Musings on Eöl
Eöl the Dark Elf has been the subject of some debate. As is known, the Silmarillion was not completed before Tolkien passed away. His son put the pieces together and made a narrative that lacked a bit of coherence because he was rushed to hand something in after the success of the previous books. Later writings by Christopher have included later musings on Eöl by his father, which have added several possible ways to view this character. One is his heritage as mentioned before. We at the Fuinedhil take him to have been of the Teleri, but some texts refer to him either being of the Avari and some even tell of him as being of the second Noldor clan.
On another note, the notion of 'Dark Elf' has seen some renditions as well. In the Silmarillion it is mainly used in the literal sense to describe Eöl's liking for the night and twilight. He shuns the sun and thus hid away in Nan Elmoth. His dark apparel simply adds to that literal notion of 'dark'. By no means ought we to read this adjective in the popular figurative sense as used in other fantasy stories, where the notion of 'dark elf' implies a clear-cut measure of evil intent. The case of Eöl is much more subtle. His silent and mysterious nature may hint at some measure of evil intent, but in reality, he is quite content with living on the margin of Elven society without meaning others any harm.
Often people point to the forced marriage and murder of Aredhel in arguing that Eöl is pure and simply evil. But they are too quick to do away with the context in which these events take place:
Firstly, Aredhel was not some damsel in distress, but a Noldo of high kin. She was born in Valinor and is by that very definition more wise and powerful than any of the Sindar, save Luthien. It is difficult to believe that Eöl's enchantments were the sole driving force behind her coming to Eöl. In fact, it is stated that "Elf magic" does not work on other Elves, as it comes naturally to them. Even if we take this not to be a rule without exception, it seems odd for Aredhel, who could sway Turgon to leniency, to accept Eöl's proposal without in some measure feeling inclined to do so. And if we take this to be an exception, that would mean Eöl is immensely powerful, because again, she saw the light of Valinor and has a presence both in the physical and the Unseen world. By definition, she could contend with Nazgûl without fear, but here is this one elf who can force her into marriage. I think Tolkien himself must have felt like this was a contradiction to his own statements, hence his later addition to the story that Aredhel was not "wholly unwilling" nor that her life in Nan Elmoth was "hateful to her for many years."
Secondly, when he killed Aredhel, he did so involuntarily. She jumped to take the blow to save her son. In fact, Eöl had already accepted the fact that she had grown tired of him and that she would stay in Gondolin, but he simply could not part with his son. His choice to slay his son, was an evil deed, no doubt about it. But here too, we need to mind the context. Maeglin was not yet of age by Elven reckoning. Hence Eöl had all right to say what his son would do or would not do. And Turgon was in the wrong to deny him free passage out of the city, because Eöl is a rightful vassal to King Thingol and thus is not bound by Turgon's laws. But the volatile nature of Eöl meant sure recompense for pushing him into that corner of 'not allowed to leave nor take your son with you'. Can we really blame him for reacting so cruelly? Turgon in turn answered with cruelty when he sentenced him to death, effectively murdering him as it was out of place.
What does have point, is that Eöl brought with him a poisoned javelin, insinuating that he had a contingency plan should he be denied. Unless of course he carries one with him wherever he goes, that much is uncertain. But, granted, Eöl did a despicable deed when he tried to kill his own son, even though it was not for Turgon to judge him, as he himself had taken part in the kinslayings in Aman. Hence a measure of comparison is also necessary here. Because when we compare Eöl's deeds to those of the Noldor, his dark deeds pale in comparison, leaving you to wonder who is the bigger evil-doer. That put aside, I feel judgement should not fall so harshly on Eöl as to call him purely evil. We do not call Túrin or Fëanor evil, even though they have many more evil deeds to account for. By today's standards we could judge differently, of course. But this is a fantasy world, set in a pre-medieval period.
