The Letter of the Law

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I am actually rather fond of an odea that allows to reconcile Tuor's rumoured immortality and Idril's absence with the reality of the fate of Men. On their voyage westwards, they get entangled in the enchantments of the Sundering Seas. These enchantments are known, among other things, to distort time and space, to use the SciFi terminology. Tuor and Idril find themselves trapped in a bubble that is severed from the flow of time. For a backstory, say the ship crashes into a small island and they can never leave, and time literally doesn't pass for them. Then, in whatever spacewarp magic is involves in the Sundering Seas and the Straight Road separates the island from being physically accessjble from either plane of reality. Tuor and Idril indeed find themselves alive and together, suspended between worlds, out of Time, living forever without violating the Gift or needing to arrive anywhere. Not sure if they would be conscious, probably not, but they would still fulfill the legend. After all, the suspended-state-living works for Pharazon, exceot here it's accidental and sort of a good thing.

So rather than debunk an It Is Said fact, I would much rather create a story to support it. A sleeping timeless couple, suspended in time and forever in love until the end of the world will reshake the planes of reality and they will come apart to rejoin their respective races.

I kind of like the idea, but it also horrifies me. Let say they are conscious and aware of their predicament. It seems like a fate akin to the one that befell Hurin. To sit and watch, but helpless to do any actual deed. Only in this case I guess they would be in total ignorance of what is happening anywhere, which I am not sure is preferable to the torment of Melkor.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

I kind of like the idea, but it also horrifies me. Let say they are conscious and aware of their predicament. It seems like a fate akin to the one that befell Hurin. To sit and watch, but helpless to do any actual deed. Only in this case I guess they would be in total ignorance of what is happening anywhere, which I am not sure is preferable to the torment of Melkor.

Yeah, I think I prefer them to be in a sort of asleep-but-aware-of-each-other state, it seems the nicest. But even if they are conscious, it's still different from Hurin, who was experiencing every passing moment. If you are beyond time, how fast does time pass? How do you even experience consciousness? I don't know! Maybe the whole thing feels like a moment. Or maybe not. Maybe you don't feel the need to fill time with thought or action and just be there. Don't know!

[Formendacil]

Honestly, if we're coming up with alternate Tuor and Idril takes, I'm going to make a case for "Beren & Lúthien 2.0." If, as there seems to be some evidence, they are never seen again, in Middle-earth or Valinor, isn't the simplest explanation that... they're both dead?


After all, if each retained their own fate, even a dead-in-this-world Idril would go to the Halls of Mandos and so their ever-sundered end could become known. If they're still alive, then... where? Arda is not endless.

But what if they both shared the Fate of Men? That's what happens to the other "Big 3" Elf-Man couples: Lúthien and Arwen both give up the Fate of the Elves and join the Fates of Men. And there's enough stuff in the Athrabêth and around the Gift of Men to suggest that this is how things are slanted: it's better to counted among Men and share their fate.

Even with the half-Elven, until the case of Eärendil and Elwing, Tolkien says that the default situation is that the half-Elven share the fates of Men, suggesting that this is the default case (the dominant gene, so to speak). The Choice given the surviving Pereldar is a Gift--you can't go back and ask Dior, Eluréd, or Elurín what they'd have preferred, not least because they've already departed the cirlces of this world.

Therefore, it seems to me, if Idril and Tuor shared the same fate, it seems far more likely that Idril must have enjoyed the Fate of Lútien than that Tuor became the sole exception in the opposite direction.

[Morsul the Dark]

Sort of stealing from an old thread of mine on misunderstandings based on dialect.

Dwarves eat birthday cakes like biscuits.