Part II: Context is (Not) for the Weak
To boil it down, a group of angels were given stewardship of Middle Earth after it’s creation. To keep it simple we’ll just call them gods, it’s more complicated than that but it doesn’t matter for this story (Tolkien was catholic so that fuzzy boundary between angels and gods is home turf for him.). Here’s what does matter, Morgoth the fallen angel/god is in Middle Earth and he wants to be the only god there, he’s basically Satan. For a while the gods dwell alone in Middle Earth, taking over a western continent and building their own private paradise. Morgoth however squats in Middle Earth plotting, scheming and corrupting everything he touches. The gods are content to ignore him because they're not very proactive (No they are certainly not. And it’s not like there weren’t red-flags.). However, they realize that the elves are going to be showing up and they’re showing up in Morgoth’s backyard (Ooops). So they panic and actually do something, don’t get attached to this, guys, it’s a rare thing (It really is.). They storm Morgoth’s home, scatter or put down his corrupted servants and take him prisoner, throwing him in time out. Then to make sure that the precious elves don’t get hurt, they sent heralds out inviting all the elves to forget Middle Earth and come crash at their much cooler and nicer paradise. While some elves decide to stay in Middle Earth, a lot of them decide to check out first class, as it were. The elves grow, prosper and learn a lot from the very gods who were there when the world was created. Morgoth pinkie swore he wasn’t evil anymore and so was granted work release (Oh for fuck’s sake!). One more thing that’s gonna be important was the sun and the moon didn’t exist yet, instead there were two trees that illuminated the whole world in a soft, gentle nourishing light (Don’t ask me how this works.). First let’s meet the elf that makes everything after this happen in the worst way possible.
His name was Feanor, and Feanor isn't a drama queen. He's the bloody God Emperor of Drama (Sitting upon his golden throne, being fed Psykers to keep the cosmic lighthouse burning wait… wrong God Emperor)! In fact, he couldn’t even be born without making it a massive production, his birth was so draining that his mother claimed that she would never be able to bear another child (What? I mean, okay, but they’re hanging out there with literal god-angels and she still deals with a painful childbirth? What?). Because Feanor had taken all of the power she had for children for himself (Wait. So Elvish babies are literally thaumaturgic parasites then, who can steal their parents magical essence?{Elves can sense… Souls? I guess you call it? So they can feel the Soul growing when pregnant from what I’ve read and Feanor’s soul...Yeah}). So exhausting was carrying an unborn Feanor and his ego that she literally laid down and died, which had never happened before in Elvish history (... WTF. But what did she do? She was in the West? Just lie down and her soul goes down the street to the Halls of Mandos and he’s like “Oh hey, I wasn’t expecting you!”?). Now Elves kinda reincarnate but Feanor’s mother wasn’t having it, she was quitting life (That makes no sense. “I have had a child, and his ego was so huge that allowing it to grow inside me destroyed my sense of self and left me in such profound existential despair that I’m just gonna go hang out with Mandos until the end of days.”{Look man, that’s what myth says, she basically fled to the Halls of Mandos and refused to come out}). So Feanor’s father was given permission to remarry, also a first in Elvish history. For additional firsts, in some versions, Feanor refuses to attend the wedding. Possibly because he wouldn’t be the center of attention there. If you think I’m being harsh on him, just read to the end. Now to be fair, Feanor was a mad genius, he single-handedly created the Elvish alphabet and mastered any craft he cared to. In fact, it was studying the light of the trees and trying to figure how to top it that Feanor created his greatest masterpieces and the biggest sources of trouble in all of Middle Earth. There may have been some spite involved as well because in some versions he asked Galadriel for a lock of her hair and she told him to piss off (But Gimli got one. Awwww. Also, how strange is that? Who does that?{Girls giving a lock of their hair to men they were fond of was actually common in some northern cultures. Not necessarily a romantic tradition either. Galadriel was also considered to have the most beautiful hair of all time, like better than goddesses}). So he builds the Silmarils to prove he didn’t need her hair anyways. The Silmarils were three gems that Feanor crafted from unknown substances and within burns the purified light of those ancient trees. Making them the shiniest things in the universe. Morgoth took one look at those jewels and wanted them more than anything else. Of course, Feanor would have nothing to do with Morgoth, but the wicked spirit had a plan. Due to Feanor’s father remarrying, he had half brothers, among them Fingolfin who was almost as great as Feanor and way easier to get along with (Little brothers who have to put up with their insufferable older siblings can be like that.). So Morgoth started a whispering campaign to pit half brother against half brother and succeeded wildly. He also taught the elves how to make weapons, of course, Feanor figured how to make better ones just from examining one. Which led to Feanor pulling a sword on Fingolfin and threatening him. In public. In front of hundreds. This led to Feanor being punished by banishment and Morgoth’s role being revealed. So Morgoth fled… Or so everyone thought (Clearly, work release without so much as a probation Angel is going so well.{but he pinkie swore!}).
