#i said kinslayings plural because the others came from the oath

[cad-faoi-maeglin]

So I’ve been thinking about Fëanor for the last few weeks and how much I love him as a character. What’s actually most interesting to me though is how much my opinion on him has changed over time and so I thought I’d share a few things!

I’ll admit that during my first reading the of The Silmarillion I was...not fond of Fëanor. He actually really annoyed me. At first, all I saw was a bit of a spoiled brat. Here was this fella, living in what is supposed to be the actual embodiment of heaven or paradise or whatever, who happens to also be a member of royalty (!!!) and he is complaining about not being free??? He rejects every attempt one of his brothers makes at being brothers and friends or just generally on good terms. He’s asked to share this one time, something that would benefit his entire community and he throws a wobbler. Nah, Fëanor was not for me. 

Now, that’s not to say that I hated Fëanor. I don’t really hate characters. It’s a waste of time and energy to hate someone who isn’t real as far as I’m concerned. It was more of a “When will this man stop talking?” kind of feeling. I saw the bad decisions he made and the problems he caused and decided that he was a nuisance whose dad should have sat him on the naughty step from time to time. I just had a general feeling of irritation towards him. You know, “X,Y and Z wouldn’t have happened if you just calmed down for two whole seconds!” kind of thinking.

The thing is, I didn’t stay thinking this way for very long. It comes down to a mixture of things I suppose? I had another reading of The Silm. I read other peoples’ opinions and interpretations and weighed them against each other and my own. But I think the biggest one is probably the simplest ! I simply became better acquainted with the goings on in The Silm. Be honest, who keeps perfect track of it all the first time around? I know for me that a lot of significance was lost due to mixing up people and events (I got Fingon and Finrod so mixed up that, for a little while, I thought this one guy died twice in two different ways! I was so confused...). So, as I started to get a better handle on who was who and when things happened, a much more nuanced understanding of different characters and events emerged for me. Fëanor is one of the characters who benefited from this.

In fact, he’s probably one of the characters who benefited the most! The man literally went from “Oh god, this guy’s on the page...” to “Fuck yeah, Fëanor’s on the page!”. Now, I have most certainly not switched to thinking he’s a poor little cinnamon roll who everyone wrongs and is innocent in everything. Far from it. I’m actually still a little harsh in my opinions of his actions, I have no problem admitting that. But! he is a character that I deeply adore. See, for me, liking or disliking a character has very little to do with whether or not I condone their actions and has everything to do with whether or not I find them interesting. So, of course, once it was out with the pure nuisance and in with the nuance, Fëanor became very interesting to me.

One of my favourite things about him is that I find it so difficult to put any absolute statements together on how I feel about his actions. For example: his family life is complex. Does he have the right to feel upset about the loss of his mother? Of course! Does he have the right to feel resentful towards the Valar for butting into a private matter and thereby forever changing the structure of his family? Absolutely! Is it understandable that he would cling to the surviving member of his family to a degree that other people wouldn’t? Definitely! However! Does that give him the right to begrudge his siblings their existence? No. Does his own grief give him the right to decide what his father does with the rest of his life and how he finds happiness? No. And so, even just looking at his familial relationships I’m already in two minds about him. His feelings are understandable (and valid and are not unusual) and they generally explain his actions but his actions aren’t always excusable because of them. But that’s just what I like about Fëanor! I like that I can sympathise with him while also sitting there thinking “Fëanor, no!”. 

I definitely view him and his actions in quite a grey way. He contributes great things to the world (a writing system, the palantíri, the silmarils) and great heartbreak (the oath, the kinslayings, the silmarils (yes I’m putting them on both lists, fight me)). He is wonderfully dramatic, yet if he took a moment to be a little less dramatic, things may have turned out differently. 

I find his world-view to be very self-centered. Fëanor thinks about Fëanor’s wants and needs, often ignoring those of others. He refuses to break the Silmarils because they are his greatest creation, saying that he’d die if he broke them, coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool, but then he turns around and steals the Teleri’s greatest creations and proceeds to set them on fire. His initial setting out is supposedly, in part, to take vengeance for his father’s death, yet he kills other Elves to do this. He knows, just before he dies, that the Noldor will never be able to take Thangorodrim but he still tells his sons to stick to their oath and to avenge him. Yet his story is so tragic that I can’t just sit here thinking that he’s this horrible person and nothing else. Despite his attitude, he actually had a lot going for him. He (originally anyway) still had his dad. I get the impression that Indis would have been a loving mother had he not rejected her. While not much is said in The Silm, I get the impression that at least Fingolfin would have happily been his brother. Fëanor had a loving wife and seven children. Yes, Míriel was gone, but Fëanor was far from alone. He was surrounded by family! He had a very successful career (if that’s what you want to call it). He lived in literal paradise and was royalty to boot! His life could have been wonderful but that’s not how it all played out. Everything fell apart through a mixture of his own actions and the actions of others *cough*Morgoth*cough* (I also kinda blame Finwë, the great enabler).    

I just find that things aren’t perfectly clear cut with Fëanor. I can sympathise with him for some things, I want to smack him over the head for other things. He’s a very complex character. There’s quite a lot of layers to his personality and situation, especially for someone who’s not actually in the book for very long! I just love that about him. He’s fascinating!

In sum: on this blog we stan a deeply flawed, spontaneously combusting icon!