I think so much about how female sainthood is essentially raising your head, staring the world into its blind eyes and then saying no.
women refusing touch, food, safety to follow a divine call is a fundamental theme in catholic tradition. women couldn’t choose, and so – they refused. the only weapon they had was deciding not to take part in what the world was asking of them (marriage & childbirth & conversion & acceptance), and these women understood they had to turn their faces the other way. cast their eyes firmly on god. and say, no. you will not have me.
we see it happening over and over throughout millennias –
it’s Jeanne, flashing through the battlefield, first among her soldiers. she’s been hit by an arrow but her mind clear: she’s heard the voices of angels & seen saint Caterina calling her, urging her to take the sword. so she’s cut her hair, and refused the dress, and welcomed the fire at the trial’s end.
it’s saint Caterina herself, a century before, who cut her hair and stopped eating to refuse all prospects of an arranged marriage & motherhood, and also to become a nun. (the one power a woman had over her body – refusal to keep it living)
it’s saint Triduana being harassed by a suitor and choosing blindness if it meant loneliness with herself and her work; liberty and choice coming from detaching yourself from societal expectations.
it’s saint Felicity, her child in her arms, standing up against her father and being incarcerated after he attacked her. and still resisting. admitting to being deadly afraid, but not backing down.
it’s saint Thecla refusing marriage and running away from home to travel & teach the faith, thecla who scorned a powerful suitor who assaulted her and was thrown to the beasts as a punishment.
(but the beasts didn’t touch thecla. the women in the arena started screaming in fear for this young woman from a town in turkey, in front of animals twice her size and ten times fiercer. and the beasts didn’t touch thecla. the lioness and the female bear turned on the other animals and saved her. a woman facing abuse and refusing to allow it to touch her inner core is a woman beloved by god.)
women putting a wall between them and others. you cannot touch me if i don’t want to. and even if you manage to, there’s a secret nucleus inside of me, that eludes you reach. there’s a purity in me you cannot touch.
women taking a stance in a time of fear, in a time of violence, meant death – and female martyrs chose death over and over and over, by fire and beheading and torture, for two millennias of men & society trying to grab them by their necks and forcing them to follow their rules.
in a world that demanded a constant bowing down of their dignity and personal agency, a simple refusal is a crime punishable with death. and the only thing these women could do to create & preserve a sense of self was saying no. and then clasping their hearts around that blinding no and remaining decisive, gentle, unmovable in the monstrous face of brutal force, of mutilation, of distorted societal fear of women choosing their own path.
if death is the next step, then i shall take it. (i am not afraid, i was born for this.)
i’m guessing you’re someone who’s read the lord of the rings - or maybe only seen it - and perhaps enjoys it, but has never given a thought to the rest of tolkien’s legendarium. so to you, tolkien’s elves are ethereal, grand, noble, graceful, kind, beautiful, pointy eared etc etc etc.
so, sweet summer child, let me initiate you in exactly who fëanor, high king of the noldor, is. first of all this is him (art by @wisesnail ):
you might have heard of the silmarillion, which is basically the tragic and epic mythology of the first and second ages of middle earth. well, the driving force of the silmarillion essentially happens because of fëanor’s many, many fuckups.
his father is finwë, who is one of the first elves to awake / be created and leader of the noldor, one of the three families/tribes of elves. at this time, most of the elves still live in valinor, the undying lands, with the valar (the gods). fëanor is a talented craftsman and (to cut a long story short) creates these three beautiful, magical jewels called the silmarils, which causes some Trouble in Paradise and gets him exiled. melkor, who is basically the evil valar, covets, then steals the silmarils and kills finwë, so feanor breaks his exile and loses his shit.
he incites the noldor to leave valinor for middle earth, and swears the oath of fëanor along with his seven sons. this says, to paraphrase, they’ll get the silmarils back even if it kills them and everyone else. at this point, his wife, nerdanel, is like, fuck no. so she stays in valinor. (see below, art by jenny dolfen)
then they go to middle earth. on the way, they murder a ton of their kin, burn the boats and abandon some others to walk across the equivalent of the arctic alone, and go to fight melkor.
who promptly kills fëanor, because while he might be strongest of the elves, he is not a god.
and then fëanor’s body spontaneously combusts. the guy is so angry and fiery his soul bursts into flame and dies. and then his poor murderous sons are left to fulfil the oath and screw over middle earth for a good few hundred years before they all eventually die horribly.
galadriel is his niece, if you’re looking for another link to lotr. they’re a little bit different (though that noldor spirit really jumps out when frodo offers her the ring).
fëanor is everything you think elves aren’t; hot headed, angry, full of himself, rabble rousing, murderous (there’s this thing called the kinslaying. it puts game of thrones to shame.). i mean, the guy is confronted with melkor, the personification of evil and sauron’s boyfriend boss and he literally slams the door in his face (see below, art by @melkorwashere)
it’s why i find it hilarious when people say the elvish race is too ‘bland’ and ‘good’ because, oh my god you guys, they are not.
anyway, read the silmarillion. it’s a Wild Fuckin Ride. you’ll love it.
Anonymous asked: Are there any good artists on tumblr who actually draw Arya with a long face? Please let me know cause I’d love to see it! I guess I’ve never seen a good >canon
@goldseven, Jenny Dolfen, is on tumblr (though more of her work is on her own blog) – and you can see her canon Arya here (there’s another one with Old Nan but it only shows Arya from the back)
And I’m sure there are many many more lovely canon Arya artists out there on tumblr – this is just a sampling from the first 10 pages or so of my Arya art tag. Hope that helps!
