[ SECRET POST #2400 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2400 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[The Silmarillion]


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03.
[Fire Emblem: Awakening]


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04.
[Almost Human]


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05.
[Gundam Wing and True Blood]


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06.
[NCIS: LA]


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07.
[Final Fantasy VII Compilation]


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08.
[Tom Hiddleston/Loki]


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09.
[Scott & Bailey]


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10.
[Pokemon, Mondo/Domino]


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11.
[Merlin]


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12.
[Chris Colfer]


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13.
[Danny Phantom]


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14.
[Twin Peaks]














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 064 secrets from Secret Submission Post #343.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think Maedhros is everyone's fave particularly Fingon's but oh well and that's a really interesting point about how Celegorm really doesn't fit in with the rest of the Feanorian profile (and I always wondered what Feanor would have made of him in general: oldest son is the perfect diplomat and heir, second son is a musical genius, fourth son obviously has a head for figures and accounting, fifth son is just like daddy AND THEREFORE PERFECT and the twins are still little and it's too early to classify them in any way... that just leaves third son who likes running around outside and rolling in the mud with dogs. Hmm.)

Silm/Feanorian genderswaps aren't all that uncommon on Tumblr if you are to look, and I can remember at least one girl!Celegorm fic where she marries Eol of all people...

Honestly I think Caranthir gets a bad rap for his temper, at that (at least his mother-name only references that he's got a ruddy complexion, poor guy: Celegorm's specifically comments on how he jumps to his feet whenever he gets angry: Celegorm = Tyelkormo = Hasty Riser) and he's the one who forges (ha ha) a decent enough trading relationship with the dwarves that he becomes Beleriand's default taxman and gets filthy stinking rich off the proceeds: he must have been able to keep enough of a lid on his temper that none of them ever took insult and decided to make him shorter by a head (oops Thingol you could've learned a thing or two there couldn't you?)

[(Anonymous)]

(oops Thingol you could've learned a thing or two there couldn't you?)
Hey now he managed fairly well when back when they were building his kingdom and smithing weapons for him, and as long as a Silmaril wasn't in the balance.

[(Anonymous)]

And thus we get to the moral of all Tolkien's stories:

Shinies are evil.

[(Anonymous)]

Blings Are Bad: The Novel

[(Anonymous)]

Well then I amend my opinion! Maedhros can be Fingon's fave and Fingon will be myforce of personality that kept him from being the outcast among his brothers. Hey, apparently he had a talent for public speaking and dialectic persuasion when he felt like it. But at some point in his childhood (let's say, some time before Curufin was born), when he was just the odd middle child, he definitely went through some decades rolling in the mud and his family just had no idea what what to do with him. Another Man's Cage Celegorm really worked for me in that way.

Whereas Caranthir could have succeeded quite well in Valinor on his own talents, but was kept down by his bad rap (you yell at your cousin at a council meeting one time...) and had to go to Middle Earth to find his calling in life. What, there were no taxes in heaven Valinor? About his relations with the Dwarves, I actually really like it that while he didn't particularly like them and vice versa, he still managed to make the trade partnerships work, which is quite in line with his overall characterization. He was no friend to all living things but his reputation for overbearing pride seems a little unfair: he was quite capable of cooperation on numerous occasions, including the time it ended badly for all involved.

Ah, the tumblr Silm fandom. The only place a character like Eol can find support, I swear. I'm cool when we're just talking about the characters and all but as soon as fics start being written... idk, something about the tone of these newer stories really put me off. They're dangerously woobie-ish. I'm fine just swimming in the creative pool of pre-2005 fandom.

sa

[(Anonymous)]

...what ate half of my first paragraph?

Well then I amend my opinion! Maedhros can be Fingon's fave and Fingon will be my fave! You know, this is straying dangerously far into fanon territory but I like to think that, as he got older, it was Celegorm's force of personality that kept him from being the outcast among his brothers. Hey, apparently he had a talent for public speaking and dialectic persuasion when he felt like it. But at some point in his childhood (let's say, some time before Curufin was born), when he was just the odd middle child, he definitely went through some decades rolling in the mud and his family just had no idea what what to do with him. Another Man's Cage Celegorm really worked for me in that way.

[(Anonymous)]

Another Man's Cage is what made me first fall in love with Caranthir, I have to admit: headcanon to the max, but I love the thought that he has some mild/underdeveloped form of elven telepathy that makes him act so weird and unfriendly towards people who aren't his family and know how to handle all the Caranthir brand of strangeness. Though yes, little!Celegorm in that fic is pretty much how I imagine him too.

