... at any time up to...

... oh...

... probably about the time the White Council was formed, she would totally have taken it.

Seriously. Read the passage again. She has fantasised about getting her hands on it:

"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer. For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands..."

I think she genuinely surprised herself when she turned it down. Galadriel had been in rebellion against the Powers, and in pursuit of more power for herself, for over ten thousand years at this point. She turned it down at the last - but she was still in every way a child of the House of Finwe.

hS

It does, but it doesn't provide any references. They claim that 'Elrond was a direct descendant of Turgon; he never made claim to the Kingship but ruled with all its authority', which is... frankly dubious, given that we never saw Elrond exert any authority over the Grey Havens, the last Noldorin realm in existence. They also say that 'It has been argued that following Gil-galad’s death, Elrond had the right to become High King of the Noldor, but he never claimed the title', which makes the lack of references explicit.

They do cite the claim that 'Galadriel of the House of Finarfin perhaps could have some rights', but it's cited to Foster's Complete Guide to Middle-earth, ie, not the canon. I may have a copy of that, so I'll look it up if I think of it.

As for the Numenoreans... actually, that's a point against female-line succession! Per Tolkien Gateway again:

Before Tar-Aldarion changed the Law of Succession in Númenor only the son of the King could be the King's heir or, if he had no son, then the nearest male kinsman of male descent from Elros Tar-Minyatur would be King. This meant that Malantur (grandson of Tar-Elendil's younger brother Eärendur) was in line for the Sceptre. After Tar-Aldarion changed the law, his daughter Ancalimë could become the ruler of Númenor. But because of a clause in the changed law that said that the Queen had to marry in order to keep her position and could not die childless, Soronto apparently remained hopeful of receiving the Sceptre.

The entire female line was excluded from the Numenorean kingship until Tar-Ancalime. The question is, whose inheritence rules were they following? Elros was descended from the royal houses of Beor, Hador, Doriath, and Gondolin; his people were mostly Hadorian. We know the Doriathrin line passed through women (to Dior 'Thingol's Heir', by Luthien); we don't really know about the others, but the only Noldorian one is Gondolin (and they were weird anyway). So, circumstantially, women may have been excluded from Noldorin royalty - but as you say, it's pretty indirect.

hS

The trouble is, the Elvish population in the Third Age was almost exclusively Wood-elves. The two major realms, Lorien and Mirkwood, were made up of that people - but led by exiles of Beleriand (Galadriel the Noldo, Celeborn and Thranduil the Sindar). West of the Mountains you have Elrond running a single household (and Tolkien's drawings make it clear that he was literally thinking of a single house). The only Noldorin/Sindarin realm of any size was the Grey Havens at Mithlond, which was ruled by... Cirdan, who technically isn't even Sindarin ('Sinda', or 'Grey-elf', properly applies to those who got the Light of Aman by proxy from Thingol and Melian. Cirdan was never subject to Doriath, so he's a category all to himself.) Cirdan was also the one whose realm Gil-Galad co-opted - and was the only elf in Middle-earth in the Third Age to remember the Waters of Awakening.

Ultimately, I think the authority of the High King lay fallow for a long time, until it was taken up by the White Council itself. Which was led by Saruman... ;)

hS

The abundance of Finwes and Feanor's plagiarism and everything else, including the combined names comes out to the funniest thing I've read yet today. Thank you :D

Mind you, now I'm wondering if it was just the royal family who were such butters, or if Naergondir and Gurnirel also have something like that going on in their families.

...actually, unless I changed it, Gurnirel was initially named after her father. The name got changed as she grew up, but I'm pretty sure she's still named for him. This probably doesn't count unless all her siblings were named for him, and her children as well, and maybe a bunch of cousins got in on it as well...

Yeah, I'm guessing the royal family's the nuttiest, if nothing else. Also, now I want to see Naergondir somehow get a huge family and name everyone after him and cackle about it to himself when no one's around.

Anyway. Thanks for this morning's dose of hilarity!

~DF

PS: Matimo does seem to be sticking around. I'm not sure yet exactly what he's making of hobbition, but they aren't fighting yet or stealing each others' food. I did suggest that Matimo might have more fun at OFUM; he ignored me. I think he might be waiting to see how much excitement or lack thereof goes on around here...