Gil-Galad: a chicken?

[tehta]

And now for something completely different...

Gil-Galad. I have found yet another reason to be confused regarding his parentage.
Other than this, I mean.
I guess most people around here would vote against Fingon, because of Fingon/Maedhros Christopher Tolkien said this was a mistake, and it should have been Orodreth. However, I recently re-read the Children of Hurin (for Mablung reasons, because Turin gives me a headache), and encountered this:

Then Túrin ... said to [Finduilas]: ‘I had a sister, Lalaith, or so I named her; and of her you put me in mind. But Lalaith was a child, a yellow flower in the green grass of spring; and had she lived she would now, maybe, have become dimmed with grief. But you are queenly, and as a golden tree; I would I had a sister so fair.’

‘But you are kingly,’ said she, ‘even as the lords of the people of Fingolfin; I would I had a brother so valiant.

Which is of course a little ironic, with all the mixing of sibling/sexual affection and the resulting foreshadowing, however: I would I had a brother so valiant? What about poor Ereinion?

I guess we have three options:
* Gil-Galad is not Finduilas' brother at all.
* Gil-Galad has not been born yet, during this conversation. (which, since his father is about to take the fast boat to Mandos at this point, would make him a posthumous baby. And actually, I sort of like this, hmm. It even goes well with the name "scion of kings.")
* Gil-Galad has been born, but has been sent away, and is, at this point in his life, a chicken. (I like this even more, because I like ruining noble Elves' reputations.)

Anyway, several plot-bunnies here!

Comments

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I did think about that... And of course I am being silly here, picking at small shades of meaning, but if I valued valour, and had a sibling with valorous potential, I would say, "I wish my brother would grow up to be like you," not act as if a valorous brother were currently an impossibility.

[rcfinch.livejournal.com]

In which case this sentence probably precedes Tolkien's decision to make G-g her brother. The headache-inducing problem here is that all the textual variants are impossible to date.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's fun to make up random explanations... And breed plot bunnies in the process.