Glorfindel

Ennikan

Member
I have been catching up on both Exploring LOTR and the Silmarillion series. (I'm another person who has binged on 64 episodes in like 3-4 weeks! Hope to join a live session soon.)

Glorfindel's character always puzzled me, because we read of his death in the Silmarillion, but he later appears at the fords of Rivendell to help Frodo. I always assumed it was two different Elves (even though Glorfindel was described as an Lord from the Elder days) with the same name.

Then we discussed how Glorfindel returned from the halls of Mandos, and I am wondering how we know that. I don't recall ever reading of his "re-embodiment" (to use a term). How do we know it's the same person? Further, why was Glorfindel allowed/able to return while so many others have not?
 
I cannot quote Tolkien directly on this, but found the below on lotr.wikia.com. If I recall correctly, Tolkien tended to be pretty hazy on how immortal beings could be killed and then "sent back" to Middle Earth. The website footnotes this passage as having come from The History of Middle Earth Vol. 12. I will also say that the writer of this passage may not be completely reliable, given his or her questionable grasp of Tolkienian plurals and English possessives. Maiar's? Really?

Glorfindel's spirit departed to the Halls of Mandos, where he spent years with the spirits of the others who died. Due to his noble actions, valor and bravery that saved many Elves during the Fall of Gondolin, he was re-embodied after a short time.

A thousand years later, in SA 1600, Manwë sent him back to Middle-earth as an emissary of the Valar and granted him powers nearly as strong as that of the Maiar's.[8]
 
Oh, and well done with the binge-listening! I was one of the lucky ones that caught on to ELOTR only a couple months in. I'd be hopelessly behind by now!
 
The full answer is a complicated one - the reasons why Elves never ever name a child after an ancestor/"deceased" Elf; the means by which Glorfindel from LotR and Glorfindel from the Silmarillion came to be the same fellow; the reasons why Glorfindel is the only Elf we know of for certain that made this return (we see hints and visions of other Elves here and there, but nothing so concrete as this).

The sources go beyond the main canon and into the History of Middle Earth background texts, so some of the things we all take for granted are actually built on the fairly shaky foundation of material Tolkien wrote but never published himself - either due to lack of opportunity, or lack of certainty of the content.
 
Very interesting. I had seen that wikia entry after I posted and was not sure about it. Seems plausible and interesting. But good to know it's the same guy.

As for binging, now I miss being able to listen every single day! Which is why I started on the Silmarillion series (which I just reread anyway) so it's all good.
 
Corey gave the Doylist explanation somewhere in his podcast backlog - it's the only way I know it.

Basically, Tolkien named both Elves, then only realized later on that they shared a name. Elves don't have a tradition of recycling names, because they don't die except by violence or despair. You wouldn't name your kid after your grandmother if she's still alive and kicking, with every expectation of being so indefinitely - that would just get confusing and awkward really quickly.

So Tolkien had a problem, and instead of just changing one of the names, he tried to think up an explanation of how it could have happened - as was his wont when he wrote himself into a discrepancy. (Corey has characterized Tolkien as the king of the retcon.) He already had the Halls of Mandos established, but before then, hadn't really explained what happens to Elves once they arrived there - maybe he hadn't decided.

Anyway, his solution in this case was that Glorfindel was given a new body and sent back to Middle-earth. The reason he was permitted to do so, and not any other equally gallant or meritorious Elves of note ... is that Tolkien didn't accidentally recycle any of their names in the story, thus creating a plot hole he had to go back and fix.

If you want a Watsonian explanation, though, we can hypothesize any number of special attributes or circumstances or destinies why the Valar could/had to loose Glorfindel back onto the world in general and Middle-earth particularly ahead of his equally worthy brethren who'd been in Mandos long, or even longer.


