Re: The Rings of Power. Lord of the Rings. TV Show.
JRRT wrote:
“They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard.”
LotR, App. F
Christopher Tolkien (CT) commented on this passage:
Thus these words describing characters of face and hair were actually written of the Noldor only, and not of all the Eldar: indeed the Vanyar had golden hair, and it was from Finarfin’s Vanyarin mother Indis that he, and Finrod Felagund and Galadriel his children, had their golden hair that marked them out among the princes of the Noldor. But I am unable to determine how this extraordinary perversion of meaning arose.
BoLT I, Ch. 1 The Cottage of Lost Play
CT later comments on his own commentary:
"In my discussion of this in 1.43-4 I pointed out that the words
'They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were
dark, save in the golden house of Finrod [Finarfin]' were originally
written of the Noldor only, and not of all the Eldar, and I objected that
'the Vanyar had golden hair, and it was from Finarfin's Vanyarin
mother Indis that he, and Finrod Felagund and Galadriel his children,
had their golden hair', finding in the final use of this passage an 'extraordinary
perversion of meaning'. But my father carefully remodelled
the passage in order to apply it to the Eldar as a whole, and it does
indeed seem 'extraordinary' that he should have failed to observe this
point. It seems possible that when he re-used the passage in this way
the conception of the golden hair of the Vanyar had not yet arisen.(4)"
PoMe, Ch. II (commentary)
endnote 4 reads:
"It must be admitted, however, that the statement in the chapter
Of Maeglin in The Silmarillion (p. 136) that Idril Celebrindal
'was golden as the Vanyar, her mother's kindred' appears already
in the original text (1951; see XI.316); and of course even if the
re-use of the passage did precede the appearance of the idea of the
'golden Vanyar', it needed correction subsequently."
op.cit.
Now lets see some other descriptions of the Elves:
The Vanyar:
"The Lindar are named also Tarqendi 'High-elves', Vanimor 'the
Beautiful' [> Irimor 'the Fair Ones'], and Ninqendi 'White-elves';"
LRoW, The Genealogies
(Lindar is an earlier name of the Vanyar)
"Vanyar are the Blessed Elves, and the Spear-elves, the Elves
of the Air, the friends of the Gods, the Holy Elves and the
Immortal, and the Children of Ingwe; they are the Fair Folk
and the White."
MR, LQS (I)
"This name was probably given to the First Clan by the Noldor.
They accepted it, but continued to call themselves most often by
their old numerical name Minyar (since the whole of this clan
had joined the Eldar and reached Aman). The name referred to
the hair of the Minyar, which was in nearly all members of the
clan yellow or deep golden. This was regarded as a beautiful
feature by the Noldor (who loved gold), though they were
themselves mostly dark-haired. Owing to intermarriage the
golden hair of the Vanyar sometimes later appeared among
the Noldor: notably in the case of Finarfin, and in his children
Finrod and Galadriel, in whom it came from King Finwe s
second wife, Indis of the Vanyar.
Vanyar thus comes from an adjectival derivative *wanja from
the stem *WAN. Its primary sense seems to have been very
similar to English (modern) use of 'fair' with reference to hair
and complexion; though its actual development was the reverse
of the English: it meant 'pale, light-coloured, not brown or
dark', and its implication of beauty was secondary. In English
the meaning 'beautiful' is primary. From the same stem was
derived the name given in Quenya to the Valie Vana wife of
Orome."
WotJ, Quendi and Eldar
The Sindar:
"In general the Sindar appear to have very closely resembled the
Exiles, being dark-haired, strong and tall, but lithe. Indeed they
could hardly be told apart except by their eyes; for the eyes of
all the Elves that had dwelt in Aman impressed those of
Middle-earth by their piercing brightness. For which reason the
Sindar often called them Lachend, pl. Lechind 'flame-eyed'."
op.cit.
How the Easterlings see them:
"All the people of Húrin's homelands that could work or serve any purpose they took away, even young girls and boys, and the old they killed or drove out to starve. But they dared not yet lay hands on the Lady of Dor-lómin, or thrust her from her house; for the word ran among them that she was perilous, and a witch who had dealings with the white-fiends: for so they named the Elves, hating them, but fearing them more."
UT, Narn; CoH
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Originally Posted by Flinn
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