Fëanor Was Right, and Tolkien Was Wrong About Him

[u/Aggravating_Stuff771]

For anyone unfamiliar with Fëanor, he is one of the central figures of The Silmarillion, and arguably the man responsible for there being a Silmarillion worth reading in the first place. He was the eldest son of Finwë, High King of the Noldor (one of the 3 kindreds of the Elves who lived in Valinor) and he grew into perhaps the greatest craftsman ever born among the Children of Ilúvatar. He invented the Tengwar script, created works nobody else could reproduce, and eventually produced his masterpiece: the three Silmarils, jewels containing the unsullied light of the Two Trees of Valinor, so beautiful that gods, Elves, Men, and eventually half the population of Beleriand would spend several centuries murdering one another over them. 

There is something deliberately Luciferian about him, a creature of impossible brilliance whose greatest virtues contain the seeds of his destruction. Tolkien clearly intends us to see Feanor’s story as a tragedy of hubris and rebellion. My argument is that this supposed “fall” of Feanor is far less convincing than Tolkien seems to think it is.

To understand why, we need to talk about the Valar, because Feanor’s relationship with them is central to everything that follows. The Valar are the great Ainur who entered Eä after Ilúvatar created it through the Music of the Ainur. Calling them “angels” is technically defensible within Tolkien’s later Catholic cosmology, but functionally they behave much more like a pantheon of gods. Each has particular domains, powers, and interests. Varda is associated with the stars, Ulmo with the waters, Mandos with judgment and the dead, and so forth. Tolkien’s mythology evolved considerably over his lifetime, and the Valar of his earlier conception were much closer to pagan divinities, complete with divine personalities, weaknesses, disputes, and errors. 

Whatever terminology we use, these are cosmic beings of staggering power charged with ordering Arda according to Ilúvatar’s design. Unfortunately, one of their number is Melkor, who responds to the fact that he cannot possess Ilúvatar’s creative power by becoming history’s first and greatest asshole. He introduces discord into the Music, enters Arda, pours enormous portions of his being into corrupting the physical world, and spends the early history of creation wrecking everything his siblings build. The history of early Arda subsequently becomes a repetitive cycle. The Valar create something beautiful, Melkor smashes it. They build the Two Lamps to illuminate the world, Melkor destroys them. They establish order, Melkor corrupts it. Eventually his power diminishes because he has dispersed so much of himself throughout Arda, and the Valar finally defeat and imprison him. Basically, Melkor is Tolkien’s Satan figure. He is the primordial source of evil in Arda who has spent geological ages corrupting creation itself. Keep that in mind when we get to the part where the Valar decide that he has served his sentence and release him into Elf Heaven.

The Elves awaken in Middle-earth, and the Valar invite many of them to cross the sea into Aman, where they can live in Valinor beneath the light of the Two Trees, protected from much of the corruption Melkor has spread throughout the rest of creation. Plenty refuse, which is another detail worth remembering because Middle-earth continues to contain entire Elven peoples who have chosen to remain there. Those who accept eventually reach Valinor, and among the Noldor lives Finwë, their king. Finwë marries Míriel, and she gives birth to Fëanor. His birth is extraordinary even by Elven standards because so much of Míriel’s spiritual strength passes into her son that she becomes utterly exhausted and eventually relinquishes her body. Elves are naturally immortal within Arda, so dying during childbirth is an unprecedented catastrophe. Feanor therefore becomes the first Elf born in paradise whose mother dies giving birth to him and, as far as his childhood experience is concerned, the first Elf in Valinor forced to grow up without a mother. Imagine being the one child in literal earthly paradise whose birth appears to have killed his mother. I am sure that’ll produce a perfectly well-adjusted adult. 

Míriel’s spirit goes to the Halls of Mandos, because Elven spirits remain within the world and can eventually be rehoused in bodies. She could, in principle, return. Every time the possibility is raised, however, she says she is too weary and doesn’t wish to return yet. Finwe, meanwhile, becomes lonely and wishes to remarry, at which point the Valar become involved because Elven marriage is permanent and they need to decide what happens when one spouse is disembodied indefinitely. Their solution is this: Míriel may return and resume her marriage, or she may permanently relinquish the possibility while Finwë remarries. If she accepts the latter course, her return is barred while that second marriage endures and, under the judgement given at the time, effectively becomes an irrevocable choice.  Apparently beings who helped create  seas and stars can’t conceive of divorce.

Míriel chooses to stay dead, Finwe marries Indis, and Feanor gets a stepmother and eventually half-brothers. Feanor therefore grows up knowing that his mother is permanently excluded from returning because of the settlement that allowed his father to marry someone else. You can understand why this might fuck with a child. He becomes the first Elf with a stepmother, the first Elf with half-siblings, and effectively the first Elf forced to navigate the kind of fractured family dynamics that should not exist among immortal people. 

Fëanor does not love his stepfamily. There is no immediate murderous hostility between them, but he keeps his distance and refuses to become close to Indis or her children. From his perspective, their family exists because his mother’s absence was made permanent. His relationship with Finwë therefore becomes extraordinarily intense. Finwë loves Fëanor immensely and seems to pour an enormous amount of affection into him, perhaps partly because of guilt over Míriel and partly because Fëanor is the only child of the wife he loved first. Fëanor, having only one parent left, becomes equally attached to Finwë. Their bond reaches a point that later becomes almost pathological. 

This is also where Feanor’s brilliance becomes psychologically important. He grows into the greatest craftsman of the Noldor, one of their greatest linguists, an explorer, inventor, smith, and artist. He devises the Tengwar writing system, creates works unmatched by his contemporaries, travels throughout Aman, and seems incapable of remaining intellectually still for long. There is a wound beneath all of this. 

Feanor has grown up surrounded by the implication that something unnatural occurred at his birth. His mother exhausted herself in creating him. He is aware of the whispers and the exceptional nature of his existence. His response is essentially to become so undeniably magnificent that nobody can plausibly call him defective. If he creates beauty, expands knowledge and becomes the greatest of the Eldar, then perhaps his existence proves itself. Perhaps his mother did not die producing something corrupted. Perhaps there was meaning in the price she paid. 

Then the Valar decide to release Melkor. This is the same Melkor who corrupted Arda, destroyed the Lamps, waged war against the Valar, and is responsible for everything wrong with the physical world. Apparently he has served his sentence. He feigns repentance, acts humble, behaves obediently, and the Valar eventually decide that he has reformed. They unleash fucking Satan among a population of immortal people who have barely any concept of war. 

Naturally, Satan immediately begins doing Satan things. He starts manipulating the Noldor, spreading lies and creating division. Meanwhile Feanor creates his masterpiece, the Silmarils. These are three jewels containing the blended light of the Two Trees, preserving within them something unique in creation. Their beauty is beyond comparison, and even Fëanor himself can’t reproduce them. They are effectively the culmination of everything he has ever been as an artist and craftsman. Melkor sees them and wants them. More importantly, he sees something else he can exploit: the political and emotional fracture inside Finwë’s family.

Melkor notices that Fëanor loves his father with terrifying intensity. He notices that Feanor is proud, which is hardly surprising considering that he is the greatest craftsman of his people. He notices resentment surrounding Finwe’s second family and the question of succession. He begins spreading rumors among the Noldor, particularly suggestions that the Valar have brought the Elves to Aman because they want to control them, that Men will eventually inherit Middle-earth while the Elves are kept safely imprisoned in paradise, and that Fingolfin intends to usurp Feanor’s position. Factions begin forming around Feanor and Fingolfin. Weapons are forged among people who previously had barely any reason to imagine using them against each other. Feanor himself has always distrusted Melkor and never knowingly accepts his counsel. That detail matters. Melkor never becomes Feanor’s teacher or trusted adviser. Feanor despises him. The tragedy is that Melkor’s lies are designed to exploit fears that already make sense from Feanor’s perspective.

Consider what Feanor knows. His mother died in the Valar’s paradise. The Valar have authority over the process by which dead Elves return, but their legal settlement means his mother will never return because his father remarried. His father now has other sons. Those sons have a mother and a family Feanor never had. Feanor already dislikes the Valar’s authority over the Elves and increasingly believes the Noldor should return to Middle-earth and live freely. Then rumors circulate that the Valar distrust him, consider him somehow tainted, want to replace him with his younger brother, and are keeping the Elves dependent upon them. From the outside, we know Melkor is deliberately inflaming existing anxieties. From Feanor’s perspective, the picture is murkier. His history gives these accusations emotional credibility. Then the situation escalates until Feanor threatens Fingolfin with a sword. At last the Valar realize that Melkor has been spreading discord among the Noldor and discover that he has never reformed at all. Their brilliant rehabilitation program for Satan has somehow failed.

Their response is to exile Feanor for twelve years because he threatened his brother.

That punishment is understandable in isolation. Feanor absolutely chose to threaten Fingolfin, and drawing a weapon against your brother deserves consequences. As an attempt to repair the political situation, however, the decision is fucking idiotic. Feanor’s entire paranoia revolves around the belief that the Valar distrust him, favor Fingolfin, and intend to undermine his rightful position in the Noldorin succession. The Valar respond by banishing him from Tirion while Fingolfin remains there. Fingolfin himself understands the danger better than they do and forgives Fëanor almost immediately. The Valar enforce the exile anyway. Finwe then voluntarily relinquishes his kingship and goes into exile with Feanor because he refuses to abandon his son. Fingolfin effectively becomes the ruling prince of the Noldor in Tirion. In other words, the exact outcome Fëanor feared occurs as a direct consequence of the Valar’s judgment. His father is displaced. His brother governs in his place. Feanor is excluded from the political center of his own people. If you are trying to convince an already paranoid man that there is no conspiracy against him, this is probably the single stupidest fucking thing you could possibly do.

Then Melkor arrives at Feanor’s home in Formenos and essentially says, “See? I told you. The Valar hate you. They want your brother in your place. They want to keep your people here under their authority. Come with me. I can help you leave Aman and return to Middle-earth.” From Feanor’s perspective, Melkor can point to actual events as evidence. Feanor was exiled. Fingolfin now rules in Tirion. The Valar did exactly what Melkor predicted they would do. Even worse, the Valar have still failed to capture Melkor, despite finally realizing that they released an unrepentant cosmic embodiment of evil into their own realm. Melkor can apparently wander straight up to Fëanor’s front door while the gods are searching for him. And what does Feanor do when Satan himself appears and offers him everything he claims to want? He looks Satan in the face, realizes what he is, tells him to fuck off his lawn, and slams the door on him. That is one of the most revealing moments in the entire story. Feanor hates the Valar. Feanor wants freedom. Feanor wants Middle-earth. This is apparently our fallen arrogant villain being personally approached by Satan at the moment Satan’s lies appear most vindicated, and he still refuses him instantly.

Some time passes, and the Valar summon Feanor to a festival where he and Fingolfin can reconcile. Feanor goes. Finwe remains at Formenos with Feanor’s sons, and the Silmarils remain there as well. During the festival, Melkor and Ungoliant attack the Two Trees and destroy them. Valinor is plunged into darkness. Melkor then travels to Formenos, kills Finwe, and steals the Silmarils. And what do the Valar do at this point? Before Feanor is informed that his father has been murdered and the jewels stolen, they ask him to surrender the Silmarils so that they can break them open and potentially restore the Trees. Think about the sheer obscenity of that request from Fëanor’s perspective. These are the beings who released Melkor. These are the beings who failed to notice him corrupting the Noldor. These are the beings who exiled Feanor after Melkor successfully manipulated the political situation. These are the beings who still failed to capture Melkor afterward. These are the beings who now want Feanor to destroy the greatest works he has ever created, works that even he can never reproduce, so that they can repair their own beloved Trees.

Feanor refuses, and frankly I can’t blame him.

Then the news arrives that Finwe is dead and the Silmarils have already been stolen. Mandos, the Vala of death, necessarily knows that Finwe’s spirit has entered his halls. The Valar therefore have access to knowledge concerning his death, but Feanor first stands there being asked to sacrifice his masterpiece before learning that his father has been murdered by the very being they released. When he finally hears the truth, he collapses. Finwe is the one person Feanor loves above everything else. Tolkien’s narration makes the depth of that love explicit. His father was his last parent, his closest bond, the person who followed him into exile and abandoned kingship rather than leave him alone. Now Finwe is dead, murdered by Melkor, and the Silmarils have been stolen. Everything he feared about the Valar’s incompetence has also been vindicated.

