Tag: Fëanturi

I’m still amazed that my wesleyverse Namo headcanons are drawing attention from ppl!!! :’D I never thought my old headcanons would make that much impact? Y’all have long memories! 

At this point in my verse development, I would take those early Namo headcanons with a grain of salt, or at least, consider them to be from Melkor’s perspective, and he is an unreliable narrator.  

My headcanons about Namo were always sort of a reflection of my own (and Melkor’s) fears about death and entropy; I think Namo seems to Melkor like a personification of the Void, of nothingness, and unspeakably horrifying, while to others he may appear as something more comforting. 

Elves don’t die, and just like Legolas says he can look up on the souls of dead men without fear, they can probably look at Namo and see a simple caretaker of spirits, or at worst, a warden keeping them from re-embodiment. 

Namo held Melkor prisoner for four ages in Mandos, which was Melkor’s first taste of captivity and powerlessness– an experience which scarred him forever after, so that also had an effect on his perception. Melkor’s sanity suffers a great deal in isolation and confinement, and for ages he had only one visitor, one person he could focus on to blame for all his torments (besides Manwë). 

To the other Valar, I think Namo appears very serene and stoic, less inclined towards outward emotions than some of his kin, but otherwise “normal”, as Ainur go. All the Valar are all “siblings”, but the Fëanturi are bound more closely due to their nature; they are all aspects of human thought and life, rather than of the natural world. I think these three especially have more whimsical and abstract designs than the other Valar, when they take shape at all.  

A lot of what makes Namo creepy is that he represents a function of the universe that the Valar do not fully understand– only Eru knows what becomes of souls after death, and Namo is only a gatekeeper. I think Melkor is perhaps more aware of this than his fellows, and never forgets that death itself remains a great unknown in their limited omniscience. 

But Namo isn’t death itself; so Melkor’s distorted vision of him is mainly caused by fear, and his old brooding hatred of captivity– that is my current take on the headcanon anyway. 🙂