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b2memB2MeM Prompt and Path: Personal Essay (orange/nonfiction path)
Format: essay/meta
Genre: nonfiction
Rating: General
Warnings: This is a personal essay, so it veers a little deeper into my personal politics than I generally do in my fannish work.
Characters: Valar, Fëanorians
Pairings: n/a
Summary: For years, I've been bothered by the hoarding of light by the Valar behind the Pelori and, eventually, by Fëanor into the Silmarils. In this essay, I consider how the turn taken in current politics reflects some of the same tendencies.
Mountains between the Light and the World:
I've recently been rereading the early chapters of The Silmarillion, and the other day, I also read Lyra's thought-provoking story The Parting of the Ways, a conversation between Finwë and Morwë about the decision of the Avari to remain in Middle-earth. This line from Lyra's story sums up where my thoughts have been wandering these past few days:
I've always been bothered by the Silmarils: not that Fëanor had the audacity to make them but what they represent of the worst of human nature, carrying on a trajectory originating with the Valar, who were the first to covet and hoard light, a gift of Ilúvatar himself. In The Book of Lost Tales 1, light "flowed and quivered in uneven streams about the airs, or at times fell gently to the earth in glittering rain and ran like water on the ground" (The Coming of the Valar). Like most of the details in the BoLT, this idea did not make it into the published Silmarillion, which conveniently skirts around the question of where the light in the Lamps came from:
But the ubiquity of light after the making of the Lamps certainly echoes this early idea. Furthermore, in a late writing found in Myths Transformed (Morgoth's Ring):
This is a mishmash of sources, I know. But what unites them is the idea that light was initially (and ideally) supposed to be freely available to all of the world. It is also at least implied that light had a divine origin in Ilúvatar and was not a creation of the Valar.
What happens, then, to that divine light? Slowly, it is corralled into ever more restrictive spaces; slowly, it is reduced to the entitlement of the few rather than the right of all. Driven by fear, the Valar raise the Pelóri so that, behind barriers of safety, they might recreate what was lost. Afterward, "they came seldom over the mountains to Middle-earth, but gave to the land beyond the Pelóri their care and their love" ("Of the Beginning of Days"). The Elves awake in darkness and quickly learn the terrors of Melkor. When the Valar discover them, they are permitted access to the light only on the terms of the Valar. It is as Morwë asks in Lyra's story: "Why should we have to leave our ancestral home, forever? Why are we told to do it now or never? Why can we not choose at any time, or go back and forth as it pleases us?"
Because the Valar desire control and, with it, the illusion of safety it provides. But with this purported safety comes neglect, usually of the most vulnerable and in need of their aid. The later isolationist tendencies of the Eldar are instigated by this choice of the Valar: the sequestered, "protected" realms of Doriath, Nargothrond, and Gondolin. All of these realms achieve a high degree of splendor, often in explicit mimicry of Valinor, but at what price? Rarely do they contribute their share to the defense of Beleriand; instead, they rely on the Fëanorians, Fingolfin and Fingon, and the younger sons of Finarfin, as well as the native Sindar and Avari (and later Mortals and Dwarves) who do not dwell within these protected realms. These peoples bear the brunt of the assault of Morgoth (and very often the neglect or outright scorn of the chronicler of The Silmarillion is the thanks they receive). In all cases, there is a simultaneous fear and a desire to consolidate onto oneself and one's own the good things in life, to the suffering and exclusion of others.
This hits close to home, especially in an era where popular opinion would have us stop our ears against the suffering of others in the name of safety, when the naked need of the most vulnerable is not enough to stem the greed of the privileged, when nearly all of us succumb at times to the desire to wall ourselves in with the comfortable sound of our own views in others' voices. I doubt Tolkien intended this message, but as I've lately been rereading these texts, it seems all I can hear.
I've sometimes questioned my long-standing interest in the Fëanorians. I am an advocate for peace, and they hardly seem to represent my values in this regard. Pengolodh gives us an exhaustive list of their sins. But one thing they did not do is hole themselves up in the name of safety, nor did they ask others to fight their battles while they stood aside. Maedhros "was very willing that the chief peril of assault should fall upon himself "; if you look at a map of Beleriand, the open, exposed places most convenient for Morgoth's forces to access Beleriand were occupied by the Fëanorians. They took the most peril onto themselves. Thingol hated them, and yet for hundreds of years, their presence protected him.
