Melodrama in Middle-earth

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Aye, aye.

Now, does anyone else find this a bit strange? That this event should be described in such grave terms? I get it: it's sad when a child leaves her mother never to return. But was there really no grief greater than this in history?

Tolkien is exploring the difference between those who, being essentially immortal, never know loss, and those who, being mortal, live constantly with that knowledge.

Here, for the first time, Melian experiences what it means to be human. And does so within deeply personal terms, a dreaded and almost primal fear of most human parents: outliving their own child. Nothing in her experience as an immortal has prepared her for this.

Such poignant recognition of the limit of life is one of the central themes of Tolkien's mythology. Anyone who has lost someone they deeply love, let alone a parent who has lost a child, is faced with the enormity of this irrevocable, final act.

Middle-earth offers no solution to this, unless one reads, very carefully, for the hints of the answer which Tolkien clung to in his own life.

[Galadriel55]

This scene reminds me of the one in The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen when Aragorn dies. I can't quote from the book right now, but Arwen says soething like this: "Not until now did I understand in full measure the bitterness of the fate of Men". Even though this is a different kind of relationship than a mother---daughter one, it is still a loosing a loved one. Could Melian perhaps be experiencing something similar? Maybe she also took for granted that Men die, and she might have grieved a bit for the death of some of them (not that she knew any of them close until Beren came). She probably felt sympathetic towards their losses, and as much as she could empathetic, but the real thing was unknown to her until Luthien left her.
And, like Bêthberry said, she was unprepared for this, not only because she was immortal, but also because Luthien was the first immortal to marry a man. No such a thing existed before for elian to take comfort in.
But Melian has noone to blame but herself for Luthien's choice. Luthien followed her other's steps - Melian was first maia to marry a non-ainur, and Luthien the first elf to marry a man. Melian passed it on, didn't she? *I didn't really mean that. I was just joking. *