# AU Help? Part II



## ZehnWaters (Nov 29, 2020)

Building off of my other post about a Silmarillion AU:
I used Galadriel's later story that had her opposed to Fëanor during the Kinslaying and leave in Celeborn's ship after he escaped. Her ship survives the burning at Losgar and so arrives in Beleriand separately.
My questions are thus:
Would Celeborn's ship be large enough to ferry over any of the stranded Noldor? The children? The women? Even if only in waves?
How more powerful would a quarter Maia Galadriel be? I had toyed with the idea of Galadriel waylaying Fëanor right before his entrapment by the Balrogs and engaging in a battle of wills, leaving him in a coma. Could something like that happen?


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## Amarthon (Oct 3, 2021)

Fëanor would have crushed a young Galadriel, if she was foolish enough to try. He was the most formidable of the ancient Eldar.


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 3, 2021)

Amarthon said:


> Fëanor would have crushed a young Galadriel, if she was foolish enough to try. He was the most formidable of the ancient Eldar.


lol Ancient? Homeboy was born in Valinor just like her. Neither were ancient.


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## Amarthon (Oct 3, 2021)

ZehnWaters said:


> lol Ancient? Homeboy was born in Valinor just like her. Neither were ancient.


He was born long before her. Read about time spans in Valinor. And he was far more powerful at the time. Your simple mockery falls flat.


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 3, 2021)

Amarthon said:


> He was born long before her. Read about time spans in Valinor. And he was far more powerful at the time. Your simple mockery falls flat.


They're closer in age than Aragorn and Arwen. Galadriel was stated to be roughly the same power-level as Fëanor.


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## Amarthon (Oct 3, 2021)

ZehnWaters said:


> They're closer in age than Aragorn and Arwen. Galadriel was stated to be roughly the same power-level as Fëanor.


When she got older. She was very young when the Noldor went to war. Why bring Aragorn into a First Age issue? The Eldar were more powerful in the First Age, they diminish over time.


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 4, 2021)

Amarthon said:


> When she got older. She was very young when the Noldor went to war.



Fëanor wasn't that much older than her. Yes, she got more powerful over time but that doesn't mean she wasn't powerful. Also, as I stated: in this version she'd be 1/4 Maia.



Amarthon said:


> Why bring Aragorn into a First Age issue?



I was contrasting age differences. The age difference between Aragorn and Arwen is hundreds of years greater than Galadriel and her half-uncle.



Amarthon said:


> The Eldar were more powerful in the First Age, they diminish over time.


Mmmmm kinda. Gil-Galad was a very powerful king.


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## Alcuin (Oct 4, 2021)

I’m having some trouble following the arguments in this thread; maybe I’m overtired.

Fëanor is a whole Elvish generation older than Galadriel. He’s the first of Finwë’s children. It was some time before Finarfin, Finwë’s youngest child, was born. (I’m using late genealogies.) Finarfin is Galadriel’s father, and some of her brothers, perhaps all of them, were older than she. (I don’t have a genealogy in front of me, but it doesn’t matter for this argument.) Fëanor is Galadriel’s older paternal uncle; her other paternal uncle is Fingolfin. 

Now an Elvish generation is about one age of Arda. For example, Elrond was born in the First Age. It seems Celebrían was a little younger. (Unless it’s published in _NoME_, we aren’t told when Celebrían was born, but a reasonable date might be the first half of the Second Age.) The First Age is pretty short (from an Elvish point of view), so let’s shove the First and Second Age together for convenience. Elrond and Celebrían marry near the beginning of the Third Age and soon (again, from an Elvish point of view) they have twin boys and a girl, Arwen. Arwen grows up during the Third Age, and when Aragorn meets her on his twentieth birthday, he mistakes her for an Elvish woman his own age: that is, she looks like she’s nineteen or twenty, too. And from an Elvish point of view, I think Arwen really might be a “young adult,” roughly equivalent to a Mortal at the end of her teenage years. 

