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b2mem2017-03-31 03:02 pm
engarian.livejournal.com) wrote in b2mem2017-03-31 03:02 pm
Entry tags:
A Fascination with A Moody Serial Killer and Murderer
B2MeM Prompt and Path:Personal Essay, Orange
Format:Essay
Genre:Narrative
Rating:PG
Warnings:Mention of death, murder, war, etc.
Characters:Fëanor and supplementary characters from the House of Finwë
Pairings:Various
Creator’s Notes:Tolkien provided the sandbox, I merely play with the bucket and shovel he left behind. No profit of any kind is made from my fanworks.
Summary:What is it about my favorite Bad Boy that made so many people follow him into disaster, committing acts they never would have dreamed of before? An irreverent examination of Fëanor and his history.
A Fascination with A Moody Serial Killer and Murderer
What is it about The Silmarillion and, most specifically, Fëanor, that has pulled at me for these many years? Why Fëanor? Maybe because he’s timeless. He’s a bad boy who wants to do good, but that’s not necessarily all that trips my wires about this complex character.
I can see him in modern times straddling a high-end Harley Davidson or Ducati motorcycle, flaunting his tattooed sleeves designed in tribal images of black and grey, his nipples pierced, and wearing moderate ear gauges. His hair would be shaven short on the sides, falling over loosely on top and long down the back, and, for special ceremonial occasions, the top would be gelled into a Mohawk.
Of course, there are many stories out there that feature that trope/character/image, and they are fun to read and to write, but they don’t perch on my brain the way that Fëanor does. It's when I ask, “How many of those characters feature the psychological issues of Fëanor?”, that my questions begin to be answered. First, let’s examine Fëanor’s history and upbringing because the boy became the adult.
Fëanor is a character who, as a very young child, experienced the death of his own mother - the first death ever in the "paradise" that was Valinor. Elves are immortal and tied to Arda. While Arda survives, they survive. His mother went to the local healing center, otherwise known as the Gardens of Lórien, claiming that she gave everything she had to her son, leaving nothing for herself. She died there without ever explaining to her young son that it was her own choice, not anything of his doing, that destroyed her zest for life. I’m quite sure he can't help but have garnered some feelings of responsibility for her death. As guilt goes, she laid it on thick.
His father, who undoubtedly loved him a great deal, didn’t do much to minimize the guilt Fëanor assumed for his mother’s demise. Although Finwë focused his attention on young Fëanor, he also wanted additional children. So he attended parties and hunts and traveled throughout Valinor in search of another woman to wed, one whom he felt he could happily spend eternity with. Of course complications ensued – divorce wasn’t easy in the society of the immortal Elves under the control of the even more immortal Valar. Apparently, nobody was allowed to make a marital error of judgment within Elven society - once you were married, you were stuck forever, and forever for elves was a very long time indeed.
But Fëanor’s daddy, dear King Finwë, wanted sex more frequently than the occasional casual run-ins with a handy maid or peasant, and he wanted more kids to run around the palace endangering the statuary and pottery. To eliminate possible problems within the Noldorin families, he chose a politic solution - a pedigreed wife from the next town up the road - Indis. It was a good decision, and enhanced relationships between two of the three branches of the Elves, but Indis and Fëanor never bonded as mother and stepson. He always saw her as a social climber and interloper. After she bore Finwë two sons (and two daughters, although they are conveniently swept under the nearest carpet), the minimal gap between stepmother and stepson became a deep canyon of misunderstanding and hatred that sometimes splashed over onto the two younger half-brothers of Fëanor.
So, here we have a young, spoiled, highly intelligent prince who has serious Mommy and Daddy issues. What does he do after the new kids come onto the block? He leaves home in a huff trying to “find himself”. It’s a familiar path – many of the best have trodden it - but he’s Fëanor, “Prince of the Realm”, and finding a place where they just care about the guy, not the title, isn’t all that easy. Plus, he wants to do something constructive, something with his hands. He’s a competent craftsman at the forge, so he searches and finally finds a new place to hang out. He gets a job at Mahtan’s Manufacturing.