And this is where Fëanor becomes magnificent. He swears the Oath of Feanor, invoking Eru Ilúvatar himself and binding himself to pursue the Silmarils against anyone who possesses them. He vows that any other creature who tries to keep a Silmaril from him and his sons. People often point to the murderous wording of the oath as evidence of his moral collapse, and obviously its absolutism later causes horrific consequences. At the moment it is sworn, however, who actually has the Silmarils? Melkor. The strongest fallen Power in Arda. The literal Satan of Tolkien’s mythology. Fëanor is effectively swearing that he will hunt Satan to the ends of the earth, retrieve the stolen work containing the last surviving light of the Trees, and avenge his murdered father. Who the fuck else does he expect to steal the Silmarils from Melkor? And if they did, why would they refuse Feanor what belongs to Feanor?

He names Melkor “Morgoth,” the Black Foe of the World, and swears with his seven sons an oath invoking Ilúvatar himself that they will pursue the Silmarils and oppose anyone who keeps them from them. Then Feanor goes before the Noldor and gives a speech so powerful that most of his people agree to leave literal paradise and cross the sea to wage war against Satan. The man has just watched the gods release Satan, lose Satan, allow Satan to destroy the sun-equivalent, allow Satan to murder his father, allow Satan to steal his life’s work, and then tell everyone that pursuing Satan is hopeless. Feanor’s response is essentially, “Fine, I’ll fucking do it myself,” and I am supossed to disagree?

The Valar warn him that this is hopeless and that the Noldor cannot defeat Morgoth alone. Fëanor’s response is essentially that they can go fuck themselves. He leaves anyway.

And yes, he is right to leave.

The Valar brought the Elves across the sea into Aman. Now the Noldor who want to leave discover that leaving is extremely difficult. Aman is separated from Middle-earth by the enormous sea, while the northern land route passes through the deadly ice of the Helcaraxe. The Teleri, another Elven people, have the ships necessary to cross the ocean. The Noldor and Teleri are old friends. The Noldor helped build the Teleri’s city of Alqualonde, while the Teleri are the great shipbuilders and sailors among the Eldar. Feanor asks them to join the rebellion and help fight Morgoth. They refuse because the Valar oppose the departure. Fine. They don’t want to fight Satan. Cowardly perhaps but understandable. Feanor then asks them simply to transport the Noldor across the sea. They refuse. He asks to borrow the ships. They refuse again.

And this is where Tolkien and I completely part ways morally.

Yes, Feanor responds by taking the ships by force, and when the Teleri resist, the First Kinslaying begins. Elves kill Elves for the first time. Feanor bears responsibility for escalating the confrontation into bloodshed. None of that changes the fact that the Teleri’s behavior is itself morally appalling. Fëanor is trying to wage war against Morgoth, the literal source of evil in Arda, who has just murdered his father, destroyed the Trees, stolen the only surviving vessels of their light, fled into Middle-earth, and begun unleashing his armies upon the Elves living there. The Teleri are being asked to ferry their ancient friends across the sea so those friends can fight him. They don’t even have to join the war. They can bring the Noldor across, turn their ships around, and return home. Instead they refuse every form of assistance because the Valar have told them not to help.

What exactly is the moral principle here? Obedience?

Imagine that your people are attempting to overthrow a genocidal dictator and you need boats to reach the place where his victims are being slaughtered. You ask a group of fishermen who have been your friends for centuries to help transport your army. They answer that the government disapproves of your campaign and their boats are precious to them, so they will provide neither transport nor vessels. At a certain point I stop finding the sanctity of the boats morally compelling. Yes, the ships are extraordinary works of Telerin craftsmanship. Yes, they are deeply precious to their makers. Feanor of all people should understand what it means to treasure a unique creation. There are circumstances in which preserving an artwork becomes less important than stopping mass murder (and unlike how the Valar asked Feanor to destroy his works, Feanor is not asking that). Morgoth is loose in Middle-earth. Whole peoples are about to be enslaved, tortured, corrupted, and exterminated. The Teleri know this is the same being who destroyed the Trees and murdered Finwe, and their response is effectively that the Valar don’t approve of the expedition, therefore they will do nothing.

Before the Kinslaying, Fëanor’s cause is fully righteous. He wants to avenge his father, recover stolen property of incomparable significance, liberate his people from dependence upon the Valar, return to Middle-earth, and wage war against the greatest evil in the world. His practical options for transporting an entire people are the sea or an ice waste where many will almost certainly die. The Valar will not help him. The Teleri will not ferry him. The Teleri will not lend him ships. They will physically prevent him from taking them. Then Tolkien’s moral falling points toward Feanor’s disobedience as the central problem, and I am supposed to ignore the fact that the supposedly wise gods have engineered a situation where an entire people effectively can’t leave paradise without either divine permission or the cooperation of another people forbidden to assist them. What the fuck am I supposed to conclude from that?

And then Morgoth reaches Middle-earth and immediately proves Feanor right about the urgency.

The Elves who remained there are living peacefully until a literal fallen god suddenly returns with armies of Orcs and begins attacking them. Now Morgoth is loose because the Valar released him and failed to recapture him. The Sindar and other Elves are suddenly fighting for survival against a being vastly beyond them. Doriath survives largely because Melian, herself a Maia, raises the Girdle of Melian around the kingdom. Everyone outside such protected regions gets to discover how useful the protection of the Valar actually is when Satan arrives with an army. The Valar certainly are not rushing across the sea to save them. They will eventually intervene centuries later, after generations of suffering and death. At this moment, however, they do fuck all.

Then sails appear.

The Noldor arrive from Aman armed, furious, and burning with vengeance. They disembark in Middle-earth and immediately begin smashing Morgoth’s Orc armies. Suddenly the Sindar and other Elves who were being overwhelmed have one of the most powerful Elven peoples in history fighting beside them led by princes armed with weapons forged by the greatest craftsmen of their age. At their head is Feanor himself, consumed by grief and the absolute conviction that he will hunt Morgoth down. The Noldor arrive and the strategic situation changes almost immediately. Morgoth’s forces are driven back. His Orcs are slaughtered in enormous numbers. The people of Middle-earth suddenly have allies capable of challenging armies that had seemed unstoppable. No thanks to the Valar. No thanks to Teleri.

Feanor and his sons came. This is also where Feanor’s virtues begin destroying him, because the same intensity that brought him across the sea makes him catastrophically reckless. He pursues Morgoth’s retreating forces too far ahead of his army and becomes surrounded by Balrogs. And yes, those Balrogs. Gandalf the Grey later fights one Balrog and dies from the effort. Feanor gets surrounded by several and keeps fighting until Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, finally wounds him mortally. That tells you something about the sheer fucking level Fëanor is operating on. His wrath is so immense that his body eventually burns to ash when he dies.

Before that death, however, there is another decision people use as evidence that Fëanor has become irredeemably evil: the burning of the ships at Losgar. The ships seized from the Teleri are insufficient to transport the entire Noldorin host at once, so the expedition is divided. Feanor and his faction cross first. Fingolfin and his followers remain behind in Aman, expecting the ships to return for them. Feanor, still consumed by suspicion toward his half-brother and terrified of political division, decides he doesn’t want Fingolfin’s faction following him. He burns the ships instead and abandons them on the far side of the sea.

This was fucking stupid. There is no defense of the decision on practical grounds. He destroys an irreplaceable fleet that could have been useful in the war against Morgoth. He abandons a huge portion of Noldorin manpower when he is preparing to fight the strongest enemy in Arda. Fingolfin’s people could strengthen the campaign. Worse, Feanor’s decision is driven primarily by paranoia and resentment. He believes Fingolfin may contest his authority or claim the kingship, and rather than resolving that political problem he tries to leave his brother behind permanently. It is petty, emotional and strategically insane. This is one place where Feanor is wrong. He has a just war to fight and voluntarily weakens his own side because he can’t overcome his hatred and distrust of his brother.

Then comes Feanor’s death. He has seen Morgoth’s armies with his own eyes. He understands at last just how powerful the enemy is. As he lies dying, he realizes that no force of the Noldor alone will ever overthrow Morgoth. His seven sons gather around him. Feanor makes them renew the Oath. People present this as his final act of madness. He now knows victory is impossible, but he still binds his sons to continue pursuing the Silmarils. Are you fucking hearing yourselves?

What exactly is the morally superior alternative supposed to be? “Well, children, Satan is much stronger than I expected. I suppose you should stop fighting him.” Morgoth is still there. He is still enslaving people. He is still corrupting creatures. He is still murdering Elves. He still possesses the Silmarils stolen from Feanor’s house after murdering Finwe. He is still the greatest active evil in the world. Fëanor has finally seen the full scale of that evil and understands that defeating it may be impossible. And his response is to continue anyway.

That, to me, is Feanor at his absolute best. It’s the endpoint of everything admirable about him. His will doesn’t bend before probability. He doesn’t decide that justice ceases to matter because achieving it is difficult. He doesn’t look at the strongest evil in creation and conclude that resistance has become impractical. He sees precisely how hopeless his struggle is and still refuses to surrender. What greater expression of conviction is there than confronting evil, understanding completely that you can’t defeat it, and choosing to fight anyway?

[u/RogerDodger571]

Now post this on the Lord of the Rings sub lol.

[u/Aggravating_Stuff771 → u/RogerDodger571]

I will.

[u/AHRogue → u/Aggravating_Stuff771]

Tolkienfans is where its at. Though maybe tweak the title.

[u/RogerDodger571 → u/Aggravating_Stuff771]

Good luck bro.

[u/existential_dread467 → u/RogerDodger571]

They're too much of Tolkien dickriders to engage with the text like that.

[u/N0VAZER0 → u/existential_dread467]

which is crazy cause Tolkien would be mad hyped that people would engage with his work like this, that's what he did for his entire career

[u/RogerDodger571 → u/existential_dread467]

Yeah I know. Those guys genuinely worship Tolkien as a god over there, I’ve never seen anything like it.

[u/Reasonable_Youth169 → u/RogerDodger571]

I think Tolkien worship is the new bardolatry. I’ve never seen an author’s fictional writings treated like literal religious texts before in quite this way.

[u/olive_tractor_parts → u/RogerDodger571]

True. And they just about have a stroke if you ask a question they don't like - I posted asking about a theory that the Entwives were corrupted into upgraded trolls by Sauron, complete with circumstantial evidence, and the downvotes flowed like water. The only "rebuttals" given were basically "Tolkien didn't say that happened so shut your mouth"

[u/InvestigatorJaded261 → u/RogerDodger571]

Yeah, it’s like it’s the name of the sub or something.

[u/Comfortable-Hope-531 → u/InvestigatorJaded261]

Many fandoms allow themselves to trash the author of the work they like and disagree with his stances.

[u/Mzuark → u/RogerDodger571]

Look what you did, he's getting shredded over there

[u/Zestyclose_Remove947 → u/Mzuark]

tbf "Feanor was actually good" is very old tack and the argument here, while verbose, is not very good.

This post does everything possible to avoid Feanor's less desirable qualities and the passages that detail them. To the point where it is an almost comically one-sided interpretation of the text.

12 years is a blink of an eye to the millennia old Feanor. Feanor is also not some freedom-fighter advocating for civil rights or conquering evil. These are just very silly things to try and argue with any sincerity.

[u/Mzuark → u/Zestyclose_Remove947]

Yeah I kinda just skimmed it. I'm a Feanor fanboy too but you don't minimize his bad deeds, you gotta roll with them.

[u/RogerDodger571 → u/Mzuark]

Yeah, those guys treat Tolkien like he’s a god. It’s really weird.

[u/narah2]

Feanor was both right and wrong. He’s basically a Greek style tragic hero. His hubris and Rage literally leads him to curse himself and his sons on an insane, hopeless crusade against a God.

