Luthien's descendants (continued from Language Log)

[Steve Morrison]

It's been a while since we discussed Aragorn's statement that the
line of Lúthien "shall never fail". It recently came up again on
a Language Log comment thread:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3755

and we agreed to take the discussion here since it was off-topic
for LL. As the original thread points out, merely being descended
from a given ancient person, whether Confucius or Lúthien, is
almost trivial, in the sense that eventually either everyone is
descended from you or else nobody is. So, if the statement only
means that Tinúviel will always have some descendents as long as
the human race itself lasts, it doesn't really mean much. But what
else /could/ it mean which isn't falsified by the genealogies we
get in the /Silm/?

[Stan Brown]

I think the issue is that there have been a few "pinch points" where
the set of Lúthien's descendants has shrunk to near zero. She had
only one child, he had only one child, and she had only two children
(Elros and Elrond).

Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
the Fourth Age. The line of Elros is less well known to us, but it
seems a reasonable assumption that Elendil and his issue were the
only descendants of Elros (and therefore of Lúthien) to survive the
Fall of Númenor.

Númenóreans in general don't seem to go in for large families. When
you have only one or two children, it takes a loooooooooonnnnnggggggg
time for your descendants to constitute a sizable fraction of your
nation. Anárion's line in the South eventually failed. While we
don't know for certain that there were none of his descendants living
at the time of Eärnil's death,(*) we do know that none were
sufficiently closely related to the royal house to be thought of as
candidate kings.

In the North there was a three-way split of Rhudaur and Cardolan from
Arnor, which remained as the rump kingdom of Arthedain. But Cardolan
and Rhudaur were apparently wiped out, so it seems reasonable (that
word again!) that none of Isildur's heirs were left alive when those
kingdoms went under.

In Arthedain, and then later among the chieftains, the royal line
would have "had" to marry outside the immediate family, which means
intermarriage with people who were not descendants of Lúthien. But
if we postulate small families, say only a son or a son and a
daughter, then I think we can accept that Aragorn was IT, the only
one remaining in Middle-earth of the descendants of Elros. We do
know for sure that Arwen was the only one from the Elrond line. So
between the two I think it's at least possible that they were the
last descendants of Lúthien.

(*) Was Eärnil the last King of Gondor, or was it Earnur? IDHTBIFOM.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/faqget.htm

[Bill O'Meally]

On 2012-02-13 17:47:57 -0600, Stan Brown said:

Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until 

the Fourth Age.  

Three children, IIRC: Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen. Though there is no mention of marriage or children from the brothers that I know of. 

In Arthedain, and then later among the chieftains, the royal line 

would have "had" to marry outside the immediate family, which means 

intermarriage with people who were not descendants of Lúthien.  But 

if we postulate small families, say only a son or a son and a 

daughter, then I think we can accept that Aragorn was IT, the only 

one remaining in Middle-earth of the descendants of Elros.  

That seems to be the implication; Aragorn being the last of the line of Elros. 

We do 

know for sure that Arwen was the only one from the Elrond line. 

See my comment above.

 So 

between the two I think it's at least possible that they were the 

last descendants of Lúthien.

Consanguinity notwithstanding. :-) Though not nearly as close as, say, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York -- both great,great,grandchildren of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford -- who united the houses of Lancaster and York.

(*) Was Eärnil the last King of Gondor, or was it Earnur?  IDHTBIFOM.

Earnur, who rode to Minas Morgul to confront the Witch King and was lost.

-- 

Bill

"Wise Fool" -- Gandalf, _The Two Towers_

(The Wise will remove 'se' to reach me. The Foolish will not)

[John W Kennedy]

On 2012-02-13 23:47:57 +0000, Stan Brown said:

> On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:40:59 -0600, Steve Morrison wrote:
>>
>> It's been a while since we discussed Aragorn's statement that the
>> line of Lúthien "shall never fail". It recently came up again on
>> a Language Log comment thread:
>>
>> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3755
>>
>> and we agreed to take the discussion here since it was off-topic
>> for LL. As the original thread points out, merely being descended
>> from a given ancient person, whether Confucius or Lúthien, is
>> almost trivial, in the sense that eventually either everyone is
>> descended from you or else nobody is. So, if the statement only
>> means that Tinúviel will always have some descendents as long as
>> the human race itself lasts, it doesn't really mean much. But what
>> else /could/ it mean which isn't falsified by the genealogies we
>> get in the /Silm/?

