Nienna the Weeper
Revised Version Posted October 5, 2005
Seasonal Variations and original version below
The more I worked on the project of revamping my early meshes and skins (now that I understand the wonders of texture mapping and other delights), the more I realized that Nienna would need more of an overhaul than, say, Yavanna or Vána. Even the version I had done to spruce up the head mesh and facial skin when I was working on the Formal Wear project really was not adequate, and so I was back to square on. Happily, when I actually began work on the character, things went relatively quickly.
Although she is one of the Aratar, the most powerful of the Valar, she doesn't often enter into Tolkien's tales (in fact, I can't recall that she ever speaks in the published version of The Silmarillion, though she weeps, for the marring of the world by Melkor, and the poisoning of the Two Trees). Her mourning is not meant to represent endless grief, but pity, hope, and endurance, and her greatest contribution to the story with which more people are familiar, The Lord of the Rings, is the fact that the Maia Olórin (aka Gandalf) was her greatest pupil, and from her he learned many of the qualities that enabled him to guide Frodo and others to successfully defeat Sauron ("It was pity that stayed [Bilbo's] hand; Pity and Mercy" is certainly a reflection of Gandalf's study with Nienna). More than her brother Námo, I felt her clothing should reflect the solemnity of grief, although I didn't want it to be stark, as "widow's weeds" are so often portayed. She is, after all, one of the queens of the Valar. So I limited the palette to blacks, grays, and deep blues bordering on purple, and allowed her some embellishments, such as the brocaded patterns of cloth and the belt and pendant displaying what I designed to be her emblem. I carried these themes into her seasonal clothes. Using the mesh I made for Varda's winter emsemble as the base, I gave her a gray cloak and hood for that season, since during the time of the loss of the Trees, Tolkien specifically mentions that Nienna pulled up her gray hood and wept.