Now, Mahtan doesn’t take a lot of guff. He’s a first-class craftsman, trained by Aulë himself, and he already has a very competent intern in the form of his daughter – talented, copper-haired sculptor and metal worker – Nerdanel. The only thing either Mahtan or Nerdanel care about is whether Fëanor can make the next order of nails properly and on time, and how adept he is at making horse shoes. The Prince has a while to go before he’ll be let loose on the better orders or the higher-quality metals.
This “don’t care who you are, oh Prince of the Noldoran peoples” attitude strikes Fëanor as new, unique, and a bit ballsy. He finds himself really striving for acceptance in the forge so he can nab better assignments. Over a period of time he works his way into the position of forge foreman, one step below Mahtan and reporting directly to him. This frees up Nerdanel to work on her own stonework and sculpture pieces and she begins to achieve fame in her own right, carving animals so cunningly that they almost come to life.
While whaling away at metal in the forge, Fëanor starts to look at Nerdanel with interest, partially because of her talent, but also because she’s a rarity – a Noldoran female who doesn’t care about his social position. She wants a friend and/or a lover who will appreciate her for who she is and understand her need to create. Fëanor is a kindred spirit, so they hit it off.
Everything goes along swimmingly. They marry and eventually have seven sons together – a pretty good haul all around. They move back to the capital city, Tirion, where they set up their own household and forge. Fëanor starts spending some serious design and forge time working with the intricacies of capturing light. He’s finally found his niche. He first invents the Fëanorean lamp – they burn cold and cast a blue light without any true flame or heat. He then manages to capture the soft gleam of starlight into two gems which he sets into necklaces. He gives one to Nerdanel and the other to his stepmother as a gesture of reconciliation.
Satisfied with his accomplishments so far, Fëanor wants more. Closing himself inside his workshop once again, he continues working on how to capture ambient light into gemstones or various crystalline structures. Finally, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, he makes his ultimate accomplishment - three brilliant gems within which is captured the light of the Two Trees – the Silmarils. In the meantime, as a bit of playtime, he works on improving hunting weapons, and even designing some fancy armor and ceremonial swords because, after all, who doesn't want to wander around Tirion dressed like a fancy Tin Man?
Despite the gift to Indis and staying away from his younger half-brothers as much as possible, things are not perfect in Paradise. Tempers are lost, harsh words are said, and finally we, the audience, see the beginning signs of what will become a serious episode of psychosis. As a reminder, psychosis doesn’t just appear out of the blue. It’s usually been in the works for a long time and can fester for years and years before finally breaking out. For Fëanor the foundation was his mother’s death and his upbringing by his father who subconsciously blamed him for his mother’s trip to Mandos. The first obvious cracks in his psychological armor become evident to everyone else when he pulls a sword on his half-brother, accusing him of seeking Finwë’s favor and a position over his own. Whether he was right or not was irrelevant; he had broken the peace. The perfect harmony of life under the heels of the Valar had just been seriously disturbed.
The Valar couldn’t deal with this and freaked out a bit. They had provided this lovely haven in the West, protecting the Elves from the evil of their eldest brother. In fact, they had even fought a war to imprison him and keep him far away from the Elves both in the protected West as well as those Elves still remaining in the East. (For three Ages he was imprisoned in the darkest, lowest and most secure chamber in Mandos, chained to a chair. That’s enough to make the most villainous villain even angrier, and it’s not a pathway to mental stability - not that Melkor had exhibited much stability in the earlier eons.) The Valar, however, are hands-off parents. They believe in letting their children work things out on their own while they sit on the sidelines and watch, amused and disturbed. It’s really poor parenting skills.
Fëanor had just pulled a weapon and threatened bodily harm to another elf in the Council halls. Even though his half-brother immediately forgave him, the Valar decided they had to make an example of our favorite Bad Boy, so they exiled him to one of his northern estates – Formenos. Finwë, remembering that Fëanor is his firstborn, renounces the crown in order to join his son in the North. His wife, the infamous stepmother, Indis, decides that her delicate complexion won’t handle the harsh northern climate, so she stays behind in Tirion, and the half-brother who had been the target of Fëanor’s sword ends up with the crown. A bloodless and totally unnecessary coup.
