Strange Fates by PerpetuaLilium
Fanwork Notes
Most of my substantive notes for this will probably appear as chapter notes, but I wanted to establish why I'm conceiving of this primarily as Silmfic:
The time period and many of the places and events that are or eventually will be depicted are either attested in The Lord of the Rings--often in the Appendices only--or are at least in part products of my own imagination. Thematically, however, I'm primarily concerned with looking at 'Laws and Customs of the Eldar' and how it pertains to the lives of two Sindar who are well outside the norm for Elves in one respect but in most or all others fairly within their cultural and moral expectations. As such, I'm treating this as primarily a LaCE-based story.
I owe a tremendous debt, which will likely grow ever more tremendous going forward, to my beta reader Elleth, not only for the way the story is written but for the interpretation and presentation of the relevant parts of canon and development of the fic's original aspects. To my best friend Maya, too, I owe a debt for all her help with the framework of the characters and the plot.
- Fanwork Information
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Summary:
Eregriel and Síreth are two young elves of Lothlórien in the later years of the Watchful Peace. They are in love and in fact betrothed, yet they have chosen to put their ceremonies off for many years, until they can come to some conclusion about what implications the unusual features of their union may have for its validity, in accordance with the local application of the Laws and Customs. Then, during a sudden spate of instability, Síreth, with Eregriel, is chosen to take part in Lórien's first extensive diplomatic interaction with the realms of Men in centuries. They must manage their relationship and cultural expectations across the years and leagues that follow.
Major Characters: Celeborn, Galadriel, Haldir, Men, Original Character(s)
Major Relationships:
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Romance, Slash/Femslash
Challenges:
Rating: Teens
Warnings:
Chapters: 6 Word Count: 23, 861 Posted on 11 March 2013 Updated on 15 March 2014 This fanwork is a work in progress.
Table of Contents
The chapter title is by analogy to 'Greenland Whale Fisheries', one of the more excellent English-language sea-songs of the eighteenth and (in its familiar form) nineteenth centuries. Not too much should be read into this.
The form of the Laws and Customs being followed in Galadriel and Celeborn's Lothlórien in this fic follows the version in Morgoth's Ring in its insistence on extraordinarily strict monogamy and sacramentalisation or near-sacramentalisation of sex. The nature of this sacramentalisation is more animistic among the Sindar and Nandor of what is, after all, by some definitions a part of Rhovanion than among the Calaquendi and imminent Powers of Aman, or the Exiles, fresh of memory, in Beleriand. In Endor after the Breaking of the World stock and stone speak for the Valar, because they no longer have much to say for themselves.
(Notes will be at the end for this chapter.)
(Notes will be at the end for this chapter.)
Linguistic notes are at the end.
The content of the visions in this chapter is heavily symbolic, and I'm open to talk about it with anybody who is interested. Some of the imagery is derived from Japanese religious poetry of the Heian period, such as the weed-wrack and the full moon; the juxtaposition of these images is assocciated with the veneration of a bodhisattva called the Dragon Princess. There will be more on the burning figure later in the storyline.
This chapter was written in a hurry, edited in a separate hurry, and is being posted from Tomisato, Japan, a day before I fly home to the United States.
No Mattógo this time, except for the translation of 'Brown Lands'--'Casshocu no Tshíci', Kasshoku no Chiiki, the same as last chapter. This is somewhat more modern Japanese than I would have preferred but it was more euphonious than other options.
The second and third myths that Sogdash mentions are forms of the Japanese Izanagi and Izanami myth and a version of the Tengriist creation myth, respectively, modified as best I could to fit Middle-Earth in the broad sense.
I’ve tried to institute a policy of explaining roughly what any significant stretches of Mattogó dialogue mean or are getting that either in the narration or through having Síreth interpret; I hope it works all right in this chapter and does not come across as too obtrusive.
My touchstones for this chapter were road narratives of the kind that Japanese literature has a lot of, particularly in the late medieval and early modern periods, which are in Japan very roughly 1300 to 1900 or so. I’m actually not as familiar with these road narratives as I am with certain other kinds of Japanese literature that I’ve been mining for structural and thematic elements in this fic so far, but I decided that I wanted to do something with them in the interests of making this part of the storyline more coherent and enjoyable than it would be otherwise—the experience of travel is something that I have a hard time really communicating in my writing without borrowing heavily.
Another thing I have a hard time with: Expository dialogue that doesn’t rely on certain speech conventions using which would make the characters’ registers seem far more synchronic than I want them to. I’m afraid I’ve had to resort to the infodump tactic in this chapter and may next chapter as well.
This chapter took a very long time to write and post. I've just finished my bachelor's degree and my personal life is very touch-and-go right now.
Comments
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