Broken Star by pandemonium_213

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Fanwork Notes

 

MEFA08 Award Banner by Elena Tiriel

Banner by Elena Tiriel

This is my first effort at a double drabble. As verbose as I tend to be, I thought my head would explode in the attempt, but amazingly enough, the old cranium is intact.

 

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Sauron's last request of Celebrimbor. A double drabble epilogue of sorts to Cat's Paws.

MEFA 2008: First Place, Villains, Fixed Length Ficlet

 

 

Major Characters: Celebrimbor, Sauron

Major Relationships:

Artwork Type: No artwork type listed

Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet

Challenges:

Rating: General

Warnings: Violence (Mild)
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 200
Posted on 9 September 2007 Updated on 9 September 2007

This fanwork is complete.

Chapter 1: Ost-in-Edhil, Second Age, 1697.

Read Chapter 1: Ost-in-Edhil, Second Age, 1697.

Naked and vulnerable, a broken star of the House of Fëanáro bound at four points, he was stretched out before me. I did not require chthonian dungeons filled with the instruments of my darkest craft for the task at hand. Here in the courtyard before the House of the Mírëtanor, I would apply the crudest of my persuasive skills.

I leaned down, gently pushed his dark hair away from his ear and whispered to him.

“Tyelpo, I ask this one last time: where are the Three Rings? It does not have to be like this. Just tell me.”

His eyes blazed in defiance and agony – not only the agony of physical pain but also the agony of betrayal and self-loathing. He locked his gaze with mine and hissed through bruised, broken lips:

“I will never tell you...Sauron.”

That vestige of myself who had been this man’s mentor, colleague, and friend momentarily recoiled at the ancient and reviled anessë that he spat at me, but I did not waver. I smoothed back his hair and kissed his brow, tasting the blood smeared across his skin.

“So be it, brother-of-my-heart,” I said as I reached for the glowing hot iron rod.

Comments

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Ouch! Sorry, don't mean to trivialize--I am just a little delicate. (Not surprising from someone who turned the day after Thangoridrim into a lighthearted story.) I also have a great deal of difficulty in writing a drabble or double-drabble. Therefore, being wordy myself, I appreciate the effort. You certainly did exactly what you intended to do in a mere 200 words.

Hmmm, I know we had a mini discussion about well, executioners and it is the tenderness at the heart which gives this ficlet that twisted taint. I wonder if the last line is more of a torture than the iron rod being brought to skin, to be addressed as an evil person like Sauron is. A subtle line, probably even more hurtful to Celebrimbor because that past will haunt him even there. Makes the definition of kinslayer very interesting in this context.

Re: "the tenderness at the heart which gives this ficlet that twisted taint. I wonder if the last line is more of a torture than the iron rod being brought to skin..."

Given these comments, it looks like I achieved what I had hoped to in this short bit (kind of amazed that I did actually).  In literature, villains can be portrayed as the embodiment of Evil with a capital E, which is fairly consistent with how Sauron is portrayed in the LotR, which I read as more binary in terms of "good" and "evil" than The Silmarillion.  In the latter, as well as in other writings of JRRT, he has more dimension.  I'll freely admit that I'm infected with post-modernist tendencies toward villains, but it seems to me that the worst kind of betrayal comes from one who was previously trusted, respected or even loved.  Many people have experienced similar betrayal (with varying degrees) in "real life."  So yes, that last "benediction" from Sauron probably was horrifically painful for Celebrimbor.  From Annatar/Sauron's perspective (at least in my vision), he still held the memory of genuine affection and respect for his former colleague but nonetheless would do whatever it took to achieve his ends and with no regret. Great catch on the meaning of kinslayer, too!

Well, heck, that's a long-winded way of saying "Thanks for the comments, Rhapsy!" 

This is wonderful. You put alot of impact into 200 words. I love to read about Celebrimbor - he is the very definition of tragic hero. He was part of the kinslaying yet he turned against his father in the end, then he tries to redeem himself and ends up making a big ole mess of it (sounds like his grandfather lol) and getting tortured to death. Tragically beautiful piece.

Thanks so much, Alassante, for the compliments.  Given how verbose I am, managing to write something in 500 words or less is a feat. 

