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Old 08-27-2018, 05:15 PM   #48
Formendacil
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Formendacil is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Formendacil is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Formendacil is lost in the dark paths of Moria.Formendacil is lost in the dark paths of Moria.
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A short chapter, but a weighty one! (And till this resurrection, the most-buried thread in the sub-forum.)

The farewell with Galadriel and Celeborn, especially Galadriel singing of Valinor as the Fellowship floats away, ends my reading experience of Lothlórien much as it began: with a heightened spiritual experience missing from the movies (either because Jackson et al coudln't show such a thing or desired not to). And the experience of Cerin Amroth certainly mirrors the song of Valinor in a sense: both deal with the Elvish longing for what was.

To visit Cerin Amroth, which seems like the purest place of Lothlórien's power, is to step into the Elder Days, which still ARE at the beginning of the Lórien trilogy, but Galadriel's lament is a lament that they have passed. Similarly, Cerin Amroth, the heart of Elvendom on earth, might also be said to be the Heart of Elvendom on Middle-earth--no one would rightly say it is more blessed than Valinor, but if it is a place where the Elder Days are still present, then it is a place that speaks of Elven realms outside Valinor: of the Teleri refusing the Great March and becoming the Silvan Elves, of the Noldor returning to Middle-earth and carving great realms for themselves under the Sun, of the Sindar moving East after the First Age and seeking to find new Menegroths and Doriaths. To lose Cerin Amroth is to lose the First Age.

And what is balanced between Cerin Amroth and the lament in the text? "I will diminish and go into the West and remain Galadriel." Already, when Frodo meets Galadriel again: "already she seemed to him, as by men of later days Elves still at times are seen: present and yet remote, a living vision of that which had already been left behind by the flowing streams of Time." The stated goal of the makers of the Three had been precisely to hold back the flowing streams of Time, and though the power of Nenya has not yet been broken with the destruction of the One, once Galadriel passes the temptation and commits herself to assisting its destruction, it immediately begins.

This image of Valinor as a consolation prize for those who have lost Middle-earth is vastly melancholic, and it's a bit at odds with the way the Silmarillion presents it. There it is a place of light and glory and, once Fëanor leads away the Ñoldor, it is a place to look back at in longing. And something might be said regarding the longing--and envy--of the Númenóreans in the Akallabêth.

Also, a side note, to go back to an ancient discussion of the fitfulness of the gifts, Fordhim linked four of the gifts to the eventual endings of the characters, and was then pleased to add Boromir, Merry, and Pippin to that analysis--but what of Legolas? Could it be, in keeping with the changing, lost nature of Lothlórien, that Galadriel doesn't give him a gift for his ending in the wistful hope of staving on his inevitable (Elven) end with a gift mired in the here-and-now?
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