The household packs up and moves north, Formenos is upgraded and a new vault is constructed for the various jewels, cached funds, and most specifically for the safety of the Silmarils. Remember Melkor? He had been released from the basement of Mandos and had been working hard to ingratiate himself with crafters throughout the known world, trying to wiggle his way into Fëanor’s workshop. Didn’t happen, at least not more than influencing his natural suspicion toward his half-brothers and talking to him about such things as “ceremonial swords”. Melkor wanted the Silmarils, their pure light pulled and tugged at him after three Ages in the dark.
Fëanor wised up to this when Melkor showed up at his door in Formenos. The Prince slammed the door in the face of the Vala and then complained about his unwelcome visitor to Manwë – Head Vala and Bottle Washer. Manwë decided he should have a talk with his older brother and started to search for him. For being so all-powerful, the Valar dropped the ball here. They looked for Melkor, but were unable to find him. Really? Here were supernatural beings who literally made the world and who can control things on a molecular level, but they are unable to find one missing Vala.
Fëanor is no fool and keeps the Silmarils behind locked vault doors. The Valar decide to throw a party and have Fëanor and his half-brother make up and embrace as the pièce-de-résistance. Melkor wasn’t giving up, he was biding his time and attracting a powerful ally – a giant spider who loved to eat sparkly things. With Melkor’s help (and a lot of black cloudy gunk hiding them from view), they attacked the Two Trees while this party was going on, killing what might have been the most beautiful things on Arda. After the Trees were dead, the light had died and all was dark over all of Arda. Melkor and the spider moved north to attack Formenos where, since Fëanor was absent, was guarded only by Finwë and a skeleton staff. A short while later, Melkor and his pet spider were hauling ass Eastward over the Sundering Sea to his old fortress, Silmarils and gems in hand, and bodies left behind.
This act of murder and the death of the other parent in Fëanor’s life, was his breaking point. His grief was deep, profound, and completely unhealthy. His torment at his father’s death combined with his anguish at losing the Silmarils – his highest point of achievement – coupled with everyone’s shock and grief at the death of the Trees, caused his borderline stability to become a true psychotic break.
Fëanor focused on regaining the Silmarils because out of all of the things taken from him, they were the only ones that might be recovered again. His father was dead, his mother was dead, and the Trees were dead – only the Silmarils still existed. He was now King of the Noldoran branch of the elves, and his commands carried the weight of law. Law in the hands of a madman quickly becomes a law of Misrule. His subjects gathered in the central square and Fëanor mounted a platform, followed by all seven of his sons. There he spoke “The Oath”.
Basically, “The Oath” was a poorly thought-out, badly phrased, emotional shout-out that enmeshed him and anyone else taking it to spend the rest of their immortal lives chasing and punishing anyone who so much as touched one of the Silmarils. In full, it states:
They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not... ...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession. — Quenta Silmarillion
Here’s where the Serial Killer and Murderer part comes in. Fëanor, in his rush to get to the East and spank Melkor – that nasty Vala who had killed his father and stolen the Silmarils from his vault – made for the docks in Alqualondë, expecting aid from the third King of the elves. He wanted ships and sailors to get his people ferried over to the Eastern shore. The help he expected didn’t come, however, and rather than negotiate for the use of the ships, he pulled that ceremonial sword once again and started swinging it, killing elves. His example was followed by others who also killed and maimed to obtain ships. The small number of deaths that had occurred in the “Paradise” of Valinor was starting to climb up the charts, and it still had a long way to go.
Obtaining the ships through force, Fëanor sailed across the sea to Middle Earth (Beleriand) where he disembarked and began chasing after Melkor. He didn’t succeed. He died himself soon after landing on the shores of the East. But that damned Oath, spoken by Fëanor and all seven of his sons, followed them through the years, resulting in the death of thousands, and ultimately the destruction of Beleriand itself. Fëanor may not have wanted to be a bad boy, but he turned out to be a really bad example for the rest of his family.
Why do I like writing about Fëanor? Because I feel that in many ways he was manipulated to take the actions that he did. Because I think that his grief over Finwë’s death tipped his psychotic break to the point where he wasn’t responsible for his words or actions. Because when he wasn’t freaking, he was a true genius – he was amazingly creative and the height of his craftsmanship was never matched again in the recorded history of man, elf or Vala. How can I turn my back on a character as compelling as Fëanor Finwëion?
