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Just like a pair of warm mittens that fit me perfectly, knitted by someone who knows the shape of my hands and length of my fingers so Stars of the Lesser is crafted perfectly by one who knows my predilections, idiosyncrasies and yes, rather heretical ideas as they pertain to Middle-earth, Aman, Arda and points beyond. To illustrate just how perfectly, first, let me illustrate by this photo attached a photo of me, a rather young Doc Bushwell/pandemonium_213 at age 23 standing on the dark rocks of Nahant, Massachusetts.  Doc Bushwell_pandemonium_213This was snapped during a field trip when I was a student at the Marine Biology Laboratories in Woods Hole, MA.   Like Pengolodh, I clambered over rocks that day, but like Tyelpo, I was in search of interesting organisms.  The sea was dark, deep and cold there, too.  That was in 1977.  A few months after that photo was taken, I received the first American edition of The Silmarillion for Christmas and devoured it before New Year’s Day.  Thirty years ago.

I love your characterizations of both Pengolodh and Tyelpo: the bookish young fellow and the young scientist by the cold sea (probably very much like the Atlantic off the coast of New England) – and Tyelpo is a scientist through and through.  But just as squeeworthy as a slim naked young Noldorin science geek* slipping out of the ocean with a fascinating bioluminescent coelenterate in hand are these passages:

"Of course, we know differently now. The Ctenophora--like all else living upon Arda--is made of the same stuff and come from the same place as we. Light is not the province of solely the Valar, as they would have us believe."  (SQUEEE!!! – Doc Bushwell) Almost lovingly, Celebrimbor stroked the Ctenophore in his hand. The light followed his touch, as though he had coaxed. "My grandfather proved that to all." His eyes met Pengolodh's, their brightness as beautiful and terrible as light on diamonds. "They hated him for it." (SQUEEEEEE!!! - Doc Bushwell)

Tyelpo’s explanation of the Ctenophore’s origins as “the same stuff and come from the same place as we” (versus the pretty fairy tale of Varda bequeathing a modicum of Silindrin to Ulmo) and his admiration of the organism is beautiful – this illustrates the scientist’s wonderment of the world so effectively and emphasizes that Arda itself is poetry.

I am equally thrilled to read your ideas pertaining to the theme of light-hording in Tolkien’s writings.  The gods withheld the beauty and creativity of light and fire (the first thieves of light, leaving the earth and its creatures in darkness), and Fëanor had the temerity to capture it.  I'll also recommend that the reader check out Gandalf's apprentice's ficlet Another Prometheus that addresses a similar theme.

And the comments on how light is cast on history?  Another SQUEE!

The final scene – young Pengolodh reading his father’s tome on the Fëanorians to diminish his doubts – had my dark muse shaking his head:  “So he was like that as a kid, too, eh?”  

Please forgive my less than articulate comments, but well, I do feel like a kid who opened a wonderful present on Christmas morning that she didn’t expect.  Heh.  Here I am squeeing not over hawtt sex in a story, but poetic and perfectly “Arda-ized” references to evolution and the beauty of the natural world, questioning authority, Tyelpo sliding rings over his fingers before yanking on undergarments, and esoteric references from both The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.  Yes, I am a Geek.  :^D

I can’t thank you enough, Dawn.  This is the perfect present! :^)  It’s a lovely story as it stands for any reader, but you well know how much it means to me.

*Re: Tyelpo and his unidentified uncle (I know who I’d like to think that fellow is) watching the bioluminescent jellyfish in the waves reminds me of a night that summer at Woods Hole when I went skinny-dipping with my summer boyfriend, another Marine Biology Labs science geek - tall guy from upstate New York who had coltish long legs, black hair and blue-grey eyes…hmmmm, sounds familiar.   Bioluminescent dinoflagellates (a kind of marine algae) were blooming, and it was like swimming among the stars.

And then this review was quite a gift as well! \'Twas a boring day of work at the Maryland State government, but Dawn had a new Websense circumventor to get on the SWG website and two reviews for her new story sitting in her inbox ... it did make my day. I even SQUEEed about it to Bobby first thing that night: \"IgotthecoolestreviewfromDocBushwelltodayonherstoryandIthinkitmightbeoneofthebestreviewsEVAH!\" :^D So thank you as well, for making a bureaucrat\'s dull day a little bit brighter!

