#*plunks down a fucking boathook for good measure* and this is patience

[icryyoumercy]

i feel like a lot of takes on criticising the valar's decisionmaking and their judgement of the elves are very... careful? elaborate? like slowly taking apart a complex bit of mechanics one screw at a time until the entire thing falls apart, and while i appreciate it, and it's neat to read, i feel like it's putting far more effort into it than any of it deserves

especially when we could just take up the metaphorical sledgehammer of their treatment of círdan

one of the very few people who has been unfailingly loyal, faithful, and obedient to the will of the valar, and their 'reward' for him is... leaving him stranded on a besieged shore for more than three ages of the world, and 'blessing' him with foresight about halfway through, and just generally expecting him to deal with the mess that was very much their own damn responsibility, and at absolutely no point offering him any sort of actual assistance or showing any sort of recognition for his work

hell, it would be fairly easy to argue that they knowingly and quite possibly deliberately tried to make his task harder if not downright impossible

like, it doesn't matter how irreplaceable círdan is, it doesn't matter just how badly it would have gone without him, it doesn't matter just how desperately needed he was. he had no hand in any of what happened. there was absolutely nothing whatsoever he could have done to avoid the disaster. it was not his duty to help fix it, and no one had any right whatsoever to order him to do so. and the fact that the valar nevertheless did order him, and then doubled down on that order while allowing literally everyone else to sail means their judgement isn't worth shit and they deserve absolutely zero authority over anyone or anything whatsoever

#payment for shakespearean sins #when círdan finally gets to valinor #he has lost any and all fucks to give #everyone thought elrond and galadriel and gandalf were bad #with their hobbits and their dwarf #they got nothing on círdan #círdan knows the valar owe him #and calculating the interest accumulated #would require the invention of several new types of maths #he gets to valinor and encounters maglor and elrond debating how to get their family back from the void #Círdan walks up to them and goes #this will require diplomacy delicacy and patience #*plunks down a fuck-off huge sledgehammer* meet diplomacy #*plunks down an axe sharp enough to shave with and big enough to need both hands to lift* meet delicacy #*plunks down a fucking boathook for good measure* and this is patience #let's go talk to the valar #and elrond and maglor very quickly decide that they do not wish to argue with this guy