Format:Essay
Genre:Narrative
Rating:PG
Warnings:Mention of death, murder, war, etc.
Characters:Fëanor and supplementary characters from the House of Finwë
Pairings:Various
Creator’s Notes:Tolkien provided the sandbox, I merely play with the bucket and shovel he left behind. No profit of any kind is made from my fanworks.
Summary:What is it about my favorite Bad Boy that made so many people follow him into disaster, committing acts they never would have dreamed of before? An irreverent examination of Fëanor and his history.
A Fascination with A Moody Serial Killer and Murderer
What is it about The Silmarillion and, most specifically, Fëanor, that has pulled at me for these many years? Why Fëanor? Maybe because he’s timeless. He’s a bad boy who wants to do good, but that’s not necessarily all that trips my wires about this complex character.
I can see him in modern times straddling a high-end Harley Davidson or Ducati motorcycle, flaunting his tattooed sleeves designed in tribal images of black and grey, his nipples pierced, and wearing moderate ear gauges. His hair would be shaven short on the sides, falling over loosely on top and long down the back, and, for special ceremonial occasions, the top would be gelled into a Mohawk.
Of course, there are many stories out there that feature that trope/character/image, and they are fun to read and to write, but they don’t perch on my brain the way that Fëanor does. It's when I ask, “How many of those characters feature the psychological issues of Fëanor?”, that my questions begin to be answered. First, let’s examine Fëanor’s history and upbringing because the boy became the adult.
Fëanor is a character who, as a very young child, experienced the death of his own mother - the first death ever in the "paradise" that was Valinor. Elves are immortal and tied to Arda. While Arda survives, they survive. His mother went to the local healing center, otherwise known as the Gardens of Lórien, claiming that she gave everything she had to her son, leaving nothing for herself. She died there without ever explaining to her young son that it was her own choice, not anything of his doing, that destroyed her zest for life. I’m quite sure he can't help but have garnered some feelings of responsibility for her death. As guilt goes, she laid it on thick.
His father, who undoubtedly loved him a great deal, didn’t do much to minimize the guilt Fëanor assumed for his mother’s demise. Although Finwë focused his attention on young Fëanor, he also wanted additional children. So he attended parties and hunts and traveled throughout Valinor in search of another woman to wed, one whom he felt he could happily spend eternity with. Of course complications ensued – divorce wasn’t easy in the society of the immortal Elves under the control of the even more immortal Valar. Apparently, nobody was allowed to make a marital error of judgment within Elven society - once you were married, you were stuck forever, and forever for elves was a very long time indeed.
But Fëanor’s daddy, dear King Finwë, wanted sex more frequently than the occasional casual run-ins with a handy maid or peasant, and he wanted more kids to run around the palace endangering the statuary and pottery. To eliminate possible problems within the Noldorin families, he chose a politic solution - a pedigreed wife from the next town up the road - Indis. It was a good decision, and enhanced relationships between two of the three branches of the Elves, but Indis and Fëanor never bonded as mother and stepson. He always saw her as a social climber and interloper. After she bore Finwë two sons (and two daughters, although they are conveniently swept under the nearest carpet), the minimal gap between stepmother and stepson became a deep canyon of misunderstanding and hatred that sometimes splashed over onto the two younger half-brothers of Fëanor.
So, here we have a young, spoiled, highly intelligent prince who has serious Mommy and Daddy issues. What does he do after the new kids come onto the block? He leaves home in a huff trying to “find himself”. It’s a familiar path – many of the best have trodden it - but he’s Fëanor, “Prince of the Realm”, and finding a place where they just care about the guy, not the title, isn’t all that easy. Plus, he wants to do something constructive, something with his hands. He’s a competent craftsman at the forge, so he searches and finally finds a new place to hang out. He gets a job at Mahtan’s Manufacturing.
Now, Mahtan doesn’t take a lot of guff. He’s a first-class craftsman, trained by Aulë himself, and he already has a very competent intern in the form of his daughter – talented, copper-haired sculptor and metal worker – Nerdanel. The only thing either Mahtan or Nerdanel care about is whether Fëanor can make the next order of nails properly and on time, and how adept he is at making horse shoes. The Prince has a while to go before he’ll be let loose on the better orders or the higher-quality metals.