But yeah, that can be confusing if you've just read The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. (Kind of like, how, if you just read Lord of the Rings, the line in the Gil-galad poem - "where he dwelleth, none can say" - can be super confusing because it never explains about Mandos or how Elvish immortality works.)
 
we can hypothesize any number of special attributes or circumstances or destinies why the Valar could/had to loose Glorfindel back onto the world in general and Middle-earth particularly ahead of his equally worthy brethren who'd been in Mandos long, or even longer.
There might be legions of slain Elves released from Mandos back into the general life of Elves in Valinor; perhaps none of them but Glorfindel have any desire to return to Middle Earth. Or perhaps, as you say, Glorfindel's desire has some special circumstances attached to it that sway the Valar to allow him to return to Rivendell. I find particularly interesting the question of how Glorfindel returned across the Sea. But we have no further information on these questions, so it's all speculation.
 
There might be legions of slain Elves released from Mandos back into the general life of Elves in Valinor; perhaps none of them but Glorfindel have any desire to return to Middle Earth. Or perhaps, as you say, Glorfindel's desire has some special circumstances attached to it that sway the Valar to allow him to return to Rivendell. I find particularly interesting the question of how Glorfindel returned across the Sea. But we have no further information on these questions, so it's all speculation.
Fiondil wrote some really interesting fanfiction about how the Elves in Valinor coped with the return of their loved ones from Mandos, focussing partly on Findaráto and his family and partly on the victims of the Kinslaying. Let's just say some of them coped better than others…
 
There is somewhat more information about the subject, and I'm interested in the topic, but I'm not in the course so I don’t know if I can post here. I've also been reluctant to post in "Questions for Narnion" where we aren't supposed to have conversations. Perhaps I or somebody else could start a thread in the General section of the board?
 
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There is somewhat more information about the subject, and I'm interested in the topic, but I'm not in the course so I don’t know if I can post here. I've also been reluctant to post in "Questions for Narnion" where we aren't supposed to have conversations. Perhaps I or somebody else could start a thread in the General section of the board?
The Rule is "no discussion in Questions for Narnion".

The Practice is "go ahead and discuss, but don't expect Corey to read any but the first post in any given thread".
 
Ah, OK, thanks.
Am I allowed to join discussions if I'm not in the course?
I would be very surprised if not, and I think the definition of "in the course" might be a bit more fluffy than you seem to imagine.

I can scarcely ever attend a live event, since they are not usually at a time friendly to those of us in the UK or the rest of Europe (and let's not even think about the poor chaps down under!) but I watch the livestream as a "VOD" (Video On Demand) on Twitch the next day—I prefer Twitch as I also get the comments replayed in pseudo-real-time. I doubt if anybody on here would say I'm not "in the course" just because I have to wait some hours before catching up!

If you're too late for Twitch, the episodes are also released on YouTube where they are more permanent albeit comment-free.
 
Yeah, far as I know, the only qualifications for "being in the course" are participation, in the live shows and/or here in the forums. This isn't a Mythgard class where you pay to take part; it's more like a group community read-/playthrough and massive text overanalysis.
 
It's really good to know I can participate in these discussions, thanks! I don't think I've listened to any of the lessons, but I've been reading some of the forum discussions around it.


What I wanted to share is that I have The Peoples of Middle-earth, and I can confirm that what Steven R and Lincoln Alpern posted is basically right.

Tolkien did reuse some other Elvish names, and decided that there are 2 named Gelmirs and 2 Galdors, for example. But he decided that those are simple names that could have been repeated, while Glorfindel is a longer and more unique name that wouldn't be reused.

In-universe, Glorfindel was restored to life before the end of the First Age, less than 35 years after he had died. He was sent back to Middle-earth specially as a messenger of the Valar, to help out Gil-galad and Elrond and the Elves fighting against Sauron. He had always been both physically and spiritually potent and became more powerful as a direct result of sacrificing himself for a good cause, and was experienced in fighting against demons and other monsters of Morgoth. That's why, in Corey's words, the Nazgul flee from him "like scared children." I imagine it's possible the Valar put special blessings on him as well, to prepare him for this role. I assume that he went back to Valinor along with Gandalf -- I don't imagine he'd want to stay in Middle-earth after all the other Noldor sailed West.

