6. Something about a character you would hate in real life, but love reading about
I feel like I wouldn't like many of the Valar in real life. (Questionable rules, decisions, and actions or lack of aside…)
I think Ulmo, Tulkas, and Oromë would just terrify me, I'd probably find Aulë and Manwë obnoxious, Mandos would be a combination of obnoxious and absolutely terrifying, I'd like Yavanna a lot, except that I feel like she'd be terrifying too. Maybe I'd get along better with Varda, and probably Nienna, Estë, and Vana. I haven't really thought about Lorien, Nessa, or Vaire, and Melkor would certainly overpower me and find a way to use me for his evil plans, and then just kill me off quickly before I got in the way.
I pick Aulë. Given that he's a Vala I probably wouldn't hate him, but I don't think I'd go out of my way to spend time around him. Plus Aulë is kind of fishy as the Valar go. (Though as my friend pointed out, Ulmo probably claims the "fishy" adjective.) So first both Sauron and Sauroman were supposed to be serving Aulë and went over to Melkor and Sauron, respectively. He created the dwarves without permission, blah blah just because he loved them so it was different than Melkor, true, but he still went outside the Song. And then there was his prize student Fëanor, and we all know how that turned out...
I don't think he's evil in any way, himself, really, it's probably just because his order is based on people who love the things they create, desire to create better things, which can cause desiring power, which never goes well, but still. No one else had Maiar that caused trouble quite like Aulë's.
Also I feel like he and Yavanna have the most dysfunctional Valar relationship ever, like when Aulë creates the dwarves and Yavanna goes and creates the Ents because she's angry his creations will mess with hers. Then their conversation at the end where Aulë just goes "Nonetheless, they will have need of wood." (WHICH I LAUGHED FOR A GOOD 10 MINUTES ABOUT, TOLKIEN INTENDED THAT TO BE FUNNY, RIGHT?) And I'm pretty sure they just skip the part where Yavanna stabs Aulë repeatedly for that comment.
Then there is the part where Yavanna is grieving over the death of the Two Trees and the Valar ask for the Silmarils, and Aulë should be comforting his wife and he sticks up for Fëanor instead. Really, Aulë? So I feel like he says stupid things a lot and she spends decades at a time being mad at him.
Here are some arguments between Aulë and Yavanna. She gets angry, he doesn't try not to offend her nor does he try to apologize, so sometimes she doesn't talk to him for years, in the counting of the Eldar, at a time.
"Nonetheless, they will have need of wood."
***Yavanna goes into a rage and destroys Aulë's whole workroom, taking whatever he was forging and repeatedly beating him over the head with it. ***
He's mad, but he also supposes he probably entirely deserved that one.
*Years later
"Aulë."
"Yavanna!" He looked up to see her standing in the doorway to his now repaired smithy, arms crossed, half glaring at him. "It has been awhile."
"Yes."
"Am I forgiven?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
She shrugged.
"I made you something." He told her, and her eyes lit up with interest in spite of herself. He brought forth a necklace shaped like an elaborate flower, with a brilliantly shinning green gem in the center.
"It is beautiful!" She told him. "Wait… Aulë… is that wood?"
"Er, I didn't cut down a tree, I swear it! It was a fallen branch."
"Branches don't fall off any of the trees here, dear. Have you not been married to me long enough to learn that?"
"Well it would help if you were here, not off wherever it is you go when you aren't speaking to me…" He stopped when she advanced threateningly. "In any case, I got the wood from Middle-earth, a fallen branch there. Better to make a work of art than to rot there, no?"
"I do not believe you."
"Fine." Aulë shrugged and went back to work, and when he looked back up Yavanna was gone, and so was the necklace. He smirked; he knew she'd like it anyway.
The next time he saw Yavanna, at a Valar counsel three days later, she was wearing the necklace and casually showing it off to Vana and Estë.
"Am I forgiven?" He asked her when he got a chance.
"No."
"I am sorry I was rude about your Ents I know that they are as important to you as my children are to me." He said in one flat-toned breath. It wasn't even very sincere, but apparently it was enough.
"That is all I wanted." She beamed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Let's go home."
~*~*~
"I am not saying you do not teach well, dear, I am simply saying it is a fact that the Children enjoy my lessons more."
"As if anyone would like a foul smelling smithy better than a forest and clean air!"
"I do."
"Yes, and somehow I manage to overlook that and love you anyway. Children of Illúvatar, however, have more sense."
"The Noldor like my lessons better."
"No, most of the Noldor do. Few of the Vanyar, none of the Teleri, and we might as well count the Silvan elves in Middle-earth for me too, based on what they do there. Sindar elves too, really."
"Perhaps you're right about the Silvan and the Sindar, but you can't count the Teleri either. The Teleri don't have much time for you or I, and the Vanyar are more interested in the teachings of Manwë and Varda than yours or mine."
"Fine. I am still ahead. I win this one."
"Yes, dear."
~*~*~
But they don't always fight.
Yavanna hurried from her pastures to Aulë's smithies as quickly as she could when she heard his cry of dismay.
He was sitting on his bench with his head in his hands.
"Aulë? What happened?" She sat beside him and rubbed his shoulders.
"Eonwë was here." He answered without looking up. "There has been conflict between the elves and the dwarves in Doriath. King Thingol was slain by one of their hands, and the elves slaughtered all the dwarves. But it wasn't just them; the Ents slaughtered most of them. "
Yavanna gasped. "Oh, love, I am so sorry. " She put an arm around him and hugged him. For all they liked to argue over their children, she had never wanted there to be such conflict between the dwarves and the Ents, she never wanted the Ents to have to exercise their strength like this. But the Ents always would side with the elves, not the dwarves.
"Thingol had hired them to forge something, with a Silmaril, and then they wanted it for themselves. They had a legitimate claim, though they were rude to make it as they did, and Thingol insulted them rather than discuss it and… All over one of those cursed Silmarls! If only Fēanor had given them to you when we asked…"
"I know. But you better than anyone knows why he did not." She reminded him.
"It was not just the guilty dwarves, either. There were women there, children, they lived in Doriath! A lot of them, innocent…"
" I know." Yavanna repeated faintly. She didn't remind him that Thingol had been the King, how the elves had reacted out of pain and loyalty. She tried not to wonder what they or Melyanna must be going through. She tried not to think of what this would mean between the Elves and the Dwarves, that neither side would forgive this readily; Aulë would realize and understand it all for himself.
"Was it not you who created the Ents as an enemy of the dwarves? You're probably-" He glanced up at her, meaning to glare, but when he say her eyes were as full of tears as his own and he stopped. "No, you aren't. I am sorry."
"I never wanted to see your children hurt." Yavanna told him quietly. "I know how you care for them, I do. It pains me to see this happen nearly as much as it pains you, and because it pains you so."
Aulë nodded and leaned against her, and Yavanna began to hum a melody, trying her best to fill his mind with images of better things, comforting him as best as she could.
~*~*~