Title: Negative Equation
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: JE NE REGRETTE RIEN "I Regret Nothing"
Other prompt: SWG March Challenge Middle-Earth is Multitudes, the prompts Easterlings and Neurodiverse Characters.
Rating: G
Length: 300
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zhie & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
I see Caranthir as definitely not neurotypical. In fact, I am pretty sure all of Feanor's family (himself, Nerdanel, his sons, his grandson, and most likely any law-children, Fingon definitely included) are neurodiverse in various ways.
Summary: A page from Caranthir Feanorion's journal, regarding regret.

Is it bravado, to be without regret? Thoughtlessness? Ignorance? Or is it that hearing the statement only is the smallest part of the equation. I understand equations, better than nearly everyone. The so-called answer is -- as I have tried to explain on many occasions -- the least interesting part. So what is the context, the framework, the parameters. What indeed are the questions being asked? The problem being addressed? Who is it disclaiming regret? Is that disclaimer a hope, a threat, a statement of fact, a veneer of falsehood or fantasy over a worm-eaten core of self-loathing? Is there a point?


To look at it another way, what is regret, singular or systematic? A feeling? An assessment (logical or emotional) of deeds or thoughts or something more nebulous? Something to flog oneself with? I have seen Nelyo revisiting his plans for the Fifth Battle, trying to find a way it could have gone other than it did. Was that an assessment? A punishment? Both at once? It is not an exercise he has done (that I know of) since Fingon returned. Is it regret to be unhappy, even terribly unhappy, at a plan's catastrophic failure? I think it reason, not regret.


I have been told I should regret many things, and certainly there are deeds I would do differently now, things I am not proud of, things based on incomplete or erroneous information, things I should have thought through more carefully, but I do not feel regret for them. What would be the point? I have apologized where called for, taken responsibility likewise, made note of better ways. I do not regret engaging Bor and his people, however angry and disappointed I may be -- still am! -- at Uldor and his. But I see no reason for pointless and useless performative regret.