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thefirstknife · 11 months

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Some important stuff in regards to the harassment of developers came from Bungie today. They won a lawsuit against a guy who repeatedly harassed a community manager and his family (not fully confirmed in the official document, but people are fairly certain this is about A_dmg and his family). This is a twitter thread from the lawyer who went into some details about the situation. The court document is also available to read (featuring some of the horrific harassment tactics that were motivated by racism and also used racism as part of the harassment so be advised if you want to read).

This isn't just a win for the individual community manager and Bungie, but also has potential to set a bigger precedent in the future. It's basically the first time this has been done to this extent and some ruling in this case made it clear that companies can pursue this sort of legal action in the future if their employees are harassed and threatened. This is HUGE because the protection of employees in the gaming industry has been abysmal otherwise. This case will allow for the company to file a lawsuit on behalf of their employees in cases of harassment.

Before I add some of the more heinous stuff about this situation below, I want to say that the majority of reactions to this are positive. People are happy that this happened as it did and a lot of people are excited about potential big influence this will have in the future to combatting harassment of this type in the gaming industry.

Extra details and thoughts below (racism tw):

This started because the community manager highlighted a black content creator, Uhmayyze, who is himself a victim of harassment more often than not (usually of racist nature). He is most often harassed because he is unapologetically positive for which people have continuously sent him awful shit and comments. Because he enjoys the game and isn't jumping on the hate train. Just recently he commended Bungie for a ban wave and had hundreds of people hound him on twitter for his comment, including Gladd who started it by specifically replying to Uhmayyze and putting him on blast (warning for a lot of gross comments, including photoshopped screenshots of fake discord texts to make Uhmayyze look bigoted, nsfw images, r slur, suicide baiting and so on). This is important because the incident of real life harassment was fuelled over a community manager highlighting a content creator that is himself being harassed and despised online for the crime of... being positive. And you know, for being black. This situation isn't an isolated incident. The community, including other content creators, are absolutely horrible towards this one person that they feel, I guess, does not follow the content creator NPC questline of hating Bungie and Destiny.

So of course, at some point, someone from that crowd will feel confident and justified taking things further. How dare Bungie promote this person they hate. How dare they focus on a positive creator. They're clearly biased and don't want to listen to criticism, only to "toxic positivity" streamer. How dare a community manager highlight this creator. It's a personal slight to them, and "proof" that Bungie is bad and evil and "ignoring criticism." There's someone out there (and probably not the only one) that hates this creator and the game so much they were willing to harass and threaten a community manager and his family in real life.

The community manager was first harassed by phone with text messages and voice mails featuring racist bile, including apparently a voice mail telling him to "convince Bungie to create options in its game in which only persons of color would be killed." This is the worst part for me and super concerning in general, as well as showing the dedication of this person to racism, motivated by his hatred of a black creator (which also, by proxy, technically makes the streamer being harassed as well). Absolutely ghoulish behaviour.

This escalated to also harassing the CM's wife and resulted in doxing them; the harasser somehow found their address. Most of the reports on this will say that the asshole "sent them pizza" which doesn't truly capture how horrific the incident was. First, it's a random guy who has your address which is concerning enough given that he harasses you by phone already. Apparently the pizza was made to be "inedible" and the delivery was instructed to bang loudly on the door upon arrival to maximise discomfort. The order was also deliberately made to be paid on delivery to create as much pain for the victims as possible. The harasser also kept track of the delivery and then called the family again when it was done to tell them to "enjoy the pizza." The family immediately contacted Bungie who contacted the police and provided the family with protection. There's no telling how this would've escalated had they not been in the position to call Bungie and had Bungie not reacted to them asking for help. It's absolutely crucial here that Bungie is the type of a company willing to immediately assist in this situation.

Immediately following that, Bungie organised a long and expensive manhunt to identify the harasser and bring them court. That's where most of the expenses went; finding the culprit and protecting the employee and his family. This is the money Bungie earned back by this court decision because they could prove that the expenses were caused by a person harassing and threatening their employee.

