Comments on: Annotated 50-7

By: Muttley

Muttley — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 18:15:19 +0000

The conundrum for partnerships where one has a significantly longer lifetime than the other is – how do you deal with the loss, given that you will have to live with it for most of your remaining life?

In most human partnerships, we grow old together and expect to outlive the first to go by only a short while.

When thinking of Tolkein, remember the gravestones. Edith’s is marked “Luthien” and JRRT’s “Beren”.

By: Zak McKracken

Zak McKracken — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 23:56:29 +0000

Seeing how much half-finished Middle Earth material he never finished, and therefore how his own idea of how it all works was still evolving, I think it’s to be expected that it’s not all completely consistent — and if it were, it wouldn’t be what he intended it to be, which is mythical stories.
He wanted to create something like the ancient myths and sagas, and those were created by centuries of oral retelling, and thus also pretty confusing at times.

By: lp

lp — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 17:02:28 +0000

Jeesh. Every time I learn something I didn’t previously know about Tolkien the more I think his editors deserve the credit for his long-form fiction being as close to cogent as it is.

By: Zak McKracken

Zak McKracken — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:04:30 +0000

Tuor turning elven? Wait, that’s posible? Was that in the Silmarillion?

Still, Tolkien doesn’t really explain why Luthien and Arwen would have to turn mortal. They could have stayed elves and just gone on afterwards. Although I guess that an Elf would be able to do that approximately an infinite number of times, and at some point a human might feel a bit weird in that sort of arrangement. So giving up immortality to demonstrate that you’re serious does make sense. Also, Tolkien describes the mortality of humans as a gift — although that never made complete sense to me.

By: Zalocin

Zalocin — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 21:19:12 +0000

I suppose that’s pretty in character for them. Thanks for the answer!