Two things just occurred to me.


1. Eol would have a hand in Morgoth's final death. He, after all, made the very sword that would kill Morgoth in the end.
2. I think Grima and Maeglin are more similar than Gollum and Maeglin, as both are evil chancellors who betrayed their King.

And both were bribed with the promise of an (unwilling) princess

Here are the couple of tales I wrote for Silm: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cr...ndom_id=230931

That's true. But we don't know much about how Grima came to be who he was, as opposed to the other two whose journey to the "dark side" is well described. Do we know how Grima came to his high position, and to his betrayal? Presumably Grima had to get in contact with Saruman before he set Eowyn as the price for his betrayal. Likewise for Maeglin - but we know more of that story.


Will read! Thanks for sharing!

I think it happened in the similar. Imagine someone who got a short end of the stick. Imagine there was only one person who had really shown them kindness. You get the picture.

I don't know. I can imagine several possibilities for why Grima ended up serving Saruman. I don't think he got served the short end of the stick; my understanding was that he became disliked after he openly started manipulating Theoden not to the benefit of the country (though not openly enough that his direct connection with Saruman was guessed).

I am talking about how their lust came to be.

Ah, gotcha. But still. I don't think Eowyn would have shown Grima much kindness after he started manipulating Theoden. She would have been courteous to him before like she would to all the people in their house, as hostess. But Grima wasn't the same lonely confused socially awkward "teenager" that Maeglin was when he came to Gondolin. Maeglin got to where he was by birth; Grima, having no blood ties to the King that we know of, would have to rise by merit. He would have had to be liked and supported by the King, and initially also by all the other people around the King. He would have to influence all of them, which requires significant social skill - that which Maeglin lacked. So I would not put them on the same conveyor belt on this point.

It's like a reverse-Hamlet.

The evil nephew marrying too close a relative and betraying the rightful king? ;)

Except that said marriage never actually happened.

A What If tangent: what if it did happen? Could it ever have happened?

Idril wasn't willing to marry Maeglin, so even if Turgon gave the ok and even pressured Idril to accept her cousin, she may not have agreed unless there was something else at stake. Would Maeglin do what his father had done - kidnap Idril and hold her captive somewhere against her will?

Well, according to Silmarillion, it was 'an evil fruit of Kinslaying'.

Furthermore, there was an instance of first cousins marrying one another: that of Phary and Miriel, where he forced her to marry him against her will, and took the throne that should have been hers in the first place, in accordance with Aldarion's law. And we know how that one ended.

I suspect that, had Maeglin's plan succeeded, both he and Idril would have ended up in the exact same way, sooner or later. The doom of the Noldor would have seen to that, just as Phary's own greed had doomed Numenor and Miriel herself.

In a way, Tuor's actions had spared them from such a fate, even if one of them had to become a sacrifice to save them both.

That depends when Tolkien wrote it. I'm pretty sure the early versions of Aredhel's story have her being, as you said, kidnapped and forced into marriage. But the rapiness of that story clearly made Tolkien deeply uncomfortable, so he softened it in later versions; by the time of the published Silm, we get 'it is not said that Aredhel was wholly unwilling', and the implication that while Eol may have pressured her, she ultimately made the decision to marry him herself. (It's still pretty rapey, because the power dynamics in that scenario are totally messed-up, but it's... arguably a bit better?)

Early Maeglin - call him Meglin - could have easily followed his father's example. He's said to have tunnelled clear out of the Echoriath, entirely deliberately; so there's room for a hypothetical world where he straight up kidnapped Idril and dragged her off to Nan Elmoth (probably you'd trigger that by altering the events of his parents' death slightly, maybe simply by having Eol deliberately kill Aredhel rather than trying to take out Meglin). But later Maeglin doesn't have the same example. He could still, hypothetically, kidnap Idril, but he has to know that she'd never give in the way his mother did.