He apparently went East on a Numenorean ship. That raises the possibility that other Elves could have taken the same route back to Middle-earth, but apparently the Valar didn't normally allow re-incarnated Elves to leave the West. I don't know the reason for that, but Glorfindel, Beren, and Luthien were the only people to do so after dying. Even Avari whose whole families were in Middle-earth couldn't go back.


As for the other Elves, Tolkien didn't mention the fate of many by name. But he did write down the general way that the Valar deal with dead Elves, and how they're restored to life. Much of it was written before the Glorfindel text, which was one of the last things Tolkien ever wrote.

In short, Eru commanded the Valar that they have a duty to restore dead Elves to life, if they fulfill certain conditions: They have to willingly come to the Halls of Mandos, instead of choosing to stay in Middle-earth as ghosts; They have to wait an unspecified length of time, and accept teaching to learn from their mistakes and become wiser; If they did anything wicked, or rebelled against the Valar, they have to repent and go through a purgatorial "correction" (which they forget afterwards); They can't have any malice towards anyone who's alive (maybe not including Orcs and the like?); They can't be a member of a sexual threesome if the other two people in the threesome are alive (like Finwe, Miriel, and Indis); And they have to be willing to come back to life. The Valar build them a new body of the same age as the one they lost, so adults come back as adults.

Given that, I think it's likely that most dead Elves were restored to life. Tolkien didn't say how long they wait. Children are brought back very quickly, but some Elves have to wait "long", especially if it takes them a long time to repent of something bad they did. I imagine that nobody waits in Mandos longer than Morgoth did (2874.6 Sun years), unless they're so unrepentant that Mandos gives up on them and keeps them there.
 
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Personally, I reject many of JRRT's late-life writings. For instance, his plan to remove the story of the "rounding" of the Earth at the fall of Numenor "because it was astronomically absurd" is Just Wrong. He's using too much logic! It is very Augustinian, but IMHO very incorrect, to apply strict logic to a transcendent being.

I see no reason to doubt that Illuvatar could achieve such a thing; turning the flat Earth into one that is a sphere, and has always been a sphere, even though Elves and Valar remember that it used to be flat. This is beyond our understanding, of course. In fact, the very idea of its possibility is beyond our understanding. It is astronomically absurd, by any human standard. But Illuvatar is supposed to be beyond our understanding! That is exactly the kind of transcendent superiority that is, to me, an essential part of the idea of deity.

And I'm stickin' to it.
 
… I'm another person who has binged on 64 episodes in like 3-4 weeks! Hope to join a live session soon...

I am still gob-smacked by the image of catching up on all back sessions of "Exploring Middle Earth" in just three or four weeks. Crystal and I are both members of the Lonely Mountain Band kinship on Landroval, where we got some advance notice of the first class and the advent of the Scholar's Hall in Bree to house it. I believe we have only missed one or two sessions since the beginning; it's really one the highlights of our week.

Your experience brought to my mind the incredible power of this teaching medium: Every lecture recorded and preserved for as long as the hosts are willing to maintain the files. Corey could be teaching these same subjects for decades, perhaps even centuries, and the presentation will be just as fresh as it was the day it happened.
 
I also dislike of the Round World rewriting, Jim.

But nothing that Tolkien wrote about Elvish reincarnation or Glorfindel uses the Round World concept. The reason reincarnated Elves aren't usually allowed back to Middle-earth is... something unexplained, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the fall of Numenor, since it was a "rule" even in the earlier Second Age.
 
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I kind of DO like the reconciliation of the worldmaking... but it would need some modification jrrt himself never was ready to do... a split of the more spiritual worldvand the more material world... like aman vs middle-earth/ambar
 
The flat earth idea is one of the very few things that bothers me about his world, and the idea of the sun/moon being carried across the sky. I get why it bothered him in later years. I think it is because it takes a mythos that seems "plausible" and so believable, and reduces it to something that is just very hard to reconcile with the rest. At least for me.

Having said that, I've always loved the idea of how Valinor gets closed off - and yet is still somewhere within the confines of Arda. I personally never think of ME as flat, but as round and Valinor just "hidden" in some fashion. It's the only way it makes sense for me.
 
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