Tidbits of Curiosity

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Urwen

Maeglin was 190 yesrs old before he was killed, so not the youngest in Gondolin. Youngest among other Elda, but Tuor was also younger than him.

Yeah, I meant prior to that. Tuor's arrival, and even more so Earendil's birth, would have disrupted and overturned what I see as a key part of his self-image: that he was the youngest, and that (in the age-old refrain) "nobody understands me!". When Tuor arrives, Maeglin finds out that being youngest doesn't necessarily mean you have to be disliked. He needs to either take that as a lesson and grow - or reject it and come to hate Tuor. We all know which way he went on that score.

This quote from the Fall tells you a lot about Maeglin:

Then Meglin was bidden fare home lest at his absence men suspect somewhat; but Melko wove about him the spell of bottomless dread, and he had thereafter neither joy nor quiet in his heart. Nonetheless he wore a fair mask of good liking and gaiety, so that men said: "Meglin is softened", and he was held in less disfavour; yet Idril feared him the more. Now Meglin said: "I have laboured much and am minded to rest, and to join in the dance and the song and the merrymakings of the folk", and he went no more quarrying stone or ore in the hills: yet in sooth he sought herein to drown his fear and disquiet. Adread possessed him that Melko was ever at hand, and this came of the spell; and he durst never again wander amid the mines lest he again fall in with the Orcs and be bidden once more to the terrors of the halls of darkness.

Twice we're told he no longer knows quiet, and that he used to 'wander amid the mines'; coupled with the Silm statement that "His words were few save in matters that touched him near", I take that as confirmation that he didn't want to be among people. What Morgoth did to him was actually crueller than physical torture: he took away his ability to enjoy the silence. Maeglin literally had to drown out what he'd once found restful, because the Dark Lord had poisoned it against him.

In one way, this is fitting punishment: this is after he'd basically stalked Idril, after he'd betrayed his city for promise of power. But in another, it's unbearably pitiable.

hS

[Urwen]

I agree with you that he was a child, and remained such until the end. Which only makes his end even more tragic.