Aredhel and Eol: Whiteness vs. Darkness

                                                                                http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Gondolin
One day, Aredhel grows weary of her surroundings and decides to leave. Her brother Turgon reluctantly lets her leave under certain conditions. However, Aredhel disobeys her brother's orders and goes where she wants. Fortunately, her travels don’t get her into any danger in the beginning. However, as one might expect the main character gets into trouble on her journey. Eol sees her and longs for her to be his possession. He casts a spell and she wanders into his neck of the woods where there is no sunlight. Aredhel goes into his house and is forced to stay there for many years. She doesn’t get to visit her family nor be in the sunlight. It is only after their son, Maeglin, grows up does she have a chance at escaping. Her homesickness causes her to talk about her homeland which in turn arouses curiosity in their son to see her homeland for himself. When he talks to his father about this Eol becomes angry. This causes a rift between them which never heals. When Eol leaves for a trip to see the dwarves Maeglin proposes that he and his mother go to her homeland. She is overjoyed and they leave for Gondolin. Eol comes back early and discovers they are gone. He follows them to Gondolin and demands that his son come with him back to Nan Elmoth. The king refuses his demand and says he can either stay in Gondolin or die in Gondolin. In response, Eol throws a dart at Maeglin, but Aredhel blocks it. Eol is taken away as a prisoner. The king wants Eol killed, but Aredhel thinks Eol should be shown mercy. Unfortunately, Aredhel dies because the dart was poisoned. The king sentences Eol to death by being thrown off a ledge. Eol asks his son for help, but Maeglin does nothing. Eol curses him to suffer the same fate as himself.

                                                                              http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Aredhel
Eols character is linked to his darkness. On the outside, he is surrounded by darkness and on the inside, he is consumed by it, metaphorically and literally. The forest he lives in, Nan Elmoth, is shrouded in darkness. He works with the dwarves to make armor and weapons in cramped, dark caves. He has a dark appearance and has a dark and corrupted heart. Aredhel is the “white lady of the Noldor” and lives in the sunlight. She is moral and has a pure heart. Darkness is often used to show villains are evil and that they are not pure. Whiteness, on the other hand, implies purity and innocence. Something being white or light is also associated with being good. If this is the common trope it is not much of a leap to make to go from these associations to thinking of characters that have a black appearance or are dressed in black as being evil. However, this has social implications. It is damaging to associate darker skin with wickedness. When we do this we buy into colonial horror fantasy. These fears were built into the notion that black men were seen as dangerous and that they would kidnap or rape white woman thus making them impure. These notions are racist in their inception and do not have any truth to them. 




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