Strange Fire by Dwimordene

Hi Huin - thanks for your comments! I'm so glad you enjoyed the series.

<b> I love how you presented the "Torchlight" and "Lamplight" sections as excerpted religious texts.</b>

Thanks! It's a fun tactic - books and chronicles are so important to Tolkien's universe, clearly. Why shouldn't there be "primary" texts for the Haradrim? Having direct access to those stories to me helps the Haradrim feel more real, because there's a bit of their cultural history laid out for the reader. It's a little like putting an epigraph in the middle of a story, which is another favorite tactic of mine for creating cultural artifacts that can just be there, without being questioned, the same way that the poems and stories and songs in Silm and LOTR are just there, and unquestioned as part of the world.

<i>I also love the concept of love as painful, consuming.  That seems very fitting for Melkor's character and for those who would devote themselves to him.</i>

Definitely! Word play being the awesome thing it is, you can reach just about anything, if you're good at stringing equivalencies together. Love *is* passion, and passion is suffering, ergo... And I think it's a larger religious theme, too - religion is not for the faint at heart at a certain point. I mean, forget about Melkor, how do you love the Valar after the War of Wrath? After Akallabêth? You might think they're wrong or right, but even if you do think they're right, how do you love them after that? Melkor's okay with people immolating themselves as a sign of their dedication to him, the Valar have to be all right with people singing to them after they sank the better part of a continent. Melkor sounds more right than wrong in thinking love and life make you suffer.