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valacirya · 19 days ago

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Probably a question that's been asked before but, what are your thoughts about the Valar, I guess Manwë is particular.

It's a mixed bag from what I've seen, people saying they did too little, not caring for men enough to confront melkor and aid them the first time they woke up.

Manwë' naiveté in regards to the releasing of Melkor or my personal favourite from vixen, the whole punitive Vs restorative justice thing going on in regards to the Noldor leaving the blessed realm.

Reading your analysis'/takes & metas is really eye opening, so many topics I'm ashamed to admit I have a surface level understanding of.

(sorry for any grammar issues, English is not my first language)

well, in the words of douglas adams, i think the valar are "mostly harmless"

i'll let tolkien speak for this -

Moreover, ye misrepresent and exaggerate the workings of the Ban and so call in question its justice. As far as concerns the Ñoldor, they obtained precisely what they demanded: freedom from the sovereignty of Manwë, and therefore also from any protection or assistance by the Valar, or indeed any meddling with their affairs. They had been advised and solemnly taught by Manwë to what straits and griefs they would come, relying only on their own wisdom and power. They rejected him; and even before they had finally left the West Lands and reached Middle-earth, they did hideous deeds of robbery and bloodshed and treachery.Then a large number of the Ñoldor, who had taken no part in this, went back to Valinor, and sought pardon and were granted it. Those that did not do so, even if not personally slayers, must share the blood guilt, if they accepted the freedom gained by it. That none of the Ñoldor should be allowed again to dwell in bodily form was an inevitable consequence. That none of the Valar or Maiar should appear in their lands to aid them was also inevitable. But it is not said that Manwë abandoned them, peoples over whom he had been appointed by Eru to be a vice-regent. His messengers could come from Valinor and did so, and though in disguised form and issuing no commands, they intervened in certain desperate events. - Manwe's Ban in Part III of The Nature of Middle Earth

TL;DR: local Noldor reject Valar and go to claim Middle Earth for themselves. Frankly, the Doom as exile for the Kinslaying is like. I know its easy for us sitting here in this time to say there should have been an attempt at something different - but the Doom, when you boil it down, is literally a) the consequences of your actions (you have already begun suspecting each other of nefarious purposes, you are going to be driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy of treason) and b) exile for having killed people. I cannot stress this enough: the Teleri were killed, Feanor deliberated and decided to steal those ships and any attempt to stop them was met with actual escalation into an outright slaughter. The Noldor had swords. The Teleri mostly had bows and arrows. This is all canon! The Noldor later are perfectly happy to set down far more punitive justice, so all this grousing just feels like grousing about them facing consequences for some truly horrifying violence.

As for reconciliation - I think for the reconciliation to be possible, for restorative justice to be possible, the Noldor would also have to be willing to subject themselves to it. This means the Noldor would not have to think of themselves as above the other Elves - Feanor, when Olwe denies him the ships, outright tells him the Teleri would be loitering on the beaches in huts, if not for the Noldor. He is approaching them already with a) an air of highly racialised superiority and b) an air of entitlement, therefore, to the works of their hands for his quest - regardless of whether or not they're interested in it. Meanwhile, the lands they want to go and seize for themselves are populated by fellow Elves - and they have to know it, considering some of them have kin still on hither shores. Their entire self-concept at the time of the Kinslaying is one that elevates them above the other Elves and which dehumanises them and which sees them as subjects to be ruled. Their entire project revolves around going to Middle Earth to seize Arda back from Men. So while we can talk about how the Valar should have opted for restorative justice, my question is: how? It requires a meeting in the middle that the Noldor are not willing to do at that point in time, especially not the Feanorians - and exile from the community is a fairly bog standard punishment for someone who commits a community-violating act.

What happens as a consequence of this, however, is that the Sindar & other inhabitants suffer as a result of the actions of the Noldor, for one, but for another, from Myths Transformed in Morgoth's Ring:

The whole of ‘Middle-earth’ was Morgoth’s Ring, though temporarily his attention was mainly upon the North-west. Unless swiftly successful, War against him might well end in reducing all Middle-earth to chaos, possibly even all Arda. It is easy to say: ‘It was the task and function of the Elder King to govern Arda and make it possible for the Children of Eru to live in it unmolested.’ But the dilemma of the Valar was this: Arda could only be liberated by a physical battle; but a probable result of such a battle was the irretrievable ruin of Arda. Moreover, the final eradication of Sauron (as a power directing evil) was achievable by the destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was possible, since this required the complete disintegration of the ‘matter’ of Arda.

The Valar do make three big mistakes. 1) they remove some of the Elves from Middle Earth, fracturing any unity amongst the Elves & with the later race of Men. 2) they pursue a policy of isolationism, which in Myths Transformed, Tolkien points to as a flaw emerging from an approach of either despair or selfishness -

It had one good, and legitimate, object: the preservation incorrupt of at least a part of Arda. But it seemed to have a selfish or neglectful (or despairing) motive also ... Thus the ‘Hiding of Valinor’ came near to countering Morgoth’s possessiveness by a rival possessiveness, setting up a private domain of light and bliss against one of darkness and domination: a palace and a pleasaunce5 (well-fenced) against a fortress and a dungeon.

In doing so, they make the rebellion of the Noldor inevitable in some ways - and Ulmo says as much, when the Valar make their decision to bring the Elves to Valinor.

