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I was looking at Curufin's Tolkien Gateway page and noticed a line that I hadn't before: when describing the Dagor Bragollach, it noted that "In F.A. 457 Morgoth sent a great force, under the command of his lieutenant Sauron, to capture the tower Minis Tirith, which guarded the Pass of Sirion. The fortress was eventually taken and its lord, Orodreth, was driven out where he would have been slain if not for the intervention of Celegorm and Curufin; they arrived with their riders and other such forces they could gather and fought fiercely, allowing Orodreth to escape and retreat to Nargothrond."

I just finished my City Between reread, and I am now fascinated by this idea:

Shortly before book one, North needs something from Zero. Maybe in this AU the kidnapping attempts on Sarah have escalated more quickly; maybe someone else makes a play for her. Regardless, she needs Zero's help and she's suspicious of Upper Management, so she offers him the same flash drive of information in trade that she eventually offers him in canon.

He wants information on his mother, so he accepts.

Unlike in canon, this transaction goes smoothly. He doesn't free Sarah from her contract, but he protects her from the current threat, and she still has some time before her deadline. He gets the flash drive and looks at it immediately.

. . . and promptly discovers some things about his half sister and her descendants.

I don't think we ever got a full picture of exactly what was on that flash drive, just what conclusions it eventually led Zero to, so let's be generous here.

He finds out his sister married and had descendants. He finds out their names. He finds out his sister's daughter died of natural causes at a respectable age for a human.

He finds out her granddaughter did not.

That she was, in fact, one of the peripheral victims he's been largely ignoring in the case he's investigating.

And he finds, in the file, that the granddaughter had a daughter of her own. A daughter that the police file records frustratingly few traces of.

A daughter that might be missing. Might be dead.

Zero would never have dreamed of approaching any of his sister's descendants. He knew all too well what happened to humans he got close to.

He could never have approached her granddaughter. But investigating her murder . . .

Well, he had already assigned himself that string of murders anyway. It's not like he can do her any harm now, and maybe he can at least avenge her.

And the child the police report refuses to name - maybe he can avenge her too.

(Maybe he can find her. It's too risky to put himself in her life, but if she's been kidnapped, surely she'd be better off if he looked for her -)

He goes to the house to investigate. There's something odd there. He's not sure what yet.

A few days later, another of the murders occur across the road, JinYeong finally catches up to him, and Athelas shows up to investigate.

JinYeong questions nothing. Athelas notices that Zero had already purchased the house.

Athelas is not suspicious, exactly, for obvious reasons, though for form's sake, he does remind Zero that he's entirely at his service, and if Zero would rather they not investigate this particular murder too closely - A poor joke, my lord, of course.

And Athelas is quite genuinely poking his nose around to see why Zero was already here and why Athelas failed to notice it.

Zero . . . trusts Athelas. He can probably trust him with this. If the child is dead, he can certainly trust Athelas with this; it's only if the child is alive -

If the last remnant of his sister is alive, and through Athelas his father learns of it -

No. He just needs to pick enough fights to drive the others off without making them too suspicious so that he can investigate the house and its strangeness in peace -

There's a child hiding in the kitchen cupboard. A teenager, she informs him hotly.

JinYeong and Athelas have already seen.

. . . That doesn't mean they have to know. No one has to know.

Athelas certainly can't know, and yet he clearly suspects something -

Pet knows why she's panicking about this situation, but she's entirely unclear about why the giant man with the sword is.

Thank you so much!

I had never heard the song before, but I listened to it just now, and you are absolutely right - it is a very Feanor and Fingolfin song. I especially like the lines about how "Oh, I'll stay here 'til morning/Oh, we can fight like we used to fight." Because the tone is so wistful. It's not a defiant declaration that he's prepared to fight; it's an offer to fight, in the same way someone might offer to play a childhood game again. I always like exploring Feanor fighting with Fingolfin as both a very genuine expression of his anger . . . and at the same time his refusal to let go of the relationship entirely. And on the flip side, I like to view Fingolfin arriving in Beleriand to find Feanor gone and being furious that not only has his brother done all the things he's done, now he's gone and put himself beyond where they can even properly fight about it.

Harry describes the situation in the book as a no-lose situation for Marcone: either Harry successfully takes out the supernatural bad guy and Marcone no longer has to deal with it causing trouble (win for Marcone), or the supernatural bad guy takes out Harry, but Harry deals it significant damage first, making it easier for Marcone to take out, and Marcone can probably get his castle back! (Win for Marcone.)

Which. Okay. Sure. The first one is definitely a win for Marcone, and in the event of the second, I'm sure Marcone would appreciate that the bad guy is now easier to take out, and I don't doubt he would try to get the castle back. It's a good castle. Marcone certainly isn't letting anyone else buy it.

It's just.

If things had gone that way.

Thank you so much!

Hmm.