This is a big win overall for the whole industry. It's Bungie setting a precedent on how a company should protect its employees. No matter what people think about Bungie or big corporations or whatever, this is how you can use a lot of money and power to make sure that your workers have rights to decency and safety. That's huge for the rights of workers and worker protections. I hope it becomes a standard and that any future harassment is prevented altogether or at least punished accordingly.

Naturally, the commentary on the news from a big part of the community is super positive. Unfortunately, there's also a part of the community that has a lot of really awful shit to say about this. The comments on twitter are littered with people who are using THIS specific moment to yell about Bungie being a greedy corporation, how the money they won should be used to "fix the servers" and "make more pvp maps" or how Bungie will greedily put this money "into Eververse" or "into Marathon." There's comments about how time was uselessly spent protecting an employee who should expect harassment anyway, instead of working on "fixing the game."

This is what I mean when I talk about how impossible it is in the current situation to have a meaningful discussion about any sort of criticism or feedback. There's thousands of comments from people who think that this specific instance shows how Bungie is greedy. This is what I mean when I say that none of these people actually understand what they're talking about. You can't make proper criticism when you can't separate game development with a company's legal effort to stop an escalating harassment campaign of an employee. The majority of gamers are simply not fit to offer any criticism or feedback. The idea that we all have something useful to say and that employees at Bungie are obliged to give us their time of the day is simply incorrect.

I genuinely 100% stand by the claim that the recent barrage of content creators promoting the idea that Bungie is "the greediest company in the world that's scamming players and increasing costs out of greed" as well as the idea that Bungie is "abandoning Destiny for Marathon, isn't working on the game anymore and is deliberately ruining it" is the reason for these comments existing. If a big streamer said that Bungie is getting too much money but also not doing anything "good" with it, then any money that Bungie receives (including compensation for expenses they took to protect an employee from active harm) is a result of greed. The nuance of any situation is lost; when you only learn the mantra of "company has money therefore company bad" you WILL end up causing harm for people and you will most definitely not be an advocate of workers rights. That's where we're at right now.

The dehumanisation of people who work at Bungie (and the harassment itself) is a consequence of this crap and other similar crap that's been thrown into the ether for the past year, disguised as "we're just offering feedback." People heard that Bungie is a "microtransaction hell" and that Bungie is only investing in Eververse and Marathon and they feel like this story reflects that; they feel like an employee being harassed is not deserving of proper condemnation and that this isn't important enough and that Bungie is a greedy corpo anyway so who cares about that. They do not understand how companies work, how games are made, the state of the industry as a whole (or the world as a whole), the treatment of employees or workers' rights, and you cannot meaningfully critique a company's business practices without understanding that. And they don't because they think that legal expenses used to protect victims, finding a culprit and bringing their ass to court is money that is being used for game development and that Bungie receiving this money should result in... new pvp maps or "fixed servers."

And there's even seemingly good commentary where people recognise how this is good, but they initiate the comment with "As much as I hate Bungie and Destiny and I think they're awful and greedy and destroying gaming as a whole..." : that's not the time and place. You don't have to excuse your support of a big win for potential new employee protection policies just because those policies are done by a company. Of course it is. Companies are the only ones capable of pursuing this sort of legal action. It's one good way a big company can put their power and money into a good place to actually help people and bring forth positive change. And like, you don't have to tell us how much you despise Bungie before you're "allowed" to admit that this is good news. Sometimes companies do good stuff. It's literally not that complicated.

I hope that this situation will help other employees demand the same protection, that other companies will follow suit and that this will also make potential other harassers rethink whether or not they will engage in this or similar type of behaviour. In the meantime, know that the community is largely positive about this, but that there are still absolutely detestable human beings who should feel ashamed of their reaction to this. They shouldn't feel welcome here. And there's still people doing this to the devs and I hope Bungie takes their asses to court too.

