Okay, okay so my Halenthir HC's and thoughts…
A few notes to the Haladin as a people because I think that's very important for understanding Haleth.
— we know they were smaller in statue and dark haired.
— the Halethian language is completely unrelated to the language of the other men.
— women were few and very often remained unwed.
— they were secretive and 'conservative' which I would refer to as isolationist.
— they are connected to the drúedain
— they seemed strange to the elves and other men
— they had a warrior woman culture.
— they were the smallest people of the great houses of men
— before Haleth's father united them they were a scattered people.
Vague relationship timeline;
— they meet after the battle of Ascar after Haleth looses her father and twin brother and becomes leader of their people.
— Caranthir is greatly impressed and offers for her people to stay on the coast of lake Helvorn until they made their decision.
— they probably started sleeping with each other because Haleth felt like sex and got the vibes that Caranthir found her at least interesting. I think she had no clue how chaste elves are relatively to humans.
— Haleth met Maglor because he visited Caranthir (important for my Erestor HC's)
— Haleth took her people and left for Brethil after about a year under Caranthir's protection.
— Caranthir never told her explicitly that he loved her (feelings ewww) but she probably realized after a while around elves how serious those relationships for them are.
— Caranthir may or may not have visited the dying old Haleth, but I like him to have been a little too late to say goodbye.
I think Caranthir almost liked her instantly, although I'm not saying he admitted that to himself immediately. Caranthir feels like the odd one out of his family to me. The middle child that not talented in the things his parents valued and is not charming enough to make up for it. I mean he was still a mighty lord and prince but in the middle of the Finwëan family he was just nothing special.
And then he meets a human woman who must seem endlessly strange and foreign to him. A warrior woman when that's unheard of in humans of that era (and even elven women may be sometimes trained in combat but are not combatants themselves usually.) and someone who stubbornly spoke with him on eye level (hah). I think he felt like he met his person.
I'm not sure if he married her on elvish rules or not, but I'm sure he considered himself married. He will have let her leave with a stubborn determination to still love her forever even if that was his doom. In the beginning he might have rebelled against his feelings, but I don't think that's something an elf can fight against for a long time.
Haleth dying will have made him deeply melancholic and even more disagreeable, the worst thing is that I'm not sure how much of it his brothers really noticed. At that point the war would have damaged their relationships and Caranthir never had a brother he was very close with.
Now to the most complex part.
Firstly I think that Haleth is the epitome of her people, there must be a reason why it would be called the house of Haleth.
I think she deeply distrusted elves and their motives and the way they perceived a short-lived race like men. She will have heard of the doom of the house of Fëanor, she will have looked upon her people's liege lord that had always been described to her as stern and quick to anger and found him strangely accommodating to her and her people. I can't believe that would have but her at ease around him.
She may have very well-loved him or have felt herself able to love him, but I imagine Haleth to be a person that will and would do everything to keep her people safe in the way that she deems right. Staying under the protection of an elf and a son of Fëanor wasn't that.
Haleth believes herself to be able to have decisions about whom she really loves and how she feels those feelings that might have been there. She chose how and who to love in her few human years, and she chose to love her people and be the mother of her people and not the lover of an elf 🤷.
An immortal race of people that has a weird soulmate thing going on with their fëar and is eternally bound to their partner can allow themselves to be all in on love, but humans can't. Humans have to think of succession, the survival of their people, and short-term gain. In all of those things, Haleth was in so much more of a shitty position than Beren, Tuor or even Andreth.
Someone already sent me an ask about how Erestor fit into all of that and I'm going to continue ranting there.
