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Old 02-16-2002, 02:52 PM   #19
Tar Elenion
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 369
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Sting

In Letter 153 JRRT addresses the issue of Tuor.
"In the primary story of Lúthien and Beren, Luthien is allowed as an absolute exception to divest herself of 'immonality' and become 'mortal' - but when Beren is slain by the Wolf-warden of the Gates of Hell, Lúthien obtains a brief respite in which they both return to Middle-earth 'alive' - though not mingling with other people : a kind of Orpheus-legend in reverse, but one of Pity not of Inexorability. Túor weds Idril the daughter of Turgon King of Gondolin; and 'it is supposed' (not stated) that he as an unique exception receives the Elvish limited 'immortality': an exception either way. Eärendil is Túor's son & father of Elros (First King of Númenor) and Elrond, their mother being Elwing daughter of Dior, son of Beren and Lúthien: so the problem of the Half-elven becomes united in one line. The view is that the Half-elven have a power of (irrevocable) choice, which may be delayed but not permanently, which kin's fate they will share.
[and later]
Immortality and Mortality being the special gifts of God to the Eruhini (in whose conception and creation the Valar had no part at all) it must be assumed that no alteration of their fundamental kind could be effected by the Valar even in one case: the cases of Lúthien (and Túor) and the position of their descendants was a direct act of God. The entering into Men of the Elven-strain is indeed represented as part of a Divine Plan for the ennoblement of the Human Race, from the beginning destined to replace the Elves."

From this letter we see that JRRT notes that within the story it is only "supposed" that Tuor became 'immortal'. Outside the story JRRT the author acknoweldges that Tuor was in fact changed by God and thus accounted among the Elves.
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