Their third mistake is when they exile Feanor, without going through Finwe. Finwe himself calls it an unkinging, if by other means. This is why he goes into exile with Feanor! Now, its sort of understandable why they did this - there is something very shocking in the first threat of murder. I think on some level we're desensitised to this because we live in a world full of ugly violence, but for the Valar, this is the first time they've been confronted with the possibility of murder in a land that is designed to preserve and protect. Emotionally: very understandable. But pragmatically and politically, this betrays the social contract they've established with the Elves in that they have their own appointed lands, the kings rule over their people and the kings are then beholden to the Valar. There is a hierarchy of power that needs to be followed in order for a king to retain his symbolic power - in going over Finwe's head, they delegitimise his power in the eyes of all his subjects.

(Whether this was also done out of a fear that Feanor would have been let off the hook is an interesting question & I think there's something very very interesting in Indis' reaction to Finwe's self-imposed exile that suggests Finwe would not have actually delivered impartial justice in this situation). Again from our modern eyes, exile seems extreme: from the lens of medieval justice & rules which the Silm draws on, exile is a relatively peacable punishment - especially since it seems to have functioned more as a cooling off period than anything. Sort of like everyone getting put in timeout, which god knows the Noldor could have done with more of.

Re. Manwe's naivete with Morgoth - well, Manwe himself is good. He also cannot read minds. If Morgoth lies to him and tells him he's repented of his wrongdoing, what can Manwe do? Is Manwe supposed to punish him anyway, and therefore commit a great injustice - and therefore "fall"? Again, from the chapter Osanwe-kenta in Part II of Nature of Middle Earth:

How otherwise would you have it? Should Manwë and the Valar meet secrecy with subterfuge, treachery with falsehood, lies with more lies? If Melkor would usurp their rights, should they deny his? Can hate overcome hate? Nay, Manwë was wiser; or being ever open to Eru he did His will, which is more than wisdom. He was ever open because he had nothing to conceal, no thought that it was harmful for any to know, if they could comprehend it. Indeed Melkor knew his will without questioning it; and he knew that Manwë was bound by the commands and injunctions of Eru, and would do this or abstain from that in accordance with them, always, even knowing that Melkor would break them as it suited his purpose. Thus the merciless will ever count on mercy, and the liars make use of truth; for if mercy and truth are withheld from the cruel and the lying, they have ceased to be honoured.[14] Manwë could not by duress attempt to compel Melkor to reveal his thought and purposes, or (if he used words) to speak the truth. If he spoke and said: this is true, he must be believed until proved false; if he said: this I will do, as you bid, he must be allowed the opportunity to fulfill his promise.[fn8]

The force and restraint that were used upon Melkor by the united power of all the Valar, were not used to extort confession (which was needless); nor to compel him to reveal his thought (which was unlawful, even if not vain). He was made captive as a punishment for his evil deeds, under the authority of the King. So we may say; but it were better said that he was deprived for a term, fixed by promise, of his power to act, so that he might halt and consider himself, and have thus the only chance that mercy could contrive of repentance and amendment. For the healing of Arda indeed, but for his own healing also. Melkor had the right to exist, and the right to act and use his powers. Manwë had the authority to rule and to order the world, so far as he could, for the well-being of the Eruhíni; but if Melkor would repent and return to the allegiance of Eru, he must be given his freedom again. He could not be enslaved, or denied his part. The office of the Elder King was to retain all his subjects in the allegiance of Eru, or to bring them back to it, and in that allegiance to leave them free.

...The release was according to the promise of Manwë. If Manwë had broken this promise for his own purposes, even though still intending “good”, he would have taken a step upon the paths of Melkor. That is a perilous step. In that hour and act he would have ceased to be the vice-gerent of the One, becoming but a king who takes advantage over a rival whom he has conquered by force. Would we then have the sorrows that indeed befell; or would we have the Elder King lose his honour, and so pass, maybe, to a world rent between two proud lords striving for the throne? Of this we may be sure, we children of small strength: any one of the Valar might have taken the paths of Melkor and become like him: one was enough.

Anyway, re. the rest - Tolkien takes a twilight of the gods style approach to the Valar in that once Morgoth is defeated in the War of Wrath (and Beleriand is sunk), the Valar become obsolete, again from Myths Transformed -

The Valar were like architects working with a plan ‘passed’ by the Government. They became less and less important (structurally!) as the plan was more and more nearly achieved. Even in the First Age we see them after uncounted ages of work near the end of their time of work — not wisdom or counsel. (The wiser they became the less power they had to do anything - save by counsel.)

TL;DR: local overpromoted millennial middle managers trying their best and failing. Mostly harmless, but when the mostly stops being mostly, its kind of Not Great.

#silm meta i love

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valacirya · 19 days ago

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Read a meta of yours (an d a few others chimed in) about the patriarchy of Noldor society (well elven society as a whole)-pretty sure it was about why celegorm and curufin didn't receive any sort of penalty from maedhros and fingon-and I would love to hear you talk more about it, it's always been a fascinating topic (can't really bring it up in certain fandom spaces cause people will try to dispute the whole thing by claiming "but tolkien created lúthien and haleth led an all woman group girl boss!!")

Ah thank you! I will say though, I assume by fandom you mean fandom on Tumblr i.e. ao3 fandom and unfortunately, the reason I started writing about all of this was because Tolkien scholarship in journals like Mythlore are absolutely awful when it comes to analysing the question of gender in the texts, reproducing the same defensive surface level readings that characterise the sort of defensiveness one finds of Tolkien in Tumblr/ao3 fandom.

