Galadriel

[morwen edhelwen]

What curse? if you are using the account that says she participated in the Kinslaying, the Doom may have just meant, for her, that she was under the Ban and semi-permanent exile. The tragedies that affected her (such as Celebrian's death) may have had nothing to do with the fact that she had disobeyed the Valar.

[Galin]

AFAIK; this is one of the last issues addressed by Tolkien before his death (if not THE last). Some hold (I do not) that he was near dotage and couldn't remember things clearly, and that this is the reason for extensive changes in the latter part of his life. That is thier opinion of course. I let others judge the justness of it.

But this issue of Tolkien's memory is raised by Christopher Tolkien himself, for example...

'These late writings are notable for the many wholly new elements that entered the 'legendarium'; and also for the number of departures from earlier work on the Matter of the Elder Days. It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in published work; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him. But it remains in any case an open question, whether (to give a single example) in the essay Of Dwarves and Men he had definitely rejected the greatly elaborated account of the houses of the Edain that had entered the Quenta Silmarillion in about 1958, or whether it had passed from his mind.'

Christopher Tolkien, Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth

Even Tolkien himself noted: 'There are clear evidences of confusion (as he said at one point, 'my memory is no longer retentive'), but there are elements...' CJRT, Last Writings

And I would add that Tolkien need not have been very old to write a new text while forgetting some detail already published. The Lord of the Rings is a relatively long and detailed work, and it would be easy enough for anyone to forget something that arguably 'should' have been considered when writing later texts.

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

Originally Posted by morwen edhelwen

What curse? if you are using the account that says she participated in the Kinslaying, the Doom may have just meant, for her, that she was under the Ban and semi-permanent exile. The tragedies that affected her (such as Celebrian's death) may have had nothing to do with the fact that she had disobeyed the Valar.

There was no death for Celebrian. She left for Valinor after that terrible ordeal at the Redhorn pass.

[morwen edhelwen]

[QUOTE=Gorthaur the Cruel;631402]There was no death for Celebrian. She left for Valinor after that terrible ordeal at the Redhorn pass.[/QUOTE
Yes. i forgot..but didn't Tolkien write somewhere that Elf-women could die from being attacked by Orcs? Can someone confirm the truth of this? Celebrian did not die.. but she could have, couldn't she? -Morwen Edhelwen.

[elbenprincess]

elf maidens would die if they are raped by someone. And I don´t believe she was raped, "just" tortured.

[Pitchwife]

Well, we don't really know what atrocities Orcish methods of torturing captive Elven women did or didn't include (and I don't really want to know), but considering that Celebrían's need for healing was so overwhelming that she abandoned her husband and children for it, she must have suffered something extremely traumatizing.

[morwen edhelwen]

Yeah...

[Nerwen]

Morwen, I'm really not clear what point you're trying to make about Celebrían's "death". Whether or not she could have died, the fact remains that she... you know... didn't.

elbenprincess– regarding the bit about "rape = death for Elves". This is a "rule" that's puzzled me for a while. It's very often cited (especially by fan-fic authors attacking each others' work ), but anyone know the source? Was it a lasting element of Tolkien's legendarium (that I've never picked up), or just something he scribbled on the back of an envelope? The only reference I know of is the first draft of "Laws and Customs of the Eldar" (Note 5 to the main text in "Morgoth's Ring"):

But among all these deeds there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for this was wholly against their nature, and one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos.

In the next version Tolkien revised this passage to:

Even when in after days, as the histories reveal, many of the Eldar in Middle-earth became corrupted, and their hearts darkened by the shadow that lies upon Arda, seldom is any tale told of any deeds of lust among them.

No mention of "rape = death".

So, if that's where it comes from, it's pretty clearly a passing idea that the author soon rejected.

Or is there another, more authoritative source? Anyone know?