Talk:Minohtar

Should this page not be in Category of House of Anarion.--Shivam (Talk /Contribs/Edits) 15:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

A sister-son of the King would be of a different house, unless the sister's husband was also of the House of Anárion (cf. Éomer's descent from Brego). Minohtar should not be listed as a member in the infobox nor should he be in that category since we have no indication of the identity of his father. --Mord 03:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Would the same then not be true of Fréaláf Hildeson, Soronto, and the Lords of Andúnië? As in, by this reasoning, Fréaláf is not of the House of Eorl, and Soronto and the Lords of Andúnië are not of the House of Elros. --Quirinius 09:22, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, if we apply this logic then Lords of Andúnië won't be members of House of Elros. I think we should include Minhotar in House of Anarion because if he would have survived the war, he was going to be king.--Shivam (Talk /Contribs/Edits) 09:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

So then to what house Elendil's ancestral lineage belonged? 'House of Valandil' or 'House of Andúnië'? --Ar-Zigûr 10:18, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I think both are almost same thing, Valandil was son of Elatan of Andúnië so either you say House of Andúnië or House of Valandil, they are same. Also if J.R.R. Tolkien has written that Elendil was of the line of Elros then he is a member of House of Elros.--Shivam (Talk /Contribs/Edits) 14:44, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

(resetting the indents since I'm replying to everything above since my last edit) As far as I know - though I am always open to correction - in the English and broader Western European context, a person is of their father's house. Regarding the cases Quirinius brought up:

• Fréaláf is the tricky one out of these because he and all his descendants are named as members of the House of Eorl, but we have no idea who his father was. Either JRRT was drawing on an Anglo-Saxon tradition related to family/kinship that I'm not aware of that would modify the English usage I'm familiar with, or we have to assume that Fréaláf's father was of the House of Eorl (as Éomund was).
• Soronto's grandfather Hatholdir was described in UT as a "descendant of the House of Hador", suggesting he descended from Hador in the female line somewhere and not from Elros, since one would expect JRRT to have described him as such if he were. This would not have prevented Soronto from becoming the King's Heir under the "new law" of Tar-Aldarion either with or without the provision that the King's Heir must marry within the Line of Elros, because his mother Ailinel could never have been the King's Heir. We have no evidence that Soronto was of the House of Elros and circumstantial evidence that he was not. It seems that the Sceptre was in real danger of passing from the House of Elros if Ancalimë hadn't ultimately bent to her father's will.
• The Lords of Andúnië are never described explicitly as part of the House or Line of Elros that I can find in searching my pdfs of UT, Silm, and LOTR. They are spoken of both as the "house" (lowercase) and "House" (uppercase) in various sources "of the Lords of Andúnië". This is the only formulation I've found JRRT to use; though "House of Valandil" and "House of Elatan" would both be accurate strictly speaking, they would technically be non-canon. I think JRRT opted to consistently use the formulation "House of the Lords of Andúnië" because the title was established for the sake of its female founder Silmariën, but that's just speculation. Anyway, in Silm JRRT speaks of the "house of the Lords of Andúnië" separately from the "House of Elros" ("for though they remained loyal indeed to the King and the House of Elros, they wished to keep the friendship of the Eldar"). This quote doesn't necessarily mean they are separate, but JRRT went out of his way to establish a distinction. I don't think he considered the House of the Lords of Andúnië to be part of the House of Elros.

Regarding Shivam's comment about Elendil, I don't believe JRRT ever stated Elendil to be of the "line of Elros". The closest statement I found was in the Silm index, "Elendil Called the Tall; son of Amandil, last lord of Andúnië in Númenor, descended from Eärendil and Elwing but not of the direct line of the Kings". "Descended from the House of X" is a meaningfully different statement from "Member of the House of X" as genealogy goes. --Mord 10:12, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I searched books, and I'm sure that I read that Elendil was of line of Elros that why I italicized it to lay emphasis on it. Now for source that Elendil was of line of Elros - if you read the chapter Akallabeth it is mentioned and I quote "The chief among them, to whom they looked for leading and courage in evil days, was Amandil, councillor of the King, and his son Elendil, whose sons were Isildurand Anárion, then young men by the reckoning of Númenor. Amandil and Elendil were great ship-captains; and they were of the line of Elros Tar-Minyatur, though not of the ruling house to whom belonged the crown and the throne in the city of Armenelos."

Now about Fréaláf, it's really tricky as we have no info about his father. So no comment there.

For Soronto, his father is descendant of House of Hador, so I think he related to Kings of Numenor by blood also if no direct male heirs are left he could have been King also he is grandson of king.--Shivam (Talk /Contribs/Edits) 12:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for the late (and lengthy) reply; I've been searching everywhere for the "House of X" and "Line of X" constructions, and this is what I found.

Regarding "House of X", WOTJ shows what JRRT meant by this term in section "The new genealogies of the Edain", particularly the family trees on pp. 231, 234, and 237. Specifically look at Húrin and Morwen: in the tree of the House of Bëor, Morwen is shown unbracketed while her husband is shown as "[Húrin]" and son as "[Túrin]", while on the tree of the House of Hador, the opposite holds. The same pattern applies to Rían, Huor, and Tuor. Backing up the visual depiction, text on p.61 says "Hurin Galion's son of the House of Hador wedded Morwen Elfsheen daughter of Baragund of the House of Beor."

