Thirty Day Character Challenge: Feanor by eris_of_imladris

Prompt 14

Prompt 14: Big Ideas, Part One. Create a visual representation of the big ideas you've learned about your character. This can be a quick list in a notebook, a series of sticky notes, or a graphical representation … or whatever you want to make or imagine!

For this prompt, I have written down a list of my current headcanons for Fëanor:

• He has a very scientific mind, and usually does not believe things unless he can see them. As such, he prefers to test intangible things like love by using physical evidence (for example, someone did XYZ, that means they do/don’t care). He sets up these tests in a very intelligent way, but he also often falls into the pitfalls of believing the results, even if they are due more to correlation than causation.
• Thanks to this, he never goes into an argument unprepared. He definitely has a temper, but he always has evidence from these “tests” to back up his points. He gets angry when people question this, as he sees it as more valuable than simply believing things at their word.
• Fëanor has OCD. It’s likely the more obsessional type, but I can see him doing compulsions as well, challenging people to get in his way. The main one I came up with for him is needing to make sure his chair is in the proper place when he is in his father’s house – which isn’t often, in his later life, but in his earlier life, I can imagine this as one of the ways he tests his father to see if he truly loves him. For me, this is a perfect explanation for his abilities to be both his greatest help and worst enemy, and the things that he seems to do are based on obsession, whether positive (creating the Silmarils) or negative (rivalry with Fingolfin).
• He is a picky eater. I saw an amazing fanfic where he would only eat red foods, and as a picky eater myself, it made me feel amazing to see him with atypical eating habits. I don’t think he would restrict himself to one color, but I see him restricting foods for reasons only he understands, and he definitely uses this to see if people care – if they can’t respect his food choices, how will he count on them to respect other things?
• Within his family, his primary rivalry is with Fingolfin (who he will only call by this name), for several reasons: he is the elder of Finwë’s sons from his second marriage, he looks a great deal like Finwë, and Fëanor sees his father-name and the ways he has lived up to it as a personal insult. He still definitely minds Finarfin’s father-name (which he will also not use), but by this time, he and Nerdanel were a couple, and she tempered his reaction to it, plus the fact that he had her in his life mellowed him out a bit in this regard.
• The birth order of Finwë and Indis’s children is Findis (f), Fingolfin (m), Irimë (f), and Finarfin (m). His half-sisters are not quite as low on his list as his half-brothers. He has large grievances with Indis, who he believes is sometimes quite vain and stupid, and other times politically conniving and trying to steal his birthright.
• He aggressively chews at people while eating if he’s angry, and trying to seem dignified in public. He does other things like this when he wants his feelings to be known in a situation that wouldn’t be very acceptable otherwise.
• Growing up, he was close to Mahtan, who he considers a second father. Things didn’t start this way, but over time, he has built a solid relationship where he tends to listen to Mahtan’s advice, and Mahtan is generally able to cool down his temper – at least in the early days. Nowadays, their relationship is strained.
• Fëanor does not go completely insane after his father’s death. His thought patterns definitely change after his father’s death, but I like to play around in the space between irrationality and complete insanity.