I think it's a question of the /Royal/ line or lines -- in which case
exogamy doesn't matter.

>
> I think the issue is that there have been a few "pinch points" where
> the set of Lúthien's descendants has shrunk to near zero. She had
> only one child, he had only one child, and she had only two children
> (Elros and Elrond).
>
> Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
> the Fourth Age. The line of Elros is less well known to us, but it
> seems a reasonable assumption that Elendil and his issue were the
> only descendants of Elros (and therefore of Lúthien) to survive the
> Fall of Númenor.

I think the Silmarien crisis comes into play here, as a result of which
Elendil, and not Ar-Pharazôn, was the true representative all along.

> Númenóreans in general don't seem to go in for large families. When
> you have only one or two children, it takes a loooooooooonnnnnggggggg
> time for your descendants to constitute a sizable fraction of your
> nation. Anárion's line in the South eventually failed. While we
> don't know for certain that there were none of his descendants living
> at the time of Eärnil's death,(*) we do know that none were
> sufficiently closely related to the royal house to be thought of as
> candidate kings.
>
> In the North there was a three-way split of Rhudaur and Cardolan from
> Arnor, which remained as the rump kingdom of Arthedain. But Cardolan
> and Rhudaur were apparently wiped out, so it seems reasonable (that
> word again!) that none of Isildur's heirs were left alive when those
> kingdoms went under.

We are told as much.

> In Arthedain, and then later among the chieftains, the royal line
> would have "had" to marry outside the immediate family, which means
> intermarriage with people who were not descendants of Lúthien. But
> if we postulate small families, say only a son or a son and a
> daughter, then I think we can accept that Aragorn was IT, the only
> one remaining in Middle-earth of the descendants of Elros. We do
> know for sure that Arwen was the only one from the Elrond line. So
> between the two I think it's at least possible that they were the
> last descendants of Lúthien.
>
> (*) Was Eärnil the last King of Gondor, or was it Earnur? IDHTBIFOM.


--

John W Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 13, 4:47 pm, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:40:59 -0600, Steve Morrison wrote:
>
> > It's been a while since we discussed Aragorn's statement that the
> > line of Lúthien "shall never fail". It recently came up again on
> > a Language Log comment thread:
>
> >http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3755
>
> > and we agreed to take the discussion here since it was off-topic
> > for LL. As the original thread points out, merely being descended
> > from a given ancient person, whether Confucius or Lúthien, is
> > almost trivial, in the sense that eventually either everyone is
> > descended from you or else nobody is. So, if the statement only
> > means that Tinúviel will always have some descendents as long as
> > the human race itself lasts, it doesn't really mean much. But what
> > else /could/ it mean which isn't falsified by the genealogies we
> > get in the /Silm/?
>
> I think the issue is that there have been a few "pinch points" where
> the set of Lúthien's descendants has shrunk to near zero.  She had
> only one child, he had only one child,

Three, but the twin boys, Elured and Elurin, were exposed in the
forest by the sons of Feanor.

> and she had only two children (Elros and Elrond).
>
> Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
> the Fourth Age.  The line of Elros is less well known to us,

Apparently /Unfinished Tales/ has information about his descendants.
He had four children, his heir Vardamir had four children, Vardamir's
heir Amandil had three children, Amandil's heir Elendil had three
children, his heir Meneldur had three children, his heir Aldarion had
one, his heir Ancalime seems to have had only one, her heir Anarion
had three, his heir Surion had two (finally), his heir Telperien had
none, and that's where I stopped.

> but it
> seems a reasonable assumption that Elendil and his issue were the
> only descendants of Elros (and therefore of Lúthien) to survive the
> Fall of Númenor.

It doesn't seem that way to me. Numenor should have been full of
Elros's descendants, and there's no reason some of them shouldn't have
been among the Faithful. Also, Numenoreans visited Middle-Earth for a
long time--and sailors are sailors--and established colonies there. I
don't see why some of these people shouldn't have been descendants of
Elros too. The Black Numenoreans' "race swiftly dwindled or became
merged with the men of Middle-Earth" (Appendix A iv), so they had
descendants.

