alas, poor Ecthelion
Aug. 4th, 2010 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineSo, I've been trying to hunt down decent Denethor/Finduilas fics.
It's an interesting pairing. Even apart from being my favourite character's parents, and even given how little we know about them (together, that is -- there's actually quite a lot about Denethor himself), there's something about them that interests me. On the one hand, you have Imrahil's gentle, wistful sister (if she seriously died from longing for the sea, he's not the only Really Obvious Throwback in their family), and on the other hand you have ... Denethor. The man who uses chainmail for pyjamas. At eighty-nine.
Besides, the craziness of Gondorian politics gives me warm fuzzy feelings, and the whole affair winds itself out in my favourite period in my favourite Middle-earth culture. So I went looking for fic. Some was good and most was horrifically bad (abusive!Denethor MAKES NO SENSE). A few, like this one, left me so ambivalent that I can't even say whether it's good or not. But there's a certain assumption common to them all.
Ecthelion was composed of purest evil.
I honestly never thought much about him. Next to Gandalf and Denethor and Aragorn and so on, he always seemed a bit weaksauce. Just one of the many generations of Stewards that Denethor and then Faramir so comprehensively outshone. He preferredAragorn Thorongil to Denethor, but they agreed on just about everything anyway, so ... I don't know. He never struck me as either unpleasant or corrupt, let alone the cackling villain I keep coming across.
He hated Denethor! He hated everyone! He had some prurient interest in Finduilas. He seduced gazillions of farmgirls! He bartered his daughters! He pretty much did everything except join forces with Sauron, and that only because it would have personally disadvantaged him. He was eeeeeeevil and Aragorn and Gandalf are (very slightly) tainted by having been liked by him.
It's almost as bad as just about every discussion of Pelendur in existence. Apparently all the Stewards were power-grubbing usurpers (Denethor was just lying to little!Boromir) and Pelendur worst of all. He couldn't possibly have believed that Arvedui's claim wasn't legitimate -- it was all unliiiiimited powerrrrrr mua ha ha ha!!!
Gah.
It's an interesting pairing. Even apart from being my favourite character's parents, and even given how little we know about them (together, that is -- there's actually quite a lot about Denethor himself), there's something about them that interests me. On the one hand, you have Imrahil's gentle, wistful sister (if she seriously died from longing for the sea, he's not the only Really Obvious Throwback in their family), and on the other hand you have ... Denethor. The man who uses chainmail for pyjamas. At eighty-nine.
Besides, the craziness of Gondorian politics gives me warm fuzzy feelings, and the whole affair winds itself out in my favourite period in my favourite Middle-earth culture. So I went looking for fic. Some was good and most was horrifically bad (abusive!Denethor MAKES NO SENSE). A few, like this one, left me so ambivalent that I can't even say whether it's good or not. But there's a certain assumption common to them all.
Ecthelion was composed of purest evil.
I honestly never thought much about him. Next to Gandalf and Denethor and Aragorn and so on, he always seemed a bit weaksauce. Just one of the many generations of Stewards that Denethor and then Faramir so comprehensively outshone. He preferred
He hated Denethor! He hated everyone! He had some prurient interest in Finduilas. He seduced gazillions of farmgirls! He bartered his daughters! He pretty much did everything except join forces with Sauron, and that only because it would have personally disadvantaged him. He was eeeeeeevil and Aragorn and Gandalf are (very slightly) tainted by having been liked by him.
It's almost as bad as just about every discussion of Pelendur in existence. Apparently all the Stewards were power-grubbing usurpers (Denethor was just lying to little!Boromir) and Pelendur worst of all. He couldn't possibly have believed that Arvedui's claim wasn't legitimate -- it was all unliiiiimited powerrrrrr mua ha ha ha!!!
Gah.