... unless, of course, he lied to her. We know that Maeglin spent a lot of time whispering in Thingol's ear, persuading him first to arm Gondolin, and then to disarm it. What if instead he turned his persuasion on Idril - not to try and make her love him, but to convince her that Gondolin was under imminent threat? That would tie into her visions and premonitions, and if this takes place before Tuor, there's no Earendil for her to foresee Maeglin killing.

So perhaps we end up with Idril and Maeglin constructing the Way of Escape. She doesn't like him, you understand, but he sees the same threat - and he is the city's Master Miner. They get it built, all the way to the mountains...

... and then Maeglin drugs Idril up to the eyeballs and carries her off.

She wakes up in the mines, where Maeglin spins her a tale of Gondolin in flames. He keeps her drugged-up on hallucinogens, so that she starts to see - and thinks she's Seen - the things he's telling her about. They're the only two left, he tells her - but luckily, he knows a place they can flee too...

Once secured in Nan Elmoth, would Idril eventually have given in? Possibly - but I think it more likely that she would have Seen the truth and made her own escape (to Doriath, perhaps?). Heck, if we want to get really convoluted, what if she reaches Menegroth around the time that a certain mortal boy named Turin is coming to manhood? She knew his father, so they have a connection...

... I suspect that's the first time anyone has ever justified a Turin/Idril 'ship.

hS

Just reposting this so that it is seen too....

Now do I repost mine so that it's seen under yours which needs to be seen under mine which was seen under yours...? ;)

It's interesting that the Ar-Pharazon story actually went through the exact same change as the Aredhel one, but in reverse! In the original account(s), Miriel was perfectly happy to marry her cousin; there's even an Elendil-aligned character who she breaks off with to do so. The forced marriage is a later conception of Tolkien's, to make her more sympathetic.

The Doom of the Noldor may or may not cover Maeglin (he's only half-Noldo, after all), but should definitely include Idril. Except... it kind of didn't, because as far as we know, she got to cheerfully sail back to Valinor and hang out with her now-immortal husband. Perhaps Seers get a free pass?

(Of course, in later Ages, Galadriel managed to figure out the loophole in the Doom. "To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well"? Ah, but if we just go and take over - pardon me, generously agree to rule - someone else's kingdom, we won't have begun anything... :D

hS

Well, G55 asked me, not you, so yeah. :p


Your Turin/Idril ship idea is kewl, though....

Oops, sorry - I figured the thread was for anyone to jump into. I'm still learning the etiquette around here.

hS

Could Maeglin be considered a hero in any capacity?

Well, I posed the question to the public in general, and I'm happy to hear all the "what if" spin-offs.

If Macbeth can be considered a tragic hero, Maeglin probably can.

The way the story goes, there is not much sympathy for Maeglin after his initial introduction to Gondolin. It's easy to sympathize with him before that point, but afterwards he leans over to the antagonist side: the haughty prince who speaks down to Hurin and Huor, the weirdo who fantasizes about his cousin, the selfish one who can't get his priorities straight. It's hard to conceptualize him as a hero, even if the story was retold in a more sympathetic light, but he is an antihero - the big character who drives the story, though not somebody one would want to follow or emulate.

Do you believe that Tuor saved Maeglin (and Idril) from worse fate by doing what he did?

Are you referring to him marrying Idril or killing Maeglin? Or something else?

To be honest, I don't think Tuor saved Maeglin. Yes, things might have happened differently if he didn't do this or say that, but on the whole I don't think redirecting events alone qualifies as saving in that sense. Maeglin needed saving from himself, and if anything Tuor made his cloud darker and pushed him to the point of no return. It's possible that, like Grima in the Shire, he might have experienced a time when he would be able to come back again, but he didn't live to see such a time, so we'll never know.

Perhaps I'm not very objective here because I don't like Tuor very much, but I would not credit him with saving Maeglin. :p

I don't mean in that sense. I meant in 'kill the hroa to save the fea' sense.

