Fëanor (Part 2)
Death and theft marked the destiny of Fëanor, who decided to confront the Valar themselves and reclaim what belonged to him.
Fëanor’s life went on without apparent setbacks while he waited for his banishment from Valinor to end and for him to be able to return to his people. However, he had built a home in Formenos where he was at ease and could fully concentrate on his arts, although seeing his father deprived of his throne overshadowed his daily life.
Sometime later, Melkor appeared unannounced. He spoke to Fëanor with kind words, trying to convince the elf of how badly the Valar had treated him and seeking an alliance against them.
However, Fëanor could see beyond Melkor’s speech and realized that he wanted to keep the Silmarils. He immediately ended the conversation and threw Melkor out of Formenos. Melkor, humiliated, pretended to leave Aman but, in reality, was hidden in the south.
After this incident, years of apparent quietness passed again.
The time came, however, when the Valar wanted to end the tense situation between the Elves and proposed to end the rift between the house of Fëanor and Fingolfin. Both were invited to Valinor to make peace.
Fingolfin shook hands with his elder brother in a gesture of obeisance and recognition of hierarchy. Fëanor, not without some reluctance, decided to accept the offer because he knew it was the way to end the banishment and for his father to regain the throne he had renounced.
It seemed, then, that everything was back in place among the elves.
The Valar decided that this reconciliation deserved to be celebrated and organized a feast attended by all the Noldor. But while this grand celebration took place, Fëanor’s fatal destiny was about to be fulfilled.
Melkor returned from the south accompanied by the spider Ungoliant. They reached the Two Trees and destroyed them, bringing darkness to Valinor. Both fled immediately to the north towards Middle-earth.
The Valar asked Fëanor to give up his Silmarils so that the light they carried within them could be used to restore the Two Trees and that divine grace would not be lost forever.
Against all odds, and before all his people, Fëanor dared to refuse the Valar’s request, arguing that he would not give up his Silmarils of his own free will and that if they were finally forcibly taken from him, the Valar would be no better than Melkor himself.
Fëanor’s selfish act and confrontation with the Valar were quickly forgotten because a messenger arrived from Formenos with horrible news: Melkor, in his flight northward, passed through Formenos and killed Finwë. He stole the Silmarils and marched to Middle-earth through the Helcaraxë (Crunching Ice).
At this shocking news, Fëanor went into a rage.
He baptized Melkor as Morgoth (Dark Enemy of the World), and his inner rage grew unchecked as he did so. He could not internalize that his father had been killed and the Silmarils had been stolen. It was too much.
As an exhalation, Fëanor went to Tirion, where the Noldor lived. He did it completely alienated, without remembering that his exile was not yet over and that, in theory, he was not allowed to be there.
Once he arrived in Tirion, enraged and blinded by rage, he proclaimed one of the most important speeches in the history of Arda: an impassioned harangue in which he spoke much and very deep but in which, unfortunately, many words were Morgoth’s chicanery. A mixture of lies and half-truths that all the Noldor heard.
Having become the King of the Noldor after his father’s death, Fëanor spoke much and very badly of Morgoth. He cursed him, charged against him, and mocked him. But he also accused the Valar that they did nothing to stop the Dark Enemy, nor were they able to see his true intentions. He recovered the lies that Fëanor himself believed in the past, speaking of the kingdoms they could build in Middle-earth when they rescued the Silmarils from the hand of Morgoth, whom they would destroy completely.
At that moment, inflamed by rage, sorrow, and the approval he saw in the faces of those who listened to him, Fëanor pronounced an oath that would seal his fate, that of his family and Elves.
The Oath of Fëanor was the promise of the King of the Noldor that, in the name of Eru-Ilúvatar himself, he would not tolerate any living being having any of the Silmarils in his possession. And also, he would violently and relentlessly pursue anyone who attempted or succeeded (like Morgoth) in seizing them.
The oath was taken as his own by the seven sons of Fëanor, while the rest of the Noldor accepted that speech. All the Noldor were then charged to follow their King to Middle-earth to defeat Morgoth, recover the Silmarils and find great kingdoms in those lands.
However, despite the powerful words of their King and the unrepeatable speech they had heard, some Noldor did not have much sympathy for Fëanor and focused their wills on Fingolfin, his brother, and the cause of his banishment in the past.
Fingolfin’s family was very dear to a large part of the Noldor (many even believed that he should be king), and his participation in that pursuit could be decisive.
Fingolfin did not want to be part of that madness, for, in his wisdom, he was aware that the oath and all that was to come would cause great sorrow and pain among his people.
However, he had sworn to defend his brother’s rights and respect the hierarchy; also, although he did not say it, he could not allow leaving his people at the mercy of the volatile and selfish character of Fëanor. As if that were not enough, his son Fingon insisted on leaving, for he wished to see those lands beyond the sea.
Fingolfin finally agreed, and the Noldor departed in three hosts:
Fëanor marched first with his sons and the most loyal of his house.
Fingolfin went second, with a more prominent host than the first and also accompanied by his sons.
Finarfin led a third group, much smaller and not too convinced that he was doing the right thing.
Nevertheless, despite Fëanor’s call and Finwë’s three sons leading each group, some Noldor chose to stay in the city of Tirion and not march to Middle-earth.