Day 1 of self-exile vs 5000+ Years of self-exile.

When I first learned about the existance of Maglor, it was about him wandering aimlessly on the shores of Middle-Earth for thousands of years avoiding civilisation and singing beautiful laments because he is sad. Also that he was once known as the best minstrel in Valinor.

So I immediately imagined him to look a lot like Orpheus from Hades, and that's how that design up there was born.

Always thinking about a genre aware Maglor kidnapping the twins as a particularly self-destructive way of escaping the story he’s trapped in. I think he’d absolutely be the type of person to appreciate the supposed “poetic justice” of his “foster sons” eventually killing him—it would strike a nice balance between satisfying the “audience,” aka whatever part of him that believes it would be appropriate for him to have such a cruel end, and establishing that he wasn’t pure evil despite everything (the children he raised destroyed him = he had enough decency to raise them to be capable of striking him down).

Even if the twins’ own ideas about the concept of kinslaying would inhibit them from giving him a “clean end,” an absolute exit from the story, he spends his days during and after the War of Wrath secretly hoping for some kind of recompense from them. A singer views the world in terms of linear stories, requiring endings to give it meaning. He orphaned the twins and raised them to stand up for themselves, he taught them everything he knew, surely they will repay him by making him into a defeated villain and thus finally introducing some degree of fairness into his life-narrative? 

(But Elros could never confine himself to rules and conventions, and Elrond hasn’t spent years teaching himself to be a healer only to be trapped in the avenging-angel role that his captor/mentor has ascribed to him. The next time they meet, a sizeable part of his initial kindness stems from spite. Maglor took the twins because he was looking for a sufficiently poetic end. Elrond feels sorry for him, but he also adamantly refuses to give him any of the satisfaction.)

Maglor: Oh, yes, I’ll live.

Maglor: But I won’t enjoy it.

My first artwork for this year’s TRSB event, featuring Maglor and Elros’ fëa (after Tar-Minyatur passes away)! The accompanying fic is written by @tol-himling and will be revealed on September 9! <333

You know what's funny? Finwe was one of the first 3 elves in Valinor, and he did The Great Journey with Orome (which apparently took whole generations to complete). He saw a lot, he discovered a lot, he had a lot of stories to tell.

And then we have Feanor, who has wanderer's spirit - who definitely walked all over Aman but feels like there's nothing to Really discover - if you wanted to know what's over there, you can just ask the Valar.

It's just, you have a The Original WandererTM, and expect his kids to be happy to stay in one place forever.

Sometimes inspiration hits you in the face with a metal bat around 4am after you’ve packed away your art tablet, and leaves you struggling with a mouse for some time while you desperately place down line by line until the image in your head has been visualized~ 

about to completely lose it over maglor and how borrowing the imagery of the wanderer injects the wanderer’s themes into the maglor (and the feanorion) story but also transforms the original theme..... the wanderer contrasts the impermanence of life (material wealth, comrades, lord and lands) with the inevitability of death. after expounding on the narrator’s despair, the poem ends nearly on a reassuring note that when going through earthly trials, one can draw strength from having faith in the permanent heaven and succor from God that awaits the narrator beyond death.

but for one such as maglor - who turned away from valinor, who has committed unspeakable acts in the pursuit of the silmarils - what succor would await him over the seas? is that even a path open to him, unlike the wanderer? when he wanders the seashores like the wanderer does, does he even hold faith that there could be a place for him in eternity? even if he is given grace, even if he regrets and repents, could he bring himself to accept that grace? is it, then, a choice for him to wander middle-earth forever, to turn down that reassurance, to remain faithless, to fade away into a “shadow of regret” because he does not think himself worthy of it all?

I know a lot of people want Elrond to have brought Maglor with him when he sailed West, but I submit to you that that would be unrealistic. Galadriel is great and has matured a lot over the last six millenia or so, but confining her in close quarters with her kin-slaying cousin for months (or however long it takes to get to Valinor) probably still isn’t a great idea. But maybe the reason Elladan and Elrohir didn’t go to Valinor with their dad just yet wasn’t just because they wanted to stay with Aragorn and Arwen when they were alive. Maybe they had orders from Elrond. Orders to find Maglor and bring him home. 

