Were all the Sons of Feanor really that bad?

[Morwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

I think it's quite implicit in the text that by casting away the Silmarils, both Maedhros and Maglor abandoned their oath:

"But the jewel burned the hand of Maedhros in pain unbearable; and he perceived that it was as Eonwe had said, that his right hitherto had become void, and that the oath was in vain."

Maedhros committed suicide, and Maglor threw his Silmaril away. What more can one say but that they voided their oaths?

Abandoning the oath is what Maglor was urging in his conversation with Maedhros - to leave the Silmarils with Eonwe and forget about trying to regain them. However, they don't do this and I think that what was Maglor and Maedhros abandoned in the end was possession of the Silmarils and not the Oath itself.

I would make a distinction between the requirement of the oath and ultimate objective. The Oath required the brothers to pursue with vengeance anyone who held a Silmaril and they did just that. If the objective of the oath was to ensure that one day either Feanor or his sons would get the Silmarils back then by the end of the First Age that was accomplished.

However, the brothers then realise that the oath was in vain. They cannot keep what they fought and killed to possess. However, that realisation does not lead them to surrender the Silmarils to Eonwe or anyone else. To do so would have been to truly abandon their Oath, to allow persons other than themselves to keep a Silmaril. They choose instead to put the Silmarils beyond the reach of anyone else.

To get back on topic, Maglor and Maedhros seem to be the only two of Feanor's sons who had any qualms about the "we will do anything to get what we want" nature of the Oath. Someone mentioned "free will" earlier. I saw the Oath here as a fetter on their free will and that within Tolkien's world that appears to be the nature of oaths in general.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Morwen

Abandoning the oath is what Maglor was urging in his conversation with Maedhros - to leave the Silmarils with Eonwe and forget about trying to regain them. However, they don't do this and I think that what was Maglor and Maedhros abandoned in the end was possession of the Silmarils and not the Oath itself.

I would make a distinction between the requirement of the oath and ultimate objective. The Oath required the brothers to pursue with vengeance anyone who held a Silmaril and they did just that. If the objective of the oath was to ensure that one day either Feanor or his sons would get the Silmarils back then by the end of the First Age that was accomplished.

However, the brothers then realise that the oath was in vain. They cannot keep what they fought and killed to possess. However, that realisation does not lead them to surrender the Silmarils to Eonwe or anyone else. To do so would have been to truly abandon their Oath, to allow persons other than themselves to keep a Silmaril. They choose instead to put the Silmarils beyond the reach of anyone else.

I see your reasoning and agree to a point, but the third Silmaril was indeed in someone else's hands, and they knew they could never retrieve it, and I don't think Maedhros was of sound mind when he killed himself (suicides seldom are, are they?); therefore, I don't believe he had the wherewithal to think he was ridding the world of the Silmaril when he made his leap, nor could Maglor believe that by merely tossing the Silmaril into the sea it would never be recovered (tides the way they are).

It sounds more to me like a huge sense of guilt and regret on their parts, and ridding themselves of further torment (in one case ending one's life, and the other throwing away a remembrance of sin), rather than fulfilling their oaths.