#destiny 2 #bungie #long post #this was a lot and i'm glad it had a happy ending #reading some of the comments unfortunately added to my depression tenfold #as usual the best thing to do if you feel strongly against a content creator or a video game is to leave #simply leaving would've stopped this whole thing #it's why that's my go to response to people who feel super strongly about how bungie is the worst #bro if bungie is the worst thing ever then your feedback will NOT change shit and you gotta go do something else #like if you still enjoy the game and have some criticism that's fine! i do too!#but if your entire online personality is criticism of bungie you gotta rethink your priorities #before you turn into this guy who will owe bungie 500k until the rest of his life #especially if you're a creator with a reach of tens of thousands of people or more. you gotta be careful with what you say #because your words WILL entice this behaviour. there is someone in your audience who will go too far #anyway. wanted this off my chest this whole situation has been super fucked up #and the brunt of it started around the time criticism started getting really bad last year #end of haunted-start of plunder + lightfall showcase which had massive harassment of trans employees online #we have not known peace since then and neither have bungie employees apparently #genuinely disheartening that people can act this way about a video game

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thevalleyisjolly · 1 year

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I think part of what troubles me about the opinion that Maglor and Maedhros were the “best” people to raise Elrond and Elros is that many (though not all) such interpretations often refer to fanon interpretations as if they were canon. Which there’s nothing wrong with enjoying fanon! But when popular fanon starts being treated as a definitive canon and subsequently starts being used as a lens for textual interpretation and engagement (and in some extreme cases, an excuse for bashing other characters), that’s when it gets a little eyebrow-raising.

So in this post, I’m going to examine some of the more common fanon beliefs and headcanons around Maglor and Maedhros as parental figures/guardians to Elros and Elrond. The point is not to debunk them and say that you cannot interpret the texts this way or enjoy them as a fan reading. Indeed, if there was no textual or analytical basis for these headcanons altogether, they would not exist. Neither is this meant to bash anyone. Rather, I’d like to show that many of the assumptions we hold are nowhere near as solid or definitive as they sometimes seem to be, and that there is in fact room for a plurality of different headcanons and readings to coexist without elevating one over the other.

1. Maedhros and Maglor were both involved in Elros and Elrond’s upbringing.

As the wealth of Kidnap Fam content demonstrates, this is a very common headcanon. However, let’s look at what the Silmarillion says. Bolding is mine for emphasis.

For Maglor took pity upon Elros and Elrond, and he cherished them, and love grew after between them, as little might be thought; but Maglor’s heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath. (”Of the Voyage of Eärendil”)

Nowhere is Maedhros mentioned. He is mentioned in the version of the story included in The Fall of Gondolin, where the passage instead reads:

For Maidros took pity on Elrond, and he cherished him, and love grew after between them, as little might be thought; but Maidros’ heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath. (”The Conclusion of the Quenta Nolodrinwa”)

Christopher Tolkien’s commentary directly interjects after this to observe that the passage was rewritten to be the version in the published Silmarillion, which is an interesting distinction to make when the entire version of the story it comes from is very different from the one in the Silmarillion; it is also worth noting that apart from changing which Son of Fëanor it was, Tolkien kept this passage nearly verbatim in the Silmarillion.

Maedhros is also mentioned in the preceding chapter, in Tolkien’s sketch of the mythology, with the line:

Their [Eärendel and Elwing] son Elrond who is part mortal and part elven, a child, was saved however by Maidros. (”The Conclusion of the Sketch of the Mythology”)

So yes, there was once a version of the story in which Maedhros was the one who spared Elrond (Elros did not yet exist, at least not as Elrond’s brother, at this point in Tolkien’s thinking). This version of the story differs quite significantly from the published version in the Silmarillion; as Christopher Tolkien comments, the Silmarils were of much less significance and had differing fates (Beren and Lúthien’s Silmaril was lost in the Sea after Elwing threw it in, Maglor threw another into a fiery pit, and the third was taken from Morgoth’s crown and launched into the outer darkness by Eärendil). Also notably, Eärendil does not intercede on behalf of Middle-earth before the Valar.

Of course, being a Tolkien fan pretty much entails picking and choosing which bits of the Legendarium you like. If you want to take Tolkien’s original thinking that it was Maedhros rather than Maglor who cherished Elrond and Elros, and mix that with the more common version of events in the Silmarillion, go wild. You can say that the narrator is unreliable, that it makes logical sense for Maedhros to be involved, or that it’s simply more fun to imagine domestic shenanigans with the last two Sons of Fëanor. But there’s a difference between blending versions of the story as your own personal headcanon, and asserting that headcanon as the one true fanon.

