The Wine-Dark Sea by Ithilwen

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Fanwork Notes

I’d like to thank all my LiveJournal friends (especially Dawn Felagund) for reawakening my sleeping Muse.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

A view of the Kinslaying through Maedhros's eyes. Warning: violent and disturbing imagery.

Major Characters: Maedhros

Major Relationships:

Genre: Drama

Challenges:

Rating: Adult

Warnings: Mature Themes, Violence (Graphic)

This fanwork belongs to the series

The Maedhros Saga
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 2, 227
Posted on 8 May 2009 Updated on 8 May 2009

This fanwork is complete.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Comments on The Wine-Dark Sea

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Love the title. Love it every time I see it used. It always takes me back to Homer. It is absolutely perfect for this story with its imagery of the grapes and bloodshed and its relationship to the sea.

Also love your interpretation of how Feanor would have convinced his sons that this was the only thing, the right thing, to be done. Very happy to see you writing a story featured Maedhros again. I think the first one I ever read was one of yours.

I love the title, too. And the title is what gave me the imagery I needed to finally write the story. (I\'ve been struggling with this scene for six years now. I owe Homer a big debt!)\r\n\r\nAnd I\'m hoping Maedhros and his brothers decide to stick around for a while. I\'ve missed writing them; they have such wonderful, messy family dynamics.

Powerful.  Just as the 'dance' seemed fun in the beginning, the decision to take the ships seemed so reasonable at first - they *needed* them, there wasn't a choice, etc.  But it will be difficult for Maedhros to wash these stains away.

 Thank you so much for sharing this story with us! 

I\'m glad you enjoyed the story. I\'d been hopelessly stuck on this fic for years until suddenly that final image popped into my head, and then I knew how to write it.\r\n\r\nI\'m hoping over time to get all my older stories posted up here, as well as some new ones. Maglor\'s whispering in my ear at the moment...

Oh I love this, love the imagery you use.  I like that you have Maitimo remembering the battle as a series of almost disconnected scenes as I think thats often how it seems in life when you are involved in a situation with stress, adrenaline and a lot of action and you try to remember the events afterwards.  It makes the battle seem very real.

Anyway, I'm babbling, hope to read more of your work soon!

I\'m glad you liked the story. Once I had that imagery in my head, I just knew I had to write it.\r\n\r\nI\'ve written a lot of Silmarllion fanfics (many featuring Maedhros), which are posted elsewhere, and which I hope to move over here in time. I\'ve also got a few more plotbunnies hanging about, so with luck you\'ll be seeing mor new stuff from me in the future as well!

What a wonderful short story, I love the emotions you evoke here, especially with the innocence lost as a child and later on as an adult elf. There is no right or wrong here and you show so well how unpredictable life can be with its twists and u-turns.

This sentence stood out for me, especially as to where it appears in the fic:

And so began our Fall. 

 I think to me that is the turning point that everyone will realise one day, that when the innocence is gone, old age and death will be on our doorstep before we know it. This fic also ties in beautifully withthe professors view on Downfall, as he expressed in one of his letters (don't have the book with me, sadly enough). Great fic!

I\'m glad you liked the story so much! The parallels between the child\'s loss of innocence (and guilt over a \"crime\" which was no crime) and the adult Maedhros\'s later loss of innocence (and guilt over his participation in a genuine atrocity) was something I was hoping readers would pick up on. Tolkien seems to view the Kinslaying as the Noldor\'s Fall from Grace, and it certainly was for Maedhros. He\'s done something there\'s really no way to atone for.\r\n\r\nI do think there\'s some wrong here (before the Kinslaying happens, that is). Feanor\'s not being entirely truthful in his arguments. The real reason they can\'t just pause to build ships of their own is that at this point, the Noldor are functioning as a mob; if they\'re given time to stop and think and cool off, Feanor senses that a lot of them will turn around and go home. He\'s not about to allow that to happen, so he uses dishonest and emotionally manipulative rhetoric on his sons to convince them to ignore their misgivings and go along with his plan - with horrific results for everyone.