Fire and Worms by Tyelca

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Fanwork Notes

This was intended to be finsished for the January Taboo Challenge, but due to Real Life I've been unable to write and publish it earlier.

For the prompts Cannibalism, Weddings and Funerals (mainly funerals), Violate Laws and Customs among the Eldar, Food Taboos (because cannibalism), Stigma and Religious Taboos.

Warning: the primary prompt for this was Cannibalism, and I used it. Don't read if you don't want to.

As always, I couldn't resist writing the Sons of Fëanor as cannibalistic madmen :P

Fanwork Information

Summary:

The ground is wet and rotten and the fire is wasteful, and madness slowly turns vices into virtues. Or is it the other way around?

Major Characters: Amras, Amrod, Caranthir, Celegorm, Curufin, Fëanor, Finwë, Maedhros, Maglor

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, Horror

Challenges: Taboo

Rating: Creator Chooses Not to Rate

Warnings: Creator Chooses Not to Warn
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 722
Posted on 23 February 2017 Updated on 23 February 2017

This fanwork is complete.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments

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I applaud your courage in writing about cannibalism and I was fascinated by your take on it.  You made the reasons for doing it make sense.  And I really loved your description of Feanor's death - I loved that you wrote he offered words of comfort before he died.

A really good fic - I enjoyed it immensely!

Thank you so much! When I first read the bingo card, the idea for this fic immediately jumped to mind, but I delayed writing it because of the subject, Even after I'd finished this, I waited a few days, debating whether to post it or not. But in the end, it was a prompt on the bingo card and it wouldn't have been put on there if the subject was unwanted.

I am glad it made sense to you - to me the fic is all over the place (I almost never write such timeskips, nor make a 'they' the subject instead of a 'he/she'), but I am quite satisfied with how it turned out.

As for Fëanor, I don't think he was afraid of death and pain never made much impression on him, so he had a clear mind and said what his Sons needed to hear (I almost deleted the canonical part where he cursed Morgoth!)

You make it conceivable that that might be a way they would react to the trauma they were unable to deal with--the death first of Finwe and then of Feanor and finally their brothers. Canon sometimes seems to treat the seven brothers as a single entity  and they might look at it that way themselves and take things very literally...

(Of course, that observation that other deaths don't count is pretty damning--however, traumatized they are.)

 

I think the Sons are both mentally incredibly strong and very weak - if hte right buttosn are pushed, they will resort to practically anything. And I don't know if this is canon or just too much fanfiction that I've read, but it seems that the House of Fëanor, even before the rift within the Noldor, has always been treated separately from the Houses of Fingolfin and Finarfin; therefore, it wouldn't be too far a stretch that they see themselved as separate from the rest of the Noldor and by extension, the same as each other.

The thing about being so in-tune with your brothers results almost automatically in being relatively out-of-tune with the rest of the world, and indeed the happenings during the First Age only strenghtened that feeling...

A taboo story worthy of the categorization! Impressive handling of a disturbing subject. As those who know me well might tell you, I can be a delicate little snowflake when it comes to horror. I don't watch Hannibal, either!

But I have done some small amount of anthropological reading on the subject. So I am not totally unfamiliar with the real world versions (do not know how accurate or reliable they are necessarily) of what are said to have been some social and religious reasons for eating the flesh of deceased loved ones, for example in the highlands of New Guinea. I wondered if you were influenced by those reports of cannibalism being considered an act of love and grief and perferable to the deceased being consumed by insects or worms.

Yep. This story for me definitely addresses a big taboo. I was shuddering as I finished it, and horrified at thinking one could almost understand Maglor's logic and sense of duty/responsibility to stay alive for his father and his brothers.

Haha, concerning horror topics, I have no problem reading it, but I'm as squeamish as anything when seeing it on TV! I've recently watched the zombie show Z Nation though, so I am forcing myself to get over (some of) those things.

While I have only heard about the practices in New Guinea in passing, I cannot claim to have come up with it by myself; in Queen of the Damned, the third book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, the Story of the Twins tells how in their ancient civilisation it was custom to eat the flesh of family after they'd died. Although I must add that there, the flesh was first cooked before it was eaten.

Cannibalism is one of the biggest taboos imaginable; I think that's exactly the reason why I had to write it, or put differently, why my muse could not let go of this particular plotbunny. I am glad (?) it made such an impact and that you were able to understand Maglor's view; I mean, after having lost absolutely everything and everyone, he had to have a reason to keep going, and I think this is a possible explanation (assuming, of course, the cannibalism thing happened in canon! Though I really hope it didn't...)