torture device meme – MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive

heretic’s fork

Heretic’s Fork: Is there something your muse will never confess to?

Melkor is… very candid in regards to his feelings on things. Part of this may be just a villain’s need to soliloquize and part of it is just that he doesn’t feel a lot of shame. XD
So the things he wouldn’t confess to I think would be mostly things that he would also never admit to himself; he will never confess to his doubts about his rebellion (he doesn’t have many, but he also receives no guidance from anyone, and spends a lot of time alone in his own mind. Of course he has doubts sometimes— but he also has the conviction that he was right.)

The biggest thing is that he will never, ever confess or admit that the Silmarils are his greatest weakness, or that his dependency on them is a leading cause of his deteriorating health and sanity. He will also never admit that he needs help— particularly, he will never admit that he needs help from his siblings who are all lost over bridges he’s already burned.

Sauron for similar reasons will never admit (in later ages) that he is stuck in a downward spiral, that his very need for control is born out of desperation and panic, or that his compulsion to micro-manage every aspect of his armies and dominion spreads his power so thin that it makes him vulnerable.

Basically, neither dark lord is in a good position to admit to the foibles that will cause their own downfall, and even if they are aware of what is happening, they are unable to change course.

Pear of anguish, saws, catherine wheel, crocodile shears

Pear of Anguish: In what ways is your muse sexually deviant, if at all?

That’s… a really hard call? Sexually deviant according to whose norms?

I think according to Ainur sexual and romantic norms, Melkor is absolutely considered a deviant, mostly because he flirts around with maiar and monsters and Eru knows what else. He’s also not “married” or paired off exclusively with another Vala, which isn’t unheard of (Ulmo and Nienna goin’ strong and single)— but in my ‘verse he’s also promiscuous, lewd, and dismissive of monogamy (including other people’s desires for monogamy), so they would definitely consider that deviant, or at the very least, troublesome.

Sauron leaves his maker/father/master in exchange for Melkor, which is more like heresy, or a cultural taboo, than specifically a sexual deviance, but I think there’s a still whiff of it implied.

Saws: Would your muse rather die quick and painfully, or slow and painlessly?

We would rather not die, thank you. We are immortal.

Catherine Wheel: How much pain can your muse withstand?

masteroftheseas Made a good point about this: what constitutes “pain” and “endurance” for Ainur? They are immortal creatures of spirit, so theoretically, their capacity for pain is infinite. Which is, frankly, terrifying, especially considering that one of them is stuck in the Void, an echo-chamber of his own mental agony, for the duration of Arda.
…(I have written about this before and it still scares the pants off of me).

Crocodile Shears: Your muse must lose a body part. Which?

Melkor: *looks down at legs* …This foot is lame and not doing me any good as it is now. I could part with it if necessary. (spoilers: u will lose both)

Sauron: In my present reduced state, I could part with almost any wretched limb if it meant the return of my Ring. I have nine fingers yet to place it on.

Brazen Bull (I love me some petard-hoisting :D)

Brazen Bull: Has your muse ever been ‘hoist by their own petard?’

I want to say: only all the time?

Let’s see, there was that one time with the giant spider, and then that other time when one of us lost his eye and his hamstrings in an attempt to flatten a single elf, and then there was that unfortunate Fate Problem, i.e. “destroying Gondolin to avoid Doom causes Doom to happen”…. And then there’s the Silmarils. Man, the Silmarils cause the most petard-hoisting in the whole legendarium.

Wherever the Silmarils go, petards are hoist.

OH and let us not forget the time one of us made a bunch of rings to subdue enemy which ended up being used against him catastrophically, and then tricked humans into attacking gods but then was killed along with the humans by the angry gods… and we might mention the indestructible ring that held all a certain maia’s powers, which the certain maia lost, and then failed to locate until it was being thrown into a volcano by furry toddlers.

…But to be fair, both dark lords had their fair share of causing OTHER people’s petards to go off prematurely underneath them as well. (*winks at the Noldor, winks at Turin, winks at Thingol, winks at the Second Born, winks at Ar-Pharazon, winks at Isildur*) ….In general, this is why no one in Middle Earth can have nice things.

Scold’s Bridle

Scold’s Bridle: Is your muse a gossip? Do they nag? Lie? Slander?

Both muses have a similar policy on lying and gossip, which is “*shrug* whatever works!“

As far as I can tell, Melkor actually invented the art of lying; the spreading of false rumors has been a valuable tool in the dark lords’ arsenals ever since.

Never use a hammer when a bit of gossip about treachery or dead wives will do.

(As for nagging: the closest Sauron comes is to cough politely and drop repeated and increasingly frantic reminders to his boss, because Melkor’s brain is an enormous sieve, while Melkor is definitely the more likely party to be found in the back seat, kicking the driver and yodeling “I’M BORED ARE WE THERE YET I’M HUNGRY”)

Judas Cradle and Garrote //muse is going to regret the second, mum to enjoy it//

Judas Cradle: Would your muse rather suffer physically, or be humiliated?

While Sauron will occasionally allow himself to be humiliated for the sake of a Long Con (see: Numenor), I think he’d rather suffer physical pain than be humiliated. He had the chance to repent before Manwë, and for various reasons, he chose to stay in Middle Earth rather than submit to judgement.

Melkor, however, gets to do both kinds of suffering with alarming frequency! Evidence suggests that, unlike Sauron, Melkor would rather humiliate himself than suffer physically. He’s done his time in shackles, and he’d MUCH prefer to put his face in the dirt and grovel than have them put back on him for any reason. Also, given the fact that he is stuck in a body that is unhealing, he has to be careful how much physical damage he sustains.

Garrote: Your muse must kill someone. How do they do it?

Must kill someone? You make it sound like such a chore!

They are both fairly creative sadists, but Sauron is practical where Melkor is flippant. On the field, I imagine Sauron will go for an efficient, brutal killing stroke, unless there is a chance to do something truly gory and flamboyant that will lower morale of the enemy (see: burning people’s faces off, turning friends into battle standards). Otherwise, I think he finds a punishment that fits the crime, reserving especially poignant deaths for especially memorable or irritating foes.

Melkor I think is more prone to casual murder and crimes against humanity when he’s bored or angry. He’s the more likely to behave like an enormous, shark-toothed toddler pulling the wings off of beetles and zapping ants with a magnifying glass for his own amusement, only to forget about them as soon as something else catches his attention. This can lead to prisoners being horribly mangled and then forgotten about, or just left waiting for the day he remembers they exist and hoping they die before then. He’s also not above snacking on people for fun, preferably whole and wriggling.
His method of dispatching foes won’t be premeditated, unless someone does something particularly attention-worthy, like refusing to tell him where Gondolin is. Then he’ll cook up something really interesting and hand-crafted to make that person miserable for as long as possible.