#silm lore

oh haaaah i do not 'get her so well', she simply haunts me and is my blorbo, my mary sue, my silly rabbit......

What even are vampires in Tolkien? This is such a question because werewolves seem to just be large wolves. so should vampires just be large bats? Perhaps.

Personally, I enjoy taking everything about vampires in myth and just playing combo bombo: Thuri can shapeshift but only into people she's drank blood from; she can go invisible by blending with the shadows, she turns into a bat; she burns in the sunlight (which is also true of all of Melkor's followers); and she's a sexy little seductress but in a weird freak kind of way (i.e she's a creep, and monsterous, and a bit gross).

While i totally get making her a Maia and exploring which Vala she could have been servant to, there's something very fun about leaning into the thing set up via Ungoliant that evil women are 'other' and taking it further than a sex thing until they become a whole different race of creature. Listen, you can reclaim the sexism in Tolkien or you can push the boat further into the sexist waters and see what you haul up, i'm an explorer. So, i like Thuringwethil to be from the Void and run by eldritch, freaky, insect rules. Something i explore most in A Famished Kind of Love

The bat fell thing: Would love to ask Tollers how a dead vampire and a dead werewolf didn't decompose over several months while Beren was recovering from taking an arrow to the knee in the shoulder before they set off on the next part of the quest. And also who skinned their corpses? Why does Draugluin's skin disguise Beren fairly well but Thuringwethil's do nothing for Lúthien?

Personally, I've decided Thuringwethil doesn't die and that she simply sheds a leathery skin when she shapeshifts that has milder camo qualities. This is what Lúthien then picks up. It also allows for a version where Thuri willingly helps Luthien and crafts these disguises herself for them (we love her going good for gay). Or for her to be nowhere near the whole disaster and Lúthien.

I've referenced this in Our Antlers Tangled where she gives Mairon a cloak that hides his magical signature, in The Strangest Torment where she sheds her form and leaves Maglor holding a leathery skin, and fully explored it in Beast with Three Backs where Mairon questions her about it.

Loyalty: I've read versions of fanfic where Thuringwethil is loyal only to Mairon, since she was in his service in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and versions where she hates him and they catfight. Given that she's the one going back and forth between Melkor and Mairon i figure she has to be pretty loyal to them both, with enough of a preference for Mairon that she doesn't remain in Angband.

And the first thing that intriuged me about her was the bittersweet idea of her passing these lovenotes between Melkor and Mairon while being outside that relationship herself. I think that would be quite lonely and painful in a way that i like to explore. It's why i enjoy an angbangfang dynamic where she occasionally joins them for kinky times, but doesn't have a romantic place in their relationship. Perhaps some of my own aromanticism is transfered to her here, perhaps i just enjoy the dynamic of her and Mairon being sassy gay besties with benefits...

Sexuality: listen, i love lesbians as much as anyone, i do. but i cannot get my head around lesbian Thuringwethil for the same reason i can't do gay Mairon; i just think if you live long enough you end up trying everything. i've only lived thirty-odd years and i've identified as every part of the LGBTQA (not the intersex obvs, that requires medical tests). To me all immortals are bi/pan/whatever, especially the ones with strange relationships to their own gender. It just comes hand in hand. And i don't believe that has to exclude being on the aro/ace spectrum either.

Eventually, one day, i will write the dating Arien fic (Curse the Shadowed Sun) that gives me a reason to explore Thuringwethil's Void origins even further, makes for fun 'this is why vampires burn in the sun' lore (CAUSE THE SUN IS HER EX lol), and gives Thuri a reason to be pissed off with Melkor (for telling Arien she's a weird little Void critter and not a fellow Maia) while still letting him boss her around as her king (Manwë and co are not accepting of weird little Void critters).

And then there's the pre Númenor fic where she pops back into his life to console Mairon about Eregion and ends up following him to the island for fun cult of melkor times.

and then there's the Arwen/Eowyn fic where she could be a fun antagonist for them to overcome/seduce to their cause

Basically, I love her, and because of that I have massively overpowered her in my own headcanons and said this one lives forever, thanks. Which is hilarious cause the first time she's even mentioned in the Silmarillion she's already dead. Uno reverse, John.

the saddest sundering, or perhaps the most silent-yet-insidious was the gradual separation of the Vanyar from the Noldor when they first came to Aman Year 1140: "And though others of the Vanyar dwelt still in Tirion in fellowship with the Noldor, the sundering of those kindreds and of their tongue was begun; for ever and anon yet more of the Vanyar would depart." AND Year 1165: "In this year the last of the Vanyar departed from Tirion and the Noldor dwelt there alone, and their converse and friendship thereafter was rather with the Teleri."

For the sake of showing you his face, I created him in BG3 character creator.

Funny looking for an elf, isn’t he? There’s a reason for his pallor.