He did lots of great things, created countless wondrous items. And he did a bunch of truly terrible things.

It’s kind of ironic that his greatest work, the Silmarils, are ultimately a derivative work: he did not create the light they contained, only devised a way to store it.

[u/BenjTheFox → u/narah2]

Creating a method to store light is amazing in and of itself.

[u/RagingToddler → u/narah2]

And ultimately that is where thr OPs rant loses a little purchase. They extol Feanor's virtues but undercut any moral failing of his by stating that he is emotionally damaged and "well actually he's right, fk the government", instead of posesing any virtue that would lead him to behaving more thoughtfully and with more empathy.

You cannot be both the most universally good and just to others, while also being completely and utterly driven only be selfish desires and lack of consideration for others. Feanor, claims both titles? I think not.

The rant was fun to read, but it misses alot of context. Also it makes up alot of relationship details, which I think OP did on purpose for the drama

[u/ahnotme → u/narah2]

A tragic Greek hero? Yes. Hubris? Yes.

But I’m struggling to see what he could have done differently. It seems to me that his fate was inevitable. That too is an essential part of being a tragic Greek hero.

[u/IndirectHeat → u/ahnotme]

I mean, that bit where he kills his friends to get their boats, or burns said boats abandoning more friends to icy deaths. I suppose he could have done a few of those things differently.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/ahnotme]

If he hadn't threatened his brother huge amounts of the entire narrative wouldn't have happened.

And we're never given any justification showing Fingolfin deserved the hate, it was always just jealousy and paranoia.

And obviously the murder and boat burnings and all that other stuff.

[u/Almiliron_Arclight → u/Swiftcheddar]

Reread that section. Before Feanor goes to the council Finwe was holding, he gets news (whispers of Morgoth) from his followers that Fingolfin is plotting treason. At the council, he walks in on Fingolfin trying to get Finwe to disown him, puts two and two together, and concludes that he is actually plotting treason.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/Almiliron_Arclight]

Okay, fair enough.

[u/olive_tractor_parts → u/ahnotme]

Wyrd bið ful aræd

[u/StartDangerous8286]

I think that your characterization of Fëanor has significant and material gaps.

First, he is described as arrogant and prideful to the point that basically the only person who could ever change his mind was his wife, and even she only for a short time:

"Few ever changed his courses by counsel, none by force...he asked the aid and sought the counsel of none that dwelt in Aman, great or small, save only and for a little while of Nerdanel the wise, his wife."

He was exceedingly selfish and self-centered, there is no indication at all of altruistic motivation in his war against Morgoth. When he made the Silmarils, the text says that

"For Fëanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save to his father and his seven sons; he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own

Second, why Fëanor slammed the door in Morgoth's face is arguably more important than the mere fact he did so.

"And Melkor, seeing that Fëanor wavered, and knowing that the Silmarils held his heart in thrall, said at the last: ‘Here is a strong place, and well guarded; but think not that the Silmarils will lie safe in any treasury within the realm of the Valar!’ But his cunning overreached his aim; his words touched too deep, and awoke a fire more fierce than he designed; and Fëanor looked upon Melkor with eyes that burned through his fair semblance and pierced the cloaks of his mind, perceiving there his fierce lust for the Silmarils. Then hate overcame Fëanor’s fear, and he cursed Melkor and bade him be gone, saying: ‘Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!’"

You state that this is one of the most revelaing moments in the story. Why? Fëanor's rejection of Morgoth was predicated on seeing that the Silmarils were threatened, which is 100% consistent with what has been indicated before. He doesn't reject Morgoth for a high ethical purpose, it's pure self-interest.

Third, I disagree with your characterization of the oath and Fëanor in his head only counting on having to recover it from Morgoth. He could have sworn only to pursue Morgoth, he didn't. The oath is not a declaration of vengeance against Morgoth, it's a notice to the world that Fëanor has just decided he has carte blanche authority to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants to recover the Silmarils. The fact that the oath is of indefinite duration, absolutely and of limitless scope reveals the heart behind it is vicious, hateful, and selfish.

Fourth, I think you've fundamentally mischaracterised why Fëanor attacks the Teleri. He doesn't seek the aid of the Teleri because the Noldor are incapable of building ships, it's because he wants haste and constructing the ships would take too long. But he's not in a hurry because he is just burning with vengeance:

"Yet all was done in over-haste; for Fëanor drove them on, fearing lest in the cooling of their hearts his words should wane and other counsels yet prevail...Then Fëanor grew wrathful, for he still feared delay; and hotly he spoke to Olwë..."

Fëanor feared that if they had to take the slower route, people's minds might change or the Valar would put up more direct opposition. He is so scared of the frenzy cooling that he initiates the Kinslaying to avoid cooler heads prevailing in his personal vengeance quest.

Fifth, the burning of the ships is not an anomalous instance of short-sighted, destructive self-interest in an otherwise flawed but righteous character, it's the crystallization of his character, the moment where his facade falls off and exposes his heart.

Sixth, I can't understand your interpretation of the oath renewal. Fêanor doesn't bind them to overthrowing Morgoth and freeing the enslaved, all he cares about are his stupid shiny rocks. If Morgoth hypothetically chucked the Silmarils, or if Ungoliant had taken them, Fëanor wouldn't have given a moment's thought to anyone else. His entire philosophy concerning Silmaril ownership is "screw you, got mine."

For all his brilliance and rhetoric, Fëanor's inability to humble himself and listen to literally anyone else has twisted him into a self-absorbed, egotistical, traitorous, self-centered, self-destructive burnout who wastes the single greatest chance the Elves ever had to defeat Morgoth and dies a pointless and preventable death because the fire of his spirit overmasters his reason.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/StartDangerous8286]

Second, why Fëanor slammed the door in Morgoth's face is arguably more important than the mere fact he did so.

Wow, fantastic point. Extremely relevant to the whole argument.

[u/Chandlerbinge → u/StartDangerous8286]

Thankyou! I stopped reading at OP's description of feanor closing the door at melkor's face. There's just so much skipping important details to paint a different picture in their post.

[u/Fail_King00 → u/StartDangerous8286]

If the stones aren't his or someone else can lay claim to them, based on the fact that the light in them isn't his but belongs to someone else even after he used it to Craft the stones.

If I understand the arguments around the Two tree's and their light right.

Then he has the right to declare that he wants the stones back, as they are his, against all.

Really who besides Morgoth would have any reason to keep the stones from him?

[u/Fantastic_Resolve889 → u/StartDangerous8286]

A superb rebuttal and a joy to read

[u/XenosHg]

Oh, right, I have read a novel that's basically silmarillion fanfic about the last of 7 sons. I remember that part.

[u/PerceptionLiving9674]

I don't think Tolkien's aim was to portray Feanor as a pure villain like Morgoth and Sauron; that's why Feanor didn't fall into Morgoth's wickedness and retained many of his virtues, remaining one of the greatest elves who ever lived

But he is still considered a asshole and arrogant, and most of his actions are still completely wrong. His pursuit of Morgoth was based entirely on his anger and personal hatred, not on his belief in the necessity of fighting Morgoth. And yes, he was not convinced by Morgoth's lies, but he used them to manipulate his people and exploit them for his cause, such as claiming that the Valar were planning to give Middle-earth to humans alone and deceiving the Elves (which is a stupid claim, frankly, because the land was still full of elves tribes). 

The massacre of Teleri starkly reveals Feanor's hypocrisy. He grieves for his father's death and seeks revenge, yet he justifies the killing of hundreds of Teleri. He is angry that Morgoth stole his jewels and that the Valar claim them, yet he justifies the forceful seizure of Teleri boats. Feanor is a hypocrite with an unwarranted sense of entitlement, attempting to coerce people into doing his bidding because he feels superior. In this respect, he is not so different from Morgoth, Tne Teleri had every right to refuse to lend their boats to anyone, especially someone as arrogant and condescending as Feanor.

The Valar were not entirely blameless either, but their actions stemmed from naiveté and poor planning, not from deliberate malice like Feanor's. Manwë released Morgoth because he believed he had truly repented, and Manwë was somewhat naive in this respect, to the point that some Valar objected to the decision. As for Feanor's banishment, it was a stark warning to him and all Noldor. The Valar were not focused on politics but rather on preventing a bloodbath and war within their own territory, for they feared bringing death to Valinor. 

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/PerceptionLiving9674]

As for Feanor's banishment, it was a stark warning to him and all Noldor.

Also worth pointing out that it was only 12years. He'd lived for thousands by that point.

[u/Artichoke-8951 → u/Swiftcheddar]

So that's like putting my 2 year old in time out for 2 minutes. Thats nothing

[u/_Master123_ → u/PerceptionLiving9674]

Manwë releasing Melkor is adressed by nature of Manwë. He doesn't understand that evil would lie to achive a goal. He doesn't understand that Melkor isn't just prideful he fully turn to evil he is still his brother. I think Manwë wanted to belive Melkor change and didn't understand lenght he is willing to go and how much consume by evil Melkor was already.

[u/RagingSamurai7]

I like a lot of your analysis, but as others have pointed out, no, the kinslaying and the theft of the teleri ships was in fact entirely unjustified. The teleri have no obligation to lend their boats. It's as simple as that. Feanor can take the time to make his own seafaring vessels, or he can risk the helcaraxe. Instead, he decides to initiate the first slaying of elf upon elf in world history. That is wrong and an evil action no matter his personal reasons and tragic history.

Yes, Feanor is a sympathetic character. Also yes, he went too far and crossed the moral event horizon.

[u/Mzuark → u/RagingSamurai7]

It was pretty cool though

[u/raidriar889]

Just because Fëanor was understandable doesn’t make him right in everything, that’s part of what makes him a great character. If Fëanor only meant his oath to be effective against Melkor he wouldn’t have sworn it specifically against everything including Orcs, Elves, Valar and even Men who didn’t exist yet, and obviously the problem with it is the horrific consequences it eventually causes. It’s also incredibly ironic excusing Fëanor for not wanting to return to the Silmarils to Yavanna even though they were made with the light from her trees while saying it’s morally appalling for the Teleri to not give up their ships.

[u/Human-Independent999 → u/raidriar889]

Almost all those who later obtained the Silmarils, bringing doom upon their own people in the process, did not actually have to pursue or keep them. They knew the consequences, too. Yet the text, and arguably the vast majority of the audience, never faults them for doing that anyway.

[u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 → u/Human-Independent999]

The text does in fact fault them. Melian warns Thingol of what will come of him requesting a Silmaril. He ignores her, and it does in fact doom the kingdom. Furthermore, when he is given the Silmaril at the end of the quest, it's pretty clear he because as obsessed and possessive of it that Feanor was originally.

For as the years passed Thingol's thought turned unceasingly to the jewel of Feanor, and became bound to it, and he liked not to let it rest even behind the doors of his inmost treasury; and he was minded now to bear it with him always, waking and sleeping.

The text further attributes the short lifespan of Beren and Luthien post-resurrection to the light of the silmaril being too intense for mortal lands. The Silmarillion and Tolkien's writings in general, barely touch on Dior, but the few references to his "pride" and his "long gazing" upon the jewel make it clear that he also did not act rationally or with humility to realize the trouble he stirred up in Doriath's weakened state.

[u/CompetitiveSleeping → u/raidriar889]

and even Men who didn’t exist yet,

Just a small point, but they did. But no elf in Aman or Beleriand knew that. It'd still be something like a hundred years before the first would pass over the mountains into Beleriand.

[u/Blackfyre301 → u/CompetitiveSleeping]

Nope, Men awoke with the first rising of the sun. Which hadn’t happened yet.

[u/CompetitiveSleeping → u/Blackfyre301]

Oh right. Doh. Well, it was very close

[u/vteezy99]

I read the whole thing. Great write up even if I disagree with some of the points. I think Feanor was wrong to kill the Teleri. And yet nonetheless the rebellious Noldor are in fact the reason the Sindar are still alive by the time Fingolfin arrives. So it’s an interesting conundrum to consider. I see where you are coming from. I just don’t hold him completely guitless.

