Celebrian's Misfortunes

[the phantom]

In a thread I started about the Morgoth/Luthien incident I brought up rape. Then I read some HoME (X, Laws and Customs...) and found this-

there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force... one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos

If the orcs had attempted to rape Celebrian, it seems she would have "died". So, since she was rescued alive I would assume she was not raped.

However, it's very likely she was tickled mercilessly- a preferred method of torment amongst all who learned under Melkor's tutelage.

[Mister Underhill]

That's a great find, phantom -- nice to see some of that ol' time HoME being slung. However, I'm compelled to point out that the passage you cite was actually revised out of a later version of the essay and changed to "...seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust among them."

Unfortunately, I think this change paves the way for some rather dark interpretations of Celebrian's "misfortunes" (now there's a euphemism if I've ever heard one). Knowing orcs, I think we may suppose that if they could, they did.

[narfforc]

She was in fact raped, for I was the offspring of that unholy union. When I was born they called me Narfforc, because I was one. Sorry to end the speculation this way.

[Nukapei]

I've just done a search at both CoE and The Encyclopedia of Arda, and neither mention a "Narfforc" under any category. Where'd you get this information, Narfforc?

[The Barrow-Wight]

narfforc is obviously not being truthful, for he is a troll, not an orc.

Let's stay on topic, please. No need to digress any further into silliness.

[Nukapei]

I know, I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

This has always been an intriguing, if disturbing, aspect of the Legendarium to me. I find it interesting that Tolkien so carefully uses the word "torment" to describe what Celebrian went through -- this is an ambiguous word which means simply 'suffering or agony of some kind'. Tolkien could have used the more specific word "torture" to indicate physical assault of a more direct kind (that is, probably not rape), but he did not. Both in the Appendix and in the brief mention of the incident in the tale, he uses the word "torment".

Because of his word choice, Tolkien opens the door to all manner of speculation. And the more you look into the meanings and uses of the word, the more vague it becomes. One can be tormented by oneself (psychological torment), by others physically or emotionally, by an idea, by a weapon, even by God (there are any number of uses in the OED from the Middle Ages in which God "tormentid" both the ungodly and those faithful whom he was testing).

So Tolkien has given us a clear indication that something agonising, painful and which does lasting harm, has happened to Celebrian, but because of the word he uses, he gives us no indication of what form that torment did, or did not, take. So it comes back to one of Tolkien's greatest strengths as a writer, insofar as it would appear that the reader is being given a certain amount of freedom. The question becomes not "what happened to Celebrian" (because all we know is that she was tormented) but "what kind of torment do I think orcs would inflict on Celebrian"?

For my money, I think that there is no form of torment to which an orc would be adverse -- and given their violence, their attitudes toward nature and other peoples, I find it hard to think that they would pass up the chance to rape a beautiful and noble Elf woman. It's one of the sadder ideas I've ever encountered in Tolkien, and I don't like to think of it much, but there it is. Middle-earth is, as we have so often noted elsewhere, a complete world both in its good and in its evil. If we are to have the healthy and productive sexual relationship of Rosie and Sam, there must logically exist the opposite of that somewhere. . .

EDIT

In the Appendix account we read that Celebrian was "seized and carried off" by the orcs. For what it's worth, that phrase is a Victorian euphemism for rape. And at the council of Elrond, we hear that Celebrian suffered torment in the "dens" of the orcs -- again, Victorian connotations around the word "den" are interesting insofas as it is used to refer to vice and sensuality ("dens of iniquity" and so on).

[A_Brandybuck]

Originally Posted by the phantom

there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force... one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos

A detail in this quote attracted my attention. Tolkien refers only to Elves, who takes other Elves by force. He didn't mention any kind of other races in his phrases. Not in this one, not in the other ones in manuscript B.
He didn't mention, how these Elves rejected bodily life, nor when they reject.

I have two intentions concerning the quote:

1. Tolkien didn't mean "raped", but he meant rather, that an Elf takes another Elf's wife and forces her to live with him and other marital responsibilities.
Love under Elves has a special meaning in Middle-earth. It is something very binding. The bind lasts even after one part went to Mandos and the other part could not marry another Elf without consent of the other part in Mandos, that he/she rests in the Halls in Mandos until the end (Finwe and Miriel).
Regarding this, we can assume, that it must be very hard to en Elf being forced to change the partner. It must be a very huge torment to live with another Elf and not to see his/her "naturally given" partner. These elves passes to Mandos.
But this means not that being raped by orcs is no reason to leave Middle-earth.

2. (assuming, that Tolkien meant "raped")
I could be, that Orcs are not included in that theory, but only Elves. Being raped by orcs must not mean, that they rejects life and pass to Mandos. It is more a kind of physical torture. Being raped by Elves, by someone of their own people, could be a huge physical and psychological wound, that they can't suffer this and pass to Mandos.

I tend towards the first intention and that Celebrian was raped by orcs. Especially plausible is for me the reasoning of SpM, that Elrond healed the wounds, but Celebrian passed in spite of the healing, because she lost her delight.