Why did Mithrellas leave Imrazôr?

[ilmareaegnor]

Tolkien goes into a bit of detail on most of the elven/mortal relationships in canon. However the bit of backstory that we have regarding Mithrellas and Imrazor leaves me a bit confused. Similarly with Tolkien's description of Elwing - I don't understand how an elven mother would abandon her children and husband - especially as she knows that her time with them is finite due to their mortality. Any suggestions? this bit of canon all ways niggled me at the back of my mind.

[randy]

Tolkien never really says why Mithrellas left. However, if I were writing a story about it, I would propose that, as a young man, Imrazor made her swear to leave him once he grew old, to spare her the grief of watching him die and himself the humiliation of knowing she was watching.

[elfscribe]

Right, no canon reason that I know of why Mithrellas leaves, but Randy's proposal is certainly a positive one.

As far as Elwing, there have been many debates on various boards about her and why she behaved as she did. My personal feeling is that Tolkien was thinking of it more in terms of mythology where characters often do horrendous and rather inexplicable things. He always portrays Elwing's actions as noble. In trying to write a story about it, one either has to decide if she was nuts or an unfeeling mother or come up with some other explanation.
Oshun discusses it in her excellent essay on Elwing here: www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/reference/characterofthemonth/elwing.php

And there are some good stories involving Elwing on Silmarillion Writers' Guild here: www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/archive/home/browse.php?type=characters&charid=78
I'm particularly fond of Darth's "Blood as Warm as a Bird" and Oshun's crackdrabble (is that a word? lol) Elwing and the Silmaril.

I'm sure it's been discussed on boards at Henneth Annun. In fact I think we discussed it here somewhere but damned if I can find it.

Sept 10, 2010 17:13:24 GMT -6 ilmareaegnor said:

Tolkien goes into a bit of detail on most of the elven/mortal relationships in canon. However the bit of backstory that we have regarding Mithrellas and Imrazor leaves me a bit confused. Similarly with Tolkien's description of Elwing - I don't understand how an elven mother would abandon her children and husband - especially as she knows that her time with them is finite due to their mortality. Any suggestions? this bit of canon all ways niggled me at the back of my mind.

[randy]

I always thought Elwing was taking the Silmaril and leading her pursuers away from her children. And her leap into the sea was done in the spirit of, "Screw this, I'm putting an end to all of it."

[Gandalfs apprentice]

I posted a birthday request at HASA about Elwing--someone wrote an interesting story in response.

Elwing was mortal also, I believe. She was Dior's daughter, and Dior was the son of two mortals--Beren and Luthien.

She and Earendil become "Elves" only after the Valar give them the choice.

[erulisse]

I have always felt that the call of the sea finally got to her; that she stayed with her husband and children until the children were grown and her daughter was married, but then felt that she could leave and make her way West. I feel sorrow for her abandoned family, but I'm sure that she also had heartbreak at leaving them behind even though their lives would have been short in comparison to her own. Could she have stayed? I'm sure that she could have. But perhaps she felt it would have been even more difficult to stay and watch her family age and die before her eyes.

- Erulisse (one L)

[oshun]

I wrote a really kind of silly story about Mithrellas that presumed she did not leave, but simply left her husband. and I have her popping up some Ages later and hooking up with Imrahil. I don't know why-- the devil made me do it (and I thought I might use it as alternative canon for a novel I am still working on). Probably, I was intrigued because I always had the impression that the Falas were crawling with misplaced elves. Along the lines with another thought, that if Imrahil was to so resemble an Elf, that it might make sense if there made have been a lot more cross-breeding of Elves than simply the main named canon characters who show up in the history books.

www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?stid=6327

I have a short author's note to it discussing "On the the Elvish strain among men" in Tolkien's work and citing a scant couple of references.