Plot bunnies. Nuzgul. DUCK!!

[thrihyrne]

EDIT. I'm an idiot. Have fixed this post.

I have two lingering Ardaverse stories that I'm working on. I feel as though I've abandoned Middle-Earth for Harry Potterdom, and then, on around the fiftieth time I've listened to "Steer by the Stars" on [no surprise] one of Jen's compilation CDs, I realized that there's a story there, inspired by it. From either Tar-Meneldur's son's POV (Aldarion), or his daughter-in-law Erendis, the focus of the first part of 'Celestial Quartet' that I wrote last fall. All Tolkien Unfinished Tales, all the way. Bound to be bleak, as he (the son) keeps leaving Numenor to go sailing to M-E, but if anyone were to sail by the stars, and it not be King Elentirmo, it would be his Aldarion who leaves his very resentful wife behind. Her choice, though, as he keeps inviting her along, and she keeps resisting.

*intrigued*

Ugh. Off to write.

BTW, the lovely writer llembas, used to go by palarran, the ship built by Aldarion.

Really off to write now.

Instead had long, drawn-out conversation with Mr. Thev about how my life is a mess. No writing. Took today off.

Dedicated to Jen. Who is fabulous.

(and she still is)

Comments

[fileg.livejournal.com]

I thought Aldarion's boat was Númerrámar, the Wings of the West?

[edrys.livejournal.com]

I thought Aldarion's boat was Númerrámar, the Wings of the West?

It was sort of his ship, but not really his own. That was the name of the ship on which Anardil/Aldarion first sailed to Middle-earth with his maternal grandfather, Vëantur, Captain of the King's Ships under Tar-Elendil; the Númerrámar, as I understand it, was Vëantur's own [yes, in UT's Index it is identified as Vëantur's own vessel].

When Aldarion spoke of this venture, and asked leave to go as soon as the spring winds should be favourable, Meneldur was loath to grant it... "I shall miss you sorely; but with Vëantur as captain, under the grace of the Valar, I shall live in good hope of your return. But do not become enamoured of the Great Lands, you who one day must be King and Father of this Isle!"

[snipped couple of paragraphs re: the voyage, which lasted two years]

There was joy in Rómenna and Armenelos when men saw the great ship Númerrámar (which signifies "West-wings") coming up from the sea, her golden sails reddened in the sunset. The summer was nearly over and the Eruhantalë was nigh...
(UT: Part Two - The Second Age: II Aldarion and Erendis - The Mariner's Wife)

Palarran was the great ship Anardil/Aldarion built after his estrangement from his father and before he became engaged to Erendis (it was she who brought the bough of oiolarië (the Bough of Return) to set on the prow of the vessel before he set sail, both events against his father's wishes).

He spoke no more to his father of such matters, but passed his days upon the ship Eämbar in the company of the Venturers, and in the building of a vessel greater than any made before: that ship he named Palarran, the Far-Wanderer.
(ibid)

Note that the Palarran was the second of Anardil/Aldarion's ships, the first being Eämbar.

At that time he [Aldarion], having no mind to live upon land in Armenelos, had a ship built that should serve as his dwelling-place; he named it therefore Eämbar, and at times he would sail in it from haven to haven of Númenor, but for the most part it lay at anchor off Tol Uinen: and that was a little isle in the bay of Rómenna that was set there by Uinen the Lady of the Seas. Upon Eämbar was the Guildhouse of the Venturers, and there were kept the records of their great voyages;...
(ibid)

What can I say? It's the research geek in me... :-p (*plus this is all part of my own Númenorean story arc*).

[fileg.livejournal.com]

thanks, ness. this is the part of the history I am the least familiar with (I guess it will have to be my next place) I remember looking for it when I was writing All These - but I was specifically looking for bosts named for wings, and that must be why I chose it.

[edrys.livejournal.com]

I found a line that I'd overlooked before. After Aldarion returned from that first voyage with Vëantur, it states:

Vëantur did not again voyage from Númenor; but the Númerrámar he gave in gift to Aldarion.

