What if... nobody reused names?
 

This is possibly a little too silly even for Mirth, but:

What if all repeated names in the Legendarium actually refer to the same person?

So all the Elves are either just moving around a lot or pulling a Glorfindel, all the dwarves are reincarnating (hi, Durin!), any Evil characters are being reembodied by the Dark Lord, and all the Men are being restored to life by Mandos, Manwe, and Iluvatar (they started with Beren and just got hooked).

Some examples:

-Legolas of Gondolin escaped with Tuor's refugees, and wound up signing up to Oropher's party for the eastward migration. The tale of how he wound up adopted by Oropher's son still does the comedy circuits in the Vale of Anduin.

-Finduilas of Dol Amroth had a massive surge of deja vu when she first met Denethor the Steward's Heir. He reminded her so strongly of her lost love Turin... it took her quite some time to figure out that was because Turin was his great-granddad!

She might have had more luck if she'd told him she was only pretending to be Imrahil's daughter. What she never did figure out was that Steward!Turin had been just as unlucky as in his first life: he had no children, and wound up being replaced by the returned Turgon of Gondolin, who soon fobbed the task off on his subordinate Ecthelion. And then the former King of Ossiriand took over... it was all a bit of a mess!

-Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, spent a long time recovering from the whole helmet-stabbing incident (very embarassing). He only made it out again for the Siege of Minas Tirith. Once he found out the name of that big, pointy-looking white tower, he came over all shaky and hid in a tent for the rest of the fight.

-The Vala Lorien was quite put out to find himself trapped in Incarnate form, particularly since the form in question was that of a rather shiny forest. He had some hope of escape, however: his neighbouring forest, formed by the Ent Fangorn putting out a few too many runners one century, still managed to move around a fair bit. (Taur-nu-Fuin, just over the river, is irrelevant to this discussion; Thranduil's elves just planted a lot of seeds from Dorthonion there. Everyone needs a hobby.) Still, at least he got to chat with that nice loremaster, Rumil.

I feel like I'm missing some of the best opportunities here; though at least I remembered this joke in time:

-Turin (sixth Steward of Gondor) is the many-times great-grandfather of Turin (twenty-third Steward of Gondor). Which, given his familial relations, totally checks out. :D

hS

Think of Boromir, who is known to have 3 incarnations. And at all times holding a border country against the big bad guy. Not to mention his repeated relationship to Barahir.

BOROMIR: "Just once - just once! - I would like to look out of my window and not see a Dark Lord's evil fortress. Is that so much to ask?"

ARAGORN: "Not to worry - once we have accomplished our quest, the thread of Mordor will be ended forever."

BOROMOR: "Yeah, right. (Like I'm going to take life coaching from a walking brooch.) Just... remind me never to name any of my sons Barahir."

GANDALF: "Fear not, my friend; that won't be a problem."

BOROMIR: "[Darkly] You know, in Old Adunaic the word for 'wizard' is Zigur..."

hS

You mean Minbari can be reincarnated as Humans?:eek:

I would love that, for obvious reasons.

Does this also explain the origins of Gil-galad? Is he the son of both Fingon and Orodreth: his own namesake superimposed in time and therefore one and the same? A simultaneous double incarnation? :eek:

Oh, no, there's a totally different explanation for that: "Orodreth" is a girl's name (Orod-Elleth, 'Mountain-maid'). That's why she plays such a subordinate rule, letting first Finrod, then Cel'n'Cur, and finally Turin run her life - as we all know, Tolkien's female characters are all completely passive.

Anyway, she was married to Fingon, but got so annoyed at his "close friendship" with Maedhros that she took both the kids (well, all three, but we don't talk about Hallas) and went to hang out with her big brother.

It's all in the upcoming Nature of Middle-earth, of course. :D

hS