Bookverse Improbabilities
crowdaughter suggested I post these remarks here. So I looked y'all up and now I'm testing the waters!
I've said for a long time that it's never wise to look too closely at the plot details in LotR: Tolkien wasn't writing a character-driven plot, he made it up as he went along, and even when he made major changes, he kept a lot of the original. So ( Read more... )
It would either mean that Tolkien had not yet fully developed the concept of the obsession about the Silmarils as completely as the theme was developed later (which I cannot check right now), or it would indeed make them better kings than even Thingol finally turned out to be. Thingol did not give the Silmaril back to the sons of Feanor, although that probably would have been the wisest thing to do. Of course, he had lost his daughter to get the thing (although she was restored to life, but as a mortal); he might have felt entitled to keep at least the price Luthien and Beren had gotten him. Still, it was a short-sighted decision, and brought about his death and finally the destruction of Doriath.
On the other hand, as I said already in Gandalf's_apprentice's lj, my greatest irritation in all this keeping-the-Silmaril-no-matter-what is actually with Dior. While I can understand why he would have hesitated to hand that Silmaril over - after all, his mother and father died to get the thing, even though they were reborn afterwards and had him, and he might have been tempted to tell the Feanorians: "You had a very long time to try get one of these back, yourself, and never managed. Now my mother got one, and instead of following her example, you go for the easier target and try to get hers? Go, get the other two, if you are so eager to have them back, then we might talk!"
However, when your whole kingdom is at stake, your people are barely recovered from an attack of the Dwarves, your elven grandad is dead, so is your divine grandma, you have no magical protection around your kingdom anymore, no army left to speak off (due to the darn Dwarves), and all you need to do to buy your people peace is hand over the Shiny? Please!
Compared to that, Thranduil's hesitation to start the hostilities with the approaching Dwarves from the Iron hills for mere gold in the Hobbit, and his ability to give the Arkenstone back, paints him in a much more favorable light - and makes him certainly the better king for his people.
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I see someone has answered this far more articulately than I could have done. I always assumed that either Dior (while very pretty) was not the sharpest arrow in the quiver) or else he was laboring under some compulsion cast on him by the gem. After all, its influence made even the Dwarves behave more avariciously than usual.
I had not picked up from my reading of the Silmarillion that the Silmaril cast some benificence and protection on the land. But it is quite possible, given it contained the light of the Trees.
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I am not sure they had any beneficial power; at least I did not pick that up from reading the Silmarillion, either. Varda had hallowed the three Silmarils, but I always understood that meant they *could not be corrupted* nor touched by evil without burning it; which made Morgoth's insistence on wearing them in his crown a rather painful experience. The Valar wanted them back because they held what remained from the light of the two Trees, and directly after the attack that killed the Trees, they had hoped that they could actually *revive* the trees with that light, in a way of rekindling their light with the untainted probe of the light as it had been before the attack; but if that was still possible after the Trees had died for good, I doubt. And to do it, the Silmarils would have needed to be broken, which was why Feanor did not want to hand them over. I did not gather that the Silmarils had any benign or healing power beyond that.
As for the argument that maybe Dior and Elwing wanted to keep them because they were a remainder of the past, since they held the light before the sun, I'd like to say that Dior, and the remaining people of Doriath (with the one exception of Thingol) never had *seen* the light of the Trees. The whole argument of "preserving something of the past" might be valid for Thingol, who had actually *seen* the Two Trees, and maybe for Melian, who probably had seen them, too - but for none other of the Sindar, or their descendants. Dior's only emotional connection to the Silmaril was that it had been retrieved from Morgoth by his father and his mother, and that the two became both mortal in the course of action, so if he himself chose the fate of the Elves, he would not see them again even unto the ending of the world, and maybe never. That alone miight be a strong compulsion, strong enough to decide to keep the thing, no-matter-what. But he was in no position to do so, since Doriath was just recovering from near-destruction by the Dwarves. It would have been far wiser to hand the thing over.
The argument that if Dior had handed the thing over, Earendil would never had make it to Aman, is true. But that is a retrospective argument. It does not say anything about the reasons for Dior's decision, just about the long-term-consequences of that decision he could not foresee. Melian might have had this much foresight; but as far as I understand, she had left Doriath at this point for good, already. So, I fear that the conclusion that Dior was looking nice, but not really cut out to be a ruler, has some merit...
Then again, it's been awhile since I last read the Silmarillion. I might be wrong.
Aislynn
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