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Old 11-04-2010, 09:36 AM   #16
Formendacil
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel View Post
By the time of Aragorn's birth, the drift is continental in scale and the consanguinity is so dilute, it would take an immortal Elf to even think of them as kin. But they are related — incredibly distantly, but related nonetheless.
Which was essentially my point, regarding blood. However, when you said "it would take an immortal Elf to even think of them as kin," I began to muse over it again, and I think there's something significant to be noted about the relationship of Elrond to the House of Elendil. From the time of Valandil's fostered childhood in Imladris to Aragorn's fostered childhood in Imladris, Elrond goes out of his way to make relationships with the Line of Isildur.

Obviously, this is partly political--Elrond is maintaining the only tangible remnant of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men that persists through the Third Age, and especially after the fall of Arthedain, manages to cultivate a whole society of Men that thinks and acts in tandem with his diminishing enclave in Imladris. However, I think it's more than that.

It is not, I think in keeping with the general tenor of this thread, a kinship based entirely on blood, given that there is a distinct privileging of the royal line, although insofar as this royal line is ultimately grounded in that blood, it plays a part. I think a much bigger element has to do with "the hands of the King"/"hands of a healer" element. As Aragorn says of Elrond, in "The Houses of Healing" "'Would that Elrond were here, for he is the eldest of all our race, and has the greater power."--our race.

Racially, the uniqueness that Elrond and Aragorn share is the blood of the half-Elven. However, I don't think it's Elven blood or Mannish blood, or the admixture of both, that binds them as a "race"--I think it's that descent from Lúthien, to which I am inclined to ascribe the "hands of the King"/"hands of a healer." In other words, my thesis is that Elrond has maintained a close connection to the Line of Isildur because in it's "Númenorean purity" it has come closest to preserving or building a "race of Lúthien."

Furthermore, I think the relationship between Elrond and the Isildurioni is side-lit in an interesting way by the relationship of the Sons of Elrond to the Isildurioni. Note, first of all, that Elrond isn't marriage to Celebrían until the early 3rd Age, and that his sons are thus contemporaries of the sons of Valandil. (Elladan and Elrohir, according to the Tale of the Years, were born 130 T.A., while Valandil son of Isildur reigned 2 T.A. until 249 T.A.). I find this interesting because Elladan and Elrohir are often seen, in our few glimpses of them, acting as companions to the Chieftains of the Dúnedain--to my mind, very much like older cousins, which corresponds directly to Elrond's assumed role as the elder uncle of the clan.

In this sense, there is a strong kinship between Aragorn as the congenital heir to the position of Elrond's nephew (and Elladan and Elrohir's cousin), and Arwen as Elrond's daughter. It's not a kinship of the sort to merit being called incest, but Elrond is definitely letting his daughter marry "in the clan," in a way that is much stronger than if--for example--he let her marry Gildor Inglorion (if you're willing to call him a descendant of Finarfin) or some fictional descendant of Galadhil, Celeborn's brother, or some even more fictional descendant of Celebrimbor. Again... it's not incestual, but it's definitely endogamic.
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