Galadriel: And for you, Legolas, I give this bow of Lothlorien. Do me a favor and after the war show it to your father so he can see what real elvish crafts look like.
A simple flyer for Finrod Felagund’s construction service in First Age Middle-Earth! Warning: Spoilers here for both Beren and Luthien’s story and a few slight spoilers for The Children of Hurin.
“I don’t like sand,” Vader says, looking Tarkin dead in the eye. Or at least, Tarkin assumes it’s in the eye. It’s very hard to tell behind those eyeplates. “It’s coarse,” Vader continues, and his voice drips with unchecked malice, an ancient, deeply harbored hatred that Tarkin secretly dreads learning the source of, “and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.” There’s a hesitation, just long enough for Tarkin to open his mouth to speak, when Vader speaks again. “Not like on the ships. Here everything is cool, and sterile.”
“Understood, Lord Vader,” Tarkin says, not quite sure what to make of what he just heard. “We will use the Death Star to take care of the Rebels on the surface. You can remain on your ship and deal with the fleet.”
Could you imagine being Voldemort’s brother if you weren’t at all interested in his genocide, and have to spend all of your time proving to everyone else that you don’t support what he’s doing?
Even worse, imagine being his identical twin. So you not only have to prove that you’re not like him, but also that you’re literally not him.
I’m just picturing this kind of lame, not super interesting guy. His name is something pedestrian, similar to Tom. Something like Bob. Bob Riddle. He was probably a Hufflepuff. He’s got some low-level job, like as a Welcome Wizard at St. Mungo’s. His love life is non-existent, because the only people who want to date someone who looks exactly like Voldemort are the kind of people who marry convicted serial killers.
But Bob’s unexciting life is constantly made exciting by people throwing stuff at him, cursing at him, literally cursing him, and/or arresting him on a daily basis.
The Daily Prophet constantly speculates about whether or not he actually does support Voldemort, and the Quibbler says he doesn’t exist at all, that Bob is actually just Voldemort trying to earn minimum wage so as to sponsor his genocide. Media headlines dub him “Lord Voldeborb.” So Bob has a series of memoirs published to prove how dissimilar he is to his brother.
And eventually having all these books written about him convinces him that he can write. So he writes an autobiography about how boring his life is.
Okay Anon, I’ve got a copy of HoME now, let’s do this.
Easy mode
Celegorm
Cynegrim Fagerfeox [Celegorm ‘Fairfax’, i.e. fair-
haired.]
That is pretty fucking straightforward, my dudes.
Conclusion: BLOND
Medium
Maglor
As my learned colleague June already pointed out, the laure in Makalure means golden which could be a reference to his musical ability or a literal reference to his hair colour. Given the Finwean propensity for never shutting up about coiffure, Occam’s razor suggests the latter.
Conclusion: BLOND
Curufin
This is harder. We know Curufin is a mini me of Feanor, noted for his ‘raven dark’ hair. But the quote is ‘he also resembled Feanor very much in face’ and face is not hair. Obviously, his hair could be whatever fucking colour.
Conclusion: BLOND
…Fuck, I did my best here
Caranthir:
[Caranthir] was black-haired as his grandfather.
Hmm, I thought. Why not as dark haired as his father? Are we sure Finwe’s black haired? This could be a Douglas Adams-esque descriptive slight of hand.
[Finwe] had black hair, but brilliant grey-blue eyes.
…Shit. But wait!
[Caranthir] was dark (brown) haired, but had the ruddy complexion of his mother.
Inconsistency! Is he black haired or brunette? Or is he NONE OF THOSE THINGS? We also have the clarification he has a ‘ruddy’ complexion which is, of course, what the ‘dark’ must actually be referring to.
Conclusion: BLOND
Maedhros
Okay, this is difficult because his hair colour is given explicitly (”But [Maedhros], and the youngest, inherited the rare red- brown hair of Nerdanel’s kin, Her father had the epesse of rusco ‘fox’.” (Sidenote: Mahtan is a stone cold, stoneworking fox, you heard it here first))
The thing is, these books are Tolkien doing his best to translate and reconstruct ancient, conflicting records and so of course some mistakes slipped in. Tolkien himself wrote an entire essay called How do you solve a problem like Maitimo ‘the Problem of Ros’, trying to reconcile how the ‘Ros’ element could mean ‘red’ in Maedhros and ‘foam’ in Elros. If I were half-arsing it I’d propose the ‘Ros’ in Maedhros is actually the same as Elros, and his name should be read as ‘lovely seafoam’ and thus, if it implies anything about his hair colour, implies it’s white (blond) like his grandmother’s.
But I have a better explanation!
[Mahtan] was most widely known as Urundil ‘copper-lover’. He usually wore a band of copper about his head. Of Nerdanel’s seven children […] The eldest also wore a copper circlet.
Hmm.
So Maitimo had as an epesse given by his brothers and other kin Russandol ’copper-top’
HMMM.
Obviously, the nickname ‘Russandol’ (elements of which were used in the Sindarin name Maedhros) refers, not to his hair colour, but to said copper circlet. Historians like Pengolodh, who had never seen him in person, were simply confused and assumed, not unreasonably, his name referred to his hair.
Conclusion: BLOND
Amrod/ras:
The two twins were both red-haired. Nerdanel gave them both the name Ambarussa
This…leaves me very little wriggle room. But, assuming, as above, that them being red haired is a misinterpretation of the reason for their name ‘Ambarussa’, I think we can do something with this.
When Feanor begged that their names should at least be different Nerdanel looked strange, and after a while said: ‘Then let one be called [Ambarto >] Umbarto, but which, time will decide.’
Umbarto/Ambarto, of course, meaning ‘Fated’ and being a reference to one twin’s horrible, fiery death at Losgar.
Was ‘Ambarussa’ likewise prophetic? What, aside from hair, is copper coloured? Blood. And flame. Thus, Ambarussa refers only to the mortal head injury/fire that killed them and tells us nothing about their hair colour!
Conclusion: BLOND
Send me a (patently ridiculous) theory and watch me scramble to prove it.
radiantanor.home.blog 