Okay, the Secret Files for Wall the Heart. 

You might already know this was a spite-motivated tumblr discourse fic, because there was one or two people on my dash who were disowning Thingol as a terrible king and way worse bigot than the Noldor (ie Fëanorians) because of the line about Thingol disliking Beren’s Northern Sindarin accent because Northern Sindar weren’t trusted, the Fëanorians used that accent, etc… This idea of Thingol as a hermit king who did nothing during the entire Silmarilion, just hid in his Girdled Kingdom and let the Noldor do all the fighting, ungrateful, etc… It pissed me off. Enough to take my headcanon and make a fic, and then for my long airing out of grievances and footnote explanations to be so long as to warrant a second chapter. Which I feel even now is a bit extreme and overboard but I won’t shorten it.

Because Goddammit, Elu Thingol and the Sindar of Doriath DID fight Morgoth. They were fighting a long battle before the Noldor ever showed up, and Thingol would still be fighting orcs when they got close to his border even up to the year before Beren stumbled into the Girdle. It’s like Americans saying they did all the fighting and ignoring the French and British and other allies during WWI (or WWII). The Noldor were coming in just after Thingol suffered heavy losses and his remaining allies are in a long siege.

Also, that the Girdle just went up right before the Noldor arrive. It was a recent thing.

Denethor’s death needs more fandom love and attention. You could just as easily do a quasi-slash angsty fic about Thingol trying to reach Denethor in time and then fruitlessly avenging his death in the vein of those Maedhros and Fingon Nirnaeth and aftermath fanworks.

It wasn’t mentioned in this fic, but one of Denethor’s son who died would have been causally intended to be betrothed to Lúthien. The two families were suggesting the idea, and the two of them were friendly if not in love yet. Thus another layer of tragedy.

SF, especially the military SF and space opera stuff, loves the mind controlled double agent trope. I don’t think Vorkosigan ever used it outright, but it’s one of those tropes that both SF and Fantasy love and therefore I wanted to use. And the Silmarilion version from the quotes might just be that Morgoth was so overwhelming powerful that captured elves gave into despair and decided since Morgoth’s victory was inevitable, to pull a Quisling instead of a more magical mind control with the subject unawares. That seems a little more Tolkien. Either way, I left the situation behind Eredhon’s actions purposefully vague as to leave it up for interpretation, and because the mystery worked better for Thingol and the story.

It was very awkward to write this fic before I had a name for Eredhon or his son.

Ducks are a subtle motif for the original village of Elwë and his people.

Sindarin books would not be bond in the same style as books in Valinor, at least until the Noldor arrived, and would use scrolls. The image of Thingol attacking someone with a scroll as an impromptu weapon is funny.

“Yes, Eöl, you were right,” Thingol says testily.

This ↑ was (intended to be) the funniest line in the fic, because of the implication that this would be the only time ever that Thingol (or anyone) would say that line. I like a softer than canon Eöl, and heavens knows I probably turned off a few readers by inserting him into the story, but I like his purpose in this narrative. And adding to the tragedy that this sense that Elmo and Linkwinen, as his grandparents, are the only two elves that make any effort to understand and interact with him, and without them there and faced with the Girdle forcing him to be hemmed in with thousands of people of mutual dislike and setting off more than one case of agoraphobia and PSTD, he decamps to Nan Elmoth, stews in bitterness and mental issues with no one to curtail him, and in a few hundred years there we go~

Galathil and Celeborn are too young in this fic. *pulls face*