I think one of people's reactions to finding out he did that (in-universe) is to demand how he did that. He is not supposed to be able to do that. Metaphorically, sure, craftsmen metaphorically pour their heart and soul into their work all the time. How did he literally do that?

(I don't think of what he did as a violent act, a tearing or ripping of his fea, just a sharing. The metaphor made real.)

(People also talk about the eyes being the window to the soul, and it's the Eldar's eyes that glow with the Treelight. I really like the idea that it's actually their souls shining with the Treelight, and that's why Feanaro's the only one who manages to capture the light of the Trees; he's the only one who poured enough of his soul into his work for the light to be able to leave a mark.)

Feanaro refuses to explain how he did it with his characteristic pride, which is an excellent way to hide that he doesn't actually know. He finished the silmarils in an exhausted fugue state. Possibly putting his fea into the silmarils contributed to that state. He does not actually remember finishing them, and he's afraid to admit this.

I do think it plays a role in his ability to being reembodied; for one thing, when he claims it will, none of the Valar contradict him, and they'd have excellent motive to correct him if they honestly could.

I also really like the tragic angle it adds to things because - alright, this might be a weird parallel, but because of the Ryland Grace parallel from The Hail Mary Project.

Hear me out.

In both situations, they're dealing with a horrible disaster connected with light (the Trees in the Silm, the Sun in the other). And it is a disaster in the Silm; it's a disaster on a catastrophic scale.

And there's a potential solution! All we have to do is ask this one guy to volunteer to die for it (three people in Hail Mary, but two of them had already volunteered).

And it has to be them. There aren't any other options, or at least not any good ones.

So they've been backed into this corner where their only options are to be an incredibly noble hero or to make the selfish choice. There is no middle ground.

And they don't want to do it. They don't want to be the hero here.

So what do you do with that? The easy option for everyone else - the one where they decide to be the hero - is off the table. So either you keep pushing through for some other solution, or you decide that "ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves" and you decide to make this an involuntary sacrifice, like what happened to Grace.

Which. I have my share of criticisms of the Valar. But to their credit, that second option is not one that's on the table for them.

(I have toyed with the notion of a story where it was. They get the Silmarils, break them against Feanor's will, killing him but restoring the light . . . and the light burns.)

First: It handles religion so much better than most fantasy, and I appreciate that so deeply.

But it makes me incredibly curious about what he's doing in the Hierarchy books.

Because in his Hierarchy series so far, religion is present, but it's in the background. Caten worships some kind of pantheon; Vis seems knowledgeable enough about it, but he's definitely not a believer, and if there's any mention of Suus's religion, it was brief enough to slip past me.

And since I read the first two Hierarchy books before I read Licanius, I just assumed that was just the kind of worldbuilding Islington preferred.

But Licanius - the trilogy asks Can we have free will if there is an omniscient God who knows the future, and either way, what are the implications? That's the question that's driving the whole series! Not all of the characters are religious, but the ones who are don't just pay lip service to it; it informs everything they do. It matters to them, and it matters deeply to the themes of the book.

So it feels strange to then dive back into Hierarchy and have it be a footnote. Is Islington truly focused on totally different themes this time, or is this something that's going to be explored in books three and four now that we have access to a character who actually remembers the past? (The Cataclysms would certainly have an interesting effect on religion . . . particularly the most recent one on Res.)

(Or . . . hold on. Maybe I've been too focused on Res. There's also what's going on in Obiteum and Luceum, of course, but - hmm. Obiteum's religion has been proven definitively false, and I can see some parallels between that and the Talkanor situation with Gil'Shar - it was a lie deliberately constructed for good reasons, but ultimately only harm could come from someone setting themselves up as an idol. Luceum's situation is a lot less explored.)

Second: As a huge fan of time travel fix-its, it was a fascinating and rather thought provoking experience to read a series where characters are obsessed with getting that chance to go back and fix everything . . . and to explore all the many dark places that leads.

Feanor is thrilled. Absolutely thrilled. He wanted forty-nine grandchildren, and he is now one closer to that goal! (Gil-Galad, for his part, is just. Still bewildered at being so wanted. Has anyone warned Feanor they're not 100% sure on this? He does NOT want to deal with a disappointed Feanor . . . and Feanor has apparently declared no take backs. If it turns out Caranthir's kid is actually someone else then Feanor is claiming that kid AND Gil-Galad. Two grandkids closer to the goal!)

Nerdanel had slightly less heads up than everyone else, so she's a bit more bewildered. Gil-Galad sympathizes with this. She has a dearth of statues of him and decides she needs to fix this posthaste. Gil-Galad assures her she does not. Gil-Galad is not going to win this one.

(Gil-Galad has seen statues of himself as king before. He has not seen a statue of himself as a small child before. His parents are extremely attached to it. He feels - extremely strange looking at it. It was crafted from his own memory and yet - surely he was never really that small.)

