I Enjoy Drawing In This Style 🥰

Of the stayed and the departed.

Our favorite eldritch and less than sane beach bard, for day 2 of Feanorian week! I drew a very young and pleasant Nelyo for yesterday, so I thought it'd be fun to do crazy old Maglor today. I did try to make a more cropped version so you didn't have to see my messy sketchbook pages, but it just wasn't looking right (and the size didn't work well in a post). So please enjoy the random doodles, smudges, a stick helping me hold the page down, and what may or may not be a sneak peak for what's to come on the left ;0.

Close ups:

Maglor miiiiight be my favorite, so I really enjoyed drawing him!

Tove Jansson’s illustrations of Bilbo Baggins are my absolute favorite. I’m obsessed with the Roundness. He’s an officially certified Little Guy

There’s also something so powerful about seeing such a small round character design suddenly whip out a sword:

And Maedhros answered: 'But how shall our voices reach to Ilúvatar beyond the Circles of the World? And by Ilúvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness upon us, if we kept not our word. Who shall release us?'

'If none can release us,' said Maglor, 'then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking.’

—The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

man i wish romance was real and not just something Tolkien made up for his books

Rían’s story breaks my heart.

She was only 10 when her dad was killed along with all the other outlaws except Beren. We don’t know anything about her mom; who knows if she was even around?

Then she fell deeply in love with a great man, they married, she got pregnant, it looked like they’d have a life together, but then he went off to war and disappeared. The grief and trauma coupled with anxiety about Morgoth’s looming presence was clearly almost unbearable for her - and she carried all that pain while pregnant.

She took all the necessary steps to ensure her baby was born healthy, but then she knew she couldn’t take care of him. She was in no mental state to do so. Postpartum depression seems likely in this situation, which must’ve only added to the emotional agony she was already in. So she let him go and went looking for the ghost of the love of her life.

Then she found a pile of bodies.

And finally she just snapped and lost all hope, and her suffering was so great that her spirit left her body behind to lie among all those brutally slaughtered by the enemy, including her husband’s.

It just guts me whenever I think about how hurt and alone she was. Morwen was clearly too preoccupied to help her and she did not seem to understand the Elves. She was completely isolated and depressed and couldn’t handle it.

I wonder if Tolkien was inspired to create this tragic character upon witnessing the grief of young WWI widows.

Nerdanel, strong Nerdanel, young and curious. She travels alone throughout Valinor, to the edges of the light of the Trees. She sleeps on the fields under the stars, she eats what the land offers. She follows streams and wild beasts, she collects rocks and takes notes of the different types of mineral and stone, her drawings filling the pages of the little notebook she carries with her. She goes on foot, and her legs get strong and quick. She ascends the peaks, where the snow crunches under her boots, and running water carves shapes into the rock. She is on the summit of the Pelori, where the air is thinner and cold, and she can see the plains of Valinor stretch underneath her. She wonders if this is what Manwe feels like, if he feels the same exhilaration that she expereiences in her bones. She reaches the sea, she swims with the dolphins and imagines to fly with the seagulls, and her eyes are drawn to the dark sky far in the east. She wonders what had the Elves in Cuivenen seen, how they had lived in the dark, the stars their only guide. She feels observed, a kind presence that watches over her, and the stars look a little brighter as her voice raises in song to Varda. She stays there, at the fringes of the territories of the Eldar, mourning in her heart the day that she has to return home, under the bright light of the Trees - beautiful, but the stars are not as bright as they are here. She would like to take their light with her, to preserve that gentle and distant beauty. But she has to return at some point, she cannot wander forever.

One day, as she is making her way back home under the light of the Trees, she meets an ellon. He is tall and dark, but when he looks at her, his eyes shine brighter than Varda's creations. And Nerdanel knows that she will keep starlight with her forever.

Again, about how the Legendarium begins and ends in fire...

Melkor being drawn to the Flame Imperishable started a whole story. The One Ring perished in the fire, and new beginning was made.

Fëanáro born in fire started a compilation of his actions. As he died in fire, a new era was made.

Maedhros coming back as fire provoked a flipping of narratives. Dying in fire started a new Age.

However, Nerdanel, while starting in fire, did not end in fire. She ended in water, where her story will remain to be written and mourned, and never ended and never started anew.

The same goes for her son, Maglor, who held fire in his soul, and did not end in fire, instead walking along the shores that separate him and his kindred.

In Tolkien, fire is of endings turning into new beginnings.

In Tolkien, water is of a story that never quite ends and that never quite begins afresh, forever haunting the timeline.

We all think a lot about Maedhros’ relationships with his parents and his brothers since they loom so large in his life, but I think there are really interesting contrasts and parallels between Maedhros and Finwë and Míriel:

Finwë held himself unkinged by the Valar against his will; Maedhros chose to give the crown to Fingolfin.

Finwë was a great friend of Elwë; Maedhros was not, and even made war on his kingdom after he was dead.

Finwë wanted to have more children after Fëanor; Maedhros never had children, but he ended up with children anyway.

Míriel was known for her strong will and her tendency to make her words a law unto themselves; Maedhros swore the Oath.

Míriel chose to die; Maedhros begged Fingon to slay him and he later cast himself into a chasm of fire.

Míriel, and of course Fëanor, were well known for the beautiful things they created; Maedhros did achieve some great things, like the alliances he formed, but he was mostly remembered for what he destroyed.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!