First proper entry in ages. Of course it's a rant! + bonus fanfic.
I’m at work, and will be for two more hours. Actually the simulator just broke down, so it seems we'll be going home now. Yay.
I haven’t properly updated this LJ in ages, and there are various things I should have written about, and meant to write about. I never got around to the first few, and then whenever something new cropped up, I thought, “No, I can’t write about this before I’ve written about…”, and so it all got postponed indefinitely.
To break that run, I will for the moment pretend that I did write all those entries I should have written in late July and all through August, and write this entry without first listing everything I should’ve said.
So I'm at work, and because work is boring and I felt uninspired, writing-wise, and can't go making up lame fandom-inside jokes (What's a Númenorean in Middle-earth? - Out of his depth. HAH!) all the time, and I have to get all those MEFA stories read at some point, I copied one of the novels I meant to read into a word document and started reading.
The story as such is all right, and quite well-written, and I am all the more peeved by the not so good bits.
The first, and this is something that annoys me tremendously, is the use of ellon and elleth where there is absolutely no need for it. I know that it is fashionable (even considered the only right way, I hear) in parts of the Tolkien fandom never never ever to call a male elf a "man" or a female elf a "woman". Nor can an elf of either sex just be "an elf". Or "somebody". Noooo, it has to be "the ellon/elleth" all the way. [Same bullshit in German fandom, btw, where you could actually get the sex across by using der Elb or die Elbin (and PLEASE, not die Elbe, even though the elfin variant would be die Elfe. Die Elbe is a river that ends in the North Sea, not any sort of pointy-eared person, damn it.)]
It drives me batty. If I happened to be writing a story about Japanese people, I wouldn't go talking about otoko no hito or onna no hito all the time, now would I?
The argument for this fashion is, apparently, that "man" or "woman" are just not pretty enough. And supposedly Tolkien neeever ever would have gone calling a male elf a "man", because that would be a male mortal.
Dude, no.
I'm too lazy to look up quotes now, but I know I could come up with a shitload that have "man" and "woman" for either Elf or mortal. A capitalised "Man" would be definitely mortal (that's why we do the funky capitalisation thing), but a "man" is any male sapient being, just as any female sapient being is a "woman", regardless of race. Use "elf-man" or "elf-woman" if you want to be precise, but go away with the bloody Sindarin*. And honestly, in a story set purely in Valinor, why bother? Especially in places where you would, in a story about humans, use "someone" or just plain "he" or "she" instead of "the man/woman". Seriously. WE ALL KNOW THEY'RE ELVES, WE DO NOT NEED TO BE REMINDED EVERY 20 WORDS. - Tolkien actually very rarely used the Elvish words, preferring - the English. GO FIGURE.
But ok, I guess it's a matter of taste. I had the story in a word document anyway, so I did some CTRL+H and voilà, the annoying ellyn and ellith disappeared.
As I said, on the whole the story is good. And at work I'm glad for all distractions. I mean, I even read that awful book with the spaaarkling vampires and the personality-free protagonists that put me off the word "chuckle" for ever and ever at work. Work is special that way.
And then there was a line that totally rubbed me the wrong way. It went like this:
"There were children playing on the docks when the Noldor slaughtered their kin at Alqualondë." And goes on about how even millennia later nobody talks about that.
Which I thought unlikely, because a) the singers would doubtlessly have had a feast day about this one, not hushed it up, and b) it doesn't even make sense within the context of the whole story.
I first meant to write a rant, but then it turned into a decadrabble. Or whatever you call a ficlet of 1,000 words.
There were no children playing on the docks of Alqualondë.
You have all heard the songs, of course. You probably know them by heart. And you have pictured all those white-clad Telerin children, floating face-down in the ruby-coloured waves or lying on the piers like so many fallen cherry-blossoms. You have seen them before your mind’s eye as you listened to the songs. You know exactly what happened, don’t you?
I know it too, for I was there; and those children never existed. In all honesty, if you thought about the scene for a moment, you'd discard the horrible beauty of the songs even without my testimony. I know you will not believe me, but think.