(He wonders if he can convince Nerdanel to make statues of some of the other children of the band of mortals that took him in.)

(Nerdanel is already diving headfirst into this new project.)

The uncles are the awkward part.

Celegorm and Curufin actually met him is the thing. They feel like they should have known somehow, as opposed to running a private betting pool on which of their cousins was responsible for him. They were also responsible for the Finrod Debacle which Gil-Galad has a lot of Feelings about.

(For Gil-Galad's part: Finrod took him in, and they betrayed him - in the middle of which, Gil-Galad was of course conning him - and them, technically - and it's not as if he went with Finrod, and he should have, he knows he should have - )

I think that one takes time to sort out. Once things get settled between Celegorm, Curufin, and Finrod, it's easier for Gil-Galad to feel he has a right to sort things out too.

Celebrimbor is awkward for different but not totally unrelated reasons: Gil-Galad spent a lot of time avoiding him in Nargothrond because people kept thinking of them as peers and throwing them together, and Gil-Galad was desperately trying to be alone as much as possible because when he was alone he couldn't accidentally give himself away and get kicked out/executed.

Celebrimbor, knowing none of that, came to the understandable conclusion that Gil-Galad didn't like him.

None of this was improved by Gil-Galad's subsequent guilt spiral over taking charge of the Nargothrond survivors/taking the throne. (He did delegate as much as he could to Celebrimbor! He assumed Celebrimbor knew what he was doing!)

Celebrimbor came to the conclusion that it wasn't that Gil-Galad didn't trust him as a Feanorian on a political level; it was just that Gil-Galad didn't like him, personally.

That one is a lot easier to sort out.

Maedhros, Maglor, and the Ambarussa have a different set of issues: Namely, the memory of all those conversations pre-Sirion where they discussed what to do if Gil-Galad showed up in time to interfere.

Prior to Doriath, there was an unspoken but very clear understanding that if Celebrimbor happened to be there for some insane reason then he was, of course, NOT to be killed.

After Doriath, there was a very clear and very spoken understanding of of this, because after Elured and Elurin, Maedhros is making no assumptions about anyone's unspoken understandings of anything.

But there wasn't an agreement like that about Gil-Galad. Because they didn't know.

So that's . . . painful. And then there's the added pain of - nothing's really changed. He was GIl-Galad then. He's Gil-Galad now. It's just the perspective that's shifted.

Which - might actually be good for them, in the long run, because -

Okay, look, in this AU, Gil-Galad grows up in a very us vs. them mentality, where everyone who is part of the us deserves to be protected and looked after, and everyone else is fair game. It's us vs. the world, and we do what it takes to survive.

And then he's the only one left that's part of the us.

But he can't live like that, where he's the only person who matters and there's no one else he's trying to protect and no one else he can rely on. He won't live like that.

But everyone else he meets, he's conning, he's lying to them constantly and getting all kinds of benefits because of it, so he's treating them as if they're not "one of us" but -

But he's living amongst them, and liking most of them, and they're certainly treating him like he's part of their group, especially Finrod -

And the guilt just gets worse and worse until Nargothrond falls, and suddenly he's taking responsibility for everyone. He's taking care of them, and the number of responsibilities and people attached to them just keep growing, and he takes that seriously.

So the definition of us and them gets ever more complicated until eventually, there's no clear line at all anymore. He's got the people he feels more responsible for, but now - even while he's still lying, there's no one he feels he has a right to lie to.

He grows a lot!

So to loop this back to his uncles -

I think the Feanorians have some of that us vs. them mentality going too. And in their case I think it's reinforced by their Oath and its consequences - they feel they have a right to do these things because the worst that can happen to anyone else is at least temporary (after all, they're elves; even death is temporary); they're staring down everlasting consequences.

So finding out that Gil-Galad was secretly one of Us all along might help them break down some of those ways of thinking too.

I absolutely have an answer to this, but I'm afraid it's not likely to be a very interesting answer.

So - Maglor, as per canon and every fic I've written focused on this event is indeed not having a great time. He does his best to hold the line, fails, and ends up retreating to Maedhros's fortress.

Unlike the other fics I've written on the subject, Maedhros is not in fact there.

Maglor was not informed of Maedhros's plans prior to this, so this is at first - extremely alarming. Slightly less alarming once Thanduin tells him why Maedhros isn't there, but still - worrying.

Like in "The World Was Young," Maglor takes command, and like in that fic, he does a pretty good job! I've always held that the reason Maglor failed to hold the Gap was not because he was bad at his job but just because the Gap was pretty much indefensible once a major offensive was launched at it, particularly an offensive that could have set pretty much the entire plain on fire. He does better with a stone fortress around him.

This does not change the fact that he will be very, very relieved to cede command when Maedhros shows back up.

. . . for about two seconds, at which point he learns that the king is now aware of their kind of, maybe, we promise it's not really treason.