Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
Why is Tolkien’s word about this not worth anything? Because the lie of omission is still a lie. Because Angrod knew and didn’t say anything, it would be seen as a lie.I’ve been unable to post for a while but I have a lot to say.
I didn’t say never. I said that nobody is going to speak of it just 7 years later, which to an Elf is 7 months or less. Especially when Fingolfin has told them they aren’t allowed to speak of it, because he’s not dumb enough to think that the Helkaraxe can be discussed openly without also revealing the arson at Losgar and the Feud. How can he possibly think it would be safe to discuss it? If he says “nobody can talk about the Kinslaying or the arson at Losgar” of course he won’t allow them to discuss the Helkaraxë either.
Your examples are, again, either people who willingly came forward decades after their ordeal, “never again” warnings, or who were forced by law enforcement who already knew the event had happened. The analogy of those coercive law enforcement interviews is when Thingol, already knowing about the Kinslaying, confronts Finarfin’s sons in Doriath. Thingol has no reason at all to confront Angrod when they first meet. Thingol has not personally seen the ships, and has no reason anyway to doubt that if there were fewer ships than people, they were used multiple times. Nobody has to lie. There is no “never again” about the Helkaraxë.
Tolkien showed Angrod not telling Thingol about the Helkaraxë, without having to lie. Why is Tolkien’s word about this not worth anything?
The Trail of Tears, and many other imperial forced removals of people from their homes accompanied by famine, plague, and massacre. And most of those events were widely known, not secret. All of them deserved the "never again" treatment.
That is not accurate. Look at the Annals of Beleriand (Lost Road) and the Tale of Years (War of the Jewels). Just 5 years after the 2nd Kinslaying, the Feanorians learned where Elwing and the Silmaril were. If they had attacked then, when she and Eärendil were just 8 years old, Elrond and Elros wouldn’t have been born. But Maedhros foreswore his Oath and then he and his remaining brothers tried for 26 years to break the Oath. During 11 of those years, they were withstanding torment caused by the Oath. They should have tried harder, certainly, but the fact is that Tolkien clearly showed them trying, very hard, to break the Oath, and showed it causing supernatural and extremely unpleasant effects on them while they were trying to break it. They did not carry it out voluntarily, just for honor’s sake. They were coerced into the 3rd Kinslaying, against their wills. They should have tried harder to break the Oath, but they absolutely did try.
I can quote the sections of the Annals and Tale of Years if you need it.
Christopher Tolkien for some reason reworded his father’s writing to make all the Sons of Fëanor look gung-ho about the Oath and never once try to break it, but that is a change I do not want to make. I don’t want to depict them as remorseless monsters.
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