Back to Middle-earth Month

Title: Ainulindalë
Author: Dwimordene
Rating: T-ish?
Prompts: Day 1: Archetype, Loss of Innocence; Day 4: Down the Swift Dark Stream You Go/Back To Lands You Once Did Know; Personal Insanity Challenge: Huinare’s Socrates prompt (sort of… contextually, I think I have it) combined with the Unity prompt, Aliana’s prompt combo (look, look, genocide doesn’t specifically come up – this totally counts! ;-D )
Warnings: Er… kind of… not the clearest or most poetic thing I’ve ever written about these two. See also summary.
Characters: Nienna, Melkor (Eru sort of)
Summary: It’s all just a Freudian love-fest down here. Update: Now with 3 drabbles’ worth of notes (Help! Somebody stop me, it’s a sickness…).

( Ainulindale )


Notes: 1. The Ainulindalë focuses primarily on the contest between Melkor and Eru, but the other Ainur are never wholly silent until the start of the Fourth Theme, which shuts even Melkor up. Focusing on the fact that the others still sing opened space for me for a more complex, brother-sister interaction sustained simultaneously, particularly since in the First Theme and the Second, some Ainur are drawn to Melkor or confused by him, and drift closer to him before being pulled away again as they tune to Ilúvatar’s interventions. Nienna not tuning her song to Melkor’s but remaining face to face with him throughout is a relationship drawn from Emmanuel Levinas’s work – again (one trick pony!).

2. From being comes existence.: It’s Melkor, Nienna, and Levinas, which means that Heidegger has to be here, since it’s all about the fall…

3. The line that Eru raises his hands in the Third Theme comes from the text: Ilúvatar ends the Third Theme and begins the Fourth by raising both his hands. The most obvious interpretation of this gesture, combined with what Eru sings, is to say that it means “Stop”; but to me, the gesture also evokes the line “laying on of hands,” and so memories of priests laying both hands on or over a child or someone sick in order to bless the person, or holding both hands over the broken Host to hallow it. Obviously, then, Ilúvatar needs someone or something to bless, and why not Melkor and Nienna and their struggle, which will play out throughout the entirety of the Fourth Theme?

4. That barrel song: it’s so much more cheerful than the lines suggest! I had forgotten about that – it’s like a nursery rhymne, full of you know not what threatening or horrifying aspects until you get old enough to start paying attention to the lyrics. Good job, B2MEM crew, your ploy is working!