Half-Elves In Tolkien's Writings

The choice to become immortal is huge. In Tolkien’s writings we hear a lot of the elves and of men, but Half-Elves (also known as Peredhil) aren’t mentioned very often. Is that because humans and elves can’t marry? The answer is no there have been three marriages between the Eldar and the Edain. The reason we don’t hear about half elves is because they got to choose to either become an elf or a human. They don’t stay as Half-Elves they pick which race they want to be. The first human and elf marriage was between Beren and Luthien. Beren was a human, while Luthien was an elf. Tolkien describes the events of their marriage in his letters when he says, “It is Beren the outlawed mortal who succeeds (with the help of Luthien) where all the armies and warriors have failed: he penetrates the stronghold of the Enemy and wrests one of the Silmarilli from the Iron Crown. Thus he wins the hand of Luthien” (Letters 149). Luthien’s father would not give up his daughters hand in marriage unless Beren could get a Silmarilli. Tolkien has this to say about Beren and Luthien’s quest, “As such the story is (I think a beautiful and powerful) heroic-fairy-romance (Letters 149). Eventually Beren is killed by the

His whole family chose to be counted among the elves but he didn’t. It is understandable why Earendil chose to be among the elves, because his wife wanted to. But why didn’t Elros want to be the same as his parents and brother? What might have caused him to make this decision was because his father wanted to be mortal but opted to follow his wife. It can be reasoned that he chose mortality because he wanted to eventually experience what happened to men after their time, or that he saw how immortality could be a burden as time goes on. Either way it turned out alright for him. He lived a long life and was the King of Numenor. Tolkien doesn’t answer this question in his writings; the answer can only be speculated