The north wind doth blow, and soon we shall have… Tolkien Secret Santa 2018!
Welcome to the Tolkien Secret Santa, a digital gift exchange held during the festive end-of-year season. Everyone who participates gets to receive a small digital present from an anonymous Secret Santa and make a small Secret Santa present of their own, which could take any number of forms: a fic, a playlist, an artwork, a poem, or an edit. The only limits are the gifter’s imagination!
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Post your small gift – anonymously! – starting December 14th.
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I think the character constellation in the Castlevania Netflix series is really interesting within the protagonist trio. Imo, Trevor is the main protagonist. He gets the most screen time on his own, though of course the reason is that he is the one who still has to make the decision to fight to save Wallachia, the others have already made theirs. (We do see the moment when Alucard first defied his father, too.) However, he’s also the inofficial leader of their group; he made the decision to go to the Belmont castle, assigned tasks and improvised battlefield strategies. All that also means his character development is the most pronounced. He needs time to make the choice to fight on a major scale, he utilizes his leadership talents more than ever before, he befriends a half-vampire, and generally grows into his previously forsaken identity as a hunter.
What’s unusual is that Alucard is set up as a mythical Chosen One-type character, and he is the one with the personal connection to Dracula, which is naturally far more meaningful than any feud between him and the Belmont family. Which also means that he has to take center stage during the final fight against him. Usually, only the main-est of the main protagonists gets that sort of thing.
Sypha is the most powerful one, the one who always believes they can win, and at least at first the one who is holding their trio together. She has the most meaningful conversations with both Trevor and Alucard and makes sure they can work together despite the tension. I can imagine how terrible (read: impossible) their communication would’ve been without her. And she isn’t nobility, and in fact a member of a minority group.
Hey look I drew I Sypha! I plan on coloring her. I’ve also done Trevor, and plan to do Ali and drac and Lisa.
My adorable deadly bookworm.
Do we even know for sure that “the Fair” in the Silm refers to beauty? Maybe it’s more like a synonym for “just”, and Lúthien and Indis and all the other people described as “the Fair” were helping to write laws or working as judges and were really good at it.
(Except Celegorm he’s definitely pretty and blond, lol. the exception that proves the rule)
how do I convince my mom that cellulite and the lack of a perfectly flat abdomen aren’t illnesses?
I’m so happy that Feanor didn’t change his name in Beleriand the same way his brothers did, or it’d probably be something horrible, like “Fincurufin”
FINfincurufin. MORE FINWE than they!
But I suppose “Spirit of Fire” was too cool to give up. Speaking of which, we don’t have mother names for Fingolfin or Finarfin, do we? *ponders* Ideas?
Granted, I may be missing something, but I can’t remember any right now.
Although I agree that Spirit of Fire was too cool (and appropriate!) to give up, I hc that the Finwions’ Sindarized names had more to do with Fingolfin blatantly establishing his claim to the crown/connection to Finwe despite being of the second branch of the royal family, the second faction of the Noldor to arrive in Beleriand. FINgolFIN and FINarFIN and FINgon and FINrod– of Indis’ offspring, the high king of the Noldor in Beleriand and the high king of the Noldor in Aman have double Fins, and their heirs each have a single Fin. Their names emphasize their connection to Finwe and their place in the succession. You cannot talk about them without speaking of their birthright. Maedhros, however, has no reference to Finwe at all despite his Quenya father name Nelyafinwe, which specifically refers to his place in the succession before Fingolfin. The Sindarized names emphasize the line of Indis’ right to the kingship and distance Feanor (Spirit of Fire, besides being way cool, brings to mind his rashness/anger as well as his creativity, while Curufinwe (iirc that’s canon?) refers to his skill and relation to Finwe) and Maedhros from Finwe and his authority.
I think this might be a popular hc, and if I’m reinventing the wheel, whoops, I’m new?
You’re right about Fingolfin and Finarfin, @below-et-almost. Fingolfin had started calling himself “Finwe Nolofinwe”, which is the reason behind the translation. (I’m not sure which book is the source though.) With Finarfin, either his children started referring to him that way or he did during the War of Wrath. But although both of that was definitely meant to emphasize the connection to Finwe, I’m not so sure about Fingon and Finrod. To me, it always seemed that the Noldor chose themselves which names to translate, and I assume it was usually the one they had used most before. If someone insisted on using a certain name, I don’t think anyone could stop them and make them use another, no matter the political implications.
So, it’s possible that they were considering the things you mentioned while choosing their Sindarinized names, but it’s equally likely that Findekano and Findarato just happened to be their favorite names. Same with the sons of Feanor – I don’t think that anyone could have told them no if they had wanted to use their Finwe-ish father-names, and while I can imagine Maedhros deciding not to because it was more diplomatic, I doubt his brothers would have gone out of their way to do that. So I’m assuming that for all of them except Curufin, the mother-names had aready been used more.
My headcanon about Feanor is that he was using his mother-name as a way to honor Miriel and remind people of her. (Which ofc means he and his sons wouldn’t change it because respecting that is more important than the distance from Finwe. But the post was a joke/shitpost anyway, so I ignored all of that and just thought ‘what if Feanor had decided to one-up Fingolfin and call himself “Finwe Curufinwe”‘)
“Therefore Oromë was sent again to
them, and he chose from among them ambassadors who should go to Valinor
and speak for their people; and these were Ingwë,
Finwë and Elwë, who afterwards were kings.” Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor, the Silmarillion
That’s our introduction to them. The Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri are described as the “kindred” of
Ingwë,
Finwë and Elwë
respectively, not their subjects. They certainly led those who undertook the Great Journey, but there’s no reason to believe they were the chieftains beforehand.
Why then were they the ones chosen as ambassadors? Because everyone else was terrified, and they were the only ones willing to follow the incredibly dangerous strange being, each for their own reason.
Ingwë
went because he saw the light of Aman reflected in
Oromë’s face, and wished to see the light in truth. He recognized the light as Good and Holy, and knew that the Valar would not harm him.
Finwë went in search of knowledge. Here was a being unlike any other known to elves, from a place likewise completely unknown.
Oromë claimed that the Valar would share knowledge with them, but even if that turned out to be false, there would still be much to discover.
Elwe went because he has a huge xeno kink. The presence of actual non-elf sapient beings, that unlike orcs wouldn’t try to kill him, meant that he had to check out Aman.
radiantanor.home.blog 