Talk:Elethil

I'm putting together a family tree for Elethil, and I have a question: this wiki says that he has two sisters, one older and one younger. I've found the reference for the younger sister, in Reconciliation Ch 3, but is there a separate reference elsewhere to the older sister?

Or is it the same reference? The exact quotation is:


 * ...Elethil, could respond to his younger sister's innumerable letters regarding her impending marriage....

Unfortunately, the way I read it, this is ambiguous.... not sure what the comparative, younger, is meant to compare to. That is, should it be interpreted as "the younger of E's two sisters", or as "E's (one) sister, who is younger than he".....?

So, the real question is, which is the case in Unabeauverse canon:


 * E has only one sister, who is younger than he.


 * E has two sisters, and the sentence quoted above is the only reference to the older one, or
 * E has two sisters, and there is another reference to the older one in another story or chapter (and if so, where?)?

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this!

- Barbara  (Obsessive? Moi?)

Oops, forgot to sign it....

- Barbara (Elena Tiriel)

Elena Tiriel 10:17, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Elethil's siblings
Hi Barbara,

The reference in chapter 3 was meant to be a comparative between sisters as well as between sister and brother: Elethil has two sisters, one older than he is and one younger, but apparently I did not manage to jam in an explicit reference to the older one, or to specify how many brothers he had (he has multiple brothers, that is stated at least twice, but no numbers given). I think I may have said how many they were in a draft of a chapter at some point, but the exchange got lost during editing and rewrites. That he is the fifth of six children is given in chapter 10 of Reconciliation, so you know the younger sister was the last child.

Dwim

Dwimordene 13:12, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Aha, that's exactly what I needed!

That he was the 5th of 6 (sounds like a Borg....) escaped my notice... and that fact, coupled with the 3 older brothers mentioned in Reconciliation ch 4, gives him an implicit older sister. (That the 3 brothers are all Swan Knights who can whump his ass counts as gravy, er, character development. ;-) )

Thanks, Dwim!

- Barbara

Elena Tiriel 22:37, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Borgified Swan Knights... now there's a scary idea! And thank you for finding the "I have three brothers" passage - I was looking for it this morning and couldn't find it. There was so much that got changed after about chapter 6 of the first draft that I had convinced myself I must have cut that reference. So between Reconciliation 3, 4, and 10, we have the means to work out Elethil's family. Phew!

(Yes, Elethil's brothers are a force to be reckoned with, though I figure they were probably worse for a starry-eyed younger brother who likes music before Ornendil and/or his predecessor ran them into the ground and instilled a little humility and responsibility. After that, they were probably all somewhat less intense versions of their father.)

Dwim

Dwimordene 22:51, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

Yep, thanks to you, got everything needed for the family tree... including Kin-Strife ch 1, which establishes Elethil as a son of minor nobility, but not the heir (hence, at least one older brother)....

I should have the new family tree posted within the hour....

And as far as his brothers: yes, I can see Ornendil (metaphorically) beating some sense into them... too bad the father never went for (or completed?) Swan Knight training.

But the brothers weren't there in training when the rules changed vis-à-vis bigotry against Haradrim... I wonder what they would make of Elethil's career as a diplomat? Not just that it isn't a Swan Knight, but the fact that he deals with Haradrim?

(*lights fuse on nuzgûlim, tosses them, and flees.....*)

- Barbara

Elena Tiriel 23:12, July 5, 2010 (UTC)

I look forward to the tree - the visual layout helps bring home how much orbits around the edges of these names and helps suggest a whole background in a way that reading sentences does not. It's a neat effect, in addition to being, as noted, very useful!

Personally, I think humility being beaten into Elethil's brothers was not quite as metaphorical - given how they train Swan Knights or just about any highly disciplined and skilled combat unit, if someone isn't showing the proper attitude, a few extra miles of running through sand dunes or being the demonstration dummy for every sparring lesson or subjected to extra chores will likely get the message through in time. The Armsmaster is fully on board with the "learning through pain" concept, and anyone who evinces an attitude that is unknightly or ignoble in some fashion or other, or who just seems to be getting too full of himself will learn better... forcibly.

(Somewhere online, whilst looking in vain for stuff on scimitars, I did find a site that reported that the sword masters who were responsible for creating the Fechtbücher were fond of saying, "Was sehrt, das lehrt" - what hurts, teaches.)

As for fraternal opinion on Elethil's ultimate choice of career, I imagine they would respect the fact that diplomats are necessary and that Elethil seems to be good at it. Where they would be less comfortable is with the fact that he does, eventually, and with a will, lose his prejudices. He would be just a little unreliable to them, and they'd see that as a manifestation of his being softer, more easily led by qualities that are not marital in nature, and so perhaps less manly, less admirable, etc. He's not a power-politician.

Nice try with the nuzgul, but no, that one isn't biting yet!

Dwim

Dwimordene 00:11, July 6, 2010 (UTC)

The new tree for Elethil is up.... finishing one for Brandmir atm....

Too bad on the nuzgûl not biting ;-) ... but it sounds like you have these characters pretty thoroughly figured out, and it wouldn't make much of a story, anyway....

(Not that *you* couldn't spin an interesting story around the family dynamics, if you chose.... LOL!)

Thanks for your kind words about the family trees... I have real difficulties "getting" family relationships beyond parents and siblings (especially when you throw in myriad uncles/aunts, nieces/nephews, and cousins, like Denethor, Andrahar and Hethlin have) until I see them....

- Barbara

Elena Tiriel 00:29, July 6, 2010 (UTC)