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The White CouncilRe: Gildor InglorionTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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The White CouncilRe: Gildor InglorionTolkien and Inklings Discussion |
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Posted by Michael Martinez on June 25, 1999 at 20:39:30 In Reply to: Re: Gildor Inglorion posted by Martin Read on June 25, 1999 at 04:18:28:
: This is obviously a grey area where Tolkien did not cross-check : his reference. Therefore all reasonable theories which attempt : to logically explain the statement have a certain validity. Agreed. : One argument in favour of the "Household" theory is the : possession of one son hardly constitutes a royal house. Any : "House" referred to in this sense by a Noldor prince would : surely be of Finwe or one of the early branch points, not of a : single king who left little political or familial posterity. This reminds me of a discussion I got into with some of the MERP writers about Elvish society. They envision a society based on personal responsibility to the community (not a typical European feudalism, but a feudal arrangement between the individual and the community, IIRC). The "of the House of so-and-so" could under that system be interpreted differently from what we've proposed so far. If the members of the community are beholden to each other, then the community would be known by it's leader's name. This is consistent with a number of references in Tolkien (e.g., "of the following of Fingolfin", "of the people of Angrod", etc.). Hence, "of the House of so-and-so" might refer to the leaders of the community, not necessarily members of the leader's household or personal entourage. I feel this is a bit of a stretch, but Voronwë could have been saying something like, "I am a prince of the community of Noldor led by Fingolfin's family". The problem I have with this extrapolation is that Tolkien doesn't speak of such communal relationships -- so it's an extrapolation drawn from an extrapolation, thus two steps removed from the source, unlike the other ideas advanced so far.
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