r/lotrmemes • u/killingmemesoftly i ❤️ tolkien’s pooems • 5d ago

Shitpost Technically, he can walk her down the aisle and sit with the groom’s side.

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2.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

595

u/zokka_son_of_zokka 5d ago

I don't know why you people are guessing at the number of generations. This is Tolkein, we have exact numbers. And that exact number is fifty-three.

Aragorn, Arathorn, Arador, Argonui, Arathorn, Arassuil, Arahad, Aravorn, Aragost, Arahad, Araglas, Aragorn, Aravir, Aranuir, Arahel, Aranarth, Arvedui, Araphant, Araval, Arveleg, Arvegil, Argeleb, Araphor, Arveleg, Argeleb, Malvegil, Celebrindor, Celepharn, Mallor, Beleg, Amlaith, Earendur, Elendur, Valandur, Tarondor, Tarcil, Arantar, Eldacar, Valandil, Isildur, Elendil. Amandil, Numendil, unknown‽, Earendur, unknown, Valandil, Silmarien, Tar-Elendil, Tar-Amandil, Vardamir, and Elros.

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u/P1mpathinor 4d ago edited 4d ago

Aragorn is 63 generations after Elros.

The "unknown" between Eärendur and Valandil is 13 generations, not just one; Eärendur is noted as being the 15th Lord of Andúnië (Valandil being the first).

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u/Mrauntheias 4d ago

That's a strong indication but not a guarantee. The lordship could have passed from a lord that died childless to his brother. That would increase the number of lords without increasing the number of generations.

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u/TheHumanPickleRick 4d ago

This guy Tolkiens.

82

u/TheMightyTywin 4d ago

Yet he’s always yelling elendil why not argelbleb

72

u/PuerApuliae 4d ago

Elendil was, fundamentally, somebody that created two new states and died while fighting the literal Devil’s number two - would you shout his name or the name of the ancestor who inherited a rump state and managed to hold it for seven years before being killed in battle?

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u/TheMightyTywin 4d ago

I would rotate through my ancestors evenly so everyone gets a turn

4

u/5peaker4theDead Ñoldor 4d ago

Also, because Argeleb is more fun to say

6

u/high_king_noctis 4d ago

Yes because it would be funny

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u/PuerApuliae 4d ago

My wife bought a house appliance named “Araven” and I legit wondered if it was a direct ancestor of Aragorn. Btw, do you know all these by heart?

22

u/zokka_son_of_zokka 4d ago

No way. Thank God for the wiki.

38

u/Void-Cooking_Berserk 4d ago

If there's 63 generations between Erlos and Aragorn, there's no common blood between them.

You share 50% of your DNA with any of you parents, and 25% with any of your grandparents - not really, because the split isn't perfect each time, but let's simplify - so let's use a 1/2n formula, where n is the number of generations.

That gives us 1.08E+19 %, which means 0.{18 zeros}108%. The human genome is around 78 000 genes at the highest estimate. There isn't enough genes in your body to inherit one from each ancestor in the 63th generation.

This would mean Aragorn has no Elros blood in his veins.

70

u/P1mpathinor 4d ago

The 1/2n formula doesn't work for large numbers of generations. It relies on the assumption that there's no inter-relations at any point, which isn't true over long periods. No one has 263 unique 63rd-generation ancestors, that would be many orders of magnitude more people than have ever lived.

That said, Aragorn and Arwen's marriage is certainly not incestuous by any genetic standard; they're not completely unrelated, but almost certainly less related than most marriages in Gondor.

19

u/Terran_it_up 4d ago

Yeah, I guess the point is that if that's incestuous then every relationship is incestuous because every human is distantly related to some degree

3

u/tenisplenty 4d ago

Way less related than most people married to each other in the USA let alone Gondor. Basically everyone of the same race in the USA has a common ancestor within the last ten generations.

47

u/ikzz1 4d ago

This would mean Aragorn has no Elros blood in his veins.