And I want to say I understand why that happens, but in scholarship especially it means there is no real attempt to engage with a feminist reading of the legendarium texts - or to refute feminist critiques solely through answers related to in-world worldbuilding, rather than recognise the broader meta-commentary being made. The question of Eowyn's fate is one such example - yes there are very good in-universe rationalisations for it, yet we cannot also avoid the fact that the women of the legendarium consistently have arcs that resolve in them being recouped into traditionally "catholic" complementarian gender roles - counsellors, healers, wives, mothers. The ridicule that readings of Shelob and Ungoliant as pathological representations of concupiscent female desire as vast, frightening, devouring, greedy, selfish, deceptive, destructive containing all these very negative associations with "bad" femininity by other means, is also pretty telling and also frankly, immensely childish. These are basic bitch readings in academia and the fact that there are certain kinds of fannish adjacent Tolkien scholarship that cannot handle it without resorting to snide ridicule or defensiveness is very very tiresome.

The rest of this re. gender, patriarchy & the Elves is long because I had a lot to say so I am putting it under a cut.

I wish the problem of patriarchy was a merely Noldor problem, but Tolkien's texts are highly steeped in it, period. His texts in general contain some version of patriarchy ranging from a benevolent patriarchal complementarianism (i.e. men and women are immutable categories where people fulfill specific gendered roles that reflect an inherent inner nature), to the rather more uglier stuff we see in the Silm, in which BOTH the Noldor and Sindar are implicated. One thing Tolkien is very consistent on is that both the Noldor & Sindar have an essentially patriarchal social structure and both groups are implicated in some of the ugliest moments of patriarchal violence in the Silm. Both these groups of Elves have women being superceded by male authority at every turn. In HoME, there are several passages that essentially situate this "patriarchal" arrangement of power as natural and foundational to Elven society, if not actually divinely ordained:

It was arranged – for Imin, Tata, and Enel said men [i.e., Elvish males] awoke first, and began the families – that when any woman married one of another Company, she was reckoned to have joined the Company of her husband. The exchange was about equal and does not affect calculations materially. For the same reason, descent of authority was reckoned from the immediate father; but women were in no way considered less or unequal, and Quendian genealogy traced both lines of descent with care. - XV A Generational Scheme in Part One: Time & Ageing in Nature of Middle Earth

And also:

And being impatient they could not wait but woke up their spouses. Thus, the Eldar say, the first thing that each elf-woman saw was her spouse, and her love for him was her first love; and her love and reverence for the wonders of Arda came later. - Appendix: The Legend of the Awakening of the Quendi in Part Four: Quendi & Eldar from The War of the Jewels

And more in the predestination vein re. women -

But the “First Elves” (also called the Unbegotten, or the Eru-begotten) did not all wake together. Eru had so ordained that each should lie beside his or her “destined spouse”. - XV A Generational Scheme in Part One: Time & Ageing in Nature of Middle Earth

A lot of the reference to the "egalitarian" nature of gender relations between the Elves comes from a recuperative reading of a single quote lifted out of context from Laws & Customs of the Eldar in Morgoth's Ring:

There are, however, no matters which among the Eldar only a nér can think or do, or others with which only a nís is concerned.

However, this is preceded by this highly patriarchal assertion of the roles of Elvish women and men in society viz. the reproductive imperative for women, dressed up in the ideological cover of "making things new":

In all such things, not concerned with the bringing forth of children, the neri and nissi (that is, the men and women) of the Eldar are equal — unless it be in this (as they themselves say) that for the nissi the making of things new is for the most part shown in the forming of their children, so that invention and change is otherwise mostly brought about by the neri.

Similarly, the same bioessentialist attitude re. "women are homemakers; men are changemakers" is reflected in other tellings of the Tale of Awakening:

But three Elves awoke first of all; and they were elf-men, for elf-men are more strong in hröa and more eager and adventurous in strange places. - the version in NoME

But three Elves awoke first of all, and they were elf-men, for elf-men are more strong in body and more eager and adventurous in strange places. - the version in War of the Jewels

But the most telling passage is in the published Silm, in the Ainulindale, and has been the subject of recuperative readings within fandom, away from the bioessentialist gendered reading of "natural" womanhood and manhood, towards one that is friendlier towards trans positive readings - which, again, I understand how this happens, but I also don't think it does us (trans people) any favours to use bioessentialist ideas about the immutability of inherent sexgender to make the case for transness Being Allowed:

But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby.

the "difference of temper they had even from their beginning and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each" essentially situates a highly complementarian idea of gender (difference of temper) in biological fact (bodied forth). I keep saying complementarian, because if you look closely at the Valar, a very specific notion of what "womanhood" & "manhood" is emerges: men rule or judge (Manwe, Namo, Ulmo) or make & invent (Aule) or go to war & hunt (Tulkas, Orome), while women birth or create in this amorphous kind of way (Varda forming the stars, Yavanna singing the Trees into existence, Nienna's tears watering the Trees to produce the fruit that will become the Sun & Moon). Conceptually the women cover domains relating to fertility & growth, light, storytelling & weaving, grief & pity, healing and dancing, while men cover domains relating to judgement, the wind, the earth & craftsmanship/smithing, hunting, war, the sea, dreams and visions (if you include Morgoth, you also have the domain of change and transformation per the original intentions of Eru according to Tolkien). These are highly gendered designations, based, yes, on the gendered concepts of gods in mythologies, but which also becomes reflected in a later passage in LaCE in relation to the Elves:

The nissi are more often skilled in the tending of fields and gardens, in playing upon instruments of music, and in the spinning, weaving, fashioning, and adornment of all threads and cloths; and in matters of lore they love most the histories of the Eldar and of the houses of the Noldor; and all matters of kinship and descent are held by them in memory. But the neri are more skilled as smiths and wrights, as carvers of wood and stone, and as jewellers. It is they for the most part who compose musics and make the instruments, or devise new ones; they are the chief poets and students of languages and inventors of words. Many of them delight in forestry and in the lore of the wild, seeking the friendship of all things that grow or live there in freedom.

