Is there a character you're obsessed with?

[Urwen]

Also, I doubt that Nellas got over big brother that quickly.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Urwen

Also, I doubt that Nellas got over big brother that quickly.

Ah, but that's the beauty of it: she doesn't have to get over him for millennia. All she has to do is be together-enough to escape from Doriath (my in-progress fanfic of this has Thranduil leading her out); after that, she would naturally fall in with the party that wants to go live in forests again (rather than hanging out in Lindon or Eregion). She could of course sail West - but the West is full of Noldor, and who was it that actually burned Doriath? Yeah. I can't see her going that way, not when 'more forests' is an option.

hS

[mindil]

I'm fine with Nellas, especially if she's a Nandor.

If not, if his parentage is pure Sindar, how does it fit the puzzle I thought of - why Legolas is not treated as royalty in Lorien, and why he acts so uneducated?

[mindil]

Also, who was Nellas's big brother?

[Urwen]

Originally Posted by mindil

Also, who was Nellas's big brother?

Not hers. Mine. ^_^

[mindil]

She was changing Turin's diapers. Alright, not quite. But how could she be attracted after bringing him up?

[Urwen]

Originally Posted by mindil

She was changing Turin's diapers. Alright, not quite. But how could she be attracted after bringing him up?

Well, this implies she was:

Coming suddenly out of thought he looked at Beleg, and said: 'The elf-maiden that you named, though I forget how: I owe her well for her timely witness; yet I cannot recall her. Why did she watch my ways?'

Then Beleg looked strangely at him. 'Why indeed?' he said. 'Turin, have you lived always with your heart and half your mind far away? As a boy you used to walk with Nellas in the woods.'

'That must have been long ago,' said Turin. 'Or so my childhood now seems, and a mist is over it - save only the memory of my father's house in Dor-lomin. Why would I walk with an elf-maiden?'

'To learn what she could teach, maybe,' said Beleg, 'if no more than a few elven-words of the names of woodland flowers. Their names at least you have not forgotten. Alas! child of Men, there are other griefs in Middle-earth than yours, and wounds made by no weapon. Indeed I begin to think that Elves and Men should not meet or meddle.'

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by mindil

I'm fine with Nellas, especially if she's a Nandor.

If not, if his parentage is pure Sindar, how does it fit the puzzle I thought of - why Legolas is not treated as royalty in Lorien, and why he acts so uneducated?

Depends what your instincts are on Oropher's parentage, I guess--the theory that he is a distaff Elwëan isn't definitive (I've never been inclined toward it, though I see its merits). So, if you are looking at Lórien as a place that recognises the kin of Elu Thingol as preeminent, why would take the grandson of some upstart kingdom-founder as a lord when you have Celeborn, who is presumably the eldest male-line Elwëan left in Middle-earth (I'm making some assumptions about his father and brother here...) who is wedded to the granddaugther of Olwë?

But I'm not entirely convinced that we should take the denizens of Lórien--and Mirkwood, for that matter--as necessarily revering all things Sindar. It's clear enough that the founders of those realms did (Oropher and Amdír) and they probably had a nucleus of followers around them, and obviously they presented something by their presence to the Silvan Elves that allowed kingdoms to collalesce around them, but the realms that resulted are still fundamentally Sylvan more than Sindar.

Granted, I've already given away my bias in thinking that Oropher and Amdír were probably not relatives of Thingol, so for the sake of consistency, I'm imagining that the argument of "I'm kin to the King of the Sindar" wasn't part of the founding myths of those realms, even if "I will be a new Thingol" was clearly a personal motivation--in Mirkwood, definitely. Amdír is a harder case to make any solid guesses on, not least because the history of Lórien between the Fall of Thangorodrim and the loss of Amroth is better described as written in pencil than indelible ink. It's not hard, in the LotR, anyway, to squint and say that the conception where he's the son of Celeborn and Galadriel still holds.

[mindil]

I wasn't thinking Lorien should treat Legolas as equal to Celeborn. But still, visiting royalty should get some fancy attention, and he gets none. Aragorn gets more respect from the Lord and Lady than Legolas - which seems appropriately earned. Even Boromir seems to get more. Yet Legolas has had at least a few hundred years to do something to justify his royal upbringing - and still we don't see anything, not in his behavior, not in how Lorien treats him. (They welcome him better than the rest of the fellowship, but that's for being an elf.)

I wonder why Legolas is such a washout among relatives of his own people.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

AIUI, the Elves just aren't very big on pomp and ceremony. Note that Celeborn and Galadriel rose to greet the Fellowship as was, we are told, Elvish custom, and were dressed very simply. Even going back to the First Age and the relatively august Thingol, his foster-son (ergo, adopted prince) Turin doesn't seem to get any bowing and scraping.

(Of course, externally, the Lorien chapters were written before Legolas became the son of the Elvenking from the Hobbit, himself not named until the Appendices.)

[mindil]

I forgot that piece of authorial chronology.
So Legolas as written wasn't a prince at all. And JRRT didn't retcon any royalty into his behavior.
Was he originally from Mirkwood?