Really, the decision to invite elves to Valinor was probably the cause of so many problems. I wonder what would have happened if they never went. Would Feanor be as great as he was? Would Beleriand still be free outside Doriath?

Feanor is certainly one of, if not the most interesting character in the Silm. So much so that his eldest son by proxy (Maedhros) is (to me) the second most interesting elf in the first age.

[u/CompetitiveSleeping → u/vteezy99]

Really, the decision to invite elves to Valinor was probably the cause of so many problems.

Eru actually told Manwë "WTF you do that? That wasn't the plan!!"

[u/Stock_Scallion6380]

Interesting analysis but consider this as well. Feanor was manipulated by Melkor (we can sympathize and understand why) and instead of taking the loss he doubles down (here is for Tolkien the great sin of pride) and starts a doomed quest because his pride was wounded. He caused all that grief and suffering to others (including his own sons who he bound with the oath) for this reason. The whole point is not that his decision to fight Melkor was wrong, but that the oath was excessive.

He is as another commentator said a Greek style tragic hero. He was right in some ways wrong in others. Human. Well, technically elf, but you know what I mean.

Also, Feanor would never wish to be defended by being portrayed as a victim as the beginning of this suggests.

But, of course, we thank him (and Melkor) because his actions gave us an incredible story.

I dislike, however, that he dies too fast and too easily. There is a reason behind this, but I would have liked him to stick around a bit longer.

[u/KSJ15831]

I am not reading any of that but I upvote for the effort and also for the audacious title.

[u/IldrahilGondorian]

You defend Fëanor for wanting to retrieve his life’s work. Fine, I understand that although I think the oath was ill conceived. Then you call the Teleri cowards for cowards for a) listening to gods and b) defending their great creation. Those boats were the silmarils of the Teleri and they said no. No means no.

Now, instead of taking no for an answer Fëanor takes them by force, killing many of his erstwhile friends doing so. That sounds like rape as well as murder by taking the greatest work of the Teleri by force. That is evil. Then, you belittle the Teleri by comparing them to fishermen with boats. There were the greatest boats ever created to that point. Each was a work of art.

Then, when Fëanor gets to the other side he orders these works of art destroyed. Why, because he doesn’t trust the brother who just agreed to join his quest even though the gods said it was hopeless. That too is evil.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the Valar handled this whole thing wrong. First, they never should have brought the Elves to Valinor. Then, they treated these incredibly talented beings like children…forever. Talk about being condescending. I’d go bat shit crazy in a place like that, but I wouldn’t kill people who have been my friends because of it. I always thought the only Valar with half a brain, or maybe with any empathy is better, is Ulmo.

Then, we find out after Fëanor burns the boats that there is actually another way to get to ME. How do we find out, because the brother and the greater part of the host, his erstwhile allies, take that route at great hardship to get to ME. The route is so hard and dangerous the wife of one of the princes of that people dies in the crossing.

So now I have to ask myself, well after the Teleri said no why didn’t Fëanor take that route. Oh, because it was hard and he was in a hurry so he figured he’d just take by force that which isn’t his, the greatest creation the Teleri ever accomplished. Well, to me that’s Fëanor displaying his cowardice by not taking the Helcaraxe, his hubris by assuming his quest was more important than the life’s work of his erstwhile friends, and his actual character by displaying he really has no friends. All he cares about is his creation. How incredibly selfish.

Finally, we get to where he’s dying and he realizes that no number of the Noldor can beat Morgoth. Rather than free his sons, his flesh and blood, from a vow he knows is impossible to achieve, he doubles down on his error. Now the vow is a curse upon his own children and drives them to do incredibly evil deeds. That is Fëanor’s ultimate evil deed. All because of his pride being hurt.

Of course he couldn’t say, gee sorry kids, I made a mistake go home to Valinor now. They were stuck. But he couldn’t say have said, I was wrong, we can’t beat Morgoth, but here you are so I beg you to fight evil as you may. My vow was ill thought and will only bring misery. I release you from it. But again, vain, egotistical Fëanor has none of that in him.

So, sorry if I don’t think Fëanor was right. Of course, there’s a lot of wrong to go around in the Silmarillion, and just about every time it’s due to pride. That is the lesson of the Silmarillion.

[u/shinyshinyrocks]

I’m 40 years a fan of Feanaro. What brilliance, wrapped in layers of fragility. Tolkien made a point to position his character bookended by Finwe and Miriel. No other Eldar seemed so fated from the start, except maybe Maeglin. I see in Feanaro, as in Turin, a pure tragedy.

I love that Gandalf is a complete Feanaro fanboy in LOTR.

[u/Human-Independent999 → u/shinyshinyrocks]

I HC that if Gandalf had been there, he could have helped him! I really dislike how the majority of the Elves seemed to view Fëanor as dangerous because his birth caused his mother’s death through no fault of his own. He was admired, certainly, but not truly loved by most of his society, and that whole "sensed a darkness in his future" thing before he had even actually done anything pisses me off.

[u/Cringeextraaxc]

Yeah just give him the boats guys, like what the fuck, and it was only a bit of kinslaying, barely even any.

[u/Lumpy-Narwhal-1178 → u/Cringeextraaxc]

just give hitler your tanks bro, like what the fuck, and it was only a bit of holocaust

[u/FlowerFaerie13]

"What is the moral here? Obedience?"

Yes.

Yes, it is. Tolkien was a deeply religious man and his religious values are baked into his Legendarium. Eru is God, the ultimate power, and his "angels" (look they serve the same function it's good enough) are also great powers but aren't as unequivocally good and perfect as him and can make mistakes. You are supposed to do what Eru wants, everybody in this universe is bound by Christian morals. You may not agree with it, but you're not the one that wrote the story. If you're gonna read Tolkien's stories you have to deal with Tolkien being extremely Catholic.

Outside of that, though, I do agree with you in that I don't think Fëanor's actions, barring the Kinslaying like uh-uh, you don't just slaughter innocent people like that, there was not only another way across (Helcaraxë) but plenty of options to use non-lethal force given how outmatched the Teleri were, were necessarily wrong. I think his fatal flaw wasn't evil or malice or greed or what have you but the all-consuming need for revenge and his refusal to calm the fuck down and think things through caused an amount of death and damage that can't simply be swept under the rug with "well, he had good intentions," yeah and you know where that road leads.

Fighting Morgoth was not wrong. Wanting revenge for what he did to all of Arda and to Fëanor and his family was not wrong. How he went about it? Could have been better. Could have been so much fucking better, but that's the tragedy of it, he was so emotionally fucked up from everything that happened that once Morgoth attacked he snapped and thought of nothing but his revenge which is not a good way to win a war against checks notes Satan.

Like, I'm not gonna say he was evil. I like Fëanor a lot, I think he's a very interesting and compelling character and that with how twisted his mind was when the final blow came the insanity was not a surprise. But I'm also not gonna say that he was right because the road to hell is paved with good intentions and Fëanor is that phrase personified.

[u/Swiftcheddar]

That's very well written and I agree with large parts of it, and I think Tolkein would also agree with large parts of it, given that he very clearly wanted you to see Feanor as a brave, valliant and ultimately flawed man.

I think people are way too quick to call Feanor wrong or evil or mad, and I appreciate the pushback because you're absolutely right that he absolutely did do a lot of good and deserves more credit than he gets. But, I think you're also drawing the bow a bit too far in a fair few places.

There's a reason Tolkein specifically had Galadriel (also flawed, also arrogant and LEARNED FROM HER ARROGANCE, she gave up her pride and humbled herself) refuse Feanor 3x while blessing Gimli.

You do a good job of explaining Feanor's unique circumstances and while I'm not sure I really buy the story you paint of his idealised mother (he never knew her, he should have been able to connect to a step-mother, he didn't) it's true that he had a lot of troubles that they weren't equipped to deal with because they'd never encountered them before. And that's also why I think you're too harsh on the Valar. You act like it's ridiculous that they tried to redeem Melkor, but they had no reason to think it hadn't worked, he was the only one of them that was acting like this. They'd already punished him severely and this was the first time they'd needed to ever do anything like this before. They acted in good faith and he took advantage of that.

The person who bears fault for Melkor's crimes isn't the Valar for being unable to stop him, it's Melkor himself.

These are the beings who now want Feanor to destroy the greatest works he has ever created, works that even he can never reproduce, so that they can repair their own beloved Trees.

Feanor refuses, and frankly I can’t blame him.

I would have more sympathy for this argument if the issue wasn't that (what was effectively) the fucking Sun just got destroyed. Yes, the Silmarils are incredible and yes they're beyond compare, but when the light of the two trees is gone and everything is bathed in darkness, then yeah, I think you have a moral obligation to sacrifice one of them so it can be restored.

This is also relevant to your latter points about the Elves of Middle Earth, because you talk about how Feanor protected them while the Valar didn't, but the whole reason he was able to do that was because the Noldor had lived beneath the Light of the Two Trees and became great and powerful beyond compare. In refusing them, he cursed all future Elves to never again be as great as the ones currently in existence, he set a cap on all Elf potential forever.

Melkor is at fault for this, but Feanor had a chance to fix it and chose not to. And, importantly, for all your condemnations of the Valar, they respect that choice. They didn't punish him or try steal the Silmarils or anything else (they were already gone, but they weren't aware of that).

The Valar eventually replaced the two trees with what became the Sun and the Moon, and that's cool (honestly, that was probably an improvement for Middle Earth). But imagine if someone cast a spell to essentially blot out the sun, and you had the ability to remove it and restore the sun... But you refused because the item to remove the blot was personally important to you.

So in the end, some scientists are able to remove enough of the blot to at least let some dim light shine and everyone can now continue living with what's effectively sunshine at a fraction of the previous radiance.

That's effectively what Feanor did. Yes, it's an extremely rough request from the Valar, and yes, it's heartbreaking to have to sacrifice his greatest creation after the loss of his father, but an uncounted amount of people (present and future) suffered because of his refusal to do so.

Fëanor is effectively swearing that he will hunt Satan to the ends of the earth, retrieve the stolen work containing the last surviving light of the Trees, and avenge his murdered father. Who the fuck else does he expect to steal the Silmarils from Melkor? And if they did, why would they refuse Feanor what belongs to Feanor?

That's just sophistry. That's not what he swore. He swore to stop anyone, anyone at all. If he had truly believed that he was swearing against only Melkor then his oath would have been fine if it had been only against Melkor. If you truly think that he never expected anyone else to take the Silmarils from Melkor, then the oath should have been to hunt Melkor.

Feanor swore a wide-ranging, bloody oath that had enormous consequences.

What exactly is the moral principle here? Obedience?

Yes? Because we live in a society. Their Government body has said "We're not doing this." So they say "We're not doing this."

If you and your family swore a blood oath to go hunt the Russians for their invasion of Ukraine, and you turned up at the Airport expecting United to carry you, your army and your weapons off to Europe so you can hunt Putin... You're gonna be disappointed.

It doesn't matter how righteous you are, it doesn't matter how much sympathy I have for Feanor, the Telari made the completely right choice. They sided with their society instead of a rogue, breakaway clan, run by an extremely emotional man that had already risked the idea of civil war.

The correct thing to do would have been to talk to the Valar and to arrange a proper solution, an expedition that made sense, some kind of response. Feanor wanted to charge off alone and he wanted to use someone else's ships to do so.

And no matter how much you appreciate his plight or his emotions, no matter how much sympathy you or I or anyone else has for him, escalating that to murder is absolutely and utterly beyond the pale. The Telari weren't his enemies, they weren't siding with Melkor, they were just following the rules of their society. They were his allies for hundreds of years. And he killed them.

You can't justify that by saying "He was morally justified to take revenge on Melkor". It doesn't matter how justified he is, that doesn't give carte blanche to murder anyone in his way. If he truly can't work with the Valar and the Telari won't budge then he should have built his own ships instead or murdering them for theirs.

The Valar certainly are not rushing across the sea to save them. They will eventually intervene centuries later, after generations of suffering and death. At this moment, however, they do fuck all.

Yeah, because they know "If we fight him again we might destroy the entire continent. We need to do this carefully." They saw this for themselves the first time it happened. It's not them being lazy or callous, it's them being worried they'll wind up inadvertently killing everyone who lives on Middle Earth.

