Head of the family? Earendil or Luthien? Dark or Golden?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by cellurdur

You have changed your train of argument. You are now in agreement, that for the Kings, Earendil was heralded as their foremost ancestor. All you are trying to do now is answer the reason why.

No I am not. I merely put forth the argument which I believe, and I think almost everyone believes, that Eärendil would be a natural person to name as the main ancestor. I still doubt that Eärendil’s original desire to be mortal is considered at all. I never stated I now accepted what seems to me to be an absurd conclusion.

If you consider my discussion to be reasonable, then I suppose you no longer make this claim. That appears to be your logic.

Mentioned more than Elros may not surprise you but what about Luthien?

And what about Melian and Idril? That they and Lúthien are not mentioned by the Kings of Númenor also does not surprise me at all. One would expect in a normally sexist society that only the male lineage would be commonly mentioned, as is common in medieval genealogies.

This does not really tell us anything about the rest of the Numenoreans being blond. The beauty seldom seen in Numenor could be taken as a reference, that she was just exceptionally beautiful and few other women could match her. Erendis is compared to Morwen, the most beautiful woman of the Edain in the first age.

I agree there is a second way to read it; this being that her dark beauty(brunette and grey eyes) was the beauty that was seldom seen, but I am not sure this is what Tolkien intended.

I am sure that is what Tolkien intended because I read Tolkien’s words as they are obviously meant. Tolkien begins by writing:

There Almarian the Queen observed her [Erendis’] beauty, of a kind seldom seen in Númenor;

Tolkien does not write that Erendis was exceptionally beautiful (though that is probably to also be understood), but that that she possessed a “beauty, of a kind seldom seen in Númenor”. Note the word kind which refers to a sort of beauty, not to beauty in general, for example to a buxom amzonian beauty, or a graceful slim beauty, or a red-haired, freckled beauty, or some other kind of beauty. You ignore Tolkien’s use of the word kind.

Then Tolkien follows this with the word for. He is now indicating the cause of this kind of beauty, not to Erendis’ general beauty. He writes:

… for Beregar [Erendis’ father] came of the House of Bëor by ancient descent, though not of the royal line of Elros,

So this kind of beauty comes to Erendis through her ancestry. Since Tolkien only mentions elsewhere that the people of Bëor were brown-haired and grey-eyed, presumably this kind of beauty seldom seen in Númenor would be that of the folk of Bëor and would refer to the brown hair and grey eyes common among the folk of Bëor, the folk of Bëor not being as common in Númenor as the mainly blond folk of Marach.

Tolkien then further indicates by plain statement the kind of beauty possessed by Erendis by writing:

… and Erendis was dark-haired and of slender grace, with the clear grey eyes of her kin.

Her Tolkien states, if it were not clear from what he had previously written, that Erendis is dark-haired and with grey-eyes; and that is the kind of beauty that she possessed which is seldom seen in Númenor. If Tolkien had intended Erendis to be compared to Morwen he could have simply said so. He did not say so.

There is never any outright statement that the majority of the Numenoreans were blond.

I did not say there was. There is only a strong implication. You asked, “I don’t think Tolkien ever said that the majority of Númenoreans were blond? Could you please provide the quote.” The only quote I have that you seem not to know about I provided. When put together with references to the fair-haired Hadorians and the brown-haired Bëorians in The Silmarillion, this quote indicates clearly that the majority of women in Númenor were of a different kind of beauty from Erendis, presumably different in hair-colour and eye-colour, and presumably blond like most Hadorians. Tolkien uses the word kind which you just ignore. Ignoring it does not make the word vanish.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:N%..._Needs_Editing for a note about this.

Notice that they are called 'Children of Luthien.' They could just as easily be called the children of Thingol, the children of Melian or the children of Dior. It makes little difference in context of the prophecy.

“Could” doesn’t change the fact that the reference twice refers to Lúthien and not to the others. I suspect Tolkien may have imagined this prophecy as given by Mandos to Lúthen, but that is only a guess. But if it is to be understood that a genuine prophecy was given, then it was given to Lúthien or about Lúthien, not to or about Melian, Thingol, or Dior. That the prophecy would be just as true if said of the others is correct. But it is not repeated about the others.

The fact that Luthien's name alone is mentioned shows that she is considered the primary matriarch of that line.

The only matriarch ever mentioned by Tolkien Gollum’s grandmother. Tolkien did not used the word matriarch otherwise and so far as I see no-one but yourself considers Lúthien to be “the primary matriarch”. That is only title you have invented, unused by Tolkien except for Gollum’s grandmother.

We are given the reason why Elrond does not want to be considered as part of the Noldor.

No we aren’t. Nowhere, so far as I recall, does Elrond ever stated to be either part of the Noldor or Sindarin. He is always entitled “Half-elven”, but presumably as a descendant of Idril he would consider himself a descendant of the Noldor. Where is it stated that Elrond does not want to be considered as a descendant of the Noldor?

Elrond does not happen to mention Idril in the one case where he mentions his descent. That this means he rejects his decent from Fingon, if that is what you mean, would only be your own invention and a dubious one. Frodo indicates puzzlement and amazement that Elrond claims to have participated in the Last Alliance. Apparently Frodo (rather surprisingly) does not know any of the details of Elrond’s past. Elrond answers that “Eärendil was my sire, who was horn in Gondolin before its fall.” Presumably Elrond mentions when Eärendil was born as an indication of his age, dating back long before the Last Alliance, and parhaps traces his mother Elwing only to Lúthien because of the prophecy. Why Elrond does not mention his paternal grandmother Idril or his great-grandfather Beren we are simply not told. Why Elrond does not mention Tuor at all we are not told.

Your explanations are only your own inventions.