simaethae:

So I should preface this post by saying that if you like you
can just read this
ficlet I wrote and gogol’s
much superior meta on the subject instead, it’s fine, this probably won’t
add much, but: here’s my opinions on the Oath of Fëanor, you’re welcome!

So, there’s this tendency in fandom to treat the Oath as a
magical compulsion rather than just an ordinary promise – which is not entirely
without canon support. The clearest example I can find is the way Finrod talks
about it:

For the Silmarils are
cursed with an oath of hatred, and he that even names them in desire moves a
great power from slumber; and the sons of Fëanor would lay all the Elf-kingdoms
in ruin rather than suffer any other than themselves to win or possess a
Silmaril, for the Oath drives them.

On the other hand! I don’t mean to discard Finrod’s insight
into the situation – he probably knew as much as anyone other than the
Fëanorians about the Oath, and he’s a knowledgeable and intelligent person. But
even here, it’s equally easy to read the whole passage as metaphorical. And
Finrod himself isn’t an unbiased source: he’s (currently) on friendly terms
with Celegorm and Curufin, some of the people who killed his own kin at
Alqualondë. He kind of has to find a
way to reconcile their behaviour to himself. (And he’s about to get killed
fulfilling his own oath. There are a lot of reasons he might want to see what
happens as inevitable.)

I could keep going with examples but it’s pretty much all
equally ambiguous – maybe it’s a compulsion, maybe it’s a metaphor, maybe the
narrator themself has no idea and is extrapolating and/or being hyperbolic. So
that established, I am not really interested in trying to grind through the
evidence to try and force some sort of definitive answer that doesn’t exist.

But the thing is, I like
writing about mind control. I find the idea of not being able to control your
own thoughts squickily fascinating. It horrifies me, so I want to keep poking
it with a stick.

Keep reading