[sindohte]

Discussion on the chapter - Of Maeglin will officially begin on Monday 8/30.

Andreth will begin the discussion of this chapter.

Anyone wandering by this thread should feel free to raise questions or make comments.

Please try to keep the comments on this thread strictly related to discussion of the Silm.

[Andreth]

In this chapter we have another willful Noldo, but this time a woman. Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, the white lady of the Noldor was the daughter of Fingolfin. She lived in Gondolin with her brother, Turgon, and got tired of living in the beauty of the Hidden City. She decided that she wanted to go out into the world and find her cousins, the sons of Feanor.

Turgon sent a guard with Aredhel to escort her to Fingon in Hithlum, but when they reached the river of Sirion she told them she was going to find Celegorm. Thingol wouldn't let her pass through Doriath because she was no relation to him like the children of Finarfin, so she had to take the long way around. Along the way she got separated from her companions and went on to Celegorm's land alone. Celegorm wasn't there and Aredhel got bored again while she was waiting for him. She rode off and ended up in Nan Elmoth.

Now the thick trees of Nan Elmoth kept the sun out and it was always dark. Eol lived there and this was the way he liked it. He was an Elf kin to Thingol and he hated the Noldor almost as much as he hated the sunlight. He missed the stars before the coming of the sun. He was a very skilled smith, having learned some of his craft from the Dwarves, and he created the metal galvorn.

He saw Aredhel wandering in the woods and he wanted her. Eol used enchantments to lead her to his home. When she arrived there he took her to wife. Some versions say she wasn't willing and some say she was. I tend to see her as a spoiled brat, so I can see her going for the dark rebel Elf. It says he was stooped from his smith work, he dressed in black, and shunned the sunlight. That always gives me an Igor-type image of Eol.

They get married and have a son, whom his mother secretly gives the Quenyan name, Lomion, child of twilight. Eol doesn't name him until the boy is 12, and calls him Maeglin, or Sharp Glance. Maeglin looked like the Noldor and his mother told him stories about his royal family back in Gondolin. After a while Maeglin and Aredhel got tired of the creepy woods and creepy Eol. They waited until he went off to have a kegger with the Dwarves and then they took off for Gondolin.

They made it to Gondolin but Eol caught up with them in time to get an idea of where the secret entrance was. Turgon was happy to see Aredhel and Maeglin, and Maeglin was happy to see his cousin, Idril, whom he immediately developed the hots for. In-breeeeeder. She eventually figured this out and it creeped her out.

Meanwhile, Eol had found the secret way into Gondolin and the Guard captured him and brought him before Turgon. Eol said he wanted his wife and son, but Turgon told him either stay here or die here. Eol, being the wienie that he was, pulled a spear from under hs cloak and threw it at Maeglin but Aredhel jumped in front of it and took a blow to the shoulder. Just my opinion, but shouldn't Turgon's guards have searched Eol before they brought a creepy-looking Elf in front of the king after he'd tried to break into Gondolin

The tip of the javelin was poisoned and Aredhel died that night. Turgon had Eol thrown from the walls of the city (that had to be a long fall with lots of bumps along the way) and just before they threw him, Eol cursed Maeglin. After that he gained the favor of Turgon but not Idril. Maeglin went to war with Turgon's armies and proved to be quite the badass, obviously showing his Noldor blood. Everything seemed to be going well for him and had it not been for his Deliverance-style desire for his own cousin, Maeglin would have been a powerful prince of the Noldor. Idril thought there was something creepy about him and she shunned him, then after a while Maeglin's love for Idril turned to hatred.

And the pieces were set on the board and the clock started ticking, marking what little time was left to the glory days of Gondolin.

[Jillian]

Right now, I'm sitting on my Maeglin, waiting for him to calm down. Then I might let him make a comment or three.

Fair dinkum, has this elf gotten all worked up at the thought of a discussion thread all about him!

[Jillian]

Right now, I'm sitting on my Maeglin, waiting for him to calm down. Then I might let him make a comment or three.

Fair dinkum, has this elf gotten all worked up at the thought of a discussion thread all about him!

[sindohte]

I found this chapter to be different in that it was more of a story-like chapter about a relationship between two people - Eol and Aredhel, instead of the usual epic type of battles and exploring that characterized the coming of the Noldor into Arda. And when you think about it, the chapter was filled with a bunch of 'what ifs.' For example, what if Turgon had forbidden his sister to leave the city? What if Aredhel hadn't been a bonehead and decided to see her crazyass sons of Feanor cousins, but had done what she said she was going to do a visit Feanor instead? What if Thingol had a little less hatred for the Noldor and had allowed Aredhel and her party to pass through Doriath? All of these things might have prevented her from running into dear Eol.

Now I had a thought - Eol was related to Thingol. And just like his kin, he didn't like the Noldor. Wouldn't Eol think it would be a fitting comeuppance to take to wife one of the jewels of a high ranking family and send her back home at some point with a bun in her oven? Given that relations at times between the Noldor and Sindar Elves was strained, it wouldn't be too great a leap to imagine something like that happening. And the text does say that Curufin was not happy to learn Eol was his cousin-in-law.

