Elven genetics

[Elianna]

I've been wondering about nick-pickies of elven genetics. My main questions are these:

1) Is it possible that Arwen have the midnight hair of the books?
I know Elrond had midnight hair, but what about Celebrían? Her mom was blonde w/ silver, and her dad had silver hair. Let's first assume that silver hair isn't a sign of age w/ elves, but a color of hair you can be born with.
This would make Celebrían's hair very lightly colored. I know that dark hair is dominate over light hair, but hair is a multipy allele trait. This means that the genes will mix together making a shade of color, not just one or the other. So if Arwen's dad was dark haired, and her mom was light haired, then Arwen would have brown hair, not midnight black.

2) Elves have gestational periods of almost exactly one year, but humans' gestational period is around 9 months (if all goes well). So how long did Arwen carry Eldarion?

3) And finally: We call ours teens (because we come of age at 18 or 21), Hobbits call theirs tweens (because they come of age at 33), what about elves? They don't come of age until 50. They would be in about their 30's and 40's at adolesence.

Got any ideas?

[Osse]

I have no idea on most of these points and have given very little thought to em to be truthful. However you stated that hair colour is often a mix... due to the fact it's controlled my multiple alleles. However, if the allele is dominant, its trait shall be dominant. Sure it often turns out that say if my father had dark hair and my mother had light hair, i'd have a mixture of the both. However, we can see that if an allele is dominant, it can cause the colour to be exactly (or only slightly different) the same... so arwen certainly could have inherited Elrond's black hair. But erm... who said that genetics would have the same behaviour in ME? hehe

Keep up the thought if it tickles your fancy!

Regards,

Osse

[Theron Bugtussle]

Originally posted by Elianna
We call ours teens (because we come of age at 18 or 21), Hobbits call theirs tweens (because they come of age at 33), what about elves? They don't come of age until 50. They would be in about their 30's and 40's at adolesence.

I don't know what the elves call them, however, in the Southeastern U.S., they would call them young'uns, which is a contraction of "young ones"!

As in, "Just look at 'em young'uns playin' with those orcs from up the holler!"

[Finwe]

Having dark hair and marrying someone with light hair wouldn't necessarily give your child an intermediate hair color. Sometimes children have genes that are codominant and sometimes the dominant genes shows in the phenotype. It really just depends.

[Gorwingel]

Well if one parent had blue eyes, and the other had brown. That does not mean that the child would have blue-brown eyes. Now I am not an expert in genetics (my experience mostly consists of short lessons in biology and chemistry classes), so I do not know much, but Arwen would not have to have blonde hairs in her hair. And I also think that we have to also consider that elves are kind of special, and Arwen was specifically a very special elf. So I think her hair color was on purpose in a way.

Am I making sense?

[piosenniel]

Here is an interesting reference on Hair Color Genetics for Tolkien's Elves:

Hair Color

[Legolas]

2) Elves have gestational periods of almost exactly one year, but humans' gestational period is around 9 months (if all goes well). So how long did Arwen carry Eldarion?

9 months. Arwen wasn't an elf.

[symestreem]

Arwen may not have been an elf by doom, but she was an elf if we are talking about biology and genetics. I doubt her body suddenly rearranged itself when she became mortal. One of elven blood who chooses to become mortal does not lose their elven physical traits, I believe. Look at the royal line of Numenor, Gondor and Arnor.

[Amarie of the Vanyar]

Biologically, Arwen wasn't an elf, either, she was a half-elf

I don't remember whether Tolkien mentioned anywhere the gestational period for half-elven, but it must be somewhere between 9 and 12 months

[Frodo Baggins]

Very interesting article on the genetics of Elven hair colours. However, the author failed to note that ALL children of Luthien, even down through the kings of Numenor and Gondor are dark haired no matter what dominant and recessive genes their non-Luthein-descendant parent has.

[Finwe]

Where did you get that from, if you don't mind me asking. We have no way of knowing that all of her descendants had dark hair. We only know that a few did.

[Elianna]

That was a great article piosenniel. Thanks a ton! It gladdens me that others have thought of this in such depth.

So my question of hair color is answered, but what about the other two?

No matter which doom Arwen chose, biologically, she was an elf. And Aragorn is human, no matter how you slice it.

And something in me revolts at thinking of Elves saying "young'uns". How about ertithin "little ones"?

[Lalwendë]

About question 3, maybe young elves could be called 'elvings'?

[Frodo Baggins]

Ah I believe that's "elflings".

[Elianna]

Right, elflings.

But surely the Speakers have their own spiffy word for that oh so memorable time of life.

[Finwe]

In Quenya:

baby --> lapsë

child --> hìna

That is the closest that I could find. I don't have an English-Sindarin list, so I think that we can safely assume that, in Quenya, Elves used these terms to refer to babies or children.