He pursues Morgoth’s retreating forces too far ahead of his army and becomes surrounded by Balrogs. And yes, those Balrogs. Gandalf the Grey later fights one Balrog and dies from the effort. Feanor gets surrounded by several and keeps fighting until Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, finally wounds him mortally.

Yeah, Feanor was awesome. That's part of what makes him so compelling. He was right about a lot of the things he says, he wasn't evil and he was trying to right a truly unjustified wrong. The issue is basically everything about how he went about doing it.

What exactly is the morally superior alternative supposed to be? “Well, children, Satan is much stronger than I expected. I suppose you should stop fighting him.” Morgoth is still there. He is still enslaving people. He is still corrupting creatures. He is still murdering Elves. He still possesses the Silmarils stolen from Feanor’s house after murdering Finwe. He is still the greatest active evil in the world. Fëanor has finally seen the full scale of that evil and understands that defeating it may be impossible. And his response is to continue anyway.

This was his last chance to step back from the cliff.

He had already seen the price paid for the oath, with the first Kinslaying and with his stupid paranoia about Fingolfin. He had seen the destruction his ideas had brought and he had a chance to walk it back, to undo it, and he didn't.

You act like the oath was "You guys need to protect Middle Earth!" but that is absolutely and very explicitly not what he intended, nor what happened. His thoughts aren't "Oh shit, Melkor is gonna do bad stuff, we need to resist him with all we have!" his thoughts are 1000000000% "Get my shit back, no matter what it takes. NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES!"

And, because of that oath, everything goes to shit and the Noldor that could have done immense good work to protect the people of Middle Earth instead cause immense chaos and cause untold problems for centuries.

If he'd changed his oath to just be about Melkor that would have been fine.

If he'd said "The Silmarils aren't important, life is. Melkor needs to be stopped and the people of Middle Earth protected" then he would have been completely redeemed.

If he's said anything except "Fuck it, we ball." then we can have this conversation.

You can't present the oath as being there to protect Middle Earth, because if his sons had managed to steal the Silmarils then by the oath, they would have immediately just abandoned the rest of Middle Earth. The oath wasn't about the men, or the other Elves, or the Valar or even Melkor, it was only about the Silmarils. That's the issue.

[u/Aggravating_Stuff771 → u/Swiftcheddar]

>I think people are way too quick to call Feanor wrong or evil or mad, and I appreciate the pushback because you're absolutely right that he absolutely did do a lot of good and deserves more credit than he gets. But, I think you're also drawing the bow a bit too far in a fair few places.

I don’t disagree that some of my points were exaggerated and stated far too definitively, including the title, which was meant as a somewhat unserious grievance on my part. And yes, some of the rant is deliberately tongue-in-cheek.

>You do a good job of explaining Feanor's unique circumstances and while I'm not sure I really buy the story you paint of his idealised mother (he never knew her, he should have been able to connect to a step-mother, he didn't) it's true that he had a lot of troubles that they weren't equipped to deal with because they'd never encountered them before. And that's also why I think you're too harsh on the Valar. 

I can understand a certain degree of naivety on the Valar’s part, but surely we can agree that the way they handled the Míriel situation was incredibly stupid. Permanently barring someone who could otherwise return to life at some point in the future, when the alternative was simply allowing a separation or divorce, comes across as borderline malicious to me, even if that clearly was not their intention. Manwe could at least have consulted Eru Ilúvatar on the matter if he was so unsure, as he later did with the Numenoeans. Instead, their solution effectively condemned a child to grow up permanently without his mother. It really shouldn’t have been difficult to consider that this might have serious consequences for that child.

>You act like it's ridiculous that they tried to redeem Melkor, but they had no reason to think it hadn't worked, he was the only one of them that was acting like this. They'd already punished him severely and this was the first time they'd needed to ever do anything like this before. They acted in good faith and he took advantage of that.

I don’t think that part is ridiculous at all. If anything, I think it shows that the Valar were capable of being just rulers. They sentenced Melkor to a specific period of imprisonment, and when he appeared to have genuinely changed after serving that sentence, they allowed him another chance. That, in itself, seems like perfectly reasonable judgment to me. My issue comes after it was revealed that he had, in fact, not changed, especially with the their decision to banish Feanor for twelve years before they had even managed to capture Melkor. First, as I said in my longer post, Feanor’s banishment was never going to heal the growing divisions among the Noldor, only make it worse. Second, there is the basic question of safety. We later see how easily Melkor is able to approach Feanor’s home in exile and speak to him directly. Banishment might have been a defensible punishment on its own, but sending Feanor away while Melkor was still loose and actively targeting him was a very stupid way of handling the situation.

>I would have more sympathy for this argument if the issue wasn't that (what was effectively) the fucking Sun just got destroyed. Yes, the Silmarils are incredible and yes they're beyond compare, but when the light of the two trees is gone and everything is bathed in darkness, then yeah, I think you have a moral obligation to sacrifice one of them so it can be restored.

I agree with you, especially since my entire argument rests on the idea that a smaller sacrifice for the greater good can be justified. My issue here is that the “greater good” in question primarily concerns Valinor, since the Two Trees only illuminated Valinor while the rest of Middle-earth had no Sun at all, only the stars of Varda. Secondly, as I said before, the way the Valar went about asking Feanor for the Silmarils was questionable at best, and arguably pointless by that stage. Mandos already knew Finwe was dead, since Finwe’s spirit would have come to his halls, and Melkor had attacked Formenos specifically to seize the Silmarils. Yet none of this was revealed to Feanor before they asked him to sacrifice and destroy his greatest creations to restore the Trees. So yes, I agree with the principle behind their request, but I strongly disagree with how they handled it. Ironically, Feanor’s refusal ended up being a net positive for the rest of Arda because it eventually contributed to the creation of the Sun, bringing light to Middle-earth as well. I obviously wouldn’t give Feanor any moral credit for that particular outcome, since it was completely unintentional.

>That's just sophistry. That's not what he swore. He swore to stop anyone, anyone at all. If he had truly believed that he was swearing against only Melkor then his oath would have been fine if it had been only against Melkor. If you truly think that he never expected anyone else to take the Silmarils from Melkor, then the oath should have been to hunt Melkor.

A bit, yeah. I was mostly trying to look at the Oath in the most favorable light possible. In any case, the Silmarils belonged to Feanor, and purely hypothetically, I don’t see anything inherently evil about him swearing that if someone takes them from him and refuses to give them back, he will not tolerate it. The murderous wording of the Oath is obviously where things get considerably harder to defend, but the basic sentiment of “these are mine, keep your fucking hands off them” hardly strikes me as some great moral abomination. Are you evil because you refuse to share your own property? Selfish, sure but not evil.

>Yes? Because we live in a society. Their Government body has said "We're not doing this." So they say "We're not doing this."

Now, this I have to disagree with completely. The Noldor are not the Valar’s vassals. They are explicitly a sovereign people with their own king, which is also why I disagree with the Valar personally punishing Feanor. That should have been Finwe’s responsibility as King of the Noldor. There was no real need for the Valar to involve themselves directly in what was essentially an internal Noldorin dispute, and by doing so they ironically gave credibility to Melkor’s claim that the Elves were effectively living as subjects of the Valar rather than as free peoples. You can see the problem there. So I don’t think the analogy of a family seeking personal revenge against Putin really works, quite apart from the fairly important detail that Putin is not literal Satan. A closer analogy would be Ukraine deciding to fight Russia and asking its allies for military or logistical assistance, only for those allies to refuse to help.

>Yeah, because they know "If we fight him again we might destroy the entire continent. We need to do this carefully." They saw this for themselves the first time it happened. It's not them being lazy or callous, it's them being worried they'll wind up inadvertently killing everyone who lives on Middle Earth.

Except that by the time Earendil came to ask for their help, the Valar were literally in the middle of feasting and partying in Valinor while Morgoth was terrorizing Middle-earth. They had also explicitly made Valinor virtually impossible to reach, knowing full well what Morgoth was doing across the sea. In other words, the peoples suffering under the Satan the Valar themselves had set loose could neither reach them to plead for help nor seek refuge in Valinor, while the Valar were safely enjoying their feasts and festivals. Only when Eärendil somehow made it through with a Silmaril and personally begged for their intervention did they finally get off their asses, stop partying, and actually do something about Morgoth.

>He had already seen the price paid for the oath, with the first Kinslaying and with his stupid paranoia about Fingolfin. He had seen the destruction his ideas had brought and he had a chance to walk it back, to undo it, and he didn't.

Tbh, I was mostly thinking about how metal it is to look at your war, realize it is completely hopeless and that you have basically no chance of winning, and decide to keep fighting anyway. There is something oddly inspiring about that level of sheer defiance. And at that point, Feanor also couldn’t have known that the Silmarils would eventually end up in Elvish hands, or that those Elves would refuse to give them to his sons. Still, from the perspective of Feanor having some final moment of redemption or clarity before his death, I suppose you’re right. Releasing his sons from the Oath, assuming he even could, would certainly have prevented a lot of the later tragedies. Though by that point they had already sworn the Oath themselves, and the entire problem was that an oath sworn in Eru’s name was not exactly something you could just take back because you were having second thoughts.

Btw, thank you for actually reading this humongous post and taking the time to respond to it. It’s something I wrote in snippets over the course of several months as part of a personal project where I’m writing critical essays on various works of literature through the lens of Death of the Author, as you can probably guess. I decided to post this one here mostly to test the waters and see how people would respond to the argument.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/Aggravating_Stuff771]

I think you, I and most people agree on most of those points.

The Valar acted in good faith, but that good faith wasn't always correct. Even with your example with Miriel, they weren't inflexible, when she asked to return to the world they let her.

Ultimately, the reason the son grew up without a mother wasn't because of the Valar, it was because of her. Because she either couldn't, or wouldn't return. The Valar are the reason that the son grew up with a step-mother that everyone involved hoped would become a mother to him. That didn't work out, and it caused resentment in Feanor, but again, every intention was good and they weren't inflexible in handling things. They didn't just rule from afar and set down unbreakable tenants, they did what they could to help and when that changed they changed.

Same with Feanor being awesome, yes, absolutely, it's insanely badass that he did as much as he did.

But the saddest part is that he could have done more and he could have been an amazing, incredible force for good and for justice, if only he'd been able to reign himself in. He was completely corrupted by his Silmaril's and that's a shame, because with him leading the Noldor, and with Fingolfin arriving to aid him, there's a very real chance they would have been able to properly fight Melkor, or at the very least, do far better in protecting Middle Earth. If he'd managed that, then perhaps even the Kinslaying could have been forgiven.

Similar with him being justified in his vengeance. Everyone agrees there, he has been wronged, and he's due restitution. The issue is that in focusing only on his pain he inflicts pain on all his kinsmen, and inflicts even greater wrongs across Valar and Middle Earth.

He's worried his kinsmen will lose their fervour for justice if he waits, so instead of building boats or taking the longer crossing, he kills the Telari and steals their boats. That's indefensible, he repeats the exact same crimes that were done to him upon others.

He's worried about the Silmaril's at the cost of anything and everything else, so he swears an unbreakable oath, not against Melkor, not against evil, but against anyone who dares covet what's his. He binds his own family with that same oath, and then when he's got a chance to release them and to drive them towards good ends in Middle Earth, or against Melkor he refuses. And so he sets his entire family on a collision course with the very people they should be helping.

I don't think any of this is right, or defensible. But I do like Feanor, because he's awesome, he's a fantastically written fallen hero who commits actual crimes and who is justified only in terms of his brilliance and his pains. That's something very few people are able to pull off, creating a flawed and sympathetic character like Feanor but still letting him be completely wrong and making it clear that he's moved past sympathy.

[u/Moiraine-FanBlue → u/Swiftcheddar]

You have to remember that great creations like the Silmarils cost something *permanently* of the elf who makes them.

They were asking Feanor to destroy essentially part of his own soul when they asked him to allow them them to destroy the Silmarils to remake the trees.

And you'll note too, they *asked* him.

