At first she thinks the grilled fish is the bluefish she is used to, the heavy fishy flavor wafting off the golden crust, but when her hosts cut into the fish and start to pull apart pieces of the cooked flesh, nimbly avoiding the bones, she sees it is not so. There is a loaf of bread, yet in shape and texture it looks nothing like any bread she knows or has kneaded. Another grilled fish, crusted in a thick layer of charred salt and smelling faintly of some sweet cooking liquor, is dropped into the center of the banquet table, the head and tail hanging over the edges of the massive yet delicate serving platter. The platter is a soft white, with the imprint of feathers along the rim, of a delicate ceramic that she vaguely remembers. She has not seen an object so fine and delicate for a long time. The meals, when she had been fortunate enough to have dishes on which to eat them, have been on wooden platters or the thick reddish brown of mortal make. In recent memory it has been her fingers greedily pulling apart hastily boiled small fish that either her husband or she had caught. Infrequent meals those had been, often spoiled by stomachs wracked by worry. The rich scent of garlic and lemon pulls her out of memories, and she looks up to see the next dish being uncovered. A lid is being removed from yet another fish dish, this time a giant and also unrecognizable specimen that has been obviously seasoned and steamed in its own juices. The surrounding broth smells fragrant, and her host uses a ladle to scoop some of it into a small bowl and set it before her. A piece of soft bread is placed next to the bowl. “Eat this first,” the queen says, the small crown of silver shells and mother-of-pearl above her sad face glimmering with the same wet luster as her eyes. “It shall not overtax your stomach.” As she speaks, her husband is uncovering yet another dish of what looks to be fried squid and brightly-colored vegetables with delight. Yet still more dishes are being brought, and she feels overwhelmed. This was not to be any large feast, just an intimate meal for newly reunited family, and yet she is overwhelmed by the bounty of food. She thinks back to the excitement of a pot of eel stew. The last dish she notices before the tears overwhelm is a platter of round crab cakes. They look exactly like the ones she used to make for her family, even the small cup of cream dipping sauce, though she served hers in a cleaned clam shell and this one is in a porcelain cup made to mimic the shell shape. She remembers breaking a cake apart with her fingers and feeding a piece to her son as she held him on her lap, his brother greedily reaching for a second serving and dipping his fingers into the sauce to lick it clean. The memory destroys what remained of her appetite. She sobs. There are warm arms around her, two sets, holding her tight, a hand stroking her hair, a man’s soft low voice whispering smoothing words to her, promising her she is safe, that he will protect her, a woman telling her that she has permission to cry, she can show weakness, that she is loved. In her most distant memories the woman recalls parents who had once done this for her. Elwing weeps and thanks them for the meal.
second age Numenorians totally had tavern brawls about this
Someone would be singing a random Elwing-Earendil song and then she became a swan and are you drunk???? It was a Seagull, but pfft a queen into a seagull yeah right but EXCUSE YOU IT WAS A PELICAN
Y’all, because I’m new to expressing online my fandom opinions, I’m trying to wait a while until I start talking about certain characters.
Because a lot of what I feel I’ve discovered seems to run counter to what the majority of opinion I come across. But it’s hard. I’m biting my tongue and waiting for when I plan on mentioning it where I think the appropriate time to ease into it.
However- I will say this- I was always sympathetic to Elwing and don’t criticize her for leaping off the cliff with the bloody Silmaril.
Reblogging this old post yet again, and thinking about rewriting it. But the basic gist being that I have NEVER blamed or desired Elwing to hand over the Silmaril instead of flinging herself and Silmaril off the cliff. And I wish that Maedhros’s decision to fling himself into a fiery chasm after flinging the Silmaril into it – and Maglor’s own chunking of the Silmaril into the ocean- was given half as much scrutiny and disdain as Elwing’s choice. Because they too were deciding that if they couldn’t hold the Silmarils and fearing they would soon be captured, no one could benefit from them.
Because the Fëanorians had sacked and destroyed Sirion, killing the overwhelming majority of people there, of which many were survivors of the previous time the Fëanorians had invaded and sacked and killed off a major city, and thus there was NO WAY anyone believed they would show mercy. Because the way to stop them would be to remove this cursed gem from the equation, plus a guarantee that by throwing herself and the Silmaril into the sea she was also keeping it out of Morgoth’s hands (seriously people, do you think even if Maedhros and Maglor reclaimed that Silmaril during the Third Kinslaying they would have been able to stay out of Morgoth’s hands when they were ridiculously overwhelming outnumbered and had burned just about all possible bridges with allies and Morgoth was controlling 99% of Beleriand at this time and tell me how well Maedhros’s last confrontation with Morgoth went. I’m waiting.)
Because the Fëanorians value ownership of the Silmarils over consideration of other people’s lives. Explain to me how that isn’t canon. Please.
Because I am so tired of the sexist damnation of her as a bad mother. Because as long as Elwing was taking the Silmaril to the edges of the city, away from the cave where Elrond and Elros were hidden, she was drawing them away from her children. That this scenario is the one that first came to me as I read the text and the one I thought obvious – that she wasn’t making this ‘bad mother/leader’ decision to choose the Silmaril over her sons’ lives, but was trying to save them, to buy time for them to escape, or even just to get that one last act of defiance and revenge against the people that had murdered her mother, father, older brothers, destroyed her first home, was in the process or were completing the process of destroying her second. And why isn’t she allowed by readers to have that desire? The Noldor were motivated by revenge (and xenophobia and colonialism). Because she’s a young woman? Because she isn’t one of the ‘fan favorite bad boy’ Fëanorians?
And it’’s that damn Plot MacGuffin Silmaril that messes with people’s minds and brings as much woe as the One Ring and too bad there was no Mount Doom to destroy the damn things that shouldn’t have been made, if you want my bitter true opinion.
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