Relative Powers

[Thalion]

Well this will be the second time I attempt to post this as the first one timed out on me...grrr...

For Feanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind, in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and in subtlety alike, of all the Children of Iluvatar, and a bright flame was in him. The works of wonder for the glory of Arda that he might otherwise have wrought only Manwe might in some measure conceive.

This passage, finally supplied by the phantom, speaks to the "greatness" of Feanor...when so many often say that Feanor is the greatest in a particular character aspect such as metalurgy or works of hand this passage lends them credibilty...not only that but it even characterizes Feanor as "mightiest...in beauty" a character trait often described of Galadriel or Luthien...

...this is not the importance of this passage, per say...its importance is to lend crediblity that Feanor is the "mightiest" or "greatest" in certain catagories...this question is often posited in response to the passage concerning Luthien being the "greatest of the Eldar"...people ask "greatest in what"...and the correct answer is essentially..."not in anything in particular, just the greatest" since Tolkien doesn't qualify this statement...but he does quality the statements about Feanor...which lead us to believe possibly that Luthien is the greatest elf of all...

...but to do so would not necessarily be to take the entire quotion in the correct context...I repeat it here one more time for argument:

Who together with the greatest of all the Eldar, Lúthien Tinúviel, daughter of Elu Thingol, are the chief matter of the legends and histories of the Elves.

The crux of this statement is "WHAT DOES GREATEST MEAN?!"...this question defines the statement...how you answer it will alter your beliefs as to what placement Luthien deserves amongst the elves.......as I've said multiple times before, defining "greatness" can be to say "of most renown" or "most famous"...to define "greatness" in this way would no way place Luthien atop a list of the highest in relative powers, but yet it would be an accurate description of the passage presented above...I say this because the alternate definitions of "greatness" that I provided can be gathered from the Oxford English Dictionary, which gives not concrete definitions of things, but rather contextual definitions to provide readers with alternative uses of a word as authors have used it over time...while this may not be greatly important, what is important is that Tolkien was a writer to this dictionary at one point in his life...this means he was chiefy aware of alternative definitions to words...including such words as "greatest"...

...additionally, a definition of "greatest" as "of most renown" or "most famous" is outside a proper reading of the passage above...the passage speaks of the history of elves and which elves concern their history most chiefly...this means that to call Luthien the "greatest" in this context could very well mean that she is in fact the elf to which tales telll the most about or to which legends most often speak about...legends may speak about Luthein more often than others for various reasons including that her tale with Beren is a bittersweet tale with a somewhat happy ending(?), that it is important for understading the history of the Elves (and later Numenoreans) or that is the most beautiful tale when sung in Quena or Sindarian and that they enjoy hearing it most just as some of us prefer to watch certain movies over and over (or read certain books...cough cough....Tolkien works....cough cough) because they are most entertaining...this doesn't mean that she had more power than other elves simply that the Lay of Luthien would be the "greatest tale" of the elves because it speaks of lmany emotions including love, despair, hope, ect...

...lastly, and least we not forget...Luthien is most chiefly written to be Tolkien's wife...so there is obviously some author's prejudice here...although I do not argue with what Tolkien wrote, I simply mean to say that understanding this may create a greater understanding why she may be accounted amongst the very highest echelon of elves...