Immortality and the sons of Elrond

[Galadriel55]

Can someone explain?...

What on earth does 1 have to do with...anything?

[jallanite]

Why is 1 the loneliest number?

It’s like the song says:

One is one and all alone,
And ever more shall be so.

[Mithadan]

I did not have time to make my post earlier, and did not feel like searching for this thread again. So I left myself a place holder.

I am completing a re-read of LoTR, my first in 4 years. This is unlike me, as I read the books at least once a year when I was younger. At any rate, I came across something that immediately reminded me of this thread and some posts that I made here long ago. In short, and in the words of my profession, I write to "confess error".

Read this thread from the first post. It is an example of why this board is both fun as well as intellectually challenging. It begins with an apparently unanswerable question. What happened to Elladan and Elrohir? The thread travels through possible answers to the specific question, speculation upon the nature of the half-elven generally and the children of Elrond specifically, and even touches upon the issue of canon; what is most reliable as a source of information in Tolkien's work.

There is a great debate about "canon" somewhere on this board. The general consensus was that works published during Tolkien's lifetime were the most reliable (with debate as to LoTR versus The Hobbit versus the "lesser works" such as Tom Bombadil). Everything published posthumously is of somewhat uncertain reliability with varying opinions regarding The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the multiple and varying versions of materials found in HoME.

To start getting to the point, I am currently reading the Appendices to LoTR; an often overlooked source of information and enjoyment. For those of you who don't know this, if I recall correctly, the Appendices did not appear in the first printing of Return of the King. JRRT had gone overboard and created an altogether too long and comprehensive work that would have required a fourth volume of LoTR to publish the Appendices in their entirety. He had to edit it down drastically. The pieces he cut are found in HoME 12. These excerpts are very well written, were prepared with the intention that they be published, and to return to the issue of canonicity, probably are more reliable than any version of the Silmarillion.

Anyway, in the published appendices, which deserve even greater deference than the unpublished excerpts found in Peoples of Middle Earth, there is the following refrence to the children of Elrond which appears to have been overlooked in this thread.

But to the children of Elrond a choice was also appointed: to pass with him from the circles of the world; or if they remained to become mortal and die in Middle-earth."

OK. I was wrong when I argued that the initial choice of Elrond bound his children and that the "Choice of Luthien" given to Arwen somehow arose after she married Aragorn. This quote also raises the question of whether Elladan and Elrohir made their choice merely by not accompanying Elrond.

The above quote does not resolve potential inconsistencies debated above. But as part of his work published during Tolkien's lifetime, it deserves considerable deference, equal to that accorded to LoTR and more than Letters, The Silmarillion or HoME... Or is it?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

I did not have time to make my post earlier, and did not feel like searching for this thread again. So I left myself a place holder.

Aww. I wanted to see more head-scratching over it.

Originally Posted by Mithadan

OK. I was wrong when I argued that the initial choice of Elrond bound his children and that the "Choice of Luthien" given to Arwen somehow arose after she married Aragorn. This quote also raises the question of whether Elladan and Elrohir made their choice merely by not accompanying Elrond.

The above quote does not resolve potential inconsistencies debated above. But as part of his work published during Tolkien's lifetime, it deserves considerable deference, equal to that accorded to LoTR and more than Letters, The Silmarillion or HoME... Or is it?

Personally, I think that quote has the right of it. Or should. For the sake of fairness, if nothing else. Why should Arwen be made to make her irrevocable choice before her daddy left, when her brothers get some indefinite period to think things over? The words of Tolkien in Letters # 153, here:

The end of [Elrond's] sons...is not told. They delay their choice and remain for a while.

were from a draft letter written in 1954. I like to think the "delay" was perhaps only meant in the sense that the brothers didn't choose when Arwen did, but still decided before Elrond left. If that was indeed the case, then both apparently picked picked mortality.
There's still plenty of room for debate, granted, but it still just doesn't seem right that the standards would be seemingly different among Elrond's children.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

From Letter No. 151

* It is not made explicit how [Arwen] could arrange this. She could not of course just transfer her ticket on the boat like that! For any except those of Elvish race ‘sailing West’ was not permitted, and any exception required ‘authority’, and she was not in direct communication with the Valar, especially not since her choice to become ‘mortal’. What is meant is that it was Arwen who first thought of sending Frodo into the West, and put in a plea for him to Gandalf (direct or through Galadriel, or both), and she used her own renunciation of the right to go West as an argument. Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo’s : both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea. The Appendices show clearly that he was an emissary of the Valar, and virtually their plenipotentiary in accomplishing the plan against Sauron.

