Thank you. I remembered Pippin was a “fool of a” Took, but not that he was related to the Thane.
So Gimli didn’t get a title or anything from reclaiming the Lonely Mountain from Smaug? Huh.
That was Gloin - Gimli was his son.
Merry and Pippin are both the closest thing the Hobbits have to nobility, with Pippin being the higher-ranked of the two. The Old Took’s title (and later Pippin’s), the Thane, is the official representative of the King (presumably of Arnor, though I expect the Hobbits themselves have forgotten just which King) in the Shire. The Gondorians weren’t entirely wrong when they called Pippin “Prince of the Halflings”.
I don’t think that either the Took-Thanes nor the Masters of Buckland have strict rules of succession, though: I get the impression that both titles go to the most prominent/successful/influential member of the family, as recognized by the consensus of the family. Merry and Pippin both happen to be the firstborns, but I reckon that after their adventures, they both would have ended up in the same place even if they weren’t.
Not as much as Thingol or Beren. Men marrying up seems to be a recurring motif in Tolkien.
Gimli’s father was one of Thorin’s right-hand men, so he was presumably well-connected. The Dwarves rarely discussed their internal matters with outsiders. They never even spoke their real names with non-Dwarves.
In the timeline at the end of RotK it mentions that later in the Fourth Age Merry and Pippin turned over their offices to their heirs and went to Gondor to live out the rest of their lives there (or perhaps Merry to Rohan and Pippin to Gondor, I don’t have the book to hand). At any rate, it’s implied that they became heads of their respective families.
How ya figure? AFAICT, Celeborn’s grandfather Elmo [look, I don’t make up these names] is supposed to have been a brother of Galadriel’s grandfather Olwe. So Celeborn married his own second cousin, which doesn’t seem like much of a status shift, socially speaking.
Sigh That’s what I get for typing too fast.
It’s not a question of Galadriel’s ancestry or lineage. It’s a question of her being Galadriel.
Hokay. I tend not to think of marriages within the same social or kin group as examples of “marrying up” or “marrying down” just because one of the spouses is personally more famous or influential than the other on an individual level, but YMMV.
Humans espousing Elves, on the other hand, that definitely counts as “marrying up” to me.
I should clarify. I meant he “married up” as in she’s done a lot of amazing stuff and he hasn’t really- as Chronos says, she’s Galadriel. To me it’s like some average guy marrying an Olympian Nobel Prize winner who’s also a world-famous musician.
I’m getting in over my head here, but IIRC most of the “amazing stuff” Galadriel is known for, like being in the Council of the Wise etc., occurs after she’s married to Celeborn? Haven’t they been together since almost the beginning of the First Age?
I get what you mean about the unexpectedness of an Edwardian British writer depicting a heroic couple where most of the prestige and authority is vested in the female spouse, with the male spouse being basically a sort of Prince Consort (um, wait a minute: actually, not unexpected at all for someone who was born into the Empire of Queen Victoria and the late Prince Albert?). I just am not sure how much of that amazingness differential existed before they were married.
Was it? Shoot. Well then, I cheerfully retract my remark. Sorry!
Don’t apologize, I’m happily waving this fly around in the hope that one of our resident serious LotR experts like Qadgop will snap at it and give us the definitive overview of Galadriel and Celeborn’s dual-career couplehood! 
Galadriel was quite notable long before she met Celeborn. Fëanor was obsessed with her when they dwelled in Valinor but she recognized his character flaws (including the fact he was her half-uncle) and spurned him. She was a grandchild of Finwë, high king of the Noldor. She was a pupil of the Valar Yavanna and Aulë, and was also tutored by Melian the Maia. Celebrimbor the ringsmith held her in high esteem, and gave her Nenya. She was half Teleri, 1/4 Vanyar, and 1/4 Noldor, and she was of the Calaquendi, the high elves who’d beheld the light of the Two Trees; her husband Celebrimbor was a nephew of Thingol who’d never beheld said light and hence was of the Moriquendi. She married down.
? typo for Celeborn?
Yeah, brain on autopilot tonight, so that last Cele name in my post should have been Celeborn
The counter argument of this is Tuor. Sure his wife Idril was the daughter of Turgon, king of Gondolin and for a time High King of the Noldor. Tuor was also known as “Blessed of Elmo”, so had the favor of the Valar. Ulmo appointed him as his messenger to Turgon. He was beloved among the Elves of Gondolin, where he was named Lord of the House of the Wing, one of the twelve great houses in Gondolin. The Elves showered him with gifts, including a custom-made suit of armor and helm. He wielded the Great Axe Dramborleg. During the Fall of Gondolin, where Glorfindel famously took out one Balrog and died, Tuor killed five of them and lived, then faced down a First Age dragon in single combat and forced it to retreat. He got Idris and their son Earendil and a remnant of Elves safely out of Gondolin. Oh yeah, that’s right, Earendil’s dad! He and Idris sailed West to Valinor where he was accepted and allowed to live an immortal life, a unique fate for a Man.
Idris married up, especially if the other option was Maeglin.
He fought in most major First Age wars, Galadriel didn’t. And the thing she was most well-known for before that was … let’s just say not at all positive, and leave it at that.
Overall, he’d done more actual amazing stuff than she had. She just was a child of immense privilege by birth, coupled with knowing the right people.
I disagree that Celeborn was not in her league. In raw magical power, sure, but otherwise, no.
I’ve never really understood how Elwe (Thingol), Olwe and apparently, Elmo could be brothers, anyway. Weren’t they first-generation elves? And if not, what happened to their parents?
When you have multiple First Generation individuals of a species, what do you call them but brothers?
Cite for that? I thought that the only cases of anyone slaying a Balrog were Glorfindel, Ecthelion, and Gandalf, and all three died in the process.