So for those who aren’t familiar, in the first age, the Feanorians were horrifcally dead set on getting those Silmarils. A sweet guy named Dior - who was the fairest creature in the world, made up of elven blood, human blood and the essence of the maiar - ruled Doriath after Thingol. He had three children with Nimloth of Doriath: Elwing (Elrond’s mother), and two twin boys; Eluréd and Elurín.

During the Second Kinslaying (in which the Feanorians sieged Doriath for the silmaril previously possessed by Dior’s mother, Luthien), Dior and Nimloth were murdered, and Celegorm’s servants cruelly took the twin boys into the woods and left them there to starve and die. Maedhros later came back to look for them, but they were lost.

This is where the canon ends and the OC shenanigans begin:

One of those boys survived and ate the other after he succumbed to the elements.

The twin who survived fended for himself, feral, naked, and far away from civilisation. As he matured, his nightly torments attracted the attention of the Lady of Shadows, Sauron’s messenger, Thuringwethil, the vampire.

She watched him from a distance and slowly seduced him, before squirrelling him away to Tol Sirion - Tol-in-Gaurhoth / The Isle of Werewolves, where she subsequently sired him, possessive of him and keeping him a well-guarded secret, longing for the company of another vampire. It was his memories of cannibalism that drew her attention, and it was through those memories that she seduced him, expressing that she knew he had tasted the flesh of his kin at a young age, and that there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Thuringwethil, however, was not completely heartless, and sensing that Anlanchon (as he was named, for his nudity) was unhappy in Tol-in-Gaurhoth, she unleashed him upon the world.

When the Third Kinslaying came about, he took out his vengeance on the servants of Celegorm and the other Feanorians, killing as many of them as he could before the break of dawn. His primary target, however (Maedhros, whom he feared), was already far away, and with the help of Maglor, seized his sister, Elwing’s, children after she was felled - Elrond and Elros, whom Maglor then raised as his own.

He is Elrond’s grumpy vampiric uncle, and looks more like Dior and Beren than Luthien, Nimloth and Elwing. He chose to live as an elf rather than a human.

Due to his change of name and the fact that he fled East towards the Greenwood to live as a Silvan elf, not many people are aware of his lineage. What could possibly give him away, though, is the fact that he is still in possession of his chain bearing the symbol of Doriath.

A royal mystery. There were even headstones and statues erected to mark the passing of Elúred and Elurín. Nobody knows he exists.

Despite being ‘naked’ in his demeanour (and sometimes physically, despising the texture of clothing), he fits in relatively well with the Silvan elves and goes completely undetected. He’s deemed ‘eccentric’ or a ‘bit odd’ at most. To blend in further, he even smears his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes with natural brownish-red dye to offset the red of his eyes and make them appear more brown, so he simply looks like a brunette with brown eyes, with a slightly sickly pallor, which gains him the kind-of privileges and both the upsides and downsides of someone who is chronically ill.

He’s infiltrated Thranduil’s court (having followed him, knowing Oropher as a loose acquaintance), and is very subtle and passes easily under the radar, just going about his business and duties in the dark comfort of the halls, his work never requiring him to step outside into the sun… and he only picks off those who won’t be missed. He hasn’t sought a position of power or attention (such as advisor or head of anything); he’s just a lowly servant.

He doesn’t like those of feanorian descent, and from Thuringwethil’s accounts, he also doesn’t like Sauron or his affiliations. There are very few people he actually likes (Elrond, Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen being a few of them, of course; he sometimes uses magic to ‘check in’ on them every so often). He’s appeared to Arwen and Aragorn a few times to help them whilst in disguise (he shouldn’t have favourites, but he does because they remind him of his grandparents, Beren and Luthien).

(I headcanon that he gave Arwen his chain, and told her to keep it hidden, keep it safe, and to use it to “find him” if she was ever in trouble. Elrond has never seen the chain, but if he did, he would recognise the seal and immediately become suspicious.)

Some inspiration I’ve taken for his character:

- Richard III and the Princes in the Tower

- Prince Aegon Targaryen/Blackfyre

from my current understanding of elvish customs the answer is ‘unlikely’, but in terms of actual possibility it comes down to whether one thinks elves age in Mandos. If they don’t, then a Curufin who is likely at oldest no more than elvish 50 could have more children, as could any of his younger cousins. If they do age, however, even Turgon and Elenwe who likely did not take more than a valian decade while in the halls would find themselves about 60, the traditional beginning of ‘old age’ for elves, and the end of their fertile period.

So traditionally, the answer is ‘if elves age in Mandos they cannot have a second childbearing phase after release.’ But this may be a bit harsh, especially regarding the house of Finwë, who are powerful elves and likely able to extend their youth and therefore fertility until even age 96, so that it’s essentially possible for any character to have more children, providing they’re of noble/powerful descent.

From my personal and *subtextual* understanding of Tolkien’s texts (of which I have only read part) I wouldn’t call this typical elven behaviour, but it is physically possible and it doesn’t defy any ‘laws’, so to speak.