On another note, some do not even try to understand why Eöl hides away from sunlight and use such terms as 'melancholy' or 'emo' to describe him. There is a dichotomy to make between modern takes on darkness and the night, and the Elven take on darkness and the night. In real life, we fear the night. In medieval times the roads were so dark at night, none dared to venture outside because it was a way to get lost or trip and fall to your death. Today a lot of crime happens at night, most notoriously burglaring. Hence we have come to give it a negative connotation. In Tolkien's work, all Elves toiled in the darkness at the beginning of the world, but only with the coming of Morgoth did the term 'darkness' become synonymous with an evil power. With the coming of Morgoth and the sun, the night turned from something eternal and peaceful to something temporary and fearful. Men cannot comprehend the love of the night the way Elves do, as they were not there when the world was young. Eöl merely longs for those old days when all was unlit - which may be hard to imagine for us human readers as well. Eöl is written as loving the quiet and the peace of night. Does that sound like one prone to melancholy?
Below I have copied an interesting summary of the different renditions of Eöl and the Dark Elves from Reddit.com by WalkinTarget. This will show that much is left to interpretation with regards to Eöl. One can read him and his servants as being corrupted by Morgoth, or one can read them as simply adhering to a lifestyle in the physical darkness. Either way, at the Fuinedhil we take the preference to follow the latter interpretation. And I will just say it outright: it is better not to model your character after dark elves from other fantasy media, because it is not lore-abiding.
[By Walkingtarget on reddit.com]
'The Lays of Beleriand has an early verse writing that talks about him. In part: "[...] for the Dark Elves were his kindred that wander without home." which establishes the idea of "Dark Elves" as a group but there are also descriptions of the forest as very dark.
The Shaping of Middle-earth has in "The Earliest Annals of Beleriand" a section that mentions Maidros "gathers and arms the Gnomes [the Noldor] of Fëanor's house, and multitudes of the Dark-elves, and of Men, in East Beleriand." and later on the same page "Isfin daughter of Turgon strays out of Gondolin and is taken to wife by Eöl a Dark-elf." So there we have a reference to "Dark elves" as a category and him as simply one of them.
These are the older iterations of the stories.
In The War of the Jewels we get "There [Isfin] came into the enchantments of Eöl the Dark-elf, who abode in the wood and shunned the sun, desiring only the starlight of old." Which finally gets some indication of his habits of staying in the physical dark rather than just his status as moriquendi.
Later (in the specific "Maeglin" chapter) we have a parenthetical digression:
Another name [Eöl] from prim[itive] FG - meaningless then and now. But it was not intended to have any meaning in Q[uenya] or S[indarin]. For Eöl was said to be a 'Dark Elf', a term then applied to any Elves who had not been willing to leave Middle-earth - and were then (before the history and geography had been organized) imagined as wandering about, and often ill-disposed towards the 'Light-Elves'. But it was also sometimes applied to Elves captured by Morgoth and enslaved and then released to do mischief among the Elves. I think this latter idea should be taken up. It would explain much about Eöl and his smithcraft. (I think the name might stay. It isn't really absolutely necessary that names should be significant.)
The idea of him learning smithcraft while a slave was abandoned later in favor of him having extensive dealings with Dwarves, but it's an interesting example of the thought process. Then later there's a note that "Eöl should not be one of Thingol's kin, but one of the Terleri who refused to cross the Hithaeglir. But [later] he and a few others of like mood, averse to concourse of people, ... [had] crossed the [Mts] long ago and come to Beleriand." but he then included a note that a relationship with Thingol would have a point, so it wasn't settled. Even later sections mention that Eöl was part of the "second clan" which would have made him closer to the Noldor than the Teleri/Sindar.
In any event, from what I can find of the matter, Eöl was both categorically a Dark-elf (by being either moriquendi or one of these "captured by Morgoth and released to cause mischief" or both), but also had a tendency to be associated with literal darkness - sunless woods, smith of a wonderous black metal, etc.
It's also worth noting, that one could make the argument that if you accept that he was an Avar, that he's pretty much the most significant one that I can think of in the stories - I at least can't think of any others involved with events in Gondolin which might, in itself, be enough to earn "the Dark Elf" rather than simply "a Dark Elf". Metaphorically, there's also plenty of "dark deeds" surrounding him, which could also contribute. These are just my musings, though. I don't really see any specific indication that those were actual reasons given anywhere.'
