Ooh la la, Lúthien...

[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?

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Lindale

Luckily Beren just happens to be a good guy.

But don't you think she fell in love in Beren because he was a good guy, not to mention a strapping young lad? She certainly had little love for Celegorm and he was a looker... Besides, would you not do something you normally considered wrong to protect your lover? Would you turn your lover over to the coppers or would you tell a lie and look the other way?

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by skip spence

But don't you think she fell in love in Beren because he was a good guy, not to mention a strapping young lad?

What was her idea of good and evil? Evil, a foreign word, what Mummy Melian kept away with her Girdle? She could have battled, say, Finrod, if she thought he was standing in her way to Beren. And given what she did to Sauron and even Morgoth, she could win. But I don't even think Luthien knows too much about Elvish politics at that time. When the Noldorin messengers arrived at Doriath, Melian and Galadriel are the only women we hear who talk. Do we then assume Luthien was busy dancing and not heeding these tidings? Or she was too much of a little girl in this sense that she thought politics was a sort of "grown-up" thing she couldn't nose into? And when Beren comes into the picture, she suddenly has an epiphany, she just has to save him no matter what? It strikes me as that, from the very beginning, the whole point of Beren and Luthien is love-conquers-all.

She had little love for Celegorm, I believe, because by the time she met him she had already fallen deeply for Beren. And when Celegorm made the wrong move, imprisoning her, what kind of woman would love him back?

To protect a lover, that is a delicate issue, a very relative one. As it happens Beren is the type who would follow his duty. So off Luthien with him goes, because of great love. Do you suppose then that if Beren was a bad guy who told her to lie to Daddy Thingol, she would have done it? Now that is something I cannot answer readily: on one hand, she actually might, considering she escaped from Hirilorn and all that because of her overwhelming passion, no thoughts of the Silmarils and the fate of Arda; on the other, she may think that it is too much--lying to Thingol for someone evil will cause evil, escaping to help a good lover and escaping to help a bad lover are two different things.

[alatar]

That whole lovesick/infatuation/craziness is just Nature's way of getting the process started. One cannot know if one truly loves another unless one has lived at least 50 or so years with the other - every other statement is just conjecture. Love isn't just when you're dating and on the wedding day or even when you've ridden off into the sunset, but all of those days thereafter. So Luthien gets a little crazy for Beren, and they get together, but after a time life shows up and they have to deal with Daddy and Morgoth and the mortgage payment and buying nappies for Dior. Both could have run away from life, but each knew that it was his/her job to help the other when things got tough. Beren - "No, we're not going to live in the woods." Luthien - "No, I'm not going to let you die after telling all of my friends that I was dating a human." That's love.

Though I have no proof to show or statistics to muddle, I would guess that just as many marriages fail when the couple has had time beforehand to check things out as for those that just show up and get hitched that day.

And what's wrong with idealization? I can see where it can be taken too far, when you get married to something so completely divergent from reality that you cannot see the obvious, (She says, "I HATE you with my entire soul, with every cell of my body, and from now until everlasting!" He hears, "She has strong feelings for me. Bliss!"), but on the other hand, I still see my wife at times as the girl that I used to carpool with, back before kids and minivans and houses and wrinkles.

And who better that Tolkien to write one's last words?