> Númenóreans in general don't seem to go in for large families.  When
> you have only one or two children, it takes a loooooooooonnnnnggggggg
> time for your descendants to constitute a sizable fraction of your
> nation.  Anárion's line in the South eventually failed.  While we
> don't know for certain that there were none of his descendants living
> at the time of Eärnil's death,(*) we do know that none were
> sufficiently closely related to the royal house to be thought of as
> candidate kings.

It seems likely that there were a fair number of descendants, just not
in Gondor or not of sufficiently pure ancestry. "Now the descendants
of the kings had become few. Their numbers had been greatly
diminished in the Kin-strife; whereas since that time had become
jealous and watchful of those near akin. Often those on whom
suspicion fell had fled to Umbar and joined the rebels; while others
had renounced their lineage and taken wives not of Numenorean blood."

> In the North there was a three-way split of Rhudaur and Cardolan from
> Arnor, which remained as the rump kingdom of Arthedain.  But Cardolan
> and Rhudaur were apparently wiped out, so it seems reasonable (that
> word again!) that none of Isildur's heirs were left alive when those
> kingdoms went under.

Okay.

> In Arthedain, and then later among the chieftains, the royal line
> would have "had" to marry outside the immediate family, which means
> intermarriage with people who were not descendants of Lúthien.

That must have been going on since Elros--though apparently Ancalime's
husband was also a descendant of Elros.

> But
> if we postulate small families, say only a son or a son and a
> daughter, then I think we can accept that Aragorn was IT, the only
> one remaining in Middle-earth of the descendants of Elros.

What happens to all those daughters?

With random mating, according to a paper quoted at Language Log, the
number of generations for complete mixing is about 1.77 log_2 n, where
n is the population. There are sixteen generations of Rangers after
Arvedui's death. Let's make a random estimate of the Rangers'
population as 4096. Then there are 21 generations till complete
mixing (for anyone in the original population who has any descendants,
it's very likely that everyone after 21 generations is descended from
him or her). Thus we're 16/21 of the way to the point where you'd
expect all the Rangers to be descended from Arvedui. If several
descendants of Luthien survived the fall of Arthedain, then quite
possibly all the Rangers are her descendants.

> We do
> know for sure that Arwen was the only one from the Elrond line.  So
> between the two I think it's at least possible that they were the
> last descendants of Lúthien.

...

It's possible, of course, but in the absence of some explicit reason
in the books to believe it, I'd say it's extremely unlikely.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jim Heckman]

On 13-Feb-2012, Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm>
crote in message <MPG.29a36b3a3...@news.individual.net>:

> I think the issue is that there have been a few "pinch points" where
> the set of Lúthien's descendants has shrunk to near zero. She had
> only one child, he had only one child, and she had only two children
> (Elros and Elrond).

No, Dior son of Lúthien had three children: two sons Eluréd and
Elurín, and a daughter Elwing, mother of Elros and Elrond. It seems
unlikely Dior's sons had any descendents, though, since when the
sons of Fëanor came calling for the Silmaril Dior inherited from
Beren and Lúthien,

[...] There fell Celegorm by Dior's hand, and there fell
Curufin, and dark Caranthir; but Dior was slain also, and
Nimloth his wife, and the cruel servants of Celegorm seized
his young sons and left them to starve in the forest. Of this
Maedhros indeed repented, and sought for them long in the
woods of Doriath; but his search was unavailing, and of the
fate of Eluréd and Elurín no tale tells.

[from the next-to-last paragraph of chapter XXII "Of the Ruin
of Doriath" of the Quenta Silmarillion]

> Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until

> the Fourth Age. [...]

Corrected elsewhere.

[...]

--
Jim Heckman

[Rast]

Stan Brown wrote...

> Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
> the Fourth Age. The line of Elros is less well known to us, but it
> seems a reasonable assumption that Elendil and his issue were the
> only descendants of Elros (and therefore of Lúthien) to survive the
> Fall of Númenor.

They took nine ships; I've assumed, based on Steve's logic in his OP,
that most of the other passengers could trace ancestry back to Elros.



What I want to know is how much "many" is, as in:

"Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the
forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, thought all the world is
changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost."

