Why was Arwen dying in Return of the King? #lotr_qa

🤔 Want to know about Elrond and the Half Elven?

Middle Earth Lore

Gandalf, Tolkien, Wizards, Rings of Power, LOTR, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, Hobbits, Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond, Aragorn, Arwen, Beren, Luthien

[thegreyhavens]

🤔 Want to know about Elrond and the Half Elven?

[tomtripp]

I met a girl today called Arwen working on the checkout in a local supermarket. I said ‘parents Tolkien fans?’ and she said ‘no idea, they’re not into sports’ 😮 I didn’t know how to process this answer

[AlgorithmDG]

Elrond also had a twin, Elros, who chose to be a mortal man and became the first ever king of Numenor. Aragorn is his descendant.

[Kwahzutah]

Let’s not forget the implications of why this was so heartbreaking to Elrond or why it was such a sign of love for Aragorn. The fate of Elves is tied to Arda, to return to the Halls of Mandos after death and eventually retake form.(with some exceptions, notably those elves who left Valinor for Middle-Earth) The fate of Men is unknown and not tethered in that way.

So it doesn’t just mean that his daughter will die one day. Their afterlives will be sundered, and he doesn’t even expect to go to the same “heaven” as his daughter. After having lost his twin brother the same way. It’s heartwrenching stuff.

[Bentfrombeyond]

I never found Elrond's smile to be creepy, he scowls the entire trilogy, so in that rare moment it really hammered home that he really cared.

[ButterBallTheOpossum]

Arwen lived to be almost 3000 years old. I think she did fine.

[DallyLama]

She literally said "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone" I always assumed this meant she gave up her immortality even without ever reading the books.

[phillipfry]

So if Elrond chose to be human, he’d be Smith?

[LordBloodraven]

Even though Elrond's twin brother chose to live a mortal life, he lived a rich full life for centuries before passing.

[andrewriker]

The fading of the Elves is a complex topic, good video

[ameliad]

She was dying because she gave up the life of the Eldar. And I personally thought that Elrond brought the statement "Arwen's life is tied to the fate of the Ring" to put pressure on Aragorn, to see if Aragorn would've learned anything from Isildur, and to test Aragorn's resolve whether Aragorn was worthy of Arwen's decision to give up her immortality. And Aragorn measured up to the test. Never for once did Aragorn falter in his quest. Even when Elrond said "You ride to war, not to victory. This is the end".

Just what you would expect from a father that truly loves his daughter.

[PlanetEarth]

There's never been any part of The Hobbit series or The Lord of The Ring series that I don't like. But when glowing Arwen showed up I fell in love with Arwen and that super beautiful Liv Tyler. To me the whole series turned into a mythical love story.

[raydavison]

In the books, Arwen WASN'T dying because of the ring or anything else. She was IMMORTAL, but she gave up her immortality and became a "man" when she married Aragorn.

[ek]

Elrond was the son of two half-elves (mother: Elwing (father: Dior son of Luthien and Beron (so a half-elf), mother: Nimloth (elf)) father: Eärendil (father: Tuor (human), mother: Idril (elf)).
Elrond had a brother - Elros, the frist King of Númenor. Elros chose a mortal life but had descendants, including Aragon (yes, Aragon and Arwen are related).
So Elrond is NOT the last descendant.
Arwen did give up her mortality when committing to Aragon in Lórien, which happened before she met Frodo.

[frankiekl]

When I read she rested on the mound after watching her family grow, it was so bittersweet. That she she faced death alone ultimately.

[tranquility]

Beren and Lúthien are the great-grandparents to Elrond, and great-great-grandparents to Arwen, Galadriel was also Arwen’s grandmother. The passage in ‘The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen’ which is in the appendices of The Lord Of The Rings explains things pretty concisely. Arwen was an immortal elf maiden and Aragorn although being a descendant of Numenour had a longer life than men in general of about double the typical lifespan was still mortal ie he would die at some point. Arwen was around 2, 000 years old when they first met and was immortal, but because of the nature of Middle Earth elves could die or fade from sadness, of seeing the constant death and change around them after many many years, which is why they would travel to Valinor which is where they were supposed to live and things stayed the same they wouldn’t be sad as things did not come and go on the way they did in Middle Earth. So Arwen chose to stay in Middle Earth with Aragorn and had to deal with his death while she would live on for many years - plus most of not all the other elves by this time had left Middle Earth. Elves could also die from a broken heart, which is how Arwen died - and because she was half eleven and chose mortality she would leave the circles of the earth and be reunited with Aragorn - unlike Elves who went to the halls of Mandos and then at some stage went back to Vainor to live their immortal lives. Arwen could never go to Valinor so would never see any of her family, Elrond or her mother etc ever again once they left.

'Estel, Estel!" she cried, and with that even as he took her hand and kissed it, he fell into sleep. Then a great beauty was revealed in him, so that all who after came there looked on him in wonder; for they saw that the grace of his youth, and the valour of his manhood, and the wisdom and majesty of his age were blended together. And long there he lay, an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world.
'But Arwen went forth from the House, and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Then she said farewell to Eldarion, and to her daughters, and to all whom she had loved; and she went out from the city of Minas Tirith and passed away to the land of Lórien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees until winter came. Galadriel had passed away and Celeborn also was gone, and the land was silent.
'There at last when the mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, ' she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea.
'Here ends this tale, as it has come to us from the South; and with the passing of Evenstar no more is said in this book of the days of old.”

[christiankucera]

Love your videos, hate, no: HATE, your sound effects.

[Petracore]

I always thought he meant that if she chooses to be human and Sauron wins, he will kill everyone including her. Her life is tied to the fate of the ring just like everyone else’s life in middle earth is now

[Judah_Benjamin]

Only the line of beren and luthien had the luxury of choosing their fate.

[alomejorqueno]

Nice video—One thing, the Valar were not able to make that call, the choice given to Eärendil was granted by Eru Lluvatar himself. Also, the Valar are not really gods per Professor Tolkien, they’re angels/archangels or “the powers”. They’re venerated but not to be worshipped, that’s Eru’s space alone.

If anyone thinks endless serial living in Valinor is the better choice, you might have missed the point of the books. Men get to live a shorter life go to Mandos and immediately are rendered to Eru to reside with him, being with Eru is what Tolkien hints is the thing men actually want and why the Elves see that Men don’t truly belong to Arda, because their desire is to return to their creator in a place beyond time, suffering and pain and to live in the love of their creator who probably has all sorts of cool and fun stuff to do given that he cooked up an entire universe to entertain his other children, the Ainur. (It also seems to be universalist in nature in that all are reconciled to Eru in the end, even the Ringwraiths.)

I get that we’d like to stick around in this world, but in the book world that Tolkien lays out, the calculus is different and the end takeaway is the mankind is actually favored by Eru—they’re also the only ones he’s spoken to directly (and personally) except for the Ainur.