Thread by @Wevans0987

Since it seems unlikely we'll get a course-correction on this oath in #TheRingsOfPower, here's a thread I've wanted to do for awhile now about why Finrod's oath of sacrifice mattered for the outcome of the whole 1st Age.

Buckle up, this is one of my absolute favorite topics:
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https://twitter.com/Wevans0987/status/1565779063934820352

Thesis: the 1 Silmaril wrested from Morgoth w/o direct intervention of the Valar is only acquired b/c another oath from the doomed House of Finwë is fulfilled that serves as a counter-balance to the Oath of Fëanor.

So let's do some oath analysis:
2/25

Oaths by the House of Finwë basically drive the First Age of Middle-earth, so let's look at these 2 side by side. They both move in three parts:

1) the action the oath promises,
2) the group it is promised to, and
3) the relation of the swearer to an associated object

3/25

In Fëanor’s oath, the action promised is pursuit with vengeance and hatred, a pledge of destruction and revenge.
4/25

In Finrod’s oath, the action promised is “abiding friendship and aid in every need,” a pledge of love returned and in fact returned exponentially for what was given.
5/25

Both are promised actions that escalate far beyond the inciting event: a stolen possession repaid with pursuit to the ends of the earth and a life once saved repaid with the promise of help in every need to a whole bloodline rather than a one-off return to pay the debt.
6/25

Also in both oaths, the group it’s directed toward expands far beyond the inciting event to include people/generations who do not exist at the time of the swearing:
7/25

In Fëanor’s oath, the subject moves from Morgoth who stole the Silmarils to include literally any creature you can imagine who might exist throughout history who has the audacity to come into possession of a Silmaril—even if they merely found one.
8/25

This trail of wreckage ends up including entire kingdoms, repeated treachery, multiple kinslayings, and even young children left to perish in the wilderness.
9/25

In Finrod’s oath, the recipient moves from Barahir to include any of Barahir's kin as well. It expands beyond a “you had my back, now I have yours” return to encompass any current & presumably future generations. Further, it isn't aid in any need, it's aid in *every* need.
10/25

An immortal being making a promise like that means Finrod was signing up to potentially be on the hook to fulfill this oath repeatedly for thousands of years to a frick ton of ever-multiplying Barahir descendants if it hadn’t claimed his life within the first generation.
11/25

Finally, you have the contrast between the relation of the swearer to an object involved in the oath:
12/25

In the Oath of Fëanor, it’s all about the swearers retaining (or regaining) possession of the valuable item(s) they consider central to their identity. If anyone else holds a Silmaril, it is a direct affront to their power, property, and birthright.
13/25

In Finrod’s, he instead takes the item that's a visible representation of his identity (the ring his father gave him that signifies his place in the family, his inherited position, and his father’s blessing—the badge of the house of Finarfin) & he gives it away to another.
14/25

So in effect, you have an oath of taking going up against an oath of giving & in some way they seem to at least temporarily cancel each other out. Or at any rate, the oath of giving holds the oath of taking at bay as it is being fulfilled, which allows the quest to succeed.
15/25

To me, this all comes down to the primary animating power behind each oath: possessive love vs sacrificial love.

Or, to put it another way, it hinges on each oath-swearer's relationship to power and how it's used—a theme we see time and time again in Tolkien's writing.
16/25

Fëanor and his sons are driven by the need to be the sole possessors of the "unsullied light, and masters of the bliss and beauty of Arda.” This leads them so far as to even embrace racial supremacy as they add that "no other race shall oust us."
17/25

This, of course, is an outgrowth of the whisperings of Melkor regarding the coming of Men: that they would supplant the Firstborn Children of Ilúvatar and that the Valar were party to this disinheritance.
18/25

Whereas from the moment Finrod discovers the Edain, "love for them stirred in his heart" and he works consistently as a mediator to establish peace and friendship between the various Elven peoples and Men, which undergirds his oath and bond to Barahir.
19/25

Put more succinctly: the oath of Fëanor is undertaken in the pursuit of supremacy and the oath of Finrod is undertaken in the pursuit of relationship.
20/25

Both oaths ultimately lead to the swearers losing their realms, treasures, power, freedom, and ultimately their lives. But pivotally, those losses are the costs extracted by the oath of Fëanor while they are losses willingly relinquished by Finrod as he seeks to fulfil his.
21/25

This is especially of note as Finrod uses the symbol of his own inheritance as the mark of his oath. He gives his own birthright to the Edain and thus even his own familial crest becomes known to history as "the ring of Barahir" rather than the ring of Felagund.
22/25

He therefore serves as the antithesis of the racial supremacy Fëanor stirs up in the Noldor and simultaneously a model of what was intended for the Elves: to prepare the way for the Secondborn and pass the world on to them freely.
23/25

https://twitter.com/TolkienWonder/status/1567537215882010626?s=20&t=w72P8a7iSiuesSsEYGfV6w

Again it is that very Tolkienian contrast of taking up power to master something versus laying power down to preserve something.
24/25

And so we return to where we began: changing Finrod's oath to one of aggression in #TheRingsOfPower fundamentally undercuts what it represented within the House of Finwë and within the First Age as a whole.
25/25

https://twitter.com/Wevans0987/status/1565779056007585792?s=20&t=fMQpMDuof9Kn2hNmZqWHTg

Art from the thread above from:
@AlanLee11225760
@JennyDolfen
Marya Filatova
Elena Kukanova
(and others for which I haven't been able to track down credits)

@threadreaderapp unroll