Elrond or Galadriel

[celeb-galad]

Celeborn never died. He took ship and sailed into the West sometime in the 4th Age.

Elrond, although noble does have that mannish blood in him which could lead him astry

Don't forget he also had 'divine', Maiarin blood flowing through his veins.

[Lalaith]

Originally posted by celeb-galad
Celeborn never died. He took ship and sailed into the West sometime in the 4th Age.

guess what. I knew that. I was just sarcastic.

[Jonathan]

Originally posted by Arien the Maia
And yes I think that Galadriel would win...she is older and wiser and pure elven...Elrond, although noble does have that mannish blood in him which could lead him astry

I agree that Galadriel must have been more powerful than Elrond because she was noldor and he "just" a peredhil.
However, they have totally different powers. Elrond has the power of healing while Galadriel has her mind reading powers, her far sight and her calm.

But I think Galadriel was more tempted by the Ring than Elrond. She saw the Ring's potential of making her a great queen and she would know how to weild the Ring if she got her hands on it.
I don't think Elrond ever thought of what the Ring could do for him, he just wanted to get rid of it. He was present when Isildur took the Ring from Sauron, and Elronds only thought was to let Isildur destroy it in Mt. Doom.

[Anglorfin]

I only remember four Noldorin Elves refered to as High King after coming to Middle Earth; Fingolfin first, then Fingon, Turgon and finally Erenion.

If this is indeed correct, then taking into consideration that most of these were descended from the house of Fingolfin, some direct lineage was present. And if going by direct lineage Elrond has closer ties through descendance to the house of Fingolfin than Galadriel does.

Be that as it may, the line of Kingship was quite erratic anyway, sorta just skipping between different children of the same father and then ending in a cousin. Galadriel could claim descendance as being Gil-Galad's aunt or something, or only surviving member in Middle Earth of Fingolfin's brother's line. No other 1st generation children of Fingolfin were left in Middle Earth by that time.

[Tar-Elenion]

According to the essay Ósanwe-kenta, 'Enquiry into the Communication of Thought' (published in VT 39), 'mind reading' (or 'telepathy') could be performed by anyone (with limitations) thus it was not something only Galadriel was capable of. Elrond, Galadriel, Celeborn and Gandalf all engage in this in the chapter Many Partings:
"If any wanderer had chanced to pass, little would he have seen or heard, and it would have seemed to him only that he saw grey figures, carved in stone, memorials of forgotten things now lost in unpeopled lands. For they did not move or speak with mouth, looking from mind to mind; and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their thoughts went to and fro."
As to who would win in a fight, Elrond or Galadriel, how are they going to fight? With swords? If so Elrond was not just a loremaster and healer, but a great warrior as well.
JRRT never states who is more powerful, whatever that means, though in Letter 246 he writes:
"In the 'Mirror of Galadriel', 1381, it appears that Galadriel conceived of herself as capable of wielding the Ring and supplanting the Dark Lord. If so, so also were the other guardians of the Three, especially Elrond. But this is another matter. It was part of the essential deceit of the Ring to fill minds with imaginations of supreme power. But this the Great had well considered and had rejected, as is seen in Elrond's words at the Council."
The statement that "especially Elrond" would be capable of weilding the Ring against Sauron is intriguing, to say the least. Why "especially Elrond"? Perhaps because, as celeb-galad mentioned, of his 'divine heritage', he was after all a scion of Melian the Maia, and hence essentially descended from the 'gods'.

[Lírean Cárnesir]

Well, Galadriel was (as far as i know) the Daughter of Finarfin, technically making her the Graddaughter of Finwe, the first high King (He was the first by the way) However because of the passing of the kingship through the house of Fingolfin and Elrond being a descendant of Fingolfin and he married into the house of Finarfin (through CelebrÃ*an) he would effectively have a better say to the Kingship. Though lets not forget Galadriel being Great granddaughter of Finwe.

[Jon S.]

An admitted aside but why is Gil-Galad's name hyphenated? And are there other examples of Elves with hyphenated names?

[Jon S.]

I guess it's help yourself today ...