She has three, or at most seven, elven descendants, depending on how
you count Eluréd, Elurín, Elladan, and Elrohir.

Could "many" refer to the fourth age Dúnedain? Are the Elder really
hanging around Middle-Earth to see them, and how much resemblance do
those guys still have to Lúthien?

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 13, 6:01 pm, Bill O'Meally <omeall...@wise.rr.com> wrote:
> On 2012-02-13 17:47:57 -0600, Stan Brown said:
>
>
>
> > Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
> > the Fourth Age.
>
> Three children, IIRC: Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen. Though there is no
> mention of marriage or children from the brothers that I know of.
>
> > In Arthedain, and then later among the chieftains, the royal line
> > would have "had" to marry outside the immediate family, which means
> > intermarriage with people who were not descendants of Lúthien.  But
> > if we postulate small families, say only a son or a son and a
> > daughter, then I think we can accept that Aragorn was IT, the only
> > one remaining in Middle-earth of the descendants of Elros.
>
> That seems to be the implication; Aragorn being the last of the line of Elros.

...

I'd certainly believe he's the last of the almost-all-male line, or
even of the male line if Silmarien's husband (Elatan, it seems) was a
male-line descendant of Elros. But is there an implication that
Aragorn is the last descendant?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Stan Brown]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:54:18 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> On Feb 13, 4:47 pm, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:40:59 -0600, Steve Morrison wrote:
> >
> > > It's been a while since we discussed Aragorn's statement that the
> > > line of Lúthien "shall never fail". It recently came up again on
> > > a Language Log comment thread:
> >
> > >http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3755
> >
> > > and we agreed to take the discussion here since it was off-topic
> > > for LL. As the original thread points out, merely being descended
> > > from a given ancient person, whether Confucius or Lúthien, is
> > > almost trivial, in the sense that eventually either everyone is
> > > descended from you or else nobody is. So, if the statement only
> > > means that Tinúviel will always have some descendents as long as
> > > the human race itself lasts, it doesn't really mean much. But what
> > > else /could/ it mean which isn't falsified by the genealogies we
> > > get in the /Silm/?
> >

> > The line of Elros is less well known to us,
>
> Apparently /Unfinished Tales/ has information about his descendants.
> He had four children, his heir Vardamir had four children, Vardamir's
> heir Amandil had three children, Amandil's heir Elendil had three
> children, his heir Meneldur had three children, his heir Aldarion had
> one, his heir Ancalime seems to have had only one, her heir Anarion
> had three, his heir Surion had two (finally), his heir Telperien had
> none, and that's where I stopped.
>
> > but it
> > seems a reasonable assumption that Elendil and his issue were the
> > only descendants of Elros (and therefore of Lúthien) to survive the
> > Fall of Númenor.
>
> It doesn't seem that way to me. Numenor should have been full of
> Elros's descendants, and there's no reason some of them shouldn't have
> been among the Faithful. Also, Numenoreans visited Middle-Earth for a
> long time--and sailors are sailors--and established colonies there. I
> don't see why some of these people shouldn't have been descendants of
> Elros too. The Black Numenoreans' "race swiftly dwindled or became
> merged with the men of Middle-Earth" (Appendix A iv), so they had
> descendants.

[and so forth -- snipped because I cannot disagree with any of it]

You've convinced me -- I overlooked those extra specifically named
descendants as well as the categories you mention (like descendants
of Elros who visited Middle-earth during the Second Age and sired
children).

So I have to agree with the OP -- I don't understand what is meant by
"her line shall never fail" as different from the descendants of any
other person one might name. Yes, the line could have died out in
the first few generations, but once we descend to Elros and his
descendants it quickly fans out.

[Stan Brown]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:01:47 -0600, Bill O'Meally wrote:
> On 2012-02-13 17:47:57 -0600, Stan Brown said:
>
> >
> > Elrond in turn had only one child, and she remained childless until
> > the Fourth Age.
>
> Three children, IIRC: Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen. Though there is no
> mention of marriage or children from the brothers that I know of.

Now that *is* embarrassing. I don't feel *too* bad about overlooking
the issue of Elros mentioned in /Unfinished Tales/, but I really
should have known better about the three children of Elrond!

