Sharp Things in the Way by Dawn Felagund

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Fanwork Notes

This story was written for Himring as a prize for the 2013 Season of Writing Dangerously and remixes her wonderfully poignant Maglor Plays For His People After Doriath. I also borrow Himring's assumption in that story that the Fëanorians used Amon Ereb as a sort of home base after the attack on Doriath.

Elleth has once again offered her help with translations, since I am all thumbs with Tolkien's languages. Meth-e-Laer translates to Summer's End and is intended to represent a festival similar to that of Samhain. Many thanks, Elleth, for the help with this! Names were devised using Darth Fingon's name generator.

And finally, Oshun's biography of Daeron was helpful in catching me up to speed on a character I'd never written before. In particular, her remarks on the Sindarin rejection of the Cirth and the relative value of the Noldolantë over Daeron's "crafting songs for Lúthien" shaped this story.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

The consummate poet of the Sindar, Daeron recognizes his potential to shape his people's perceptions of the newly arrived Noldor but struggles to find the courage to assert himself. Inspired by meeting Maglor at the Mereth Aderthad, Daeron nonetheless finds himself besieged by perceived failure, until his final attempt to depict a peaceful history between their peoples might be too late. A remix of Himring's Maglor Plays For His People After Doriath and written as a Season of Writing Dangerously prize for Himring.

Major Characters: Daeron, Lúthien Tinúviel, Maglor

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Drama, General

Challenges: Gift of a Story

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Mature Themes
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 5, 548
Posted on 26 October 2013 Updated on 26 October 2013

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Sharp Things in the Way

Comments

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This is a terrific story. You completely satisfied me with your observations. The story of Daeron for me is one the saddest individual tales of The Silmarillion. Although, he is an artist without peer (or with only one perhaps!), he is unable to win the love of Lúthien, although they work together and share significant interests. You manage to communicate his tragedy, without straining the story or falling into an emo-garment-rendering mode—less is more here.

I appreciate very much that you found my bio helpful and thank for the credit. (That was actually one of my earliest ones and do think I write better ones now! I could probably do a better job now of arguing the same points.) Actually, I am still not interested in Dairon the brother of Luthien—that is just not as interesting of a story. Daeron is one of the characters who profits greatly from the later edits/additions/changes to his story.

Tolkien broke my heart with Daeron’s story. But admittedly hooked me and made Daeron absolutely relatable to me, kept me coming back to think about him endless times. In your version, you convey the element of professional jealousy very well and also the manner in which a person who really loves their art or science is able to overcome that envy in favor of collaboration. I related strongly to that on a personal level.

I liked your interpretation of Daeron’s musical style contrasted with that of Maglor. You reinforced my opinion that Maglor used his suffering and mistakes to enhance his art and that Daeron, despite enormous effort and a prodigious gift, allowed himself in a real sense to be defeated by life. I completely believed your assertion that he went back to Doriath and, in the same way that his alphabet had not been accepted, the innovations to his work which he gained through collaboration with the wicked Noldo, were rejected as well. He does not really get a break.

Doriath always seemed to reflect a static and unchanging part of Elven culture, similar to the role of the Vanyar in Valinor. (Tolkien really contradicts himself with this stuff. There is an essay to write!) The Noldor have always been my favorites because they shake things up--question, change, and experimentation win out over harmony and the status quo. Daeron comes across to me as someone who did so much, but not as much as he might have done in a different setting than being confined within the Girdle of Melian. Thingol is a hoot—you give some real bits of character development, second hand, with small telling little details, unreliable narrator or not, this is exactly as I would imagine him.

The story reflected a lot of thoughts I have had about the canon, and is engaging in the way your stories always are:­­ human, personal, and filled with psychological and social insights.

I wish I had not lost my previous comment! I did not retain the language or the insights of it! Dammit! Bottom line is that It is a very fine story, arresting and moving, and even made me think about my own life and accomplishments (or lack thereof!).

