Quote:
Originally Posted by Huinesoron
Also it gives poor Noblegas an actual purpose in the story, rather than showing up just to die. ^_^ Now, if I was going to dig even deeper into this fanon, I might propose that when Fingon sent his nephew off to the south, he could have asked his aunt Lalwen to look after him. That would give her a story purpose too, and give Gil-Galad's claim the legitimacy of 'Fingolfin's sister says I'm king'. Potentially a very useful card to play when Turgon's daughter shows up - not to mention the possibility that Finarfin's warlike daughter could wander in at any moment! |
The Lalwen addition is a nice touch--but say not "Fingolfin's sister," say rather, "Finwë's daughter." And in an inheritance standoff between Finwë's eldest (living, anyway) granddaughter and eldest great-granddaughter, his eldest
daughter might well have something to say! And we do know, from what little we know of her, that she was fond of Fingolfin AND could still have been alive after the Fall of Gondolin. Perhaps, out of fondness for his memory, she is the one who asserts "Fingolfinians First."
After all, this was in question as early as Fingolfin's death--Fingon doesn't become High King automatically so much as Maedhros cements that he should be High King. Turgon's inheritance comes with the Nirnaeth and he's in hiding, but no one else claims it.
And looking AHEAD, there is a text (is it "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"? I forget where... might be UT somewhere) that says that Elrond was offered the High Kingship after Gil-galad died. Granted, Elrond turned it down--which could be humility as much as politics, but it definitely points to a precedent about "the descendants of Fingolfin" and this is not a detail that makes as much sense if Gil-galad was a Finarfinian. True, either way it COULD be that Galadriel is being passed over for not being male, but that doesn't make as much sense if Elrond can inherit through Idril. Even if male inheritance is the preference, Elrond being offered the crown clearly means that he could inherit through Idril--or, at least, that at the start of the Third Age it wasn't considered important enough among the surviving Noldor to impede him taking the throne. And if they were willing to change the rules to allow inheritance through the female line to a cultural half-Sinda, foster-child of Maglor, part-Man it seems greatly unlikely they wouldn't have bent the rules for Gil-galad's great-aunt-and-Finwë's-only-extant-grandchild (because she'd have been his great-aunt if he were a Finarfinian).
But if there was a marked preference for males of
Fingolfin's line, it makes more sense to me that the offer was made to Elrond and then left in abeyance when he declined.