Bewildered by Dawn Felagund  

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Fanwork Notes

Written for the Silmarillion40 event.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Not all of the Eldar believed Valinor would be superior to Middle-earth. Having followed the man she loves from the land she loved also, Míriel struggles to cope with a strange life in a strange new land.

Major Characters: Finwë, Ingwë, Míriel Serindë, Uinen

Major Relationships:

Genre: General

Challenges:

Rating: Adult

Warnings: Mature Themes, Sexual Content (Mild)

This fanwork belongs to the series

Silmarillion40
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 4, 639
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Bewildered

Comments on Bewildered

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Wow, this is some thought-provoking stuff. As always, you manage to bring such life and detail to those rather abstract ideas of the Great Journey and the building of Tirion that it feels quite real, in spite of such fairy-tale elements as floating islands and Treelight. The idea that Míriel might have been opposed to the journey but followed Finwë for the sake of love is not something I've considered before, but it feels very believable (and happens often enough in the real world, doesn't it!). You bring her inner life across very colourfully (pun fully intended) and movingly. I feel somewhat sorry for her! Especially with the knowledge of what is going to happen in her future. But I am glad that she is not wholly passive, but outspoken and quite essential for Finwë to be a succesful king, pointing out flaws and suggesting improvements to his plans, and keeping the memory of Cuiviénen alive. (Which she may continue to do even after death? Sort of?) I loved your Uinen, too. Her thoughts about Manwë's lack of understanding for "evil" (or the violence that grows out of hunger, anyway) and the rules set up by the Valar are quite astute.
But you also managed to make Finwë (mostly) likeable, despite his failure to understand her troubles and his absolute faith in what the Valar tell him; his love and trust for Míriel get across, and that is also important in a story that focuses a lot on Míriel's lack of happiness that one might otherwise easily blame completely on Finwë (and, of course, those pesky Valar).
In conclusion, you've pulled off yet another fantastic tale about the not-so-bright sides of the Blessed Realm without resorting to simple blacks and whites. I'm so glad you found the time to write it!

I almost didn't! Find the time, that is. :) It was a zero-hour completion; we ended up with out-of-town family staying with us unexpectedly at the beginning of the week, the last day I had to write. And of course, I'd put it off till then! But I didn't have much of a choice. I could hardly flake on the event I organized! When I reread it before posting it yesterday (after a tough day at work), I was happy with it. I'm really glad it worked for you. ^_^

> (Which she may continue to do even after death? Sort of?)

I was hinting at Feanor and Feanor's role in seeing the virtues of Middle-earth, and eventually returning their people there. So yes, she certainly does! :)

> Her thoughts about Manwë's lack of understanding for "evil" (or the violence that grows out of hunger, anyway) and the rules set up by the Valar are quite astute.

It's always puzzled me that the Valar would accept as their leader someone who is incapable of understanding the basic nature of their primary enemy. It's like the original ineffectual political appointment!

> But you also managed to make Finwë (mostly) likeable

I adore Finwe myself and see him as a sympathetic character. I write him a lot like Bobby, actually: this amazingly good, kind, lovable person whom everyone adores. He does not always understand but he always tries. (I think Miriel might be surprised if she trusted him with more.)

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Lyra. And for all you've done for Silmarillion40! (I haven't forgotten to move those ficlets. Just been overwhelmed--hopefully this weekend! <3)

'we used to eat from carved wooden bowls'. great rags to riches thing.

and also the cats-cradle of opposites, light/dark, cat/dog (oh, he's such a puppy, 'crowing' about his work, eager to please etc) (and she is practically purring, and definitely has her tail curled round her feet) boy/girl king/queen forwards-looking/traditional etc great stuff ! 

shame about the sunburn (Treeburn ?). i liked the sinister sea-folk too, very edgy.

you paint moving pictures, more like Vairë's tapestries than Miriel's ! i can really see them, her rubbing the bridge of her nose, or them talking excitedly and forgetting to eat, or the lads sitting on the beach carving the world up between them, heheheh. great stuff. poor Miriel, poor Fëanor (oh no, Silmarillion tears...) 