So you were right too. I had totally forgotten that Vëantur had given the Númerrámar to Aldarion. The building of the Eämbar (btw UT's index says that [the] name doubtless means 'Sea-dwelling') came sometime after Aldarion's thirty-ninth year, and the Palarran came later.

[fileg.livejournal.com]

But what does Palarran mean?

[llembas.livejournal.com]

Far-Wanderer

[edrys.livejournal.com]

llembas nailed it: Far-Wanderer

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

*cough* Me thinks you got it backwards; Aldarion was Tar-Meneldur's son and heir.

Yes, of course. I'm an idiot. I know that. :P Hello, Celestial Quartet and all that. Just got a bit over-enthused last night. And befuddled, obviously.

Oh course we can always blame it on Harry, messing with your head like that. ;-)

Yes, although I'll probably have to blame George Weasley more than Harry, who appears only peripherally, if at all, in my stuff.

me <--- still an idiot, but oh well.

*slinks away, terribly embarrassed.*

p.s. wrote you a letter this morning. Wheee!!

addendum to addendum

[edrys.livejournal.com]

(LJ says I use too many words :-p)

Erendis's ultimate pity-party has always irked me a bit, not that I don't feel for her, being left alone as often as she was (been there). But she could have gone with him - and he did ask her to do so, on more than one occasion. And if she would not, or could not go with him on his voyages, she still could have made a real life for herself there in Númenor. But instead she chose to become bitter and allowed that bitterness to consume her. I live with someone like that, someone who has shrunk, become stagnant and poisoned with bitterness over a past that I had no part in, and that attitude has really strained our relationship. So I guess I don't have a lot of sympathy for Erendis. *sorry*

Re: addendum to addendum

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

What you wrote is very true; that first part of CQ is very empathetic to her situation, but now that I think about it in light of your actual life, it isn't nearly as compelling. It was last fall when I wrote it, thinking about how Aldarion was doing a fair amount of clear-cutting in regards to some of the forests on Numenor, and Erendis was very upset about that. As one who co-founded a recycling group when I was a youngun in college, I thought that was a pretty interesting motif. Plus I hadn't read anything else that dealt with them, and since I love watching the stars, I wanted to write something about our star-watcher king.

You're right about his [Aldarion's] pursuits; there wasn't pillaging done under his sail- that came later. I have my lovely hardback copy of UT here nearby and am about to go outside with my legal pad and start writing. Just had to get re-grounded and out of HP-land. It's rather a jump, and the weather is glorious and now I don't necessarily want to get into the head of a resentful man who is sailing the seas, but I'm still compelled by the thought. Perhaps it would be better for me to re-address myself to the young Denethor story which I've worked on this morning. Much more familiar territory, the Appendices of RotK.

*still apologizing to a Resources goddess*

*still horribly embarrassed*

This is why I shouldn't get enthusiastic and post on LJ. I only regret it. Or delete the entries. :P I think I may give up my LJ stuff anyway, aside from commenting on people's entries. It just seems like one more way in which I make an idiot of myself, and I don't need more ways to do that!

Re: addendum to addendum

[edrys.livejournal.com]

Don't regret enthusiasm. I was thumping myself over the head all afternoon because in 20/20 hindsight I realized how this flood of canon-geekery would seem - and I didn't have access to the comp till just now. *forgive?*

It's just that the relationship between Aldarion and Erendis is one of those real relationships, unlike the fairytale feel we get with couples such as Aragorn and Arwen, Faramir and Éowyn, and even, in it's limited scope, Éomer and *gulp* Lothíriel. That's one reason why I devoured The Mariner's Wife (that was the first thing I read in UT after absorbing the description of Númenor - which was the reason I got UT in the first place). It's a very complex relationship, with wrongheaded decisions on both sides (and no small amount of parental interference). He has a passion, a sense of mission, and she... well, she's in love, but in the real world, love ain't always enough. Not by itself. And not if it's a selfish love. That's what I see in Erendis. as her mother Núneth said, with her it was all or nothing.

