Finrod and the Kinslaying

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

You are mostly getting at what I meant Saucepan Man. Where I would want to tweak your summation of my point though, is to replace the word "shame" with "guilt". It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Shame has to do with how others perceive one to be (you are shamed in the eyes of others; it's a public event), whereas guilt is how one perceives oneself (you are guilty in your own eyes -- or in the eyes of God). There is, of course, a lot of overlap, but I feel it important to maintain the idea of guilt in order to preserve the overtly Christian gloss that I am giving this incident (and that I think Tolkien would have wanted to give it -- not that I'm bound by his interpretation or anything )

Findegil, you wrote:

I never will give way to the thought that being a member of a folk will impose you with some crime/guilt whatsoever

Well, it is absolutely your right to feel this way (and I'm not being cute or combative, honestly) but there are a lot of cultural and religious traditions that do see the world in precisely this way: the Christian doctrine of Original Sin is a great example. Adam (Feanor) went against the command of God (the Valar) and thus 'stained' all of humanity (the Elves). It's not that we (the Elves) are guilty of eating the apple (participated in the Kinslaying) ourselves -- it's just that the epitome of humanity, the foremost being created of God, Adam himself (Feanor himself) demonstrates that humans (Elves) are capable of disobedience and evil. If he (Adam or Feanor) can fall, what does that say about us (or Finrod)?

Now, let me hasten to add that I am NOT NOT NOT arguing that Feanor 'is' an allegorical representation of Adam, and that the Kinslaying 'is' the Garden of Eden -- there are, however, some very instructive parallels: consider the comparison a (very) loose analogy.