Man to Man in Araman!!!!!

[Carannillion]

Lúthien is mentioned as the most beautiful to ever walk ME, but not as the most powerful elf of all times. I am not saying that she is not, I am simply questioning the background for that statement.
Yes, she did stand up against Melkor, but others did too. Fingolfin and Fëanor for example.
However, the reasons for these acts of courage were somewhat different.
Lúthien did it out of love for Beren - and to a certain degree her father, her mother and Doriath.
Fingolfin's challenge to Melkor seems to me as a very "epic-heroic" act of selflessness out of love for his people. The war against Melkor was too hard for his people to bear, and so he chose to take the full responsibility himself, and challenge Morgoth alone. Some may say that he knew how it would end, and thus actually committed suicide. But what does that give us? Was it a selfish act to escape the despair, or was it a matter of honor (*mind drawing parallells to hara-kiri*)? Either way, Fingolfin carried it through, alone. Alone against a god, but he did not surrender.

-> Digression: I just realized, my signature relates very good to this situation...

Did Fingolfin love his people? Yes.
Fëanor is a different matter, yet not quite. He was obsessed with the Silmarils. Obsessed to the point of madness? Yes, I would say that. Whose fault was this? Fëanor created the Silmarils, so we could always blame him. Or, in the crafting of the Silmarils, did Fëanor perhaps step beyond his boundaries without even knowing it? Aüle was his mentor, could it be that Aüle had passed on knowledge too powerful for Fëanor to have? Fëanor was meant for ME, not Aman. This again, leads us on to the question of free will and the basic nature of people (:elves). If Fëanor had free will, he could have chosen not to make the Silmarils. He did choose to do so, but does this make him evil? Was he downright evil from the start? I say no. In creating the Silmarils, he unleashed a power not meant for him, but the question of guilt is a question possibly impossible to answer. Was it out of love for the Silmarils, or out of madness?

*steering self back to original topic*

Now, as for Finarfin's supposed cowardice, i believe we can "blame" his turning back more on love. His love for what he was on the verge of leaving behind for ever created a fear in him - no, rather a sense of despair. How could he possibly have continued as an exile? His fear came as a result of his love - where he had his love.

Galadriel's choice of continuing came, I believe, from her sense of pride. However, where that came from is another matter, and I am tired. I'll get back to it later on, perhaps. Unless someone else does it first, that is [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 6:34 PM January 09, 2004: Message edited by: Carannillion ]