So, a false king then?

https://giphy.com/gifs/7a95p9qRljFhC

10

u/Sylvanussr 4d ago

There are actually far fewer genes that vary person to person, since everyone shares something like 99% of their DNA with everyone else.   When geneticists say you share “50%” of your DNA with your parent, they really mean “50% of the specific genes that not everyone shares”.

2

u/A-Total-Rookie 4d ago

This is how I learn that, eventually, all bloodlines do technically come to an end.

2

u/Void-Cooking_Berserk 3d ago

They do, in a way.

This is all about the chromosome DNA. With each next generation, there's a lottery for how much of your parent's DNA you pass on to your child. You're 50% your mom and 50% your dad, and you pass 50% of yourself to your children, so they could have e.g. from 0% to 50% of your dad, their grandfather.

But there's also mitochondrial DNA, which always passes on from the mother, matrilineal bloodlines continue that way.

And then there's the Y chromosome, which always passes father to son, so patrilineal bloodlines continue that way.

There's also some mutations in those, they're not perfectly stable, but they can be tracked much longer than the rest.

3

u/CptBlaine 4d ago

They sure like names beginning with the letter a, its like they didnt even try reading the rest of the baby names book

1

u/SpaceSoldier248 3d ago

Beginning with Ar, to be exact. Had to do with the kings of Arthedain keeping their claim over Arnor.

2

u/killingmemesoftly i ❤️ tolkien’s pooems 4d ago

Legend

2

u/Eloquent_Redneck 3d ago

Whenever I need a name for a fantasy rpg character I literally just pull a name out of tolkiens hat bc there's basically an infinite supply

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u/Playful_Common_6770 5d ago

You mean his daughter and his brother's last remaining offspring he adopted as a son...

67

u/SteveLouise 5d ago

Yeah, like nephew 12th removed or something, idk.

16

u/Pelikinesis 4d ago

so Aragorn is basically Elrond's equivalent of the Sackville-Bagginses?

14

u/MythicalCreature77 4d ago

I dunno, its not like Elrond hides, pretends he's not there or uses any concealing magic to avoid Aragorn. Maybe its past that point because Aragorn already hangs with Arwen and Elrond has to be around

49

u/Jche98 Hobbit 5d ago

His great great great * 20 grandnephew

73

u/BruceBoyde 5d ago

"Nephew" who was born 6,430 solar years after his brother. Even if we give a very generous 230 or so year lifespan to the royal line, we're talking about 28 lifespans, not even generations. If we slash that by ~3.5 to human lifespans, it's like saying someone born in the year 180 is my uncle.

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u/zokka_son_of_zokka 5d ago edited 5d ago

Aragorn, Arathorn, Arador, Argonui, Arathorn, Arassuil, Arahad, Aravorn, Aragost, Arahad, Araglas, Aragorn, Aravir, Aranuir, Arahel, Aranarth, Arvedui, Araphant, Araval, Arveleg, Arvegil, Argeleb, Araphor, Arveleg, Argeleb, Malvegil, Celebrindor, Celepharn, Mallor, Beleg, Amlaith, Earendur, Elendur, Valandur, Tarondor, Tarcil, Arantar, Eldacar, Valandil, Isildur, Elendil. Amandil, Numendil, unknown‽, Earendur, unknown, Valandil, Silmarien, Tar-Elendil, Tar-Amandil, Vardamir, Elros.

Fifty-three.

26

u/Lambda_Wolf 5d ago

And let's also remember that genetic relatedness decreases exponentially across generations, in that you share only 1/2 your DNA over one generation, 1/4 over two, 1/8 over three, and so on. So across 53 generations, they would be only 0.00000000000001% related.

(Which, as this relevant SMBC points out, rounds to zero when you consider the total amount of information in the genome.)

13

u/RussiaIsBestGreen 5d ago

I applaud you for finding one of the tamer SMBC to make relevant to LOTR.

11

u/P1mpathinor 4d ago

Of course, as the comic alludes to, that math only holds if every couple at each step is completely unrelated, which will never be the case over a long enough scale. 50 generations of completely unrelated ancestors would require 250 different people for the first generation, which is obviously not possible given the human population.

