[Galin]

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

(...) Even amid all the revisions and alterations that were still ongoing at the time of his death, this statement, made late in his life, would to me indicate that this was very likely Tolkien's ultimate decision on the matter. We cannot know for certain, obviously, but I would consider this statement more "final," closer to what he envisioned as the most desirable form for his legendarium than statements made earlier.

I would have a few questions here, as the seeming change of Celeborn appears to incorporate a fuller change involving Galadriel as well.

A) was Tolkien really going to have Galadriel marry her first cousin?

B) why did Celeborn, if from Aman, not leave Middle-earth at the same time as Galadriel?

C) was Tolkien truly going to change both Galadriel's already published role in the Noldorin Rebellion, and Celeborn's already published Sindarin status?

I'm not sure Tolkien considered these questions whenever he put the idea of a Telerin Celeborn to paper, or if he even remembered just what he had written versus what he had put into print. With respect to B however: when we know Tolkien actually considered this matter, he explained that Celeborn had never been to Aman.

'(...) These comments imply that Celeborn could have left Middle-earth with Galadriel if he had wished, and Tolkien's replies to queries from readers seem to confirm this. In his unpublished letter to Eileen Elgar, begun 22 September 1963 he comments that Celeborn and Galadriel were of different kin: Celeborn was of that branch of the Elves that, in the First Age, was so in love with Middle-earth that they had refused the call of the Valar to go to Valinor; he had never seen the Blessed Realm. Now he remained until he had seen the coming of the Dominion of Men. But to an immortal Elf, for whom time was not as it is to mortals, the period in which he was parted from Galadriel would seem brief.'

Hammond And Scull, The Lord of the Rings, A Reader's Companion

And Tolkien's memory becomes an issue. In The Peoples of Middle-Earth Christopher Tolkien refers to three essays written during his father's last years, and some brief writings 'that appear to derive from the last years of his life' primarily concerned with or arising from the Glorfindel question. He writes...

'These late writings are notable for the many wholly new elements that entered the 'legendarium'; and also for the number of departures from earlier work on the Matter of the Elder Days. It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in published work; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him. But it remains in any case an open question, whether (to give a single example) in the essay Of Dwarves and Men he had definitely rejected the greatly elaborated account of the houses of the Edain that had entered the Quenta Silmarillion in about 1958, or whether it had passed from his mind.'

Christopher Tolkien, Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth

I note the Celebrimbor matter, for example, where Tolkien writes a late, variant history for Celebrimbor... however JRRT had evidently forgotten that he had added that Celebrimbor was Feanorian to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, and CJRT notes that had his father remembered this, he would have felt bound by the published account.

Although Tolkien did revise even already published text at times, he had an extra consideration here with respect to secondary world building. Christopher Tolkien also notes his father's: 'intense concern to avoid discrepany and inconsistency' even though in the case raised, JRRT's anxiety was actually unfounded (Of Dwarves And Men, note 8).

As to Treebeard's allusion to Galadriel and Celeborn having more than one child, I would not dismiss it out of hand, since there are other characters in this mythology who had more than one child, but not all were actually named. Aragorn and Arwen come first to mind; we only know the name of their son and heir, not any of their daughters who are mentioned only in brief passing.

That's true in general, but the evidence here does not seem very strong, at least to my mind. It seems to me that the main reason some raise the possibility that Amroth is Galadriel's son is not really Treebeard's statement -- which of course in any event does not refer to Amroth specifically as one of Galadriel's children or descendants -- but the outline Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn.

But in any case this idea is essentially abandoned by comparison to a later text.