Yes, Celebrimbor is a tragic figure, yet by forging the Rings, he contributed to Sauron's eventual downfall. To control the Seven and the Nine, Sauron had to put a significant amount of his power (and to my mind, himself) into the One Ring, using the same "technology" that he developed in collaboration with Celebrimbor and Gwaith-i-Mirdain.  So, Tyelpo wound up redeeming the Fëanorians by a circuitous path.

As a scientist, I'm pretty sympathetic to Celebrimbor and his kin.  It's easy to become enraptured (ensnared?) by the "Ain't it cool?" aspects of technology and lose sight of its balanced applications.  That can lead one down some iffy paths as it did for Celebrimbor and also for Annatar/Sauron.  That's explored with a lot more verbiage in my other fics, including "Cat's Paws" which is told from Celebrimbor's PoV.

Thanks again! And as typical, my response is longer than the darned ficlet.

  

Thanks for the comments here and on MEFA!  Yes, I don't see Sauron as a unidimensional cardboard cutout of an Evil Character.  One of my reviewers on MEFA commented on Fëanor and Sauron as "two of Tolkien's most powerful intellects."  That is exactly how I see them.  That level of intelligence invariably comes with a complex personality, thus my version of Annatar has sincere regret over lost friendship with Celebrimbor but at the same time, he will allow nothing and no one to get in his way, hence his overriding ruthless and chilling aspect.

Yin and yang.  I like that analogy!  Thanks again! 

Yikes.  That's chilling and quite efficient, not unlike your antagonist.  Though I have to admit that I find it also chilling and curious, struggling for the word here, that Sauron, a rebel angel, so to speak, becomes the instrument through which the curse on the House of Feanor is fulfilled.  Poor Celebrimbor, thinking he'd found a person with whose assistance he might achieve redemption for his house, only to be delivered to his doom.  Allright, excuse my melodrama, but choice and fate are quite interesting here.

Thanks, Lilith!  Yes, that was the effect I was attempting to achieve here.   Tolkien wrote that the Elves'  obsession with 'fading' and their desire to create a replica of Valinor in mortal lands that made them eager for the knowledge which "Sauron genuinely had."  JRRT also wrote (see Letter 131 to Milton Waldman, the Letters of JRR Tolkien) "But at Eregion great work began – and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery."  Ah yes.  There's that big bad word in Tolkien's view: machinery.  So my take -- and your mileage may vary ;^) -- is that Celebrimbor and Aulendil (Sauron) shared similar interests and engaged one another intellectually.  After all, both were brilliant "technologists."  So I see it less as fate and choice than predilection and choice.  And given Tolkien's jaundiced view of technology ("machinery"), both Celebrimbor and Sauron are bound to fall.

Thanks again for reading and for the insighful comments. 

Poor Celebrimbor, trying to redeem his house, just to end up betrayed and tortured to death by the very person one trusted to help one ... it is unbearably cruel.

And afterwards - the final insult - his dead body is carried, naked, as a banner by his enemy's soldiers.  

I always found his fate most horribly unfair.

 

Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Lissa.  Yes, the theme of Annatar/Sauron's betrayal of those who trusted him is a consistent one throughout my fics.  However, in my view, indirectly Celebrimbor did redeem his house.  Whatever technology he devised (in collaboration with Sauron presumably) was linked into the One Ring somehow which then allowed it and its maker to be destroyed.  But yes, I, too, am not keen on how Celebrimbor was treated nor am I much flattered by the original author's predilection for making his best and brightest technologists (Fëanor, Eöl. Maeglin, Saruman, Sauron & Celebrimbor) have such dark fates.  I've already railed about that here. 

 

Chilling and intense are the two words I would use to describe this story. I liked the image of Celebrimbor as a star, a broken one to be speciic. There's a lot of great symolisim in that. I liked how Sauron gave Clebrimbor ne last chance. The ending left me with goosebumps. Brilliant writing. I'm going to have to read Cat's Paws now.

Many thanks, Jedi Tarja!  I tried to pack as much as I could into this short piece, which really is sort of an epilogue to Cat's Paws.  Broken Star is but one snippet of the larger Pandë!verse.  I really ought to put a chronological (as in Arda time) list on my bio for the fics.  At any rate, thanks for having a read and welcome to the SWG! :^D