What, there were no taxes in heaven Valinor?

Probably not, but you can bet that by the first anniversary of his death the Halls of Mandos had a whole Inland Revenue/IRS division founded and set up by C. Feanorion. How dead elves pay taxes I'm not sure, but if anyone could figure it out then it could be Caranthir, and there's no escaping him.

...This is my thing about Eol. Celegorm is a dick, Curufin is nasty piece of work and both are horrible, unpleasant, murderous villains and there's no denying any of that even by fans of the sons of Feanor........ but the only (semi) canonical act of rape by an Elf in any of Tolkien's works is carried out by Eol, and he doesn't get even a fraction of a hate that the three Cs tend to. I have no problems with people hating on the Feanorians - deservedly so, for C3 & C5 - but the way that Eol just oozes under people's radars confounds me: people call Celegorm a rapist and seem to forget that the canon (semi) rapist even exists.

[(Anonymous)]

Caranthir's telepathy is certainly one of the most interesting interpretations I've found in fandom... when it works it really works. It gives a cool, tragic spin on what could become of his relations with Men later in life. I'd like Caranthir regardless, though, misanthropic curmudgeon that he was. I'd pay his taxes :D

Right? I think people cling rather heavily to that one text where Tolkien wrote that Aredhel was not "wholly unwilling", but all that means to me is that she managed to develop feelings for Eol after spending so much time in Nan Elmoth. Doesn't change the fact that he used entrapment and trickery to keep her there, to say nothing of all his creepy, abusive, murderous antics as husband and father. While the Feanorians commit mass atrocities on a grand scale appropriate for "villains" in this kind of epic story, Eol's actions represent a shockingly banal kind of evil that gets under my skin so much more. For an Elf, he seems more like someone you might meet in real life than, say, Feanor.

[(Anonymous)]

Phew, doesn't it just - I think my favourite part of this bit of 'what if' comes when you remember that the Men who betrayed the Union of Maedhros were sworn to Caranthir, and you can imagine him torturing himself over why he hadn't been able to pick that up. Like Ol' Broody needs yet another reason to sit in a dark corner and brood, but...

There was actually an excellent bit of meta over on Tumblr about this recently, and I wish I could remember the link... basically it was talking about all the changes Tolkien made to his treatises on Laws and Customs of the Eldar and whether or not Elves can actually rape/be raped. He seemed to change his mind towards 'yes' later on in life and I wonder if the 'not wholly unwilling' passage in the published Silmarillion is a holdover from the earlier days and/or Christopher Tolkien hedging his bets and not being 100% sure what his father's final decision was. Regardless, as it's written I believe that Eol Stokholmed the hell out of her: he's pretty much a textbook elven version of a man who kidnaps a woman, keeps her in a dark basement, gets her pregnant and so messes with her mind in hundreds of little ways that she stays in his house even when she has opportunities to escape: if Maeglin hadn't convinced Aredhel that they needed to get the hell out I'm sure she would have stayed right where she was in Nan Elmoth, but from the speed at which she's convinced and then determined to get herself and her son away from Eol there's no doubt that that's the last place she wants to be. I think you've got a really excellent point on the banality of evil that we see in Eol, though: 'genius creates limitless power source; massacres hundreds; is cursed by the gods' isn't a headline we see in the papers all that often, whereas what Eol did is frighteningly commonplace when you remove the pointy ears and the enchanted forest.

[(Anonymous)]

And you have to wonder, did Caranthir's experience with Haleth and her people influence his views on Men, leading to his later decision to throw his lot in with the Easterlings? See, there's just so much more to Caranthir, he was never in the spotlight but Tolkien still managed to toss in these little things. A two-dimensional bit player villain he ain't.

You know, Tolkien changed his mind about this and that so many times that I rather think even if he had lived to see The Silmarillion published, it still wouldn't have been the definitive version. But The Silmarillion itself is closer to a fictional historical anthology than it is a story anyway. Just like with history, there are numerous, even conflicting versions of the same accounts and people who just can't agree on these things (you can't tell me the Feanorian apologists aren't just as intense as actual historical apologists).

No disagreement on Eol from me, for sure. And while I'd never wish that fate on anyone, I think it's particularly tragic that it happened to Aredhel who was such a free spirit and had just escaped a life of loose imprisonment in her brother's kingdom. It's my headcanon that Aredhel went to Gondolin for Idril's sake, and it was Idril who later convinced her to leave and find freedom. After Aredhel's death, Idril might have harbored guilt about her involvement, and tried to atone by being extra kind to Maeglin -- leading him to get the wrong idea.