Dairon: A minstrel lightly minding

 I hate to make this a Dump-on-Dairon Day, but a comment from Leo on my last post had me wanting to at least document one other thing related to this character.  I wrote quite a bit about Dairon-Brigham-etc. last fall - about a year ago, actually - and I don't intend to rehash any of that, but merely want to formally submit an alternative way of interpreting one story about him.

In Words of Them That Have Slumbered, we are basically first introduced to Dairon in a scene that has been used by Doug and his SLC group to allude to just how powerful Dairon must have been.  The scene involves Dairon deciding to travel all around Melkor's realm, singing a challenge to him.  Where other Beings were scared of Melkor, Dairon wasn't and openly mocked Melkor and waited for him to answer his challenge.  None came.  Here is the excerpt:

So also came a-straggle, Dairon, as a minstrel, lightly minding what others headed in dread:  the commands of "Eru-Black" [Melkor]; False God of they who have not the True Light Revealed; and laughing at hunters in songs, where was told the capture and torment and worse, or many an elf, he (Dairon) mocked this God of Arda, sang about his realm, a challenge:  to sit and listen awhile, to his tune, untuneful (if it be); yet no answer to the minstrel's vain boast in challenge ever came to him, and he wandered free, asinging, whither he would....

I remember members of that SLC group speaking of this in almost hushed and awed tones, marvelling at what kind of power a Being must have to be able to openly mock Melkor, and interpreting this as Melkor himself being afraid to answer Dairon's challenge.

It was a strange interpretation to me at the time and still is now, because in this scene I saw only vanity, which was exactly the description Pengolodh uses to describe Dairon intent:  a "vain boast".  That seemed pretty clear, but I guess it was interpreted by the group as being well-deserved vanity because even Melkor wouldn't face him.  It is this interpretation I will myself directly challenge in just a moment.

Immediately after this, Dairon meets up with Thingol, and Thingol laments that Dairon hadn't himself gone to Valinor, but stayed in Middle-earth.  To this, Dairon once again reveals his overwhelming pride by responding that if he were to go back to Valinor that he would relegated down the hierarchy and have to be some pupil of another, but in Middle-earth he was "a minstrel in a high court".  He wasn't going to be humble enough to learn from anybody, and Middle-earth he could be known, or build of a followership, that could recognize him as a master or greatest or something like this.  This was his reply:

For a time [to Thingol statement that he would be happy in Valinor], he replied, but here I am a minstrel in a high court; there?  A pupil, of some learning student starting, himself tutored by one nearly in reach of a Great One's Ear.  No father have I, but thee; and for a mother, would I like many in thy realms gathered, to labor, this queen receive into song.

And just as in my other post, I am using Pengolodh's own words and stories here in painting a completely different picture than apparently what others saw in this tale.  They saw some Being of great power who even Melkor wouldn't challenge.  I saw a prideful, boastful idiot who didn't know that Melkor had already beaten him.

What do I mean by this?

Well, one way of interpreting Melkor's refusal to answer Dairon's call is that he was afraid of him.  That is what I heard expressed by members of this SLC crew, and I suppose could be so.  Another, more neutral way, is that Melkor didn't perceive Dairon as a threat at all, and refused to even acknowledge him.  And an even more pessimistic view, and the one I currently hold, is that Melkor recognized in Dairon's prideful song something he could use and twist to his own purposes.

It was selfish song - I am not sure how anyone could see it otherwise - one that was all about Dairon trying to prove who was best, rather than for or on behalf of any other Being or purpose.  It wasn't one sung in the face of all hopelessness and at the loss of one's people (as was Fingolfin's when he challenged Melkor and died), or Hurin's defiance to be cowed in submission by a foe who clearly outmatched him (to which Melkor imprisoned and tortured him).  No, those were Good Songs sung by Good Beings, and they had to be answered by Melkor because he had to destroy such Songs.

But Dairon's Song was all about Dairon, and not for or about anyone else, and Melkor clearly was able to, subtly and without Dairon's knowledge, I believe, show in the end that Dairon's challenge was in fact answered, and Dairon was used by dark and evil forces to do bad things, if my guesses are correct.  Dairon was played, in other words.

Think Star Wars and Emperor Palpatine for a moment here.  So long as there was a chance that Luke Skywalker could be turned to the dark side, Palpatine wanted him alive and wouldn't use direct force against him.  It was only after Luke made his final decision to never serve the Emperor - that he was and would always be a Jedi - that Palpatine brought ought the big guns on Luke and started zapping him.  To apply this crude analogy to our situation here, Fingolfin and Hurin would never be turned, and in them Melkor saw Good Songs that must be maimed and destroyed.  He could not let them go unanswered but had to go full Palpatine on them.  They must be silenced.  Dairon, on the other hand, showed through his own vain Song that he was for sale and would prove useful.  Melkor was just fine to let that Song go on however long Dairon wanted to sing it.

And so that is my own take on why Dairon went about singing a song of challenge in Melkor's land that was never directly answered.  It wasn't because Melkor was scared, pr viewed Dairon as a threat, but rather because he knew a tool when he saw one.  Dairon's was a Song he could both comprehend and harness, and in my story that Being would go on to do some pretty terrible things, both in the time of Melkor, but also in times long afterward.