Ooh la la, Lúthien...

[Mithalwen]

Ah but the context has changed greatly. . Look at their conversations in "The Steward and the king". Faramir see them as equals and indeed he is at her mercy since he does not conceal his feelings. There is that crucial moment when they stand on the walls of the City and she says "I stand upon some dreadful brink , and it is utterly dark in the abyss before my feet, but whetherthere is any light behind me I cannot tell. For I cannot turn yet. I am waiting for some stroke of doom.' and at that moment everything is still even their hearts for a moment. Only then is Eowyn able ot turn to light and life and love. The world has changed - Eowyn was a warrior becasue it was the only way of doing something that might make a difference. As she says later when she accepts Faramir "The Shadow has departed. I will be a shieldmaiden no longer....I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren" . It is Eowyn who changes in response to hope.

[Lush]

I love you guys.

Oh, and I've never really pondered the Edith-as-Luthien thing (even though I've heard and read about it) up until now, but does anyone know if she even had a say in putting the name "Luthien" on that tombstone?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Nope - she was dead.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lush

I love you guys.

Oh, and I've never really pondered the Edith-as-Luthien thing (even though I've heard and read about it) up until now, but does anyone know if she even had a say in putting the name "Luthien" on that tombstone?

While some people leave detailed instructions as to their funerals there is a letter, I think to Michael which implies that this was JRRT's own idea. Certainly it seems more likely. Seldom has a romantic gesture seemed so chilling...

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

While some people leave detailed instructions as to their funerals there is a letter, I think to Michael which implies that this was JRRT's own idea. Certainly it seems more likely. Seldom has a romantic gesture seemed so chilling...

And I don't think old JRRT had in his mind any of the arguments against Luthien that you lot have raised..

[Lush]

Yeah, what I was talking about is whether or not she had perhaps planned it for the future (I mean, I already have my funeral playlist pretty much set, and yes, Guns 'n Roses will be on it, and if that stuff isn't blasted, and I mean blasted, my vengeful spirit is coming back to haunt every single one of you). Maybe I just watched a bit too much "Six Feet Under" at an impressionable age, I don't know.

I have to say, while on one level it strikes me as weird, on another level, I totally empathize with our friend J.R.R.T. I'm a writer too, and while I'm merely a bad one, I am fanciful enough to where I could see myself pulling a similar stunt with my habibi. I think women are just as capable of idealizing and dehumanizing men, and if we weren't, the romance novel industry wouldn't be calling me with its delicious prospects of profit. It's just that men are usually lionized for that sort of thing, or else we say that "boys will be boys," (Richard bloody Ford certainly comes to mind) or "it was the times!" while women are cold-hearted shrews if we want someone purrrfect and all powerful and unrealistically devoted. Heh. Same goes for female writers who create somewhat unrealistic male characters - they're just "bad," whereas male writers get away with unrealistic female characters more easily, imho.

Above all else, this just makes me glad that I don't live with a writer.

As for Luthien, I'll always like her, though not in a way I like, say, Eowyn. What I like about Luthien's story is the sadness. Even when it's happy, it's sad.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Lush

Yeah, what I was talking about is whether or not she had perhaps planned it for the future (I mean, I already have my funeral playlist pretty much set, and yes, Guns 'n Roses will be on it, and if that stuff isn't blasted, and I mean blasted, my vengeful spirit is coming back to haunt every single one of you)

Jeez, not one of those epic pieces that has a bare-chested Slash playing his guitar on top of a cliff, I hope...

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Luthien is idealised as the perfect woman - passive other than as meets the needs of her man for whom she sacrifices everything. I just find this completely and irredeemably horrific.

C'mon it's not like that at all! Sure she's a fool in love and acts mainly because of this but it is certainly she who wears the pants in that relationship, and it is her needs as much as it is his needs she meets. Obviously she needs no man's permission (including Beren's) to do what she will. She is very far from the stereotypical princess waiting to be rescued. Although locked up in a tower she escapes herself without any assistance from her man. What's wrong with romantic love anyway?

Beren always tries to act the man but it's all huff and puff really and the quest is a lost cause without her help. And throughout it, it's she who performs all the real marvels as Beren never do anything very productive in winning the Silmaril. Also, he drags Finrod Felagund with him to his death.