> great rags to riches thing.

Yes! She is skeptical of that unnecessary excess. (My husband and I moved from fancy dishes to wooden bowls--we ate out of our wooden bowls tonight--so she's definitely reflecting my own principles here.)

> the sinister sea-folk

The sea is my favorite place in the world. It is beautiful and inspiring--I never leave without stories pounding inside my head to get out--but I'm always so conscious of how ... yes *sinister* it can also be. :) Sea gods, as a result, are among my favorite to think about and write. I think they'd be complicated. JRRT didn't do much with Uinen, but Osse has always appealed immensely to me as one of the few among the non-Melkor Maiar who openly rebelled.

> the lads sitting on the beach carving the world up between them

OMG--I love this!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting. And for such kind and insightful words too. :)

Finwe and Miriel: why cultures need no-fault divorce.

My headaches were fierce here. Unlike the others, I had not adapted: to the vast and empty spaces, to the arching starless sky, to the Light.

Even the dust here did not soften and dull things but flashed and sparked, an excess upon excess of Light.

What is this thing? Marriage? Sovereignty?

And now you've made me hate Elf-heaven. Thanks Obama!

In all seriousness, this is such a wonderful piece. Instead of Miriel being defined primarily by a single cataclysm of pregnancy and exhuastion, she rep's for the huge cultureal shift that the Elves are going through.

Valinor is the place of bright lights, hierarchy, law, fixed masculine/feminine roles, authority/the Valar, cities, even as the ancient Cuiviénen era of Middle-earth is forest, starlight, and a world before fixed gender roles, religion, and law. One is Finwe, the other Miriel.

And she goes on to be associated with female god-figures: Uinen/the sea, Vaire/weaving.

That is a fascinating reading!

 



I am definitely guilty as charged for ruining Elf-heaven! :) Besides this site, you could probably call it my fandom career. I remember a fandom friend, now more than a decade ago, saying that she thought Valinor would be a dreadfully boring place. I never could see it that way, or as anything but humanity in all its complexity under a veneer of perfection. (Which is itself a sort of trauma for Feanor--and in this story, Miriel as well--imo.)

> she rep's for the huge cultureal shift that the Elves are going through.

Yes! Yay! That's exactly what I was going for. I'm glad it came through. (Writing this was done with more haste and stress than I generally want. I had a moment's panic the other day, after a few days of not working on it, that I was going to pick it up again and find that what I'd done completely sucked.)

I've never been able to imagine moving from a place like Cuivienen to a place like Valinor as anything but culture shock. (Part of that is that I don't see the Elves as compliant with the laws of the Valar until they had no choice.)

Thank you so much for such a kind and thoughtful comment! ^_^

The land of everlasting happiness turned into a marble trap? And the compromise and adapting cost ultimately cost Miriel her life, because to stay true to herself, she chose to die. Perhaps her love for Finwe wasn't enough...

I think Miriel here is the epitome of all who doubted -- they had to leave too much behind, and the future seemed like a cage to her, the cage fashioned by those who wanted everyone else to follow their rule. And the most symbolic scene for that is (forgive my Sindarin heart) when she observed Elwe go back to the woods, never to return.

Well, who'd have known? Her son was rebellious enough to destroy that trap, that cage, but at what cost...

This is an outstanding piece. I read it yesterday, and I don't think I've told you everything I'd like here, but my mind doesn't cooperate because it's still rather dazed from the experience (in a good way!). Thank you so much!

Thank you, Binka! ^_^ Miriel is definitely in a pickle in this story, and it is only through her death that the Noldor regain their freedom in Middle-earth ... or that's how she and Feanor would see it. :) These stories come about because I am guilty myself of doubting. I have just never seen how the Noldor--those paragons of creative drive--could be content in a place where their talents serve merely to adorn the already beautiful, like Miriel's observation of the light of the Mindon upon the already existing (and superior) capital-L-Light. I know myself as a creative person, and I always want to shape the world for the better. And that comes out in the characters I connect most with, like Miriel and Feanor.

