Noldolantë by Dawn Felagund

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Fanwork Notes

Oshun asked for, "Something concerning Macalaurë and the Noldolantë, anything really. How he started it, what it contained, singing it..." This was an intriguing challenge. The Noldolantë seems to be one of those Must-Write Silmarillion Stories: Many authors have put the Noldolantë into stories. Some have been amazingly successful, but more often than not, Noldolantë stories seem to lack something.

Oshun and I were talking about this the other day in the context of her request as I finished up work on the story. We came to the conclusion that many Noldolantë stories attempt to describe an emotion without the people and events that have made that emotion so poignant. The Noldolantë evokes sadness, yes, but why? It requires an understanding of what was lost, I feel, in order to comprehend the true sadness of the song.

And this was my challenge in this piece: to take the opposite bent of most Noldolantë stories. Rather than focusing on the emotion, I have chosen to focus on the people and events that influenced how the Noldolantë was written. "Noldolantë" looks at Maglor's life and family in music, leading up to the composition of the final lament. Each vignette save the last stands independently of the others. I am not sure how successful I have been in my aim with this story, so I certainly welcome feedback of all sorts.

This story is set in Aman and uses Quenya names. Translations, for those unfamiliar with these names, follow:

Fëanáro = Fëanor
Nelyafinwë/Nelyo/Maitimo/Russandol = Maedhros
Canafinwë/Macalaurë = Maglor
Turkafinwë/Turko/Tyelkormo = Celegorm
Morifinwë/Carnistir = Caranthir
Curufinwë = Curufin
Ambarussa = Amrod and Amras

Fanwork Information

Summary:

For Oshun, how Maglor devised the Noldolantë. 2008 MEFA nominee.

Major Characters: Fëanor, Maglor, Sons of Fëanor

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Drama, Experimental

Challenges:

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Mature Themes

This fanwork belongs to the series

The Fall of the House of Fëanor
To Give in Return
Chapters: 6 Word Count: 4, 551
Posted on 23 December 2007 Updated on 23 December 2007

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

I. Nelyo
II. Tyelkormo
III. Carnistir
IV. Curufinwë
V. Ambarussa
VI. Fëanáro

Comments

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Dawn, I just wrote this review after reading the first chapter, thinking that was the entire story! Anyway, posting it now. It's significant to me that these were my reactions to just the first 700 and some words. I can't wait to read the rest.

I am always reading reviews where people say, “I cried when I read your story.” And I’ll think, “Damn they cry easy don’t they.” Or sometimes, “What is the matter with me? Do I have a heart of stone.” I have read stories of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and not cried. I have read about or looked at pictures of Fingon’s death (as you know my very favorite character—for his big heart and reckless courage). So wrong and so unfair I have thought that someone like that couldn’t have a happy ending, and yet I haven’t cried. Fëanor’s terrible fate in light of all his incredible promise and indescribable achievements, his capacity for such love despite his catastrophic pride, hurt me deeply but I didn’t cry. I think the second time that I read the passage relating to the burning of ships at Losgar and Maedhros’s words and his turning away from his father and brothers, I closed the book and put it aside for that day, but I did not cry. The Noldor, who for all their mistakes and the wrongs they wrought, will never be anything less for me than the biggest, larger-than-life and yet always believable to me, without comparison or any close seconds (and whether the author intended that way or not), the greatest heroes of Tolkien’s works. To read and read and watch victories turn into defeats and their numbers decimated page-by-page when reading The Silmarillion, never fails to move me deeply, but I have never actually let it all go and had a great cry.

It’s a standing joke between my daughter and that, when we see films together, she will weep buckets not only at the tragic outcomes of great love affairs and the deaths of much loved heroes, but at sappy, clichéd close-ups of a child’s face or even the wide trusting eyes of a dog. Meanwhile, I sit there dry-eyed and rational, squeezing her hand and patting her on the shoulder. It’s not that I feel nothing, but somehow store it away and, as I have grown older, think perhaps that it’s there for me, tucked away somewhere, to pull upon when I need it to empathize with or help others, that I may not wear it on my shoulder, but my capacity for deep feeling as contributed to my sense of outrage over any form of social injustice and lifelong political activism. Point is all that rambling is I am not an easy crier.

Well, you got me with this story (and only some 700 words!). I cried when I read your story. (I am still crying as I type this and I write rather slowly, as you know!) Somewhere within this simple scene of childhood, so familiar and right to me you managed to describe with your description of Maglor’s intense sensitivity to sound and his capacity for strong emotion, a palpable sense of his incomparable genius. In that final scene when Maedhros holds his little brother and comforts him, you completely touched upon the nobility and tragedy of Maedhros and foreshadowed for me the inevitability of his final outcome. Like Maglor intended for the Noldolantë, you summed it all up and brought it together for me in this small story: the honor they deserved and dishonor they brought upon themselves, their tremendous beauty and its destruction, the heroism and injustice at the price they paid for their mistakes. You unleashed what I had held back for years when reading the grand, sad and beautiful stories of the Noldor and I cried.

