Dior
 

Dior was concieved after Luthien gave up her immortaility to remain with Beren in Middle Earth. My question is is Dior considered half elven even though Luthien was mortal when she gave birth to him?

Luthien was still an Elf when she gave birth. She was a mortal Elf but an Elf nonetheless. Also she was the Half elven because Thingol was an Elf and Melian was a Maia. Dior was of the Three-Fold Race. Man, Elf, Ainu.

In Letter 153 JRRT says:
Because it says that Luthien was an absolute exception it seems to me that Dior was a mortal, and so were his two sons. Now that causes a problem because if both Dior and his sons were considered Mortal then should not have been allowed to chose which race to belong to. Also there is the situation with Prince Imrahil. His foremother, Mithrellas, was an elf, but none of his ancestors were given the choice of which race they desired to belong to. There seems to be a double standard.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Thingol ]

Thingol, you need to be more careful with your quotes. It looks like all that is in the quote box if from tolkien's letters, when actually only the first sentence:

is actually from Tolkien.

We don't really know whether Dior was full mortal or half-elven with a choice, because he was only 35 to 37 when he was slain.

There are two possibilities.
A) He was half-elven with a choice.
B) He was full mortal without a choice.

We know that he wedded a full elf and their children were half-elven with a choice, we know this because their daughter Elwing made a choice.

This holds true for both A and B. Elrond was a half-elven who married a full elf and his children were still considered half-elven and given a choice. And if he had been full mortal, having married a full elf, Elwing and brothers would still have been half-elven.

I would personally assume that Dior was Half-Elven and decided, or would have decided to be counted among elves. I feel this way because he was accepted so happily as king of Doriath.

Of course, much of what we know comes from Christopher Tolkien instead of John, because the Ruin of Doriath had to be written mostly by Chris. *shrugs*

The 'Judgement of Manwe' referred to in Thingol's quote (which, I think, was from a previous thread) is to be found in HoME V. It is part of the material that was used to make up the final chapter of the Silmarillion, though Chris Tolkien didn't actually include all of it in the Silm.

The judgement takes place after Eärendil delivers his message to the Valar.
Compare this to the equivalent passage in the published Silmarillion, which, as well as being quite extensively edited, lacks the part about anyone of mortal descent being mortal unless there was a special exception.

I don't know why Chris Tolkien didn't include the entire passage from HoME V in the Silm. According to this passage, at least, Dior and his sons would have been mortal (unless Manwë with the authority of Eru made them a special case, which is quite possible given their circumstances).

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Voronwe ]

I must have been cutting and pasting too quickly, because I did not even realize that I had taken part of Tar-Elenion's opinions with the actual quote. The post was from the Half Elves thread in the New Silm project. I had just read the thread and remembered this thread that I posted a long time ago. I have edited the post and only included the part from the letters. Sorry for any confusion.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Thingol ]

Thanks Voronwe, I think I have a better understanding now. Imrahil and his ancestors would not have been given a choice because they of coarse had mortal blood in them, and had not really done anything comparible with the deeds of Eärendil and Elwing.

Thanks Thingol, it happens.

Voronwe, great post, so it comes down to, what is canon?

I'd say the full quote from the HoME, since it was Christopher Tolkien who edited the Silm. It would have been the reverse of course if the Silm. had been published in a form determined by "John" as we refer to Tolkien here.

But we don't know what John would have kept and what he would have discarded.

EDIT - *Ronald

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Mhoram ]

If you must call the Professor by his given name, at least call him Ronald since that is what he called himself and signed his letters with.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Bruce MacCulloch ]

Will do [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]