Okay, but that's what Tolkien tells us about Elf gender via in-world mythos & customs. What we get shown in canon of the Silm is a whole bunch of women who consistently run up against the limits of patriarchal power - Nerdanel is told she can't have her kids because she's chosen the Valar over Feanor in leaving him during his exile (Shibboleth of Feanor), Luthien is imprisoned in a tree & threatened with forced marriage if not outright rape (Silm; Beren and Luthien)), Aredhel fights Turgon to leave Gondolin (straight up she tells Turgon he's only her brother and has no authority over her) is tricked into marriage by a husband who resents her people and treats her like a possession while her cousins argue over her in possessive terms (Silm; Of Maeglin), Miriel is implied at least a little to have died because there was no way for her to escape from being a wife and a mother + Finwe wanted more kids (The Statute of Miriel & Finwe in Morgoth's Ring), Melian's advice is passed over in favour of the general Sindar court if not Daeron (Lay of Leithian), Idril is not considered for the role of regent in Gondolin while Maeglin is (Silm; Of Maeglin), Elwing is passed over as ruler/queen in favour of Earendil who becomes lord of the settlement at Sirion (Silm; The Voyage of Earendil). This is all what exists textually, outside the bounds of speculation and of reading into the text re. Elvish characters like Indis, the unnamed Feanorian wives mentioned in the Shibboleth etc.

We are also presented with at least two women characters whose names are striking in having etymological roots in the word for "man" - Nerdanel (this is a hypothetical, reconstructed etymology) and Galadriel (Nerwen; man-maiden). Both are presented in relation to men: Galadriel is as athletic and strong as a man, has masculine desires to rule a kingdom of her own like her male cousins and will eventually undergo a learning arc in which she surrenders this will to power and gives up her kingdom; Nerdanel is framed as an unexpected choice of wife for the prince of the Noldor because "for she was not among the fairest of her people" followed by a description of her explicitly transgressing gendered norms by learning metal & stonecraft from her father & being strong and free of mind. It does suggest, at least, that there are strong(er) boundaries to Elvish gender & that the "women are free to do what they like" in LaCE is conditional on the woman having a strong will (and therefore resisting societal norms and pressures). Both Nerdanel & Galadriel will also hit up against the question of patriarchy. Nerdanel in relation to Feanor as mentioned above & Galadriel from the standpoint of facing a much harsher punishment than her brothers because of her "rebellion" against the Valar (free her but she had way less to repent of even from the Tolkienic question of "will to power" than Finrod did at the dawn of the Second Age ngl), though this is less woman v. man and more woman character v. god / the author 😬

All of which is to say - look, I think its possible to do feminist (and recuperative) readings of Tolkien, because he is a very good writer and therefore, very good at actually perceiving and writing about the dangers & struggles that women face (whether that is sexual threat, domineering (or selfish) male relatives, or broader social structures of power) and he is capable of doing it with sympathy that not a lot of other male writers achieve! But on the other hand, there is a pattern to what constitutes "good" women in his texts. "Good" Elvish women are usually faithful to the Valar, wise, full of good counsel, faithful to & trusting in Eru's plan, resorting to wisdom & thought first rather than the sword. There is a certain level of Good Christian Woman that lies beneath it, though this womanhood itself might take many possible shades. Elvish women are recuperated into this framework of womanhood in order to be "good". This is a troubling and frustrating paradox that is embedded within the legendarium and like, I want to drive home that this is not a Noldor problem alone, but one that the Sindar are highly implicated in (Melian, Luthien, Elwing), and which both Elves and Valar are implicated in, which goes all the way back to the traditions around the Awakening, and the troubling idea that Elf women are, essentially, predestined to be spouses to Elf men. That women have agency within this world and that the text deals sympathetically with them is a testament to Tolkien's authorial prowess. But they are not feminist characters in themselves & the text is not feminist in itself, because it ultimately is built on a conservative idea of gender - one that Tolkien recognises is flawed, but which must be recouped into perfect complementarian balance (the Valar as having achieved that balance v. the Elves who have taken it to a negative extreme).

Anyway, ironically the paper I read that actually articulated for me what I was seeing in Tolkien's Silm text was regular Christian complementarianism in another hat was also the paper that argued that this was feminist actually unlike those narsty other feminists doing silly and hysterical readings and this was published in Mythlore and my god I hate it here

#silm meta i love

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valacirya · 19 days ago

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Sorry if this seems out of the blue, this is a point I've seen like a handful of time on Tumblr & Twitter in regards to the coming of the Noldor into Beleriand, quite a few people see it as colonialism, the point brought up the most is in regards to Finrod' taking of Nargothrond, I really love your metas and would be interested in reading your thoughts on this. (Also congrats on getting your blog back ☺️)

thanks anon!!

SO, lol, I actually avoid talking about this topic on tumblr but now is as good a time as any to try and arrange my thoughts!

The super short answer is that the episode ft. Finrod & the Petty Dwarves is basically the most textbook case of colonialism you can have in a book written by an author in the colonial period who a) possesses colonial biases, b) whose biases are very obviously present in the text and c) whose biases are very obviously rationalised in the text, often using motifs and ideas that are very nakedly drawn from colonial discourses of the 19th & early 20th century.

Longer answer: well, first I want to complicate the case of Noldor colonialism a little bit, because I think there's a tendency to flatten them into a very neat unilinear relationship, when the text presents something that is... both troubling and also slightly more multipolar.

