#(which i do because it's in appendix a and lotr > all other canon imo)

[undercat-overdog]

In light of Recent Events, I’d like to point out that Celebrimbor the son of Curufin could conceivably be not just older than Galadriel but older than Fingon and all of the other kids of Fingolfin and Finarfin (using the Annals of Aman timelines, LaCE maturity, and note 7 in Of Dwarves and Men in which Celebrimbor’s mother stays in Aman, thus he must have been born there. I’m not going to calculate the maximum age because I’m worse than Jirt at arithmetic).

He could also be the Elven equivalent of a teenager (say, 40 years using LaCE maturity) in First Age 465 when he refuses to leave with banished Curufin from Nargothrond. (The canon here is the Shibboleth, source of red-haired Maedhros, in which Celebrimbor is not one of the two Finwean great-grandchildren to go into Exile (those two are Idril and Orodreth), and thus Celebrimbor could not have been born in Aman.*)

Regardless of birth date, he and Galadriel are both adults in the Second Age and should physically look the same age.

*ok that’s actually because Celebrimbor is Telperimpar the Teler then, but if you throw out all the writings with non-Feanorian Celebrimbor you’re left with what’s in LotR and two paragraphs in HoME.

#complaints about sexist casting is incredibly valid #but celebrimbor (son of curufin) isn't canonically younger (or older) than galadriel #a lot of the one true celebrimbor fanon isn't actually the one and only true canon #celebrimbor has a lot of potential backstories even if you go with son of curufin #(which i do because it's in appendix a and lotr > all other canon imo) #celebrimbor

[absynthe--minded]

(1/2) I've looked through LOTR Appendix B for anything contradicting UTs account of the Silvan population and movements and I can't find anything. I also don't see in the Appx. B when Galadriel came to rule Lorien? Can you help me out please? Also, for a non-UT source for how Sindarin displaced Silvan, Appx F 'Of Elves,' note#1

(2/2) ALSO ALSO, totally agree with you that the Sindar are not the 'less problematic elves uwu' that the fandom generally treats them to be! When I rb'd the other version, grouping the Sindar and Noldor together, I interpreted it as "groups who speak primarily sindarin," and not as "both of them are equally to blame" which is my bad, you're right to be upset about that.

(3/3) ALSO ALSO ALSO, we can agree that Galadriel did not have a son or found lothlorien

So I can totally 100% cop to the fact that I was Heated when discussing Sindarin/Silvan relations, and there are a lot of reasons for that. I promise I wasn’t really angry, just very enthusiastic, lol

It mostly comes down to the fact that I dislike the tendency to treat the Sindar as less bad than the Noldor when I headcanon them both as equally bad in different ways. I also dislike the argument that the Noldor had a hand in the colonization of Lothlórien/that Galadriel was an active colonizer of the silvan elves and this is undisputed Canon. To me, a more accurate explanation is that in a pretty pivotal draft of the story, she was the one who founded it and was thusly responsible for the decline of Silvan culture/language but that this is explicitly counter to the account in The Tale of Years that Tolkien himself approved of and sent to the publisher. (I’ve seen this idea floating around fandom without the additional information that clarifies that more than one version exists, and it’s often used to contrast her against Oropher, The Good Guy, who totally didn’t do anything bad ever in his life. This is frankly one of my biggest pet peeves, as Oropher’s occupation of Greenwood and establishment of himself as King and subsequent treatment of the silvan elves in the Last Alliance bothers me way more than any other action taken against the silvan elves in the entirety of the Legendarium. But that’s my personal opinion and of course others have different takes on the text.)

The problem I have with Unfinished Tales and specifically The History of Galadriel and Celeborn is that since its explanations of who founded Lothlórien, and when, and why, are all incorrect when compared to LotR, that renders basically everything dealing with Lothlórien in this section to be... well, Fraught. How can we say for certain that the accounts it gives are completely accurate, etc.? Of Elves is a much better source imo, since again it comes back to “well Tolkien himself sent this to the publisher”, and I hadn’t read it recently enough to be sure of what it discussed so thank you for clarifying!

For me, it’s less of a dispute that these things happened, because they did and they do constitute canonical imperialism of some kind, and more that I get annoyed with the assumption that the Noldor had to be involved. By the Second Age, and especially by the time that Silvan displacement was well underway, the Noldor really weren’t present enough in regional politics for this to be connected to them. Ost-in-Edhil as a cultural center and Lindon as a capital are pretty removed from Lothlórien (and OiE had pretty clear aims that were distinct from any sort of ambition to rule and expand) and extremely removed from Greenwood, and neither of those realms aimed to be particularly inclusive of the Noldor other than Galadriel. The question of her ethnicity and identity is frustrating because I think that she definitely did assimilate and it was to a degree that led her to reject her family names and perhaps claim ‘Galadriel’ as a cilmessë? But that’s a matter of debate for another post.

Anyway thank you for your response! I hope this makes some degree of sense.

#replies #bluedancingkittykat #absynthe's meta