The sack of Doriath: Dairons' inside job

 It is an ugly thing to write about this stuff.  I listed out the story in bullets in my last post as a bit of a forcing mechanism to ensure I would just kind of get this stuff out and not let myself off the hook.  If anyone has noticed, I have bounced around from character to character a bit, dropping a post or two on Brigham, leaving him for awhile to write about others, and then returning.  I think this is almost a psychological reaction on my part to the fact that I don't really want to think about him, but at the same time getting his story down (as I see it, at least) is important in understanding what has happened and will happen.

There is also my own hesitancy in writing just based on implications and effects to my own mind.  To write about something or someone is to conjure their specter, in a way, and it influences you to some degree, I think.  Also, to imagine, as I do, that these stories are real is one level of crazy; to then further imagine within those stories additional levels of intrigue and evil that have impacted our world in some ways to me seems like a significant step up in the level of potential crazy.

I am not as worried about being wrong or engaging in libel as I thought I would have been.  If I am wrong about Brigham or any of these other characters that I have connected him to, then that would be a significant evil on my own part.  I am, however, satisfied that I am right as the ultimately evil nature and behavior of each of these characters individually.  Where I have left it open to being wrong is in their connection to each other (in terms of one Being as all of them), as well as the actual details of their deeds.  On the first thing, the ultimate question is can we really lay so many evil deeds and characters at the feet of one Being?  I think the answer is yes, but I do leave it open to challenge that I do not have all the identities right and I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case.  This is the best thread I have been able to lace across and through these ages and characters, and the story makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean some of it isn't really so and that my imagination has gone too far.

With all that being said, I will briefly touch on Doriath and the two major betrayals surrounding the Silmaril that happened there.  I won't go into ultra-specifics and minute details, mostly because I don't know and haven't really guessed down that far, but also because I am just trying to introduce thoughts here and not completely retell stories people already know.  The idea is to get both myself and potential readers thinking about the story in a different way, and potentially see this Omar-Brigham as an evil influence within it.  As part of this, I am introducing possibilities of how things went - meaning, for example, that I am convinced that Dairon was involved in these betrayals, but exactly how he did it and what actions he took I am not sure.  So, these are hypotheses at motivations and actions based on presumed guilt, to put it frankly.

A careful reader would note that in my earlier post I also made mention of Salmar being Thingol, and this story element was mentioned before the Doriath actions.  I am going to go slightly out of order and save that connection (that will build into other very important ones) for another later post.

The first betrayal at Doriath involved the Dwarves' theft of the Nauglamir which contained the Silmaril.  For the published details of this story, one can turn to the Silmarillion.  I will only say that, again, we may not have all the details of that story accurately captured.    I think the basic strokes are true - Thingol possessed the Silmaril that Beren retrieved for him, he ultimately commissioned Dwarves to set the Silmaril in the Nauglamir, this Nauglamir was stolen by the Dwarves, and Thingol was slain in this theft.

The first question one might ask is what prompted Thingol to ask Beren for the Silmaril in the first place.  Thingol hated Feanor, the Noldor, and everything having to do with them - why ask for this thing?  The simple answer could be was because he thought it was an impossible task and sending a Man (who had the gall to ask to marry his daughter) to certain death in pursuit of a Noldorian treasure may have seemed a fitting punishment.  I judge better of Thingol (and future connections will demonstrate why), and so I do not fully buy this line of thinking.

Rather, I think that Dairon, his loremaster, put it into his heart and mind as an idea.  I think that Dairon definitely wanted Beren out of the way (due to Luthien), but he also saw an opportunity.  If Beren died in the attempt, then he was no closer or farther to a Silmaril than before (and Dairon, as the greatest loremaster, would have known exactly what the Silmarils were and what it would mean to possess one) but he would have a better shot with Luthien.  If Beren found some way to succeed, however, then a Silmaril would now be in play.  

I think he would have sold the Silmaril quest to Thingol under the guise of almost some sort of Arthurian quest.  If Beren succeeded, then it was probably fate or Heaven's show of his right to ask for Luthien's hand, and if he failed, then this was also some kind of fate.  Thus, Thingol in a sense was given a reprieve of having to make a difficult choice or go along with something that he did not want to do by leaving things to fate.  For Dairon, it was a situation where no matter what outcome occurred, he would have opportunity to get what he wanted.

As it turned out, Beren did succeed and Thingol was now in possession of a Silmaril.  It was now up to Dairon to figure out how he would work the situation to gain it for himself.  

Enter the Dwarves.

The Dwarves of Nogrod were retained by Thingol to take the Silmaril and set it within the Nauglamir.  Here I set Dorian's influence as well, perhaps giving Thingol this very idea, as well as the idea to use the Dwarves, who had completed work on Menegroth, to do this.  In doing so, I believe Dairon was putting the Silmaril into the hands of beings he could more easily and overtly influence.

These Dwarves would be taught the language / alphabet that Dairon had invented - the Certhas Daeron.  Dairon had invented this script, but it was never widely adopted among the Noldor, who preferred Feanor's script.  The Dwarves likely came to view Dairon as something of a genius.  In any case, they adopted the script and would later take them back to other Dwarves.  For example, the letters/ runes that Gandalf would later read in Moria on Balin's Tomb would have been in Certhas Daeron.

