"Captain Tinkerbell
" is a one-shot The Silmarillion fanfic centering around Maglor, the last of the sons of Feanor, who was left in exile on the shores of Middle-Earth. Here, Maglor is a British officer in World War I, where he winds up serving alongside a young J. R. R. Tolkien.
Tropes that appear in this fanfic:
- Agony of the Feet: Tolkien is suffering from trench foot shortly around the time he figures out what Maglor is, making them a literal sore point. In fact the only person who doesn't suffer from trench foot the entire story is Maglor himself.
- Been There, Shaped History: In this fanfic, Maglor taught J. R. R. Tolkien some Quenya, which Tolkien would later incorporate into his stories.
- Calming Tea: Maglor gives Johnny Matlin tea to calm him after his failed attempt to desert. Later when Tolkien begins to fall ill, he makes more tea for him, fearful of giving him tainted water.
- Continuation: Essentially a fanfic where Maglor, left Wandering the Earth after the First Age, lives to see World War I.
- Contrived Coincidence: Maglor notes the strange fact that two soldiers in his company are a pair of redheaded twins, Jack and Johnny Maitlin. Maglor's two youngest brothers Amrod and Amras were both redheaded twins, and one dies by fire. Even more coincidentally, one of the Maitlin twins is killed in an explosion, making this another death by fire.
- Ear Ache: Maglor's ears are blistered from frequently shoving them under his helmet.
- Final Battle: Discussed. At times Maglor wonders if the Dagor Dagorath is taking place, if his father's Silmarils were blown to the earth's surface by a stray explosion, but dismisses the notion since not even the Valar would waste the lives of the Children of Iluvatar on such a pointless endeavor.
- In-Series Nickname:
- The title comes from the soldiers' nickname for Maglor.
- J.R.R. Tolkien is nicknamed "Lieutenant Beowulf" by the company.
- Insult to Rocks: What Maglor considers the British calling the carnage "inhumane.""They call this inhuman and I, on behalf of inhumanity, would like to object. This is all your handiwork, to believe anything else is to deny responsibility."
- The Mentor: Maglor to the young Tolkien, as the entity who taught him Quenya.
- No One Could Survive That!: Discussed, as this is the biggest in-universe clue to Maglor's true nature.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: In the First Age, Maglor was a relative middleweight, a High Elf but nowhere near as powerful as Maiar like Gandalf or Sauron (also examples of this trope in the main canon), with few deeds of valor to his name. Here, where most of his kind have departed Middle-Earth or have faded away, Maglor is an Implacable Man who can withstand an explosion while the man next to him dies, is immune to Deadly Gas, and is only laid up for a month after being stabbed.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Maglor requests to have his company retreat thanks to an outbreak of sickness, but his superior officers deny it.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Lieutenant Saskiss, Maglor's co-commanding officer, is killed in an offensive near the Somme in the first lines of the story. The next officer sent to the front is the young J. R. R. Tolkien.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Maitlin twins are a bit part and neither speaks, but the death of one winds up revealing what Maglor is to the young J.R.R. Tolkien as Maglor was right next to him and wasn't wounded by the explosion.
- War Is Hell: The hellish conditions near the Somme are experienced first-hand by Maglor and the soldiers under his command: constant fear of enemy attack, infected water supplies, an Obstructive Bureaucrat or two, and the general feeling of pointlessness.
- Writer's Block: Maglor is suffering from this for much of the story. For him it's disconcerting as he spent 200 years drifting again the last time that happened.
