We all know about the water-eyed Nerdanel caressing sculptures she’d made of her family and wandering empty halls in grief but

Think about the Nerdanel who had to single-handedly run Formenos while combating the sorrow of her losses. Think about the Nerdanel who faced the scorn of all her kin in Aman for the deeds of her family who left her. Think of the Nerdanel who loved her husband and sons anyway.

A Nerdanel who reached out to Olwe to try to mend that tear, who was still friendly with Finarfin, who was still just as clever as she ever was at getting her own way while being perfectly charming, who cannot help but love as a mother That She Might Render Aid 

…Alternatively, consider Nerdandel as the first finwian wife to walk away from both spouse and children in anger, and on moral principle. A Nerdanel who was just as self-righteous and stubborn as any in her family, if less impulsive and violent with it. A Nerdanel who, if confronted about her family’s crimes, would snarl that she told them how this would end. A Nerdanel who made a deliberate choice to drown her grief in the well of her rage, because even if there are days it doesn’t work, it kept her from lying down and dying like Miriel. A Nerdanel who remade herself in a refusal to be a living monument to the family that, whether she likes it or not, she helped to make.