 

Thank you, Oshun, for reconstructing your original long comment! I was crossing my fingers that you would ... I always love your insights into my stories. You always see what I'm trying to do so clearly (a rush for any writer--to be understood! :) and inevitably bring up some things I haven't thought of.

"You manage to communicate his tragedy this without straining the story or falling into an emo-garment-rendering mode—less is more here."

This is a relief to me. I finished the story last night, then did revisions this morning. It occurred to me that Luthien and Daeron in a boat use about as many words as the ending! But besides from being more fun for me to write, those more "personable" scenes, I hope, show what I could beat into readers' heads through telling and through over-the-top angst. When I reread the story, it worked for me. It's a relief to hear it worked for you too!

Much of the professional jealousy and the rejection of the Noldorin musical styles in Doriath is to Himring's credit. She hit all my buttons with these details! :) When I read your Daeron bio about how his own people never really appreciated the Cirth, it all seemed to come together: Daeron's sense of rejection, his need to prove himself, his ultimate susceptibility to "selling out" to please rather than challenge the views of Thingol and others of his people. (Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "Art comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.") The rejection of the Cirth--a detail I'd forgotten, Feanatic that I am--seemed so sad to me, when I have devoted some energy to the opposite among the Noldor, via Rumil and Feanor: the celebration of writing not so much as an ossified form of memory as a means to communicate ideas more widely and argue with people who aren't present. But the Noldor are used to intellectual and creative conflict, as you note, and have already lived in a diverse society; Maglor's Noldolante (as Himring presents it) would be uncomfortable but ultimately acceptable to all and even enlightening to some. Whereas Daeron's talent gets reduced to endless Petrarchian* pining over the woman he can't have, which his people celebrate as art while he knows he should have been "afflicting the comfortable" and could have done so much more with his gift. All this from one of the first lines in your bio when you--in true Feanatic fashion!--criticize Daeron's use of his talent versus Maglor's. I wondered, "What about Daeron and the Sindar made it so that a string of love songs about one woman became his magnum opus?

* Not a Petrarch fan. ;)

"Doriath always seemed to reflect that static and unchanging part of Elven culture"

Yes. To me, it is the difference between a person who achieves a sense of control over his world by bolting the door and alphabetizing his CD collection, versus the person who goes out into the messy, scary world and tries to make it better in any small way possible, even if that difference is ultimately as insignificant as a lone guy standing up to a Dark Lord. You know which I prefer. ;) I think this was an issue Tolkien wrestled with over his life. His letters talk about how Elven kingdoms like Doriath (or Gondolin or Nargothrond or Lothlorien ...) come about as a result of subcreation: a desire to make a perfect world. Just like the Valar give up trying to improve all of Arda and hem in their own little private paradise behind impassable mountains. He is critical of this desire but also understanding of it. (I'm sure you've read these letters. This is more for the benefit of anyone else who might read this reply and be all "Huh?" :) I think it reflects his own desire to go back to an idyllic time that never actually existed. It doesn't seem surprising to me that the three First Age kingdoms that do this are established by Elves who would have possibly preferred to live out their lives in Valinor.

Daeron, of course, doesn't fit into this. It is in his nature as a poet and a singer to want to reach as vast an audience as possible and to move beyond rehashing the same stale ideas.

This was a really long reply! Sorry! But thank you again for the comment and the great insights that just made me spend about 20 minutes typing a reply like it was nothing. :D

I already loved, loved Himring's story so much because it relates so much of the duty a bard/loremaster can have towards their people and Maglor surely carried more responsibility than Daeron. But Daeron's fate undoubtly is just as bitter as Maglor's. A love lost, following his sense of duty ultimately severed his bond with Luthién and this story simply shows what he longs for, a place to be and to be himself. Durn it, his story may be written in stone, but who knows who will find that rock hidden beneath the sea as Beleriand was destroyed. I am so glad to read that he did get to hear Maglor's song of Doriath in the end, and got to feel that what both learnt of another did serve its purpose after all.

