diversetolkien:

As a person of color who comes from a race where extremism has been used to protest racial injustice, can I just say that I absolutely love Feanor. In today’s political climate, we’ve seen a lot more Feanor’s. From people scaling the statue of Liberty to protest children being put in concentration camps, to riots over racial injustice, being extreme is one of the only ways we can get a point across. 

Feanor has always reminded me of Malcolm X, or any other Civil Rights activist that has done the extreme and questionable to get their point across. He is an extremist, but his extremist views come from the unfair treatment he and his people received in Valinor. I think nowadays, in the midst of racial and other injustices, Feanor’s characters starts to be more relevant.  

When you understand the history of rioting and protest and social injustice, than a lot of what Feanor did starts to make sense. It’s like Nat Turner and the slave revolts, or the Haitian Revolution. If people don’t listen, then often times it’s necessary to use extreminism or violence to make a point, and the violence can be bloody, but the main point is that it makes a difference, it sends message.

Stop enslaving us, stop oppressing us, stop killing us. When words don’t work,  violence must. That why I like Feanor, he stayed silent and complaint for as long as he possibly could , but then the  Valar allowed his things to be stolen, his father to be killed, and his people to be terrorized.

I don’t condone the kinslaying at Alqualonde ,But Doriath and Sirion were justified.

Feanor was a leader, and a Civil Rights activist imo, one of the few in Tolkien’s works. Perhaps that’s why he was so demonized. But as a person of color who deals with Civil Rights, i see a lot of myself and my people in Feanor. I’m not saying his coded to be poc, but I’m saying his struggles mirror my own.

And honestly, if you’re serious about social activism, i’d consider looking at Feanor’s character in depth.

I agree with some of your points, @diversetolkien. Personally, I’d say that Feanor’s best moments when it comes to activism were his attempts to convince people to leave Aman before the Darkening, and when he was fighting Morgoth in Beleriand and also started learning Northern Sindarin in that short time. He had a right to do the former and the Valar should have adressed it better. It is possible to tell someone that you think their idea is bad or dangerous but you’re not going to stop them or ensure they have no means of doing it. I don’t believe that the Valar had bad intentions the way most real world oppressors do, although they did make mistakes and I know there’s a lot of room for different interpretations.

But I’m not sure why you think Alqualonde is inexcusable whereas the other two Kinslayings are? For me, it’s the other way around; Alqualonde wasn’t planned to be a kinslaying, and though the Noldor were better prepared, both sides hadn’t had much experience with real combat. Of course, it’s still horrible, and Feanor definitely had been planning to steal the ships, which obviously was a bad and somewhat hypocritical idea already (given that the Teleri said they cared as much about their ships as he did about the Silmarils).

But Doriath and Sirion were definitely premeditated. It sounds like most of the Feanorions would not
have wanted to attack them if not for the Oath. It did a lot of damage to all the Elves’ capability to resist Morgoth, apart from Eärendil and Elwing managing to get the Valar to interfere, which couldn’t have been predicted. Sirion was a refugee camp. Even if you think they had zero rights to the Silmaril, I don’t see how the Sindar can be viewed as oppressors of the Feanorians. Also, none of the kinslayings were about civil rights or social activism, and the main message they sent is that the Feanorians were willing to kill for the Silmarils because of the Oath, to the detriment of other causes, and I think they’re not really comparable to most real world examples you mentioned.