[optimalsolver]

Also, what happened to Elrond's wife is hinted at, but never directly spelled out, because Tolkien rightly assumes we don't need the explicit details to be horrified by it.

In GoT, it would be several pages/several minutes of screen time.

It's why I could never get into the latter. Just goes for the absolute, lowest common denominator every time, but apparently that's what makes "grown up, serious" fantasy.

[aldarion]

Tolkien was actually the master of fridge logic... and fridge horror. Martin describes everything in detail... with Tolkien, he only hints at things, but when you understand things he is hinting at... let's just say that Middle Earth has a lot in common with Cthulhu Mythos.

[PNewling]

Huh, I had never heard the term 'fridge logic'.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic

[BerislavLopac]

Trebali bismo na kavu iduci put kad sam u HR. ;)

[OscarCunningham]

There's one of Tolkien's notes that implies that elves could and would die in preference to being raped:

> But among all these evils there is no record of any among the Elves that took another's spouse by force; for this was wholly against their nature, and one so forced would have rejected bodily life and passed to Mandos.

So I think this raises some doubts about whether Tolkien intended to imply rape in Celebrian's case rather than some other evil.

[optimalsolver]

Torment in the dungeons of the orcs, what else could that be? The fact she had to leave Middle-earth forever after the ordeal, strongly suggests what actually happened, as does the fact it so galvanized her sons.

[solardev]

After reading all the comments in this thread, I still have no idea what happened to his wife. Maybe Tolkien should just have spelled it out...

[cratermoon]

While crossing the Misty Mountains via Redhorn Pass, Celebrían was captured by orcs. She was held for some time, tortured and poisoned. Elrond and company eventually rescued her, but she was so traumatized that after a year she left Middle Earth. Elrond would not see her again for some 500 years.

[solardev]

Thanks!

That doesn't sound so dramatic, IMO. I wonder if there's a generational component there too...? Maybe in Tolkien's time, explicit gore and violence were less common. Then since modern video games and TV shows upped the ante, maybe RR Martin had to be more explicit to create the same emotional effect that Tolkien's subtle hinting used to have on his audience? I dunno.

[cratermoon]

Certainly Martin was writing for a different audience. I don't know that Tolkien's descriptions would have been read as 'subtle' by his audience at the time he wrote it. Generational implications come and go. What might sound horrific or lascivious in one era or culture would be tame to another.

[renewiltord]

I suppose it also has the benefit that the works are child-readable. Little me thought she was tortured by beating and such.