As I was rereading Himring's story with my remix in mind, one of my first images was of Daeron in the snowy shadows just beyond Amon Ereb, listening to Maglor's song. :)

The purpose/meaning of art endlessly fascinates me. Like I wrote in reply to Oshun's comment below yours, one of my favorite quotes is "Art should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Daeron never quite manages the latter ... he never quite manages anything he wants aside from "commercial" success.

Thank you for your comment, Rhapsy, and for reading the story. :)

I love it. I'm so proud that my story somehow managed to inspire this one!

That beginning scene in the canoe! I could feel the magnetic attraction of that nasty rock...

The relationship with Luthien (I myself hadn't devoted more than half a meagre sentence to it)! You describe those shifting emotions between them so convincingly. And it really appeals to me how you present her dancing as a serious form of art, achieved at cost (it reminds me of a discussion I once had with Dwimordene about the significance of dancing in Arda).

That description of Daeron's vision of the Cirth! You really make me believe that it overwhelmed him enough to neglect his obligations to Luthien.

And the scenes at the Mereth Aderthad--all those lovely details with which you filled in my rather bare-boned description! (I was partly playing that part for comic effect, of course!) Maglor immersed in his playing, all that sheer physical concentration, Daeron with his book, and triggering the applause,  the way he later manages to crash into Maglor as he once crashed into Nassarn! And how they find themselves speaking, so briefly in unison...

In my own story, Daeron's rejecting the Noldorin influence is linked more immediately to Thingol's Ban--but of course the nature of Thingol's Ban itself betrays a certain mindset, despite the severity of the provocation, and we do seem to see hints of such a mindset already earlier on. I find it very convincing how you've linked all this here more closely to the rejection of the Cirth and Oshun's suggestions about its significance. You don't write all that much about Doriathrin society here but what you say is very telling.

And that last scene! So sad. I'm glad he got to hear Maglor playing again, even if it was only from a distance, but that description of his writing in Cirth on the walls of Amon Ereb! It breaks my poor sentimental heart.

Thank you so much again for writing this story, Dawn!

"I could feel the magnetic attraction of that nasty rock..."

This is totally based on personal experience! I've never driven a canoe over a rock (although I've definitely run into submerged branches that I've intended to avoid), but this kind of thing always happens to me. Even if I am throwing a ball for my dogs, if there is a lone tree branch to be hit, I will hit it.

"The relationship with Luthien (I myself hadn't devoted more than half a meagre sentence to it)!"

I didn't want the relationship with Luthien to take over the story, but I think it is impossible to write about Daeron and his art without at least touching on it. Luthien is growing on me, in part by taking her seriously as a character (i.e., the dancing) versus treating her as a fairy-tale princess. The story becomes much more interesting to me when considering Luthien and Daeron as two childhood companions who simply grew apart, for a variety of reasons (not even wholly the "sharp things [that got] in the way" that Daeron would blame it on). Tolkien would probably disagree and say I'm cheapening the story. Sorry, Tolkien! :)

"all those lovely details with which you filled in my rather bare-boned description!"

You know if there is anyone to provide descriptive details, it is me. ;)

"In my own story, Daeron's rejecting the Noldorin influence is linked more immediately to Thingol's Ban"

I meant this to be the case as well but don't think I was clear enough on this. If I get a chance for another revision, I suspect I'll address this. I certainly didn't mean to say that Daeron went back to Doriath and was told "no how, no way are you playing those Noldorin songs!" ... although in my vision of the scene, he probably didn't receive a warm reception either, so the ban on Noldorin music along with Quenya probably came as no big surprise to him. I see the people of Doriath as conservative and slow to warm to new things, and also more than a little defensive that their art is equal to that of the Eldar from Aman. They get to occupy (in their minds) a best-of-both-worlds existence: spiritually enlightened (i.e., not Avari) but also more deeply connected to the natural world, with their customs and art coming from that, than they perceive the Noldor to be. They see the Noldorin art, in contrast, as highly artificial and too showy.

