Elfthreads!

[Unbitwise]

Oh good, Cam did in fact try to warn the demons about the hair thing.

[DanielH]

Before that was “Hmmm - oh, maybe he knows the Fëanorians. They might not have mentioned the hair thing because of being the Fëanorians”. Presumably the implication is “they are evil so might not mention.” My first thought on reading that was that this kind of reasoning rarely works even in stories. This is a story, but in a genre where it’s even less likely to work. But then I realized that the Valinor elves have no way to know that. They have so little experience with evil that they don’t know how it works, and their only* other example is Melkor, for whom that argument does work.

* Eru isn’t filed under the “evil” label even though it is debatable (proof: see a few pages back in this thread, where it is debated) if his most evil act is worse than Melkor’s.


On a different topic, is Fëanorians the right term? On the one hand, it’s clear that the suffix is an English translation. On the other hand, the root is Sindarin, and they’re speaking Quenya. Does it make sense to translate the Quenya conversation via Sindarin?

[Moriwen]

I assumed that "oh, the Feanorians" meant "the Feanorians have weird and incomprehensible priorities and go around doing things like insisting on pronouncing words the wrong way or running away from home or having two wives; no wonder they didn't think hair was worth mentioning, they were probably distracted by discovering a new language."

[Kappa]

Having two wives?????

[DanielH]

This is possible; only the Valar say you can’t marry somebody while already married.

But I agree, what?

Or do you mean Finwë?

[Moriwen]

Yeah, I was referring to Finwe and aiming for millennia-of-exaggerated-gossip in phrasing. Sorry for confusion.

[DanielH]

I imagine that millennia of exaggerated gossip doesn’t work the same way when Finwë and both of his wives are right there.

How do the Valar handle that? We know his first wife was reembodied; that’s canon. Presumably he was too. Did his second wife die? Did the Valar decide divorce or anullment or polyamory might be acceptable in certain circumstances? This is probably not addressed in canon; I’m asking about the Lintamandean answer.

[jalapeno_dude]

I don't think Finwe would really be counted as a Feanorian. Given that Finarfin presumably is still in charge in Tirion, I'd think there would be a strong emphasis on the exceptional nature of Feanor and his descendents. I wonder how Nerdanel and Celebrimbor feel about the whole thing.

[lintamande]

Canonically Finwe agrees to stay dead so Miriel can come back to life. I don't want to commit to that being true in Silmaril+friends but it might be true.

[NemesisNecrosis]

I can just taste all the misunderstandings that are coming into being in this conversation about marriage those two are having right now...