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PLAYER
Player name: Mary
Contact: delatour@plurk
Characters currently in-game:N/A

CHARACTER
Character Name:Fingon the Valiant | Findekáno Ñolofinwion

Character Age: c. 2500-2700, appears to be in his late twenties

Canon: The Silmarillion (Tolkien’s Legendarium)

Canon Point: After his death in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, F.A. 472

History: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Fingon

Personality: Sometime after his death, a historian will write the following of Fingon the Valiant, High King of the Noldor: “Of all the children of Finwë he is justly most renowned: for his valour was as a fire and yet as steadfast as the hills of stone; wise he was and skilled in voice and hand; troth and justice he loved and bore goodwill to all, both Elves and Men, hating Morgoth only; he sought not his own, neither power nor glory, and death was his reward.” It’s a little hagiographic, as many memorials of dead kings are, but the basic picture is truthful: Fingon the Valiant is the closest thing the Noldorin royal family has to a knight in shining armor, and an elf of uncommon courage, decency, and devotion.

He is also, to put it in modern parlance, quite possibly a war criminal. (A fair number of the people he loves best in the world definitely are.) And to understand that contradiction we need to dig into Fingon’s own history and that of the people he leads.

Fingon grew up in a physical paradise. Valinor in the time of the Trees was beautiful, peaceful, bountiful, and safe- the perfect setting for a happy childhood and youth. While his extended family was never free of tension, that is just what Fingon had, and because of it he became a kind, friendly person who tended to think the best of people if they gave him half a reason to do so. But it was also a place of stagnation: Fingon, while a prince, was never likely to find a fulfilling role for himself in an immoral society which would be always dominated by his undying and supremely competent elders.

It was  partly because of this frustration that Fingon developed his earlier attitudes towards leaving Valinor and the Noldors’ future. What he wanted most was to be doing something that was actually useful to the Noldor, and as he gravitated more towards his father and grandfather’s work around the court, he began seriously considering what it would be like to be in a leadership role, as a ruler and protector of his people. Of course, he was an immortal in paradise- no positions were opening any time soon. It was this frustration that first attracted him to the idea of returning to Middle Earth-while family loyalty called upon him to defend his father and those who preferred to stay in Valinor, it did occur to him  that in Middle Earth he might actually get the chance to build and defend something of his own.

And that has come: but at a terrible cost. The Darkening, the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, and the crossing of the Helcaraxë were his first exposures to outrage, fear and death. They were also the first events that drive home how courage and good intentions can go badly astray. When he attacked the Teleri at Alqualondë, he sincerely believed his family and people were in danger (which, technically, was correct). But because he had not bothered to find out who started the fight, the people who followed him into the fray became kinslayers. As is he. And while there were many reasons behind the Noldor’s journey across the Helcaraxë, one of them was that Fingon was still determinedly advocating to leave for Beleriand, despite the Doom and despite the subsequent betrayal of the Noldor by his uncle Feanor and Feanor’s party.

The memory of those events-and to a great degree the guilt about his involvement- has proved to be accellerant for one Fingon’s most obvious traits: his vast courage and willingness to put himself in danger to help another. The most famous tale of this courage happened shortly after his arrival in Beleriand, where Fingon (with some help from a giant eagle) successfully rescued his cousin and old friend Maedhros from imprisonment. This act was noteworthy for a number of reasons, including difficulty (Maedhros was a captive of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the source of most evil in the world, the enemy of the Noldor and the being who had murdered their mutual grandfather), but it was also famous because Maedhros’ father had betrayed and abandoned the bulk of the Noldor in Valinor years before. Maedhros had stood aside, but Fingon hadn’t known that at the time of the rescue; he had simply thought that the chance of rescuing someone he loved was worth the risk.

The subsequent war between the Noldor and the Dark Lord gave Fingon plenty of opportunities to exhibit that courage (among his other great feats was driving off the young dragon Glaurung, although he didn’t manage to kill it) and was definitely the all-consuming cause he’d been waiting for his entire life. But the war came at a cost to everyone: Fingon’s youngest brother died soon after they arrived in Middle Earth, and his two surviving siblings disappeared to found a hidden city which had little contact with the outside world. With his family spread across the continent Fingon became his father’s right hand, only to lose him as well.

And so Fingon has spent the last decade and a half as High King of the Noldor, taking up the crown which belonged to his father and uncle and grandfather before him. He has become a soldier king, looking desperately for some way to reverse the momentum of a war his people are losing. And when the opportunity came to exploit the enemy’s weakness, of course he and Maedhros chose to take it.

Nearly five hundred years of courage and effort have gotten to this moment...but all the courage and boldness and good intentions in the world cannot save Fingon, High King of the Noldor, from a mangled battle plan and the axe of the Lord of the Balrogs.

Inventory:

• One suit of silver armor, currently with significant burnt marks and a cloven helm

• One sword and shield, of Noldorin make

• The clothing worn under his armor

• One green stone, a gift from his favorite cousin, worn on a necklace.