It is also interesting to observe that at no point are both brothers mentioned in relation to Elrond and Elros; it is either Maglor or Maedhros. The version in The Fall of Gondolin has Maglor sitting by the Sea and singing in regret after the Third Kinslaying while Maidros saves Elrond; in the Silmarillion, it is only Maglor who takes pity on Elrond and Elros.

2. No one else cared about Elros and Elrond; only Maedhros and Maglor did.

Very explicitly in The Silmarillion, “Great was the sorrow of Eärendil and Elwing for the ruin of the havens of Sirion, and the captivity of their sons, and they feared that they would be slain...” (”Of the Voyage of Eärendil”). But we also read:

Too late the ships of Círdan and Gil-galad the High King came hasting to the aid of the Elves of Sirion; and Elwing was gone, and her sons. Then such few of that people as did not perish in the assault joined themselves to Gil-galad, and went with him to Balar; and they told that Elros and Elrond were taken captive, but Elwing with the Silmaril upon her breast had cast herself into the sea. (”Of the Voyage of Eärendil”)

Again, bolding is mine for emphasis.

What we see in the Silm version of the story is that 1) when Sirion was attacked, Círdan and Gil-galad raced to help but were too late, 2) a very large percentage of the population of Sirion died in the Kinslaying, and 3) those who survived reported that Elros and Elrond had been taken captive. That’s it.

True, there is no mention of any rescue attempts or negotiations, but there also isn’t mention of anything else because at this point, the narrative returns to Eärendil. Which makes sense, because the voyage of Eärendil is the whole entire point of the chapter, and arguably the climax of the version of the narrative that’s in The Silmarillion. It’s not “Of the Captivity of Elros and Elrond,” or “Of the Third Kinslaying,” the main focal point of the story is Eärendil sailing to Aman and pleading for all the people of Middle-earth.

There’s also another version of this story in The Fall of Gondolin, where we read:

...but the folk of Sirion perished or fled away, or departed of need to join the people of Maidros, who claimed now the lordship of all the Elves of the Hither Lands. (”The Conclusion of the Quenta Noldorwa”)

In this version, the survivors do not go to Gil-Galad, but either flee or join Maedhros who now claims lordship of all the Elves. If you go by this story, then there really is very little possibility of a rescue, since 1) Maedhros is now the most powerful lord among the Elves and claims authority over all who are left, where would they even go if they got away, and 2) it would therefore be a betrayal to stand against or attack one’s lord. It also opens up the possibility that Elrond (this is the version without Elros) had other survivors of Sirion around him while he was a captive, and was therefore not alone.

What all this means though is that we can headcanon whatever we like regarding what happens in Beleriand during this time, but we really don’t have enough information to definitively say what did or did not happen. And what information we do have in The Silmarillion at least suggests that Círdan and Gil-galad cared about the people of Sirion and tried to help them, and also that the people of Sirion were not in great shape to be mounting any sort of attack on Maedhros and Maglor.

Also, just because someone who survives a horrifically traumatic mass murder which killed nearly everyone they knew does not immediately go out and fight for the well-being of other survivors, it does not therefore mean that they don’t care about them or that they care less than the perpetrators.

3. Maglor raised Elros and Elrond to adulthood.

This is another one of those instances where the absence of evidence does not make a positive. We don’t actually know for certain how long Elros and Elrond were with Maglor. In the early letter where Elros and Elrond are found in a cave, it is implied there that they were left there by the sons of Fëanor after they were taken captive, and later found by other, unspecified Elves. In another version, in The Fall of Gondolin, it reads:

Yet not all would forsake the Outer Lands where they had long suffered and long dwelt; and some lingered many an Age in the West and North, and especially in the western isles. And among these were Maglor as has been told; and with him Elrond Half-elven, who after went among mortal Men again... (”The Conclusion of the Quenta Nolodrinwa”)

This is also the version of the story where Elros does not exist and it is “from [Elrond] alone the blood of the Firstborn and the seed divine of Valinor have come among Mankind” (”The Conclusion of the Quenta Nolodrinwa”).

