Noldor. plural Noldorim, but can also be referred to as Noldorin. The distinction between Noldorim and Noldorin is subtle, with the latter being “Those who Speak Noldorin
Quenya.”
Teleri is the Plural, with “Teler” being the Singular. So “The Teleri” or “
Lindar“ (as the Teleri call themselves)
IS the Plural, already:
The Teleri people. The Teleri Swan-Ships. The Falmari Teleri Home at Aqualondë in
Aman, or the Falathrim Teleri home at Eglarest and Brithombar in
Beleriand.
The ending
-im can mean “
The People of the -.“ But this is principally a Quenya Postfix-stem, and not a Telerin or
Sindarin Postfix-stem, although it is applied to the Falathrim, and the Mithrim of Northwestern Beleriand, in Dorthonion, Nevrast, and the land that took their name: Mithrim, which means something different from the Mithrim “Teleri/Sindarin” of the same name who inhabited Mithrim, the land.
I hate Linguistics (no I don’t, but it is a very “messy and untidy” thing — which is why
Tolkien created
Languages, trying to Tidy them up, which his life showed he had more difficulty than his more youthful self anticipated).
The ending
-in as already mentioned, means “
The Language of the -“ and “
The People who speak -.“ But some of the people to whom it is refered, like the Sindarin, just took that to mean the same thing as the
-im ending stem.
Dizzying, no?
As for possessive names, typically none of the
Middle-earth languages use the English
’s, and instead use the above ending-stems and plurals to also be the possessive. Or in some cases, you will have things like “Gondorian” or “
Easterling” that are also possessive nouns.
This isn’t to be insulting or degrading, but solely to introduce proper nomenclature (grammar for naming things).
As for
Fëanor.
He was “Fey.” To which it means: “He lost his mind,” or more accurately “His mind was
Broken.”
It wasn’t spite, so much as Grief and Pride that broke him.
Morgoth tried to seduce him to
The Shadow (This is Catholicism’s, and thus Tolkien’s, way of saying “Blocked him from access to knowing what is
Right and
Wrong or
Good and
Evil”), but Fëanor was too opposed to Melkor-Morgoth to fall to
The Shadow (Morgoth’s Influence, or “Rebellion against
Eru/
God”).
But Fëanor wasn’t immune to simply “losing it,” and thus being unable to accurately assess what he was doing.
And, as for why
Fingolfin remained Loyal.
Fëanor was the
Rightful King of the Noldor.
Tolkien was a
Traditionalist. That means so much more than I could put into not just this post; nor into the entire website nor an entire Book; nor an entire Volume of
Books; nor an entire collection of Volumes of Books on the subject; nor into an entire bookshelf of collected Volumes on the subject.
If you feel like spending a few days in researching the basics of this, look into the Pastoralist Movements of the 19th Century, with those like
William Morris, who is the Author with the largest influence on Tolkien outside of Catholicism,
and then the Catholic controversies leading to Pope Pius IX’s
Syllabus Errorum and then
The Encyclical of the First Vatican Ecumenical Council of 1868 to 1870. The Encyclical is the
Vatican I to the 20th Century’s more famous, infamous, and contentious or controversial
Vatican II Encyclical.
But
Vatican I IS The Foundations of Middle-earth. It is based upon a specific type of Catholic Theology that turns against the Sciences; against Modernity; against “Progress;” against The Enlightenment and all of its products (Such as Liberal Democracy, Capitalism, the elimination of the Class Systems and Aristocracy of what is called the
Ancien Régime of Europe); and is instead supportive of the Divine Right of the Aristocracy; Supportive of
The Duty to that Aristocracy for all who are
Rightfully/Legitimately Ruled BY that Aristocracy; supportive of Traditional Values and the Pastoralist, effectively Feudal, and/or more “Ancient” forms of Lifestyle that did not center itself around large
cities, and basically everything that you find depicted in
The Lord of the Rings in
the Shire or in
Gondor (Where Cities did exist but
only as administrative centers and for protection of a population if attacked; most of the population would be found in rural hamlets, townships, and homesteads collected within the highland
valleys, such as Morthond Vale — Blackroot Valley — where the
Oath Breakers previously lived).
So, back to Fingolfin.
He continued to follow Fëanor because it was
his Duty to do so. And while Fingolfin was not bound by
The Oath of Fëanor, he was bound by
What is Right and Wrong as depicted in the previous description of
The Foundations of Middle-earth in Catholic Theology.
Fingolfin “Breaking that Trust” would have been a dire “Sin,” even if Tolkien did not frame it explicitly as such. It would have damned Fingolfin’s
Fëa from Reunification or Reconstitution of his
Hröa as a penance for that violation of Fëanor’s Rights as King of the Noldorim.
And because Fingolfin knew Fëanor was not quite “In his Right Mind” that Duty doubled to helping to protect Fëanor from himself in whatever way he could without patronizing or introducing doubt or disloyalty in others.
Middle-earth isn’t quite the “Pretty-Place” many tend to conceive with readings that focus solely on the story, and don’t “
look beneath the hood” at what is underneath. And that
does not mean the languages. These can be instructive if you get into the same kind of depth beyond just learning the surface grammar and vocabulary, as the Languages are pretty much a decorative framework built atop the Foundations to hold the rest of the structure of the Mythology.
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