As I said, I've always been bothered by the Silmarils. Perhaps that sounds contradictory. I am bothered by the impulse to put something that should belong to all into a form that can be possessed by the few. The Silmarillion concedes that "some shadow of foreknowledge came to [Fëanor] of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable"; his making of the Silmarils was perhaps a corrective to the original crime of raising mountains between the light and the world, not to mention the folly of the Valar in inviting the destroyer of the original Lamps to dwell within the safe bounds of those mountains. I am bothered also because, corrective or not, the Silmarils certainly don't allow a happy ending. Probably because a happy ending isn't possible. Once you take what is god-given and hoard it for the benefit of a few, how is envy, greed--how is darkness upon a swath of the world--not the inevitable result?
As an agnostic, I shy from proclaiming anything "god-given." But I do believe that all humans are born with the potential to leave this world better than they found it. Let's say this potential is the light. Let's say that it is shared freely upon all of the earth. What could we accomplish?
I sometimes say that anyone who suffers from disease, bad/stupid laws, inconvenience, the inanity of bureaucracy, anything really; who regrets that 21st-century technology isn't more like sci-fi authors imagined it'd be, should curse inequality. Imagine where we would be if all people had been able to contribute equally to solving the world's problems; imagine the genius minds squandered on picking cotton or scrubbing floors or knowing their place, minds that might have built and cured and innovated. Imagine what we could yet accomplish if we worked actively to grant all equal access to their potential.
Over the years, I've read eloquent defenses of the Valar, and I've tried to open my mind to such arguments. But I find I cannot because when they could have shared the light they'd been given, they hoarded it; when they could have risen to the defense of others, they largely hid away, more concerned for the safety of their pretty things than the lives of others, and if I am to expect more of myself, then I must expect more of the Wise. And this raises a big point that I think the narrator of The Silmarillion misses in his obsession over the ill-fated mission of the Noldor in Middle-earth: that at least they did something.
Format: essay/meta
Genre: nonfiction
Rating: General
Warnings: This is a personal essay, so it veers a little deeper into my personal politics than I generally do in my fannish work.
Characters: Valar, Fëanorians
Pairings: n/a
Summary: For years, I've been bothered by the hoarding of light by the Valar behind the Pelori and, eventually, by Fëanor into the Silmarils. In this essay, I consider how the turn taken in current politics reflects some of the same tendencies.
Mountains between the Light and the World:
On Walls and Greed and the Privilege of Isolation
I've recently been rereading the early chapters of The Silmarillion, and the other day, I also read Lyra's thought-provoking story The Parting of the Ways, a conversation between Finwë and Morwë about the decision of the Avari to remain in Middle-earth. This line from Lyra's story sums up where my thoughts have been wandering these past few days:
"I do not doubt the splendour of the Blessed Realm," Morwë interrupted him. "It is, in fact, one of the things that rub me the wrong way. Why only there? If the Valar have the power to create such splendour, such light, why have they limited it to a secluded place? Does not the rest of the world deserve such light?"
I've always been bothered by the Silmarils: not that Fëanor had the audacity to make them but what they represent of the worst of human nature, carrying on a trajectory originating with the Valar, who were the first to covet and hoard light, a gift of Ilúvatar himself. In The Book of Lost Tales 1, light "flowed and quivered in uneven streams about the airs, or at times fell gently to the earth in glittering rain and ran like water on the ground" (The Coming of the Valar). Like most of the details in the BoLT, this idea did not make it into the published Silmarillion, which conveniently skirts around the question of where the light in the Lamps came from:
And since, when the fires were subdued or buried beneath the primeval hills, there was need of light, Aulë at the prayer of Yavanna wrought two mighty lamps for the lighting of the Middle-earth which he had built amid the encircling seas. Then Varda filled the lamps and Manwë hallowed them … and the light of the Lamps of the Valar flowed out over the Earth, so that all was lit as it were in a changeless day. ("Of the Beginning of Days")
But the ubiquity of light after the making of the Lamps certainly echoes this early idea. Furthermore, in a late writing found in Myths Transformed (Morgoth's Ring):
Therefore Ilúvatar, at the entering in of the Valar into Eä, added a theme to the Great Song which was not in it at the first Singing, and he called one of the Ainur to him. Now this was that Spirit which afterwards became Varda (and taking female form became the spouse of Manwë). To Varda Ilúvatar said: 'I will give unto thee a parting gift. Thou shalt take into Eä a light that is holy, coming new from Me, unsullied by the thought and lust of Melkor, and with thee it shall enter into Eä, and be in Eä, but not of Eä.'
. . .