Then there’s also this which Elrond says in Fellowship of the Ring:

Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. ‘I remember well the splendour of their banners,’ he said. ‘It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.’ (”The Council of Elrond”)

What we see is that Elrond, at least, witnessed the end of the War of Wrath, including the breaking of Thangorodrim. Then there is this passage from the Silmarillion:

Of the march of the host of the Valar to the north of Middle-earth little is said in any tale; for among them went none of those Elves who had dwelt and suffered in the Hither Lands, and who made the histories of those days that still are known; and tidings of these things they only learned long afterwards from their kinsfolk in Aman. (”Of the Voyage of Eärendil”)

In most versions of the story, the Elves who lived in Beleriand took part in the major conflicts of the War of Wrath. Men do -“And such few as were left of the three houses of the Elf-friends, Fathers of Men, fought upon the part of the Valar...” (”Of the Voyage of Eärendil”)- but very clearly no Elves. So Maedhros and Maglor did not participate in or witness the main battles of the War of Wrath, but according to Lord of the Rings (which I would argue holds the “most canonical” status over every other text in the Legendarium) Elrond was there to remember firsthand, if not take part in, major events in the War, suggesting that they were no longer together at that point (which does not preclude Elrond returning to them afterwards, though it would be a very tight timetable with the Fourth Kinslaying).

Returning to the original point, Elros and Elrond could very well have stayed with Maglor until they were grown, even up to and beyond the Choice. They could equally have left Maglor and Maedhros at any point, or Maglor could have left them with their other kin. Tolkien changed his mind a lot about the details of the end of the First Age! There are a good number of different canons, to say nothing of opportunities for different headcanons.

4. Elros and Elrond turned out to be great people which is all down to Maglor (and Maedhros)’s childrearing (and therefore they were the best possible people to raise them).

Hear the sound of that old familiar bell ringing again? Absence of evidence one way does not mean that another way is automatically true! We actually don’t have any information at all about how Maglor brought them up, only that emotionally, there was some element of mutual love in the relationship. We don’t know for certain how long Elros and Elrond were with Maglor (a few months? a few years? all the way to adulthood?) and we don’t know how or what sort of things Maglor taught them or to what degree they absorbed those lessons.

Yes, Elros and Elrond became great people. But there is simply too great a gap of information to correlate (either positively or negatively) all their future deeds and character to Maglor (and/or Maedhros)’s upbringing. Not to mention, people are not only the products of the people who raised them. So many people influence us on a daily basis, from friends to coworkers to enemies. While Maglor (and Maedhros) doubtless did have an influence on how E&E grew up and who they became, it seems a little reductive to credit them as the defining factor in Elros and Elrond’s morality or greatness, when both of them (E&E) lived very long lives for their respective fates and met many people and experienced many things.

Narrative Analysis: What’s this about themes?

Textual analysis aside, there’s one other factor which I think is missing in a lot of these discussions, which is genre. The Legendarium is full of tragedy. Good people make bad decisions, or suffer (often unjustly) the consequences of another person’s decisions. People are placed in terrible situations where there is no “good” or “right” decision, where anything they choose has tragic consequences. Sometimes people make decisions believing that it is justified or for good, only to discover that it was very much the opposite. Sometimes people know that what they are choosing will hurt them or others, but for one or many reasons, they do it anyways.

The point being that many of the characters Tolkien wrote are purposefully nuanced and tragic. Yes, there’s a Dark Lord and some very terrifying spiders who are unequivocally evil, but otherwise, nearly every character is some shade of grey. Characters make decisions with both positive and negative consequences; they exist simultaneously as figures of both heroism and antagonism. In short, they’re complex! That’s why they’re so compelling and enjoyable!

So why set up a dichotomy of “So and so is better than so and so”? Rather than pitting the sons of Fëanor as “the best” in comparison to other characters, why not embrace the complexity of the narrative?

