About Maeglin and colonial stereotypes
I'm a (relatively) new Tolkien fan, and as much as I love his work, one thing that infuriates me is that of all the possible reasons he could have written, CHOSE to write that Maeglin became evil because "Idril didn't love him back and therefore was a jealous incel" (wtf).
Wait, actually not, It actually says that he was born evil:
“Yet in all that he did he had no love of others, nor cared he ever for any save himself; and it seemed to many that some darkness lay upon him from his birth.” (Silmarillion, Of Maeglin).
Tolkien, are you sure you're Catholic and not Calvinist??? (With all due respect to Calvinists, whose faith I don’t know well enough to presume to judge in any way, and wouldn’t even if I did, because people’s faith is a personal matter. I just wanted to point out that this choice represents a determinist philosophical dynamic that does not belong to the Catholicism, the faith to which Tolkien believed and whose morals tried to insert into his work.)
And he didn't chose to write he betrayed Gondolin becouse of, I don't know, some legitimate reason to be mad that NARRATIVELY HE HAD, like the fact that THEY THREW HIS FATHER OFF A CLIFF IN FRONT OF HIS EYES WHILE HE WAS STILL A BOY. And then HE WAS ADOPTED BY THE SAME ELF WHO ORDERED HIM TO BE EXECUTED. And he can't even leave the city because THERE'S A DEATH PENALTY (which is what drove his father mad in the first place).
Oh no, wait, those reasons are not valid because his father was the violent DARK ELF who kidnapped and raped the WHITE LADY of the Noldor, and therefore Turgon is a hero for saving his sister and nephew by EXECUTING A MAN WITHOUT TRIAL. And then the MIXED SON became an ungrateful traitor to the city that had welcomed him because "he was very much like his father".
TOLKIEN WHAT THE FU- (colonial propagandistic historiography 101).
Not to mention that in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, it is said about Maglin (Maeglin): "Less fair was he than most of these goodly folk, swart and of none too kindly mood, so that he won little love, and whispers there were that he had Orc's blood in his veins, but I know not how this could be true." And so here too we have that the mixed son is:
dark-skinned (and therefore voluntarily or unintentionally connected to the previous point)
disliked by the other citizens
And, of course, "he's said to have Orc blood." IT IS SAID. People whisper and speculate about Maeglin's ancestry to justify his being "different." And needless to say, in real-world contexts, "rumors" quickly devolve into "things said to one's face," and thus into daily verbal microaggressions. Then in the published Silmarillion, his skin color was changed to "pale" and it was said that he "resembled the Noldor in appearance," but all the racialized subtext remained (cough cough Dark Elf ).
Now, I'd like to pause and point out that in European literature, "pale" isn't a neutral term. Considering that all characters in ancient and medieval literature are white (with the possible exception of Mediterranean environments where people came into contact with Africa and Asia through travel and trade), there was still a "color coding" to signal status, and at the time, status meant morality (because heroes were always kings, princes, nobles, demigods, etc.). Lighter skin tone symbolizes wealth and beauty, whereas the common people would have been tanned from working in the fields (consider that the population, even after the rebirth of cities, was AT LEAST 70% farmers). Considering that the epic romance of chivalry originated in France, the rest of European literature followed suit and used French characteristics and... *Poof*! Thus was born the cliché of the pure, blond, handsome, tall hero/lady with very pale skin and blue eyes. Does this remind you of anyone? Exactly. Glorfindel. Finrod. Galadriel. Eärendil. Idril. TUOR.
But precisely because they all have similar traits, all European languages play with synonyms to convey a message and/or a specific characterization through symbolism. In English it's perhaps more subtle because "pale" is still used, but note how the term "fair" is preferred. In Italian, however, heroes' skin is described as "candida" (which has a very strong moral connotation, meaning "immaculate white" and is metaphorically associated with good souls), "chiara" ("light tone"), or, if we're feeling particularly poetic, "nevina" ("like snow"), "marmorea" ("like marble") or "d'alabastro" ("like alabaster"). But not "pallida" (pale)."
"Pallida" literally means "affected by pallor," meaning with little blood, i.e., sick. And so it's also symbolically associated with a character who is slimy, evil, treacherous, weak, deceitful, and/or ambitious for the sake of power. In literature, to be pale are traditionally are the evil advisor and the uncle who wants to usurp the throne of his brother the king, and therefore the fratricidal one, because the three roles often overlap. Some examples of this type of character are Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings and... Maeglin himself (and no surprise, becouse the two follow the same archetype).
As a woman, I appreciate that Tolkien wrote a story in which the abuser and the creep are punished and the woman isn't blamed in any way, because that's rare even in modern literature (cough cough dark romance novels). But I don't accept that to do so he filled his story with racist and colonial stereotypes that still today cause social tensions and have repercussion on people lives. I personally don't think that that was Tolkien intention, becouse he was a man born in a time, in a culture and in a social status when this type of narrative was EVERYWHERE and he maybe couldn't fully recognize the impact it could have on other people. But the modern reader can and SHOULD recognize it.
And this situation could have been avoided if the character coded as the rapist and abuser and the creep/stalker had been LITERALLY ANYONE OTHER than the only named Avarin and his bastard son (because let's remember that since technically Turgon and/or Fingolfin didn't approve of Eöl and Aredhel's marriage, and therefore said marriage is invalid by the Noldor's logic). And it could have been avoided if Maeglin hadn't been coded as "the dangerous outsider" and Tuor as "the good outsider."
Just imagine what kind of story it would have been if Idril's stalker had been any of the other Lords of Gondolin. Opportunities to discuss the Noldor's internalized misogyny, their sense of self-entitlement wich made them act that everything is theirs, their presumption that they are the center of the world. But this would have ruined the image of the Noldor as "heroes" (after they literally committed a massacre before even setting out on their holy war... okay, John), as "bearers of civilization, wisdom, and knowledge of Aman," as "saviors of the defenseless peoples threatened by the evil Morgoth." So it's up to the native's son.
Or better yet, imagine what it might have been like if the Fall of Gondolin had been caused by "Maeglin gets tortured and then commits treason and attempted rape + attempted infanticide" and instead "Maeglin goes of his own volition to the tutelary deities of the local peoples and leads a charge in which THEY BURN THE COLONIAL CITY TO TAKE BACK THEIR LANDS "🔥🔥🔥