Now the Sun was designed to be the heart of Arda, and the Valar purposed that it should give light to all that Realm, unceasingly and without wearying or diminution, and that from its light the world should receive health and life and growth. Therefore Varda set there the most ardent and beautiful of all those spirits that had entered with her into Ea, and she was named Ar(i), and Varda gave to her keeping a portion of the gift of Ilúvatar so that the Sun should endure and be blessed and give blessing. (Section II)
This is a mishmash of sources, I know. But what unites them is the idea that light was initially (and ideally) supposed to be freely available to all of the world. It is also at least implied that light had a divine origin in Ilúvatar and was not a creation of the Valar.
What happens, then, to that divine light? Slowly, it is corralled into ever more restrictive spaces; slowly, it is reduced to the entitlement of the few rather than the right of all. Driven by fear, the Valar raise the Pelóri so that, behind barriers of safety, they might recreate what was lost. Afterward, "they came seldom over the mountains to Middle-earth, but gave to the land beyond the Pelóri their care and their love" ("Of the Beginning of Days"). The Elves awake in darkness and quickly learn the terrors of Melkor. When the Valar discover them, they are permitted access to the light only on the terms of the Valar. It is as Morwë asks in Lyra's story: "Why should we have to leave our ancestral home, forever? Why are we told to do it now or never? Why can we not choose at any time, or go back and forth as it pleases us?"
Because the Valar desire control and, with it, the illusion of safety it provides. But with this purported safety comes neglect, usually of the most vulnerable and in need of their aid. The later isolationist tendencies of the Eldar are instigated by this choice of the Valar: the sequestered, "protected" realms of Doriath, Nargothrond, and Gondolin. All of these realms achieve a high degree of splendor, often in explicit mimicry of Valinor, but at what price? Rarely do they contribute their share to the defense of Beleriand; instead, they rely on the Fëanorians, Fingolfin and Fingon, and the younger sons of Finarfin, as well as the native Sindar and Avari (and later Mortals and Dwarves) who do not dwell within these protected realms. These peoples bear the brunt of the assault of Morgoth (and very often the neglect or outright scorn of the chronicler of The Silmarillion is the thanks they receive). In all cases, there is a simultaneous fear and a desire to consolidate onto oneself and one's own the good things in life, to the suffering and exclusion of others.
This hits close to home, especially in an era where popular opinion would have us stop our ears against the suffering of others in the name of safety, when the naked need of the most vulnerable is not enough to stem the greed of the privileged, when nearly all of us succumb at times to the desire to wall ourselves in with the comfortable sound of our own views in others' voices. I doubt Tolkien intended this message, but as I've lately been rereading these texts, it seems all I can hear.
I've sometimes questioned my long-standing interest in the Fëanorians. I am an advocate for peace, and they hardly seem to represent my values in this regard. Pengolodh gives us an exhaustive list of their sins. But one thing they did not do is hole themselves up in the name of safety, nor did they ask others to fight their battles while they stood aside. Maedhros "was very willing that the chief peril of assault should fall upon himself "; if you look at a map of Beleriand, the open, exposed places most convenient for Morgoth's forces to access Beleriand were occupied by the Fëanorians. They took the most peril onto themselves. Thingol hated them, and yet for hundreds of years, their presence protected him.
As I said, I've always been bothered by the Silmarils. Perhaps that sounds contradictory. I am bothered by the impulse to put something that should belong to all into a form that can be possessed by the few. The Silmarillion concedes that "some shadow of foreknowledge came to [Fëanor] of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable"; his making of the Silmarils was perhaps a corrective to the original crime of raising mountains between the light and the world, not to mention the folly of the Valar in inviting the destroyer of the original Lamps to dwell within the safe bounds of those mountains. I am bothered also because, corrective or not, the Silmarils certainly don't allow a happy ending. Probably because a happy ending isn't possible. Once you take what is god-given and hoard it for the benefit of a few, how is envy, greed--how is darkness upon a swath of the world--not the inevitable result?
As an agnostic, I shy from proclaiming anything "god-given." But I do believe that all humans are born with the potential to leave this world better than they found it. Let's say this potential is the light. Let's say that it is shared freely upon all of the earth. What could we accomplish?
I sometimes say that anyone who suffers from disease, bad/stupid laws, inconvenience, the inanity of bureaucracy, anything really; who regrets that 21st-century technology isn't more like sci-fi authors imagined it'd be, should curse inequality. Imagine where we would be if all people had been able to contribute equally to solving the world's problems; imagine the genius minds squandered on picking cotton or scrubbing floors or knowing their place, minds that might have built and cured and innovated. Imagine what we could yet accomplish if we worked actively to grant all equal access to their potential.