I love the picture! Even though I\'d never seen it before this review, then it really doesn\'t surprise me a bit. Now choosing to write about marine critters and bioluminescence in particular ... that was quite an intentional choice on my part! ;)

(probably very much like the Atlantic off the coast of New England)

Absolutely. :) Bobby and I try to make it out to Ocean City, MD, each winter, and that was what I was imagining as I wrote this. *shiver* So very close to New England, certainly.

I am equally thrilled to read your ideas pertaining to the theme of light-hording in Tolkien’s writings.

As I think I\'ve told you, there will eventually be an essay on all of this. There\'s so much fascinating stuff in the HoMe--from BoLT to Myths Transformed--that kind of gives me a clue as to how Tolkien was thinking when he created his heroes, his villains, and his in-betweens (like Feanor). In the meantime, I\'ll probably be working this stuff into stories whenever I can.

(And \"Another Prometheus\" was actually written as a birthday drabble for me one year, which leads me to wonder if SWG should have a sister-site called SHG: the Silmarillion Heretics\' Guild. :^D But yes, I love that drabble and recommend it to anyone who has made it through our blathering so far!)

Please forgive my less than articulate comments, but well, I do feel like a kid who opened a wonderful present on Christmas morning that she didn’t expect. Heh. Here I am squeeing not over hawtt sex in a story, but poetic and perfectly “Arda-ized” references to evolution and the beauty of the natural world, questioning authority, Tyelpo sliding rings over his fingers before yanking on undergarments, and esoteric references from both The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth. Yes, I am a Geek. :^D

As well you know that I am too! 8^B

And there is nothing to forgive in terms of coherence. (Have you ever seen the bulk of \"reviews\" at the Pit of Voles? ;) As further evidence of my geekery, I\'d sooner write stories with obscure facts and canon than NC-17 PWP. (Nothing against NC-17 PWP, of course. ;) I really loved working on this story ... and yes, you are entirely to blame for normalizing my heretic tendencies!

Also--just curious--who do you think the unnamed uncle is? I have one vote already from Rhapsody for Celegorm.

And finally, coincidentally, I almost chose dinoflagellates as my bioluminescent critter of choice! However, I thought it\'d be slightly less stunning to have freezing cold, nekkid Celebrimbor emerge with a beaker full of protists than an actual animal held in hand.

Thank you again for such a long and wonderful review. It really did help me get through the end of the week; between a wealth of special projects this week (without the corresponding re-class into permanent-employee status) and crunching to get ahead since I\'ll be off from work Monday and Tuesday, writing this story and reading your reply (itself SQUEEworthy!) definitely made it better. :)

I have to echo Doc Bushwell's SQUEEs on so many points in this story. I almost fell off my chair at: I would have put my underpants before my jewelry. Just too perfect. Celembrimbor learned his lessons well--I defnitely would have been happy for him to lecture my kids. I got my secret thrill at Turgon having to put up with those Feanorians for an entire afternoon. Of course, I was broken hearted at the end of the story, although that was how it had to have been. I wished he would have written down his impression of that meeting before picking up that book of his father's "to dminish his doubts." Great story, Dawn. I just loved it.

Thanks, Oshun! I\'ll confess that I was hoping to get something of a reaction with the line about the jewelry and the underpants. On the one level, it is a comment on the Feanorians, their outlook, and their priorities ... but I hoped it\'d be just a little funny too.

Of course, I was broken hearted at the end of the story, although that was how it had to have been.

Likewise, I would have loved to have written it the other way and had Pengolodh sit down to pen an elaborate and beautiful tale of the Feanorians\' side of the story ... but it certainly wasn\'t possible (and yes, would have diminished part of my point about authorial intent, bias, and trusting The Silmarillion absolutely as canon; I have ulterior motives in this story. >:^) I\'m becoming increasingly fascinated with the character of Pengolodh. For example how the loremaster who wrote about the YT and FA came to be someone who was born in Beleriand (i.e., never saw Aman) and then spent much of the First Age sequestered inside a hidden city (i.e., never saw much of what was happening in Beleriand either). I wonder how much of that was intentional on Tolkien\'s part ... but then, I\'m starting a ramble that will eclipse a humble review reply, so I\'ll save this rant for another time. ;)

Superb. I love how you write teenage boys on the brink between bravado and scare that dad might find out. I love Celebrimbor's ears that stick out and make him an individual carrying the weight of his family name and   full of Feanorian intelligence, grace and self confidence. The discussion about the nature of light and the multiple ways of seeing reality is marvelous. I really truly loved this story.