[John W Kennedy]

On 2012-02-16 06:59:15 +0000, Stan Brown said:
> So I have to agree with the OP -- I don't understand what is meant by
> "her line shall never fail" as different from the descendants of any
> other person one might name. Yes, the line could have died out in
> the first few generations, but once we descend to Elros and his
> descendants it quickly fans out.

As I remarked several days ago, it makes perfect sense if you think of
it as a line of royal succession. Never once has the line had to back
up a generation to install a cousin. (Aragorn, as the heir of Isuldur,
represents what was the senior line all along.) This is not normal in
royal houses even over centuries, let alone over seven thousand years.

Always remember that Tolkien was a conservative English Roman Catholic,
with a sentimental attachment to the Stuarts (though not, I'm sure, a
practical one).

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 15, 11:59 pm, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
...

> You've convinced me
...

Thanks, Stan. Unfortunately for my ideas, I may be about to
unconvince you.

Here are some quotations:

"So it is that Lúthien Tinúviel alone of the Elf-kindred has died
indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most
loved. But from her the lineage of the Elf-lords of old descended
among Men. There live still those of whom Lúthien was the foremother,
and it is said that her line shall never fail."

--"A Knife in the Dark"

That looks like it's talking about all descendants. Are "those of
whom..." just Men, or Elves too?


"Not for naught does Mordor fear him. But nobler is his spirit than
the understanding of Sauron; for is he not of the children of Lúthien?
Never shall that line fail, though the years lengthen beyond count."

--"The Last Debate"

That looks like it's about the nobility of spirit of Lúthien's
descendants.


"When Aragorn, descended in long line from Elros, wedded Arwen in the
third union of Men and Elves, the lines of all the Three Kings of the
High Elves (Eldar), Ingwë, Finwë, and Olwë and Elwë were united and
*alone preserved* in Middle-earth. Since Lúthien was the noblest, and
the most fair and beautiful, of all the Children of Eru remembered in
ancient story, the descendants of that union were called 'the children
of Lúthien'. The world has grown old in long years since then, but it
may be that their line has not yet ended."

--Note in "The Shibboleth of Feanor". Emphasis added.

"As is said in the text at this point, Arwen was descended from Finwë
both in the line of Fingolfin (through Elrond) and in the line of
Finarfin (through Celebrían); but she was also descended from Elwë
(Thingol) through Elrond's mother Elwing, and through Galadriel's
mother Eärwen from Olwë of Alqualondë. She was not directly descended
from Ingwë, but her fore-mother Indis was (in earlier texts) the
sister of Ingwë (X.261-2, etc.), or (in the present work, p. 343) the
daughter of his sister. It is hard to know what my father had in mind
when he wrote the opening of this note."

--Christopher Tolkien's comment on the previous note.

It's too late at night for me to comment on those, but "alone
preserved" seems highly significant.

I got those from

http://www.minastirith.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000507

(I haven't read HoME.)

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 16, 7:36 am, John W Kennedy <jwke...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> On 2012-02-16 06:59:15 +0000, Stan Brown said:
>
> > So I have to agree with the OP -- I don't understand what is meant by
> > "her line shall never fail" as different from the descendants of any
> > other person one might name.  Yes, the line could have died out in
> > the first few generations, but once we descend to Elros and his
> > descendants it quickly fans out.
>
> As I remarked several days ago, it makes perfect sense if you think of
> it as a line of royal succession. Never once has the line had to back
> up a generation to install a cousin. (Aragorn, as the heir of Isuldur,
> represents what was the senior line all along.)

That's not how I'd understand "never fail", though I can see how it
might be the intended meaning, now that you mention it.

> This is not normal in
> royal houses even over centuries, let alone over seven thousand years.

Speaking of not normal, you said in your other post that Elendil "was
the true representative all along", suggesting that in "reality" (I
don't feel I have enough quotation marks on that word) the true heir
is the oldest child, whether male or female. Would this also apply in
the North of Middle-earth? If so, we apparently have to believe that
not only did everyone from Isildur to Arathorn have a surviving son,
but every /oldest/ surviving child was a son; there was not a single
older daughter who should have inherited.

This strikes me as far more unlikely, a greater "wonder", than all
those sons. However, Numenorean royalty does seem to run to sons, as
there were only three (should have been four) ruling queens.

