Anyway I do think Maedhros put the cruel servants of Celegorm to death before he went off in search of Elured and Elurin.

i’m sort of enamoured with the cruel servants of celegorm actually. in a story where (a.) we rarely see elves motivated to kill purely out of revenge and (b.) the lord-vassal dynamic is largely shown as strictly either mutual loyalty and affection (ie. finrod-house of bëor) or the vassal was bad from the outset (ie. caranthir-ulfang), they are unique in their role as presumably loving, loyal, til-death-do-us-part companions who are motivated by that love to do a terrible thing—but more importantly, a terrible thing that wasn’t going to accomplish anything. enamoured with the kind of devotion that makes people behave like that….enamoured with an adoration so strong it goes beyond death and cultural taboos and utility…..one of the worst and saddest and most sickening parts of the silm and it was caused by love!!! just bake me into a pie about it!!!

Doriath

A Celegorm drabble-and-a-half for @feanorianweek

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Celegorm stalks through the halls, squinting through the thickening smoke. He would not have thought there would be much to burn in stone caves, but the people of Menegroth appear to love their tapestries. Flames lick at the brilliantly colored fabric, eating away at scenes of revelry and beauty.

(He comes upon one depicting three figures standing upon a hill before the Trees, on silver, one dark, one golden, and turns quickly away. He does not want to see Finwë’s face, not here.)

Finally, he comes to the throne room, enormous and echoing. Fountains line the floors, their sculptures smashed and broken, dust and stone shards littering the tiled floor. The blood flows read.

Before the throne stands Dior Eluchíl, young and bold, a blaze of righteous fury, bright enough to blind, though he does not wear the Silmaril. (Where is it?) Celegorm bares his teeth and raises his sword.

Slay

The Sons of Feanor

Maedhros - actual cinnamon roll who needs protection, also he only has one hand also he's super wise and has a ride or die bestie

Maglor - minstrel and adoptive dad of Elrond and Elros and the only son of Feanor who may have survived

Celegorm - that kinslaying dick who tried to kill Luthien

Caranthir - the haughty and short-tempered kinslaying dick

Curufin - accomplice to the kinslaying dick who tried to kill Luthien

Amrod - little mentioned twin who died in the attack on the havens

Amras - the other little mentioned twin who died in the attack on the havens

(yes I'm aware that they all participated in kinslaying but those 3 middle children were the ones who didn't seem to feel bad about it and they went against Maedhros' advice to attack Doriath which is all on them. They weren't just following dads orders like the first Kinslaying)

Daily Reminder:

Amrod and Amras I know are the stand alone babies in Beleriand who stuck to the forests and hunted and we love them. But it doesn’t change the fact they committed acts of evil:

- They took the Oath

- They participated in Kinslaying #1

- They helped steal the swan ships

- They burned the swan ships

- They participated in the Kinslaying #2

- They died at Kinslaying #3 in which they probably still killed a lot of people.

These are all events that they WILLINGLY participated in.

I get it- they’re the babies, they’re talked about the least in the Silmarillion. But ignoring that they were thieves, liars, and mass murderers 3x’s over perpetuates that same stereotype people like to give to Maglor about him being “baby” and “harmless”.

Amrod and Amras are still cold blooded murderers.

There are a lot of TWIGS in Doriath

Maglor: Wow. I keep stepping on a lot of crunchy twigs. Maedhros: Those are bones, Maglor. Maglor: *looks straight up* Not if I never look down.

Bear with me while I rules-lawyer the spirit of the Oath of Feanor because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Maedhros did.

The Oath is specifically targeted at anyone who "hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril" which I do not believe means anyone who touches a Silmaril, despite "in hand taketh" because all the other stipulations are targeted specifically at people who keep the Silmarils away from the Feanorians, by hiding, hoarding, keeping, or even throwing it far away. It would also just be bizarre if, say, a Feanorian follower returned the Silmaril to their lords and the Oath required that they kill them.

However, the strongest evidence for the Oath only applying (or being interpreted to only apply) to people who deliberately withhold the Silmarils from the Feanorians are Maedhros'/the Feanorians' actions before the 2nd and 3rd kinslayings: in both cases, they send a letter demanding the return of the Silmaril. Now, if by touching/posessing the Silmaril, the deaths of Thingol, Dior, and then Elwing are already demanded by the oath, why in the world would they send a letter (losing part of the element of surprise), not even to declare war, but demanding the Silmaril's return? Sending that letter implies that this can still be resolved peacefully if the Silmaril is handed over.

It's my interpretation that Maedhros/the Feanorians are rules-lawyering this tiny loophole in the oath (regardless of whether the oath is present magically/compulsive/just their own dedication) by deliberately closing their eyes to the fact that the current holder of the Silmaril definitely believes it to be their possession and is deliberately keeping it from the Feanorians---which lasts as long as that holder hasn't confirmed that desire.

