The Death of Fëanáro by Dawn Felagund  

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Fanwork Notes

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Fëanor's death and its aftermath, as told by the Fëanorian bards and as it truly happened. A free-verse poem.

Major Characters: Fëanor, Maedhros, Maglor, Mandos

Major Relationships:

Genre: Poetry

Challenges:

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Character Death
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 882
Posted on Updated on

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The Death of Fëanáro

Comments on The Death of Fëanáro

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I adore this section! Made me smile.

in which Námo won only because of trickery
and added the brightest of spirits to his hoard much like Moringotto had done with the Silmarils.

(The parallel was intentional and audiences never failed to be stirred.
These songs were popular before battles
or in times of doubt.)

Eldarin pop music as polemics and politics! Love it. As much as I, one of those hot-headed admirers of Feanaro, would like it to be true, that is not how it happened.

The truth is more mundane and more tragic.

and yet their immortal nature does not allow them to participate in the most fundamental cycles of life and death that sustain Arda. This seems terribly unfair to me, and it is this mismatch between Elven nature and the nature of the world to which they are bound (not deathlessness itself) that I believe causes their sorrow as they age.

I'll buy that. As much as that fits for me, meanwhile I am always running like a little hamster on my wheel, trying to think of the AU version where I can give the end of all things a happy resolution for the Eldar. Therein lies the danger of cliche and romantic twaddle. Maybe I can figure out a way that would not be too disastrously trite!

Philosophical discussion aside, it is a lovely and powerful poem. (And I do not know if you have read any of my diatribes against mediocre fannish poetry--basically "keep them on your harddrives, please!" This one is definitely a sharer! Which is high praise coming from this grumpy old lady!

[So sorry for deleting and editing for typos. I am sure I left some anyway.]



Ah, I'm glad (and relieved!) that you found it worth sharing! I don't really consider myself to be a poet. I don't write a lot of poetry. But when I do, it hits me like a wrecking ball. (Like this. I had settled down to do some reading and it would not leave me alone.) For some reason, mediocre poetry is more painful than mediocre fiction, imo. (Probably because the attempt to adhere to rhyme and meter makes for some forced and awkward turns of phrase. I also find that people tend to confuse "hard to understand" with "deep" in poetry more than fic. In fiction, there is at least an attempt to carry a story most of the time.) I read some real poetic doozies in my editor's days! One love poem that feelingly asserted, "One of your smiles keeps me going for miles." Ouch.

"Eldarin pop music as polemics and politics!"

Absolutely! It's all in keeping with my almost-decade long obsession with the sources of the texts and how they might have been used as propaganda or for other purposes other than factual accuracy.

I like the Second Prophecy of Mandos as a happy resolution for everyone. Except that I've given it a sad ending in a story before. Typical! But not taking my version, I like the "Morgoth is defeated and everyone lives happily ever after on Arda Unmarred, Elves and Mortals together, all singing folk music and making daisy chains." And Feanor gets to come back then.

I like the Second Prophecy of Mandos as a happy resolution for everyone. Except that I've given it a sad ending in a story before. Typical!

Yes. You certainly did! And it broke my heart! Beautifully written though.

But not taking my version, I like the "Morgoth is defeated and everyone lives happily ever after on Arda Unmarred, Elves and Mortals together, all singing folk music and making daisy chains." And Feanor gets to come back then.

 Now you are embarrassing me. That is pretty much the summary of what I want!

Now this poem is very nice. I will read it over and over to enjoy it more. Lots of great narrative and background detail in addition to very well conceived and constructed.

I agree on holding higher standards for poetry. I can enjoy not particularly polished prose if it has a great story and some passion behind it. And I can enjoy beautiful language in prose fiction, even if the writer loses momentum or never even finishes the story.

But a poem has to do it all for me before I can enjoy it.



That's pretty much what I want too, although the stories set in such a world would be boring as hell! So if we've been given Arda Unmarred to work with, I'm going to exploit the misery to its fullest extent. ;)

I was in denial for a long while about the Second Prophecy. I didn't want to believe that JRRT actually rejected it. I just wanted to think that it wasn't written into the published Silm but it really does happen at the end.

"But a poem has to do it all for me before I can enjoy it."

Yes, me too. As you note, aspects of a story can be enjoyable or entertaining but poetry? Notsomuch. It's kind of like bad music. If something about a song is unlovely (or senseless, since some music is deliberately unlovely in a way that works), it just doesn't work for me. I suppose it's the auditory component, for me anyway,whereas prose can be more straight imagination.

So the bards imagine Feanor resisting Namo, but he goes willingly? Is it because he is in a state of shock at his death? It was certainly sudden, as the poem says--and so soon after the Prophecy of the North. It seems it does not even occur to him to rebel--although it seems he continues to inspire rebellion in others?

I'm trying to read what the poem says in the light of your notes... Does the fire that makes Feanaro blow away as ash also not allow him to become part of the cycle of the world or is it merely Namo's call that does that?

And in your last line, the story that was wrong somehow becomes true? Is that because Maglor is singing or in spite of him or unrelated?



Thank you for commenting, Himring (and for kudos on AO3 :). Here are my thoughts on your questions; your mileage may vary! I don't think the author holds the only "right" way to read a text.

"So the bards imagine Feanor resisting Namo, but he goes willingly? Is it because he is in a state of shock at his death?"

I think it's because he becomes aware of a process larger than himself and that he risks not being able to be a part of it. The last stanza of the first section:

Life groaned on without him
and upon the west-borne wind there was a sudden awareness
of the whole of it
of all the dying and eating and growing and living
only to die and eat and grow and live again.
He was part of none of that.

We have from L&C that Elven spirits can remain in the world and "haunt" a place. In this piece, Feanor's followers like to imagine that he did just that, so important to him was going to Middle-earth (or so abhorrent to him was living in Aman). But the truth is that he realizes, in the moment that he has the choice to stay in M-e or go to Aman, that to stay would be a loss; that he would cease to have influence over the world in any way that he would define as meaningful.

"Does the fire that makes Feanaro blow away as ash also not allow him to become part of the cycle of the world ..."

Yes. At that moment, he regards his current life as physically and spiritually lost if he chooses not to go to Aman. He doesn't even get the benefit of one of JRRT's favorite death images of the flowers growing on the grave mound. :)

There was no torrent of flowers
garish upon naked stony earth
to mark the life he had been.
There was not enough of him left to nurture even weeds.

"And in your last line, the story that was wrong somehow becomes true? Is that because Maglor is singing or in spite of him or unrelated?"

I meant it to be metaphorical. The "pilgrims" go to the place of his death in search of these supposed stones that have fires in their cores. Such things don't exist there (or if they do, Feanor had nothing to do with them). But in the form of songs and tales--which do continue to inspire his followers to rebellion or at least persistence in their cause--his death *does* serve such a role. So regardless of what he chose, he would have lived on in that sense, and given that, what he really did choose (which version of the tale is "right") matters little. It's a way of thinking about himself that he didn't consider when he made his choice to go to Mandos in order to have a chance of continuing to influence the world. (Which, since I take the Second Prophecy as "canon" in my verse, he does do ... about the happiest ending I can squeeze from his story! :D)

 

Thank you for the explanations! They do help me to appreciate the connections between the parts better, although before I was already struck by the strength of the imagery and by the details (such as Nolofinwe's arguments being put in the mouth of Feanaro and Nelyo's braid snapping in the wind and the pilgrims certain of the marvel in their pockets...).