In Wisdom... by just_jenni

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Fanwork Notes

"Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beutiful, strength has much to do with the magic." - Herman Melville

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Melian wrestles with her feelings about Elu Thingol and laments some of her decisions concerning the Doom that befell them.

Major Characters: Elu Thingol, Lúthien Tinúviel, Mablung, Melian

Major Relationships:

Genre: General

Challenges: Strength and Beauty

Rating: General

Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1, 735
Posted on 6 April 2017 Updated on 6 April 2017

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments

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There are a lot of different things to love about this story. I really love this bit of description and interpretation. Really is a great definition of Thingol and Melian for me:

Since their marriage he had changed in appearance, taking on more of the look of a Maia to match his wife, his hair turning silver and his already lanky body growing taller. Melian knew the Valar and Maiar held great significance for Elu. He revered them she thought, perhaps too much. He had developed such an imperious attitude in his dealings with others, particularly the Noldor, that she disapproved but did not admonish him for it, preferring to let things take what she believed to be their predestined course.

You paint Melian in a tragic light. One that I am willing to buy. She is caught between her conviction of the futility of trying to outmaneuver an inexorable fate, but then when all of the destinies which she has foreseen work themselves out, she is lost in confusion that perhaps she might have intervened and changed something. Heavy stuff.

The last lines are killer ones--all that greatest boiling down to this for her?

She spent the rest of her time walking in the gardens surrounded by her birds and other small animals, ruminating on the past and on what might have been.

Thank you so much for your review.

This story was difficult to write because there was so much material - enough that I could have written a novella.  What I found very interesting in re-reading about Melian in the Silm was that there were so many discrepancies and inconsistencies in what was written about her.  It could have been deliberate so that's why I chose to write about her in that way which showed her confusion.  But I do see her story as a tragedy for sure - she lost the people who were most important to her - Thingol and Luthien - and therefore received both the tragedy that befell the Elves as well as the immunity of the Valar but a life that had to be lived thereafter bereft of her loved ones.