# Ingwe, High King of the Elves of Arda, can override any other Elven King?



## Link 2 (Apr 17, 2004)

I find this hard to believe.

It is true, if there are a number of Kings, but you are named "High King," you are the "King of Kings" so to speak.


But I especially have difficulty believing that Ingwe could have controlled any of the Noldor, and I guess Teleri (but to a lesser extent, since they were so easy-going and cooperative (except to Feanor)), because each of them had their own respective King. 

Why couldn't Ingwe do anything about Feanor? If he is in fact "High King," he should've reprimanded Feanor, or commanded him and his people, to stay in Aman. If he was High King, Feanor should've obeyed his commands. 

But oh yeah, i just answered my own question, because Feanor more or less rebelled against a "Higher King," Manwe Sulimo.

And then again, were the Vanyar kind of "a people apart," or were they higher up in the Elven Heirarchy, being more blessed,more pure, and/or more "Holy" than the Noldor or Teleri?

I find this an unfair advantage being given to one people, where all were in need of it.


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## Celebthôl (Apr 17, 2004)

The Vanya were always in Valinor, the Noldor left to return to Middle Earth, and the Teleri took ages in getting to there, and even then not all their people were together, Círdan being a prime example. It only suits that the people who loved Valinor the most from beggining to end (the Vanya) and who have the greatest population there should be the people who have the most say, and have a high king.


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## Confusticated (Apr 17, 2004)

I started a thread very similar to this not long ago. I can get you a link to it if you like. Though, it didn't get too much in the way of answers.

Yes, the Vanyar were the holy ones. People apart or not Ingwe was High King of Elves, and is revered by them. Either a lot about him we don't hear, or he was an _apparent_ failure of the Manwe Sulimo kind. *shrugs*


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## Inderjit S (Apr 17, 2004)

They should replace the word HIGH with the word PSEDOU (Nom ) and call him the pseudo-king of Elves instead. We never see him exert his authority and the other Elven kingdoms seems to be pretty autonomous. The Teleri were pretty reclusive, Quendi and Eldar tells is they had little or no contact with the Vanyar and they pretty much lived out their own lives in their "land". They didn't even take much notice of the Valarin feasts or seasons. How can Ingwë control or rule over people he has in all probability never really met before. He may be the Ingwion, 'chief of chiefs' but the Noldor still have their Ñoldoran 'king of the Ñoldor' in Finwë and the Teleri their Ciriáran in Olwë. The Teleri desired no other king or lord apart from good old Olwë but then again all the Teleri ever did was sing songs and exploit monkeys for their diamond mines so they didn't need any ruler really, esp. not a despot like Ingwë. I mean what is it with his title, 'Ingwion' kind of arrogant don't you think? Which idiot named him as the chief of chieftains? If Fëanor was around and people liked him then he wouldn't stand for the superfluity of having a over-lord who didn't even live in your realm, who was instead lording it up with some lazy, insolent king of winds up their good old mountain away from everybody else, and he sure as hell wouldn't have named the tower on the top of Tirion after him. Granted the Vanyar condescended to live in plain on Tirion at the time. Surely they should have renamed the tower to 'Tower of torture' or something painfully cool like that.


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## Ithrynluin (Apr 23, 2004)

Celebthôl said:


> It only suits that the people who loved Valinor the most from beggining to end (the Vanya) and _who have the greatest population there_ should be the people who have the most say, and have a high king.


Upon arrival to Aman, the Noldor were the most numerous of the three kindreds, so that can't have been a deciding factor in appointing a 'chief of chieftains'.



Inder said:


> so they didn't need any ruler really, esp. not a despot like Ingwë.


What did Ingwë do to deserve to be called a despot? (I take the word to have a somewhat negative connotation. Perhaps you do not?)



Inder said:


> Which idiot named him as the chief of chieftains?


According to _Quendi and Eldar _(HoME XI), three elves awoke first - Imin, Tata and Enel. Of the three, Imin was the first to awaken, and he was the 'head' of the Minyar (Vanyar). So it may be that Ingwë himself was this first Elf, or that this Imin is his forefather. Whether Ingwë was a first-generation elf (though if Indis was his niece this cannot be, since first generation Elves had no siblings, only a spouse) or not is not that important here, since 'chief of chieftains' may have been a hereditary title and Ingwë a descendant of the very first Elf to awaken, which was 'Imin', a Vanya. Perhaps the Elves unanimously regarded this as something holy and sacred and automatically paid respect and great honour to the descendant of the first Elf to awaken.


