Some People Flip Houses, They Flip Kingdoms

Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: marriage. Tolkien himself was the child of an apparently happy marriage, though one that met with tragedy when first his father and then some years later his mother died while he was still a boy. His own marriage to Edith Bratt lasted for decades until her passing some years before his, bolstered in turn by his strong Catholic faith. When it comes to how he portrayed marriage in both his Middle-earth and other work, there’s a wide range of depictions of what marriage can be, but at the same time it’s fairly notable that very few seemingly happy portrayals of such partnerships exist across the board – and when it comes to his most notable protagonists, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, neither are married at any point before their journey to Valinor, raising questions about what Tolkien might have thought an ideal state of being was in the end. What does Tolkien say about elf marriages in particular in his work, especially in recent formerly unpublished material, and how does that tie in with the examples of human/elf partnerships across the legendarium? Why is the division between the Ents and the Entwives so seemingly thorough and absolute, but at the same time is it something that might seem as dramatic as portrayed? Would Bilbo and Frodo’s adventures, especially the scarring results of the latter’s, have meant that portraying potential relationships of any kind would have meant grappling with the impact of PTSD on those close to survivors? And why is it that maybe the happiest marriage shown throughout The Lord of the Rings itself may in fact be that of Farmer Maggot and his wife?