That's exactly what I meant. Tuor didn't save Maeglin from Maeglin, he didn't save his soul or his fea. He mighr have saved the hroa from having to do all the things the fea planned, but the fea was there already.

I just wasn't sure which act you were referring to by "what he did".

I found it funny that there is no mention of Tuor mistrusting Meglin until Idril brought it up. I think he was whipped.

Also.....


http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...286#post715286


Behold the continuation!

o.O I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'whipped', but it seems that trusting a bona fide Seer when she says someone isn't trustworthy is the only sensible course.

hS

Don't you know? 'Whipped' is a slang for someone dominated by their wife.


Also, did you like the continuation?

Oh. That sounds like a pretty negative way of describing listening to and trusting someone you love who is far wiser than yourself.

Haven't read it yet; sadly I have to go do other things sometimes. :)

hS

Please do read it as soon as you're able to. Trust me, you won't regret doing so.

What if Maeglin (and everyone else for that matter) was a puppy?

Question for everyone: how on earth did Morgoth not realize that Gondolin must be in the one patch of land he can't get to?

We're told that before the Bragollach and Nirnaeth his spies couldn't pass beyond the borders of some elven territories, so it's possible that Gondolin lay somewhere beyond - but that wouldn't make much sense since Turgon was known to have a separate kingdom, and one that none of the other Elves knew about. On the other hand, there's this patch of mountains, that spies can't get through either because of the Eagles and other things. After the Nirnaeth it should have been obvious; the only question would be a suitable entrance. Morgoth really shouldn't have needed Hurin to unwittingly give away the general location. He should have known that already.

I think he did realize, but he couldn't do anything about it (at least not till a certain someone *cough*m[a]eglin*cough* told him how to bypass that problem)

What land? That's a mountain range! And I doubt Orcs are much good at accurate mapping, so the fact that there was room for a city in the middle wouldn't have been at all obvious. Check out this map of the Old World to see how tricky accurate maps can be (can you even recognise Italy?), and then consider that on a flat world, you can't get any location information from the sun or stars: it's literally all 'how far have I walked and in what direction?'.

Bear in mind also that the other Hidden Kingdom, Nargothrond, was almost certainly known by Morgoth to be underground (he must have taken captives who knew of it, after all), just like Menegroth. The obvious assumption would be that Turgon had done the same thing, somewhere. The other elves didn't dig into mountains, though - and even if the thought that Turgon might be taking after himself and the dwarves had occurred to Morgoth, he'd probably have looked at the Ered Wethrin rather than clear across Sirion.

Or Brethil, which was steadfastly defended by the House of Haleth. Surely they must be hiding something more interesting than just a Mortal rabble in there?

The one he actually should have spotted is the Havens of Sirion. Big M had the run of the entirety of Beleriand west of Amon Ereb, and yet the Sons of Feanor still beat him to the Silmaril? Did he just give up and go home after taking out Gondolin?

hS

Pretty please?

Okay, I guess that my replies will always be overshadowed by yours.....

I'm pretty sure people read up past the most recent comment. :) I certainly always do, and reply to anything that I feel I have something to say on. Given that your comment was a claim that Morgoth did know where Gondolin was, and my whole post was on the premise that he didn't, my only options for comments were 'I think you're wrong', or 'I think you're wrong and here's the reference to prove it'. Telling people flatly that they're wrong feels like stifling discussion, though. :)

For the record, though:

Morgoth only found out where Gondolin was when Hurin gave it away; then, yes, he needed a traitor to tell him the way in and prepare the way.

If you're talking about the music thread: personally I just don't like watching videos very much, and am usually in a place (*cough*work*cough*) where doing so would be ill-advised. So barring a very persuasive post on why it's worth watching, I probably won't have anything to contribute over there. I think it's great that you posted it - I didn't even know that sub-forum existed! - but it's not something I'm interested in doing.

hS

See above:

EDIT: Response to a deleted post.