Destroy Everything You Touch

I've read a lot of fic about Fëanáro. I DO adore it when he's just a magnificent bastard who is fully willing to ruin everything and everyone to get his way. It's always a fun read when he is sure he is the smartest (and wisest and most talented and prettiest) person in the room and come hell or high water, he WILL get what he wants.

However, I also love it when he's written with more depth. I like it when he knows things are out of his control and he's being manipulated and driven insane by beings more powerful than him. A lot of writers tackle the idea that being around Valat and Maiar is difficult for the Eldar. The level of chthonic power rippling from the older beings is probably more than the elves can handle. At the same time, the fact that the Noldor are just as (if not more) passionate and creative and innovative often makes the Valar feel very envious. 

The fic I'm reading is like this. There is a scene where Fëanor comes to Fingolfin and makes him promise that if he loses his mind, his brother will kill him. He admits that all he truly has is his mind, and if he loses that, he's nothing but a danger to everyone around him. It's one of the most vulnerably written moments I've ever seen anyone do with Fëanor.

It really pulled the heartstrings. Fingolfin hated the idea but promised he would do it. Of course, circumstances didn't allow for this mercy and that is the truest tragedy here.

I think one of the things I was forgetting last night when I wrote about my concerns with casting on various shows is that one should always consider any version of a story outside of its canon as one that takes place in an alternative universe. This is how I view fics. Fëanor was one way in Tolkien's work. In some fics, he's a controlling bastard. In some, he is trying his best to free his people while he fights god-like beings who are trying to drive him insane. In either case and in all cases in between, he's still doomed to a path of creation that leads both to obsession and destruction. 

The case can be made that Fëanor and Melkor are a lot alike. Both defy the gods around them. Both want to have Arda on their own terms. Both have a complex relationship with their brothers and their fathers. Both are absent of mother figures. Both destroy everything they touch, one with balrogs and one with sons.

And interestingly enough, both have been written in fics with moments of such tragic lucidity that I can't help but love them.