Firstly, the Noldor going to Beleriand is very straightforwardly a colonial project of conquest & I don't feel any qualms about calling Feanor a proto-ethnonationalist. His speech covers it all: a tyrannical enemy that is simultaneously both weak & strong (the Valar), an eternal war of conquest for a golden age (for the Silmarils & against Morgoth), a promised golden age (the beauty & bliss of Arda, lords of the Unsullied Light), return to the glorious past (the waters of Cuivenen), birthright (our forefathers) and conquest (we will be masters of...). Everyone who buys into this speech, is buying into this vision of RETVRN to Middle Earth (to have kingdoms of our own which we can rule).

But secondly, the Noldor do not have an economically extractive relationship with the Iathrim. The Noldor settle the lands of the North, which are occupied by the Northern / Mithrim Sindar. If there is a relationship of economic exploitation & assimilation, it is specifically with the Mithrim Sindar - who do retain affiliation to Doriath, but who also function semi-independently and are semi-racialised against the Iathrim i.e. the Iathrim treat them as untrustworthy spies because their land came under Morgoth (The Problem of Ros in Peoples of Middle Earth). I think if you want a real world analogy to the political relationship between the Noldor & the Iathrim, this would be closer to the relationship between colonial Europe and Japan between the 16th - mid-19th century (i.e. mostly trade, sometimes with unfair terms wrested by force/domination viz. Caranthir imposing taxes on trade between the Dwarves & Doriath).

This is not to say that there is no racialisation of the Sindar in relation to the Noldor, because there very much is embedded in the very name i.e. "Grey" Elves & also, say, in Curufin calling Eol a "Dark Elf", when Eol is a kinsman of Thingol. This is in line with the Noldor political project which positions them as uniquely poised & blessed to seize and rule Arda for themselves.

Thirdly, the other problem is that the Sindar themselves (esp. the Iathrim) have a colonial relationship with another group of elves - the Nandor & the Avari. Both Amdir & Oropher (Sindarin; the latter from Doriath) go east and rule over local Silvan populations. Though Oropher ostensibly adopts their "tradition" to attempt to return to a state of Elvish existence before the Valar invited them to go west, Tolkien also notes, in Unfinished Tales -

Under the leadership of these [Sindar + Noldor] they became again ordered folk and increased in wisdom.

and

The Silvan Elves had invented no forms of writing, and those who learned this art from the Sindar wrote in Sindarin as well as they could. By the end of the Third Age the Silvan tongues had probably ceased to be spoken in the two regions that had importance at the time of the War of the Ring...

But fourthly, the reason we avoid the implication of colonial land theft from the Iathrim is because of the First Battle of Beleriand - where Morgoth assaults the Sindar, forcing them to retreat into what becomes Doriath. The lands the Noldor possess in the North are empty because of an authorial narrative device that both presents Noldor intervention as necessary to preserve the Iathrim & which simultaneously frees them of too much of the taint of colonial land theft. This is a very common exculpatory device and one which also repeats some of the tropes of the colonial idea of terra nullius particularly evident in Maedhros' response to Thingol's 'granting' of lands - A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain. Thingol does but grant us lands where his power does not run.

I think it's useful to keep these intra-Elvish tensions & racialisations in mind because it complicates figures like Fingolfin, Fingon, Maedhros, Thingol & more accurately describes their relationships with each other. It also complicates the narrative of Noldor colonialism & implicates the Sindar in a colonial project of their own. And ironically, it also means that with the Petty Dwarves, we come to what is actually, canonically the most clear-cut form of colonisation in the text and which consistently remains the same across the many versions of the tale - and it implicates Finrod, who is otherwise treated as someone who fosters intra-racial friendships in a way that his Feanorian cousins are significantly less successful at. This is already long, so I'm putting the rest of it beneath the cut.

In The Shaping of Middle Earth the founding of Nargothrond is still taking shape - there are variants in which Celegorm & Curufin establish it after the Bragollach & where Finrod establishes it after the Bragollach, both of which can be regarded as extremely early drafts that are inconsistent with the more formalised drafts that appear later. Because of this lack of detail, I won't be including them in this. Morgoth's Ring also includes no details about the founding of Nargothrond.

In the published Silmarillion, we are presented very straightforwardly with the fact that Finrod has founded Nargothrond with the help of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains + information from Thingol & that he is not the first occupant of this cave system. Noldor, Sindar & "Great" Dwarves are all implicated in some form or the other in the act that follows, which later on in the Silmarillion we learn Mim, the Petty Dwarf still resents.

In that labour [delving Nargothrond] Finrod was aided by the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains; and they were rewarded well, for Finrod had brought more treasures out of Tirion than any other of the princes of the Noldor. ... But Finrod Felagund was not the first to dwell in the caves beside the River Narog. - Of The Return Of the Noldor, The Silmarillion

and

They loved none but themselves, and if they feared and hated the Orcs, they hated the Eldar no less, and the Exiles most of all; for the Noldor, they said, had stolen their lands and their homes. Long ere King Finrod Felagund came over the Sea, the caves of Nargothrond were discovered by them, and by them its delving was begun; and beneath the crown of Amon Rûdh, the Bald Hill, the slow hands of the Petty-Dwarves had bored and deepened the caves through the long years that they dwelt there, untroubled by the Grey-elves of the woods. But now at last they had dwindled and died out of Middle-earth, all save Mîm and his two sons; and Mîm was old even in the reckoning of Dwarves, old and forgotten. - Of Turin Turambar, The Silmarillion

This is pretty straightforwardly colonialism, right down to the nasty implication that the Petty Dwarves have more or less died out because of having been expelled/pushed out from their lands. Finrod straight up does not recognise their claim to this land and has moved them out - or else the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains have done this for him. The latter is made gruesomely explicit in the narrative in Peoples of Middle Earth.

