Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
Over in my other recent thread, Huinesoron (as he is wont to do) said something that struck me as quite accurate: |
Why thank you!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
What are the most egregious distortions you can fit into the text of Middle-earth?
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I was born for this.
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The one that instantly springs to mind is "for elves, sex = marriage". Tolkien clearly believed it, but what he actually
says is that:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by LaCE
It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete
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But if I say "It's the priest saying 'man and wife' that makes you married," that doesn't mean that any time you can get a priest to say those words, someone somewhere is instantly wedded!
Can doesn't mean
always does, and anyway:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by LaCE
... it was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, both being unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name)...
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So if you, ah, 'achieve the act of bodily union'
without the blessings and the Name of the One, it don't count. ^_~
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Also, Maglor. "It is told" that he chucked his Silmaril in the sea and now wanders around singing a lot, but the Silm itself admits that there's no evidence, and it's just saying it to claim that the Silmarils are in mystically/elementally significant places forever. For all we know, Maglor could have chucked himself in there with the jewel - or maybe he kept it, and is living off on Tol Fuin with it around his neck even now!
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Come to think of it, we don't even know when Beren and Luthien died! Tolkien only tells us that Dior "knew" that the Nauglamir being sent to him was a sign that they'd perished, but he could have been... y'know, wrong.
Their great-grandson Elros lived 500 years, and only 60-odd of those can be written off as 'he wasn't mortal yet'; his son lived over 400. Even if we assume actually visiting the Undying Lands and returning has no more effect than just living slightly closer to them, a 400-year second life would take them a good three centuries into the Second Age. They probably just sent the Silmaril over to Dior for safekeeping and bopped off to hang with Galadriel.
I mean, heck: Tol Galen is well inside the areas of Ossiriand that survived to become Lindon. Maybe they just stayed put! At the very least, that's a plausible myth/rural legend of the Sindarin refugees in the early Second Age: that their princess is still out there, watching over them from the forests south of Harlond...
hS