#second kinslaying

what makes the doriathrin princes’ (presumable) death during the second kinslaying an event of such terrible fright and horror isn’t so much, i think, the explicit aspects—the material concerns of capture, abandonment, a slow and inevitable march towards doom, regret that comes too late; the cultural or moral distress caused by an act of violence inflicted by adults on children—but the implicit grounding of the fëanorian (or at least maedhrosian) reaction in at this point clearly dissonant notions of “laws of war.” maedhros’s disagreement with the followers of celegorm is not because elurín and eluréd were children and should have been kept safe, but because they were princes. in peaceful, supernaturally-protected doriath, there is no reason to conclude that people would have been abstaining from having families: it is unavoidable, then, to imagine that at the time of the second kinslaying, the princes were not the only children living in menegroth, and thus were not the only children to be killed there. only a hierarchic valuation of life allows eluréd and elurín to escape the fate of nameless and forgotten victims. maedhros’s remorse is both political—he can’t exactly avoid contemplating a hostage scenario (and yes, the taking of an enemy’s children is often significantly more complicated than this in medieval/pseudo-medieval contexts, do not bark at me)—and stupendously politically oblivious in that it completely, categorically fails to recognize any irony in the situation, or reckon with the reality that the fëanorian host got their start far outside the bounds of any notion of “ordered” warfare, contradictory as it may be to begin with.

The 2nd kinslaying is not a reasonable redirection of force to assuage the Oath because it was never meant to be; the 2nd kinslaying is a punitive military action aimed against a polity that has previously refused military cooperation, alliance & aid to the Fëanárioni and then proceeded to lay claim upon the Silmaril (whether Dior has a right to it or not is beside the question here). It affords no attention to self-preservation because it is not supposed to -- the Fëanárioni do not have the military power and resources to stage another attack upon Morgoth. Mutual self-destruction with the Sindar is preferable to an obviously doomed military action against Morgoth, because it is achievable, and results in successful punitive action against at least one acteur that transgressed their claim on the Silmaril and as such the Oath.