As for Elladan and Elrohir, they certainly remained for a certain time after Elrond sailed; Tolkien wrote (can't find the cite) that after Galadriel left, and Lothlorien started to fade, Celeborn went to Rivendell to live with them, for a while.

The impression I get is that here as with so many other matters around the edges Tolkien never really made up his mind, and even his 'definitive' statements may conceal complexity when expressed elliptically or briefly. Suffice it to say that Elrond's children got to make the Choice at some point, but it's unclear when.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

As for Elladan and Elrohir, they certainly remained for a certain time after Elrond sailed; Tolkien wrote (can't find the cite) that after Galadriel left, and Lothlorien started to fade, Celeborn went to Rivendell to live with them, for a while.

That's from Appendix B.

But after the passing of Galadriel in a few years Celeborn...went to Imladris to dwell with the sons of Elrond.

It doesn't say that the choice had been made one way or the other, but isn't it still possible they had chosen, and had decided on mortality?

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

From Letter No. 151

* It is not made explicit how [Arwen] could arrange this. She could not of course just transfer her ticket on the boat like that! For any except those of Elvish race ‘sailing West’ was not permitted, and any exception required ‘authority’, and she was not in direct communication with the Valar, especially not since her choice to become ‘mortal’. What is meant is that it was Arwen who first thought of sending Frodo into the West, and put in a plea for him to Gandalf (direct or through Galadriel, or both), and she used her own renunciation of the right to go West as an argument. Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo’s : both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea. The Appendices show clearly that he was an emissary of the Valar, and virtually their plenipotentiary in accomplishing the plan against Sauron.

As for Elladan and Elrohir, they certainly remained for a certain time after Elrond sailed; Tolkien wrote (can't find the cite) that after Galadriel left, and Lothlorien started to fade, Celeborn went to Rivendell to live with them, for a while.

The impression I get is that here as with so many other matters around the edges Tolkien never really made up his mind, and even his 'definitive' statements may conceal complexity when expressed elliptically or briefly. Suffice it to say that Elrond's children got to make the Choice at some point, but it's unclear when.

That letter given even more to my question (in another thread) about just how Gimli gets the right to go sail west (or for that matter Sam if the family rumors are true) At that point there is NO one who could give that sort of authrority still in ME (unless you believe that Radagast, even though he failed and is not going back himself, still has, as an emmisary of the Valar, enough authority to give others that permission. Not likely).
And another question that arises, how much of Elronds bloodline to you have to be to keep the choice. Elrond himself chooses to stay immortal, and his children all get to keep the choice, so obviously the choice he made did not effect his children (i.e. he chose immortality, so they were stuck with it). But if that was the case, why was the choice not given to Elros's children. The moment Elros chooses a mortal life as Tar-Minyutar, it seems that his choice applies not only to him, but his decendents (i.e. we never hear of any of his sons being informed that they could choose to be immortal). Granted it may have something to do with bloodlines (Elronds kids are 3/4 elf while Elros's are only 1/4) or Elros's sons may have considered living a mortal life as Kings of Numenor as preferable to an immortal one as a mere elf noble, but it does seem a little unfair to them (especially if Elros was never told his choice would so affect them, which I don't think he was).

[Mithalwen]

For the sons of Elrond, the comment "stayed a while" could equally imply that they then left. There may have been a grace period, some sort of mopping up operation perhaps. Arwen of course had made her choice prior to Elrond's departure and having thrown her lot in with Aragorn she had made her choice for ever - else Elrond might have remained the trivial in Elven terms span until Aragorn died.

As for the children of Elros not being given the choice, well while they of course had majority mortal blood and married mortals, I think it was more of a case of the Gift of Iluvatar being too precious to be denied anyone who was remotely entitled to it.