The War and the Weaver, by Dwimordene
The War and the Weaver
Author: Dwimordene
Challenge: Female Protagonist Challenge
Characters: Arwen, Aravorn
Warnings: Revisionism run rampant
Rating: K+
Summary: In which Arwen learns her part in war, with a little help from abroad.
Disclaimer: Not JRRT, not related, making no money, please don't sue.
( When Silence Sings )
I like the idea of Arwen doing some political weaving as well as the other kind.
And the idea of Aravorn doing a sort of Hatshepsut thing, except more discreetly, is interesting.
It's just way to much fun to do this with the genealogy charts and Tale of Years, and Arwen I think really needs to have something to do with herself. How else does she end up with "thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring"? I don't read that as she read a lot of books, but that she has actually gone through some things herself. And okay, okay, it's still a rather passive position she's in with that description (what, just living and time give her knowledge? She doesn't do anything to acquire it?) but it's my opening.
In-universe, you seem to be undermining one of the bases of Aragorn's claim to the throne, though--one that he evidently believes in and finds impressive, even if we might be inclined to question. It creates a bit of an issue if Arwen knows for certain that one of Aragorn's claims about his descent is false or at least not quite right--depending who the parents of Arahad II are, according to this 'verse.
Aravorn in this version of things did give birth to Arahad II - the line runs straight, just not through an entirely male line of descent.
In terms of claim and who knows what - in this version of things, of course Arwen knows, she just chooses to keep that secret from anyone who doesn't need to know. Whether she believes Aragorn or even Elrond needs to know is not something I've dealt with here, and she probably would be in a position to do some careful editing of genealogical records. In this version, Aravorn's grandfather - the Chieftain - died after her father did; who's to say some hapless male in the line of descent after her father didn't, before expiring, sire a son that Elrond wouldn't have much cause to know about? It's not a hard secret to keep from outsiders, as long as the Dunedain hold to it - which they obviously did. ;-)
In Affiliations, though he has no direct proof, Aragorn suspects, just given circumstances and an odd note in the genealogical charts, that his family tree may be a little less patrilineal than the loremasters in Gondor or in certain parts of Arnor may demand, but he doesn't make an issue of it and he doesn't try to learn the straight truth. He just says, 'well, could've been - whoever Aravorn was, that person led in war, got a male heir, and did right by the Dunedain' - and moves on. When genealogy is a matter of inheritance, it's very political, and both Aragorn and Arwen have an incentive to hold the line that his family's line of descent from Isildur is entirely patrilineal.
On a totally unrelated note, I can't get the formatting right for LJ to save my life. Do you have any tips on getting the darned text to transfer properly?
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I'm afraid I have no real helpful advice on the formatting of transferred text. What I do is clumsy: paste the text in and make all the adjustments manually, but I'm usually dealing with single drabbles.
Probably, if you converted the text into HTML first and then pasted it into the HTML view, it would come out all right--for me that tends to be more trouble than it's worth.
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