Twins?
In the published Silmarillion, there's no any mention that Eluréd and Elurín were twins, and indeed, there is note 8 on p. 372 in the Problem of Ros, where Christopher mentioned that "the story that Dior's sons were twins had been abandoned". -- Ar-Zigûr (talk) 20:16, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
- That makes sense to me. SingingOrc (talk) 01:27, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Good spot, strange this has been missed given my edition of The Silmarillion even says Elder and Younger brother in the appendix.
- I think it is somewhere in HoMe that they are listed as twins, so that should be mentioned in OVOTL, but it certainly was not Tolkien’s first or last thought. JR Snow (talk) 06:42, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Well, even in the case of identical twins, their seniority may depend on the fact who first came out of the mother's womb.
- And yes, Eluréd and Elurín are explicitly mentioned as twins in the Tale of Years from the War of the Jewels, where their birth-date is given, but that text predates the Problem of Ros from the Peoples of Middle-earth. -- Ar-Zigûr (talk) 08:05, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Their identical names are also a sign that they were twins. I don't think we have to relegate that fact to OVOTL, but indeed it needs to be included with the correct references. --LorenzoCB (talk) 12:55, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, because the Problem of Ros must be treated very carefully. Since the linguistic question within it was ultimately rejected by J.R.R. Tolkien, I personally think that the whole text is not very much canonical.
But alas! This explanation fell foul of a small fact that my father had missed; and it was fatal. He noted on the text that 'most of this fails', because of the name Cair Andros (a Sindarin name, as were virtually all the place-names of Gondor), the island in the Anduin north of Minas Tirith, of which it had been said in Appendix A (RK p. 335, footnote) that it 'means "Ship of Long-foam"; for the isle was shaped like a great ship, with a high prow pointing north, against which the white foam of Anduin broke on sharp rocks.' So he was forced to accept that the element -ros in Elros must be the same as that in Cair Andros, the word must be Eldarin, not Atanic (Bëorian), and there could be no historical relationship between it and the Númenórean Adûnaic Rothinzil.
- Nonetheless, the Chrisopher's notion quoted in my first message should be mentioned within OVOTL section. -- Ar-Zigûr (talk) 13:47, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
- Besides, I personally also like the idea that they're twins. Since in the Problem of Ros Eluréd and Elurín were mentioned being the first and second son respectively, Christopher thus suggested that the idea of their twinhood was supposedly abandoned. However, he is perhaps mistaken in that matter because their seniority doesn't inevitably contradict their twinhood. After all, Eluréd would be considered the elder brother if he was the first child to come out of his mother's womb. I think it was just a little confusion from Christopher's part, and his father didn't in fact reject this idea entirely. -- Ar-Zigûr (talk) 10:40, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- To matching names prove they're twins? Fingolfin and Finarfin were not. At very least, this issue should probably be mentioned. SingingOrc (talk) 13:36, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- Besides, I personally also like the idea that they're twins. Since in the Problem of Ros Eluréd and Elurín were mentioned being the first and second son respectively, Christopher thus suggested that the idea of their twinhood was supposedly abandoned. However, he is perhaps mistaken in that matter because their seniority doesn't inevitably contradict their twinhood. After all, Eluréd would be considered the elder brother if he was the first child to come out of his mother's womb. I think it was just a little confusion from Christopher's part, and his father didn't in fact reject this idea entirely. -- Ar-Zigûr (talk) 10:40, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
- I also believed that the brothers were twins as their fates were intertwined, as all twins in the legendarium. Anyway, I suggest we leave the matter ambiguous. Let's put "c. F.A. 500" for both their birth years, with an OVOTL note that according to one (rejected) conception they were both born on that year. This needs to be done in many pages, both their own articles and also the family trees, the article twins, the article for F.A. 500 and perhaps others. Sage (talk) 15:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Proposal for a merge with 'Elurin'
As per the recent discussion, both on TG and its Discord server, there's been a push started by User:Oberiko (with which I strongly agree) to combine certain characters' articles into one: most notably the cases of those twins (or siblings generally) whose histories (both literary and in-universe ones) are nearly or completely identical, and who are almost always (if not always) mentioned together.
One such case are the articles on 'Elured' and 'Elurin', who I'm proposing should be merged together. Currently, User:Oberiko and I (as well as perhaps User:Mord) are in agreement about this - however, what is everyone else's thoughts about this proposal? - IvarTheBoneless (talk) 17:14, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- For the record: I agree these should be merged. --Mord 18:01, 13 September 2023 (UTC)