[Lalwendë]

OK, this is a bit clumsy in translation , but how about 'Eldasen'? I think '-sen' means children? Or, young elves could be called something poetic - doesn't 'vanimar' mean 'beautiful ones'? Going along these lines then 'Ertithin' would be a good choice.

I still like elvings though, it suggests young eels...an elf could say 'well, back in my elvinghood it was all trees and fields around here'. Perhaps.

[symestreem]

Elvinghood suggests ents to me. But they are close, in that they are both peaceful and in tune with the natural world.

[Legolas]

No matter which doom Arwen chose, biologically, she was an elf.

As stated above, biologically she was *not* an elf. She was in no way an elf really, other than having a similar course of aging until she was forced to decide. The original decree was that any being with any amount of blood was mortal. A decision to be immortal would've been the departure from how things had "naturally" occurred before - not a decision to be mortal.

[symestreem]

So the question is, would Arwen have died even if she accompanied Elrond to Valinor? That seems the only logical outcome of Legolas's argument. Otherwise, it must be argued that Arwen had no mortal blood in her, or that Elrond's decision to be an elf negated this mortal blood.
When we say 'mortal', are we talking biologically or doomically?

On the subject of elven genetics:
Elves and humans can produce fertile children, so that means that they must have the same number of chromosomes. I'm not a genetics expert, but that seems to indicate that elves and humans are biologically closely related, and that elves merely have more favorable expressed traits than humans. However, since they always express these favorable traits, and never recessive ones, this indicates that someone (Eru) made it this way on purpose.

[Legolas]

The proposition that she would die in Valinor does not apply - if she chose immortality, Eru himself would've changed her fundamental kind. That is exactly the point.

[Elianna]

Legolas: Oooooooookay, after several minutes I think I finally understand what you're saying. Thanks.

[Voralphion]

I don't think that using modern genetic theory to try and describe elves is really that productive, as Tolkien was not a genetic expert and didn't try to introduce genetics into his work. In one of his letters he said that the reason that elves and men were able to breed was because they were in effect the same species but just had different fates and gifts, but that was as far as he went.
Also if modern genetics were involved in Middle Earth, they would be more complex than simple Mendelian inheritance which many people are using to try and describe the traits of characters.

[symestreem]

Originally Posted by Legolas

The proposition that she would die in Valinor does not apply - if she chose immortality, Eru himself would've changed her fundamental kind. That is exactly the point.

But what was her fundamental kind? Was she biologically elven or was she biologically 23/32 elven? In the Appendices, she is listed as an Eldar.

[Legolas]

Mortal.

The original decree was that any being with any amount of blood was mortal. A decision to be immortal would've been the departure from how things had "naturally" occurred before - not a decision to be mortal.

Tolkien:

Arwen was not an elf, but one of the half-elven who abandoned her elvish rights.

[Lhundulinwen]

Wow! This has gotten deep fast! Good job, y'all.

In defense of the southern part of the U.S., young'uns is our brand of poetic speaking. Maybe ME elves would say something more ME eloquent, but I'd be just fine with Elrond saying, 'Get up here, young'un! We gota boat to catch!' (or something similar) . But maybe that's just my southern fried version.

On the genetic end, my mom has blue eyes and my dad dark brown. I have a hazel color, but depending on my future husband's genetics I could easily have blue eyed or brown eyed children. My brother has the same color as my dad's. So, I would think hair would go the same way. Arwen's children probably had different shades of hair color, but basically the same color family. But, in ME, regular genetics wouldn't apply, as has already been said. But for the sake of arguement, that's my take on it.

[Orcrist]

Here's another good question. Are the children of a union of an elf and a man mortal or immortal? I think it says somewhere that Aragorn and Arwen's kid was mortal. It also says that Dior, son of Bren and Luthien, was mortal? Why? Is there any other referance to the children of an elf and a man? I would guess that the human genes are dominant over elven genes. Heck, Elves might not even have genes. I know this isn't what you're talking about now, but I just thought I'd mention it.

[Legolas]

Are the children of a union of an elf and a man mortal or immortal? I think it says somewhere that Aragorn and Arwen's kid was mortal.

Seems you missed the conversation altogther - Arwen was not an elf. She was half-elven - and was granted a special choice by Eru as to which race she was to share her doom with. This choice was given to seven people only - Earendil/Elwing's family, only because of Earendil's great deeds. Earendil and Elwing, their sons Elros and Elrond, and Elrond's children Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen. They were *not* elves - they were half-elven.

This is an often discussed/confused concept, which is why this site has provided a full explanation here .

All other half-elven beings (of which we know only two other instances) are mortal by the fact that they have some mortal blood (Dior and his sons, and the line of the Princes of Dol Amroth). These are the only other occurrences.

