Elwing's and general half-elven developmental patterns

[Odola]

We will be giving the half-elven human lifespans and human growth patterns, so I imagine that will include gestation periods of 9 months.

How will a elvish mother react to it? All her mixed children are for her body preterm - born like in the 30th gestation week for a human. How does her body respond to such a expedited gestation? And elves do not have preterm pregnancies and sick newborns as default, so their culture is unprepared for that.

Is giving birth to a human child painful to the elvish mother? [this is a problem of potentially theological consequences, as for a many centuries in the Christian tradition the pain of labour was considered a specific consequence of the Fall, which the elves according to Tolkien are not part of. And Tolkien's idea of the Fall of Men is a Christian one, also in Middle-Earth]. An elvish body should be able to deliver fast and without problems.

Also the growing up of such a child is expedited while the acquisition of bodily mastery is slowed compared to an elvish child - how can an elvish mother deal with it and adjust to it? Also humans need to eat and sleep more. Can she nurse a human child without problems?

What is with the amount of life-force both an elvish mother and father are expected to "pump" into their offsping - mortal fathers simply cannot do that - how does an elvish mother compensate for that? Does it drain her more?
Are those problems which made Idril decides against having a second child? She had well time enough to have 2 more at least before Gondolin falls.

If we keep Elwing and Earendil's wedding at the same time it is in the original timeline how come they have their twins only after 7 years? Without contraception this suggest fertility problems. Elves do not have them, but do half-elves?

If they do, then are mixed children as prone to sickness and illnesses and physically vulnerable as normal mortal children? How do the elves taking care of Elwing cope with that while she is little? - they had never experienced this before and have no methods to deal with it?

Would elves not try to use their (healing) magic to adjust a mixed child to a development path and pace that is more familiar and normal to them, considering the human deviation from it pathological?
Was the visit of human teenagers and watching them grow up enough to make the Gondolindrim aware of how human babies grow? How?

How does Annael cope with Tuor's out of turn development?

Are all the elves assisting Rian's birth not traumatized by the for them gruesome experience? How does do they keep Tuor alive as newborn, who nurses him?

And how does Nimloth manage to give birth to three mixed children without herself and her surrounding freaking out? How does she and Ossiriand and later Doriath adjust to raising so strangely developing beings?
O.k. if we make Elwing being the firstborn and Dior knows he will die someday then him and Nimloth trying for a boy next makes sense, as Dior needs a heir...

How is Dior allowed to marry this young? He lives with a society where the age of consent is 50? Beren's age (33?) was not clear to most Doriath's elves as they have only known his as an adult already. But Dior they have raised from birth and he was allowed to marry - and an elf at that - at mere 27?

Does Elwing have menstrual cycles - there is no reason why elvish women should have them, as they conceive at will. They are only needed if the conception process is automatized and out of willful control, for an elvish woman to have them would be just a waste of resources. If so, without any mortal woman in Elwing's surrounding Elwing should be grossed out and horrified as she has nobody to teach her how to deal with that. Also elves would not expect her to get bodily mature before she is 50. So none of her maids would prepare her for anything yet.

Most of this might remain unexplained to the audience still the little that we show of it must make sense. In a myth beings get born just because the story requires them to and the why and how is nobody asked by nobody, in a tv visual rendition this should at least be somewhat believable, as this is a story where we show it- we see Rian's pregnancy and assumably signal her labour, we see Gondolin reacting to the birth of Earendil, we see Elrond and Elros as babies and toddlers growing up among an elvish "court" at the Havens.

The story simply does not allow us to gloss over some of the issues concerned here.
We should know what we want here and how it does make sense.

The simplest way to avoid all those problems would be to go with one of Tolkien's rejected ideas, that elves develop completely like humans in their youth and slow down only after they are of age -e.g. 18-20 for elf-maidens and 20-24 for elf-men.

But this would render the 50 year mark as the age of consent strange - but it would help us with Dior to get rid of it, too...

 

[Odola]

Elwing, being half-elven, will reach adulthood in her young twenties and, when she becomes pregnant, will carry her babies for 9 months. I was referring to the typical mortal nature of the half-elven.

1. Elwing is born of an elvish mother - Nimloth - she grows up among elves, before she comes to the Bay of Balar she has basically never seen a real human before - and when she sees them later they are completely foreign to her and she does not feel part of them - Dior does not count here as he is one of the most beautiful children of Iluvatar, has never in his life ever seen a proper = a non-reembodied human either, as such Dior is not a typical human.

1a. How and to what extend does Elwing being carried and then nursed - at least partially - by Nimloth changes Elwing's own weak human nature? The fact that Elwing is first nourished by Nimloth's elvish blood during gestation and then (at least in part) by elvish breastmilk should have an effect on her - as on Earendil with Idril - how far does this influence go - is it just general strengthening? slower aging? greater endurance? looking prettier?

2. Also neither Nimloth nor any of her elvish maids can prepare Elwing for and instruct on her "becoming a woman" as neither went through the process herself nor is even aware that such a process exist in humans. So Elwing is completely oblivious and unprepared for it, whenever it deos happen. She should be horrified and freak out when this happens - and maybe need long time to cope with it - as she has no help and there is no "social knowledge" about it in her own society.

I was not commenting on an elven mother (such as Idril or Nimloth). Though I don't foresee our show delving into the difference between the 9 month human gestation and 1 year elven gestation periods.

