful and smart, even if she was a Noldo. She though he was handsome and clever. He didn't purposely get her lost in Nan Elmoth - Melian's residual magic does that to those who aren't used to it. They did truly love each other.

Areðel gave birth to Lómion. Eöl didn't understand the big deal about names (the Avari tribe where he grew up, far in the east, parents called their children Minyien (first son), Tatyien (second son), Minyida (first daughter), etc. until they were inspired to give them a name. Twelve years? Eöl was Nelyien for a thousand of these newfangled Sun years. But Areðel kept pestering him about it, so he spent a week figuring something out for his Minyien's begetting day.

(That was a strange thing as well, the concept of a begetting day. It was difficult to track such a thing before the Sun and without the Trees, so the "dark Elves" just didn't.)

Eöl taught Maeglin smithing, but he saw his son's heart was more in the mining, and frequently took the family to Nogrod. Areðel got along famously with the Khazad; she quite liked their fuzzy beards. For a long while, they were happy.

But as time passed on, Eöl grew paranoid. He refused to let his family leave Nan Elmoth without him, and eventually refused to leave at all. He tossed Maeglin into trees to learn to climb.

(He thought of Maeglin torn apart by yrch, begging for his mother, his father, anyone, all because of his fear of heights. Eöl needed to teach his son to get over it, or he would die.)

He grew possessive and distrustful, and Areðel couldn't take it anymore. She and Maeglin fled. Eöl, with a sear coated in spider venom, followed.

Remember, the writer of The Silmarillion was a Gondolindrim Noldo who would've had a bias against him.

(I have the word for "son" and "daughter" in Eöl's language as "ien" and "ida", respectively.

[anghraine]

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!

[tar-thelien]

Little drabble of a part of a bigger story about Maeglin just thinking back to his tragic and weird ass life that I´m not sure if I should do as one big thing or smaller chapters :)

Words: 607

---

He had been small. Small enough to have only begun to walk. Small enough not to have been given a name yet. His Emel, though, had decided to name him Lómion when he lay in her embrace, gazing into her radiant blue eyes that stood out vividly against her fresh cut mahogany skin. She would lovingly coo at him as she called him her little Lómion, as her dark unbound curls concealed him from all evil and good around them, leaving him safe in her embrace, as he drowned in her words and embrace. She was always singing to him in a language that he would only understand much later on. After she had left him.

While going for a walk, she had allowed him to venture on his own, resulting in him stumbling, as she prepared their picnic setup.

It was a root that he had not noticed before. He unexpectedly tripped and fell to the ground silently, feeling a sudden jolt of shock as his Emel, with a shriek of concern, hurried to his side to help him up, inspecting him closely. As she rushed over to pick him up from the ground she had noticed the stick spearing his bleeding leg.

After she hurried back to seek help from one of the older Avari shaman to tend to his injured leg, he finally started experiencing the pain, prompting tears to well up in his dark eyes as well.

His Adar had arrived belatedly, just as the night was nearing its conclusion, and the house was going to lay down to rest. With a composed demeanor, he approached his bedside, deftly unwrapping the bandages that ensconced his injury. This tender moment unfolded in the absence of his Emel, who had stepped out in search of his favorite candied berries and pine soda.

Upon his Adar's arrival, he maintained a quiet demeanor, offering no objections as his bandage was removed, feeling no pain. However, as his Adar released his leg and gently touched the injury, to his amazement, the wound vanished upon the removal of the hand, leaving behind perfectly healed skin, devoid of even a trace of a scratch, as though the injury had never occurred. 

Afterward, he lifted him up and moved him to the shared bed of his and Emel´s, then proceeded to find Emel and the candies and soda for all three of them before they settled down for the morning.

"You should give him a name," urged Emel softly as they both gradually drifted off to sleep. His Adar, with a slight frown creasing his brow, tenderly brushed the strands of hair away from his serene face, appearing lost in contemplation as he gazed into his dark eyes. The cold purple of his Adar met the almost black of his own. His Emel had commented on it before with concern. That his eyes were too dark or his iris too big to be normal, that maybe the way he acted was because he had trouble seeing, but his Adar always replayed with that his own eyes had been like that once when he learned of the Rhond, which had done nothing to calm his Emel.

"The Avari does not name their children until they reach an older age. Neither does Thingol.”

As he became older, his Emel began referring to him as Aistanaoainu, a term she used whenever she deemed weird happened around him, "the Ainur are watching over you, Aistanaoainu," she would exclaim with a proud smile, "my cherished Lómë." 

And then they went to sleep, Lómion in the middle safe between the strongest people in the whole of Ardhon.

---

Emel = Mother/Mommy: Sindarin

Tinnuion = Son of Twilight: Sindarin

Adar = Father: Sindarin

Rhond = Body: Sindarin; Quenya is Hröa

Aistana = Blessed: Quenya

O = From: Quenya

Lómë = Twilight/Dusk/Darkness: Quenya

Ardhon = The world: Sindarin

HC explained here

[wayfaringminstrel]

Would anyone be interested in a fairytale AU, where Eöl escaped thralldom by making a deal with Sauron. Years past and, having known the Dark Elf hasn't kept his word, Sauron begins collecting his due. That gets the son involved, much to Aredhel's ire.

[welcomingdisaster]

holiday cards from nan elmoth