Thank you, Dawn. It’s wonderful. I’m honored and I love it. What a gift of a story! (You are such an overachiever. My gift story for you certainly cannot match it. Latest teaser: it contains also a child misbehaving at the dinner table. That was my attempt to pull upon personal experiences you could relate to. Hope to have it done any day now.)

Oshun, thank you.

I have felt like crap all day. (Well, stronger language would be more appropriate, but I don\'t want to change the rating on the story because of my cursing in the review reply! :^P) I\'m running a fever and my whole body hurts. I\'m frustrated because I finally have five straight days off and will spend much of it sick in bed, sleeping because I hurt so much. I had big plans for this weekend, being the overachiever that you so rightly know that I am, and little of it has gotten done because I\'m so sick.

But I dragged myself into the study to at least post \"The Coronation\" (which I finished at work on Friday) and tinker with \"Noldolante.\" I was up to the last vignette, with Feanaro, and I thought, \"I told Oshun it would be done by the end of the weekend! Dammit, I\'m finishing it if it kills me!\"

Well, I\'m still alive, so it did not kill me, but it did depress me a little because I really was not sure that the story worked. Most of the time, even when I know that a piece isn\'t my best writing, then I\'m pretty sure that it worked. This one ... I thought, \"Well, it\'s either great or terrible. People will either be throwing rotting cabbages at me and calling me a sentimental moron, or it really did work, and someone will get what I\'m trying to say here.\"

You have made a miserable, sick woman feel so much better with these reviews (that I am answering in one fell swoop, just so you know.) Thank you for your kind words. This is the best that I\'ve felt all day. Thank you.

It’s not that I feel nothing, but somehow store it away and, as I have grown older, think perhaps that it’s there for me, tucked away somewhere, to pull upon when I need it to empathize with or help others, that I may not wear it on my shoulder, but my capacity for deep feeling as contributed to my sense of outrage over any form of social injustice and lifelong political activism. Point is all that rambling is I am not an easy crier.

I understand because (surprise!) I am much the same way. The most that I cry is in my car, riding to and from work by myself, when I \"write\" in my head. I try to achieve such an intensity of emotion when doing this so that it easily translates when I write it down later. But movies and books, even as they move me deeply, as you have said, rarely do the trick. (Part of it, I will admit, is the desire to appear tough; I suppose this comes from befriending primarily men and working in male-dominated jobs (cooking and law enforcement) that don\'t look kindly on weakness. I\'m really a big sap, just very good at holding it in, as you said, for when it matters!)

Maglor’s intense sensitivity to sound and his capacity for strong emotion, a palpable sense of his incomparable genius. In that final scene when Maedhros holds his little brother and comforts him, you completely touched upon the nobility and tragedy of Maedhros and foreshadowed for me the inevitability of his final outcome.

Yes! That\'s exactly what I was trying to do; each scene shows the character after which it is named as Maglor sees him, but something cool I realized when I was halfway through the story was that I was showing Maglor growing up too: from a hurt child to a husband to his hopes of becoming a father. To ... well, what he became. And all of this with his perceptions and reactions to and creation of music.

Maedhros is, of course, my beloved and favorite. He is so complex to me that my fear is that I fail to write him well in any single story because it will take all of my stories to show how I see him. I\'m so pleased that you saw what I was trying to do here. To Maglor, winning this game meant so much, yet Nelyo gave it up in an instant to do what was right.

What a gift of a story! (You are such an overachiever. My gift story for you certainly cannot match it.

Oh, I am sure that is not true! Three years of writing and receiving gift stories has taught me that gift stories are almost always perfect when written for friends. Pandemonium put it best in the beautiful review that she left me on \"Stars of the Lesser\": It is like a pair of gloves knitted for you by someone who knows perfectly the shape of your hands. I know that I will love it.

He loved and cared for Macalaure more than his brother had imagined.

Exactly. :) That\'s my wiley Carni. I think my favorite comment ever on the Pit of Voles was the time someone snipped at me that Carnistir in \"Salt\" appeared neither dark nor strange, though he kept saying both all of the time. I said, \"Thank you! He is not dark or strange, really, once you know his motivations. But he appears that way on the outside.\" This person would sooner jump off a bridge than give anyone a compliment but had done so in that review, without ever intending it. But I love writing Carnistir because of how odd he seems, then to show the reasons behind his behavior. It\'s always lots of fun.

Makes up for a lot of sweaters that didn\'t fit (or belonged in an ugly Christmas sweater competition) not to mention the endless bottles of perfume that cost a lot and smelled like complete junk when I tried them on me.

Lol! Yes, I think that Pandemonium had it spot-on about gift stories ...

And thank you again for the lovely review, and making me feel better, and most of all, for being such a great friend. I think you\'re the one I whine to the most these days, hands down, so you deserve a medal for that! ;)

Love,
Dawn

Shame on you! I had almost calmed myself down from your introduction by the time I reached this chapter. Making me cry twice in one day is quite the achievement.

Beautiful. Thank you so much again. What a holiday gift. I never expected this. Makes up for a lot of sweaters that didn't fit (or belonged in an ugly Christmas sweater competition) not to mention the endless bottles of perfume that cost a lot and smelled like complete junk when I tried them on me.