Alternatively, I guess Aragorn could have been not only the heir in
the male line, but also the "real" heir through the oldest children,
possibly by way of his mother. Or we could say the rules changed
after the downfall of Numenor.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Stan Brown]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:32:08 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> On Feb 15, 11:59 pm, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> ...
>
> > You've convinced me
> ...
>
> Thanks, Stan. Unfortunately for my ideas, I may be about to
> unconvince you.
>

> "So it is that Lúthien Tinúviel alone of the Elf-kindred has died
> indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom they most
> loved. But from her the lineage of the Elf-lords of old descended
> among Men. There live still those of whom Lúthien was the foremother,
> and it is said that her line shall never fail."
> --"A Knife in the Dark"
>
> That looks like it's talking about all descendants. Are "those of
> whom..." just Men, or Elves too?

I would assume it means Men and Elves. If I'm counting right, there
are four Elves: Elrond and his three children. And we know of one
Man, Aragorn himself, though likely there are others. (Of course
Aragorn has Elvish blood too, not only through Lúthien but through
Idril Celebrindal; but after six thousand years his Elvish blood is
running pretty thin.)

The big question, though, is exactly the one we started with: what is
her "line"? Does it mean male-line descendants? It can't, because
her last male-line descendant was Elwing.(*) But if the "line"
includes female descent, then as has been pointed out pretty much all
the Númenóreans must have some descent from her.

(*) Yes, Elwing herself was female. But she was descended in the
male line, just as princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York are
descended in the male line from Queen Elizabeth. But that branch of
the male line ends with them, as it did with Elwing.

> "When Aragorn, descended in long line from Elros, wedded Arwen in the
> third union of Men and Elves, the lines of all the Three Kings of the
> High Elves (Eldar), Ingwë, Finwë, and Olwë and Elwë were united and
> *alone preserved* in Middle-earth. Since Lúthien was the noblest, and
> the most fair and beautiful, of all the Children of Eru remembered in
> ancient story, the descendants of that union were called 'the children
> of Lúthien'. The world has grown old in long years since then, but it
> may be that their line has not yet ended."
> --Note in "The Shibboleth of Feanor". Emphasis added.
>

> It's too late at night for me to comment on those, but "alone
> preserved" seems highly significant.

I'm not sure what you think of these, nor why you think they will
"unconvince" me. That "alone preserved" may be significant, but I
don't understand its significance. :-(

[John W Kennedy]

On 2012-02-18 17:06:48 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:
> Alternatively, I guess Aragorn could have been not only the heir in
> the male line, but also the "real" heir through the oldest children,
> possibly by way of his mother. Or we could say the rules changed
> after the downfall of Numenor.

If you assume Silmariën to have been the "real" heir, than all the
succeeding line down to Ar-Pharazôn is irrelevant, anyway.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Feb 18, 8:12 pm, John W Kennedy <jwke...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> On 2012-02-18 17:06:48 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:
>
> > Alternatively, I guess Aragorn could have been not only the heir in
> > the male line, but also the "real" heir through the oldest children,
> > possibly by way of his mother.  Or we could say the rules changed
> > after the downfall of Numenor.
>
> If you assume Silmariën to have been the "real" heir, than all the
> succeeding line down to Ar-Pharazôn is irrelevant, anyway.

True (except insofar as it points to a bias toward sons among Elros's
descendants), but I was thinking of the possible lack of older
daughters from Isildur to Aragorn.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

It seems to me that it means Aragorn and Arwen's children were the
only ones who preserved the "lines" of the three (or four) Elder
Kings. And the first quotation suggests, though it doesn't say
explicitly, that the "line" is the people whose "foremother" Lúthien
was. In that case maybe Aragorn and Arwen are her only descendants in
Middle-Earth in the Fourth Age, for all that Steve Morrison and I
argued that it was unlikely.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Stan Brown]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:12:19 -0500, John W Kennedy wrote:
>
> On 2012-02-18 17:06:48 +0000, Jerry Friedman said:
> > Alternatively, I guess Aragorn could have been not only the heir in
> > the male line, but also the "real" heir through the oldest children,
> > possibly by way of his mother. Or we could say the rules changed
> > after the downfall of Numenor.
>
> If you assume Silmariën to have been the "real" heir, than all the
> succeeding line down to Ar-Pharazôn is irrelevant, anyway.