Morgoth was held captive in Mandos for three ages. He was taken captive before the Eldar left Cuiviénen and set out for Valinor. If we assume the Great Journey took an age of Arda, which may be reasonable because Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë and Olwë were all apparently “young people” sent with Oromë to see Valinor before the rest of the Elves set out (very like American Indians sailing to Europe as emissaries to see where the European explorers came from, then returned to report what they saw and learned and experienced), but none of these four, including Elwë who remained in Middle-earth with Melian, were married at the time: they married and had children in the next age. Those children – including Fëanor, Fingolfin, Finarfin, and their wives – grew up during that age, and Morgoth remained in prison for a second age: he was in prison for the age the Eldar travelled to the western shore of Middle-earth, and now he’s been in prison a second age. Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin now marry, they have children, and among these children is Galadriel. (Contemporaries of Galadriel include Celeborn, whether born in Middle-earth (as I strongly prefer) or Eldamar, and Lúthien.) This generation of Elves grows up. At the end of that age, as they enter young adulthood (from an Elvish point of view), Morgoth is released. 

Now Morgoth does his sneaky thing, perverts some of the Noldor, unfortunately including Fëanor but fortunately not Galadriel (except perhaps firing up her pride and her desire to rule a realm of her own – pride can be a problem in Tolkien’s view, and it’s only when Galadriel renounces hers that she’s permitted to return to Valinor (I’m hewing to the story as it was presented in _LotR_ and _RGEO_)), he steals the Silmarils, Fëanor flips out, the Noldor rebel, and the whole First Age business is set in motion. 

I think this period between Morgoth’s release and the end of the First Age must be relatively short. I don’t think it’s one of these long ages like the Second or Third Ages, which lasted about 3000 years of the Sun. There are conversions for how long ages of the Trees lasted, but I don’t think they’re pertinent here. It seems to me that Morgoth worked pretty quickly after he got out of Mandos: I think it might have been much like Sauron’s infiltration and integration into the day-to-day life of Númenor at the end of the Second Age: Sauron arrived as a “hostage,” he played nice and provided valuable information and advice, and pretty soon he had the run of the place. (He did that in Eregion, too, but it took the Elves there a while to absorb what he taught; and the idea of entrapping them with Rings of Power might have been something Sauron concocted after he saw and learned the thrust of their work.) I think Morgoth operating as a phony good guy in Valinor might be the template Sauron used. (It’s probably the same template a lot of people have used whom I’ve been unfortunate enough to meet in life.) 

But the point is – after this long, rambling dissertation that’s wandered all over the map – that Fëanor was a long Elvish generation older than Galadriel. Gil-galad seems to me a contemporary of Elrond: both were born in Middle-earth, I believe. (If so, I think that suggests that Orodreth was Finrod’s nephew rather than his brother, supporting later genealogies of Gil-galad.) And Círdan, who was a contemporary of Elu Thingol’s and who awakened (or was born – “awakened” would seem to connote that he was literally one of the first Elves) in Cuiviénen, was immensely older than any of the other Elves we meet in _LotR_, as I think I recall Tolkien stating. 

And I’m not sure who’s supposed to be ¼ Maiar in this discussion, but here’s an old breakdown of who’s what fraction of what from Melian to Arwen, including Galadriel.


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## ZehnWaters (Oct 4, 2021)

Alcuin said:


> I’m having some trouble following the arguments in this thread; maybe I’m overtired.
> 
> Fëanor is a whole Elvish generation older than Galadriel. He’s the first of Finwë’s children. It was some time before Finarfin, Finwë’s youngest child, was born. (I’m using late genealogies.) Finarfin is Galadriel’s father, and some of her brothers, perhaps all of them, were older than she. (I don’t have a genealogy in front of me, but it doesn’t matter for this argument.) Fëanor is Galadriel’s older paternal uncle; her other paternal uncle is Fingolfin.
> 
> Now an Elvish generation is about one age of Arda.


This fluctuates in NoME but he does go over all of his extensive calculations.


