We're told that Tuor was allowed in Valinor and was supposedly given immortality (within Arda). Now, after Glorfindel died in the fall of Gondolin, went to Mandos and was re-embodied after a "short time", he must have been in Valinor (outside the Halls of Mandos) for quite some time before he was sent back to ME (in SA 1600?). If this is all true, he would have had ample opportunity to meet Tuor, wouldn't he? And after Glorfindel returned to ME, he could have confirmed to the elfs and to the men that the grandfather of Elrond and Elros walked the streets of Tirion, couldn't he?
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Where did you read that Tuor was granted immortality?– EdlothiadCommented Mar 5, 2017 at 19:05
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1@Edlothiad That's actually in the published Silmarillion (in the part about the fall of Gondolin), but it's stated as a Noldorin legend rather than as history.– SpencerCommented Mar 5, 2017 at 20:06
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It's also mentioned in one of Tolkien's letters, IIRC, in a context that suggests that Tolkien thought of it as something that 'really' happened - it's compared to Luthien's taking on the Doom of Men, "an exception either way".– cometaryorbitCommented Mar 6, 2017 at 3:16
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@Spencer, my mistake, really need a re-read– EdlothiadCommented Mar 6, 2017 at 3:17
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I keep reading it as "Tudor" and wondering which one :-( . And I'm not even a history nerd.– KevinCommented Mar 6, 2017 at 4:44
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1 Answer
The published Silmarillion was edited together (by Christopher Tolkien) from different versions written by J. R. R. Tolkien over something like a 40-50 year span.
The decision to make Glorfindel of Gondolin the same person as the Glorfindel in LOTR was very late in JRRT's life (see "Last Writings" in The Peoples of Middle-Earth [History of Middle-Earth vol. XII]), and so any implications of that decision aren't likely to have been carried through into the Silmarillion stories.
There are other cases like this -- the published Silmarillion goes with the 'Orcs as corrupted Elves' origin although Tolkien later leaned towards Orcs being largely derived from Men (see the Orcs essays in "Myths Transformed" in Morgoth's Ring [HOME vol. X]).
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Thanks for the answer. So it appears to be a minor oversight by JRRT due to the late decision to make the two Glorfindels one and the same. I suppose that within the universe one could attribute the inconsistency to a problem of interpretations and sources; but that is hard to see as Bilbo could have easily asked Glorfindel directly, and there were less than two hundred years between Bilbo's departure and Findegil's writings.– MandosCommented Mar 6, 2017 at 13:27