Could the House of Fëanor Ever Have Reclaimed the High Kingship?

Q: Could the House of Fëanor Ever Have Reclaimed the High Kingship?

ANSWER: This always struck me as one of the more divisive questions among Tolkien fans when we debated these things on the news groups 20 years ago. The division came from everyone’s attempt to apply either modern or traditional English law to Tolkien’s fictional world. Questions of law in Middle-earth, unless specifically discussed by J.R.R. Tolkien himself, are really fruitless ventures because if you or I appeal to some obscure legal point the other does not like, we can never hope to agree on anything.

Worse, neither of us speaks for J.R.R. Tolkien. I prefer to quote Tolkien in context whenever I can, because in my view his definitive positions are almost always provided if you look at the larger context (the story). Some people, however, prefer to ignore all the extra details and just assign some significance to specific sentences. I will not provide examples because, frankly, I don’t want to ride that dinosaur again.

But let me quote The Silmarillion and we’ll see where can take it from there.

First, let us remember the curse that the Valar placed upon the Noldor, Fëanor, and his sons:

‘Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; and the Valar will fence Valinor against you, and shut you out, so that not even the echo of your lamentation shall pass over the mountains. On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also. Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass. The Dispossessed shall they be for ever.

That last sentence seems rather definitive to me, but let’s see how it plays out.

There Maedhros in time was healed; for the fire of life was hot within him, and his strength was of the ancient world, such as those possessed who were nurtured in Valinor. His body recovered from his torment and became hale, but the shadow of his pain was in his heart; and he lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been. By this deed Fingon won great renown, and all the Noldor praised him; and the hatred between the houses of Fingolfin and Fëanor was assuaged. For Maedhros begged forgiveness for the desertion in Araman; and he waived his claim to kingship over all the Noldor, saying to Fingolfin: ‘If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwë, and not the least wise.’ But to this his brothers did not all in their hearts agree.

Therefore even as Mandos foretold the House of Fëanor were called the Dispossessed, because the over-lordship passed from it, the elder, to the house of Fingolfin, both in Elendë and in Beleriand, and because also of the loss of the Silmarils. But the Noldor being again united set a watch upon the borders of Dor Daedeloth, and Angband was beleaguered from west, and south, and east; and they sent forth messengers far and wide to explore the countries of Beleriand, and to treat with the people that dwelt there.

Maedhros did go on to found his own kingdom (the March of Maedhros), so he did not relinquish his right to rule any of the Noldor. He relinquished his claim to Finwë’s lordship over the Noldor (in Middle-earth, separate from the lordship that remained in Valinor which had been given to Finarfin).

To be Dispossessed, as described in the story, means to be without or have lost something. In this case what the Fëanorians lost was the right to rule over all the Noldor in Middle-earth. And since the Valar decreed that this dispossession should be “for ever” I don’t think there is much wiggle room left. But the question as I received it from a reader posited a hypothetical situation.

What if Gil-galad died in the middle of the Second Age and Celebrimbor survived? As the last living male-line descendant of Finwë in Middle-earth, could Celebrimbor have taken up Finwë’s lordship over all the Noldor?

My short answer is “no” because that would violate the “for ever” clause in the Valar’s decree. But some people might point out that the Valar laid to rest their curse at the end of the First Age, and they forgave the Noldor and gave them permission to return to Valinor. But as J.R.R. Tolkien noted in The Road Goes Ever On not everyone among the Noldor was forgiven. Galadriel, at least, remained an exile and unable to return to Valinor. Celebrimbor’s status is not so clear, but he obviously did not sail over Sea. Curiously, both Maedhros and Maglor were offered the chance to return to Valinor and face the judgment of the Valar. Like Galadriel they rejected this offer. Maedhros killed himself and Maglor simply wandered off never to be seen among the Elves of Middle-earth again.