Over the years, I've read eloquent defenses of the Valar, and I've tried to open my mind to such arguments. But I find I cannot because when they could have shared the light they'd been given, they hoarded it; when they could have risen to the defense of others, they largely hid away, more concerned for the safety of their pretty things than the lives of others, and if I am to expect more of myself, then I must expect more of the Wise. And this raises a big point that I think the narrator of The Silmarillion misses in his obsession over the ill-fated mission of the Noldor in Middle-earth: that at least they did something.
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no subject
Date: 2017-03-15 07:34 pm (UTC)at times fell gently to the earth in glittering rain and ran like water on the ground
Oh my, how wonderful. I've been writing LOTR fanfic for 15 years but never read the HOME volumes.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-15 07:45 pm (UTC)o I think all of the Silm can relate to different historical events throughout the world and that's the genius in it-it can be applied to pretty much what you want.
o No matter what people say about Tolkien's writings NOT being about WWII, it obviously had a huge influence on him and why wouldn't it, even if he didn't mean it to.
o the hoarding of light makes me think of the blackout curtains in wartime that people hid behind so that the enemy couldn't find them.
o the Silmarils might represent precious metals and jewels that were amassed and sequestered away by the Nazis or wealth that is owned by the 1% nowadays.
o the isolationist policies of certain countries during WWII and other wars (and even today: Trump's policies, Brexit) come into being when people feel threatened (also go back to the blackout curtains).
o there have always been two types of people - those who would go out and explore and make things happen - and those homebodies who like it where they are and getting them to move is like trying to shift an irresistable object (did I get that ass-backwards?).
o even the inequality issue is in Tolkien's writing where there are different 'classes' in his world, some being mightier than others.
o I remember having a discussion with a Muslim friend some years ago. She was/is deeply religious and asked me what I thought of religion. I said I thought it was a way for more civilized people to control the masses in long-ago times when there were no police forces nor any armies. So the leaders of the churches or temples would do it by getting people en masse to believe in and abide by the same laws (and for the most part it was a good thing I suppose).
no subject
Date: 2017-03-15 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-16 01:19 am (UTC)Imagine what we could yet accomplish if we worked actively to grant all equal access to their potential.
This is a wonderful way of expressing it, and so true it kind of hurts to realize how few people seem to share this view these days.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-16 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-03-16 08:33 am (UTC)(This, I suppose, would not go so much for the Lamps, if indeed that was the first case of hoarding the Light--they don't really seem to be part of any tactic of defense, I think?)
I think Tolkien also sees that angle--the moral danger of withdrawing and fencing oneself off--although it seems to be more a thing that he addresses in stray comments and hints than explicitly and consistently.
For the Light in the Silmarillion, there is a sort of happy-ish end, from that point of view, I suppose? The available light is reduced and much of it is lost, but what remains--the Sun, the Moon, the Evening Star--is available to everyone.
P.S. There are also, of course, Varda's stars.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-16 10:06 am (UTC)I don't tend to come to Tolkien for realistic / dystopian politics. (I also write historical fanfic, so I have lots of space for critiquing real-world institutions there!)
Something I love about Arda is the fantasy of kingship: the idea that there could be a rightful king with the hands of a healer, who even if fallible, is honest, competent, dutiful and loyal. It's a lovely idea for those of us who feel we have competence in certain spheres but emphatically not all of them. The idea that you can hand off running things to someone well able to do it, and trust them to do their job and look after you, while you do yours. The idea of kingship by consent: not limiting, but enabling. (A pretty un-American idea this, I suspect, and dangerous, but none the less beautiful.)
I'm not sure I even begrudge the Valar their endless hoarded light. Even the Noldor find it a bit much, and the Teleri chose to live outside the mountains where they can see the stars... The Avari don't have Trees of light, but they do have the stars and the nightingales and the broad leagues of Middle-earth, and those, I think are not made valueless by the existence of the Trees. The Sun and Moon are powerful weapons against th darkness, but for Tolkien, darkness can also be blessed...
It's a good point though that the Valar give up Middle-earth to Melkor, and that is tough on Dwarves and Men. It's hard to forgive them that, and regardless of intention, the Noldor, as you say, do *something*!
no subject
Date: 2017-03-16 02:32 pm (UTC)The Valar, over time, diminish - they grow insular, they remain in their outward hroa appearance, and remain on their small continent. These are beings that had created worlds, and now they wander familiar and dusty roads, rarely even gazing to the East. They could be, and should be, so much more!
I love the essays you've been writing this year. Interesting, coherent, and well choreographed.
- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2017-03-17 12:13 am (UTC)The fact that the Fëanorions are willing to risk their lives (and I'll lump Fingon and Fingolfin in with them, as neither seems to have had a real hidden city) is an important distinction between them and the Valar for me that shows up in my fanfic over and over again. It's a line that I know much of fandom wouldn't agree with me on, but for say, *my* Nimloth, she blames the Fëanorions for her sons' deaths, but she blames the Valar for the entire mess in the first place and because they were willing to abandon her entire people to death because they stayed for Elu. We blame bystanders for deaths all the times, fairly and unfairly. We don't charge them criminally, but we certainly ask why nobody tried to step in.
The Valar, to me, are the ultimate bystander at fault. They think they know best, so everyone should have to suffer the consequences if they don't do what the Valar say to do. And that's a very, very dangerous line to take, imo. There's a difference between say, not letting everybody keep arsenic they bought at Walmart in their kitchen cabinets, and somebody trying to keep all the water in one area where you have to go to a specific place and ask for it in the right way to have water. The Valar and the light seems far more like the water situation to me...
Especially since the Valar have one primary difference with the elves who stay in hidden cities: the Valar are much harder to kill, so they can't even really claim self-protection as a reason for staying hidden.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-17 12:49 pm (UTC)One thing that occurs to me is the fact that hoarding the light is seen as a positive, or at least neutral, act by the Valar -- their reasons for doing so are not seen as possessiveness or greed, but the same thing in Fëanor explicitly pointed out as greedy and possessive. The Silmarils are gems he created, but his choice to not show them off at all times is seen as a bad thing. This strikes me as having rough parallels to the real world too, where artists and writers are treated as though their works have little value, but wealthy and powerful people are possessive of things that aren't even their own creations -- like music labels cracking down on music pirates, or Disney bending copyright laws beyond the boundaries of recognition and reason in order to increase their profits -- and it's not seen as unjust.
I think people have raised the question of who truly owns the Silmarils before -- are they solely Fëanor's, to do with as he will, or do they belong partly to the Valar because they have the light of the Trees inside them?
In the Silmarillion as written, there's no question raised of Fëanor having obtained the light illegitimately -- either he did so with the express permission of the Valar or with their implied permission. If they are sharing the light with everyone in Valinor, that includes Fëanor, even if he is using the light in a slightly different way than everyone else. And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so I think by that we can take the Valar's permission and agreement to use their work in his own (a transformative work, if you will!) as read. At that point, the Silmarils are Fëanor's.
(It's as if someone wrote some, IDK, Harry Potter fanfiction, and JK Rowling read it, and was like, hey, yeah, this is cool. Then by some unheard of disaster, all the copies of the Harry Potter books disappeared from the world, and this fanfic was the only bit left that had any of the books in it. And JK Rowling then says, hey I need you to give me that fanfic you wrote so I can reconstruct the books from it. But the only way to do that is to destroy your fanfic entirely.
I mean, I would probably dither a bit, you know? Especially if, like, the dude who destroyed all the Harry Potter books had also at the same time killed my fannish mentor. I would be, like, PRIORITIES, JK.
I totally get Fëanor. I would be war unending and hatred undying, Oath-swearing, let's get this shit DONE in approx 2.5 seconds.)
no subject
Date: 2017-03-17 12:49 pm (UTC)A lot of the canon-divergent AUs I've written (and a lot of those my friend Memaizaka has written too) make a point of what the Fëanorians do with the Silmarils, once won back. Sunndach (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4741559) defiantly notes: "the Silmaril glinted on top of the highest peak in the mountains of Himring like a beacon – or a star – and was a challenge to Angband and its denizens. It was almost as much of a provocation to all other inhabitants of Beleriand." And of course not even just to Beleriand, but to the Valar as well.
In my Fire In a Flask (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5832067) (mixing my philosophy with my porn as I do!), I have Fëanor talk about his desires for the Silmarilli, long before they are created: "It is my hope that I will one day understand the intricacies of light itself, that I may put light into a vessel, yes, even the light of the Trees! This," - he gestured, taking in the forest around them and their journey to it - "is but the practice, the beginning. [...] Or perhaps I will one day travel to Middle-earth, and there say to Elwë, 'Behold! I am the son of your friend who loved you, and in my hand I bring to you Light! My gift to you is the Light of the Two Trees themselves, a gift to be shared with all in Middle-earth and not as the Valar would wish it, kept for Aman alone.'" I genuinely think Fëanor was concerned about this issue, and that he intended to travel back to Middle-earth before the Darkening. It puts a much better spin on things than him just being greedy and possessive -- I honestly don't think he was, it doesn't match up with the rest of his character as we see it. Slander and lies against the Fëanorians, what else is new. :)
no subject
Date: 2017-03-17 04:34 pm (UTC)