Everyone Dies (Except Galadriel)

Chapter 13: Of The Return of the Noldor (Part III)

Ok so I hate myself lmao.

I honestly thought this chapter would be like, a two-parter originally but I just scrolled through the whole thing and went "oh."

It's longer than I remember.

I honestly don't see me finishing the whole thing in this part but we'll see. 

***

Finally, people I ship!

Let's go. 

Aight, so while the Valar were being dickheads and Morgoth and Sauron were enjoying their sitcom, Fingon decided that he should really go track down his boyfriend, who, as a reminder, was being used as a wall decoration by the Dark Lords. 

So Fingon yeets off to find Maedhros. He heads to Angband, the Dark Lord Fortress, and for some reason, he just starts fucking singing. 

Like there's a whole paragraph about how he's like, trudging through the darkness and it's horrible and whatever, and then it's like "yeah and then he starts singing."

Now, this actually works, because Maedhros hears him, and instead of yelling for help (which seems the most reasonable considering he's basically being tortured) they basically sing a Disney duet for a few minutes. 

After that's done, Fingon decides that he's gonna get Maedhros down no matter what, so he starts trying to climb up the cliff. Unfortunately, he can only get up a certain distance before it becomes too steep, so he stands there and cries for a few minutes.

I mean...while that's not exactly helpful, I don't really blame the guy either. Honestly, I feel like this is the first person in this whole book to have a slightly normal reaction to grief. 

Maedhros, who is also finally having a normal reaction to something, has literally been hanging off a cliff for a hot minute by one wrist and is in severe pain. I really don't want to even imagine the state of his elbow and shoulder joints, like have you read the Wikipedia article on the Rack because...

...oh god I wish I didn't go down this rabbit hole. Do not recommend looking this up.

Anyway, as I was saying...

Maedhros is in agony, so he asks Fingon to kill him, pretty please, because if there's no way to get him down then he'd really rather not stay up there. 

Understandable.

Fingon is still crying. I would be too. 

Eventually, he gets out his bow and arrow to put poor Maedhros out of his misery, and for some godforsaken reason, he decides to pray to Manwë.

Probably solely because Tolkien has, at this point, gone a total of 30 seconds without reminding us that his OC is the fucking GREATEST THING EVER, and due to this severe emotional stress, he's had to throw him in again. 

Lovely.

Anyway. 

Fingon is like "alright Manwë you piece of shit..."

...I mean he SHOULD be saying that, right...?

He doesn't actually, what he really says is "Manwë, King of legit everything, birds really love you and since my arrows have feathers on them this makes them somehow related, therefore I'm asking you to spare us Noldor a bit of pity and at least give Maedhros a swift and painless death."

Am I the only one who thinks the bird thing is a huge stretch? 

Manwë doesn't even DO death. I thought he was supposed to be the OPPOSITE. 

If you want death-related things, Mandos is probably the better option but I'm getting distracted so yeah. 

And, since Manwë is the fucking greatest thing ever, he just randomly sends those giant eagles that also showed up in the Hobbit, and Fingon gets on the back of one of then and flies up to where Maedhros is. 

Unfortunately, Morgoth is literally b̶a̶n̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ in cahoots with a former servant of Aule, and the quality of the manacle-thingy is top-notch (I guess Sauron puts a lot of work into his wall decor) and Fingon cannot for the life of him get it loose. 

Now, poor Maedhros over here has had about enough of this shit and he's like. "Fingon. Beloved. Dearest darling. Sweetheart. Some death would be awesome right now." 

Tolkien put it much more eloquently but I'm in a Mood™️ ok.

Fingon, on the other hand, had a better idea. He got out a sharp knifey-knife and chopped Maedhros's hand off to free him. 

Then, they fly back to Mithrim. Now, most people in this situation would probably die if they got their whole hand severed at the wrist and didn't have like, a surgeon or EMT right there, particularly because of the veins and arteries there that would probably cause them to bleed out in seconds. Luckily, in the case of Maedhros, "the fire of life was hot within him, and his strength was of the ancient world, such as those possessed who were nurtured in Valinor" and he was eventually able to heal. 

Maedhros was not, however, a crab or starfish, so his hand didn't grow back. Tolkien tells us, however, that "he lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been" which will probably come in...handy.

This event made all the Noldor think that Fingon was the greatest, not least of all Maedhros, who was absolutely not in love with him in any way, shape, or form. So, as bros do, he decided to hand over the position of High King of the Noldor to Fingon's dad, Fingolfin. 

He said a bunch of dramatic shit too but idfc. 

While most of the Noldor thought this was super noble and whatever, his brothers, on the other hand, weren't super thrilled. 

Roll credits. 

In the next episode, the family drama heats up! Will the Sons of Feanor be able to act civilly for five seconds or will they immediately make people hate them again because apparently, they went from being upstanding citizens to assholes just by swearing an oath! 

Alright. I'm done.

Sarisse OUT.

*Mic drop*

You know, for all this fanfare we're not even done with the chapter...