Lord of the Lore: An In Depth Analysis of Many of Tolkien’s Works

  The wind that morning smelled of dust and ash. It was time for war. This was to be the last and greatest of our battles, or so I dared to hope. Even before it began, I think I knew it would end in immeasurable destruction. For years I had dreamed of this day. The day we would finally march against Morgoth together, united. Elves, Men, and Dwarves, bound together by their warrior spirit, and awakened by fury. The banners of the Houses of Fingolfin and Fëanor flutter side by side, or so I thought. We were utterly ambushed. There was no sight of Maedhros. Just hordes of hideous and bloodthirsty Orcs and Balrogs. Húrin was there though, fierce and mighty, and Huor as well, young and proud. They stood at my side like the sons I never had. The trumpets of Hithlum rang clear across the plain, and we advanced further, carving out a path through the endless amounts of Orcs, each more hideous and twisted than the last. At first, victory seemed within reach. The vanguard of Morgoth’s armies...

     The game we played in class really helped me understand the moral weight of the actions of Feanor and his Sons. I was assigned to be a prosecutor, which meant my job was to argue that Feanor and his sons bore full responsibility for the destruction that followed their oath.      I had to look past the tragic surface of these characters and focus purely on logic. At first, I saw Maedhros and his brothers as victims of fate, bound by an oath they couldn’t escape and manipulated by Melkor’s lies. But as I studied their actions, I realized that even if they were misled or trapped by their vow, they still utilized free will, which led to death, betrayal, and war. Their reckless intent, especially during the Kinslaying, showed that they allowed pride and obsession to consume them. They may not have originally intended to kill their kin, but their willingness to use violence to achieve their goals made conflict an inevitability. They could have and should hav...