This “don’t care who you are, oh Prince of the Noldoran peoples” attitude strikes Fëanor as new, unique, and a bit ballsy. He finds himself really striving for acceptance in the forge so he can nab better assignments. Over a period of time he works his way into the position of forge foreman, one step below Mahtan and reporting directly to him. This frees up Nerdanel to work on her own stonework and sculpture pieces and she begins to achieve fame in her own right, carving animals so cunningly that they almost come to life.
While whaling away at metal in the forge, Fëanor starts to look at Nerdanel with interest, partially because of her talent, but also because she’s a rarity – a Noldoran female who doesn’t care about his social position. She wants a friend and/or a lover who will appreciate her for who she is and understand her need to create. Fëanor is a kindred spirit, so they hit it off.
Everything goes along swimmingly. They marry and eventually have seven sons together – a pretty good haul all around. They move back to the capital city, Tirion, where they set up their own household and forge. Fëanor starts spending some serious design and forge time working with the intricacies of capturing light. He’s finally found his niche. He first invents the Fëanorean lamp – they burn cold and cast a blue light without any true flame or heat. He then manages to capture the soft gleam of starlight into two gems which he sets into necklaces. He gives one to Nerdanel and the other to his stepmother as a gesture of reconciliation.
Satisfied with his accomplishments so far, Fëanor wants more. Closing himself inside his workshop once again, he continues working on how to capture ambient light into gemstones or various crystalline structures. Finally, after a lot of blood, sweat and tears, he makes his ultimate accomplishment - three brilliant gems within which is captured the light of the Two Trees – the Silmarils. In the meantime, as a bit of playtime, he works on improving hunting weapons, and even designing some fancy armor and ceremonial swords because, after all, who doesn't want to wander around Tirion dressed like a fancy Tin Man?
Despite the gift to Indis and staying away from his younger half-brothers as much as possible, things are not perfect in Paradise. Tempers are lost, harsh words are said, and finally we, the audience, see the beginning signs of what will become a serious episode of psychosis. As a reminder, psychosis doesn’t just appear out of the blue. It’s usually been in the works for a long time and can fester for years and years before finally breaking out. For Fëanor the foundation was his mother’s death and his upbringing by his father who subconsciously blamed him for his mother’s trip to Mandos. The first obvious cracks in his psychological armor become evident to everyone else when he pulls a sword on his half-brother, accusing him of seeking Finwë’s favor and a position over his own. Whether he was right or not was irrelevant; he had broken the peace. The perfect harmony of life under the heels of the Valar had just been seriously disturbed.
The Valar couldn’t deal with this and freaked out a bit. They had provided this lovely haven in the West, protecting the Elves from the evil of their eldest brother. In fact, they had even fought a war to imprison him and keep him far away from the Elves both in the protected West as well as those Elves still remaining in the East. (For three Ages he was imprisoned in the darkest, lowest and most secure chamber in Mandos, chained to a chair. That’s enough to make the most villainous villain even angrier, and it’s not a pathway to mental stability - not that Melkor had exhibited much stability in the earlier eons.) The Valar, however, are hands-off parents. They believe in letting their children work things out on their own while they sit on the sidelines and watch, amused and disturbed. It’s really poor parenting skills.
Fëanor had just pulled a weapon and threatened bodily harm to another elf in the Council halls. Even though his half-brother immediately forgave him, the Valar decided they had to make an example of our favorite Bad Boy, so they exiled him to one of his northern estates – Formenos. Finwë, remembering that Fëanor is his firstborn, renounces the crown in order to join his son in the North. His wife, the infamous stepmother, Indis, decides that her delicate complexion won’t handle the harsh northern climate, so she stays behind in Tirion, and the half-brother who had been the target of Fëanor’s sword ends up with the crown. A bloodless and totally unnecessary coup.