I think this really points out the meaningless of the whole concept
of Lúthien's "line". Either it included descent through females, or
it did not. But if it did not, then there is *no* line because it
ended with Elwing. Therefore, if the concept means anything, it must
include daughters and their issue, not just sons and their issue.

But in that case, not just younger sons but daughters of Númenórean
royalty were transmitting Lúthien's "line", which would quickly
become distributed through much of the population. As someone
already remarked, that would mean that Númenórean settlements in
Middle-earth in the Second Age almost certainly carried the precious
spark, and also that Elendil and his two sons could not possibly have
been the only Faithful of Lúthien's line. Even if we rule out all
S.A. Númenórean settlements and all companions of Elendil, Isildur,
and Anárion, we have all the younger sons and daughters of the
royalty of Gondor and Arnor and the later chieftains of the Rangers.
It's just not credible that, over some hundred generations or more,
every branch of the family, no matter how junior and obscure, should
fall into extinction except for the senior line.

I think "her line shall never fail" is just a bit of lovely poetry
that Tolkien wrote because it sounded good, not because it actually
means anything beyond "her memory will always live on in some of her
descendants."


(*) While the royals lived longer, when they mixed with the lower
classes the children's lifespans dropped toward normal. Thirty years
for a generation seems a reasonable average.

[No One in Particular]

"Rast" <ra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.29a39237e...@news.eternal-september.org...

>
> What I want to know is how much "many" is, as in:
>
> "Yet in her choice the Two Kindreds have been joined; and she is the
> forerunner of many in whom the Eldar see yet, thought all the world is
> changed, the likeness of Lúthien the beloved, whom they have lost."
>
> She has three, or at most seven, elven descendants, depending on how
> you count Eluréd, Elurín, Elladan, and Elrohir.
>
> Could "many" refer to the fourth age Dúnedain? Are the Elder really
> hanging around Middle-Earth to see them, and how much resemblance do
> those guys still have to Lúthien?

Perhaps, even now, someone is born who has some physcial (or more likely
spiritual) characteristic that makes any remaining elvenfolk say to
themselves "You know, I do believe that may be indeed one of the Line of
Lúthien, born even unto these hethen times! Never shall that line fail
utterly!" before they go back to hiding in whatever rustic cave or dell
they've been in for the last umpteen thousand years.

No One in Particular



--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Troels Forchhammer]

In message
<44ece842-5a7b-4047...@t24g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> spoke these staves:

>
> On Feb 18, 10:58 am, Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:32:08 -0800 (PST), Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>>
>>> "So it is that Lúthien Tinúviel alone of the Elf-kindred has
>>> died indeed and left the world, and they have lost her whom
>>> they most loved. But from her the lineage of the Elf-lords of
>>> old descended among Men. There live still those of whom Lúthien
>>> was the foremother, and it is said that her line shall never
>>> fail." --"A Knife in the Dark"
>>>
>>> That looks like it's talking about all descendants.  Are "those
>>> of whom..." just Men, or Elves too?
>>
>> I would assume it means Men and Elves.  If I'm counting right,
>> there are four Elves: Elrond and his three children.  And we know
>> of one Man, Aragorn himself, though likely there are others.

I think that this is one of the situations where we should forget what
we know about DNA and other results of the sciences and accept that
Tolkien is occasionally applying Faërie-logic.

No matter how unlikely it may seem to us (and that is, frankly, pretty
darn unlikely), Aragorn was the only descendant of Elros alive at the
end of the Third Age. We need not boggle at a discarnate spirit
carrying a ring out of the destruction of Númenor, and I don't think we
need boggle at this either.

This, of course, doesn't mean that we cannot play with the idea -- some
speculation and hypothesising never hurt anyone ;-)

- For all we know, renouncing your lineage may carry some rather
drastic effects. It is clear that Aragorn's healing powers derive not
from his kingship, but from his descent from Lúthien, and thus the
"line of Lúthien", "race of Lúthien" or "children of Lúthien" may be
only those whose powers are somehow enhanced by this association. It
would not, I suppose, be wholly unbelievable that renouncing the
lineage would also lose you the enhanced powers that came with that
lineage.