[wispeight]

I was going to go on from what I see as the Source, All Father, which is really not a term that is among common usage within my lexicon, and go on to describe the very first emanation as form consisting of substance. The vehicle, vessel, soul, all of which are considered feminine. In this light we should be seeing that the very first emanation is feminine.

Now, we would also see that Source is considered masculine. However, if substance is an emanation from source, then it is a part of source.

Now for confusion; if the vessel, vehicle, soul, or substance are feminine, then what do we say about the male physical body? It is a vessel, vehicle, soul, substance. Is it a mutation of the XX into XY chromosome and as a result immediately under attack by the Mother's immune system, and this would be the ultimate source of conflict between male and female.

Ex facto, the female started it! they picked the fight! they didn't even let the male be born, being in such a hurry to engage us in conflict.

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by skip spence

What's wrong with romantic love anyway?

Erm, begging your pardon, if ever she fell in love with the wrong guy then, she would've been evil, don't you think? Imagine if that were a son of Feanor she fell for, or someone with the temperament and overall characteristics of Feanor. What could she have done? Go to war with them? She has the potential enough for that, given her lineage and her passion. What if, she was deceived and before she knew it, even if she had a golden but naive heart, she had murdered or committed some other form of evil? Would she have gotten revenge or some sort of thing? Luckily Beren just happens to be a good guy. A really good guy who likes to follow rules. Remember Luthien was trying to persuade him to run away, but he has this strong conscience and/or sense of duty that made him pursue the quest?

[Mithalwen]

Lindale, I don't suppose he did ... but I have to say that it is a good illustration of why all fairytales end after the wedding with and "they all lived happily ever after". It seem that Tolkien loved the idea of Edith more than the reality. Basically it seems like he fell in love with about the first girl he met and had she not been so idealised and forbidden they might have got to know each other and discovered their incompatability and gone on to find more compatible partners - in fact I think Edith had become engaged to someone who might have suited her better. Arguably if Tolkien had really loved her he would have let her go at that point ...as the old saw saith....

Six Feet Under was wonderful. There was quite a lot of Queen at my uncle's funeral which was unothodox but rather fab - I think the vicar was a little startled though that might have been some of the racier anecdotes in the step-son's eulogy

[Aiwendil]

It seem that Tolkien loved the idea of Edith more than the reality.

Indeed. For that matter, I would say that every feeling anyone has for anyone else is actually for their internal 'idea' of that person rather than for the external 'reality' (if such a thing can even be meaningfully talked about). All that varies is the extent to which that internal idea gives a reasonable approximation of the person's behaviour.

In other words, I think Tolkien's idealization of Edith/Luthien is nothing unusual - which, I suppose, makes the story of Beren and Luthien that much more universal in its appeal.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Indeed. For that matter, I would say that every feeling anyone has for anyone else is actually for their internal 'idea' of that person rather than for the external 'reality' (if such a thing can even be meaningfully talked about). All that varies is the extent to which that internal idea gives a reasonable approximation of the person's behaviour.

In other words, I think Tolkien's idealization of Edith/Luthien is nothing unusual - which, I suppose, makes the story of Beren and Luthien that much more universal in its appeal.

All very Jungian...

If Tolkien was in love with an ideal of Edith, then it must have been strong as he managed to keep it up his whole life - he seemed as much in love with her at the end of their lives as at the beginning. Or maybe she managed to hide anything which would have made him think of her more negatively? That's something we wouldn't ever know...

However I definitely think he was an idealist and he had a dream of what the perfect relationship and family ought to be, having been denied family from a young age. So his idealism was wholly understandable. The evidence of it is right there is his own personal life and in the family lives he sketched out in his writing. The story of The Children of Hurin for example is as much a tragedy for the family life we see destroyed as for anything else lost.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

It seem that Tolkien loved the idea of Edith more than the reality.

Aiwendil is right - Mithalwen has expressed a universal truth here. I find it easier to recognize it in others than in myself...

I'm sure the gender gap played a role as well. It has been mentioned that Tolkien felt most comfortable among other men of his own interests and status, and that Edith seems to have resented that fact. The expectations of men and women concerning marriage were widely divergent at that time - though perhaps today's ideas are more unrealistic. Certainly from Tolkien's writings we see that he had a highly idealized notion of what a relationship should be like - his notes on the Elves and their marriages reflect that. Edith may have had her own fantasies about marriage, and without communication, neither had a chance to live up to the other one's expectations.