3. If we let Elwing be Nimolth's firstborn Nimloth, should have problem bringing Elwing into the world and have yet no idea what she is doing, as Elwing develops "out of turn" already in the womb. The gestation takes only 3/4 of the usual time that an elvish body is made for. Elwing cannot have an 1 year long gestation period if she develops as a human baby, she and Nimloth both would die a gruesome death of placental failure and the resulting in blood-poisoning about the 43-44 week of such a gestation. Human placenta simply cannot keep up this long, it starts to disintegrate when its overaged. And as the placenta is made of the baby's cells, if Elwing is a mortal fetus, so is her placenta. Then she must be delivered when her mother's body is not yet prepared to give birth to her - to her mother's body Elwing is a preemie. And then the whole "pumping one's own lifeforce into one's offspring" - that does not happen with humans at all. How does Nimloth cope with it? Is she overstrained? Was the birth painful?

4. Humans eat more and sleep more, this means Nimloth must nurse Elwing far more often that an elvish baby would be needed to. How is she able to do it? Or does she take a mortal wet-nurse? Now that would be a solution to several problems, as a mortal wet-nurse would teach Elwing about mortal womanhood. But a wet-nurse usually would have her own baby, so this would become a "milk-sibling" to Elwing... Of course the wet-nurse might have lost her baby, but elves would be too much saddened by learning about it. Would they ever take a wet-nurse burdened by grief into their realm?

4. If Elwing does not walk an speak fluently and dances by the age of one as all elvish children do, Nimloth and all her court should be completely freaked out. Same with one year old Earendil. While Beren can advice Luthien what to expect with Dior, Dior cannot advice Nimloth what to expect with Elwing and her brothers. A person usually does not remember his own milestone and perceives his own past development as a continuum when one looks back on it.

5. As such both Elwing and Earendil should grow up with the idea something is really wrong with them, as they cannot do thing they usually should have mastered long ago by general opinion. Neither met other humans while they were infants (and neither of their fathers, mortal or not, has ever seen a mortal baby or child before in their life, so neither has any idea about human babies), so they should grow up with the feeling of being massively "off". Especially is they tend to get a cold or are able to get chickenpox.

6. Is half-elven memory human or elvish? Do half-elves forget their childhood when they grow up or not?

 

[NancyL]

IIRC, all the half-elven start as elves and have to choose human. It's the best of both worlds really. You live as an elf until you get bored/tired and then switch to human to bail out on the amazingly tedious millennia the rest of the elves are bound to.

 

[MithLuin]

No, the half-elven reach maturity and can marry in their 20's, while elves reach maturity at 50-100.

 

[Odola]

Yes, I propose a scene where an elf guesses or assumes the age of one of their mortal guests, only to be wildly off (too high). It should come as a surprise when they learn how young Húrin, Handir, and Huor are.

Than we could use this as a pretext for Maeglin"s abhorance for Earendil. Earendil would seem extremely delayed in his mastery over his body. A "premium weakling" [unworthy to be a scion of the king] and Maeglin might voice eugenic ideas here - as he tries to kill him later. Earendil might have internalised some of Maeglin's objections to his person and this would be a valid reason why Earendil does not claim kingship after Turgon, in spite of having the right to it. Maybe he must actually give up his claim before Gil-Galad - who is conveniently at the very same place - can voice his?

The shared experience of having being considered extremely "off" by their elvish surrounding might be what bring song and Earendil together. And Elwing might need extra time to become as comfortable in her mortal body as to complete the consummation of her marriage. This would explain why Elrond and Elros are born so late. But another questions in this content: Does Elrond remember his father? Earendil sailed when Elrond was two. Elwing joined her husband when Elrond was six. If Elrond has a mortal memory of his childhood he has only vague memories of his mother and his father is just a myth for him as for everybody else. If he has an elvish memory he remembers them both well. Which route do we choose?

 

[Odola]

5. As such both Elwing and Earendil should grow up with the idea something is really wrong with them, as they cannot do thing they usually should have mastered long ago by general opinion. Neither met other humans while they were infants (and neither of their fathers, mortal or not, has ever seen a mortal baby or child before in their life, so neither has any idea about human babies), so they should grow up with the feeling of being massively "off". Especially is they tend to get a cold or are able to get chickenpox.

Actually both Earendil and Elwing might come to different conclusions about what is "wrong" with them. Maybe Earendil thinks wrong was being brought up among elves only where he always was "less", while among humans he is always "more".
Elwing might think what is wrong is her mortal nature which did not fit her station - which she considers an "ill fate" for herself, an "undeserved curse". Maybe Earendil starts being absent from home when Elwing simply refuses to have her sons raised "mortal" and he wants to avoid further conflict?

 

[MithLuin]

The meeting of Eärendil and Elwing could be very much like the meeting of Jen and Kira in the Dark Crystal. There has been a genocide, and the gelflings have all been killed. Jen is raised by the Mystics in a hidden valley isolated from the outside world. He was brought there as a baby and never met another gelfling. Kira remembers her mother, but when her mother was killed she was adopted and raised by podlings. When they meet, they are very surprised, and say to one another, 'I thought I was the only one!' and 'I thought I was!' Finding someone like you for the first time is powerful and (strangely) relatable. That connection and pleasant surprise of 'you too??' will be a good angle to take.