So let’s assume that Maglor still lived in the Third Age. Could he not have claimed Gil-galad’s crown, if he wished? I don’t think so, but in Maglor’s case I will argue that he was a murderer (he and Maedhros slew the guards Eonwë set over the Silmarils). I don’t believe Maglor could have been restored to lordship under Noldorin law while his crime was unresolved.

The three Kinslayings were sinful acts but they, at least, were acts of war. When Maedhros and Maglor murdered the Silmarils’ guards they were just behaving as criminals. So Maglor was outlawed and therefore could not re-establish the Finwëan kingship. You don’t have to agree with me but frankly I think Tolkien tied off that loose end, burned it, and sealed it forever with the certainty that Maglor was never going to return among the Noldor.

Then there is also the case of Gildor Inglorion. If he was “of the House of Finrod”, what does that imply? Tolkien seems to have forgotten about Gildor’s declaration of heritage on every occasion where he edited the story after introducing Finrod. He may not have. He may have decided that Gildor either was a Finwë (somehow returned like Glorfindel) or that the House of Finrod was a different family. Either way, Gildor’s ambiguity leaves us unable to resolve any definitive legal claims upon the Finwëan lordship.

Questions about whether Elrond could have claimed Gil-galad’s crown always leave people divided. The same is true for discussions about Galadriel claiming the crown for herself. Whether any of these characters had the right to rule the Noldor in Middle-earth, however, is moot. Tolkien firmly left them alive after Gil-galad’s death and he still decided that Gil-galad’s kingdom and lordship had come to an end. Each of these three surviving Elvish nobles in their own ways established their own lordships in Middle-earth without raising the issue of who should succeed Gil-galad. In fact, it appears to me that Cirdan took up rule over Lindon, even though he did not (apparently) claim the title of “king” over anyone. And Cirdan was without question the eldest of the Eldarin lords left in Middle-earth after the First Age.

So then what about Celebrimbor in our hypothetical post-Gil-galadian phase. Could he have taken up the Finwëan lordship? I don’t think so. I think that Tolkien left enough ambiguity in the family to make it clear that, for whatever reason, the High Elves of Middle-earth had decided that Gil-galad was the last of the High Kings of the Noldor-in-Exile. To be precise, that specific lordship began with Fëanor (not with Finwë). Fëanor passed his right to Maedhros and Maedhros in turn passed his right to Fingolfin. From that point forward none of Fëanor’s descendants had any right to rule over all the Noldor-in-Exile. They were free to establish their own realms, and Maedhros did, but that was the extent of their rights.

Celebrimbor’s history, of course, is extremely confused. We know that he was Fëanor’s grandson because Tolkien never changed this in the published Lord of the Rings, but some readers insist that the convoluted history of Celebrimbor and Galadriel which Christopher Tolkien published in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth may somehow supersede the canonical status of The Lord of the Rings. Such opinions are, in my opinion, contrary to Tolkien’s intentions. But those intentions are not concise. I think in Tolkien’s mind everything in Middle-earth was set in print until he found a reason to revise the story with a new edition. Until a new edition was published, therefore, the canon remained whatever was last published.

In Unfinished Tales Christopher Tolkien capped off his discussion of the history of Galadriel and Celeborn with the following comment:

A wholly different story, adumbrated but never told, of Galadriel’s conduct at the time of the rebellion of the Noldor appears in a very late and partly illegible note: the last writing of my father’s on the subject of Galadriel and Celeborn, and probably the last on Middle-earth and Valinor, set down in the last month of his life….