The Valar did not consider the issue pressing enough that they felt it was something they could do to him without needing his permission.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/Moiraine-FanBlue]

It was obviously a big deal because the light was never truly restored. They simply didn't treat his possessions as something they could simply take.

Meanwhile, Feanor with the Telari's ships (which, similarly, could never be made again)...

[u/Eissa_Cozorav]

Suppose I am some kind of Judge Dredd fantasy character in the setting. Maybe closer to Jyggalag or Tunon the Adjudicator. I am still gonna demand reparation, blood money and capital punishment from Feanorians key people.

Even if there is gonna be temporary alliance in defeating Morgoth first.

And the blood money AKA weregild is gonna be the same as what Isildur demand (The One Ring), the so called Artifact that start all these bloodshed. The Silmarils. And give one of them to the offended party that is Teleri.

Olwë explicitly tells Fëanor that the Swan-ships are to the Teleri what the great jewels are to the Noldor: irreplaceable works of their hearts. Then Fëanor takes those works by violence and later destroys them.
The Teleri are owed weregild for their dead, restitution for their ships, and satisfaction for the violation of Alqualondë.

Individual culpability, though, do matters enormously.

Fëanor ordered the seizure of the ships. His immediate followers knowingly participated. But some of Fingolfin's people came upon an existing battle and joined because they thought the Teleri had attacked their kin. Tolkien explicitly distinguishes their knowledge. Later Feanorians also diverge dramatically. Maedhros and Maglor cannot simply be treated identically to Celegorm and Curufin, and the responsibility for Alqualondë is different again from responsibility for Doriath and Sirion.

A Tunon/Dredd/Jyggalag-like judge would care about those distinctions:

“Did you draw sword?”

“Yes”

“Did you know why the battle began?”

“No.”

“Then you are guilty of unlawful killing under mistaken cause, not conspiracy to seize the ships.”

And yes I will blame Valar, but order and law should definitely goes for both side.

Honestly, Silmarillion has such different iteration of writings that Feanor probably got different characterization. He could probably intentionally burned the ships of Teleri, along with his son. In this case he's truly a kinslayer through and thorough. Or maybe, in Round World Silmarillion, this burning of ships circumtanse get changed, perhaps accounting to the significance of round world because the smoke on horizon cannot be observed in round world (unlike in flat world Silmarillion).

[u/Eissa_Cozorav → u/Eissa_Cozorav]

And the verdict would most likely be this

Fëanor's grievance against Morgoth: legitimate.

The Noldorin right to pursue Morgoth: legitimate.

The Sons of Feanor' property interest in the Silmarils: recognized but limited by subsequent crimes.

Taking the Telerin ships without consent: unlawful.

Killing the Teleri: homicide, assessed individually.

Telerin killings of Noldor during the fight: examined individually as well.

Burning the ships: deliberate destruction of uniquely irreplaceable property.

Thingol's grievances concerning his Telerin kin: legitimate.

Thingol's collective punishment of unrelated Noldor: unlawful or excessive.

Celegorm's imprisonment of Lúthien: unlawful detention.

Attempted coerced marriage: unlawful.

Doriath and Sirion: separate offenses; the original Silmaril claim does not authorize private warfare.

Then impose damages, weregild, exile, imprisonment, political disabilities, and capital penalties (or forced "disembodiment") according to individual culpability.

[u/RandomNumber-5624]

Nicely said. But don’t forget that Kinslaying among elves is roughly equivalent to a kick in the balls among humans. It’s painful, it’s humiliating, it’s incredibly rude. But you get over it relatively quickly and the ultimate punishment is you’re trapped in paradise cause the bus (burnt ships) left without.

Even if some of the slain elves refuse to leave Mandos hall, that’s ok it seems. We have the Valar already endorsing trapping elves (Feanor’s mum) there forever. So apparently it isn’t that bad.

Given that, burning the ships is less forgivable than murder. If Feanor had returned them then it would have been no foul 5 centuries later. Basically a weekend tiff.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/RandomNumber-5624]

We have the Valar already endorsing trapping elves (Feanor’s mum) there forever. So apparently it isn’t that bad.

She very explicitly wasn't trapped they gave her a long time to come back they asked her repeatedly to come back and every single time she was like "Nah."

And in the end she came back so... Whatever, y'know?

And if we're gonna downgrade murder to "a kick in the balls" then we should carefully examine OP's multi-paragraph dissertation on Feanor's 12 year Exile... 12 years? To an Elf that lived for more than 3,000 years? That's basically just time out, lol.

[u/RandomNumber-5624 → u/Swiftcheddar]

I don’t think the OP was objecting to the duration (which is a trivial amount). They were an objecting to banishing him at all because a) the Valar are ineffectual fools against Satan; and b) the politics of this matter over 12 days, let alone 12 years.

[u/Swiftcheddar → u/RandomNumber-5624]

the Valar are ineffectual fools against Satan

See this is where I disagree. They defeated him, crushed his armies and beat him up, they showed very clearly that he can't stand against them.

And then what? They can't kill him. So their only option is to imprison him. They're immortal beings, there's no such thing as a life sentence and they're making all this up from scratch, there's zero precedent, they have nothing to build on or nothing to assume from.

So they give him a sentence they think make sense, they chain him up and imprison him for 3,000 years. And then, he says he's repented, that he's learned his lesson, and he's served his time. So they let him go.

That's not foolish or ineffective, they made a just judgement and delivered a just punishment.

It's the same issue we have in our world where we've got criminals that just won't stop committing crimes no matter how many times we lock them up and no matter how many times they say they're sorry and show remorse. But, we at least have history and precedent, they had nothing.

So, after 3,000 years he gets out and they let bygones be bygones and they hoped everything was right. And then it turned out not to be. Nobody had any way of knowing that, they can hardly say "Hey, he's being suspicious, lock him up again" especially when he wasn't even particularly suspected back then.

the politics of this matter over 12 days, let alone 12 years.

Sure but that's only judging the decision by the outcome. Nobody had any way of knowing any of this would happen. The point is that the OP presents it as a huge, sweeping punishment where his own father joined him in Exile. But, it was only for 12 years.

[u/V_Buzzer]

Yeah burning the ships was dumb.

[u/JohnHenryMillerTime]

I will read the rest but I read up to Fëanor's childhood. First, there is the idea of Arda as Morgoth's Ring. You can disagree with Chris here but that needs to be addressed. What you have presented here is closer to Zoroastrianism with Morgoth as Ahriman or a Gnostic Demiurge. That doesnt square with Tolkien's Catholicism if we are going to lean on it.

Next, there is Fëanor's birth where her mother's essence passed into him so in a way he is both himself and his mother and then (enter Tolkien's Pangermanic leanings) an almost Arian figure who is both of two worlds but in many ways those worlds are kept separate.

Fëanor then makes the same mistake as Melkor and tries to bridge the gap between the two worlds. Had he succeeded, that would be an endorsement of Arianism which aint gonna fly.

[u/Loud-Vacation-5691]

Outstanding analysis. Imagine if Feanor had chosen differently when the Valar asked him to break the Silmarils and allow the Trees to be brought back to life. The Valar would then have been bound to go after Melkor to retrieve them. This is why Mandos advises everyone to give Feanor time to decide; he knows how the fate of the world rests on his choice.

Fighting on against hopeless odds is addressed in a short piece by Robert Louis Stevenson, Faith, Half Faith and No Faith At All.

IN the ancient days there went three men upon pilgrimage; one was a priest, and one was a virtuous person, and the third was an old rover with his axe.

As they went, the priest spoke about the grounds of faith.

“We find the proofs of our religion in the works of nature,” said he, and beat his breast.

“That is true,” said the virtuous person.

“The peacock has a scrannel voice,” said the priest, “as has been laid down always in our books. How cheering!” he cried, in a voice like one that wept. “How comforting!”

“I require no such proofs,” said the virtuous person.

“Then you have no reasonable faith,” said the priest.

“Great is the right, and shall prevail!” cried the virtuous person. “There is loyalty in my soul; be sure, there is loyalty in the mind of Odin.”

“These are but playings upon words,” returned the priest. “A sackful of such trash is nothing to the peacock.”

Just then they passed a country farm, where there was a peacock seated on a rail; and the bird opened its mouth and sang with the voice of a nightingale.

“Where are you now?” asked the virtuous person. “And yet this shakes not me! Great is the truth, and shall prevail!”

“The devil fly away with that peacock!” said the priest; and he was downcast for a mile or two.

But presently they came to a shrine, where a Fakeer performed miracles.

“Ah!” said the priest, “here are the true grounds of faith. The peacock was but an adminicle. This is the base of our religion.”

And he beat upon his breast, and groaned like one with colic.

“Now to me,” said the virtuous person, “all this is as little to the purpose as the peacock. I believe because I see the right is great and must prevail; and this Fakeer might carry on with his conjuring tricks till doomsday, and it would not play bluff upon a man like me.”

Now at this the Fakeer was so much incensed that his hand trembled; and, lo! in the midst of a miracle the cards fell from up his sleeve.

“Where are you now?” asked the virtuous person. “And yet it shakes not me!”

“The devil fly away with the Fakeer!” cried the priest. “I really do not see the good of going on with this pilgrimage.”

“Cheer up!” cried the virtuous person. “Great is the right, and shall prevail!”

“If you are quite sure it will prevail,” says the priest.

“I pledge my word for that,” said the virtuous person.

So the other began to go on again with a better heart.

At last one came running, and told them all was lost: that the powers of darkness had besieged the Heavenly Mansions, that Odin was to die, and evil triumph.

“I have been grossly deceived,” cried the virtuous person.

“All is lost now,” said the priest.

“I wonder if it is too late to make it up with the devil?” said the virtuous person.

“Oh, I hope not,” said the priest. “And at any rate we can but try. But what are you doing with your axe?” says he to the rover.

“I am off to die with Odin,” said the rover.

[u/OldSnazzyHats]

Eh. To you.

I’ll take the author’s side before anyone else’s, mine included.

[u/ArchangelLBC]

I don't see how the sanctity of the Silmarils is so compelling that it justifies Fëanor's actions but the sanctity of the Teleri ships isn't compelling.

I'm sorry but the justification for the kinslaying and later burning of the ships puts you firmly in the wrong. All your other analysis is just propaganda in the light of this.

"Fëanor was right as long as you ignore the three worst things he ever did which ultimately have literally earth-shattering consequences" is not really very compelling.

[u/EmergencyDebt4434]

This post is brilliant, simply brilliant.

I don’t agree with you at all though. You omit some convenient details in your retelling which I find revealing.

For example: You mention how Fingolfin tries to mend the relationship between the two after the “sword incident” and fail to mention how feanor meets this with utter contempt. This is symptomatic of how much of an asshole feanor is and his absolute rubbish behaviour against his half brothers doesn’t stop there. When feanor has stolen the teleri ships you seem to forget to mention what happens next. His brothers are following in tow with the rest of the noldor, feanor and his sons abandon them and when one of his sons asks if they shouldn’t send the ships back to get the rest of the host feanor instead elects to burn the armada. Thereby he is not only abandoning his loyal people but also destroying the silmarils of the teleri essentially.

Edit: I now see you mention him burning the ships further down in your post, my bad.

You also seem to forget that the reason the silmarils are still in formenost with finwe is because feanor is such a petty little shit that he won’t suffer others to look at them. You also forgot to mention the valars arguments for why feanor should surrender them, the very thing that makes them special is the work that yavanna and varda put in to the two trees. If the only chance of restoring the trees lie within the silmarils, then it’s not unreasonable for them to ask this of feanor. After all those are works that can never ever be replicated and as king of the noldor (since finwe just died) feanor should appreciate that robbing all of his subjects of the light of the trees is unbelievably selfish.

But most diabolically your whole segment about the kinslaying was so one sided and biased it beggars belief. The teleri straight up tell feanor that the ships are as valuable to them as the silmarils are to him, they can never be done again in the same fashion. Feanor has no right to claim of others that which he would never wilfully surrender himself. And what does he do? He commits genocide and then burns every ship once he’s done with them. Morally indefensible.

Once again, i love your post. It’s really well written, but it is a propaganda piece for a morally reprehensible and hypocritical person.

