cerulean-shark:

HC that Mairon reanimates some of his fallen soldiers and that’s how he has so many troops. If their corpse is salvagable, he’ll just keep bringing them back. He probably cobbles together the intact bits of unsalvageable corpses to make Frankenstein’s monster-esque creations.

This is giving me Thoughts. You know how in the Silm when Aule made the dwarves, he was able to move them around like dolls but not give them true life and free will? 

Mairon can do that, and he does it on a massive scale. It works as a scare tactic, too; sometimes he’ll even puppeteer the remains of fallen elves. When the hosts of the Noldor go to fight against Angband’s might, they’re forced to fight against their fallen comrades. Eventually, they learn to start burning corpses.

oh no what if this happens with fingon and mae in the nirnaeth and mae sees fingon off in the distance but it’s not fingon fingon’s dead he knows fingon’s dead and mae can’t stand to see the horrible violation of his body in that way and he’s forced to do the unthinkable and face it in battle