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Fordim Hedgethistle · 04-18-2004, 06:30 AM

Just a short post (*sigh of relief*)

My sense of the Kinslaying has always been that all Elves were "stained" by it to some extent, insofar as it demonstrated that they were not merely capable of great cruelty and evil, but that their own 'Elvish natures' (that is, what made them so great and the highest of the races) is what makes them capable of that evil.

Attempting to explain more clearly -- Elves are/were (as we all know) committed to the past, to sustaining memory unchanged and resisting the forward motion of time history and experience. This is why Feanor reacted so, shall we say, badly to the loss of the Silmarils. They were supposed to be permanent, unstained unchanging repositories of the light of Westernesse: more specifically, they were supposed to be the concrete freezing of that light (in gems: hard, inviolable, permanent) by Elves/through Elvish art. Their theft was not just the loss of something precious, but proof positive that the Elvish desire to freeze experience in art, or -- to borrow and mangle a phrase from Hamlet -- to hold an utterly static mirror up to nature, is doomed to failure. Art not only cannot freeze time and stop experience (i.e. the gems can be stained) but art also cannot be controlled or kept by the artist (i.e. the gems can be stolen).

The attempt to recover the gems is so important to the Elves because it springs from their desire/need to believe in the 'freezing' or 'immortalising' power of art. The Kinslaying, then, is only the most 'physical' and bloody expression of the flaw/desire that lies at the heart of every Elf -- that when it comes to choosing a perfect and immovable art (the gems) over an imperfect and changeable life (the Elves who stand in the way of the gems' recovery), the desire for art will always win.

OK -- so not such a short post after all. . .but one more thing:

I think the question you've posed doug is an interesting one, but perhaps a bit limiting: if what I'm suggesting has any weight at all (that Feanor is but the fullest expression of a flaw at the heart of all Elves) then whether or not Finrod was there is somewhat beside the point: the fact that he's an Elf is enough to implicate him in the the 'crime' of choosing art over life.

04-18-2004, 06:30 AM	#3
Fordim Hedgethistle Gibbering Gibbet Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Beyond cloud nine Posts: 1,844	Original 'sin' Just a short post (sigh of relief) My sense of the Kinslaying has always been that all Elves were "stained" by it to some extent, insofar as it demonstrated that they were not merely capable of great cruelty and evil, but that their own 'Elvish natures' (that is, what made them so great and the highest of the races) is what makes them capable of that evil. Attempting to explain more clearly -- Elves are/were (as we all know) committed to the past, to sustaining memory unchanged and resisting the forward motion of time history and experience. This is why Feanor reacted so, shall we say, badly to the loss of the Silmarils. They were supposed to be permanent, unstained unchanging repositories of the light of Westernesse: more specifically, they were supposed to be the concrete freezing of that light (in gems: hard, inviolable, permanent) by Elves/through Elvish art. Their theft was not just the loss of something precious, but proof positive that the Elvish desire to freeze experience in art, or -- to borrow and mangle a phrase from Hamlet -- to hold an utterly static mirror up to nature, is doomed to failure. Art not only cannot freeze time and stop experience (i.e. the gems can be stained) but art also cannot be controlled or kept by the artist (i.e. the gems can be stolen). The attempt to recover the gems is so important to the Elves because it springs from their desire/need to believe in the 'freezing' or 'immortalising' power of art. The Kinslaying, then, is only the most 'physical' and bloody expression of the flaw/desire that lies at the heart of every Elf -- that when it comes to choosing a perfect and immovable art (the gems) over an imperfect and changeable life (the Elves who stand in the way of the gems' recovery), the desire for art will always win. OK -- so not such a short post after all. . .but one more thing: I think the question you've posed doug is an interesting one, but perhaps a bit limiting: if what I'm suggesting has any weight at all (that Feanor is but the fullest expression of a flaw at the heart of all Elves) then whether or not Finrod was there is somewhat beside the point: the fact that he's an Elf is enough to implicate him in the the 'crime' of choosing art over life.