# Faithless Females?



## Annaheru (Feb 9, 2006)

We know of several wives or lovers who did not go into exile with their husband/lover (Nerdanel comes to mind, along with the pseudo characters of Amarie and Curufin's wife). I can't help thinking that this must have happened in other Noldorin families too.

Were they wrong? Should they (esp. the wives) have stayed with their husbands, even if they were wrong to leave Aman? 

I haven't gotten into the section of HoME on the Elves' laws and customs, so maybe there's info on this subject there (if so, please post!), but I can't help wondering.

So what do you think? Were they wrong? Would it have been more noble to stay with their husbands? Was either choice equally wrong? Or did they do the right thing?


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## YayGollum (Feb 9, 2006)

I would think not. Their decisions came about by way of intelligence focused on self-preservation. Yay for those ladies not taking stupid chances! But then, I know nothing of any evil elf laws that forbid spouses to follow separate pursuits. Even if there was one, forcing one to follow the whims of the other would be morally wrong, which is the subject that this thread seems to be asking about.


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## Ithrynluin (Feb 9, 2006)

In asking "Were the female elves wrong not to have gone with their husbands?" we may as well do the opposite and ask "Were the male elves wrong not to have stayed with their wives?" It's quite a tricky question.

I don't think it is either right or wrong, at least not in general. Consideration of specific cases may yield differing results, though I'd say every Child of Iluvatar should be able to exercise their own free will and make their own choices.

Nerdanel's decision, for example, I support. I think she made good enough of an evaluation of the situation her husband, and the Noldor, were in and foresaw that there would be great evil for her family if they fled the Undying Lands.


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## baragund (Feb 9, 2006)

I agree with Ithy. The Elves had enough free will to make their own choices so an individual's decision whether or not to accompany their spouse on a major migration or quest depends on the merits of the particular situation.


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## Alcuin (Jul 7, 2006)

I, too, agree with Ithy. It was a doomed venture from the start, as the Valar tried to explain to them: 


> The lies of Melkor thou shalt unlearn in bitterness. Vala he is, thou saist. Then thou hast sworn in vain, for none of the Valar canst thou overcome now or ever within the halls of Eä…


 The _nessi_ in this matter seem wiser than the _neri_, though the great majority of both the males and females of the Noldor set out for Middle-earth.

Nerdanel I pity the most, for she lost all seven of her sons, and her husband was unhinged and estranged from her, though she tried to reason with him. Because the Elves married for life, she never took another husband (only Finwë took a second spouse, and this apparently disturbed the balance of nature); it may be that none of her family were ever released from Mandos, and Fëanor was imprisoned until the end of the world.


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## Thorondor_ (Jul 8, 2006)

> I think she made good enough of an evaluation of the situation her husband, and the Noldor, were in and foresaw that there would be great evil for her family if they fled the Undying Lands.


Then again, as we know from the Myths Transformed, Manwe foresaw the good that the exiled elves would do after their return to middle-earth: the valar wouldn't attack Melkor until he would be much more weakened (which would have otherwise cause the destruction of Arda) and the rest of ME was far from a match of him. True enough, Eru wouldn't let Melkor take over His kids from Him anyway, but at that point, the exiles were the best possible defence.


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## Alcuin (Jul 8, 2006)

Thorondor_ said:


> Then again, as we know from the Myths Transformed, Manwe foresaw the good that the exiled elves would do after their return to middle-earth: the valar wouldn't attack Melkor until he would be much more weakened (which would have otherwise cause the destruction of Arda) and the rest of ME was far from a match of him. True enough, Eru wouldn't let Melkor take over His kids from Him anyway, but at that point, the exiles were the best possible defence.


_Silmarillion_, “Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor”:


> Manwë wept and bowed his head. ... he said: ‘So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into Ea, and evil yet be good to have been.’
> 
> But Mandos said: ‘*And yet remain evil.* To me shall Fëanor come soon.’


(Emphasis mine.)


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## Thorondor_ (Jul 9, 2006)

Alcuin said:


> _Silmarillion_, “Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor”:
> (Emphasis mine.)


