The Letter of the Law

[Formendacil]

Honestly, if we're coming up with alternate Tuor and Idril takes, I'm going to make a case for "Beren & Lúthien 2.0." If, as there seems to be some evidence, they are never seen again, in Middle-earth or Valinor, isn't the simplest explanation that... they're both dead?


After all, if each retained their own fate, even a dead-in-this-world Idril would go to the Halls of Mandos and so their ever-sundered end could become known. If they're still alive, then... where? Arda is not endless.

But what if they both shared the Fate of Men? That's what happens to the other "Big 3" Elf-Man couples: Lúthien and Arwen both give up the Fate of the Elves and join the Fates of Men. And there's enough stuff in the Athrabêth and around the Gift of Men to suggest that this is how things are slanted: it's better to counted among Men and share their fate.

Even with the half-Elven, until the case of Eärendil and Elwing, Tolkien says that the default situation is that the half-Elven share the fates of Men, suggesting that this is the default case (the dominant gene, so to speak). The Choice given the surviving Pereldar is a Gift--you can't go back and ask Dior, Eluréd, or Elurín what they'd have preferred, not least because they've already departed the cirlces of this world.

Therefore, it seems to me, if Idril and Tuor shared the same fate, it seems far more likely that Idril must have enjoyed the Fate of Lútien than that Tuor became the sole exception in the opposite direction.

[Morsul the Dark]

Sort of stealing from an old thread of mine on misunderstandings based on dialect.

Dwarves eat birthday cakes like biscuits.