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## Inderjit S (Apr 23, 2004)

> the three, Imin was the first to awaken, and he was the 'head' of the Minyar (Vanyar). So it may be that Ingwë himself was this first Elf



Ingwë had a _sister_ so he couldn't have been the first Elf to awake. He is at least a second generation Elf.



> Imin is his forefather



Possible.



> Whether Ingwë was a first-generation elf (though if Indis was his niece this cannot be, since first generation Elves had no siblings, only a spouse) or not is not that important here, since 'chief of chieftains' may have been a hereditary title and Ingwë a descendant of the very first Elf to awaken, which was 'Imin', a Vanya. Perhaps the Elves unanimously regarded this as something holy and sacred and automatically paid respect and great honour to the descendant of the first Elf to awaken.



Well the situation becomes very different upon entrance into Aman in comparison to life in Middle-Earth. I (personally) cannot see a homogenous Elven acceptance of Ingwë as the "chief of chieftains". Every group seems to have their own level of autonomy. Some of the Noldor and Teleri do not want to go to Aman. The Teleri conducted the great journey differently from the others. They tarried longer in other places etc. or "did their own thing" i.e Círdan’s experiments with ships on the Sea of Rhûn. We have people leaving on the way, and of course the mass exodus under Lenwë. So even the different Elven groups were polarized to a certain extent. I think any title such as the chief of chieftains is title in _name_only_, and holds no real power. Why should the Teleri listen to Ingwë? And did he ever expect them to? No. They often didn't listen to their own lords, never mind the lord of another people. I think it is as you say, that a large majority of the Elves regarded it as "holy" to refer to the leader of the "eldest" group as the "chieftain". Such things may have been important earlier on, when Elven history was inchoate, but I think that eventually the title began to be pretty superfluous.


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## Ithrynluin (Apr 23, 2004)

> Ingwë had a _sister_ so he couldn't have been the first Elf to awake. He is at least a second generation Elf.


Yes, _Inder_. If you take a closer look at my post, you'll see I incorporated that fact into my ramblings, and only allowed for Ingwë to become a first generation elf because 



> She is said to have been the daughter of King Ingwe's sister.


the way this quote is worded does not sound like 100% certainty to me. 



> I (personally) cannot see a homogenous Elven acceptance of Ingwë as the "chief of chieftains". Every group seems to have their own level of autonomy.


You'll find a similar reverence for the eldest of the race among the dwarves as well, even those houses who became estranged or waged war among each other acknowledged Durin as the most 'important'. Which is why I can certainly see a similar concept with the Elves, who were a nobler race than the Dwarves.



> Every group seems to have their own level of autonomy.


Certainly. The concept of each group of Elves having their own leader(s) is not mutually exclusive with being the 'chief of chieftains'. I don't think this title meant that Ingwë was every elf's supreme sovereign and tyrant. It was more a matter of exuding reverence towards the one who is eldest (because there is something holy in being the first to awaken), rather than a matter of Ingwë doling out commands whenever something/someone tickled his fancy.


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## Confusticated (Apr 23, 2004)

Howdy! "since first generation Elves had no siblings, only a spouse"... how do you know this, or it is just opinion? Did I miss something? People always say this. Does proof exist? If Ainur can be siblings why not first Quendi? 

I will explode without an answer!


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## Inderjit S (Apr 24, 2004)

> the way this quote is worded does not sound like 100% certainty to me.



It is said/it was said etc. was something that Tolkien used a lot in his works. Why? Because his works (principally in regards to works which deal with the F.A and the S.A and the appendix) are all derived from oral accounts (whether directly or indirectly, (LOTR is of course different) or in the case of LoTR, a product of not only the accounts of the protagonist, i.e. Frodo but the product of other secondary authors, such as Bilbo, Sam, Merry and Gimli. ) and so a lot of his phrased may be ambiguously worded. You could counter this, of course, by saying that the Shibboleth has no intermediary author--it was written by Tolkien himself. So why would Tolkien make an ambiguous point if he was the author of the text? Tolkien has a certain degree of infallibility in regards to writing the texts, or rather he has a certain degree of infallibility in regards to the writing of "facts" such as parentages, despite any discrepancies with regards to the mythology, such as him claiming that this or that view is wrong because it was invented by the Númenóreans. You could say that he often changed the Elven and Mannish genealogies, citing people like Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor and Celeborn and he often changed character's histories at whim. But I see no evidence that suggests he wanted to change the genealogy of Indis. 