The gods, after hunting for Morgoth and thinking they had run him out of paradise, decided to attend to the fights he had caused. They held a party and ordered Feanor to come because otherwise he wouldn’t and asked Fingolfin to come along as well. Feanor came, but in high dudgeon and refused to wear the Silmarils or anything befitting a party. He remained huffy even while being forgiven by Fingolfin, you know, for threatening to murder him, with a sword, in broad treelight. Of course, Fingolfin, having grown up with Feanor might have just regarded that as Tuesday (Probably. “Look bro, you know you do this all the time. So do I, obviously. But this is the first time anyone else saw in order to be mortified, so I have to forgive you in public.”). While everyone was partying, Morgoth killed the trees plunging the world into darkness, stole the Silmarils, and killed Feanor's father, who had gone into banishment with his eldest son (You know, just to be a dick.{Feanor didn’t manifest his dramatic tendencies out of nowhere}). At first, no one knew that the Silmarils had been stolen because everyone was busy panicking that the world had been plunged into utter darkness and were trying to figure out how to fix it. Because making the trees had taken so much out of the gods they couldn’t just make them again, but they realized that the Silmarils could be used to reconstruct the trees. They all turned to Feanor and asked him to give up the Silmarils to save the world. This would involve breaking the gems though and Feanor couldn’t hope to remake them. This is a common theme in Tolkien’s work that once you create your masterpiece, you won’t ever be able to remake it. Feanor stands silent, the whole world wrapped in deep and unbroken darkness… And tells the gods to go to hell, they can have the jewels over his dead body (Feanor, you have been accused of Anti-Soviet behavior. The court finds you guilty, and sentences you to be shot). Because to hell with the world, there’s drama to be had! It’s then that the news comes, Morgoth also stole the jewels and killed Feanor’s father. Feanor, justified for once, throws a fit of epic proportions and leaves the gods screaming in rage and grief.
He goes straight to his people and through sheer force of will convinces them that the only conceivable option isn’t to ask the gods for help but to pick the swords that Morgoth taught them to make and march to war on him. Because no elf, dwarf, orc, man or god is going to wrong Feanor on this level without punishment. Feanor proposed to leave paradise across a wide sea and wage war on Satan himself and his people, after a lot of arguments, agree. They start marching and when the gods tell them to drop this clearly terrible idea, Feanor tells them to go to hell! He leads them to the city of another nation of elves, who had the ships they needed but those elves weren’t having it. So Feanor decides he’ll just take them and when those elves resist? Out come the swords and Feanor starts his campaign of justice by butchering innocent elves just trying to stop him from stealing their boats! This causes the god of Fate to come out and curse the elves, telling them they are marching into a clusterfuck of epic portions and suffering they have never known. Everything the elves do will fall to ruin, they will die, and those who live will have all the joy drained from life as they suffer tragedy after tragedy (Never piss off the God of Fate. Never tempt Fate. Because if you do, he will curse you so hard your great great grandchildren will be completely fucked. Where is Justice? The God of Justice is nowhere to be found ever.). All of it springing from their own decisions and actions. Feanor… Stands up and tells the god of Fate to go to hell. Because tragic and doomed or not, what he and his elves will do will be the most amazing and metal deeds ever done and the god of Fate grants the point and leaves.
Feanor isn’t done yet though, seeing that a large part of the elves following him are muttering about the need for new management, he decides he needs to take action. So in the middle of the night, he loads up his loyalists and his sons and takes all the boats abandoning a large chunk of his own people. He sails to Middle Earth and burns the boats, and in some versions, he burns his own son to death in one of the boats because he doesn’t think to check that everyone is off the boats first. The elves he abandoned turn to his half brother Fingolfin, who is utterly rip shit and instead of marching back to ask forgiveness of the gods, they decide to march over the North Pole so they can fight Morgoth and tell Feanor he’s a dick to his face. Many of them wouldn’t make it. This tells us that Fingolfin has his own temptations to the dramatic and that his side of the family isn’t free of it (This is what happens when you also look up to your insufferable older brother.).
This is the level of leadership Feanor brings to his people in a war with Satan and after many heroic, noble acts which are undermined by the shortsighted greed, fear, and rage of the elves... They get their asses kicked, partly because the elves can't resist fighting each other, as you may have noticed! You know, because fighting the legions of hell just isn't enough war for them, they have to stab each other now and again to keep it fresh. They became a scattered people, hunted by orcs and evil men who if they catch them will either kill them or drag them off to eternal slavery. With only a few hidden redoubts left, that are sniffed out and destroyed one by one. Gondolin is the greatest of these hidden redoubts and the last one. It is a city beautiful beyond belief populated by a people who are learned and artistic and doomed.
Join us tomorrow when we finally get to the actual book! In Part III: On a Mission from (the sea) God.
red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders
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