I do not think that the script is the only thing that would have been taught to these Dwarves in the course of their stay.  Dairon would have also, in my theory, illuminated them more on the histories of the Nauglamir and the Silmaril they were working with.  With this knowledge, they would have become aware of just how valuable a treasure they were working with, thus leading to their ultimate betrayal of Thingol.  Whether Dairon was directly involved in either the theft or the slaying, I don't know.  He seems the type to let others do the dirty work, and so I think he would have put the pieces in motion, but let these pieces go through with the actions that he had set them on.

I think it is important as a character study, here, to note what is potentially going on with Dairon.  He is, or would come to be known, as the greatest minstrel ever, and yet he is underappreciated and underrecognized among his own people in those things that matter most to him.  He was rebuffed by Luthien.  His alphabet was not adopted among his kin.  There are no great deeds of his own that could be sung of.  This is your classical situation of a genius yet to realize anything he thinks he deserves from his genius status.  As 'Greatest', it should be his and the world would be better off for it . . . you can imagine going on in his head.  The ends would justify the means once he had what he wanted.  This is the stuff that inside betrayals are made of:  His own belief in his greatness and what he is owed or deserves because of it.

As noted, the Silmaril would not come to him here, and Thingol would lose his head, his Silmaril, and his kingdom as a result of all of this.  Again, I will go through my thinking with Thingol in another post, but this betrayal is a terrible thing.

The Silmaril would later come back to Dior and Nimloth, sent from Luthien, and they would come back to and start rebuilding Doriath (thought with no girdle of Melian left to protect it).  The transfer of the Silmaril to Dior would reawaken the terrible oath of the Sons of Feanor when they were made aware that Dior now had it.  They made plans to take the Silmaril, and this is when Dairon also made his own plans.  He would once again leverage the situation to perhaps come out with the Silmaril himself, or even a greater prize, Nimloth herself.  

My guess is, despite their reputation, that the Sons of Feanor hoped to obtain the Silmaril without force, and thus prevent a Second Kinslaying.  The Sons of Feanor, who did not know Doriath and its many caves and chambers, would have needed inside information to both know where the Silmaril might be kept and retrieved, as well as where guards were posted, family members were, etc.  They would have received this information from Dairon, with also perhaps a promise of help in easing the way in and keeping Doriath's guard down.

On the other end, I imagine Dairon convincing both Dior and Nimloth that there was nothing to worry about, and that no imminent attack was coming.  However, at the same time, he may have been designing the situation in such a way as to create confusion and the very circumstances he needed to escalate the conflict into an all-out slaughter.  He himself may have been directly responsible for Dior's death, rather than one of the Sons, but again it is hard to say.  I do not know and will not guess on this.  All that is important to understand here is that I am directly claiming that Dairon used the conflict to produce the maximum chance that he would end up with the Silmaril, at the expense of whatever and whoever was necessary.

In that horrible confrontation, he also committed an assault on Nimloth, and committed what would come to be known, in my opinion, as one of, if not the, 'sin against the Holy Ghost', and thus branded himself as the Son of Perdition.  From that time forward, there is no forgiveness for that Being. As I have written before, the Family of Light will be reunited in a family chain under Joseph (Dior), Asenath (Nimloth) Ilmare, and Eowne (using some of their names), and there will be no place for Dairon within that family.  Nimloth-Asenath was and is Jesus' own daughter from a time long before this one, and such a Being will not be permitted to stay here.

This charge - the assault against Nimloth - has been laid at the feet of or insinuated to be the act of one of the Sons in another telling of this event, but I believe many of the details of that account to be wholly fabricated in an effort to cover up what truly happened and to frame innocent beings.  I think the truth will come out at some point, however, and this is my attempt to at least introduce the possibility that this is so.  I also understand it is a very significant thing to accuse or formulate theories about these types of actions and motivations - laying the murder of Dior and assault of Nimloth on Dairon - but this is the story that has shaped itself in my head, and it is the likeliest off all the possibilities I have considered... enough for me to write about it and charge, in general terms, Beings I believe to actually exist.

Elwing will of course escape with the Silmaril during this horrible encounter, and it will be forever taken out of the reach of conspiring Elves or Men by her and Earendil at the end of the 1st age.

The fate of Dairon after Doriath is unclear to me - whether he perished there, or sometime later, I am not sure.  What I do think happens is that we have a Being who is much diminished in his powers following these events.  He will retain the same types of powers, skills, and influences, but never again will he reach the same level in these as he did first as Omar and then as Dairon.  Part of this is due to the events themselves, I think, and part of this is due to his future incarnations as Men, which will also naturally reduce his powers and abilities.

As for the Noldor and House of Finwe in general, they still reel from these dark events, with Being confronted against Being, House against House, in their understanding of what happened and who is to blame for these terrible deeds.  Part of what will be made known in the stories to come is that they may have had it wrong and blamed the wrong Beings for the wrong things.  Thus, healing will come to that House, families will again be made whole, and they will have a better knowledge and understanding of just who their true enemies are.

We will next see Omar pop up on the scene during events of the LOTR as the character of Wormtongue, using more subterfuge and tricks to get what he wants, and that will be the topic of my next post.