How literally do we take Melian? She claims that there is malice in Anglachel, and that "the dark heart of the smith still dwells in it" (way to talk about your husband's cousin!). That's similar to how Gandalf describes the One Ring: "the treasure of the Enemy, fraught with all his malice; and in it lies a great part of his strength of old." If Melian is telling the truth, Anglachel is basically a One Ring Lite, so yeah, it's kind of evil.
The question is, does Anguirel share this trait? That depends on whether putting malice and his heart into the swords was intentional. There's nothing to indicate that Anglachel was forged with the
intent of paying it to Thingol, so it might well be similar to its mate, yes.
Speaking of paired swords... does anyone have any thoughts on what this concept of mated pairs of weapons actually...
means? You've got Anglachel and Anguirel, and then Glamdring and Orcrist... is it just a super fancy way of saying they were forged together? Or is there something more to it?
Oh, come on, I didn't even know I needed this!
For preference, I'd like it tucked into the Master Family Tree (like the master map/s), which will finally answer such questions as how many generations there were between the Awakening and the Great March (not to mention naming the Lords of Andunie and Princes of Dol Amroth, Cardolan, and Rhudaur!).
^_^ And this is why Middle-earth fanfic is the best fanfic: because Tolkien laid down so much material to work from, but also left lots of gaps that we just itch to fill. Obviously it's not as good as getting actual new Tolkien material, but unless you're really into outdated linguistic snippets, that well apparently ran dry with
The Children of Hurin, twelve years ago.
hS