Caranthir
the Dark; the grimmest of the sons of Fëanor
Name and Nature
Caranthir — “the Dark”, the fourth son of Fëanor and Nerdanel. His mother-name Carnistir means “the red-face” (of complexion); his Sindarin name “Caranthir, the Dark” (the grim), and it fits: “the sternest and most short-tempered of his brothers; he was quick to anger, and was the least loved of them” — the Quenta: the darkest and most hot-tempered; he loved money and the lordship of the east, and troubled little for the friendship of the Elves of the West.
Life
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Swore the Oath, went into exile; in Beleriand he took as his own the easternmost of the Fëanorian lands — Thargelion, the country between the Gelion and the Blue Mountains, whose Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost he was the first of the Elves to deal with (his tongue cut — he “learnt Khuzdul” — their first friendships); he drove off orcs and kept the mountain-passes at peace.
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The estrangement of the kindreds: From minor beginnings — the Dwarves’ dislike of his imperiousness, the Easlings’ fear — Caranthir’s harshness undermined the goodwill on the eastern frontier; he rejected the offers of the cold folk — at the coming of the Swarthy Men he was the one who bade them beggone — the account of the Easterlings of Ulfang coming to him and his contempt for them is the prelude to their treachery.
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The Union and the Death: In the Union of Maedhros he marched with the united host; in the Nirnaeth, when the Easterlings betrayed the Fëanorians, Caranthir — “grievously wounded” — was slain in the great slaughter; he died in the battle, one of the seven — with his brothers he is the Fëanorian stock of the eastern tragedy.
Significance
Caranthir’s page is that of the “lesser” Fëanorian — the first the Oath consumed, and the least redeemed: he has no great deed of mercy or of courage that outshines his brothers’, and his grudge against the Easterlings’ servitude is the seed of the age’s last betrayal.