Zooming around invisible becoming increasingly infuriated

[bunn]

My Fëanor story I wittered about previously has now morphed from just being the tale of Dead Fëanor zooming around invisible becoming increasingly infuriated, through How to Fill up 42 Years of War of Wrath, through to: Hey, while I'm at it, I could try to answer my various questions about the latter end of the Silmarillion, specifically:

Comments

[anna_wing]

I've decided to let Arrogantemu do Feanor-redemption. Your questions are very good ones. The answers that I more or less settled on for my own fics are as follows:

1) Maedhros: WHY? (this has been my number 1 question from the Silmarillion since I was ?13, I think)

Macbeth syndrome: "I am in blood stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go oe'er".

2) Where the hell is Celebrimbor?

With his great-aunt Lalwen and the survivors of Dor-Lomin, fighting orcs.

3) Apart from the breaking of Thangorodrim, what are Elrond and Elros up to, and given their seemingly unpromising foster-parents, how come they grew up so well-balanced?

Idril and Tuor seem to be a very functional and stable couple, so perhaps it was simply a genetic predisposition. I believe Elrond travelled in the East, where presumably he learned about how to get along with different kinds of people.

4) Gil-galad, Galadriel and Celeborn: what were they up to?

In my mental time-line, Galadriel and Celeborn went east over the mountains during the Siege of Angband, and were in Eriador building up the Elvish settlements there throughout the rest of the First Age.

5) Who sank which bits of Beleriand, and did they have to?

My version of the Valinorean Expeditionary Force had nuclear weapons. Possibly also antimatter ones too.

6) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Vanyar as a fighting force?

Strengths: They're all stoic, fearless, superhumanly skilled and disciplined martial arts masters (Donny Yen but blond).

Weaknesses: Lack of numbers and general unhappiness about having to go back to Middle-earth and become murderers themselves?

7) Whither the Dwarves of Belegost?

City a mess, but they mostly survived, thanks to the excellence of their engineering.

8) Whither the Sons of Bor (remnant) given that they are not Edain?

Fled east of the Blue Mountains and survived there. Became Breemen?

9) Can you get ships up the Brandywine river, and if so, how far?

I can't remember if Tolkien ever said anything about its navigability. Depends on how big a ship would be, I suppose. Surely navigable by smaller boats, with portage around fords. Don't drink the water near the Withywindle.

10) how does the economy of a dwarf-city interact with the surrounding agricultural area?

Dwarves surely had the concept of money.

I assumed that much of the Hobbits' external trade was actually with the dwarves in the Blue Mountains. So presumably there was something similar with the Elves of Beleriand, and with whatever settlements of Men and Elves there were in Eriador.

11) ETC.

Me too.

[king_pellinor]

5 and 6 seem connected. Vanyar see a lot of orcs coming. Vanyar don't really like to get their hands dirty. Vanyar have access to enormous amounts of power. Vanyar sink the lands around orc host to eliminate the problem at no emotional cost (no, *I* didn't kill them, the big waves and newly-arrived 500-foot-deep sea killed them. *My* hands are clean. 500-foot-deep seas are good for cleaning hands...).

After all, who would want that particular bit of land? Quite apart from it being mere Beleriand rather than a real place like Aman, it's all muddy and messy instead of having beautiful jewelled roads and carefully tended meads and so on. Ugh. Done the place a favour.

[bunn]

... I think they are connected. Hmmm

[king_pellinor]

It also explains the dismay caused by the unleashing of Black Ancalagon and his cohorts. If your standard operating procedure is to flood the ground around enemy hosts before having a celebratory cup of tea, the appearance of flying enemies has got to be a bit disconcerting.

Bilwe: "Look! An enemy host"
Bobiel: *Yawn* "OK, break out the usual spells. Now, are we out of camomile again...?"
Bilwe: "They've flown right over the flood! They're nearly here!"
Bobiel: "Er, what? Oh. Er. Actual fighting. Damn, this is a teaspoon not a sword. Which end do you hold again? Where did I leave my armour...?"
BOTH: "Earendil! Earennnnndilllllll!!!!"

[bunn]

'damnit this is a teaspoon'

Although I found something that says the Vanyar use spears rather than swords, which might actually tie into the 'not wanting to get hands dirty' thing.

[king_pellinor]

Talk to Philmophlegm about polearms - "Camomile Teaspoon" may well turn out to be some sort of guisarme/glaive.

[bunn]

1) see, I can just about buy that for Macbeth, given that he has Lady Macbeth and they are both kind of stuck in it and she's very resolute. But there's nobody urging Maedhros on after Doriath apart from Maedhros, it appears. And he does start wading back, then he turns around. That seems odd to me.

2) I wish Lalwen was in the Silmarillion! But I think I probably have too many characters already.

3) Are you Ulmo?

4) See, I really want to have Galadriel being dragged back to Doriath by Celeborn and finding it full of dragons, to add context to that moment in LOTR when he's rude about the Dwarves re-awakening evil in the mountains, and Galadriel says something along the lines of 'who wouldn't want to visit their ancestral home even if it was full of dragons'. It's like the epic marriage version of 'remember that time you thought it would be a good idea to...'

5) They must have something pretty potent, but I feel that maybe Sauron or the Balrogs did too.

6) It hadn't occurred to me that reluctance would be an issue. Good thought.

7) I concur ;-)

8) That was my thought, but after much rummaging I concluded that the Breemen are probably mostly left-behind Edain, like the Rohirrim. I think they might be the Lossoth. Or another bunch to far east to appear in LOTR / Hobbit, of course.