[jallanite]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

"in which case Glorfindel’s closest relatives in Middle-earth would probably be Finrod’s sons."

If that were the case, though, why would he be one of Turgon's folk in Gondolin?

Easily answered. Glorfindel’s father might well have been an Elf of Turgon’s people. Think it through.

"we must understand that the tradition that Tolkien presents about dark-haired Noldor has been over-regularized. The Noldor were only mostly dark-haired."

Bingo.

Hardly. If you attribute this is quotation to me then you ought to have included the beginning of my quotation:

Considering that Tolkien later decided that the Silmarillion and associated tales were to be understood as somewhat garbled Mannish tradition, perhaps indeed …

The words “perhaps indeed″ are important to my thought and should not have been omitted.

When attempting to argue about any fictional story it is important to remember that it is just a story and that in apparent discrepancies within the story one should consider all reasonable possibilities. I presented one possibility only here.

Not “Bingo.″

Originally Posted by Galin

If I recall correctly Nerdanel herself is noted as having brown hair and a ruddy complexion. As already noted, Maedros, Amros and Amros have the rare red-brown hair of Nerdanel's kin (using the forms of the names that go with this notion).

Quite correct and I mentioned that “… their mother’s family may have had darkish red hair″, the main emphasis on the word “darkish″. It would have been clearer if I had italicized “darkish”.

Just to note it: the Appendix F description (dark-haired save for the House of Finarfin) actually concerns the Eldar, not merely the Noldor, but I fully agree that this is a general description in any case, allowing for exceptions.

Yes, for the Appendix F description taken by itself. But Christopher Tolkien notes in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (HoME 1), pages 43–44, and in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 77, that earlier forms of this passage in earlier writings applied to the Noldor only and that it was originally in an aborted forward to The Lord of the Rings as given in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HoME 12), page 23, that Tolkien first modified this description so that it applied to all the Eldar.

This problem first came to a head when The Silmarillion was published in which the Vanyar were all (or mostly) fair-haired which very much conflicted with the statement in The Lord of the Rings which indicated that the locks of all of the Eldar were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod.

This description published in The Lord of the Rings creates problems with all the Vanyar who would now also have dark locks and possibly with the silver-haired Celeborn. It is commonly understood to be an unintentional error by Tolken. William Cloud Hicklin appeared to be taking the earlier description as a base of argument and I accepted that.

And I don't think we necessarily need any of the Silvan Elves to be Avari to be golden haired, as according to The Lord of the Rings at least, the Silvan Elves of Lorien and Mirkwood are not considered Eldar in any case.

No, the golden haired Elf of Lothlórien need not necessarily be an Avari. But he could be from all we are told, which makes mention of him irrelevant in William Cloud Hicklin’s list of Elves of anomalous hair-colouring. That was my intended point.