Abilities:

Elven Racial Traits:

• Elves are immortal; while they can be killed in battle or fade from grief, they are meant to exist as long as the world exists. They are also heal quickly and can’t be poisoned.

• Elves’ speed, strength, and agility is much greater than that of a normal human. Because Fingon is from Valinor and was exposed to the light of the Two Trees, these are probably greater than that of a regular elf as well.

• Elves have extensive mental gifts, including a near-perfect memory, the ability to talk to animals and plants, and telepathy (<i>osanwe</i>).

• Rather than sleeping, elves often go into a semi-conscious trance where they meditate on beautiful images and thoughts.

• Elves are ambidextrous

These skills apply to Fingon personally:

• Swordsmanship: considerably talented, although there are better swordsmen in the family

• Archery: he’s better at this than swordplay, and it is his favored form of combat.

• Horsemanship, particularly archery from horseback

• Military and combat experience, and a particular knack for tactical thinking (he’s also fairly good at strategy

• General knowledge of most arts and crafts:  Fingon doesn’t have a specialized skill or one he is extremely gifted in, but he’s fairly well acquainted with a number of the kinds of art the Noldor tend to specialize in.

• Experience with politics, military leadership, and diplomacy

• Cooking

• Music: he’s a fair harpist and singer

• General survival skills, particularly those applying to combat and surviving in extremely cold environments

• Bilingual in Quenya (his native tongue) and Sindarin (the dominant elven language of Middle Earth)

Flaws: In general, Fingon really is a good person: courageous, kind, and fundamentally decent. Of course, if he were without flaws he wouldn’t have found himself under the Doom of the Noldor in the first place, and in true tragic fashion most of his flaws are not unrelated to his  greatest virtues.

Fingon is reckless and hotheaded, particularly in the attempt to put right wrongs he perceives in the world and in the defense of those he loves. As principally a man of action, he’s less liable to think and more liable to act in the face of what he perceives as a wrong or injustice. His tendency to follow his heart and leap in before he looks at a situation is most typified by his actions during the Kinslaying of Alqualonde, where he lept to the defense of his family members and thus participated in the first slaying of elves by their fellow elves.

He is also deeply stubborn, determined to stick to what he believes is the right course even in the face of opposing counsel. The fact that he hoped to travel to Middle Earth even in the face of the Doom of the Noldor and the betrayal of Feanor demonstrates his sure belief that going to Middle Earth was the right move for his people, it is also a sign of someone who will stick to one’s beliefs over the clear evidence that such actions are in vain and stand a great chance of harming one’s followers.

Finally, his natural optimism leads to a certain blindness when considering his options. Fingon is a knight out of the classic tales, and has an unconscious faith that this sort of decency and good intent will eventually win the day in the end. This, of course, leads to his belief that it is a good idea let his best friend borrow the army and attack Morgoth (Arda’s Satan analogue) in an open battle. As it turns out, that was a very bad idea, breaking the back of Noldorin military strength for the rest of the Age.

These issues have, to some degree, been restrained by the circumstances that he has found himself in since leaving Valinor. As a consistent advocate of leaving paradise even after it was made clear that is was a bad idea, Fingon feels himself partially responsible for the suffering this has incurred among his followers and among the people that he loves. And particularly when his father dies and he becomes High King of the Noldor, he feels the need to temper these flaws in order to help his people. But kingship is a straightjacket to Fingon’s general temperament, and in the end, he is drawn to the bold, valiant actions of a hero-exactly the type of action which will leave him dead in the center of a pile of corpses.

SAMPLES
Action Log Sample: Fingon only realizes he isn’t dead about ten seconds after an attempt to kill him fails. The clue is that it’s the wrong attempt- something swoops down toward his head and he instinctively moves, throwing himself right where he thinks he dropped his sword and grabbing the hilt. With reflexes borne of near five centuries of combat, he swings at the strange, flying creature

And then it hits him: there is no way he should have been able to do that.

He shouldn’t have even been able to move.

He’d been trying, earlier, struggling against the binds of a Balrog’s flaming whip as their lord loomed over him with a great axe in hand. There’d been a great pain in his head, then, and- he was here. If anything had happened in between, he can’t recall it now

He should be- he is- this can’t be the Hall of Mandos, can it?

Though, he suddenly realizes,  maybe his exact whereabouts are not the most pressing issue of the moment, as the creature wheels around and aims for him once more. He dodges, weaves, and with one savage slice in the right place, the awful little creature falls down dead.

So, at least one thing has gone right today.

Fingon takes a slow, shaky breath and looks around. Probably not the Halls of Mandos, he notes, not Anfauglith, where he had been, and nowhere else he had ever seen in Beleriand. Where was he? What was he doing here?

And how had he left?

Well, he reminds himself, there is at least one part of this he can check. He looks around for any signs of life, then raises his hands and carefully removes his high helm.

Which has, as he had half-expected, a gaping hole running through the area covering his head.

 

He hadn’t been wrong about the axe after all, then.