Notes for femgenficathon 2011 fic

[elvenpiratelady]

These are notes for the fic I wrote about Tar-Miriel for femgenficathon. The fic is here if you're interested.

Comments

[dracoena]

Hah. This sounds interesting, and it´s great to hear that you are a Númenorean revisionist too! Míriel is a fascinating character, and Tolkien wrote different versions of her story. Sacrificial lamb is only the one that made it to the published Silm, but I think the one in which she and Pharazôn fell in love with each other and married against everybody´s will "because they were proud and not to be gainsaid" was actually written later

[elvenpiratelady]

I know Tolkien loves his moral absolutes, but Numenor is more interesting this way! Also the more I thought about Miriel's life the more I realise how utterly set up to fail she was by the narrative, and of course she'd be mad. I don't think I'd call it love between her and Pharazon (not the way I write it, anyway) but they appreciate each other for politics and cleverness and they work together and so they can rule better as a couple than either of them would on their own. Because if they actually had warred for Numenor, apart from all the damage done to the country, when it was over whoever won had to either kill the loser or exile them and spend the rest of their life watching them in case they started a rebellion. So it would make sense to both of them to marry and weather the scandal instead. (And besides, between Miriel being the heir and Pharazon being the darling of the people, and nobody wanting a civil war, is anyone going to say anything outright? I'm sure the Faithful were aghast but they are not very good at politics at

[dracoena]

I see that your Míriel and your Pharazôn are quite reasonable people -or at least they were before Sauron came. Most pretendants of the throne would have so killed each other. Maybe getting along since they were young helped. Anyway, your Míriel is lovely as an angry revisionist, which is great. She shares my view of the Faithful being anachronistic and not even knowing it, though I tend to see Palantír himself as more than just a stargazing guy (there´s a difference between trying to change the world by holding hands and praying and trying to change the world through war and politics, even if you fail in both cases). But the way Tolkien describes it it could work both ways. "Akallabêth" referring to Míriel as some kind of cultural myth of a sacrificial woman is a fascinating idea.

But this thing about not marrying anyone closer than your third cousin sounds really impractical and something only the high-up nobles and royalty would do; I doubt the peasants bothered with it.Actually, I think it would be even more difficult for the