DO you think she perhaps felt that her fate would mirror Luthien's in that regard also? One of the reasons I don't find Arwen interesting is that she is not so much a character as a cipher....
An interesting character for this topic to my mind is Gimli. Remember how hard he found leaving Lorien? Maybe this is a good excuse to quote just about my favourite passage in the whole shebang
'The travellers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. Gimli wept openly.
"I have looked the last upon that which was fairest," he said to Legolas his companion. "Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift." He put his hand to his breast.
"Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Gloin!"
"Nay!" said Legolas. "Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Gloin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlorien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale."
"Maybe," said Gimli; "and I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves." '
I find this intensely moving, the stern dwarf - a being of stone almost literally, who has seen the ancient glory of Moria is more deeply affected by the alien elvish world of Lorien. The only other thing he finds so moving are the glittering caves - perhaps the ideal mix (for him) of light and stone.
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace
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