The Greatest Success Against Morgoth By Elves and Men

[Mithadan]

The Beleriandic wars against Angband, despite some victories in battle, were singularly unsuccessful in accomplishing one of the primary goals of the Noldor - the recovery of the Silmarils. To paraphrase Tolkien, all the efforts of the Noldor failed to result in even a single glimpse of the Silmarils.

But Beren and Luthien, with the aid of Huan, accomplished what all of the might of the Noldor could not. They entered Angband and retrieved a Silmaril from Morgoth's iron crown. It strikes me that there is some underlying significance in this. The Noldor refused to wait for the Valar to avenge the darkening of Valinor and the theft of the Silmarils. They, instead, rebelled against the authority of the Valar, participated in the Kinslaying (though perhaps not all of them) and left Valinor against the will of the Valar, subjecting them to the Doom of Mandos. The Valar knew and the Noldor should have known that they had undertaken an impossible task - to defeat one of the Ainur. They failed utterly and suffered for it under exile.

But Beren and Luthien prevailed. Could the underlying reason for this be, in part, because Beren was a man and had been faithful, and Luthien was of the Teleri and daughter of a Maia, free from the taint of the rebellion of the Noldor? Could only the combination of Men and Elves, free from the taint of rebellion, and coupled with Luthien blood of the Maiar accomplish such a feat?

[obloquy]

In addition to the racial angle you've proposed, the incidental, indirect nature of Beren and Luthien's recovery of the Sils perhaps place them outside of the patterns of fate woven around the Noldor and the Silmarils. Their accomplishment was a byproduct of the discharge of "higher" duties, such as the duty of love and its requisite sacrifices, and the binding nature of faithful oaths, rather than any desire for the gems themselves. One might say (and perhaps Tolkien would have agreed) that in a world doomed to perpetual decline, the only possibility of catching a glimpse or a direct experience of the Golden Age would be not to attempt to recapture it, but to come by its light indirectly through participation of the transcendental. Attempts to concretely possess it in a material sense are doomed from the beginning.

(This is badly written. Understand that when I used the word "transcendental" I didn't mean to invoke something vague and mystical; I meant it much more like the "extraordinary" in Chesterton's famous maxim about the extraordinariness of the ordinary family.)

[Galadriel55]

Interestingly too, even Beren and Luthien were "allowed" to retrieve only one Silmaril, they could not free all three. So even the combination of their lineage was insufficient to carry the task to completion.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Interestingly too, even Beren and Luthien were "allowed" to retrieve only one Silmaril, they could not free all three. So even the combination of their lineage was insufficient to carry the task to completion.

I don't think the Plan ever contemplated the Noldor recovering all three.

[SoundingShores]

I think Beren and Luthien can be seen, to some extent, as "forerunners" to the Hobbits. They certainly have that First Age glory about them, but compared to the other, great forces participating in the conflicts of their time, they were still "little people." They even infiltrated an enemy stronghold like Frodo and Sam.

An important difference is that the anti-Sauron cause was supposed to be more or less purely righteous, and this goes also for the people of higher social status who fought the war, not just the Hobbits. Sure, some had less elevated motives than others, but they weren't fighting Sauron for downright "sinful" reasons (except maybe Saruman). By contrast, the oath of Feanor was supposed to be blasphemous against the Valar, so their entire reason for fighting was basically bad from the start. And then there was the Kinslaying. Because of this, they were morally compromised and couldn't be allowed to get what they wanted. In fact, their adherence to their oath had to be ruinous, in order to portray rebelliousness against the Valar as misguided.

Beren and Luthien, by contrast, didn't have this possessiveness about the Silmaril or antagonism towards the Valar, so they could be allowed to have some degree of success. And as with the Hobbits, allowing smaller players to fulfill unexpectedly large roles helps create a sense that everything is part of some grand inscrutable design (which is clearly what Tolkien wanted to suggest).