I couldn't find an explicit statement in text that Túrin himself is of the House of Hador (though there are many indirect statements to that effect and I don't think anyone would realistically dispute this), but I was able to find a definitive statement regarding Tuor, whose descent is identical to Túrin's in terms of House: POME p.348, "Itarildë daughter of Turgon was the mother of Eärendil; but his father was a Man of the Atani, of the House of Hador: Tuor son of Huor".

From NOME (it's p.299 for me but I only have a .pdf file without print page numbers): "The Line of Elros was regarded as belonging to the House of Hador through Eärendil (son of Tuor, the great-great-grandson of Hador); but it was also descended on the distaff side from the House of Bëor through Elwing wife of Eärendil, daughter of Dior, son of Beren (last chieftain of the House of Bëor, and seventh in direct descent from Bëor)." (emphasis mine)

From The Silmarillion, consider Eöl's words to Maeglin: "‘You are of the house of Eöl, Maeglin, my son,’ he said, ‘and not of the Golodhrim."

Regarding the capitalization of "house" and "House," Scull & Hammond in the Reader's Companion p.xliii: "Christopher Tolkien commented to us that some apparent inconsistencies of form in his father’s work indeed may have been deliberate: for instance, although Tolkien carefully distinguished house ‘dwelling’ from House ‘noble family or dynasty’, in two instances he used house in the latter sense but in lower case, perhaps because a capital letter would have detracted from the importance of the adjective with which the word was paired (‘royal house’, ‘golden house’). In other cases variations in usage probably were no more than the result of natural but unnoticed changes of mind over the long period in which The Lord of the Rings was written."

As such, I consider it definite that when JRRT speaks of someone as being of the "House of X" he means specifically "patrilineally descended from X". Sometimes his language is less than fully precise, so you can find places where he speaks of "the house of Hador" when referring to the entire golden-haired people who dwelt in Dor-lómin, but often he takes care to write "descended from the House of X" or "of the people of X" or "the folk of X" when he wants to express distaff descent or ambiguous non-familial social or distant kin relationships. Usually he refers to the "folk of Haleth" rather than "House of Haleth," owing to their female namesake - you can see this in the Elvish, where "Bar Bëora" translates to "House of Bëor," while "nothir Haletha" signifies "folk of Haleth." (A similar distinction can be seen between the "folk of Marach," from which descends the "House of Hador," though both qualify as Houses.)

So, regarding Soronto: we're not told what House he is of, only that his paternal grandfather Hatholdir was a "descendant of the House of Hador". Technically, it would be accurate to describe even the Kings as being "descendants of the House of Hador," but JRRT would not do this, because for one thing the Kings are actually of the House of Hador, not just descended from it, and for another, the House of Elros is much more relevant to the Kingship than that of Hador. I feel very certain that, given the context, JRRT would have described Hatholdir as "of the House of Elros" or a "descendant of the House of Elros" if he intended Hatholdir to be either of these things. We do not know what House Hatholdir and Soronto actually belonged to or how they descend from Hador.

Before discussing Elendil, I'll share what I found about the "Line of X" construction, including a few alternate constructions of the Silm quote you provided.

From Silm p.337 (PDF) "Highest in honour after the house of the kings were the Lords of Andúnië; for they were of the line of Elros, being descended from Silmariën, daughter of Tar-Elendil the fourth king of Númenor."

From Sauron Defeated p.346 "Of whom the chief was one Amardil and his son Elendil (who was called also Eärendil for his love of the sea, and for his father, though not of the elder line which sat upon the throne of Numenor, was also of the blood of Eärendil of old)."

From Sauron Defeated p.365 "Of these the chief was one Arbazân, and his son Nimruzân, great captains of ships; and they were of the line of Indilzar Azrabêlo, though not of the elder house, to whom belonged the crown and throne in the city of Arminalêth. "

From POME: p.193 "The direct line of the eldest son ruled the realm of Arthedain", p.203 "The names of these rulers are here added; for though the Hurinionath were not in the direct line of descent from Elendil, they were ultimately of royal origin", p.263 "Dirhael and his wife were of high lineage, being of the blood of Isildur though not of the right line of the Heirs."

The phrase "House of Elros" appears only 3 times in all the published Legendarium, all 3 times in reference to the Kings of Númenor as distinct from the Faithful in general, not specifically the Lords of Andúnië.

From the above, I think that JRRT meant "direct line of X," "right line of X," or "elder line of X," to be even more stringent than "House of X", all meaning "the most senior branch of patrilineal descendants of X." JRRT seems to have used the unqualified "line of X" to mean "all descendants of X." I believe this usage is consistent with the evidence, and means JRRT did not intend Elendil or the House of the Lords of Andúnië to be of the House of Elros. He did write they were of the Line of Elros, as you pointed out, but "House" has a much more stringent condition than "Line," one that the Lords of Andúnië do not fulfill.

Whew! After all this research I think I should write an article on "House" to keep it in! --Mord 07:30, 11 April 2022 (UTC)