Friends Don't Let Friends Steal Silmarils

The north wind doth blow, and we shall have… Tolkien Secret Santa 2017!

Welcome to the Tolkien Secret Santa! This is a little gift exchange held during the Most Wonderful Time of the Year™. Everyone who participates gets to make and receive a small digital present from their Secret Santa, which could take any number of forms: a fic, a playlist, an artwork, a poem, a graphic - you name it!

Sold? This is how it’s gonna work:

Reblog this post! 

Fill out this sign-up form so I can make your pairs!

Follow this blog (you’ll get updates, maybe some inspiration/ideas for gifts, if someone asks something relevant you can see that too etc.)

Wait until partners are sent out on December 1st.

Post your small gift any time between December 16th and December 23rd without tagging/revealing your Secret Santa OR you can wait until the 24th and post it then if you don’t want to go back and reblog/tag.

Tag your Secret Santa on December 24th and I’ll reblog your work to this blog!

A few more things…

Please please try and join before December 1st! There’ll be a chance to pinch-hit a gift if you’re late and a partner can’t be found, but it’s less stress for all of us if you sign up by December 1st!

Feel free to drop anonymous messages to your giftee before the reveal! Little compliments, maybe an unambiguous question, something to hype them up before the 24th…

If you want to contact your Secret Santa through this blog, that’s fine too! Just send an ask on anon and I’ll tag them.

I’ll track #tolkiensecretsanta2017 so be sure to tag your gift so that I can reblog it

Do ask any questions on this blog! An FAQ is in the works and should be up shortly. 

Sauron triptych: ‘Dark Lord’s Progress’ Friend / pupil/ follower / servant to Melkor. Teacher / manipulator / traitor / torturer / murderer of Celebrimbor. Prisoner / most trusted advisor to Ar-Pharazôn. By Soni Alcorn-Hender, inspired by 'The Silmarillion’ and other writings of JRR Tolkien.

This is really quite important as a passage here, to me.. it lends solid credibility to Sauron’s argument that the Valar have abandoned Middle-Earth, leaving its inhabitants to solve their own problems and well, suffer and lament. The lords of the west would rather sit and watch from afar upon their peak in paradise whose gates are closed to mortals; for, long ago they brought Children of Eru into their dwelling out of selfish covetice for that which was new and wondrous and when the living jewels rebelled the great ones shut them out to selfishly protect their own untarnished slice of the heavens. The children of their god, set to be their charge for ever, have fallen out of their favor, and Middle-Earth is but a lost cause, a land marred and full of corruption. 

Chapters: 34/?

History of a rebellion

The Great RIver Anduin…

First of all, yes, Simaetha is right - we’re told that there was a “long silence, but Fëanor answered no word”. That’s when Tulkas jumps in with his little “hurry up and choose” thing. Fëanor says that destroying the Silmarils will kill him (and I don’t think he’s being melodramatic or hyperbolic here, I think he genuinely believes that). But then he keeps considering it. When he finally refuses to surrender them, we’re told it’s because of Melkor’s lies - he believes that the Valar want to possess the Silmarils. And he says that if they force him to give up the Silmarils, he will know that “Melkor is of their kindred.”

So - can we acknowledge that the Valar completely drop the ball here? Fëanor doesn’t know his father is dead yet, but he and his people are still reeling from the Darkening. They’re terrified and confused and grieving, and the Valar don’t seem very outwardly sympathetic to that, or even to be acknowledging those feelings at all. And then, all of a sudden, they’re demanding that Fëanor destroy his greatest creation, the greatest thing ever made by any Elf, without any warning at all. Couple that with the fact that Fëanor can’t be feeling too trustful of the Valar at this point, knowing that they indirectly allowed the Darkening to happen by releasing Melkor and not exerting enough control over him, and the fact that they’ve certainly acted very possessive of the Silmarils in the past (because I will never believe that Fëanor would consent to the hallowing of the Silmarils) - well, it’s really no wonder that Fëanor believes Melkor’s lies. (Because Melkor doesn’t really outright lie - he twists and distorts things that are already true.)

So, essentially, with all those factors in play, Fëanor feels very backed into a corner here. He doesn’t feel as though anyone truly has his best interests at heart, or sees his feelings as valid. He feels that he’s being treated like a tool, an object (which is how he’s been seen all his life). And yet. Despite all of this, he still considers giving up the Silmarils, and possibly his life as well. 

Besides the Valar would be asking for his death after having asked that his mother might never leave Mandos again and after having exiled him.

Why should he sacrifice his life and his life’s work for a society that has already asked that much from his family, from him, that is willing to use his works but ready to leave him aside?

Is it ethical to ask that sacrifice of someone when there are other feasible options that might bring about a different if “slightly less perfect” world? Because there are ways to have light again, clearly not the same glorious one, but light enough nonetheless. Were the destruction of the Silmarilli indispensable for saving lives, like penicillin, I would be more conflicted, but that does not seem to be the case, what it seems to be about is, rather, restoring the whole glory of the Blessed realms.

The mere fact Fëanor is thinking about it is a marvel and shows he is not unreasonable or unfeeling. He loved the glory of the trees, the Silmarilli are also a celebration of that, so it is more than reasonable to think him far from deaf to the Valar’s request, despite whatever misgiving he might harbour. Hardly the actions od an unreasonable man. An angry one? A prideful one? Sure, but not unreasonable.

“No, wait! I think I might DIE of laughter! Please, brother help!”