A half-life, a cursed life by Lyra

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Fanwork Notes

The title is a line from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: "You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips." Doesn't actually apply to the things Anárion and Isildur are talking about, but probably applies to the things going on at Sauron's temple. Close enough.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Anárion discusses the specifics of Maedhros' and Húrin's captivity with his brother, and comes to a chilling conclusion.

Rated Adult for some discussion of torture.

Major Characters: Anárion, Isildur

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre:

Challenges: Solve a Problem

Rating: Adult

Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1, 144
Posted on 2 August 2019 Updated on 2 August 2019

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments

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Excellent response to the prompt! Creepy too (in all the best ways-- lets the reader construct their own parameters without doling out a litany of specific and explicit descriptions like some sort of pulp-fiction horror--sorry, sorry carried away there! Low tolerance for dark fic unless it is done extremely well). 

Frankly, in my fandom history, I spent a lot of time over a decade ago discussing the question that maybe Tolkien's in-story time is poetically or narratively enhanced for effect in these particular instances. I decided for my own storytelling purposes, that Maedhros might have spent a couple to a few years in captivity (equal roughly to the time it took Fingolfin's followers to cross the Helcraxe--obviously I could not suspend my disbelief for much longer than that) and less than two weeks hanging by one hand. Already we are assuming a whole lot of Elven magic and enhanced healing powers to allow them to last even those greatly foreshortened periods in either case. 

It never occurred to me to consider Morgoth to help extend their lives to drag out the period of suffering, although one could do that version also!

Great story. You've packed a lot into a few words. Well done!

Trying to decide if I can write something some the array of implausible facts available to me. Did flowers spring up under the Noldor's feet as they entered Beleriand--probably not but it must have felt like it to them with the Sun awakening all of those unnaturally hibernating life forms!

I wasn't setting out to write darkfic, so maybe that's why it ended up working. >_> The beautiful (or not so beautiful, if you're discussing with die-hard canatics) thing about Tolkien's stories is that you not just have unreliable narrators, but also unreliable translators and unreliable compilers, so in the end, conflicting versions or 'unrealistic' elements just add to the sense of history. But of course, with purported Elven magic and enhanced healing powers, as well as supernatural forces at work, there's a lot of leverage all around. Like you, I tend to imprison Maedhros in Angband for several years, but I still hang him up on Thangorodrim for years after that (it's too poetic - in an evil way - to have him witness the first sunrise from up there!)...

Amusingly, since I personally don't enjoy the idea of Elven ultra-fast healing, I assumed right from the start (well, on my second reading -- on the first I was so overwhelmed tha I just took things at face value XD) that Morgoth would make Maedhros' (and later, Húrin's) body withstand the enormous stress it is put under. So this for me was my first and easiest interpretation.

Ah, the flowers under their marching feet... it's entirely implausible, but what a powerful image! I agree that it probably must have felt like that, especially after they came from the entirely lifeless Helcaraxe. But it's such a moving scene that I still want to see some of it happen literally. XD Perhaps some flowers also began to bud and sprout under the Moon (which already was more light than they were used to) so when the Sun rose, their flower-buds actually did spring open? Anyway, if you do write it, I'd love to read it!

I think that that is a very clever way of drawing connections between things that at first glance seem rather different, Melkor's methods of torture and Sauron's promises of eternal life!

The discussion gains resonance by its setting and the story throws an interesting light on the relationship between the brothers and their views of the situation in late Numenor.

Of course, Anarion cannot know, at this time, of what the outcome for Pharazon will be and he probably doesn't know much about the business with the Rings. But we do and it adds an extra layer.

Thank you so much! It took a while until the connection offered itself, but when it did, I thought "You know what? Let's go with that..." because it does seem to work.

Thank you for the observation that the setting and our knowledge about the future add more resonance to the story. I didn't consciously choose that - it was more a question of "Who would in-universe be in a position to see this connection, and how do I put it in a story" than a conscious choice, but I'm glad that it seems to have been a clever choice! ;)

Strangely, the connection between Maedhros and Húrin sprang to mind on my first - well, no, second reading of the /Silmarillion/ (the first time I was just overwhelmed and didn't understand a thing ;)) - so it's such an "old" interpretation (to me) that I need to remind myself that it isn't actually in the text. The connection to Sauron's promises in Númenor came as a surprise to me, too. But once it was there, I felt that it might actually work. Glad that it works for you, too, and that you enjoy the framing also! Thank you!