Alcuin said:


> For example, Elrond was born in the First Age. It seems Celebrían was a little younger. (Unless it’s published in _NoME_, we aren’t told when Celebrían was born, but a reasonable date might be the first half of the Second Age.)


It is. You're correct.


Alcuin said:


> The First Age is pretty short (from an Elvish point of view), so let’s shove the First and Second Age together for convenience. Elrond and Celebrían marry near the beginning of the Third Age and soon (again, from an Elvish point of view) they have twin boys and a girl, Arwen. Arwen grows up during the Third Age, and when Aragorn meets her on his twentieth birthday, he mistakes her for an Elvish woman his own age: that is, she looks like she’s nineteen or twenty, too. And from an Elvish point of view, I think Arwen really might be a “young adult,” roughly equivalent to a Mortal at the end of her teenage years.


According to NoME she's about in her mid-twenties (in Elvish terms, though I wonder what effect the Rings had on her aging). Aragorn's own delayed aging (due to his Dunedain ancestry) means when they finally get married he's older than her (comparatively speaking).


Alcuin said:


> Morgoth was held captive in Mandos for three ages. He was taken captive before the Eldar left Cuiviénen and set out for Valinor. If we assume the Great Journey took an age of Arda, which may be reasonable because Ingwë, Finwë, Elwë and Olwë were all apparently “young people” sent with Oromë to see Valinor before the rest of the Elves set out (very like American Indians sailing to Europe as emissaries to see where the European explorers came from, then returned to report what they saw and learned and experienced), but none of these four, including Elwë who remained in Middle-earth with Melian, were married at the time: they married and had children in the next age.


Addressed in NoME. Ingwë was actually married and had children. Finwë was engaged.


Alcuin said:


> Those children – including Fëanor, Fingolfin, Finarfin, and their wives – grew up during that age, and Morgoth remained in prison for a second age: he was in prison for the age the Eldar travelled to the western shore of Middle-earth, and now he’s been in prison a second age. Fëanor, Fingolfin, and Finarfin now marry, they have children, and among these children is Galadriel. (Contemporaries of Galadriel include Celeborn, whether born in Middle-earth (as I strongly prefer) or Eldamar, and Lúthien.)


Celeborn's fluctuating ancestry continues in NoME. It seems Celeborn being a Telerin elf wasn't a passing idea because Tolkien built ideas off of it. However...he also built ideas off of Celeborn being a Sindar Elf (I'm unsure of the dating on these so it may be he consistently thought of him one way after a certain date) such as Celeborn being a single father to Amroth after his first wife left (a VERY passing idea that was struck out; I'm actually fond of this idea, though I prefer Telerin Celeborn).


Alcuin said:


> But the point is – after this long, rambling dissertation that’s wandered all over the map – that Fëanor was a long Elvish generation older than Galadriel.


Correct. He's nearly 2000 years older than her, according to the chart I was using from TolkienGateway (which may well be incorrect). Since, as you stated, these ages were slightly shorter than the 3000+ SA & TA, this matches.


Alcuin said:


> Gil-galad seems to me a contemporary of Elrond: both were born in Middle-earth, I believe. (If so, I think that suggests that Orodreth was Finrod’s nephew rather than his brother, supporting later genealogies of Gil-galad.)


Gil-Galad is a a bit older than Elrond, but yes. And, yes, he was supposed to be Orodreth's son, and Orodreth was supposed to be Angrod's son.



Alcuin said:


> And I’m not sure who’s supposed to be ¼ Maiar in this discussion, but here’s an old breakdown of who’s what fraction of what from Melian to Arwen, including Galadriel.


Galadriel, in this AU. I'd originally explained this in my initial post (hence this one being AU help part *2*). In my AU, in lieu of Elwë meeting Melian in ME, Salmar meets an elf woman. Elwë goes across the sea where he meets Melian, whom he weds. Olwë here goes unmarried as the woman who would have been his bride in The Silmarillion is the one who married Salmar. Thus, it is Elwë's daughter who marries Finarfin (here a different, but similar, character to Luthien; the real Luthien is born to Salmar and his wife (Esteloth)).


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