[narfforc]

I'd like to go back to the Luthien debate, and say a few things that may have been missed. Firstly the powers Luthien employed, these were:

1. Her Song/Singing/Voice

2. Her Beauty

3. Inherent Power

1a.The song of Luthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet passed.

1b. But Luthien heard his answering voice, and she sang then a song of greater power. The wolves howled, and the isle trembled.

1c. Then suddenly she eluded his sight, and out of the shadows began a song of such surpassing loveliness, and of such blinding power, that he listened perforce; and a blindness came upon him, as his eyes roamed to and fro, seeking her. All his court were cast down in slumber, and all the fires faded and were quenched; but the Silmarils in the crown on Morgoth's head blazed forth suddenly with a radiance of white flame;...................She cast her cloak before his eyes, and set upon him a dream, dark as the Outer Void where once he walked alone.

1d. The song of Luthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear ....... And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon the stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was moved, nor has been since.

2a. Then all memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for Luthien was the most beautiful of the Children of Iluvatar.

2b. Then Morgoth looking upon her beauty conceived in his thought an evil lust, and a design more dark than any that had come into his heart since he had fled Valinor. Thus he was beguiled by his own malice....

3a. It is told in the Lay of Leithian how she escaped from the house in Hirilorn; she put forth her arts of enchantment, and caused her hair to grow to great length, and of it she wove a dark robe that wrapped her beauty like a shadow, and it was laden with a spell of sleep.

3b. Then Luthien stood upon the bridge, and declared her power: and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare.

3c. But suddenly some power, descended from of old from divine race, possessed Luthien, and casting back her foul raiment she stood forth, small before the might of Carcharoth, but radiant and terrible. Lifting up her hand she commanded him to sleep, saying: 'O woe-begotten spirit, fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life.' And Carcharoth was felled, as though lightning had smitten him.

Well there we go, seems like a pretty good C.V to me, and what a mighty person, some powerful beings she got the better of there. What price for Beauty and a Song, did a bit more damage than the swords of The Noldor, including Ringil. One can say that Morgoths lust defeated him, but it must have something to feed off, and evil thought must have a reason. So whether you rate Luthien as an Elf or Hybrid Maia/Elf she deserves to be close to were her mother sits on the list.