Thank you, Angelica! I could make my living as an author writing coming-of-age stories. Maybe because I\'m only a decade out of it myself, then that age just seems so perfect for writing about: so full of contradiction and fear and awkwardness and new discoveries. I was hoping to capture exactly what you describe in your review, so I\'m really pleased that it worked for you. :)

(Celebrimbor\'s ears were stolen from an original-fic muse of mine, Meryth. He has black hair and ears that stick out just slightly. He\'s a little sensitive about them, but I find him--and his ears--absolutely adorable. ;)

I wanted to leave a copy of your MEFA review here so it was with the story =0)

 

I really enjoyed this story. Dawn Felagund has always been a great writer but over the last few years has improved even more. As a huge fan of Celebrimbor I was drawn to this story from the summary and it did not disappoint. The idea of a young Celebrimbor trying to recreate light through nature is intriguing and I loved the cockiness he showed toward defending the fact that Feanor had proven the Valar wrong about harnessing light. The innocence of Pengolodh is also very sweet. Even though he was shocked and appalled by what the Feanorians had done, you could sense a little admiration for Celebrimbor yet he still stood up to him (despite knowing his family's history). I am certain that many of the rest of the Noldos wondered about the remaining Feanorians, both feared and interested in their skills and actions. And as one of Turgon people and son of loremasters/historians, Pengolodh would probably have heard more about them than some others. What Celebrimbor said about light and the contridictions of the Valar was both arrogant and accurate. This story reminds me a lot of people being told 'the world is flat' and someone setting out to prove them wrong. If no one ever tries to disprove what we have learned, we will never exceed our past and remain stagnant forever.

This story made me happy.  I discovered this site recently and am pleased to note the wealth of "heresy" that lies herein, first with some of Pandë's stories and now this one of yours.

I like how science is interwoven with the notion of history being written by the victors here.  Makes me wonder how the scientists of our day would be portrayed a generation from now, were extreme fundamentalists to take over tomorrow.

Hi, Huinare! A belated welcome--I'm glad you've stumbled upon us and found some stories to your liking. :)

This was such a fun story to write; Pandemonium and her own stories were, of course, the primary inspiration for it. I like very much exploring the "heretical" interpretations by looking at the stories from the perspectives of the characters who didn't get much of a say in the original texts.

Thank you for your kind comment!

I found this story very fascinating.  At first I thought the Ctenophora was something amazing that Celebrimbor had invented although not as awesome as a Silmaril. ;P

And that you had come up with a pretty awesome name for it.:D

I laughed when I read that it was actually a jellyfish!  Thanks for explaining that fact.

I really like the concept of light originating in liquid form as it's described in BOLT1.

And I wonder whether the encounter with Celebrimbor colored Pengolodh's view of the Feanorians, causing him to change his mind a little about them before he wrote his history.

Love your view on canon too. :P

 

I love Tolkien's original work on light (as well as his later notes in "Myths Transformed") because I think it is of greater thematic and symbolic importance: This thing, freely available to all, causes strife when people seek to contain and possess it. As a metaphor, I think that extends well to a lot of what can be observed of people in general.

Celebrimbor certainly challenges Pengolodh--explicitly about his worldview in the "Illuminations" character studies. I think he did change his mind, at least a little. I observe that the narrator of the Silm is more generous toward Maedhros and Maglor--and to a lesser extent the twins--than to the 3Cs, especially Celegorm and Curufin. He even gives Maedhros some grudging admiration every now and then! :D Since it's unlikely that Pengolodh ever met Maedhros, I wonder where that came from. After all, they were all equally kinslayers, and Maedhros was the leader of them: He could have made different, less destructive choices and ultimately didn't. He--not the 3Cs--came down on the people at Sirion, and Pengolodh was likely there for that. So why the generosity toward him?

Thanks for reading and commenting, Jenni! ^_^