In the library of Imladris, Parnard read, he studied, he reflected. He might have taken too much notice of one aspect of history, and too little of another, but that is the way of those who are looking for something to validate their beliefs. He did not find what he was seeking, and succeeded only in upsetting himself.
The Noldor are an ancient and wise people: they did all, or nearly all that was possible, in the conditions of their time, to obtain the right result, achieving it with all the single-mindedness that characterize the strong-willed. Yet something always went wrong. Events never worked out as they should, and the Noldor certainly did not produce the results that their leaders seemed so certain of securing. Their methods were violent, bloody. Diplomacy was a mystery to them, reasoned Parnard, because they were unused to it, being a warlike people, and so insular, and not needing to forge alliances with other peoples for their safety - peoples they deemed weak and inferior to themselves, because they were. And so is it any wonder that these Noldor never bothered to improve and expand their art of statecraft? There is no need for diplomacy, when one has the stronger arm.
But was it not strange how they were unable to learn from their errors of the past, and doomed themselves, time after time, and those they strove against, to the most violent destruction? Weapons are easy to take up, when facing a terrible enemy, but how hard it is to put them down again! Is it any wonder that mistakes were made? When the Sons of Fëanor launched their war against the Enemy, they did not realize that they would succeed only in violently destroying the people of the lands they found themselves in, and producing results expected neither by themselves nor by their enemies.
How tremendous it is to take up arms against one’s brother, and insist that it is necessary, and say that any other course would prove useless, a feeble resort for those who cannot face the truth! And then to call those who shrink away faint-hearted or foolish, those who separated themselves from the Noldor and their unending wars, and deceived themselves into thinking that all was peace and happiness and benevolence, and that their own kindly and provincial modes of life would go on forever, when, in fact, some terrible upheaval, some massive stroke was about to fall!
Those are my people, Parnard thought uncomfortably, hiding away in a decayed wood, ignorant of the wide world outside its borders, and the dastardly acts of the Enemy. When did we disregard the encroaching Shadow, or the men cutting down our trees? So many of us pay little heed to the doings of Men – it is wrong and dangerous! Perhaps if we understood their hearts better, we could find some among them with a proper temper, wise and strong, willing to fight with us. It seems clear, from the ancient histories, that the most successful among us have obtained their results by working with Men. But the differences between our peoples are as vast as the Sea, and these differences have affected the fortunes of our two peoples to a prodigious degree, and now we are estranged.
It is said that the Secondborn understand the wicked nature of the Thing with which we fight, because it is akin to them in spirit, and this is why so many Men serve the Shadow. Yet perhaps it is the belief of this ‘understanding’ that is the problem: the Noldor became obsessed, and were incapable of obtaining what they desired, whereas a Man (aided by Elves, it is true) succeeded. Why? It is difficult to pinpoint. Judgment, skill, sense of timing, all of these invite a propitious result. But there is something else beyond the obvious. What elements have we Elves overlooked in our calculations, what apparently trivial, yet profoundly important affairs have passed under our very noses, and remain unnoticed, by attempting to separate our destinies from the fate of Mankind?
