you are a god's best friend. the world is young still, and you are yet younger. he rides with you and hunts with you, and teaches you how to speak to birds and beasts. you are a god's student. you ride in his train and care for a hound that he gifted to you. gods have taught others before. gods have been kindly to others before. your god is your best friend. he gifts you something of his self, a hound of his own hunt.
you are your father's son. your grandfather is dead. no one has ever called you wise, and you are, above all else, your father's son. he swears a terrible oath. you swear a terrible oath. you don't know if you really mean it, but your mother named you well- you are hasty to rise, hasty to run into things. the hunt teaches you patience but you cannot outrun yourself. you are your father's son.
you are a god's best friend and you have sworn a terrible oath, but it is an oath that you hope that your friend can understand. to hunt the murderer of your grandfather, is something that the god of the hunt can understand.
you are your father's son. the blood of elves on your hands does not feel different than the blood of a deer, except in the tight feeling of your throat. except in the thunderous beating of your heart. you tell your brother, who is trying not to throw up, that you need to think of them like deer. he looks at you like he's never seen you before. you are forever doomed.
you are a god's best friend. he does not say goodbye, but your dog comes with you. surely you can fix this, then, surely you are still a god's friend.
you are your father's son. he dies. he dies but before he does, he tells you to burn the boats. you do. you are your father's son. your father dies and, he tells you to swear that oath once more. it is a terrible oath. you have sworn it once. you swore to your best friend once. surely it will not tip the scales to swear once more, if in your mind, you dedicate this hunt to him.
you were a god's best friend, and it is not enough. you are your father's son, and you speak your father's oath. it proceeds to eat you alive.
I enjoy drawing in this style 🥰
one thing about them is that they will simply insult morgoth to his face <3 full brothers in heart indeed
What does your mad uncle and a broken clock have in common
#OMG???? #This killed me
Maglor/ Maglor and Maedhros
"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain" says Maedhros and it reveals something interesting about how he sees kinship and his role as leader.
A king is he that does not delegate and when wants something done, goes himself. He leads by example, he negotiates (attempts to, at least) with Morgoth, he places himself at the northern border of Beleriand, and the text tells us that he is even "very willing" that Morgoth's force falls heavier on him. He is ever watchful, he goes personally into battle, and is at the frontline, doing deeds of surpassing valour.
And when he is king no more, when Himring has fallen, and what little hope they had of defeating Morogth has vanished, he has his oath. He loathes what the oath makes him do, this the text says plainly, but the fact remains that he does it all the same.
He clings to the oath, terrified of what could happen if he breaks it. In his last conversation with Maglor, he appears to be more concerned to be an oathbreaker, than anything else, convinced that the doom of an oathbreaker is worse than that of a kinslayer. Because a king that breaks his oaths, is no king at all.
He is trapped in the condrum that the 'heroic' mentality poses. Until the bitter end. When faced with the very fact that the oath was void, his entire worldview, his certainties crumble, and his life has no meaning anymore.
Fruit harvest festival
Nerdanel & Feanaro
“[Galadriel] was the greatest of the Noldor, except Fëanor maybe” that feel when your mum drains her entire immortal life force to make you maybe better than your random niece 😔
Tolkien writing kingdoms' moral decay and eventual decline: they exploited nature, destroyed forests and cut down trees
Tolkien writing male characters' moral decay and eventual decline: he stopped listening to his wife
Maglor: I only had Elrond and Elros for a moment but if anything happened to them I would kill everyone in this room (okaaay, not you, Nelyo) and then myself.
Maedhros:
Maedhros: We've already killed everyone in this room.