In order to save the entire world, Eärendil and Elwing had to leave their young children forever. They could have decided to go back and try to rescue their children, and in doing so they would have also doomed the entire world. Whatever they chose, someone would suffer for it. It’s a question that we see explored a lot in fiction but which most of us will never have to confront ourselves: if you were in a position where you had to choose between your loved ones and the fate of the world, which would you choose?

Maglor, a character who has acted almost exclusively as a follower throughout most of the narrative, for once realized the consequences of his actions and, crucially, took active responsibility by caring for and cherishing the children he kidnapped. It does not absolve him of responsibility for the Kinslayings because children are not tools to redeem the adult figures in their lives, and in any case, it is a fruitless pursuit to attempt to moralize fictional characters existing in a very particular setting and narrative. However, it is a significant moment in his character arc, especially as we afterwards see him begin to openly contradict and disagree with Maedhros, multiple times within the same chapter after being a relatively silent follower throughout the narrative. Which makes it all the more tragic later when he slays the guards with Maedhros and steals the Silmarils because we know now that he did not want to, that he might have chosen differently, but ultimately he did not.

Maedhros knew that the kinslayings were wrong and repented of them, and did not attack Sirion for many years. However, he still did it in the end. *mumbles in V for Vendetta “I have not come for what you hoped to do, I have come for what you did do”* He did not kill Elrond and Elros, and in some early versions of the story, was indeed the one to save them rather than Maglor. He also continued to kill in the name of the Oath. Rather than isolating any one of these things as proof of goodness or badness, all of them work together as part of his tragic figure - a prince, once great, with good intentions, who has fallen to such a point in his life that all he can see around him anymore is death and despair.

(On a side note, Maedhros-Hamlet AU when)

Elros and Elrond were young children who survived a horrifically traumatic event. They were able to develop some sort of loving relationship with Maglor (or Maedhros), and as adults, they took pride in Eärendil and Elwing as their parents. Rather than pitting Maglor against Eärendil and Elwing, is it not more important that amidst the apocalyptic horrors of late First Age Beleriand, Elros and Elrond had adult figures in their lives who loved them and cherished them, both before and after the Kinslaying? Love is not the only important thing in the world, of course, and it is not meant to justify any of the actions taken by the aforementioned adults. But. Amidst the tragedy of the broken world they lived in, they were loved.

Summary: Headcanons are great and can co-exist with each other

Not to belabour the point, but there is really so much we do not know about the end of the First Age. Tolkien changed and developed his thoughts on his world throughout his life, and even with what he did set down in writing, there are plenty of gaps where we can only guess. That’s part of what makes the Legendarium so fun to engage with as readers!

With all that in mind, there’s nothing wrong with having a preferred version of the story or a favourite set of headcanons, so long as we acknowledge that they are not the only way to engage with the text. Furthermore, fiction and fan engagement is not meant to be about the moral high ground. Especially with the complex characters and world that Tolkien created, you don’t need to put down other characters or narratives in order to justify your preferred reading. It’s First Age Beleriand! To modify a parlance from Reddit, Everyone Sucks At Least a Little Bit Here. Characters can have good intentions with tragic consequences, make bad decisions but have some good come out of it nonetheless, or do things which have both positive and negative impacts.

Eärendil and Elwing do not need to be horrible or unfit parents in order for Maglor and/or Maedhros to genuinely pity and cherish Elros and Elrond. Those are separate relationships with no correlation. And none of them need to be perfect parental figures in order for Elros and Elrond to have real loving relationships with all of them. It’s not a competition for who can “best” raise Elros and Elrond or who loves them “the most.” You can love Maglor and Maedhros as good parents! There’s just no need to go putting anyone else down, or to treat it as the one definitive interpretation of the characters and the story.

#lotr #silmarillion #i cannot emphasize enough that this is not a personal criticism of anyone or anything #but rather meant to show how the legendarium allows for a plurality of readings and engagement #and that we don't need to Discourse over which character is better or what reading is superior #we can interpret and engage with the legendarium in different ways without putting anyone or anything else down #also; if you really dislike a character and would just like to vent about them; please tag it appropriately with an anti- tag!#it's so disheartening to go into the main tag and see an untagged post bashing a character you like

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