He then shared a quick summary of Galadriel’s separate departure (with Celeborn) from Valinor prior to Fëanor’s rebellion. After summarizing this new version of Galadriel’s history Christopher wrote:

This story, withdrawing Galadriel from all association with the rebellion of Fëanor, even to the extent of giving her a separate departure (with Celeborn) from Aman, is profoundly at variance with all that is said elsewhere. It arose from “philosophical” (rather than “historical”) considerations, concerning the precise nature of Galadriel’s disobedience in Valinor on the one hand, and her status and power in Middle-earth on the other. That it would have entailed a good deal of alteration in the narrative of The Silmarillion is evident; but that my father doubtless intended to do. It may be noted here that Galadriel did not appear in the original story of the rebellion and flight of the Noldor, which existed long before she did; and also, of course, that after her entry into the stories of the First Age her actions could still be transformed radically, since The Silmarillion had not been published. The book as published was however formed from completed narratives, and I could not take into account merely projected revisions.

Of course, in The Lord of the Rings Galadriel told the Fellowship that she left Beleriand before the fall of Nargothrond or Gondolin, a fact that Tolkien appeared to alter in The Road Goes Ever On. We can trace this evolution of Galadriel and Celeborn’s characters through Tolkien’s letters. The last word he wrote on Galadriel that conformed with the story as told in the published Silmarillion is found in Letter No. 320, dated to January 25, 1971:

I was particularly interested in your remarks about Galadriel. …. I think it is true that I owe much of this character to Christian and Catholic teaching and imagination about Mary, but actually Galadriel was a penitent: in her youth a leader in the rebellion against the Valar (the angelic guardians). At the end of the First Age she proudly refused forgiveness or permission to return. She was pardoned because of her resistance to the final and overwhelming temptation to take the Ring for herself.

The first sign of real change in their history came in Letter No. 347, dated to December 17, 1972:

Celeborn is a transl, of the orig. name Teleporno; though said to be a kinsman of King Elu Thingol he was so only afar off, for he too came from Valinor…

In Letter No. 348, dated to March 6, 1973 Tolkien wrote:

Galadriel, like all the other names of elvish persons in The Lord of the Rings, is an invention of my own. It is in Sindarin form (see Appendices E and F) and means ‘Maiden crowned with gleaming hair’. It is a secondary name given to her in her youth in the far past because she had long hair which glistened like gold but was also shot with silver. She was then of Amazon disposition and bound up her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats.

And finally in Letter No. 353, dated to August 4, 1973 he wrote:

Galadriel was ‘unstained’: she had committed no evil deeds. She was an enemy of Fëanor. She did not reach Middle-earth with the other Noldor, but independently. Her reasons for desiring to go to Middle-earth were legitimate, and she would have been permitted to depart, but for the misfortune that before she set out the revolt of Fëanor broke out, and she became involved in the desperate measures of Manwe, and the ban on all emigration.

Of these complex changes Christopher wrote:

On the other hand, the making of Celeborn into a Telerin Elf of Aman contradicts not only statements in The Silmarillion, but also those cited already (p. 228) from The Road Goes Ever On and Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings, where Celeborn is a Sindarin Elf of Beleriand As to why this fundamental alteration in his history was to be made, it might be answered that it arose from the new narrative element of Galadriel’s departure from Aman separately from the hosts of the rebel Noldor; but Celeborn is already transformed into a Telerin Elf in the text cited on p.242-43, where Galadriel did not take part in Fëanor’s revolt and march from Valinor, and where there is no indications of how Celeborn came to Middle-earth.

These changes were simply never incorporated into any of the stories. Although J.R.R. Tolkien clearly wanted to make them, he gave us no indication of how he would have modified either of the two published books; nor did Christopher have any guidance on how to modify The Silmarillion to accommodate the proposed changes. I don’t think J.R.R. Tolkien wanted to confuse his readers on the minutiae of character backgrounds. He wanted to lay everything out in nice, neat, tidy rows. He just wasn’t able to do that and so the stories had to remain as published simply because there were no other stories; just glimpses into what might be changed.

Hence, Celebrimbor remains a grandson of Fëanor, lacking any legal right to claim the lordship of the Noldor-in-Exile upon Gil-galad’s death. The author might have wanted to change some parts of the story but he never did, and so the story about Gil-galad must remain the same. He was the last High King and Celebrimbor could never have succeeded him.

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