In discussing compound formation, we do not make any real difference in the following between compounds where the words are really written together, such as Mordor, or where the compound nature is indicated by a hyphen, such as Gil-Galad. We do this because we have seen in the case of articles and prepositions that hyphenation is apparently used to indicate compound formation. Most of the compounds are names, and the formation of names is a very complex issue with Tolkien sometimes changing the explanation for a name after some time. Often, Quenya elements intrude in names and are blended with Sindarin. We will not attempt to discuss all possible compounds but just give several examples to show the range of possible outcomes.

A fair share of compounds exhibits mutation types other than lenition. Here, we find mor + dor -> Mordor (Darkland) (SIL) with liquid mutation (the first element is explicitly listed as mor and morannon (black gate) indicates that this is indeed mor and not morn), similarly mor + caint -> morchaint (darkshapes) (SIL), one explanation of Barad-dûr (Dark tower) would see this as a compound with stop mutation (for a different explanation see adjectives further down), in Caradhras (Redhorn) (LOTR) we see nasal mutation, likewise in eledhrim (star-folk) (WJ:363).

However, there is also a fair share of compounds showing lenition by analogy, in spite of the fact that the final consonant would require different mutation, among them Gil-Galad ('starlight', at least according to UT:65. In PM:347 however, the name is explained as 'star of radiance' introducing a new word galad, one of the mentioned mind-changes of Tolkien regarding names), calen + sad -> calenhad instead of **calessad (greenspace) (UT:425), nin + talf -> Nindalf instead of Nithalf (Wetwang) (A Tolkien Compass: 195) or gil + taur -> Gildor instead of **Gilthor (Starlord) or celebrin + tal -> Celebrindal (Silver-foot) (SIL).

We may think of establishing the time period of a compound formation by studying its mutation pattern. Consider for example Angband (Iron Prison) (SIL) ,Angmar (Iron Home) (LOTR) and Anghabar (Iron-delvings) (SIL), all with the same initial element ang- from CE: angâ (PM:347) and yet in the first case, no mutation is caused whereas the second two lenition is the result.

Evidently, Angband is a very old structure (it is for sure older than the elves...). Therefore, the compound word probably stems from the CE stage already and would probably be CE: angambandô. This directly developed into S: Angband, preserving the b- in analogy with CE: andambundâ -> S: annabon (elephant) (LR:372).

On the other hand, Anghabar (persumably derived from a root SAPA 'dig, excavate' (PE12:82)), is a structure of Gondolin at a time where Sindarin was completely developed already - therefore lenition by analogy would have been in place (and there would never have been a CE form **angasapâ or such like), resulting in Anghabar instead of **Angsabar. Similar arguments hold for the even later kingdom Angmar which is a modern compound, lenited by analogy, and not a descendant of a CE compound C**angambarê.

We may map out later changes in the difference between Calenhad and Caradhras. Colors in PQ are usually derived using a suffix -i, this is changed into -e in CE and lost in OS, hence we may assume that both prefixed elements had no final vowel in OS already, hence OS: calen and OS: caran. However, an OS compound OS: calensad would be subject to the rules of nasal mutation in compound words and end up in S: **calessad - hence the compound has to me more recent than the OS development phase. On the other hand, Caradhras does exhibit nasal mutation and may therefore be a true OS compound or may be a later compound not subject to lenition by analogy.

There are a few compounds in Sindarin which do not seem to show any mutation, among them the river names Anduin, Baranduin, Esgalduin and Taur-im-Duinath (SIL). However, these could potentially all result in lenition of d -> dh which Tolkien though of as 'uncouth' (UT:267) (if you try to pronouce some of them carrying out the lenition you might get an idea why...).

http://sindarin.weet.us/mutations.html

[The Telcontarion]

I think it would be Elrond who would have the right to kingship not galadriel; even his sons would would have more claim and would be nexxt in line after him.

I believe I read in the silmarillion (could have been the LOTR-but I know I read it) that after the death of Gil-galad the bloddline of the high kings of not only the eldar were represented by his bloddline only, but the the three houses of men as well.

So Elrond is the heir of the kings not Galadriel, she was never in line for kingship. When Elrond left, assuming his sons left with him, Eldarion held that title as well.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Jon S.

I guess it's help yourself today ...

I think you did it quite well.

The article you dug up was an interesting read.