Comments

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Wow! Heavy duty material here. You really capture the similarities and profound differences in the ways that people respond to her death.

I have always enjoyed imagining an adolsecent sort of relationship between Celegorm and Aredhel. It fun and with totally different complications that the one she might have loved among her Feanorian cousins might have been Curufin. I enjoyed to moment of suspense when he pauses before allowing his brother to come into his room and for them to attempt to share their grief.

Maeglin is eery in a deliciously creepy sort of way! So cold-hearted about his father. Even people with very good reasons to resent or even hate a parent almost always have trouble resolving that feeling into such a cold feeling of malice.

I find Turgon kind of creepy too!

Aredhel, my beloved sister, if only you had stayed with me in Gondolin and found yourself a nice lord from one of the many houses here - that would have made me so blissfully happy. To see you tamed and satisfied.

Maybe it's just me and my dislike for people trying to control other people's lives. But even after the tragedy of her death, he apparently didn't learn a thing about himself and her in his attempts to try to keep her entrapped within his gilded cage.

And the remorselessness of both Maeglin and Turgon about taking Eol's life. Not that he is exactly nature's nobleman, but still...

Solid story and kept me riveted.

For Pete's sake, I went to reply to your comment and posted it as a review instead!  Am I losing it?

 

Thanks for the great review!  Yes, most fans seem to link Aredhel with Celegorm more so than Curufin.  However, because it was Curufin who made such an impassioned speech to Eol in which he threatened him with death, I long ago decided that he was her secret lover in my head canon.  And I could use the speech in this fic when Curufin is mourning for her.

If I wasn't too lazy to write a longer fic for the challenge I would have included both brothers.

I've always seen Maeglin as cold and calculating so I made him all about himself in this, when he should have been thinking only of his mother.

And I've always found Turgon to be annoying since he ditched Finrod for the Vale of Tumladen, so for me he is more enamored of being King of Gondolin than he cares about the people around him.  (This isn't actually true because he did care for his sister, so I tried to balance both of the things that he loves.)

I love the gilded cage reference and I really get this about him - that he's controlling and wants everything and everyone in their specific place.

Thanks for the great review!  Yes, most fans seem to link Aredhel with Celegorm more so than Curufin.  However, because it was Curufin who made such an impassioned speech to Eol in which he threatened him with death, I long ago decided that he was her secret lover in my head canon.  And I could use the speech in this fic when Curufin is mourning for her.

If I wasn't too lazy to write a longer fic for the challenge I would have included both brothers.

I've always seen Maeglin as cold and calculating so I made him all about himself in this, when he should have been thinking only of his mother.

And I've always found Turgon to be annoying since he ditched Finrod for the Vale of Tumladen, so for me he is more enamored of being King of Gondolin than he cares about the people around him.  (This isn't actually true because he did care for his sister, so I tried to balance both of the things that he loves.)

I love the gilded cage reference and I really get this about him - that he's controlling and wants everything and everyone in their specific place.

 

Like Oshun, I've always assumed that Aredhel and Celegorm had a bit more going on than Tolkien is willing to admit, so it was interesting to see Curufin as her secret childhood love instead! It makes him more accessible for me, though; I like the idea!

I also found Maeglin surprisingly easy to empathise with, here. It makes sense to me that he would feel more resentful towards Eöl than sorry about his death sentence, especially in the immediate shock of the event. I expect the reality of it might sink in later, and he may not feel quite so cool then, but at this point, it doesn't feel unnatural to me that he'd react more strongly to the loss of his mother (and the knowledge that the javelin was meant for him!) than of his father. IDK. Maybe I'm cold and calculating? XD

Turgon, on the other hand... he's special, isn't he. I find it hard to like him in the source material, and I'm not fond of him here, either. Imprisoning folks is a poor form of safekeeping, dude! You can't control everything that happens and you certainly shouldn't try to control people's lives!

In conclusion, very well written; as you can see, I reacted quite strongly to your depiction of the characters! :)