[Saraphim]

I slept through most of Biology class. Hey, it was first period.
But I did copy my notes from my friend, so I know the basics of the basics of the basics of genetics.

First of all, I know that the term 'half-elf' is kind of a blanket term to describe beings with both human and elven blood. But technichally, Arwen was 'three-fourths-elf' (three of her grandparents were elves; only one human).

Elrond passed on dark hair, which overrides light hair something like 80% of the time. Arwen's 'midnight sheen' or whatever is just a literary description of her beauty. She may have had a sort of light sheen to her dark hair, but that's because she was the Undomiel and all of that, and supposed to be beutiful.

Most likely, Arwen would have carried her children for 9 months. Because a) He children were mortal, and b) so was she, technically. They would also, most likely, have had dark hair, because the 80% thing I mentioned earlier would be up to something like 99% with Aragorn's dark hair in the equation.

[Voralphion]

(three of her grandparents were elves; only one human).

Actually only two of her grandparents were full elves, (Galadriel and Celeborn), and her other two grandparents were half-elven, (Earendil and Elwing).

[Saraphim]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Elwing. So Arwen must be something like ten-twelfths-elf.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I probably am). I'm terribly bad at fractions.

[symestreem]

Saraphim, Arwen was 23/32 elvish by birth.
OK, I finally understand now. The choice had to be given to Elrond's children because they were the mortal children of an immortal (so to speak.)
So what if Elladan and Elrohir went to Valinor, married the elf next door, and had children? Would the choice have to be extended to them as well, because they had mortal blood, and to their children and grandchildren?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Sorry to go off topic a bit,

Finwe said:

That is the closest that I could find. I don't have an English-Sindarin list, so I think that we can safely assume that, in Quenya, Elves used these terms to refer to babies or children.

Well i have a gift for thee then, in Sindarin these are possible names:

Chîn - Children (You could have guessed this as it appears in Narn i·Chîn Hurin "Tale of the Children of Hurin"

ui - Young (Or "ei ui", Too Young)

Eldar gwain - New Elf

I hope that helped.

(And now for all you others who want Elvish, Entish or Adûnaic translations, go to http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/index.html and learn the Languages!)

[Legolas]

So what if Elladan and Elrohir went to Valinor, married the elf next door, and had children? Would the choice have to be extended to them as well, because they had mortal blood, and to their children and grandchildren?

Nothing is ever stated (that I can think of) about this, but it seems logical that once in Aman, the line would immortal without question.

[Saraphim]

Thanks, symestreem. That was really bothering me.

I have a question. Does being half-elf constitute having the 'choice', like Luthien, or is it that one of thier parentswas human and one was an elf, like Earendil? But then again, Earendil had the choice too.

I'm glad Tolkien didn't make things too difficult for his fans.

(Kidding. If it wasn't so complicated, it wouldn't be as fun to talk about.)

[Legolas]

Being 'half elven' genetically does not mean a being has a choice between mortality and immortality. *Only* Earendil's family was given the choice, and it would not extend forever - the choice would stop with Elrond's offspring. The family was only given this privelege by way of Earendil's great deeds and the impression it left on the Valar.

Additionally, aside from a strange pairing that led to the line of the Princes of Dol Amroth, elves and men did not reproduce - literally a three-time event (Beren-Luthien/Tuor-Idril/Imrazor-Mithrellas). It was far from 'often' or 'occasional' - not even frequent enough to be described as 'rare.' Three times in history...that's all.

like Luthien, or is it that one of thier parentswas human and one was an elf, like Earendil? But then again, Earendil had the choice too.

Luthien only had the choice after she and Beren both died...Luthien was not half mortal. She was simply given the choice because of her great deeds - it was a favour to her from Eru. This is entirely separate of the half-elven choice.

[I think some of this misunderstanding stems from the movies and their portrayal of Arwen - she is made out to be an elf who is trying to decide if she wants to give up being immortal to be with a mortal...this leads to the misconception that elves have the ability to become mortal if they wish. Not even the Valar have the power to change this...Eru himself has the sole power.]

[symestreem]

New hypothetical situation:
Say Elladan or Elrohir stays in Middle-earth (with Elrond) and had a kid (perhaps we could call a young elf 'edhelhon' or 'edhilhon' child or children of elves respectively). Since he did not to Aman, the immortality would still be in question. Would this child then be extended the same choice as its father, or would it simply have to choose whether or not to leave Middle-earth with its father or grandfather?

Along similar lines, if elves and men are the same species, then you could theoretically breed someone with the physical traits of an elf, but mortal, from men.

These half-elven are really confusing. Tolkien seems to have a lot of contradictory information on them. But, the discussion is fun!