Let's take your point on the ambiguity of the quote which stipulates that Indis was a relation of Ingwë into context. The Elves were fastidious when it came to genealogies. Why and how could they make a mistake? The Silmarillion was a product of not just one but several oral accounts, and of course it was read by many Elvish scholars or people. Surely any such mistakes would have been corrected? What if it came from an Númenórean account? Well, Tolkien says that they were, most of the time, correct in their assertions about _factual_ points but when it came to mythological points, such as the Sun+Moon theory etc. their own 'Mannish' ideas, myths or works were worked into the legendarium. So this makes it far less likely that the supposed ambiguity of Indis was a Númenórean mistake, if they actually wrote the text, but I see no evidence that supports this since the Númenóreans could not confuse their own ideas with the Elven ones in regard to Elven life in Aman since they had no idea about what Elven life in Aman was like and so all of their information would be derived from Elven accounts and how could they get things like the genealogy of their first king's second wife wrong, or how could no-body notice the mistake? Of course it may have simply been a Númenórean slip, or a textual misinterpretation, but I see no evidence to back this up. You could well argue that no evidence is needed in such cases. 

So to condense my thoughts on the subject of ambiguity of the quote "She is said to have been the daughter of King Ingwë’s sister."

*1. If the author of the text is Tolkien himself, with no Elvish or Númenóreans medium then why would he make such a mistake? Tolkien has a certain level of infallibility when it comes to M-E and so he wouldn't have made a "mistake" in regards to any ambiguity over Indis's genealogy, since "his" word is "final" so to speak. 'It is said', or 'it was said' is a common technique used by Tolkien in his works.
2. If there was an Elven medium when why and how could an Elf make such a mistake? The Elves were pedantic when it came to genealogies and how could any such mistakes come about, esp. in regards to the fact that the quote deals with one of the principle families in the history of Arda and not just some atypical, run-of-the-mill unimportant Elven family,
3. If there was a Númenórean medium then why would he make such a mistake? The Númenóreans information in regards to matters of genealogy are derived from Elven facts, and cannot be confused with their own mythological ideas or discrepancies since they deal with Elven, not Mannish histories and so there is no reason for them to alter Indis's parentage to suit themselves. 
4. If the author of the Shibboleth was a Númenórean then over the years, certain facts may have changed, due to misinterpretation or carelessness. *

Given that earlier works such as the 'Laws and Customs of the Eldar', (whose author is a man. It is most likely Ælfwine who wrote it, in which case his information is derived from Pengoloð, or other scholars) Indis appears as the sister of Ingwë, shows that Ingwë has kinsfolk in his own generation, which refutes the idea of him being Imin. Nom, raises a good point when she says;



> since first generation Elves had no siblings, only a spouse"... how do you know this, or it is just opinion? Did I miss something? People always say this. Does proof exist? If Ainur can be siblings why not first Quendi



but, the Valar and the Elves are different. The Valar are of course not incarnates, they do not assume physical forms and they come "before Arda". They also have one single creator, in Eru, (though of course the Elves were "created" by Eru too) and so in a way they all are “related” though as you say some of them have more concrete kinships then others (Melkor and Manwë, Irmo and Námo), but of course Elven ideas in kinship and Valarin ideas on kinship are different since Elves, as incarnates would have a different sets of "rules" of kinship i.e. bloodties, something the Valar did not possess. So the two groups had different views on what constituted kinship. 

Of course none of this refutes the idea of an Elf born with a brother or a sister, or of Elves creating close bonds with other Elves and that Elf becoming the other Elf's kin through love, rather then blood.

But why the name change from Imin to Ingwë? Why doesn't Tolkien ever state that Ingwë was indeed Imin? If such things are accounted holy then isn't the existence of the first Elven father something which Tolkien would have commented on?



> I don't think this title meant that Ingwë was every elf's supreme sovereign and tyrant. It was more a matter of exuding reverence towards the one who is eldest (because there is something holy in being the first to awaken), rather than a matter of Ingwë doling out commands whenever something/someone tickled his fancy.



Then doesn't the title have an essence of superfluity or needlessness. Since I see no evidence in regards to Ingwë’s power over Elves other tribes or groups then I can only assume it was a pseudo-power, i.e. he had no power of the other Elves at all, his power lay in his title, and since his title had no power over the other Elves then he power was reduced to nil since his title was about reverence not ruling over. And since the title of this thread is 
whether or not Ingwë had authority over the other Elven kings, I can safely say no, though of course, judging by your posts you agree with me about that.



> Yes, _Inder_. If you take a closer look at my post, you'll see I incorporated that fact into my ramblings, and only allowed for Ingwë to become a first generation elf because



_Sorry_ _ithrynluin_ _ _



> What did Ingwë do to deserve to be called a despot? (I take the word to have a somewhat negative connotation. Perhaps you do not?)



I see you have not read 'Ingwë and Hitler: A Case Study'?


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