Finrod had help of Dwarves in extending the underground fortress of Nargothrond. It is supposed originally to have been a hall of the Petty-dwarves (Nibinnogs), but the Great Dwarves despised these, and had no compunction in ousting them – hence Mîm’s special hatred for the Elves – especially for great reward. Finrod had brought more treasure out of Tuna than any of the other princes. - The Shibboleth of Feanor, Peoples of Middle Earth

Earlier on in The Shibboleth of Feanor, Tolkien tells us that Finrod wasn't just going to Middle Earth because he wanted to explore, but because, like Galadriel, he wanted a realm of his own to rule i.e. that both of them, to some extent, have bought into Feanor's vision of Noldor rule in Middle Earth, regardless of actual occupants:

like her brother Finrod, of all her kin the nearest to her heart, she had dreams of far lands and dominions that might be her own to order as she would without tutelage. [emphasis my own]

In Part IV: Quendi & Eldar in The War of the Jewels, Tolkien actually gives us a lot more insight to the Elvish mindset concerning the Petty Dwarves when they first appeared, which connects with colonial notions of indigenous peoples not really having an official claim or stake in the land they occupy because it doesn't occur in a way recognised through a colonial/occupier lens -

This grievance [that the Sindar had hunted/killed the Petty Dwarves] was set aside, when treaties were made between the Dwarves and the Sindar, in consideration of the plea that the Petty-dwarves had never declared themselves to the Eldar, nor presented any claims to land or habitations, but had at once attacked the newcomers in darkness and ambush.

The Petty Dwarves are also described in HIGHLY racialised, if not outright inflammatory terms, like lmao sorry but holy shit all of this is just an incredible series of racist canards after the other, invoking 19th century ideas of (racial) degeneracy -

The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, who were (it is said) the descendants of Dwarves who had left or been driven out from the Communities, being deformed or undersized, or slothful and rebellious.

In note 7, p. 408 in The War of the Jewels we have this section, which draws heavily on very tropey colonial imagery of the savage indigenous person -

The [Petty] Dwarves were in a special position. They claimed to have known Beleriand before even the Eldar first came there; and there do appear to have been small groups dwelling furtively in the highlands west of Sirion from a very early date: they attacked and waylaid the Elves by stealth, and the Elves did not at first recognize them as Incarnates, but thought them to be some kind of cunning animal, and hunted them.

Which all points to a very highly racialised depiction of the Petty Dwarves, before we get to the section re. the founding of Nargothrond, which once again reiterates their "primitiveness" against the sophistication of the Noldor, when Finrod builds Nargothrond on their dwellings -

The most famous example, after the great dwelling of Elwe at Menegroth, was Nargothrond < Narog-ost-rond (‘the great underground burg and halls upon the River Narog’), which was made by Finrod, or completed and enlarged by him from the more primitive dwellings made by the Petty-dwarves.

I think the version which has hmmm, let's say it has become one of the more "accepted" versions of the tale in some parts of the fandom & has caused some controversy in the past, is the one presented in Nature of Middle Earth -

The tale of his dealings with the Petty Dwarves who still lingered there, remnant of a once more numerous folk, is told elsewhere. But during the years of peace that still remained Finrod carried out his design, and established the great mansions that were later called Nargothrond (< Narog + ost-rond), the cavernous halls beside the Narog. In this labour he had at first help from the Petty Dwarves and their feigned friendship; for which he rewarded them generously until Mîm their chieftain made an attempt to murder him in his sleep and was driven out into the wild. - VII The Founding of Nargothrond in Part Three: The World, its Lands & its Inhabitants

There are some pretty loaded terms used here, given the context above re. 19th century ideas about racial hygiene & degeneration theory, the figure of the "savage native" and the ways in which the Petty Dwarves are consistently represented as literally, inherently morally degenerate represented in their actual physical degeneration. "Feigned friendship" is one, the other is Mim attempting to murder Finrod in his sleep. These are again tropes that are commonly associated with colonised peoples in 19th century literature - deceptive, violent, feigning friendship, but ultimately betraying the benevolent coloniser.

Mim himself is an interesting figure to me because he also shares a name with a figure from Wagner's Ring Cycle - the role Mime the dwarf plays is strikingly similar in places to the narrative role Mim plays in relation to Turin. Adorno writes extensively about Mime & the dwarf Alberrich as anti-semitic figures in Wagner's Ring Cycle in In Search of Wagner & its worth a read to understand some of the antisemitic strains of ideas that are embedded in there - inherent physical inferiority linked to "deficient" personalities, linked to deceitfulness and greed. To an extent, these are also similar tropes and ideas that are present in the narrative around Mim and the Petty Dwarves - again, Tolkien may not have consciously been an antisemite, but he was working in a literary tradition rife with it (if he was drawing on the Nibelungenlied, he would have been drawing on it at a time of rising (white) European nationalism(s) - this also holds true of the Kalevala & other old English myths) and drawing on it at a time where these ideas were basically the water & atmosphere of the average white conservative.

So, elevating this narrative as hmmm. Justifying or absolving Finrod of what he does in banishing the Petty Dwarves - remember, this is not his realm, he is an intruder building on their land - reifies certain colonial (and antisemitic) ideas i.e. that he has more of a stake to this land than they do, that they are doing this out of greed or inherent moral & physical degeneracy, that their violence is proof of this and therefore, circularly, that their violence justifies his seizure of their lands. Its very much still a colonial narrative through and through.