Think for a moment. Think what it was like to live through those days. The light of our world had been extinguished mere days ago. By that time we knew how the Trees had died, and how Melkor, who had only just been named Moringotto, had escaped in the darkness; how the Valar had been powerless to protect their realm. People were afraid. We came to Alqualondë as an army, bartering for the ships. We withdrew, defeated for the moment. The only thing we all knew was uncertainty. And fear, of course: fear of the darkness.
Do you truly believe that any self-respecting Telerin parents would have allowed their children to go and play outside, on the docks or elsewhere, under such circumstances? Do you think they would have allowed their children to go out into that darkness, with the Enemy who-knows-where, a not entirely friendly army encamped nearby, and doubt and fear abounding? Do you think the children would have wanted to play outside, on the docks, at that time? Do you think that, when the fighting began, any such children would have continued to play on the docks, oblivious of the killing until our swords stopped their little hearts and sullied their white frocks with blood?
Don’t be absurd.
There were no children playing on the docks of Alqualondë. There were no fishers going about their business, no merchants bustling in the market, no lovers kissing on the beach. There were no carpenters bringing wood to the wharfs, no artisans gathering shells; and there were no playing children. There was only an uneasy watch on the harbour, armed with fishing spears (and notice how those beautiful songs never mention those barbed fishing spears, nor the sort of wounds those Telerin harpoons are capable of inflicting) and working knives (and notice how those poets, whose faultless fingers only ever strung harps, never bows, are unaware that a blade crafted to gut tuna-fish can be just as deadly as a regular sword). We came uninvited, and they defended their property; we fought, and they lost.
I am not trying to justify our deeds. There is no excuse for the kinslaying. I will not say that it was not us who started the fighting (although it is true), for we shouldn't have come there in force of battle, nor should we have tried to steal the ships; and though we did not start the fighting, we certainly finished it. I will not say that we didn't understand what we were doing (although I daresay it is true for many of us), for there are things that ignorance cannot excuse. It was our Oath that caused the killing, our foolish obsession that made us blind to the horror of our deeds. There is no excuse. This is no attempt to make us look any better than we are. There can be no doubt that we deserve the blame.
Yet they make me angry, those songs, those tragically beautiful lines about the murdered children of Alqualondë, those cherry-blossoms, those tempest-tossed pearls. For a long time I was not certain why. I thought at first that I was angry because they reported an untruth, but there are many songs that embellish the truth or flout it altogether, and they do not anger me. Then I thought it was because they were trying to make us look worse than we truly were; but we deserved every bit of condemnation, so what did it matter if a little judgement was for crimes we did not, in fact, commit?
But that line of thought brought me to the answer, the reason why I so detest these songs.
They make me angry because they tell me that the poets did, apparently, not find the truth horrible enough. It wasn't bad enough that we had slaughtered other Elves. It wasn't cruel enough that we had cut them down, hacking and slashing and stabbing our way to the ships. It was not dreadful enough that we did not waste a single thought on our victims, that we sailed off into (as we then thought) glory without qualms.
No.
The poets felt that it took sweet children, scythed in mid-play by Ŋoldorin blades, to give their songs the proper ring. Dead people just weren’t enough.
Perhaps they were right. Most people who listen to their songs are moved to tears only when the singers reach the part about the little children floating in the bloodied waters. The things that really happened - the brutal honesty of blades rending flesh, of bloodshed, of a fighter slipping on the guts of his felled opponent - they make for an exciting tale. Only when the fictional children enter the scene does the audience begin to grasp the monstrosity.
I should not care either way. Personally I am disappointed whenever I catch an obvious untruth in a tale - it makes me doubt the truth of the whole thing - but maybe other listeners are less critical. I should not be angry. In the end, the lie gets the story across.
But I cannot help but wonder: If there is a need to embellish the horrible truth, if it must be made poetic, if it is not horrid enough on its own - what does that tell us about the poets, and their audience?
Not sure whose POV this is supposed to be. One of the sons of Fëanor, likely, but I'm not certain who. Not Celegorm or Curufin, I guess, but that still leaves five.
No idea about the context either.
Whatever.
If nothing else, that was therapeutic.
And now I go back to reading, because the story isn't bad, just choosing to annoy me a little every now and then.
This is gonna be a long Awards season.
- - -
*The story is mostly set in 4th Age Valinor, so at least it's actually possible that they'd be using Sindarin in Valinor.