Celebrian's Misfortunes

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by the phantom

there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force... one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos

A detail in this quote attracted my attention. Tolkien refers only to Elves, who takes other Elves by force. He didn't mention any kind of other races in his phrases. Not in this one, not in the other ones in manuscript B.
He didn't mention, how these Elves rejected bodily life, nor when they reject.

I have two intentions concerning the quote:

1. Tolkien didn't mean "raped", but he meant rather, that an Elf takes another Elf's wife and forces her to live with him and other marital responsibilities.
Love under Elves has a special meaning in Middle-earth. It is something very binding. The bind lasts even after one part went to Mandos and the other part could not marry another Elf without consent of the other part in Mandos, that he/she rests in the Halls in Mandos until the end (Finwe and Miriel).
Regarding this, we can assume, that it must be very hard to en Elf being forced to change the partner. It must be a very huge torment to live with another Elf and not to see his/her "naturally given" partner. These elves passes to Mandos.
But this means not that being raped by orcs is no reason to leave Middle-earth.

2. (assuming, that Tolkien meant "raped")
I could be, that Orcs are not included in that theory, but only Elves. Being raped by orcs must not mean, that they rejects life and pass to Mandos. It is more a kind of physical torture. Being raped by Elves, by someone of their own people, could be a huge physical and psychological wound, that they can't suffer this and pass to Mandos.

I tend towards the first intention and that Celebrian was raped by orcs. Especially plausible is for me the reasoning of SpM, that Elrond healed the wounds, but Celebrian passed in spite of the healing, because she lost her delight.