After all, Thingol, Dior, and Elwing didn't steal the Silmaril, they received it from family members. If the Feanorians ignore the intent behind their keeping it (before that intent is confirmed by the holder's response to the Feanorian's demand), then they could consider Thingol et al to simply...coincidentally...happen to be holding a Silmaril, not possessing it for themselves and therefore not liable to the oath.

Actually, one line in the text from after Thingol refuses to return the Silmaril even hints that even after that, the situation might be salvageable if the Silmaril is returned by free will: "Celegorm and Curufin vowed openly to slay Thingol and destroy his people if they came victorious from war [this is pre-Nirnaeth], and the jewel were not surrendered of free will" (emphasis mine, Of the Fifth Battle, The Silmarillion).

Of course, the Oath drives the Feanorians to reclaim the Silmarils, and so I view the letters to Thingol, Dior, and Elwing as last-ditch attempts at solving this peacefully (via exploiting the above loophole). (Note: this is not necessarily meant to make the Feanorians more sympathetic, this is just me trying to figure out why they sent those letters.) However, this also dooms them to a kinslaying, because as soon as Dior and Elwing reject returning the Silmaril, they have explicitly or implicitly claimed it for themselves and have now "in hand taketh" the Silmaril instead of just touching it and happening to have it around, which means their deaths are now demanded under the Oath.

What if Celegorm died first in Menegroth? And Curufin was in so much pain about his death that he didn't care if he got killed or not. What if, mh?

What's this? Oh, just one brother mouring the other.

I like to imagine that these two were inseparable, and Celegorm was also a big brother for Curvo. Just imagine the co-dependency.

TW: gory-version

When Dior had slain Celegorm, Curufin didn't have much to life for after. What kind of world was it, where he did have to prevail without Celegorm. And for the first time, he felt a pain that not even the oath could compare to, and for a moment, every decision he had made that let them up to this point flashed through his mind. Was it worth it? The blood on his hands was as red as his clothes. He wanted to tear it all off. And while he was still crying out to the sky, he felt hot steel on his throat. Hot from his brother's blood. It was all over now.

it’s a long, long road

from which there is no return…

maglor and celegorm for the end of mayglor. sort of sad i didn’t contribute sooner but you know what. i like what i’ve got.

Not sure if people honestly forget or just kind of ignore how Dior explicitly took part in the Battle of Sarn Athrad one of whose main objectives (or at the very least RESULTS) was to retrieve the Silmaril. As if a huge part of the irony of the run-up to the Second Kinslaying isn't that Doriath are the ones who killed people specifically in pursuit of the Silmaril (that were longstanding allies of the Fëanorians and contributed in the wars against Morgoth as recently as the Union of Maedhros, even potential friends re: Curufin, and whose craftsmanship Beren has to thank for being able to cut the thing free from Morgoth's crown in the first place). Dior's connection to the Silmaril isn't just having it passed down from his parents, he actively fought for it (which I'll grant wasn't necessarily his chief motivation and more important to his father, but the larger point still stands). That's the context in which he refuses to even negotiate with the Fëanorians claim.

We've all read different takes of it, so since when do you think the Silmarils would have burned Fëanor and co?

(I'm gonna explain the options here because there isn't enough space further down.)

1. Since the moment they swore the oath, because from then on they were ready to kill for it. (You know, because attempted murder is as bad as actual murder.)

2. From the first kinslaying on, because now they had killed for it.

3. From the second kinslaying on, because Alqualonde was an escalation (and we don't even know who started it), but the second and third kinslayings were planned battles and they purposely came there to kill them.

4. Only from the moment they killed Ëonwe's guards and stole the Silmarils, because only then had they fallen so low as to steal from the Valar themselves.

The Definition of Kinslaying

Summary: In which Celegorm is Absolutely Fine And Not At All Traumatised.

He’s used to it at this point. The dirty looks, the spitting at his feet, the way parents grab their children when they see him coming, the way merchants and barmen refuse to serve him, it’s a blow to the pride of a once loved prince but he accepts it with no retort no matter how much it stings. He would have fought back once, he would have been furious but that flame seems to have finally been quenched, he had just been re embodied for reasons he didn’t fully understand and he didn’t want to jeopardise it so soon. These imbeciles didn’t understand, they couldn’t possibly but he must stay here for those that did. That’s what Amme kept telling him anyway. The imbeciles comment had been an addition of Curvo’s.

So that’s what he said to himself as he walked through the streets of Valinor with his head held up without a hood to cover his silver hair, refusing to hide even if deep down he wanted to. Oh but he wanted to. But he didn’t think he’d be able to look his Atya in the eyes when he got back if he’d finally succumbed to the desire to pretend he wasn’t a son of Feanor, what was meant to be their greatest source of pride. He got the usual murmurs and jeers of ‘kinslayer’ as he tried to get through the crowd that had gathered to reach the one shop that still sold them their essentials.

