Immortality and the sons of Elrond - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Galin · 04-07-2009, 09:18 AM

To my mind Foster has made a valid enough statement with respect to the Sons of Elrond however -- as I think the implication from various description in The Lord of the Rings is that the Sons of Elrond chose mortality. And I cited this entry because RF is basically going by Tolkien-published text (and Silmarillion) but not Letters.

Letter 153 was written in 1954, and in 1955 Tolkien was still working on texts which would impact this issue -- that is, the Numenorean Kings (i) Numenor, and (V) Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.

To put it another way, I would find it odd if Tolkien himself did not think he was leaving such an impression. And again (if I read the textual history correctly that is), Foster's entry is not only based on Tolkien-published description, but based on text that was still being worked on after Tolkien (almost) told Peter Hastings that the end of the sons of Elrond is not told (and etc) (I say 'almost' told Hastings as IIRC Tolkien did not send this letter).

04-07-2009, 09:18 AM	#11
Galin Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 1,036	To my mind Foster has made a valid enough statement with respect to the Sons of Elrond however -- as I think the implication from various description in The Lord of the Rings is that the Sons of Elrond chose mortality. And I cited this entry because RF is basically going by Tolkien-published text (and Silmarillion) but not Letters. Letter 153 was written in 1954, and in 1955 Tolkien was still working on texts which would impact this issue -- that is, the Numenorean Kings (i) Numenor, and (V) Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. To put it another way, I would find it odd if Tolkien himself did not think he was leaving such an impression. And again (if I read the textual history correctly that is), Foster's entry is not only based on Tolkien-published description, but based on text that was still being worked on after Tolkien (almost) told Peter Hastings that the end of the sons of Elrond is not told (and etc) (I say 'almost' told Hastings as IIRC Tolkien did not send this letter). Last edited by Galin; 04-08-2009 at 04:45 AM.