TL;DR - yeah Finrod is very implicated in the Noldor colonial project, and in ways that are equally as ugly if not uglier as the Sons of Feanor.

#silm meta i love

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valacirya · 19 days ago

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are there any mothers in the silm you hc as bad mothers?

🥲🥲ok so not to be deeply insufferable, but i want to problematise the concept of a "bad mother" first before i answer this -

firstly i believe that the concept of a "bad" parent - where bad holds the emotional/moral valence of ethically bad - is one that really should be restricted to parents who outright fail their children in ways that they absolutely have agency over. textually, there are exactly four silm characters this holds true for & they are all fathers - finwe (who consistently shows favouritism to feanor), feanor (who YES FINE he just "requests" his sons to hold true to their oath, even knowing that morgoth can never be defeated), thingol (who straight up locks up his daughter to forbid her from marrying) and eol (who exerts undue if not abusive control over what his son is and is not allowed to do, to the point of attempting to kill him in a last ditch attempt at control). we simply do not have this kind of information about the women to make any inferences about who they were as mothers. (turgon and curufin are edge cases to me in that you could headcanon them as either good or bad dads depending on how you choose to read the textual evidence that exists)

secondly, i think that "bad" as in, "not very good at" exists on a separate axis that does not have any ethical/moral valence - parenthood is an imperfect art, it exists in fraught social contexts with fraught social norms that most people are failing at, people are people and are going to fit imperfectly together in ways that generate friction, or result in people going unseen, which results in failures, including parents failing their children. this is personally what i am super interested in, in terms of mothers in the silm text, because i think there are a lot of possible readings here.

thirdly, there is also "bad" as in "character believes they have failed at this", while they have outwardly done their best - this again bears no moral/ethical valence, but is an attempt to engage with the inner landscape/feelings a mother might have in relation to her child. it may not even be related to what really happened, but like, that is also people - and women, especially, end up with distorted agency where they carry the blame for things that were not their responsibility while at the same time being in low agency situations (and sometimes feeling powerless)

fourthly, there is also "bad" as in "society thinks this is bad", which again i believe has zero moral/ethical valence and has everything to do with the demands and ideas that society holds about how mothers should behave i.e. as endless, selfless vessels of submissive devotion to their children.

fifthly, with this definition in mind, i actually enjoy imagining nearly all the silm characters who are parents as "bad" as in falling into the last three categories, and a lot of the mothers, specifically, as failing at "motherhood" as in the social construct of what motherhood is (especially in a deeply cisheterosexual patriarchal society with a strong streak of conservative gender complementarianism viz. LaCE & details in NoME), rather than failing in objective terms, and therefore trying to reckon with their own relationship with motherhood and their children as a result

TL;DR: I BELIEVE YOU CAN MAKE A CASE FOR NEARLY ALL THE WOMEN IN THE SILM BEING ''''''''''''''''''''''''''BAD'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' MOTHERS

bearing that in mind, some thoughts under the cut -

Miriel - bad as in both "not very good at" but also bad as in "society thinks this is bad", because I genuinely believe that she didn't want to have kids, that she was devoted to her art, but that in Valinor as a queen, she increasingly came under pressure from both Finwe and her social world, to have children (which seems to have symbolised bliss and happiness and prosperity). In a land where there is no divorce and her husband was king of the Noldor, so separating from him would have Not Looked Great (to say the least), and where Finwe clearly wanted more kids, and where Miriel was struggling to be a mom to Feanor, death seems to have been the best way out for all involved. I think its interesting that when she returns to life its for her craft. She doesn't seem to have any interest in reconnecting with family. So, I believe if she had lived, she would have been an ambivalent parent, probably vacillating between loving Feanor and being distant in a way that suggested tiredness.

Melian - bad as in "thinks she failed at it" and also "not very good at", because I think its fascinating that for all that she intervenes on Luthien's behalf in telling Thingol that he can't actually change any of the unfolding of this story with Beren, she really doesn't do much to stop her husband from locking Luthien up, or even to intervene on her daughter's behalf and help her in any of the texts. She seems textually to be a wife first and mother second in ways that ultimately leaves Luthien pretty isolated.

Nerdanel - bad as in "thinks she failed at it" and "society thinks she's bad" because she walked away from her husband and sons when they chose to go into exile in Formenos, and in a way that would very much have been perceived as a snub (i.e. going to live with Indis). But also failed at in that if her sons were involved in the Kinslaying at Alqualonde, something must have grown in them that would have made them okay with drawing swords on other Elves, or thinking that they had a right/entitlement to those ships - and I think she spends a long time thinking about the ways in which she actually failed to spot that growing and nip it in the bud, or else might have seen growing and thought nothing truly bad could come of it. Its not her fault, bc agency ultimately lies with her son, but its also the sort of human thing I think mothers worry about.

I think Earwen and Anaire both have/carry similar feelings/burdens about their children - especially Earwen, who has to consider why her kids would betray her own kin and decide to join with Kinslayers, instead of returning back to her. I think when Finrod returns, she goes back and forth between loving him and being furious/cold at him for that particular betrayal and so their relationship as it is grows pretty uncertain and fraught. Earwen also named her daughter Nerwen i.e. man-maiden, which is an interesting sort of name to give your kid in Gender Essentialist Paradise (and which I think is interesting that Galadriel rejects both her parents' names in favour of one that grants her more personhood / individuality)*

I don't think Aredhel was a great mom as in "not very good at" for reasons I outlined in this much longer meta, but which amount to "Maeglin got his complex about Noldor superiority from somewhere and that ugliness almost certainly came from his Noldo parent". I don't actually think she was ambivalent about Maeglin as a child as some people do think. I think she loved him a lot (I mean, she threw herself in front of a javelin to save him), but I do think she did have a self-absorbed streak evinced much earlier in the text that the abusive nature of her marriage turned from flaw into means of self-preservation - but which also became a flaw in the way she associates the Noldor with greatness, freedom and these high ideals (which we know is not true!) and which also does affect/shape the way that Maeglin thinks of himself and rejects his Sindar background.