- It might have been a part of Ilúvatar's plans -- the lines of all
these other descendants may have quickly petered out, just as the royal
line in Gondor did: 'Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on
heraldry.' E.g. we know that the last descendants of Castamir died when
Telumehtar took Umbar by storm in TA1810.

<snip>

>>> "When Aragorn, descended in long line from Elros, wedded Arwen
>>> in the third union of Men and Elves, the lines of all the Three
>>> Kings of the High Elves (Eldar),

[...]

>>> were united and *alone preserved* in Middle-earth.

[...]

>>> Note in "The Shibboleth of Feanor".  Emphasis added.
>>>
>>> It's too late at night for me to comment on those, but "alone
>>> preserved" seems highly significant.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you think of these, nor why you think they will
>> "unconvince" me.  That "alone preserved" may be significant, but
>> I don't understand its significance. :-(
>
> It seems to me that it means Aragorn and Arwen's children were the
> only ones who preserved the "lines" of the three (or four) Elder
> Kings.

Yes, there is little doubt about that. It is also, in my opinion, the
implication of the text of /The Lord of the Rings/ that Aragorn is the
/only/ descendant of Elendil in Middle-earth (and indeed of Elros) by
the time of the War of the Ring.

I think that Stan's idea further up in the thread of 'pinch points' is
highly relevant here. We must never forget that Tolkien's world does
/not/ work only by the scientific principles of the Primary World: in
Tolkien's world (in his Secondary World as well as in the Primary World
as he saw it) there is more than science, and I think we may have to
accept that the "Line of Lúthien" was simply destined to go through
such a series of pinch points. One of these pinch points udoubtedly was
the Drowning of Númenor at which point the Elros branch of the Children
of Lúthien was pinched down to just Elendil, his two sons and his
grandchildren. Yes, it may seem unlikely in terms of modern science
that no other descendants of Elros survived, but I remain convinced
that it was nonetheless so: probably all the others (and Amandil's
family as well) would have been pampered by Sauron so that they were
all either with Ar-Pharazôn's Armada or on Númenor ready to receive
their promised immortality (this is all highly speculative -- merely an
example of how the 'finger of God' may have worked in this particular
case).

> And the first quotation suggests, though it doesn't say
> explicitly, that the "line" is the people whose "foremother"
> Lúthien was.

There was an article in a recent /Beyond Bree/ (December 2011) in which
the author, David Cofield, tries to use modern knowledge of
mitochondrian and Y-line DNA (which follow maternal and paternal lines
respectively), but while the article is both interesting and
entertaining (not least for teaching me something about DNA by using an
example I am reasonably familiar with), I think it ultimately fails
because it doesn't acknowledge that other forces than the laws of
nature are necessarily in place in Arda.

> In that case maybe Aragorn and Arwen are her only descendants
> in Middle-Earth in the Fourth Age, for all that Steve Morrison
> and I argued that it was unlikely.

I do think that such is the case. We may offer some speculations and
hypotheses that can, so to speak, make it easier to swallow this
proposition, but in the end such speculations can, in my view, only be
examples of how providence /might/ work within Arda.

>> The big question, though, is exactly the one we started with:
>> what is her "line"?

It presumably means /all/ descendants of Lúthien.

We know that being of this line means that you have some enhanced
powers against evil -- some healing powers, for instance. It is
/possible/ that you can renounce your line and your powers and thus be
removed from the line of Lúthien, but I am rather uncertain about this.

Another thing we do know is that Lúthien and her descendants became so
important in the early history of Arda that their fate was inextricably
entangled with the fates of the Eldar and the Edain in Middle-earth. It
is thus likely that 'providence' took a greater interest in this line
than in any other line of descent in Middle-earth, ensuring that this
line did not die out, but didn't spread to everybody either.

--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo
- /The Fellowship of the Ring/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)

[John W Kennedy]

I think it is worthy to note in this context that some Mendellian
speculation on this subject was in an early issue of the Dick Plotz
"Tolkien Journal", and that not long afterwards the reference to an
alleged Goblin Took ancestor, which had been adduced in that article,
vanished from the text of "The Hobbit". It was generally taken at the
time that this was a sign of Tolkien's displeasure with the entire
subject.

--
John W Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich
have always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Man Who Was Thursday"