Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

Beneath Strange Stars  by Larner 2 Review(s)
NolemeReviewed Chapter: 6 on 2/21/2012
Great first chapter, I must say! As a rabid fan of the Feanoreans, I was most thrilled by the chapters on these guys; I like the way you render their speech, not many authors manage to keep the spoken parts believable (meaning reflecting the style they use in the Silm.)
The characterisations also make a good read, athough I cannot help feeling the Sons' attitudes in the last chapter are somewhat unjust towards their father. Which may well be the author's intention in showing how much they were consumed by grief, in which case, please condone the following rant aimed at the conversation in the Losgar chapter. ;) [Noone forced the Sons to take the Oath, they did so willingly / they are each to blame for their own actions rather than anyone else because they could just have all disobeyed the way Umbarto did / Fea didn't doom anyone into crossing the Ice - he wasn't considering this option at all, thinking they'd return to Aman which they regretted leaving. Naturally he didn't consider Nolo's promise to follow him, because Nolo has already broken it by openly pursuing kingship. So, my sympathies are rather with those at Alqualonde rather than Nolo's host. ] ---end of rant, sorry--- ;)

Author Reply: Aha! One who greatly honors Feanor, and with reason. Yes, his sons need not have taken the Oath--but they did, and much due to filial duty, I've always felt. And I suspect that they quickly found reason to regret taking it, particularly the two eldest of his sons, whom the Master indicated were the most noble and honorable of Feanor's offspring.

Nolofinwe did swear his allegiance to his older half-brother, once their father was dead, and Feanor should have realized that Nolofinwe would honor that oath as strongly as his sons would honor theirs. So, in the end it came down to Feanor being convinced that his own brother was likely to foreswear himself, losing himself totally to Melkor's lies.

In the end Melkor was the instigator of all that happened afterwards, and the author in the end of his own downfall as well. But Melkor was merely making use of Feanor's own sense of injury that his father had chosen to take a second wife and his disdain for his younger siblings and their issue. He should have realized from the relationship between Maitimo and his cousin that the second generation at least would not be left behind when he led his sons and their closest adherents from banishment through Tirion and eastward back to Middle Earth.

SunnyReviewed Chapter: 6 on 2/18/2012
I have always had a great fondness for Maglor (as I have indicated to you before), but I have always had a certain sympathy for Maedhros as well. I feel that he was someone who _might_ have been a truly great and wonderful sort of person, if he hadn't been so thoroughly scr*wed over by his father and that Oath.
Tolkien tells us how Maedhros stood aside at Losgar, and also tells of how he sought for Elured and Elurin after the fall of Doriath - though without finding them. He also let his brother foster Elrond and Elros, which was one thing that strongly shaped the following ages. (And i somehow feel that he would have helped out Maglor to the best of his ability in this task.)
In the end he was overcome by the Oath - and as his father's heir, I suppose that was probably inescapable.
It makes me wonder what _might_ have been, though!

Author Reply: I agree. I loved the essay on Maedhros's innate nobility that was nominated for a MEFA this year, and the reminder that in the Master's first conception it was Maedhros rather than Maglor who was to foster Elwing's sons. How would he have reacted to his father burning the Teleri ships? Why did he stand aside from the rest as the orders came from his father to set the torch to the Swan Ships? And the picture Erullise did set my imagination soaring.

http://lotr-community.livejournal.com/182939.html#cutid1

Return to Chapter List