Robbing the Cradle

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I dunno, do you really think the books would have mentioned the attack on Celebrian's party had she not been captured and tortured, and as a result left Middle Earth? Sure, something this grave probably never happened to Arwen, but since the high pass over the Misty Mountains were by all account dangerous for many reasons, and the trip down to Lorien hardly a Sunday stroll either, I actually find it unlikely that Arwen could have made that journey so often without anything going wrong or ever being in danger.

The trek to Lórien was by no means a walk in the park, especially after Sauron formally arose and declared himself. Perhaps, though, Arwen's journeys weren't actually all that frequent, which could reduce the probability of anything happening. When she went to Lórien, she seems to have spent a good deal of time there each visit. When she and Aragorn first met in Rivendell, she explained the fact that he had not seen her before by saying she'd only just come back after spending 'many years' there. Aragorn was then about twenty and had never seen her, so there's a good fifteen or sixteen years for that visit.
She was in Lórien again some twenty-nine years later (T.A 2980) when she and Aragorn plighted their troth.
Also, The Tale of Years says this:

3009 [T.A]- Elrond sends for Arwen, and she returns to Imladris; the Mountains and all lands eastward are becoming dangerous.

Looks to me as if she'd probably been there ever since her tryst with Aragorn.

Which leads me to what I think is the greatest argument against her being a hardened adventurer who had faced real peril: if Arwen ever had been in any real danger, Elrond would surely have stopped allowing her to leave long before 3009. There's no one so paranoid as a father with a daughter. This I know from personal experience.