Marielle
Well-Known Member
I respectfully disagree. Firstly, Feanor should be the better orator, as he has charisma coming out the wazoo, and his position will be helped by the circumstances surrounding it. Nerdanel doesn't have to be unimpressive to fail to convince a majority when 1) their world has just been terrifyingly and irrevocably changed 2) their king has been murdered and 3) the Valar either couldn't or didn't stop it. Then the king's heir, and the Noldor's golden boy, whom everyone (andIf we had Nerdanel arguing in opposition at this scene, we would need to either make her case weak (and thus her presence weak), or really raise Feanor's persuasive ability. How do we get all 7 sons to betray their mother publicly?
especially his sons) hero-worships, says everything they're thinking? And says he knows what to do? That's hard to argue against, no matter how good a speaker you are.
His sons... in the book, it says they all leapt up "at once" to take the oath -- I think it should be an open question, with visible hesitation, on the part of at least one of them (Maedros is an obvious candidate). But their admiration of their father, anger at the murder of their grandfather and the theft of the silmarils, and longing for Middle Earth should overrule their hesitations and mother's pleas.
Also, it's been suggested before that Nerdanel and Feanor argue before in the series about what to do, with each winning/loosing some of the debates, and the other always going along with the winner in the end. So the seven sons might not see siding with their father as "betraying" their mother, but merely expressing their positions in the arguement, and be as surprised (and possibly hurt) as their father when she refuses to go along in the end.