Favourite Character from The Silmarillion
Great characters abound in The Silmarillion, so that the naming of any one as favourite might, if tenuously, be considered unjust to others. And I profess a sincere affinity for many characters. But nevertheless I shall name someone whom I have not seen named very often.
It is tempting to name Ingwë, High King of All Elves and the King of the Vanyar Elves. For the temperament of his people accords with what I might call my innate conservatism. For as I prize stability, many an established structure, and tradition, so also the Vanyar prize loyalty to the Valar (the Powers of the World). Fearful of what harm Morgoth might cause the nascent Elves, the Valar sent had emissaries to the Elves inviting them to dwell in the continent of Aman, the Blessed Realm, on which was Valinor, the realm directly ruled by the Valar.
The chief Elven Kindreds were the Vanyar, the Noldor, and the Teleri; and they dwelt in Aman in a peace that stretched to three ages during which Morgoth had been held captive by the Valar for his previous peccancies. But upon the lapse of the three ages Morgoth was free, though the Valar did not suffer him to “depart beyond their sight and vigilance.” His heart, blackened by resentment and envy at the glorious order of the Valar and the bliss of Aman, yearned for retribution; and he saw that he might, with falsehoods and dissemblance, kindle some of the Elves to rebellion against the Valar. Where the Teleri were deemed by Morgoth too weak for his cunning purposes and the Noldor most ready to lend him an ear, the Vanyar were studiedly indifferent to and suspicious of this dark lord, heeding not a word of his fables.
For the most part the Vanyar never returned to Middle-earth once they had accomplished the Great Journey; not heeding the prospect of ruling great realms in Middle-earth, a creed Morgoth whispered in the ears of the Noldor. Only much later did they set foot upon Middle-earth as part of the Host of Valinor that the Valar sent to capture Morgoth in the War of Wrath; but thereafter they tarried not in Middle-earth and returned to the mountain of Manwë, the High King of Arda and chief among the Valar. In that war Morgoth was utterly vanquished and imprisoned in the Void, there perhaps to stay until the cease of time.
I deem the Vanyar perhaps the most virtuous of Elves — not swayed by the suggestions of promised lands beyond Aman — though those of a differing opinion might simply view them as staid and unadventurous. Either might the type of adjective be, and void of most appetite for an adventure, I still relate to the Vanyar.
But the steadfast loyalty of the Vanyar to the Valar does not make for good storytelling; and we must turn mostly to the Noldor while studying the Elves. Finwë was the King of the Noldor, but he was slain by Morgoth at Formenos. Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin were his sons; and Fëanor it was who, swayed by Morgoth’s words, kindled the Noldor to rebellion against the Valar.
Many who joined Fëanor dreamed of ruling lands fair and pristine; but the chief objective of Fëanor himself was to retrieve the Silmarils — jewels which contained the radiance that came from the mingling of the lights of the hallowed trees Laurelin and Telperion — that were stolen by Morgoth. To that end Fëanor and his seven sons swore a terrible oath to pursue with vengeance and hatred anyone who held from them a Silmaril, be it Elf, Man, or any race beside. It was a sort of oath that none must take. From Aman they departed in droves thus charged, and headed to Middle-earth; but for this they needed the ships of the Teleri to cross the Belegaer, the Great Sea that sundered Middle-earth from Aman.
The Teleri, ever ignored by Morgoth and indifferent to him in turn, refused to partake in the Noldorian enterprise. The Noldor, led by Fëanor, engaged in a battle with the Teleri and swiftly overwhelmed them by sheer numbers. This was the Kinslaying, the first instance where Elven sword cleaved other Elves; and blood being spilt on Aman its hallowedness was stained.
A terrible prophecy Mandos laid, the Vala responsible for judgments of the spirits of the Elven dead:
Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West to the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever. Ye have spilled the blood of your kindred unrighteously and have stained the land of Aman. For blood ye shall render blood, and beyond Aman ye shall dwell in Death’s shadow. For though Eru appointed you to die not in Eä, and no sickness may assail you, yet slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you. And those who endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary with the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after. The Valar have spoken.
Fëanor still defied this ringing utterance that was ever after called the Doom of the Noldor; but Finarfin, overcome with grief and with bitterness against the House of Fëanor, forsook the march, returned to Valinor, and obtained the pardon of the Valar, though his sons and his daughter Galadriel went not with him.
I name, therefore, Finarfin as my favourite character for this answer. I relate to those who betimes see the error of their ways and hastily withdraw from a misbegotten enterprise before it could work its unseemly effects.