I'm also fond of the image of Elwe walking into the woods; I'm glad you picked up on it. YOU would pick up on it! :D

Thank you again. *hugs*

I was blown away by this.  When I imagined what the ideal story for this collection should be to do justice to the Silm in all possible ways, this is the type of story I envisioned (but was too worn out to do myself).  

Such lovely descriptions of Aman and wonderful use of color is only part of it.  Miriel's character is so beautifully written though...she's so real here and completely sympathetic.

There were so many parts I loved that I would have to quote the whole thing, but my favorites were probably the descriptions of the sea and the people therein.

While I love heresy (and know you do too) if there is any in this story it's so gentle as to be almost unnoticeable.  It's hard for me to not insult the Valar even unintentionally - I remember as soon as I read some of Claudio's work from ten or so years ago I immediately glommed onto his concept of the Valar (and Vanyar) as objects of derision.  But sometimes I just love to read a beautiful story about them which doesn't insult them in any way at all.

Congrats, Dawn.  You've written something so, so special here.



Oh wow, Jenni, that's such a kind thing to say. And to think I worried over this one! (But when *don't* we worry over our stories, right? In the moment, compared to what I see in my imagination as I try to write, they seem so inadequate.)

I think you've been steeped in heresy so long that you probably don't see it as heretical anymore! ;) There is also the fact that the fandom has changed in the last ten years to where I no longer have people at my elbow, cautioning me to mark a story like this as AU, since canatics couldn't *possibly* conceive of the Elves as anything more than enthusiastic about Valinor. Or that Elves get headaches. Or had different values from the Valar. Etc. And I will spare myself the burns of flames by pretending like these things aren't even possible.

I'm glad we've moved on, as a fandom, to where those things are no longer so contentious. (Of course, there are new contentious things now, but that's another story. :)

Thank you so much for reading and for sharing such kind encouragement with me! ^_^

Quintessential Dawn! It is silmultaneously psychological and yet so vivid and viseral. I wanted to reach for heavy-duty prescription sunglasses when reading about her reaction to the light and the headaches! (I get a lot of eyestrain headaches myself.) All I have are dollar-store knockoffs made in China. I always totally relate on the most mundane levels to points in your stories.

Actually, those are what make your stories so transcendent--the small details well told are so much better at bringing your reader to sense of emotional intelligence about the characters and empathy with them than oceans of musings about how a character feels and philosophical yammering and meandering and smug, sly hints (which despite studying English lit, I almost also miss! Who wants to be lectured in such an ethereal, sneaky kind of way in a story? I can count on you to never do that! But does not mean your fiction is not challenging.)

I love Finwe here. He is good, big-hearted, and maybe blustering at times, so aglow with his own enthusiasm and optimism. It always feels to me like he was very successful at saving and leading his people for a long, long time using exactly those skills. We should not harshly judge people for doing the best that they can, even when it proves to be not enough. How could he have put himself in her shoes? He trusts her to understand him and usually agree or explicitly argue, but instead she can't always read him either. He over-estimates her sense of confidence, confusing her keen intelligence with certainty. (There is a extrovert/introvert thing going on here--but it's more complicated than that.) He's seen her argue her case and win, how is he supposed to know that she harbors unspoken doubts and a profound discomfort that she is unwilling to reveal?

Should he have blown-off the Valar and let most of them be picked off one-by-one in the shadows of Middle-earth under starlight? Probably not. But there are no hard rights or wrongs here, only shades of gray. Poor Miriel--born perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or exactly the right time--but that's another story and does not necessarily dovetail with yours.

All of the foreshadowing of Feanor and her eventual terminal fatigue is clear and yet lightly rendered--no beating the reader over the head with a club.

Nothing about the story reads like you finished in a rush. It's very smooth.

Another keeper! Thanks and congrats! I'm jealous (again!).