Alcuin, I don't see how that refutes my point. Sure, the deeds of Feanor are reprovable, but the Exiles still remain the "best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction".


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## Alcuin (Jul 9, 2006)

Thorondor_ said:


> ...the Exiles still remain the "best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction".


That’s a very nice quote, Thorondor_. Where’d it come from? I don’t see it in the thread, but it does sound familiar. Is it also from _Morgoth’s Ring_? 

Are you arguing that this prevented Morgoth from ruining all of the Second Kindred? Or that the Valar had no concern for Middle-earth, so that if not for the return of the Noldor, everything there would have fallen to wrack and ruin?

Good eventually arising out of the wreckage left behind by evil is rather like the green grass growing on the Haudh-en-Ndengin, the Hill of the Slain, is it not? (Or the poppies in Flanders Field, of which that seems to be an echo?) In economics, this is called the “broken window fallacy.” Someone breaks Mr. Smith’s window. That might seem to be good for the economy, because now Mr. Smith has to buy a new window and get someone to replace the broken one (assuming that he does not do this himself). But in fact, it represents a net reduction in economic activity in the long run, even if he gets a better window than before, because those resources he expended on the broken window might have been better used to do something entirely new. So a broken window is exactly what it appears to be: a bad thing that has to be corrected. 

I don’t mind if we wander off-topic. (Heaven knows _I_ would never wander off-topic! Nope, no way, not me… where was I?) But how does the fact that good might eventually arise from the ruin that evil leaves when it tries to snuff out good relate to whether or not those spouses who refused to follow their loved ones into exile in Middle-earth were faithless or not?


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## Thorondor_ (Jul 9, 2006)

> Is it also from _Morgoth’s Ring_?


 Indeed - Notes on motives in the Silmarillion, iii.


> Are you arguing that this prevented Morgoth from ruining all of the Second Kindred?


 No, that would not have been possible, seeing how the first fall of Men occured before the exiled set out from Aman.


> Or that the Valar had no concern for Middle-earth, so that if not for the return of the Noldor, everything there would have fallen to wrack and ruin?


 No, I doubt that the valar had no concern. They maintained the host of eagles there (apparently maiar, cf Annals of Aman), Tuor was accepted in Aman due to his help in the designs of the valar, according to the Late writings, Glorfindel, Ulmo maintains a rather active presence (and he and Manwe were "from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Iluvatar" cf Ainulindale, so Manwe certainly had a part/say in this) . But they certainly had a dilemma:


Notes on motives in the Silmarillion said:


> But the dilemma of the Valar was this: Arda could only be liberated by a physical battle; but a probable result of such a battle was the irretrievable ruin of Arda.





> Good eventually arising out of the wreckage left behind by evil is rather like the green grass growing on the Haudh-en-Ndengin, the Hill of the Slain, is it not?


 I agree, but the elves set out from the begining to counter Melkor and I think that this idea of good out of evil had particular importance to Tolkien:


Notes on the motives said:


> Manwe was the spirit of greatest wisdom and prudence in Arda. He is represented as having had the greatest knowledge of the Music, as a whole, possessed by any one finite mind; and he alone of all persons or minds in that time is represented as having the power of direct recourse to and communication with Eru. He must have grasped with great clarity what even we may perceive dimly: that it was the essential mode of the process of 'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out of it new good should constantly come. One especial aspect of this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil. If we consider the situation after the escape of Morgoth and the reestablishment of his abode in Middle-earth, we shall see that the heroic Noldor were the best possible weapon with which to keep Morgoth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied, on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction. And in the meanwhile, Men, or the best elements in Mankind, shaking off his shadow, came into contact with a people who had actually seen and experinenced the Blessed Realm.


 (sorry for the long quote, but it also points out the importance of the exiled in elevating the the secondborn)
There is also a refference in letter #64 that fits our situation: "all we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in".


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## Bethelarien (Jul 12, 2006)

An off-topic note: This would've been a great debate topic.

And I agree with Ithy. They each made their own choices.


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