Heh…disregard my last post, then. I took too long confirming my suspicions and you snuck in on me… 
Are you sure? True, “The Tale of Years” mentions “Déagol the Stoor”, but Gandalf in “The Shadows of the Past” says “akin to the fathers of the fathers of the stoors”. That suggests to me that they might have been a separate branch of little folk, but sharing a common ancestry with the stoors. Gandalf was speaking as someone who studied hobbits and may have seen the river folk himself.
TWDuke, Gollum only found the Ring c. 500 years before the events in LotR (Third Age 2463). That’s hardly enough time for serious, serious evolution. The Shire had been founded 862 years before (Third Age 1601). This wasn’t ancient history. Remember that HOMES is the notes and original ideas of Professor Tolkien on the LotR, not completely canon. There’s a lot in there that was changed and edited for good reason.
S’okay, jayjay. The same thing happened to me when I was making sure of my post. I keep straying from the intended purpose of the original look-up, following other entries for a half hour or so before I come back for air. Last time I read LOTR in one go, it was with the Tolkein Companion at my elbow and every time I came across some name that was not familiar, I’d consult it, then go to anothe rentry, then another, then another . . . Took me six months to finish the trilogy that way.
DD
Excellent… except that Idril was Turgon’s daughter not his sister. Aredhel was his sister.
In all Elrond was:
37.5% Human (Beren and Tuor)
25% Noldor (Idril)
25% Sindar (Nimloth)
6.25 Maiar (Melian)
and
6.25% Whatever you want to consider Elwe/Thingol
And as an interesting aside, once Gil-galad was dead, Elrond has the best claim to the Noldor high kingship of anybody we know about. Although as far as I know he never claimed it.
Gah! Yes. My mistake.
There wasn’t much use in doing so, was there? By the time Gil-galad was dead, there weren’t all that many Noldor left. Sauron finished off Celebrimbor and the Elven-Smiths. The armies of Lindon were decimated at the Siege of Barad-Dur. As has been noted before here, the only definite full-blooded Noldor still alive in the Third Age was Galadriel. There were no great nations of Elves left, period, let alone great nations of Noldor to rule. The Elves were retreating either into enclaves like Rivendell, the Woodland Realm and Lothlorien, or sailing over sea to Valinor.
Hmm…that should read “The only full-blooded Noldor still alive in Middle-Earth…”
No, there really weren’t enough left to bother claiming the high kingship. But as long as we are being hobbitish and discussing geneology, I thought it was an interesting point. It does help explain why the rest of the elves seem willing to defer to him even though there are still “Elf-lords” like Glorfindal running around. In fact by rights he could not only claim to be the high king of the Noldor but the Sindar as well, being the proper heir of Thingol.
There were still full-blooded Noldor wandering around middle-earth besides Galadriel at the end of the third age. Frodo himself identified the elves walking in the woods of the shire in FOTR as Noldor: “These are High Elves! They spoke the name of Elbereth!” He then proceeded to speak Quenya to Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod.
I’d suspect a number elves of Elrond’s House and the elves of the Grey Havens were Noldo. They were just not of the royal line of Finwë.
As for Glorfindel, one of the last things written by JRRT in 1972 (published in HOMES XII) was the storyline of Glorfindel’s death, journey to Mandos, his re-embodiment, and return to Middle-Earth. So it’s a bit more than a hint. It appears to be how JRRT planned to re-write the canon.
But, he did animate them, didn’t he? However, Iluvatar explains that it would not be proper for any others to awaken before his firstborn, the Elves.
I seem to remember the Valar being worried about Aule being like Melkor, i.e. seeking glory for himself, but Eru judged that he wasn’t evil, just impatient. So, he made them sleep 'til sometime after elves awoke. I seem to remember a passage about the dwarves being in awe of their master/creator in a cave far under Middle Earth.
Anyone have details? Or corrections?
Oh, Aulë animated the dwarves, all right. But they were slaves to his will, and when Aulë’s mind was not on them, they just stood around, or sat there, and did nothing. When Aulë picked up his hammer to smash them, they should have stood there awaiting the blow. But they quailed in terror, because Eru had given them actual life.