I will admit that I lean heavily on those small details. I enjoy them in the books I read, although I do sometimes worry (perhaps a symptom of being at the mark of having written about 100 Silmfics) that my writing is formulaic and predictable and leans on the same techniques to get a reaction ... like our conversation last week about Stephen King! It's a relief to hear that they work for you so I can keep using them. Now as for flashbacks ...

I can't stand those philosophical yammerings. I find them insulting to my intelligence. Show me the character; show me their life; trust that I am smart enough to figure it out for myself. If ever I reach the point of writing text walls about feelings and philosophy, please clobber me with something!

The capital-L-Light ... I've never been able to wrap my brain around how people could function fine under *just* starlight and then tra-la-la-lally head off to Valinor and be equally comfortable under capital-L-Light. I suppose I should suspend my disbelief here--I mean, the issue of how plants grew and how the Quendi fed themselves in minimal light is surely more pressing--but it's one of those things that always bugged me. A physical manifestation of what I imagine must have also been a degree of psychological/moral shock. I mean, these were people who suffered prolonged trauma in Middle-earth; are they just  ... okay now? And they lived in almost complete darkness and are just ... okay with Treelight?

I think your observation that there are no hard rights or wrongs is spot-on. That's what makes this whole story of the Noldor so compelling to me. It's possible to point a lot of fingers but not possible to assign a lot of unequivocal blame. Given my own inclinations, I'm mostly inclined to blame the Valar, who seemed to be exercising a sort of reverse colonialism in their attempt to procure a horde of beautiful, pointy-eared pets. I don't have a lot of sympathy for them, although that's also my biases and distrust of power and authority at work here. ;) But among the Elves, I can't blame Miriel or Finwe or even Feanor, who were all operating within particularly difficult circumstances.

I certainly don't blame Finwe. I like my Finwe a lot; he is heavily patterned after Bobby: personable, generous-hearted, and optimistic. I think he was, as a general rule, a good leader to his people. I agree that there is a limit to the extent that one can put oneself in another person's shoes, and that is what is going on with Miriel. She buttons up quickly, i.e., when he asks for clarification on what she means by "headache" and she assumes he won't understand and just never mentions it again.

I wrote rather leisurely and was ahead of the deadline for this batch of stories right up till the end of the scene with Uinen. Then, on the day of the deadline, we lost the author for the first day of the Silm40, and I started to rush to put something together (because of all days to not have something splendid to offer!) And of course, this got pushed aside and was picked up only once I had no choice because it was due the next day, and under added duress of having family unexpectedly visit. (Even though I enjoyed them very much!) So really only the end was rushed, in honesty. But I'm glad it's not glaringly obvious.

Thank you for reading and for your always insightful comments! I always look forward to your reviews so much.

I cannot for the life of me understand how I did not leave a review when I first read this. It's such a gorgeous terrible story of finding yourself in a place and situation that is wholly foreign and mostly unpleasant to you, and not having any way of making things better, because, try as they might, no one really understands what is happening to you.

I love Uinen - I want to paint this dangerous, wise, fey woman. She tries to warn Miriel, but also knows that it is inevetable. I enjoyed how cleanly she sliced through the rules and regulations of the Valar. And I was also really struck by the fact that Finwë was unable to explain why they should so suddenly change their entire way of life and adapt to customs that were not theirs. (not to mention how I despised the Valar - like colonialists coming to a land and telling everyone they are living the Wrong Way! urgh.)

I'm glad they had Miriel to remember the old times for them. Though I'm sad for her that her love led to her such a place.

Such massive cultural changes--from Cuivienen to the long journey to Valinor itself and all done by the same people rather than successive generations. And then the radical change of physical environment as well.

I'm not sure whether Miriel's headaches are technically migraines, but the way they are described they hit her (and us) with the intensity of a migraine and the visual distortion that sometimes accompanies migraines.

With all that, she still retains her competence and sharpness, even as she is (in that last dream/metaphor) she is losing her grip.