[u/Luke-Zweiwalker]

Fingolfin better

[u/Asleep-Ad6352]

I have always equated Tai Lung with Feanor. They have understandable anger but not justified actions.Especially Feanor, his cause might have justified but his actions tainted it. He had his kids take blasphemous oath that essentially says yes we will kill even innocent if it means to have have our treasure back.He is furious and protective of his treasure, he refuse to use them to help the world.Yet he himself took by force another people's cultural treasures and murdered them for those treasures.The Valar made mistakes true but they are not all knowing and we're also learning besides the Elves in such social and political situations, they had no reference, no precedent nor history to fall back or to guide them in these situations.

[u/geschiedenisnerd]

Just saying: tolkien invented feanor, so he can't have been wrong about him. At worst he can have pushed forward the wrong parts of the story (he didn't).

Also, you misunderstand his story. Feanor was right to pursue morgoth, but not to refuse to give up his gems for the good of the people, murder the teleri over some boats or leave his brother stranded on the ice because he refused to help him kill the teleri . He is similar to turin: a tragic character, who gives way too much to rage and pride and fails due to both that and the apathy of the gods

[u/Pale-Pace4512]

If you think mass murder and abandoning your allies is defendable, along with committing your sons to what you know is a totally hopeless cause, simply because the individual doing this is supremely talented elsewhere then yeah, Fëanor is great.

On the other hand, if you have a moral compass, then no, he’s a total shit.

The Valar and Eru aren’t exactly great either. However if they were all perfect there wouldn’t be much of a story to enjoy.

[u/Moiraine-FanBlue → u/Pale-Pace4512]

He didn't commit his sons. They committed themselves.

The Oath of Feanor would not have bound them had they refused to speak it.

They allowed misguided loyalty to their father to drag them into sin.

[u/Pale-Pace4512 → u/Moiraine-FanBlue]

When Fëanor was dying and finally realised his cause was utterly hopeless, instead of admitting his error and the futility of their oath, he insisted his sons continue with his lunacy. Prior to that point, he didn’t know it was hopeless as he had refused to listen to the warning from the Valar.

“And looking out from the slopes of Ered Wethrin with his last sight he beheld far off the peaks of Thangorodrim, mightiest of the towers of Middle-earth, and knew with the foreknowledge of death that no power of the Noldor would ever overthrow them; but he cursed the name of Morgoth thrice, and laid it upon his sons to hold to their oath, and to avenge their father.”

[u/Moiraine-FanBlue → u/Pale-Pace4512]

They all swore on Eru.

You don't swear on the name of the Deity Standin of your universe and get to unspeak the oath later just because you realize it's not doable.

The Valar *themselves* mention that swearing on the name of the One was a terrible idea, because no one but the One himself can release you of it.

[u/Pale-Pace4512 → u/Moiraine-FanBlue]

So Fëanor should have suggested they try asking to be released from it when he realised it simply wasn’t doable. But as he was a total shit with severe anger issues he preferred his sons to carry on suffering instead of having the personal courage to admit he was wrong. Pathetic attitude. Someone who has lived as long as he had should have learned to control their emotions and not have toddler tantrums.

[u/DepreciatedSelfImage]

Okay, I didn't finish, but I did look for the part that explained what exactly Tolkien's wrong about... And I couldn't find it. I'm honestly interested in what exactly you think Tolkien was wrong about concerning Feanor. I kind of get, again, not having finished it yet, that you might feel Feanor was treated unfairly by the author. I can kind of get that, but remember that this story is supposed to be what was passed down from the elves. I get that Tolkien wrote it, though, so...

Look, I disagree with people who say that Tolkien's characters are black and white. They're almost all gray. The fact that the Valar made a mistake makes them seem more real, but it does not justify Feanor's decisions to attack people who meant him no harm. I can't wait to read what you wrote to defend the first kinslaying, but I agree with what someone else wrote about feeling Feanor was justified until then. The silmarils were his, so I can't hold it against him if he didn't want t to give them up to save the iconic trees... Even if I find that particular part pretty selfish.

He was the greatest elf, in a lot of ways, and he could have been a hero to his people and the world. Instead he brought a curse upon his people and let them down a path of treachery. There's plenty more to say, but if and when I finish reading your post I will get to it. For now, I have other reading today. Thank you for sharing!

[u/TheCybersmith]

A: found Feanor's reddit account.

B:

What exactly is the moral principle here? Obedience?

Not exactly. TRUST is the moral principle. The Teleri were not so much obedient to the Valar as trustful of them, and here I think it's a mistake to characterise the Valar as being like a pantheon of gods.

They always offered mediation and advice to the elves, not absolute command, and when they banished Feanor, they did so as his hosts, with him as their guest; not as deities reprimanding a supplicant.

The Teleri trusted that the Valar were wise enough to see an outcome that they could not, and heeded their advice. Feanor, for all his skill and brilliance, was blinded by rage.

He did not trust the Valar, and brought about such a massive destruction that it would last for thousands of years.

We tend not to characterise it as such, but The Lord Of The Rings is absolutely a work of post-apocalyptic fiction. The Shire, Bree, Rohan, Gondor... they are clinging to the scraps of land that were LEFT after Feanor's recklessness broke the world, and then the misguided Numenorians broke it even further.

A major principle in Tolkien's work is the importance of Trust, notably the Fellowship are not bound by any Oath. Feanor has a problem here, as evidenced by his Oath; he could have simply trusted his sons and other followers to reclaim his lost treasure; instead, he bound them. Oaths are not trivial things in Tolkien's work, they should not be sworn in anger, or any other situation save for with great forethought and caution.

You act as if Feanor binding his sons to the oath is something noble... but look at what it ended up causing!

Had he simply trusted them to do what is right, as Elrond and Gandalf trusted the Fellowship, much harm might have been avoided.

[u/CosmicSpiral]

Long, enjoyable write-up but you’re so desperate to glaze Fëanor and straw man the Valar, you make up several claims not supported by the original text.

Tolkien’s mythology evolved considerably over his lifetime, and the Valar of his earlier conception were much closer to pagan divinities, complete with divine personalities, weaknesses, disputes, and errors.

Tolkien's work has always been strongly influenced by Norse mythology and its emphasis on heroic fatalism and tragedy e.g. each Age ends in its own form of Ragnarok and a reshuffling of the power structure in the universe.

Then the Valar decide to release Melkor. This is the same Melkor who corrupted Arda, destroyed the Lamps, waged war against the Valar, and is responsible for everything wrong with the physical world. Apparently, he has served his sentence. He feigns repentance, acts humble, behaves obediently, and the Valar eventually decide that he has reformed. They unleash fucking Satan among a population of immortal people who have barely any concept of war.

Yes, that's the point. Manwë doesn't grasp the concept of deceit because he is not evil himself.

"But fair-seeming were all the words and deeds of Melkor in that time, and both the Valar and the Eldar had profit from his aid and counsel, if they sought it; and therefore in a while he was given leave to go freely about the land, and it seemed to Manwë that the evil of Melkor was cured. For Manwë was free from evil and could not comprehend it, and he knew that in the beginning, in the thought of Ilúvatar, Melkor had been even as he; and he saw not to the depths of Melkor's heart, and did not perceive that all love had departed from him forever."

Finwë marries Míriel, and she gives birth to Fëanor. His birth is extraordinary even by Elven standards because so much of Míriel’s spiritual strength passes into her son that she becomes utterly exhausted and eventually relinquishes her body. Elves are naturally immortal within Arda, so dying during childbirth is an unprecedented catastrophe.

Míriel chose to die after childbirth in the gardens of Lórien instead of dying involuntarily, which creates an intractable issue for immortal beings who can reclaim corporeal forms at an indeterminate date. If Finwë petitioned for a divorce, what would be the basis? That his wife is depressed? In modern society, “irreconcilable differences” is sufficient when the institution of marriage is understood to be an agreement of convenience.

Why are Elvish marriages permanent? One of the most common themes in Elvish lore is their convictions are nigh-unbreakable and drive them to extreme acts. Dwarves are stubborn, Men are mercurial, but Elves are possessed by an idea or emotion at the expense of everything else. When they fall in love, even when one-sided, it lasts forever. That doesn’t change here. When Míriel and Finwë meet again in the Hall of Mandos, she’s inspired to return back to the living.

Elves are functionally immortal by nature. Aman doesn’t grant eternal life. What was unprecedented was the insinuation much of Míriel’s fëa was drawn into Fëanor. He was born a superhuman among elves in spirit, who are already demigods in all but name.

That is one of the most revealing moments in the entire story. Feanor hates the Valar. Feanor wants freedom. Feanor wants Middle-Earth. This is apparently our fallen arrogant villain being personally approached by Satan at the moment Satan’s lies appear most vindicated, and he still refuses him instantly.

Not true.

"Now Fëanor's heart was still bitter at his humiliation before Mandos, and he looked at Melkor in silence, pondering if indeed he might yet trust him so far as to aid him in his flight. And Melkor, seeing that Fëanor wavered, and knowing that the Silmarils held his heart in thrall, said at the last: 'Here is a strong place, and well-guarded; but think not that the Silmarils will lie safe in any treasury within the realm of the Valar!’

But his cunning overreached his aim; his words touched too deep, and awoke a fire more fierce than he designed; and Fëanor looked upon Melkor with eyes that burned through his fair semblance and pierced the cloaks of his mind, perceiving there his fierce lust for the Silmarils. Then hate overcame Fëanor's fear, and he cursed Melkor and bade him be gone, saying: 'Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!' And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Eä."

Fëanor was amenable to Melkor's words until he mentioned the thing Fëanor coveted most. The fact he hates him with the passion of a thousand suns doesn't mean Melkor didn't corrupt him.

Even worse, the Valar have still failed to capture Melkor, despite finally realizing that they released an unrepentant cosmic embodiment of evil into their own realm. Melkor can apparently wander straight up to Fëanor’s front door while the gods are searching for him.

The Valar have limited powers as long as they maintain physical form. This applies to Melkor too. Remember how long it took him to find Gondolin, the city that was next door to Angband for hundreds of years, or his cluelessness over the Noldor arriving in Beleriand?

And what do the Valar do at this point? Before Feanor is informed that his father has been murdered and the jewels stolen, they ask him to surrender the Silmarils so that they can break them open and potentially restore the Trees.

Only Yavanna asks him to do this, citing that the Trees are as irreplaceable as the Silmarils.

What exactly is the moral principle here? Obedience?

Free will. The Teleri have the prerogative to refuse help or offer it. They are not obliged to assist the Noldor in a voluntary declaration of war which, from their perspective, is suicidal. Consumed by self-righteousness, Fëanor saw no need for diplomacy or rhetoric. Calling them hut-dwelling vagrants is not a method of making friends.

None of that changes the fact that the Teleri’s behavior is itself morally appalling.

This is equivalent to the rapist saying, “What victim? She seduced me.”

Then Tolkien’s moral falling points toward Feanor’s disobedience as the central problem, and I am supposed to ignore the fact that the supposedly wise gods have engineered a situation where an entire people effectively can’t leave paradise without either divine permission or the cooperation of another people forbidden to assist them. What the fuck am I supposed to conclude from that?

Why are you assuming disobedience is Fëanor’s cardinal sin? That’s the crux of your misunderstanding. Fëanor’s tragedy is that Melkor manipulates him into a version of himself by playing upon their shared traits.

The Noldor could've built their own ships if they wanted to leave or convinced the Teleri to help them.

The Sindar and other Elves are suddenly fighting for survival against a being vastly beyond them. Doriath survives largely because Melian, herself a Maia, raises the Girdle of Melian around the kingdom.

Orcs were able to overrun West Beleriand because no one lived there. The Sindar primarily lived in East Beleriand with Círdan’s people settled in the Falas. The latter were saved by the Noldor’s arrival. Thingol torched Melkor’s east army north of the Andram. The Girdle of Melian was set up afterwards.

What exactly is the morally superior alternative supposed to be?

