MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive

atariince:

Hi anon !

Actually, a
few female friendships are explicitly given
in the texts, such as Melian and Galadriel or Anairë and Eärwen (and I would add Vairë
and Miriel from Vairë’s words in the LQS) – but it is true that it’s far from
being enough!!

Unfortunately, I don’t
really picture Galadriel and Aredhel as particularly close (for various
reasons). Don’t take me wrong, I
don’t think there was any tension between them ; In fact there must have been a
lot of respect and even admiration (and competition), but I don’t imagine them
as great friends. I think they had their own specific groups of friends outside the House of Finwë, and that they rarely mingle.

Nonetheless, they were the same age, so I believe they would often spend time together during their childhood, and I like to imagine that they were both (unconsciously)
influenced by one another – because even if they have quite different
temperaments, they also share more than one feature. Growing up together, but having very different interests, while at the same time
being similar in stubbornness (and in pride?)… it must have been quite challenging to
take care of the little girls when they were together! 

Do I believe they were
quite troublesome? Yes absolutely. Do I think they encouraged each other’s defiant attitude through dares and challenges? Totally! I like to picture the two children both as accomplice
and in perpetual competition, their affection and trust for one another merging
with an odd feeling of envy. You could see them playing innocently together
for an hour or so, and suddenly they would pull at each other’s hair because “she
said my pony was dumb!” – “and she stole my wooden sword!”. And thirty minutes
later they would joyfully play tag while baby-sitter-Finrod and/or baby-sitter-Angrod would panic
because the children can no longer be found but in fact the girls are just
hiding in a tree, trying to not giggle. 

So this relationship – between fondness
and competition – would remain ambivalent as they grow older, while their interests in different
matters would somehow pull them apart… that’s partly why I don’t really believe in a strong friendship between them – I mean, you can like someone and appreciate their company without seeing them as your friend. I tend to imagine some sort of respectful and amiable relationship, relying more on the good memories
of their childhood than on the ‘here and now’. Besides, I have some very strong
headcanons about Aredhel’s evolution among her own friends, and I’m
afraid that Galadriel isn’t part of that group, precisely because she has friends
of her own outside the family.