I really think you should pursue Aldarion a bit more. Not as a resentful man. Sure, he resented the imperative to wed that Meneldur issued. but I do believe he honestly loved Erendis. He just didn't love her the way she wanted (and perhaps needed) to be loved. I've often wondered if Aldarion ever thought about Erendis on those long voyages. Following another voyage on the Palarran (when he was gone for fourteen years - if my math is correct :-p) Tolkien wrote that:

Aldarion was grieved to find Erendis gone from Armenelos, but he was too proud to seek her; and indeed he could not well do so save to ask for her in marriage, and he was still unwilling to be bound.

Yet later, when he saw her riding in the Westlands forest:

... then suddenly he knew in himself the love that he bore her, and he felt the emptiness of his days.

That sounds like a man who had been thinking about her at least sometimes during that long absence.

I'd love to get inside his head on one of those early voyages and know what he was thinking about. I bet there was a lot going on inside that head. did he see young couples among Gil-galad's people who were courting, and think about the beautiful young woman who had risked his father's displeasure to bring him the oiolarië (or to send it to him on subsequent voyages)? Perhaps watching the stars, which must have seemed different viewed from M-e, he would think of her.

Sorry. Rambling again. But as I said, these two are real, with all the complexities of a real couple to explore.

Re: addendum to addendum

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

*forgive?*

But, of course. ((hugs))

I'd love to get inside his head on one of those early voyages and know what he was thinking about. I bet there was a lot going on inside that head. did he see young couples among Gil-galad's people who were courting, and think about the beautiful young woman who had risked his father's displeasure to bring him the oiolarië (or to send it to him on subsequent voyages)? Perhaps watching the stars, which must have seemed different viewed from M-e, he would think of her.

Exactly. The lyrics of the song that struck me were "How can a blind man steer by the stars?" And to me I was thinking of blindness, not literally, but how Aldarion might have been blind to some aspects of his relationship with Erendis. And that's kindof why I picked her when I wrote Celestial Quartet, precisely because their relationship was sortof an anti-fairytale. It is, as you said, one of the most fleshed-out marriages that Tolkien wrote about, which makes it very interesting that it's so dysfunctional. :P

I'm still inspired- I'd kindof like to finish the young Denethor story before starting another Tolkien story, but it probably won't happen. Maybe this Aldarion one can be shortish. Like The Hours.

[llembas.livejournal.com]

*hugs then stares enthralled at all the wonderfully geeky comments about Aldarion*

Hope your day off was spent imagining all possible wonderful futures (of which I know you're going to have one, the trouble is deciding which future to pick) and not spent feeling depressed. There must be something in the air this year that's making everyone re-evaluate their lives. Or is it just a horrible stage that starts in the late twenties and lasts through the 30s? ;)

So it's not just me....

[mistressofrohan.livejournal.com]

There must be something in the air this year that's making everyone re-evaluate their lives. Or is it just a horrible stage that starts in the late twenties and lasts through the 30s? ;)

Hang in there, Thevina. At least you still have your writing. Mine's on hiatus while I deal with all this reevaluation stuff. *facepalm*

MM

Re: So it's not just me....

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

Hang in there, Thevina. At least you still have your writing. Mine's on hiatus while I deal with all this reevaluation stuff. *facepalm*

Oh. *consoles* I had thought that the story ideas would eventually slow, and they sortof have, but no, not really. :P Thank you for your thoughts. :D

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a wonderful day but I didn't spend much of any energy thinking about the future. Paralysis sets in, of "well, where do I start?" and "can I really just pick up and spend two to three weeks on the Isle of Man?" which is what I did yesterday when I went for a run.

Or is it just a horrible stage that starts in the late twenties and lasts through the 30s?

Perhaps so. Some people seem to know what they want to do, and then there's me, who continually flounders. You'd think that for somebody like me who is willing to spend such an inordinate amount of time writing, that I'd take some of that time to actually look at different programs, jobs, etc. Maybe I'll allot an hour or two to do that on Friday, and then I'll feel I've accomplished something. Besides just writing fanfiction. There's also that recent article on visiting the Isle of Man that was in the NY Times recently. I can see when their off season starts. ;)