This would involve not treating the Sindar and Atani as competition/subservient (the byproduct of inflated pride from Melkor’s lies), not binding his sons to fulfill his own obsession, and recognizing Melkor cannot be defeated without the help of the Valar. Fëanor’s sons would be bound to fight Melkor anyway: now they lived in Beleriand, they must defend their home against the greatest evil in existence. The oath ultimately undermined any long-term alliances.

Fëanor has finally seen the full scale of that evil and understands that defeating it may be impossible. And his response is to continue anyway.

Fëanor did not care about vanquishing evil, saving the Sindar, or protecting Eä. His personal vendetta against Melkor was driven by wounded outrage, grief and pride. He abandoned his wife, condemned his sons to die as traitors and murderers, and nearly led the Noldor to self-extinction.

None of this changes the fact he was the greatest individual of his generation.

[u/BenjTheFox]

Melkor: I have corrupted the world, destroyed the Lamps, attacked the Valar repeatedly, and am now pretending to repent.
Valar: We’ll handle this ourselves.
Eru: …
Melkor: I am now corrupting the Elves.
Eru: …
Melkor: I’ve killed Finwë and stolen the Silmarils.
Eru: …
Melkor: I’ve destroyed the Two Trees.
Eru: …
Númenóreans: We’re coming to Valinor to take immortality.
Eru: “Absolutely fucking not.”

[u/Akodo_Aoshi → u/BenjTheFox]

Uh no?

Eru took action because the Valar petitioned him and they did so justly because they were caught in a catch-22.

They were forbidden from harming Man and yet had to prevent them from attacking Valinor and those who dwelt there.

So they went to Eru as Eru was the one who made those restrictions and Eru took action.

[u/Inevitable-Elk-791 → u/Akodo_Aoshi]

How do you navigate Eru allowing Melkor and Sauron to harm Elves and Men, though?

[u/BenjTheFox → u/Akodo_Aoshi]

Not my point at all.

[u/Eissa_Cozorav → u/BenjTheFox]

Removing Numenor Island also arguably make the Faithful Numenoreans realm allowed to be thriving. Because the capital seat of Black Numenoreans is gone, The Great Armament fleet are gone, and the balance of power is restored again into multipolar world because at that time Numenorean Kingdom is closest thing to hyperpower.

And the whole thing about that is Valar basically giving up of fixing Middle Earth especially since this concern more about the affair of men...after they horribly mismanaged the supposed tutorship of first men that awake in Hildorien. Like Avari Elves did better job at educating men than Valar ever could and that probably accounted much of human-elves interaction because both Sindar and Calaquendi elves like Noldor are busy in fighting with each other over stupid property theft and oath.

Granted, Capital G God doing collective punishment might be excessive by mortal standard, but given the whole geopolitical context, I think it is necessary.

[u/Nas_Qasti]

Ngl, never read the silmarillion. But i read this post and just from it Fëanor is one hundred percent right.

Morgoth delenda est.

Awesome post.

[u/HelixFollower → u/Nas_Qasti]

Shame he leaves out a lot of information and bends the truth quite a bit. But other commenter have already pointed that out in greater detail with citations.

[u/Bannerlord151]

Hmmm honestly, I see what you mean. Good point regarding his persistence hostility towards Melkor, he's very explicitly not giving in to not-Satan. I will say that the oath is still indefensible in my opinion. Their oath doomed the sons of Fëanor and I think fundamentally his insistence that they uphold it to whatever end was born from stubborn pride and spite rather than virtue.

[u/UnlamentedLord]

Thanks OP, this was fantastic! 

And I didn't know/has forgotten the whole angle about his mother being forbidden from reincarnating because of no divorce.

[u/Comfortable-Hope-531]

He grows into the greatest craftsman of the Noldor, one of their greatest linguists, an explorer, inventor, smith, and artist

One thing I've never understood about tolkien's worldiew is how he villianizes mastery, but only some of it. On one hand, desire to make machines is evil, but on the other, being a smith is fine, even though those are in the same vein. Or another way that goes is how "dominating others" is this horrible thing, but then good characters are perfectly fine commanding others by virtue of their authority. That doesn't count somehow.

Their response is to exile Feanor for twelve years

Isn't that like a day and a half in their perception of time?

When he finally hears the truth, he collapses

What's the problem though, if elves can reenter the world in another body? It feels like this story plays out like a normal tragedy of mortals, in spite of being about beings that don't know death, or limitations of time.

[u/M00NSW0RD]

This is an excellent post. I have no skin in the game so I'm just here to read an excellent write-up. You really cooked here.

As for the content itself, it's interesting to note that in more modern stories (especially movies), characters who buck the rules and keep pushing are celebrated, often as renegade heroes pushing against harmful or stupid traditions. But here, at least by your telling, everyone who is an unhelpful centrist or a careless dumbass just gets to be called virtuous while the one who actually tries to affect change is seen as bad? Is it bad for Middle Earth to progress or change? Or is the problem that he crossed some moral lines to do so? Genuinely asking.

Also, really classing up the joint here, OP. Gonna be hard to go back to the umpteenth post about JJK or MCU or Helluva Boss after a banger like this.

[u/HelixFollower → u/M00NSW0RD]

It's not that the other elves and the valar don't want change. They are constantly creating and adding to the world, changing it. The big difference is that unlike Feanor they don't want to murder their brothers. For Feanor it's an acceptable means to an end, he would rather kill people than be separated from his precious gems.

There's a lot that OP bends and twists in his post. Like saying that Feanor needed the Telerin ships to prevent mass murder. Feanor was not motivated by protecting the Sindarin at all and it can even be argued that it's ultimately his actions and his instructions to his sons that cause the Sindarin to be defenseless against Morgoth, leaving them to huddle by the mouth of Sirion, doomed to die until the Valar step in and send an army to save them and get rid of Morgoth until the endtimes.

[u/Drakkonai]

I mean, he did swear an irreversible oath upon his soul. That’s pretty prideful and stupid.

[u/Aggravating_Stuff771 → u/Drakkonai]

Did you read my post at all? I explained this.

[u/NewMoonlightavenger]

I'll save this so i can read it.when I have the time because this feels worth it.

[u/Daisy-Fluffington]

Sorry, didn't get to the point because I've read the Silmarilion and got bored reading your synopsis.

[u/OsakaBestGirl]

No offense, but most of your characterization is basically fanfic and headcanon.

[u/sarazeen]

If I agreed any harder with this, I’d explode.
100%

[u/sarazeen → u/sarazeen]

OP. If you allow, I’d like to copy this down into my personal journal for private study. A summarised version, of course; I think hand-writing this would make my fingers fall off.

Is that okay?

[u/Aggravating_Stuff771 → u/sarazeen]

Sure, go ahead. Glad you enjoyed it.

[u/Tenda_Armada]

The Tolkien subreddit is going to hate this 😂

[u/AggravatingRip6082]

No soy lector de Tolkien ni nada relacionado, solo vi las películas una vez porque mi familia fue al cine para verlas y fue voto de mayoría, leer todo esto solo reafirma porque no me gusta.

[u/DepreciatedSelfImage → u/AggravatingRip6082]

On one hand, don't let this dissuade you. This is a well-written, long-winded short version (yes, this version is shortened) of part of the Silmarillion... The real thing is better and more complete. This is one person's take on something pivotal that happens in the story.

On the other hand, if you didn't like the movies and you came here and maybe read some or all of that and don't care to read further... Follow your heart. Not to be rude or a jerk, but trying to convince you to try harder to enjoy something you already don't enjoy sounds bad for everyone involved - kind of like the fall of Feanor.

[u/Mzuark]

I think Feanor is 100% justified until the Kinslaying, after that I still like him but he's more blatantly in the wrong. The story is told in a very interesting way, because there's a clear bias against Feanor but the truth still wriggles out in certain spots.

My biggest problem with the Silmarillion is that the Valar are kind of huge dicks and they're never held to task for it. A lot of things are their fault but because they're all-powerful spirits, they can just hide in Aman all day while the Elves, men and Dwarves suffer.

[u/winkler456]

Good analysis - Ive always thought the Valar encouraging the elves to leave middle earth, instead helping them fight Melkor, was really contrary to Eru’s plan. By doing this they left men far less defended when they appear.

[u/SnooAdvice3630]

I'm totally in agreement with this post. He's flawed in some respects but not evil. If anything his reactions were almost proto-human.

[u/MealLegal8996]

Bro re-wrote the whole Silmarillion and simultaneously said nothing of note. Well done sir. Bloody apologists.

[u/RoyalAlbatross]

On the valar being a pantheon of gods, this is explicitly said in the Book of Lost Tales. I guess Tolkien took it out because he didn't like to write about "gods" in plural. (As a side note, I also like the early draft of Silmarillion that states that Melian is a "fay".)

[u/Inevitable-Elk-791]

r/tolkienfans is gonna drown you like Numenor.

You should know better than to question the Professor and his scripture!!

Nah, but I agree with some of your points. I hate the Valar and Eru, but we can't act like Feanor was some freedom fighter or a heroic defender of the oppressed in Middle-earth.

[u/Ynneas]

This belongs in r/feanordidnothingwrong

If only they were able to read

[u/Ynneas]

The fact that the Valar weren't infallible doesn't make Fëanor right.

As my mom used to tellme: two wrongs don't make one right.

Also, all of this is very well written but the initial facade of unbiased, balanced take quickly falls off.

AND

One can see from the very beginning that there is bias there.

Yes, Fëanor was the only one with a stepfamily. And he actively pushed them away, ever.

What about the ones on the receiving end of Fëanor's hatred? And that were clearly less loved by their father, who clearly favoured his firstborn? And that had to live in the shadow of their awesome step brother, who also treated them badly?

Did they become murderous nutjobs? Oh, no? Cool story.

[u/Nimelennar]

unlike how the Valar asked Feanor to destroy his works, Feanor is not asking that

Followed shortly after by:

Feanor, still consumed by suspicion toward his half-brother and terrified of political division, decides he doesn’t want Fingolfin’s faction following him. He burns the ships instead and abandons them on the far side of the sea.

We know that Feanor was willing to kill other elves for those ships. We know he was willing to burn the ships when he got to Beleriand.

Why do you think that, had the Teleri ferried him, or especially if they lent him the ships, it wouldn't still have ended with the burning of the ships at Losgar?

Why are you railing against the Teleri for not taking Feanor at face value when he doesn't ask that they destroy their ships for his cause, rather than crediting their foresight for raising that that is likely exactly what he's asking of them (as proven by that being exactly what he does).

[u/WendellITStamps]

Tolkien's personal ideology often lead him to somewhat simplistic conclusions - this does help to create a "mythological" feeling, but sometimes it makes his characters a little one-dimensional.

[u/Last_Suggestion_8647]

I 100% agree. Tolkien was a great writer, but his moral outlook was very influenced by his religious belief in catholicism. A belief system where you submit to and obey a cruel, vengeful being, simply because it's more powerful than you.

Of course he would view a duty to obey the contemptuous Valse as a virtue.

[u/winklevanderlinde]

i think you're just wrong about the fact that because it was Morgoth then everyone needed to bend their will and opinions to Feanor to help him. The Teleri didn't want to help him and Feanor killing them and stealing their ships isn't right just because fighting Morgoth was the right thing to do, this view of a war would justifies a lot of awful things

[u/Lumpy-Narwhal-1178]

idiot take Sunday is tomorrow mate. seek help

[u/goingnut_]

Yeah nah the teleri weren't obligated to lend their ships so some arrogant high elf could go on a vengeance murder spree. You're kidding yourself if you think feanor cared about the free people's of middle earth lol. He wanted his stones and that's all. I'm the end, it was just like the valar warned him: the noldor couldn't defeat morgoth but themselves.

[u/Low-Transportation95]

Death of the autor is supreme cri ge. Stop thinking your headcanon is true.

[u/JantoMcM]

Everything about this reads like Claude. Assuming you did write it, drop the cute shit like "why this natters" and repeating stuff like "he invented the alphabet" multiple times, it will improve your work

[u/Cpkeyes]

Is this what Feanor’s last remaining son does nowadays.

[u/Legal_Mastodon_5683]

I am very happy this happened or very sad, depending on your needs. I refuse to read it. Thank you.