The household packs up and moves north, Formenos is upgraded and a new vault is constructed for the various jewels, cached funds, and most specifically for the safety of the Silmarils. Remember Melkor? He had been released from the basement of Mandos and had been working hard to ingratiate himself with crafters throughout the known world, trying to wiggle his way into Fëanor’s workshop. Didn’t happen, at least not more than influencing his natural suspicion toward his half-brothers and talking to him about such things as “ceremonial swords”. Melkor wanted the Silmarils, their pure light pulled and tugged at him after three Ages in the dark.
Fëanor wised up to this when Melkor showed up at his door in Formenos. The Prince slammed the door in the face of the Vala and then complained about his unwelcome visitor to Manwë – Head Vala and Bottle Washer. Manwë decided he should have a talk with his older brother and started to search for him. For being so all-powerful, the Valar dropped the ball here. They looked for Melkor, but were unable to find him. Really? Here were supernatural beings who literally made the world and who can control things on a molecular level, but they are unable to find one missing Vala.
Fëanor is no fool and keeps the Silmarils behind locked vault doors. The Valar decide to throw a party and have Fëanor and his half-brother make up and embrace as the pièce-de-résistance. Melkor wasn’t giving up, he was biding his time and attracting a powerful ally – a giant spider who loved to eat sparkly things. With Melkor’s help (and a lot of black cloudy gunk hiding them from view), they attacked the Two Trees while this party was going on, killing what might have been the most beautiful things on Arda. After the Trees were dead, the light had died and all was dark over all of Arda. Melkor and the spider moved north to attack Formenos where, since Fëanor was absent, was guarded only by Finwë and a skeleton staff. A short while later, Melkor and his pet spider were hauling ass Eastward over the Sundering Sea to his old fortress, Silmarils and gems in hand, and bodies left behind.
This act of murder and the death of the other parent in Fëanor’s life, was his breaking point. His grief was deep, profound, and completely unhealthy. His torment at his father’s death combined with his anguish at losing the Silmarils – his highest point of achievement – coupled with everyone’s shock and grief at the death of the Trees, caused his borderline stability to become a true psychotic break.
Fëanor focused on regaining the Silmarils because out of all of the things taken from him, they were the only ones that might be recovered again. His father was dead, his mother was dead, and the Trees were dead – only the Silmarils still existed. He was now King of the Noldoran branch of the elves, and his commands carried the weight of law. Law in the hands of a madman quickly becomes a law of Misrule. His subjects gathered in the central square and Fëanor mounted a platform, followed by all seven of his sons. There he spoke “The Oath”.
Basically, “The Oath” was a poorly thought-out, badly phrased, emotional shout-out that enmeshed him and anyone else taking it to spend the rest of their immortal lives chasing and punishing anyone who so much as touched one of the Silmarils. In full, it states:
They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of Ilúvatar, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not... ...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the World Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn or any creature, great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession. — Quenta Silmarillion
Here’s where the Serial Killer and Murderer part comes in. Fëanor, in his rush to get to the East and spank Melkor – that nasty Vala who had killed his father and stolen the Silmarils from his vault – made for the docks in Alqualondë, expecting aid from the third King of the elves. He wanted ships and sailors to get his people ferried over to the Eastern shore. The help he expected didn’t come, however, and rather than negotiate for the use of the ships, he pulled that ceremonial sword once again and started swinging it, killing elves. His example was followed by others who also killed and maimed to obtain ships. The small number of deaths that had occurred in the “Paradise” of Valinor was starting to climb up the charts, and it still had a long way to go.
Obtaining the ships through force, Fëanor sailed across the sea to Middle Earth (Beleriand) where he disembarked and began chasing after Melkor. He didn’t succeed. He died himself soon after landing on the shores of the East. But that damned Oath, spoken by Fëanor and all seven of his sons, followed them through the years, resulting in the death of thousands, and ultimately the destruction of Beleriand itself. Fëanor may not have wanted to be a bad boy, but he turned out to be a really bad example for the rest of his family.
Why do I like writing about Fëanor? Because I feel that in many ways he was manipulated to take the actions that he did. Because I think that his grief over Finwë’s death tipped his psychotic break to the point where he wasn’t responsible for his words or actions. Because when he wasn’t freaking, he was a true genius – he was amazingly creative and the height of his craftsmanship was never matched again in the recorded history of man, elf or Vala. How can I turn my back on a character as compelling as Fëanor Finwëion?