Quote:
Originally Posted by cellurdur
Then let me once more attempt to re-simplify the matter. The idea of Men growing slower than Elves is not just found in Laws and Customs.
The Children of Hurin, which is actually published as a complete story and edited to fit also has this notion.
Sador may be wrong, but his information is supported elsewhere.
'for in their first youth the Children of Men and Elves seem close akin. But the children of Men grow more swiftly and their youth passes soon; such is our fate.'
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Cellurdur, you merely want to pick and choose the mortar for your literal brick wall, when Tolkien chronologies are not necessairly set in stone. Taking Sador's statement at face value, yes, mortal children DO age faster than Elves; however, as I said before, that could mean having children in one's teens and then being considered middle-aged by the time one hits 30, and then suffering old age and dying before 50, as is certainly a known fact in recorded history for large populations of people over thousands of years.
Again, Earendil and Elwing did not have children until 29, which would be certainly much older - perhaps ten to fifteen years older - than mortals of any time in real history up to the 19th or 20th century. Don't you find it all all odd that Earendil and Elwing did not have children until 7 years after their wedding? Do you think about that at all? Or do you not think about things that you don't want to think about?
You want to base everything on LACE which was heavily emended and incomplete, and most certainly would have to be rewritten again considering Tolkien completely abandoned the whole Aelfwine story line. Yet you also wish to completely ignore Galin's quote from Tolkien regarding Numenoreans, or the author's notes from the Vinyar Tengwar which are nearly 20 years more recent and trumps LACE.
What you need to do is to drop the magisterial tone and the condescension and realize your assumptions are not set in stone, and what you BELIEVE to be true is not necessarily canon, and that Tolkien cannot even be counted on to be wholly orthodox in his own canonicity.