Challenges: 30-Day Character Study by oshun

Down Memory Lane, Part One.

“Think about your character’s childhood (or the early days of their existence if they had no childhood). What was the environment and daily life of their formative years like? Did they have siblings? What was their relationship to their family like? Who were their friends? What made them feel sad/angry/frightened? What made them feel content/excited/happy? Who were their teachers?”

Born to Thingol and Melian the Maia. Have to do more research on her birthdate/place. Was she born within the Girdle of Melian or before?  (What was the environment and daily life of their formative years like? Insert more on this later when I get the time-frame sorted out.)

No siblings. She was apparently highly valued, cosseted, and controlled by her parents. This is clear from Thingol’s belief that he had a right to make demands upon her relating to her relationship to Beren and her desire to choose her own spouse. The texts do not make her sound sad or frightened in her childhood—all that dancing amongst the flowers sound pretty idyllic.

Her only friend mentioned within the texts is Daeron. She liked to dance and was apparently fairly happy until she met Beren. Now the fact that she considered Daeron a good friend and companion, and yet he was dissatisfied (the grumpy friend-zoned guy in the text, given that he stalked her and later betrayed her to her parents), means it was not all sun-dappled forests and flowers for her. One could do a lot with that in fanfiction--the conflict between Daeron and our Elven princess could provide some tension in the story, even if one sticks very closely to canon.

I would like to assume that Daeron was a teacher as well as companion (since he was skilled in music, a loremaster, and invented an alphabet, so he was literate as well). Because she manifests all kinds of preternatural skills/magic/sorcery later in her story one might assume that she was under the tutelage of her mother as well.

She seems to have some admirable and well-developed physical capacity also, which is shown in her superhero activities. She might have been trained in martial arts by Mablung and/or Beleg Cúthalion. Tolkien does discuss Elf-women and warrior's skills in Laws and Customs Among the Eldar where he notes that,

“. . . in dire straits or desperate defence, the nissi fought valiantly, and there was less difference in strength and speed between elven-men and elven-women that had not borne child than is seen among mortals.”

On the other hand, without any skills, she would have had some issues with some of the derring-do assigned to her in various versions of the texts.