Sorry about a total stranger butting in - I came here following links and don't have anything much to contribute, but there is one thing that further confirms your point.
all of the human/elf pairings are between mortal men and immortal women
And the odd one who very nearly wasn't. This is a level of geekery beyond the Silmarillion (we're talking the History of Middle-earth now). Andreth, a wise woman (which may be as much of a concession to the Other that can be made for a female mortal protagonist not subscribing to the Gloriana trope?) fell in love - and had that love returned, but without consummation - by Aegnor, an Elven prince and Galadriel's brother. It is implied fairly clearly in the text that the reversed gender roles make the bridging of the worlds (and differences in nature between Elves and Men) impossible here; Andreth's aging would have required either abandonment or pity and support, neither of which the text describes as fitting behaviour for an Elven warrior and neither of which are satisfactory conclusions to the romance. I'm unsure how much this has to do with your discussion in general and how much with Tolkien's specific view of gender, but thought it was worth noting... and in the same vein, isn't it quite eye-opening that in the other romances, that in most cases a change of nature occurs to the protagonists, men are the ones who gain: Thingol, while himself an elf, gains a demi-god wife, Beren and Aragon gain a fairy wife, Tuor and Eärendil gain eternal life, Imrazôr (the obscure Dol Amroth legend mentioned by mindstalk) gains a fairy wife for a while and gets to keep the children. The women are the ones who, in some way or other, lose: Melian is 'bound' to a corporeal body, Lúthien and Arwen become mortal, Elwing becomes immortal but her husband is for the most part called to a 'higher' destiny and sails the sky as a star, Mithrellas (the other half of the Dol Amroth romance) disappears but without her family. Idril is the great exception here, she neither becomes mortal nor loses anything by entering into a romance between herself and the (from her viewpoint) Other.
But then, looking at Tolkien's works in general, men (of whatever side) still take center stage, and it wasn't quite his intention to map Middle-earth in terms of Elizabethan-tradition Fairy Stories...
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yati
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Date: 2010-10-15 11:54 am (UTC)all of the human/elf pairings are between mortal men and immortal women
And the odd one who very nearly wasn't. This is a level of geekery beyond the Silmarillion (we're talking the History of Middle-earth now). Andreth, a wise woman (which may be as much of a concession to the Other that can be made for a female mortal protagonist not subscribing to the Gloriana trope?) fell in love - and had that love returned, but without consummation - by Aegnor, an Elven prince and Galadriel's brother. It is implied fairly clearly in the text that the reversed gender roles make the bridging of the worlds (and differences in nature between Elves and Men) impossible here; Andreth's aging would have required either abandonment or pity and support, neither of which the text describes as fitting behaviour for an Elven warrior and neither of which are satisfactory conclusions to the romance.
I'm unsure how much this has to do with your discussion in general and how much with Tolkien's specific view of gender, but thought it was worth noting... and in the same vein, isn't it quite eye-opening that in the other romances, that in most cases a change of nature occurs to the protagonists, men are the ones who gain: Thingol, while himself an elf, gains a demi-god wife, Beren and Aragon gain a fairy wife, Tuor and Eärendil gain eternal life, Imrazôr (the obscure Dol Amroth legend mentioned by
But then, looking at Tolkien's works in general, men (of whatever side) still take center stage, and it wasn't quite his intention to map Middle-earth in terms of Elizabethan-tradition Fairy Stories...