Luthien is an interesting mom to me on a lot of levels (and hear me out on this) because like, on the one hand the text seems to imply that she is actively estranged from Doriath & her parents (VERY understandable considering everyone thought it was fine and okay to lock her up in a tree for the crime of being in love with a Man - that too a Man of royal lineage, so not just a nobody). on the other hand, Dior is raised as / or at least treated as Thingol's heir. on the one hand, it could reflect that she let Dior be his own person in ways that her parents refused her, including letting Dior make decisions that she might have disagreed with. on the other hand, Dior was in his thirties at the time of his death & married Nimloth at 27, so he must have been at Doriath before, including in his youth - did Luthien have any say in this? Did she defer to Beren (who seems to be the one retains ties to Doriath)? I think there's interesting scope to explore "bad" as in "ambivalent" or as in, allows some level of the social pressures & compulsions of Doriath land on her otherwise young son (in Elvish terms, tho maybe not Mannish). I personally headcanon her as being on the more ambivalent end - both wanting to let Dior be his own person, but in doing so letting Dior fall to the institution & court that ultimately would have crushed her into acceptable Elven femininity if she hadn't escaped. I think its possible she also felt some level of guilt about it and some level of guilt that she's bequeathing the Silmaril to him, when she knows or guesses the violence it will bring - but which also symbolises the intense sacrifices both Beren and she made in order for them both to be together, in the face of societal persecution, but which also symbolises the moment where her own father treats her like an object. I also think about whether or not Dior resents the fact that they live away from Doriath and its greatness, or has fraught feelings about it and whether that emerges in relation to Luthien. IDK how to explain it exactly, but it has that whiff of liberal parents whose kids turn edgelord conservative because that's their form of rebellion, with all the complex feelings that brings for the parents (especially the mother, who might feel herself to have failed at imparting some crucial value to prevent this).

Elwing is basically a lightning rod flash point for this in this fandom, so please try and read this with grace and also hear me out. Elwing was a child, thrust into a position of leadership under extremely devastating circumstances. She has lived her whole life under the peril of twofold death - knowing that either Morgoth, or the SoF are going to strike her down at any point to take the Silmaril from her - in addition to being a refugee. I do believe that given those circumstances, that while there were adults around her who did their best to give her a stable upbringing (ranging from whatever remnants of the Sindar royal family were there to people like Idril & other Gondolindrim), that she grew up with a fraught & fractured sense of self (three is old enough to form some memories, even if very fragmented and incoherent). She is essentially little more than a child in Elvish terms when she marries and has kids. I think she did the best she could under those circumstances, but the best she could was also, unfortunately, hampered by the position she was thrust into. By that point the Silmaril clearly has totemic and cultural value to the Iathrim as well, in representing the death of their realm & the struggle of Luthien. Elwing is put in the impossible position of having to choose between the survival of her children & people, their symbolic collective identity in relation to the jewel & also her own relationship with her parents & grandparents symbolised in the Silmaril. I think that burden weighed on her in ways that probably manifested in a kind of exhaustion that kids pick up on, but which nevertheless also means that some of their childish emotional needs aren't going fully fulfilled. A lot has been said about her jumping off the cliff, but I think that it occurs at the point of collapse of all these fraught burdens she has to bear when she sees that Sirion is lost (and by definition, almost certainly her children) and that she has failed, in some way, to bear all these contradictory burdens successfully. I think that both her kids recognise this in their adulthood & have a great deal of compassion for her and that's also why Elrond firmly names his lineage through Elwing & Earendil. But I also think it doesn't stop Elwing from carrying some sense of inadequacy and guilt, some sense that might have done something differently to not "fail" her children, or to have spent more time for them (back when it felt simultaneously like each moment was the last and that they had all of eternity).

This is pure headcanon and has zero attachments to anything that appears in canon lol but I think Thingol's Mom was a "bad" mom in that while she wanted the best for her kids, she believed in doing this by Gaming The System and this meant failing her daughter (and granddaughter) at various points because they refused to be "good women" while she did her best to police them back into good, demure cisfemininity, in addition to resenting Melian's influence over Thingol and that at least, therefore, some of Thingol's disastrous decisions were down to him listening to the voice of his mother (either in his head or outwardly) instead of Melian or his daughter. I mean, some of it was also clearly down to him valuing and privileging male influence - e.g. in the Leithian text, turning to Daeron to understand why birds no longer sing in Doriath and what it means, instead of Melian who presumably would actually know????? - but at least some of it was because his mother was whispering sexist nonsense in his ear as well.

I actually think Indis was the best mom she could be given the circumstances, but everyone calls her a "bad mom" because she chose to walk away from the familial clusterfuck that her husband's favouritism plus indecisiveness in naming an heir had created, which like, she's a woman walking away from her adult children who are largely making bad decisions. We may hate that because of the way we see moms as mops for our emotions, but that's actually so deeply valid of her. That said I rly like valacirya's interpretations / thoughts on Indis as an "ambitious" mother which is also treated as societally "bad".

*both Earwen & Nerdanel get a lot more fleshing out perspective-wise in my fic sisyphus, unhappy specifically in chapters 21, 32 & 41

#silm meta i love

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