Did Arwen know?
 

Did Arwen know she was going to fall in love with a mortal and become one herself? If so, how?

The choice of mortality or immortality would be on her when her father decided to depart into the West as I have said before. Choosing to go with Elrond she would be counted among the Elves, remaining in ME she would be counted among Men whether she married a mortal or not.

Yes, Elrian, but simply choosing to hang around Middle Earth is a little different from falling in love and giving up all that you know for that one love. I think that in this particular passage, Tolkien hints at Arwen's wisdom and foresight, as well as the fact that she probably liked Aragorn from the start.

Still, she knew if she stayed she'd be mortal for love or not.

Elrond only decided to leave Middle Earth after the ring had been destroyed. Right?

This quote was said a long time before the ring was destroyed. Right?

So Elrond hadn't even asked her if she was coming with him or staying in Middle Earth at the time she said that her fate might be the same as Tinuviel's. And this was also Arwen's first time talking with Aragorn, if I remember correctly. So I think she foresaw love between Arargorn and herself.

Correct me if I'm mistaken about any of this.

Elrond would leave eventually, and his children would have to choose, he and his children knew this long before the War of the Ring. Elrond was told of this at the end of the First Age, when he himself chose to Eldar. In that quote Arwen says maybe, not that she will have the same fate. If she forsaw the love between her and Aragorn at their first meeting, you sure can't tell by her words. If there had been no love between them or no marriage, the choice would have still been hers to make and she still could have chose to remain and be mortal.

perhaps, but the fact that she fell in love with a mortal was certainly an influence! And Elrond, master of lore told Aragorn that, but for him, his daughter would never feel it necessary to "choose" as her desire would lead her to the West
perhaps these are just the words of a loving father...perhaps not

I think it was clear that she would not have stayed had it not been for Aragorn. Why would she had stayed otherwise? To make sure that the niphredil was properly watered every day?

I think she knew. That's the great thing about Tolkein's works - it's either love at first sight or it wasn't meant to be and everyone knows it. If only real life was like that...

Elenna ---

Regarding love at first sight ...... I don't agree that it is "always" this way in Tolkien. The prime example we have to the contrary is Eowyn and Faramir. Also, although we do not know the details of Sam's relationship with Rosie, one gets the impression that it may have developed slowly over trips to the swimming hole and other normal activities of daily life. That would seem to fit in more with their personalities.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

She's totally flirting with the poor young man, feisty wee thing she is! [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img] She might as well have said:
Love at first sight, for sure. I think that maybe until that point she didn't know what her fate would be, but that as soon as she saw Aragorn it was sealed.

I always imagine her saying it slowly, and meeting his eyes as she says it...

Let's not get into the graphic details, shall we? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Most Elves had some amount of foresight regarding their own fates, and the fates of their loved ones. I daresay that Arwen, being the daughter of Elrond, who was one of the mightiest Elves in Middle-earth, had some amount of foresight about herself. Also, she might have been compared to Luthien in looks before, so she could have realized that her fate could be somewhat like Luthien's also.

Yes, everyone who met her compared her beauty to that of Luthien. She may have thought it more than just coincidental. She began to realize that there was more between them than just good looks.

I think she knew her fate would have had something to do with staying in ME, but had not yet seen the reason for it.

And then she saw Aragorn, and would have done a backflip if she hadn't been like 200 years old already! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I read somewhere, but I can't remember where, that who an elf loves is predetermined in a way. There is only ever one person they will love and they know that person when they see them. I don't know know accurate my memory is.

I just remembered, though, that Finwe's first wife died and he remarried, something which couldn't happen if the above was true, hmmm...

More like 2000 years old. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Angry Brandybuck, the tale of me and my wives is a very long story. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

What happened to Finwe was a very rare thing. Yes, he had been deeply in love with Miriel, and after her death, he was never the same again, but he somehow found comfort in Indis. I don't know if I would call it love, per se, on his part, but I think that he found comfort in her. Indis, on the other hand, probably loved him for a long time, but the relationship was probably slightly one-sided. Finding comfort in someone is not the same thing as being in love with them, although the two seem rather similar.

The Luthien-Beren comparison was pretty obviously deliberate on Tolkien's part. Love at first sight does seem common in his fiction, though an aristocratic thing - Sam and Rosie are peasants and have known each other for years; I got the impression Rosie was his girlfriend, perhaps even his fiancee, who pointed out that he'd had his fun and she'd waited over a year and it was time to get married, thanks. They are not the stuff of mediaeval romance, or meant to be. Faramir did seem to fall in love with Eowyn pretty quickly and let's face it, they were engaged after about a week! :-) Maybe one of those things you do when the world is coming to an end and there's this really nice person of the opposite sex in the next ward...

As for Aragorn, he was a romantic-minded boy when he met Arwen, day-dreaming about their mutual ancestress and suddenly, there she is, the woman of his dreams, in the flesh! Maybe Arwen had similar feelings, after all those people saying, "Did anyone ever tell you that you look just like your great-great grandmother, dear?" (g) and she felt that if she looked like Luthien she would probably fall in love with a mortal and lo, here was this good-looking mortal boy, obviously smitten, just like Beren...

Lobelia - Sam and Rosie were probably in that stage where everyone knows it's going to happen one day, but she couldn't have been his fiancee yet. In ROTK, Sam says that Rosie didn't like the idea of his leaving "But as I hadn't spoken, she couldn't say so."

For what Arwen says, I'll admit, it always struck me as being gravely flirtatious, if that's possible. The fact that Luthien is the subject of conversation suggests that the "doom" she's thinking of is pretty specifically the doom of giving up her immortality for the sake of a man; after all, Luthien did not have the same sort of ancestry as Arwen and there was no question of losing her immortality otherwise.

I'll admit I am confused by what's being said about Arwen losing her immortality if she chose to stay in ME after Elrond left. Didn't Elladan and Elrohir stay after Elrond left? It's never said that they gave their immortality up, and it seems like the sort of thing that would be mentioned, considering the sacrifice and permanent separation it entailed.

The impression that I got was that Elrond's children would have to make their Choice when Elrond left Middle-earth, they wouldn't have to leave with him. If they had wanted to be Elves, they could have remained in Middle-earth for a while, and perhaps, left with Celeborn.

She didn't really choose to stay until she met Aragorn again in Lorien. I always pictured that line as kind of a "Hmm... you never know what will happen" line. Maybe she was just trying to make Aragorn feel better because he'd mistaken her for Luthien by saying he wasn't all wrong. If you ran through the woods calling the name of someone long dead, only ot find out it's not them, wouldn't you feel kind of stupid? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]