Seating at the feast

Jedi Master Tessa

Jedi Master Tessa

New Member
I've been watching the videos that are posted to Youtube for a while. I'm listening a bit out of order, so I listen to the most recent episode, but I'm also trying to catch up on the backlog, which it sounds like isn't how I'm "supposed" to do it (sorry).

Anyway, I listened a few days ago to the bit about the mystery of how seating worked at the feast. I think it's funny that, after joking so much about doing a re-enactment of the seating at the Council of Elrond, you're talking seriously about needing to re-enact seating at the feast! Anyway, I always imagined Elrond, Gandalf, and Glorfindel all sitting at the head of the table together. It didn't even occur to me until I listened to the discussion that this image doesn't make sense. You don't have three people sitting side by side at the end of a table. But then again, it's not impossible. Who knows?
 
It just struck me that the seating arrangement works better if one imagines the tables set out length-wise, so that Elrond sitting at the end of the table is facing the hall. Arwen then would be on one side, but not facing the hall. Both sides of the table could then be occupied, and everyone could see the rest of the room. I imagine all the other tables not on the dais would have the same alignment.
 
Either the table would need to be offset from the centre, or the dais would need to occupy a narrow portion of the room, in church architecture terms somewhat like a chancel (possibly even with an apse), and the other tables occupying a broader portion like the nave and side-aisles.

The basis of this is that Arwen's seating is described as: "In the middle of the table, against the woven cloths upon the wall, there was a chair under a canopy, and there sat a lady fair to look upon, ...." [emphasis added] Of course, it would make some sense that the wall could be punctured with some arches to allow serving staff through from a corridor surrounding this narrow chancel, or to give guests better access to their seats.

The dais could be offset within the room, with the table located centrally upon the dais.

Given that Celebrian departed for Valinor around 600 years prior, that could explain any lack of a seat allocation for her; It's not like she was likely to return, so we could envisage the foot of the table as empty for purely practical purposes rather than in deference to the memory of Celebrian.
 
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