Coda by Marta

I'm sorry that it took me so long to review this piece; I read it when I posted it, of course, and as your writing often does, it brought so many thoughts and questions to my mind. But I got caught up in my post-AinA time to breathe and never got to reviewing. The upside to that is that I got to read it again, and more carefully this time. :)

I think this story expresses a lot of my own uneasiness about some of the underlying ideas in The Silmarillion (really, all of JRRT's work, but the Silm makes it more explicit). For example, the notion that suffering is a means to greater happiness. That is easy to say from the PoV of the "Author" (Eru, in this case) but quite a different matter when--like the Noldor, the Numenoreans, Frodo, the Gondorians--you must live with that suffering every day and no guarantee that you will live to see the beauty and joy that is supposed to eventually result. It is bothersome to me that some should suffer deeply that others may live in greater bliss. Nienna's questioning her complicity and that of her brethren resonates with me because of my uneasiness on this subject: Did Eru know (did she know) that Numenor was going to fall, that innocent lives would be taken in proving a point, in reinforcing obedience? And did they let it happen anyway? Of course--like Alqualonde, the murder of Finwe, any tragedy in the legendarium--the destruction of Numenor created a ripple effect that allowed other (good) things to happen that otherwise might not have. Was it worth it? Or was it the only way?

As a psychology student once upon a time, I liked too Nienna's reaction to her own "unchecked" thoughts: her insistence that there was a form of justice in the Valar's response to Pharazon ("And their ruling must not be made a mockery; even Nienna had seen that"); her haste to cease thinking in troubling ways, in asking whether the "justice" meted out was fair. She feels very "human" here and relatable as a result; after all, this is a question that has been considered across time, whenever a people "seek justice" against another.

And of course, Pengolodh ... I love that Pengolodh is in it. And he's clumsy (my Pengolodh is blushing and insisting that, no, he doesn't slide down muddy hills, of course not ;) and curious, just as I would imagine Pengolodh to be. And his discovery of the young Numenorean on the beach--though only briefly touched upon and never directly seen--is a heartrending detail that all the lives lost on Numenor cannot be explained away as dealing out justice.