Comments on I was like smoke without the fire

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Wow. This chapter of the Sil has always confused and fascinated me, especially the way it's portrayed in fandom. I guess I just have a hard time figuring out how no one noticed Ambarussa was missing...

But, anyway, what I find so powerful about this piece is Nelyo's acknowledgement that merely standing aside did not do much good. Also chilling is the middle part, where Nelyo is wondering who really ruled between Feanor and Finwe in the later days.

But the most heartwrenching lines for me were "Ambarussa burned while I stood aside. / There is no singing now." Amazing.

Thanks for sharing!



You are really getting the maximum ouch effect out of the "standing aside" theme here, aren't you? Strictly speaking, I suppose, merely "standing aside" is just as inadequate a response whether it only allows Elenwe and a great number of Fingolfinians to die in the ice or whether it also allows Ambarussa to be burnt practically in front of Maedhros's eyes, but it does sort of bring it home to you.

I've read stories about Maglor going all artistic at Losgar before (Look at the pretty flames!), but that bit about the singing is really something.



A wide range of conflicting thoughts and emotions very well laid out...

(they have shed blood for us, they had come to our aid, they are as cursed as we....)

This line worked well, evoking for me not just the abandoned Noldor but the Teleri also; in which these ships to them were as their life-blood, like the jewels to the oath makers.  Of course the pay off comes with your rendition with the actual death of Feanor's youngest son so brutally punctuating the very impotency bemoaned by Maedhros throughout the piece...

A possible follow-on piece could be the breaking of the news to Feanor in his quarters - madness tempered by guilt, perhaps?



I thought I reviewed already, but apparently it became a comment on my adding this to my favourites! For what it's worth:
This was amazing. I love how you made his standing aside not...well..heroic, but rather some sort of defeated. I've come across many fanfictions who paint him as this One Good Feanorian, which is just less interesting. I've always wondered how no one noticed Umbarto...And Macalaurë's song was a terrifying idea. Somehow  "a song that is terrible in its beauty. Like the fire itself, it crackles and roars into violent life" reminded me of the "le sacrifice" part in Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring...which is odd I suppose as it doesn't contain singing. But your describtion of the music reminds me of it I guess. 



Why, thank you!

Oh, I definitely think it's a defeat for him -- if he had suceeded, the ships wouldn't have burned. Standing aside is just the very least he could do to save face, and I think, even then, it doesn't really succeed. Really, Maedhros is the "One Good Feanorian"?  Huh.  I like him a lot, but I think putting such label on him sort of takes the enjoyment you get from a character who is -- or ought be, any way, at the very least, morally gray. 

Interesting that you thought of sacrifices when it came to the song/Umbarto's death. I was thinking a lot of Iphigenia and the parallels between her fate and poor Ambarussa's -- both are unwitting sacrifices to their father's martial ambitions, if you will...

Sorry to clutter your reviews but - I just wanted to say that funnily enough Maedhros has always, somehow, reminded me in certain aspects of Achillis, who incidentally also did not agree with the sacrifice at hand but was unable to stop it. So the Iphigenia/Ambarussa connection makes sense alot of to me I suppose. Though my reason for connecting Achillis to Amedhros was more about the "enemies fled from his face"thing Maedhros and Achillis seem to share.