Dammit…HOMES is going on my Amazon wishlist! I miss too many points without it…
Oh, and where was Arwen’s mother? If elves are mostly immortal, what happened to her?
And if elves can only be killed in battle or of a broken heart, what would happen if Legolas, just for shits and giggles, decided to jump off of a cliff. Would he survive?
And how far do elves “age” when they’re growing up? Do they stop at a certain point? Because obviously they aren’t born grown up…
Arwen’s mother was Celebrian, Galadriel and Celeborn’s daughter. She was attacked by orcs (some Tolkien scholars believe rape was involved, as mere physical wounds wouldn’t normally force an Eldar to sail over Sea) and sailed to the West to aid her recovery almost 500 years before the War of the Ring.
I think “in battle” is a way of saying “by injury”. They can be killed if enough damage is done to their bodies in any manner. They just don’t get ill or age, and they’re generally graceful and wise enough that they don’t have serious accidents that often.
I have to admit I’m not sure about the last question. I always just assumed they age to what would be “adult” status and then simply go on without change.
Actually, that should read that Celebrían sailed to the West over 500 years before the WotR, since it happened in TA 2510 and the War was in TA 3018-19.
There seem to be a lot of LOTR experts in here. Can this become the thread for any generic questions about the series that aren’t specifically discussed elsewhere in this forum? Cause I saw it last night and I gots a question:
Did the scene where Eowyn meets the Witch King on the battlefield happen in the book? Because it seemed tacked-on to me. Not because of the action of the scene, but because of the badness of the dialogue.
Was this a part of the original story, or was it a “Let’s give the girl something to do” moment?
I don’t have the trilogy in front of me, so I can’t confirm dialogue, but yes, that scene is in the book. The prophecy is that no man can kill the Witch-King, so at the Pellenor, he’s overly confident. Éowyn, seeing her uncle under the claws of the Fell Beast, attacks him and kills him, fulfilling the prophecy. Remember, she’s been trained as a shield-maiden. Her whole sulking, pouty, pretty gown thing was imposed on her by Théoden under Wormtongue’s influence.
That is a pretty pivotal scene in the book, too, as it’s the occasion for Éowyn to come down with the Black Breath (from too close exposure to the Nazgûl) and thus be sent to the Halls of Healing, where she meets Faramir and realizes that her infatuation with Aragorn is just that. Unfortunately, the Halls of Healing were cut from the theater release of ROTK so the only hint we get of the Éowyn/Faramir romance is a Significant Glance at the coronation. They will apparently be on the Extended Edition, though, as I understand it.
In the book she said it longer:
WITCH KING: Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!
DERNHELM: But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.
(She was disguised as a young man, calling herself “Dernhelm” because she had been specifically ordered to stay with the noncombatants.)
Oh, I see. I saw them standing together at the coronation and thought “Wait, does this mean they have a thing now? When did that happen?” Anyway, I had to ask about the dialogue, because it seemed so out of place. Most of the time everyone’s talking all lovely and poetic, and all of a sudden it became Zero Wing. Eowyn, you have no chance to survive make your time! All your Minas Tirith are belong to us!
I loved all three films, BTW.
Well, it’s not so much that no man can kill the witch-king, it’s just that it has been prophesized otherwise.
Malbeth the Seer, counselor to Arvedui, Last King of Arnor (Arthedain if you’re nit-picky (and I am!)) counselled Ëarnur (later the last king of Gondor) not to pursue the Witch-king of Angmar after the WK fled the battle because it was prophecied that “not by the hand of man shall he fall”.
And this proved true, as Merry was a hobbit, and Eowyn was a woman. And remember, if Merry had not acted by stabbing the WK at the crucial time, Eowyn would have been smeared over the landscape by his mace.
BTW, Malbeth also prophecied that Arvedui would be the last king of Arnor (He would either be made king of a re-united Arnor and Gondor due to his marriage to Firiel, the daughter of King Ondoher of Gondor; or die and Arnor would fall apart), and he predicted Aragorn (or some descendant of Isildur) would ride the Paths of the dead.