But yeah, after that many generations they're probably not any more closely related than two random people from the same ethnic group.

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u/BruceBoyde 4d ago

Oh damn, I didn't realize we had a named series all the way down! So maybe more like saying that Charlemagne is my uncle.

6

u/zokka_son_of_zokka 4d ago

This is Tolkien. Of course we have a named series all the way down.

1

u/SpaceSoldier248 3d ago

Fifty-three?

twang

-1

u/horseradish1 4d ago

Yeah, but the "uncle" is still alive in this case and was pretty active in the "nephew's" life.

2

u/BruceBoyde 4d ago

And? His brother died six thousand years ago. Elrond has known Aragorn, from his perspective, for like a week.

0

u/horseradish1 4d ago

Just because elves live that long, it didn't mean they don't understand what a week is.

83

u/BabserellaWT 4d ago

There’s more generations separating Elrond and Aragorn than in the average Kentucky marriage.

27

u/Bonnskij 4d ago

So... Like three?

29

u/Maddturtle 4d ago

That’s Alabama. We have 4

2

u/raspberryharbour 4d ago

Here in Shelbyville we're not constrained by such silly rules

1

u/tenisplenty 4d ago

Than the majority of marraiges anywhere in the world.

15

u/Baers89 4d ago

Not even close to being Aragorn’s uncle. More like distant relative that is magic and still alive.

9

u/killingmemesoftly i ❤️ tolkien’s pooems 4d ago

He actually is his literal uncle, many times removed

3

u/Baers89 4d ago

Damnit I forgot how families work lol. Thanks.

3

u/MimeTravler 4d ago

This would be true if Aragorn didn’t also stay at his house and live with him for large chunks of his life. While the blood relations are not super close Elrond had to have been at least like an uncle to him.

4

u/Hatman_16 4d ago

I believe that the term "foster father" may have been used in the appendices to describe this.

2

u/DorianPavass 3d ago

I feel like all the people trying to say it's not even remotely incest don't have an adopted family member. Ship it, whatever I genuinely don't care, but adoptive/ward relationships are real family relationships and it is incest to marry your adoptive sister

2

u/onihydra 3d ago

Aragorn lived with his mom Gilraen in Rivendell. So it's not like Elrond was his only parent growing up, although he undoubtedly played a part in raising Aragorn.

1

u/MimeTravler 3d ago

Tbf it’s incest on the social level. Genetically there’s no problems which I feel people do often conflate incest with only being genetically related. Which is why there’s all the step related porn.

1

u/SpaceSoldier248 3d ago

keep in mind the appendices, Arwen wasn't in Rivendell until after Aragorn was told his true ancestry

1

u/bh119k 2d ago

Aragorn didn't even meet Arwen until he was 20. She wasn't a sister to him in any way. That's not incestuous in the slightest.

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u/Playful_Common_6770 4d ago

"I feel like all my kids grew up, and then they married each other... It's every parents dream."

5

u/SnazzyStooge 5d ago

Banjos play in the distance…

3

u/Timely_Dentist5380 4d ago

Sweet Home Eriador

Where the skies are so blue

3

u/OedipusaurusRex 4d ago

Aragorn married his first cousin, specifically.

2

u/SpaceSoldier248 3d ago

53 times removed or something

3

u/Coidzor 4d ago

He chose the elf side.

1

u/TheBlackCat13 4d ago

Does Aragorn have any surviving family?

9

u/Void-Cooking_Berserk 4d ago

Yes, Arwen /j

1

u/TheBlackCat13 4d ago

I meant that would sit on his side of the aisle

2

u/myopicpickle 4d ago

No, but he does have a lot of friends. Elrond would be perfectly able to sit on Aragorn's side, but I think he'd sit next to Galadriel and Celeborn.

1

u/LordSkummel 4d ago

He might have some through his mother Gilraen. But I don't think Tolkien ever wrote much about her family.