Reviewer:Aislynn Crowdaughter Date:06/17/07
Hi, Oshun! I like this story very much; it is a nice touch that you imply Gil-Galad was conceived in a threesome, and could even have been the grandson of Feanor... (but as it seems to be, he wasn't, here). I love the way the two of them are with each other, easy, relaxed, happy. Very well done!
Aislynn
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[2] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer: Date:06/18/07
Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I have been getting a lot of feedback on this piece--people seem to really love to speculate on the question. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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[3] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer: Date:06/18/07
Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I have been getting a lot of feedback on this piece--people seem to really love to speculate on the question. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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[4] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer: Date:06/18/07
Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I have been getting a lot of feedback on this piece--people seem to really love to speculate on the question. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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[5] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer:Maeve Date:06/19/07
Hello,
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[6] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer:Maeve Date:06/19/07
Sorry for the previous aborted attempt. :(
I am very sorry to have to dissent with other people´s opinion. But I have decided, nonetheless, to have the evil courage to say that this plot thread doesn´t seem like a good idea to me at all.
I have always liked Fingon/ Maedhros slash. So far, all the stories I have read (and they are many) either made Orodreth Gil-galad´s father (like the first author to do that pairing at all), or make Maedhros´s love go unrequited, or just set their fics in a timespan that allows them to blissfully ignore the parentage issue. But to make Fingon be Maedhros´s lover AND have a wife and son goes, to my taste, too much against the core of Tolkien´s views on Elves. Tolkien, true, would probably be also against Elven homosexuality, but it´s not so hard to integrate *that* in a Middle-Earth context: after all, it will always be the joining of two souls. But poligamy?
Tolkien spent a very long time turning in circles about the issue of Finwë and Míriel, and went so far as to gather all the Valar in council and make a Statute on his remarriage. Only because Míriel swore that she would never leave the Halls of Mandos were Finwë and Indis allowed to marry, because no Elf may have two spouses. Furthermore, Tolkien says that Finwë was the only Elf to ever do so. Even if you choose to disregard LaCE, you go against a daunting evidence in the Silmarillion itself, and therefore in the very events that are the background of your storyline.
Also, on a pure reader gut reaction, it looks mightily unfair on both Maedhros and the woman.
Please, do not understand it as criticism of your other beautiful stories of this same arc. It´s precisely because I like the rest that I do not like this.
All the best
Maeve
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[7] Fingon's Heir by:oshun
Reviewer:oshun Date:06/19/07
Thank you so much for reading and commenting extensively on my ficlet about the parentage of Gil-Galad. First, I very much appreciate the kind remarks you made about the other stories in my Maedhros/Fingon story arc. This is a very small glimpse of a complicated plot point which I have thought about, but have not yet written. Perhaps (and I can only hope this will be so), if and when you read the whole thing, you will be somewhat more accepting of why I have made the choices I have made. It may be that we will simply have to agree to disagree. I am extremely curious at your reference to the first author who wrote the pairing of Fingon and Maedhros—would love it if you would share that information with me. I am a relative newcomer to fanfiction.
As you might guess, since there is so much written about Fingon and Maedhros, I would not have chosen to write their story myself if I had not had a dissatisfaction with a great deal of it. I found that although denouement of the story of Maedhros and Fingon is tragic, the story of the Noldor in Beleriand and their accomplishments is massive and heroic transcends simply the grim and disastrous. The reunification of the Noldor in Middle-earth alone or the rescue of Maedhros would be remarkable. Maedhros’s survival does not indicate to me a broken and destroyed man; it took most of the rest of the First Age to bring him to his lowest point. I was more impressed with the initial accomplishments of the Noldor in their relative youth and strength—building kingdoms, resisting Morgoth and all that those things entailed. My sense is that too many Silmarillion-based fanfics jump much too quickly into angst and unmitigated misery. I do not believe that a spent, worn-out, mad and/or deeply disturbed Maedhros or Fingon could have accomplished what they accomplished. I want to portray their resilience as well of their suffering. I sought above all else to avoid that in the earlier part of my stories—I will reach the Nirnaeth Arnoediad all too soon. To write the bitterness of the end without writing what came before would be like writing the story of King Arthur without Camelot.
On the question of the Gil-Galad’s mama: I think you will have to wait for the story to be written know if she was lucky or unlucky. Obviously I Fingon and Maedhros in this story as the principle pair and the woman in the story as an elf who chose to participate in their destiny understanding that fact. (This is will involve me attempting to get the reader to consider political, cultural and sexual/psychological questions quite differently from the manner in which they are presented by Tolkien. I am challenging the reader to love Tolkien’s work enough to persist in reading what I am writing, while being able to consider other variations upon the relevant themes.)
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