pilfered_words

A couple things have been haunting my imagination. 

One is @arrogantemu‘s These Gifts That You Have Given Me. It’s so… beautiful, and complex, and …. and… words. There is this feeling of hope, in this fic, which is amazing, given its premise. You know this isn’t going to end well; you know exactly how and when it’s going to go wrong; but that gets shunted off to the side while you’re reading, because Celebrimbor’s vision of a glorious future is just so breathtaking. The Mirdain’s philosophy appeals to me a great deal; it’s all about healing and building, but it’s so fierce, it’s like making war on the imperfections of the world. And much of the story is about that; about trying to fix things, even when there is very little hope. So it’s impossible, you see, to regret anything Celebrimbor does, because anything else - not accepting Annatar in the first place, not making the Rings, giving up on saving Annatar’s soul (saving Annatar from Sauron? that seems like a false dichotomy) - anything else would have made Celebrimbor less, and all of the world less bright for it. (Regretting Sauron’s action’s is a different story…)

Another thought: Sauron doesn’t quite understand free will; he doesn’t quite comprehend the difference between forcing or manipulating someone, and having that person choose to do what you want; and he doesn’t understand that he has lost something by binding himself to the Ring. But for Celebrimbor, that respect for the will of others is at the center of his being. Lordship is repugnant to him. And everyone else in the story echoes those two. For some reason, I keep thinking specifically of Galadriel in this context. A barrier in another’s mind would seem to inherently violate their free will; but the way it is built, it… doesn’t. It’s a door that can only be unlocked freely. 

Some quotes, chosen semi-randomly, because every sentence is a jewel, but only some of them are quotable:

“If we destroy what is good, and strong, and beautiful, because it may yet fall to evil, then evil’s work is already done.”

“We may fail. So the beauty and strength in the world have ever ended. But for a while, this was.”

“You see me, Annatar. You know who I am, you know the legacy of blood on my name. It’s not just the survivors of Morgoth’s slave-camps, none of us are what we were. None of our hands are clean. And yet we will raise them to the light, Annatar; we will see this marred world shine.”

“No one here is unmarred. And if we’re going to let that stop us from lifting up our hearts and our hands to the healing of this world – well, then Morgoth’s defeat was for nothing, because his will is still at work within us.”

“I  – forgive you,” he said. His eyes fluttered shut again, but he kept speaking. “I do not excuse what you have done. I do not excuse – what you are still to do. To me. To yourself. To the world we might have shared. But I forgive you. I forgave you  – a long time ago.”