Thingol and the Silmaril

Tumblr post here.

Anonymous said:

Hello! As a self-described Sindar stan, I was wondering if you have any thoughts on Thingol’s decision to demand a Silmaril from Beren? I agree that Thingol is often more maligned by the fandom than he deserves, but this is the one action of his I simply can’t get over. Not only is he basically sentencing Beren to death, and treating his own daughter like an object to be bartered for, but also… diplomatically, it’s an OUTRAGEOUSLY stupid move imo. Yes, Thingol has absolutely no reason to play nice with the Fëanorians considering the Kinslaying at Alqualondë; but even so, what a breathtakingly insulting slap in the face, to demand one of the jewels their father made and their grandfather was murdered for as some kind of fucked-up bride-price!

Although his later refusal to give the Fëanorians the Silmaril is understandable at least, given how C&C treated Lúthien, I still think this initial move of Thingol’s was SO stupid and unnecessarily aggressive. Genuinely intrigued whether you have any defence you can make for it, because it baffles me. (And I hope this ask doesn’t come across as mean or aggressive, it wasn’t meant that way at all! ❤️)

I said:

Not aggressive at all! I’m not going to argue it was a great move (nor will I ever try to argue Thingol never fucked up, because he definitely did, and his pride gets the better of him on several occasions).

However, unfortunately, bride-prices were very much a thing in ages gone by, and Thingol is not the only father in Tolkien’s work to demand one–most notably, Elrond puts the price of Arwen’s hand on Aragorn reclaiming the crown of Gondor, something that must have felt like an impossible task when it was given. So I would, with effort, set aside our modern discomfort with the very notion of bride-prices and dowries, which were at one time normal and expected, to focus on the content of that demand.

Truthfully, I don’t think Thingol ever expected to get the Silmaril. He gave Beren a task which he believed was impossible, so that Beren would either give up, or die trying. In that sense, I don’t think it was ever really about the symbol, but to give Beren was was so obviously a task he could never succeed at, so that Beren would understand that Thingol would never approve of his desire for Luthien, nor consent to their marriage. It wasn’t Thingol’s way of trying to get his hands on a Silmaril–it was his way of telling Beren to fuck off.

I don’t think he cared at that point if Beren died in the effort. The language both in Silm proper and in Lay of Leithian suggests Thingol and many others in Doriath thought Luthien was under some temporary madness, and Thingol believed Beren was taking advantage of her. He was totally wrong about that, but briefly you can imagine how you would feel if some rando mortal wandering around the woods was trying to take advantage of your daughter. If he had listened to Luthien, he might have seen the truth, but unfortunately he chose to act on his first take on the situation and brush off Luthien’s defense.

There’s also the fact that he loves his daughter, and by accepting her marriage to a mortal, he is necessarily accepting the very significant chance that his immortal child will die because of this. Elves can and do die of grief, and even if Luthien had not become mortal, Beren’s eventual inevitable death might have been her end as well. It was undoubtedly selfish of him to put his own interest in keeping Luthien around over Luthien’s expressed desires, but you can perhaps see how as a parent, he panicked and tried to put a nix on the whole thing. He believed he was doing the right thing by separating her from Beren, but he would’ve realized that was a mistake if he had genuinely listened to what she had to say (also, he might have seen that her and Beren’s relationship is very similar to his and Melian’s).

But Thingol’s downfall repeatedly is that he lets his pride and his temper get the better of him and he refuses to listen to those around him (Luthien, Melian, etc.) When he later calms down and realizes he’s made a mistake, he usually does a mea culpa and changes his opinion, but at that point, there’s usually been some damage.

We see this with Beren and Luthien–when they return, Thingol changes his view on Beren and on their relationship, and even seats Beren at the left hand of the king. Furthermore, when they go out hunting Carcaroth, Thingol’s primary concern is for Beren’s safety, knowing now what he means to Luthien. Additionally, his view on Men in general warms quite a bit, to the point where he takes Turin in as his foster-son–the only time an Elf lord ever fosters a mortal. However, that doesn’t change that Beren and Luthien put themselves in enormous danger trying to accomplish the task Thingol had set for them, and if Luthien had died trying to get that Silmaril, I don’t see how Thingol could have ever forgiven himself for it (and if Beren had died and not been saved, I’m not sure Luthien would have forgiven him either).

So yeah, I don’t think the Feanorians played into Thingol’s request even the slightest bit; this was about him and Beren and Luthien. But yes, once he had it, the Feanorians really gave him no reason to want to hand it over, given what they did to his daughter (and the fact that Maedhros, leader of the Feanorians, never punishes or reprimands Celegorm and Curufin for their actions, which amounts to tacit approval).

In short: Yeah it was a bad move, but more because it shows how little he was listening to Luthien and how little he understood her relationship with Beren, rather than simply because it was a bride-price or because it was a Silmaril.