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The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.

I owe you a proper review of this story and now find myself up against a hard deadline. So, I will need to come back and revisit in order to write that. I am quite surprised to find that there is no other comment written on it here to date (I know people have read it here). Anyway, partly due to this story and other discussions of him on Tumblr, I decided to write this month's character biography on Edrahil. So, I thought I better hop right in and note that I read it and appreciated it before I churn that bio. You turn Edrahil from barely more than a footnote into a living character here--close to Finrod and loyal, but not simply that which would be little more than an outline point; on a second read, paying special attention to him, he lives and breathes in a way one does not find in the texts.

I have mentioned here and there that one of my recent guilty pleasures (along with a lot of other people these days) is Finrod/Curufin. I was pleased to see another story written on this theme and especially a longish. substantial and well-polished one. Guilty pleasure? I suppose because I thought of them as rather a rare pair, only to find the match-up to be all the rage at the moment.I know, writing Maedhros/Fingon that puts a lot of pressure on a writer. You met pressure with the finer details in this story.

I love to see an unpredictable, passionate Finrod. The image of the Good Noldor never set well with me. Of course, I think he is good and terribly likeable. But he is a lot of other things as well. (Sometimes the canon texts on Finrod take on the quality of a hagiography in the generalizations. Again, the finer detail in Tolkien and in your story go well beyond that. He is far too adventurous, self-assured, curious, and quite the Renaissance man to be any plaster saint. And, yes, I can well imagine Curufin getting under his skin.

Wow! Curufin is all tied up in his own knots--sometimes reading this I wondered if even he always knows which is the mask and which is his face. You play well upon the poignancy of the reader knowing the outcome. I tend to like characters with flaws and you hooked me with those as well. Like Finrod I was attracted while knowing better. They are hot together.

 

Thanks for such a substantial review, Oshun! You didn't owe it, but thank you all the same, and I'm honoured to have partly inspired the idea for Edrahil's bio - he's one of those frustrating almost-name-on-a-page characters, so I'm curious what elucidation you'll manage to squeeze from the texts! Fleshing him out was a lot of fun, and I'm actually fairly fond of the result and the way it was abstracted from what we know about him. Fanon, maybe, but the kind that doesn't seem entirely unsupported in its general traits.

I had no idea that Finrod/Curufin was your guilty pleasure, but can't say I'm particularly unhappy about it either - it's a pairing that got a great deal more popular than I expected, and one I really enjoy writing precisely because there are so many different and complex motivations at play that allow for a great deal of portrayals with a great deal of different nuances, too - and I'm glad you enjoyed mine. Hagiography is a wonderful descriptor, and saintly Finrod never quite sat too well with me either. One (he) can be a good person, which he indubitably was, without being perfect. And Curufin tying himself in his own knots - part of what makes it hot for me, beyond the purely aesthetic. ;)

All of which is to say that I'm really glad you liked this. Even though this got a better response on AO3 than it got here, I was beginning to think the flaws in this thing were drastically obvious and people here could see them glare from the story a mile away. Hearing the contrary - especially from a writer whose craft and stories you admire - is lovely. Thank you again.

I beg to differ about owing you a comment. I could not grab a character for one of my bios who is rarely written about without acknowledging that it was his mention in this story attracted my attention. (I think that here on the SWG there are, with this one now, only four or five stories that even mention him and at least two of them are yours.) When I saw fanart on Tumblr for him, I was going 'Edrahil? Who?' (I do not have photographic memory by a long shot and, although I have read that part countless times, his name did not stick!)

I delayed in commenting also because I actually read it a couple of times before it began to grow on me. (Trust me--coming from me that is not a bad thing!) Restraint is not one of my virtues, nor is it a quality that automatically grabs me at first glance and this story is subtle and slow to reveal its secrets. I admit now that the tone matches the content. I have a tendency as a writer to open a story and almost as soon as a character speaks or thinks he spills his figurative guts all over the page, reveals all his secrets, someone told me once that I begin at the end.

I have not read half of the SiS stories yet--they tend to long!--and have only reviewed half of those I have read, but I intend to read a lot more of them.

 

 

 

And I beg to differ about you begging to differ, but okay. ;) I'm glad the fic did prove so inspirational to you (one of the best kinds of compliments, really), and I loved reading your bio about Edrahil that resulted.

And please don't apologize for needing time for this to grow on you - I'm glad it made you interested enough to reread - another compliment right there - although the subtlety you are mentioning is lost on me somewhat, given that I wrote the damn thing, and while most of it probably was an inability to get the words down right, as long as it adds to the fic I'm not complaining (or only complaining over the fact that I'd have liked for this to happen intentionally). Your characters tend to be a lot more open than many of mine as well - which I'm thinking may be caused by a difference in temperament, since of course characters never exist *entirely* independently of their writers, even if they embody different facets. (But please don't take this as criticism - you've been joking on your extraversion enough that I hope doing the same won't come off as rude. It certainly wasn't intended that way.

Thank you for this review as well. :)

 

"Your characters tend to be a lot more open than many of mine as well - which I'm thinking may be caused by a difference in temperament, since of course characters never exist *entirely* independently of their writers, even if they embody different facets. (But please don't take this as criticism - you've been joking on your extraversion enough that I hope doing the same won't come off as rude. It certainly wasn't intended that way."

First, I never mind people laughing at me a little--you are definitely allowed! That is one of my own ways of coping--to laugh at myself! I think what you say is really true though on some fundamental level. We are going to write best what we know best.