dawnfelagund:

In recent weeks, Caranthir’s characterization in The Silmarillion has come up a couple of times and led me to rant about how Caranthir’s description in The Silmarillion is inconsistent with how we actually see his character behaving. This would indicate bias on the part of the narrator.

If you’re not familiar with my theory on historical bias in The Silmarillion, here’s a quick primer before I dive into how the narrator expresses bias against Caranthir and why. Tolkien always imagined his stories as being told or authored by an in-universe character. In the case of The Silmarillion,for decades he assigned the authorship of much of it–including the Beleriand chapters of the Quenta–to a loremaster of Gondolin named Pengolodh; references to Pengolodh were stricken from the published text by Christopher Tolkien. However, the evidence of that narrator remains in the form of bias: who is discussed in the text and the kind of treatment they receive. I’ve compiled and looked at data around mentions of characters, descriptions of realms, death scenes, and accounts of battles, and in each instance, the data shows a strong bias toward people and groups that would have been favored by someone from Gondolin. (Some of my data can be found in my article Attainable Vistas; I am working now on putting the rest together to hopefully have it published also at some point.)

Looking at individual characters and the disparity between how they are described and what they actually do in the story also reveals bias. This is particularly egregious in the case of Caranthir.

Caranthir the Dark

The Silmarillion says very little about Caranthir. He is mentioned only 24 times (not counting mentions in the “Index of Names”), the least of any of the sons of Fëanor except Amrod and Amras. Yet the first time we see him act independently of his brothers, Pengolodh immediately applies a damning label to him:

But Caranthir, who loved not the sons of Finarfin, and was the harshest of the brothers and the most quick to anger, cried aloud … (“Of the Return of the Noldor,” emphasis mine)

The Fëanorians are not exactly sweetness and gentleness in The Silmarillion. To be named the harshest of this particular brood is notable.

Additionally, Caranthir is given the epithet “the dark,” a seeming corroboration of Pengolodh’s observation of his temper. According to The Shibboleth of Fëanor, this epithet derives from his father-name Morifinwë (dark Finwë), and we know from Tolkien that the root mor- and being described as “dark” is not generally a compliment. In this case, though, the epithet is not a comment on his temperament; rather, according to Shibboleth, it is because “he was black-haired as his grandfather” (HoMe XII, p. 353). His mother-name Carnistir, meaning “red-face,” also could be construed as a comment on his temper … except that it also remarks on his resemblance to a relative, in this case “the ruddy complexion of his mother” (p. 353). But because none of the etymology of his name is explained in The Silmarillion and he’s just stuck with the unqualified epithet “the dark,” his epithet suggests that there is a consensus that he has a tempestuous, difficult personality.

What’s interesting, though, is that even though we’re told this about Caranthir, it never particularly bears out in the story. Yes, in this scene, we see him rashly rebuke Angrod for what he sees as an overreach. (Pengolodh dwells overlong on the reaction to Caranthir’s outburst, just in case you missed the message that what he said was completely inappropriate and just plain wrong.) But this also seems to be a one-off instance. We don’t see him behave this way again.

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