With one possibility being them throwing their hands in the air and giving up because this dude is impossible to find, and the Last Ship already left, and Legolas said he was building a boat, so screw it. They’re just gonna go with him. And while they’re attempting to do this, an old, weary wanderer finds three baby elves and a middle aged dwarf on the coast. And they’re doing it all wrong. He sighs to himself and thinks “Welp, looks like I’m a dad again”

Caranthir: You’re alive

Maglor: There’s no need to sound so disappointed

The modern Noldolantë would be Bohemian Rhapsody.

one of the may things i love about the jaskier maglor headcanon is that this means maglor has joey’s voice including during the silmarillion 🥺🥺

Oh you can bet your sweet ass this exact thought keeps me awake at night

Although we’ll never get it brought to life, may I offer a taste of “Jaskier/Maglor post-everything bored and depressed shitless wandering a coast and singing quietly whilst poking random seaside objects” in these trying times?

DnD characters are just bits and pieces of our blorbos sewn together like Frankenstein’s monster

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Maglor | Makalaurë, Avar | Avari, Adan | Edain, Original Animal Character(s) Additional Tags: SWG Challenge (Tolkien), wandering Maglor Series: Part 12 of More about Maglor Summary:

Maglor survives the tsunami that hit the coast of Middle-earth during the Fall of Numenor, in the company of a somewhat unexpected group of fellow survivors.

Rereading the hobbit after reading Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion for the first time is unlocking special new emotions that I cannot describe. They’re close to EXU Calamity emotions, but so much stronger.

The Hobbit introduces Elrond like this. “The master of the house was an elf-friend—one of those people whose fathers came into the strange stories before the beginning of History, the wars of the evil goblins and the elves and the first men in the North. In those days of our tale there were still some people who had both elves and heroes of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master of the house was their chief.”

It’s vague and it sets the scene. It’s enough.

But like, that’s the Silmarillion right there! “wars of the evil goblins”, you mean the war against Morgoth? The battle of sudden flame, the fall of Gondolin, Fingolfin’s duel, every high king and kinslaying and death contained in a line. Elrond’s ancestors aren’t just some “elves and heroes of the north”, they are Beren and Luthien and Melian and Earendil! No one but Tolkien knew back then, but they did happen and they did matter!

The Silmarillion is out there now though, and so many people have read it. I read it. Maedhros and Maglor’s kidnap family mattered. Elros and Numenor mattered. There used to be a continent called Beleriand and a dog that talked three times and entirely too many grandchildren of Finwe. And it’s all gone now.

What’s left? Well, there’s two swords in a troll cave. There’s a wandering Maia with a fun hat. There’s a shiny stone that feels suspicious now, even though I know Tolkien wouldn’t have put a silmaril into a story so casually. Lastly, there’s Elrond, and he’s as kind as summer.

Elrond is as kind as summer.

One of my favorite Elrond headcanons is the idea that he starts out looking very much human and elvish. He has ears too pointed to be a man's, but not nearly long enough to be an elf's, his father's (grandfather's, really) blue eyes and brown hair that shines like an elf's, but gets tangled far too often.

Sure, some weird things happen around Elrond as a child– the birds that seems to follow him, the way some injuries mysteriously resolve in his prescense, the unusual flowers that bloom outside his windows– but really, it's easy to see those as distant remnants of an ainuric power that Elrond clearly didn't inherit. When he comes to Gil-Galad's camp, it's much easier for them to see Tuor or Beren in him than it is to think he's descended from Melian.

But then time passes. The changes are slow enough– happening over decades or centuries– that no one really notices at first. Elrond's hair darkens until it is as black as the night sky– as black as Luthien's was. His eyes leach color until they are gray– not Noldor gray, mind, but a strange, starry gray that some of the Iathrim whisper about. His voice changes, almost seems to take on an echo of itself, sometimes.

The strange things that happen around him only get stranger– the trees bend to shelter him, during storms, and sometimes when he sings, the birds sing with him. Elrond got a cat, right at the start of the Second Age– a gift from Gil-Galad. Somehow, it never seems to grow old or die. The parts of Lindon Elrond most often visits always seem to be in full bloom, no matter what season it is. His healing abilities surpass what is to be expected of a man– an elf– eventually, of what seems possible at all.

At the end of the First Age, it would've been hard to believe Elrond had more than a trickle of ainur blood in him. By the beginning of the Third Age, many have started to whisper about Rivendell– a new Doriath, ruled by a Maiarin lord with all Melian's grace, and her eccentricities.

Elrond doesn't realize just how much he's changed until the day, late in the Third Age, when he finds Maglor wandering on the shoreline. Nothing he says will convince Maglor that he isn't Luthien's spirit, returned from death to haunt him.

I've always wandered how it happened that Maedhros and Maglor adopted twins, so why not like this?

If it comes to their tails... maybe just don't ask (or ask if you want, but it's kinda silly story) ✨