A Question … Rebirth and the HoMe

I was having an innocent conversation about Glorfindel when the question of Feanor’s rebirth came up.  My comment ‘when pigs fly’ was not made with the intention of beginning a serious discussion, but it became just that.  (I didn’t understand till too late just how into Tolkien and canon she is.)

She began speaking from the History of Middle-Earth (which I do not know at all).  I simply have to take her word for it.  Where it says that Feanor will take the Silmarils to Yavanna, she interprets it as meaning that he has been reborn and is a mature elf.  She said that it does not say that he will be released from Mandos Halls in order to deliver the silmarils to Yavanna.  In her opinion, if that is what Tolkien meant, that is what he would have written. 

After shutting me up completely, she quotes from the Laws and Customs of the Eldar (which I did not know existed).  Apparently it says that no elf has ever been reborn twice.  She insists that means that some have actually gone there twice.  Therefore, all elves have the expectation of rebirth.  Thus, Feanor would not be denied rebirth.  My intelligent comment was ‘huh’.   

Never ever get into an innocent discussion with someone who has read as much Tolkien as her.  She even sent me a link to an essay on the whole subject.  WoW.  I’m speechless. 

Finally I arrive at the question.   If what she says is accurate, Glorfindel’s return isn’t as singular an event as I’d believed unless it is because he was returned and not reborn.  He was not the greatest warrior of the First Age or the only one that sacrificed himself at Gondolin.   Is it just for the sake of a good story that Glorfindel is written as a larger than life figure, or is there more to it?  I’m sooo confused.