As for Magelin, I will be interested to hear Jillian's defense of this much maligned Elf. And if I do recall correctly (excuse the SSP), I do believe that I read a story on FF.net by her recently about how Magelin had survived into the present day and was finally able to redeem himself.

And Anna, I totally agree with the whole yuck factor of the potential inbreeding between Idril and Maeglin. However that does bring to mind another question. Gondolin was a closed city. How many residents does a city need to have to prevent in breeding anyway? Because if Gondolin had lasted a few thousand years, it would have been filled with a bunch of inbreeding Eles anyway.

[inglor]

I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation between Eol an Curufin.

Eol: hey ! new cuz

Curufin: Bugger off dark elf

Funny that Curufin now found it wrong to kill other elves.

Sind,
I found the lack of frisking a little odd myself, must have been a big cloak to hide a JAVELIN. I could see a knife or something small, but a JAVELIN?!?! No wonder Morgoth snuck up on them... Gits

Another point about the javelin incident: Didn't only Orcs use poison on their weapons? I think the Prof was trying to underline Eol's darkness. Or Prof T needed a delay so that Turgon could offer him leniency.

I liked how Maeglin just stood by and scowled... tosser...


Inglor

(poncy, tosser, git, nancing... I really like the British insults I am picking up here, also the use of the word "wee" I always imagine a Scottish accent with the use of this word)

[Andreth]

If anyone knows how to help us understand Maeglin, it would be Jillian. She's been rummaging around in the old guy's head for a while now.

I think Maeglin was another of Tolkien's characters who had their fall from grace. I mean, look at the guy - after he got away from Eol he had everything going for him. He's good looking, he's a noble, he's Turgon's heir in Gondolin, he's powerful, he's skilled - but all of that's undone by his unnatural affection for his first cousin, which it says no Elf has ever done before.

If you want to get down to the literary cause of it, there's an entire chapter on Maeglin's story in War of the Jewels (HoMe XI) and the whole story of Eol, Aredhel and Maeglin was created by Tolkien to set up the fall of Gondolin. Maeglin was simply cast in the part of the villian for this one, and a villian who fell from a higher place like most of them tend to do. At least in Tolkien's world.

A few interesting behind the scenes notes is that Tolkien had originally intended for Eol to have been taken prisoner by Morgoth, been tortured and warped, but given some amount of freedom because of his gift at smithing. Eol used the extra freedom to escape - or possibly he was allowed to escape by Morgoth so that he could go cause trouble among the Elves. Tolkien abandoned this idea because he thought it would make Maeglin's later experiences too repetitive, but I think it would have been an ironic parallel between father and son. And explained a lot about Eol's creepiness and unElf-like isolation.

Also Tolkien wanted the exchange between Eol and Curufin to show Curufin in 'a more honourable light' since he was so often cast as the villian. Apparently Curufin's choice to stick by Eldarin law instead of killing Eol (which he could have done and no one would have been the wiser) was supposed to show that Curufin did have some sense of morals after all. Kind of fell flat in my opinion, though.

Also, Aredhel's guard from Gondolin was initially meant to be Glorfindel, Ecthelion and Eglamoth but Tolkien changed his mind later because he decided that these three warriors would never be such pussies that they'd give up on finding Aredhel and be too scared to cross into Nan Dungortheb.

One interesting last note is a section that got left out after Eol threw the poison dart at Maeglin: "For the Eldar never used any poison, not even against their most cruel enemies, beast, ork, or man; and they were filled with shame and horror that Eol should have meditated this evil deed."

I still think it would have made a lot more sense to leave his imprisonment and torture by Morgoth. I could have understood his actions a lot more that way and then it would show that Eol was passing the Shadow of Morgoth on to his son like a curse, kind of like the situation with Hurin and his kids.

Still a pity about Maeglin. He had a lot of potential.

[Thuriniel]

I'm behind on my reading , so I haven't read this chapter yet, but it's one I remember vividly when I read the Sil last year.

Just one thing I want to add about Maeglin ... can we really blame him for feeling afection/lust/love for his cousin? They didn't grow up together, thus they didn't have the chance to create a fraternal sort of bond since they were young.

Is it so odd then that Maeglin arrives to Gondolin and sees this beautiful elleth and falls for her? It's tragic, it's incestuous ... but I do feel some sort of sympathy for him.

Besides ... we're talking cousins here, it's not as if she were his sister. How many times in history you have members of Royal families marrying in the same blood line? And let's not get into the genealogy of the Pharaons ...

[Andreth]

You bring up a good point with their not having known each other before, but I'm assuming that the reason his love for Idril was so taboo is that Elves supposedly had some kind of special insight and rarely chose the wrong mate. Or according to LACE anyway, which I file under the take it or leave it status.

I believe his love for Idril was supposed to have been a mark of the curse of the Noldor working on them, and also a sign of the pollution of the shadow of Morgoth that existed in Arda.

You're right about the inbreeding among royalty in many different kingdoms (which explains a lot about some royals' level of sanity ) but from what it says here in the Silm, Elves didn't marry their close cousins and this was the first time that one had desired to do so. So among the Elves it was unheard of that an Elf should want to marry his first cousin and considered unnatural.