rocky41_7

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Anonymous said: I am pretty sure Aredhel would be straight-up disgusted if she learned her situation is used as an excuse for her questionable bestie to commit the same action that was done to her to another woman. Like what deranged bullshit popularize that take is so wild to me, actually, I've recently seen posts claiming Celegorm did the right thing for Aredhel, like how? That's just making him even worse than he already is. Besides, Turgon already did it right, yet the dude is more hated than blorbo the fair. Damn, I just realized, that horrid take is such a clear case of those defending the feanorian's questionable actions by blaming someone else/victims. Yikes. Sorry for sending this, I'm just shocked a take like this was given justification for.

I said:  I think there are a lot of things going on with this whole take (ie: that Celegorm’s planned assault of Luthien was done “in revenge” for Aredhel).

TW for mentions of rape and assault

First, the text gives us zero reason to think that Aredhel is anywhere in Celegorm’s motivations. He looks and Luthien and thinks she’s hot, and he wants to force Thingol to open the Girdle to the Feanorians, so he takes her hostage and intends to force her to marry him. Aredhel never comes up. It’s not even clear Celegorm is aware of Aredhel’s fate.

Second, Luthien obviously has nothing to do with what happened to Aredhel. She’s wholly disconnected from it. Celegorm would have to do some insane mental gymnastics to view assaulting this random stranger as “avenging” Aredhel’s abusive marriage.

However, third, it’s not impossible that he decided assaulting some random Sinda could be ~vengeance~ since Aredhel’s abusive husband was a Sinda. I can definitely see how you could write Celegorm in a way where he twists this around to justify his own planned assault of Luthien with “well it’s vengeance for Aredhel” when it’s really mostly because he wants to fuck Luthien and get what he wants from Doriath.

Fourth, personally I doubt that Aredhel would be onboard with this. #1, she initially pleads mercy for Eol from Turgon (prior to their realizing he’s poisoned her and therefore likely premeditated her and Maeglin’s murders). If she was willing to show mercy even to the guy who abused her, it seems unlikely she’d want to see some random woman suffer for his wrongs. #2, I personally don’t jive with the idea that Aredhel suffers an abusive marriage and then feels good about watching the same thing happen to another woman (who again, has no relationship to what happened to Aredhel).

I can and do in my Aredhel headcanons picture her brushing off a lot of Celegorm and her other male friends/acquaintances’ grosser behavior towards women as “not that big a deal.” It’s not that Aredhel is required to be some girlpower/sisterhood champion, because I definitely don’t see her that way. If she had never met Eol, I can easily see her handwaving Luthien’s experience as “well nothing actually happened.” However, I imagine her experience with Eol perhaps shifts her view on what she’s willing to overlook from the men in her life and I do think she would be furious with Celegorm about what he meant to do (and even angrier if he tried to justify it with her name).

But also fifth, if you want to see Aredhel as someone who is so warped and angry that she wants other women to suffer what she suffered, that’s not necessarily invalid. I’m sure there are people out there who feel that way and it’s not impossible that Aredhel could see someone like Luthien and some part of her wants to see Luthien suffer just so Aredhel feels less alone in what happened to her, or something like that. Misery loves company, etc.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this interpretation of Aredhel as someone so jaded and bitter about what happened to her that she wishes bad things on other people.

But finally, none of these things excuse Celegorm’s behavior. Whether he did it ~for Aredhel~ or not, whether Aredhel approved or not, it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t make it any less terrible. He still planned to force a woman to marry him and presumably rape her as part of it. Nothing can make that okay, and having the approval of a single female friend in this effort does not absolve him of what a horrible thing it was to do.