The Cirth is the same. I tend to tie my descriptions of Elven writing systems in with metaphors of nature, probably wanting to believe (for my own spiritual reasons) that my preferred art form and the natural world are in accordance. But my Thingol would disagree with me! :) I very much see the Sindar as an oral society who view the ability to fix any single version of a story or history into writing as a threat. (The thought just occurred to me that some of the more fantastical stories in the Quenta come from the Sindar--Thingol standing transfixed by Melian for so long, the whole Luthien/Beren cycle--and kind of support this idea. You are hearing raw thoughts--forgive me if they make no sense! :D) Daeron's Cirth are not only unwanted but actually distasteful, at least to Thingol. I'm sure this only worsened once he realized that the Noldor were a literate culture.

You have unleashed massive plotbunnies with your story, this remix, and this conversation, just so you know! And, argh, I have a lot to do before starting back to a [non-audited] class in a little over a week ... :D

"And that last scene!"

I'm glad this worked. I was rather uncertain about it. It seemed minimalist compared to the rest of the story, and I didn't want it to be too melodramatic. But I've gotten a couple of positive comments on it now, so I suppose I can lay my mind to rest on this one!

Thank YOU for the inspiration--I loved the original! it was a hard act to follow, for sure--and the challenge, as well as leaving such a kind and thought-provoking comment.

"Eventually, the sea claimed it."

How much more succinct can you get? =-p

You take so much time to really build up what is sad and tragic in these little snippets of Daeron's life, then you just hammer it home with that last line.

Writing like this is my favorite, because it causes such an emotional juxtiposition between emotions of despair from the story and characters and the emotions of joy and wonder from the reading of it.

I am normally not short on words, but this time, it definitely seemed like less was more! :D But I was also very uncertain about the last line: I considered scrapping it entirely or putting in a space break or elaborating on it. I'm glad it worked and that I didn't monkey with it.

That's an interesting idea about the juxtaposition of a sad story with the pleasurable emotions from reading it. I'd never thought of it that way before. :) I, too, experience this all of the time (preferring sad or dark topics as both as a writer and a reader).

Thanks so much for reading and for commenting!

Thank you! The less noble side of humanity--mortal, Elf, whomever--is really what fascinates me as a writer: how essentially good people can do unspeakable things. That is less to bear on this particular story, but I'm glad you picked up on Daeron's less-than-ideal qualities nonetheless.

I hope to write more! :) This issue is always time, and I just started back to grad school for credit so ... (Although I signed up for LotRGen's holiday exchange, so that will have to be at least one! :)

Thanks again for reading and commenting.

I was so excited when I found that you had written about Daeron and this was better than I could have hoped. I was struggling after reading as to how I'd express my thoughts on it, then just spent 10 minutes reading all the comments you'd received on it and I can only second what has been said.

It's amazing how you have extracted from the very few details Tolkien offers more-or-less the same characterisation I have for him: the greatest at the one thing his people are known to be the best at, and yet not quite fitting in with them (in this I actually see parallels with Feanor, though he's nowhere near as "big"); someone with so much potential whose perfectionism - represented by the unattainability of Luthien, perfection incarnate - ultimately defeats him. And so on... Oshun already expressed much of it, and the reasons I personally find him relatable. It breaks my heart when he gets shuffled aside by readers as no more than a jilted lover (I suppose in much the same way that the true extent of his genius - which went beyond music - was not appreciated by the Sindar). The complexity, relatability, and tragedy of his experience in this fic is cleansing. 

I gather it comes from the fic that inspired this one (which I look forward to reading!) but I loved how you wrote his relationship with Maglor. That moment when they both say the same thing at once was perfect! If only... I confess to having written the bittersweet "fix-it" (though too late to change anything but themselves) to this failure to connect... but I love the implication that if Daeron had had the courage to further that connection, to forge a different story through collaboration, things might have been different (at least in Daeron's view, though he is somewhat of a victim of idealism, isn't he?).

Thank you for this story! It's an instant favourite Daeron fic :D.