You say 'Faeries' & I say 'Fairies'

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

And interestingly enough, Eol, Maeglin, and Saeros all have Dark Elven roots, as it were, by which I mean non-Calaquendi, and non-Sindarin.

Originally Posted by Numenorean

It may also be worth considering that from the point-of-view of the Haladin folk, the Green-elves most probably never revealed either themselves or their ‘reasons’ for afflicting them, and that feels quite wild and disturbing to me.

In Beleriand there are also individual Elves who seem to be borderline traditional Faerie if not wholly so. Eol, Maeglin and Saeros all pervade an aura of darkness, a sense of mystery and of unfathomable hostility towards change as it were, and Men folk particularly.

I sometimes get the impression that there are two distinct histories of Elves, one which we can all read, the other never having been written down at all. On the one hand we have the Noldor, and those of the Teleri and Avari who chose (maybe?) to follow them. Then we also have the unwritten history of the Teleri and Avari who remained independent of the Eldar.

The Silmarillion could be said to be written from the point of view of the Noldor. The story of Eol is a case in point; it is debatable whether he did wrong in marrying Aredhel, but the treatment he received when he went to Gondolin often seems harsh. Gondolin was a 'protected' city, but Eol was also an independent Elf, who was prevented from leaving; his anger was extreme but his freedom was at stake. The story casts no judgement on the actions of the Elves of Gondolin for the events. I wonder how it might have been told differently by other Elves?

Right up to the War of the Ring, the Eldar are still dominant in Middle-earth, despite being depleted in number. If the Elves are a part of Faerie, then we are seeing only one view of it. Thinking of the translation conceit, The Silmarillion is translated from papers in Elrond's library, and LotR is translated from other papers. The Hobbit on the other hand is Bilbo's personal tale, and it is here that we see the Elves of Mirkwood acting in a sinister fashion, and the Elves of Rivendell having fun; maybe The Hobbit is the most 'unbiased' view of Elves that we have, being written by a Hobbit with no 'agenda'?

Originally Posted by davem

This obviously occurs in Tolkien with the Kinslaying, but in the tradtion there is no implication of a 'fall' being involved, no moral judgement at all being passed. Its just what the Fairies do.

Tolkien's Elves as far as we are allowed to see them, have clear concepts of right and wrong, which is the opposite to Faerie, where the two concepts are irrelevant. I wonder whether Tolkien had to 'build in' such strong ideas of right and wrong in order to make a story like LotR work? It is a story which involves much killing of the opposing forces, and we might easily question whether that is the correct thing to do if we are not drilled in the 'fact' that they are most definitely 'bad guys'? So therefore the story must have strongly stated opposing forces, and we must be made to see just how bad these bad guys are?

Throughout LotR there are moments where moral grey areas seem about ready to burst forth, but they are kept controlled; I mean those moments when we see Orcs conversing of 'retirement', or Gandalf refusing to be morally didactic about Gollum. LotR lacks any kind of 'seductive' bad guy who might make doing the wrong thing look to be quite attractive; his Orcs are all ugly, Mordor is vile, no bad guy ever seems to benefit from what they do.

Perhaps in the case of LotR it is that the story cannot allow any room for traditional Faerie, it cannot allow for amoral behaviour?