But as he pushed past one of the elves he met their eyes. A Sindar. He recognised him from Doriath. A rational person would have assumed he had more of a right to that insult than any but Celegorm wasn’t the rational sort. He also never forgot a face and certainly could never forget this one. So he spoke back with a low dangerous tone that hushed the crowd and a wild grin that hadn’t graced his face in many a year, ‘You fucking hypocrite. You go throwing that word around like you didn’t earn it as well. Like I wouldn’t fucking remember what you did.’

The elf laughed mockingly ‘What I did? You can’t actually be serious, you came there to slaughter the lot of us and you have the nerve to try and criticise us for fighting back? You monsters got what you deserved.’ Celegorm clenched and unclenched his fists before replying. ‘When you killed us we deserved it. We brought it onto ourselves and you were justified in killing us. But you still drove your swords spears and arrows into our chests, you still killed us and though we killed more than you and we initiated the conflict I want to hear you admit it was kinslaying.’

The elf spat at his feet and glared at him ‘You aren’t people. Not after all you did. Killing a group of murderous orcs isn’t kinslaying. It was in self defence anyways.’ And that’s it. That’s when the fire that had begun stirring in his veins the minute he’d seen that elf’s face, clean and no longer smeared with blood but the same face and it was all too much but he was not going to get away with that. ‘Self defence. Was it self defence when you drove your sword through my brother’s back? He wasn’t armed, what kind of self defence was that? It wasn’t even defending someone else, he wasn’t fighting. Do you remember what Caranthir was doing? DO YOU?! Or did you not bother remembering the details? After all why would a monster’s death be worth remembering, staying up at night over?’

‘He was cradling Curufin’s corpse! He was wounded but he crawled his way across the floor so he could sooth our little brother’s passage to Mandos! He was a person! He may not have been a good one but he still was one and his death counted! It counted to us! You still fucking killed him!’ It had been the last thing Celegorm had seen before his death other than his assailant. He’d been in the throes of blood lust like he’d never experienced before, his desire for vengeance stronger than it had been at any point in his life the moment he’d seen his Curufin fall back with a clatter that shouldn’t have been audible in the struggle but seemed to ring clear in his head. Because Curufin was his, he always had been, they connected in a way no one really understood since the days of youth when he was a solemn little child who’d only be lifted by Tyelko and Atya.

But while his grief had instantly transferred to rage even in that state he’d glimpsed an image that would be imprinted in his mind from that moment on. Moryo, drenched in blood, breath coming harshly, easing Curvo onto his lap and leaning down to stroke his raven hair back with little repetitive Quenya phrases murmured and gently rocking him in his arms. And it was almost a familiar scene, it could have been the Moryo who used to embroider little flowers onto his tunics as apologies, thank yous or just to say ‘I love you’. The Curvo who’d sit at the foot of his bed to read and offer the occasional sarcastic remark for whole days. Except.

Except, Caranthir’s fingers left streaks of blood smeared on Curufin’s face with every caress, the murmurs were broken off by fits of bloody coughing, Caranthir was sobbing and Curufin’s eyes were glazing over. And then he’d seen him, he’d heard Moryo’s breath stop and seen the expression of shock on his face as his head fell onto Curufin’s breastplate. But he hadn’t had time to get his vengeance because his vision had gone black and he was finally able to join them. He turned on his heel sharply and walked back to Formenos, angrily pushing tears off his cheeks. When did he start crying? They’d probably all seen it to, in a public space with every eye on him. Well never mind his dignity, he needed to go see his brothers. Maybe he wasn’t quite as healed as he’d thought.

I'm not over the timeline of Doriath's destruction. Lúthien and Beren died in autumn and the Sons of Fëanor attacked in midwinter. Like. Factoring in travel time and preparation for the attack, they. They really didn't hesitate. As far as I can tell, the Sons contacted Dior once to be like, "Hey give us the Silmaril," he didn't answer, and they attacked.

They did not wait long for that answer.

Doriath had already been attacked and ransacked earlier that year. They had lost their king and queen, and then their beloved princess and consort(???? What was Beren's title). That's the mess that Dior is dealing with, on top of his personal grief & taking care of his young family. Then a letter shows up making demands and no apologies (you can hc what you want, but as far as I'm aware there is no canon indication that the Sons ever offered reparations to Lúthien, Beren, or Dior for C&C's misdeeds). And Dior didn't even say no! He just didn't immediately reply! And bam, second kinslaying!

No wonder Doriath fell to the Sons. They never had a chance. And then the third kinslaying was even worse.

The more I study the silm the more tragedies I find. 😭 But it is my favorite book tho. 😔