the lord of the rings - How did Aragorn and Arwen first meet, and why did they get together?

I have recently come to learn some things about Aragorn and Arwen that trouble me. According to Tolkien Gateway's entry on Aragorn, he went to live with Elrond at Rivendell when he was only two years old, and Elrond raised him as his own son from that time on. Only when Aragorn was about 20 years old did Elrond tell Aragorn that he was not Elrond's real son, and that he was, in fact, the heir of Isildur. About a year later, when Aragorn was 21 or so, he fell in love with Elrond's daughter Arwen. Tolkien Gateway says that this happened when Arwen returned to Rivendell from Lorien, where her grandparents lived.

This bothers me because it means that Aragorn fell in love with a woman who, for as long as he could remember, and up until a year earlier, he believed to be his sister. Of course, she wasn't actually his sister, but he thought she was for most of his life.

Humans have an instinctive aversion to entering romantic relationships with people we're in close contact with early in our lives (this phenomenon is known as the Westermarck Effect, or "reverse sexual imprinting"). But Aragorn and Arwen seem to have ignored this instinct completely. Tolkien Gateway suggests, but doesn't explicitly state, that Arwen and Aragorn might not have met before Aragorn was 21, but it offers no citations for this suggestion. It seems unlikely that Arwen, who was already more than a thousand years old (I believe she was over 2,000 years old, as a matter of fact) by this time, spent 20 years straight with her grandparents in Lorien, never once visiting her father and brothers in Rivendell. She was an adult, free to come and go as she pleased, and could have gone home whenever she wanted to.

Even if they hadn't met before, they certainly knew of each other, and Aragorn believed her to be his sister for as long as he could remember. She would have heard about her new baby foster brother being brought to Rivendell, to be raised by her father Elrond as his foster son. Aragorn would have seen Arwen's brothers as his own brothers, her father as his father, and he would have heard much about his sister Arwen. Even if they had never seen each other before, they still would have regarded each other as brother and sister.

And if they had truly never met before, and even though Aragorn learned the truth a year earlier- that Elrond wasn't his father, and Elrond's children were not his siblings, Aragorn instantly becoming smitten with Arwen still seems creepy. According to Tolkien Gateway, Arwen didn't feel anything for Aragorn until a year or so after Aragorn fell in love with her, but still, it is also creepy that she fell in love with him.

It is even more bizarre that Elrond approved of their courtship, regardless of the fact that he refused to let them marry until Aragorn became King of Gondor and Arnor. After all, Elrond still regarded Aragorn as his foster son, and obviously treated Arwen as his actual daughter (which she was), so he essentially condoned a marriage between his daughter and adopted son.

It bears repeating that Aragorn's immediate reaction to meeting his stepsister (for lack of a better word) was to fall in love with her. She soon returned his affection, and fell in love with her stepbrother, even going so far as to surrender her immortality to be with him. And again, their father approved of their relationship, albeit after setting some conditions for Aragorn to meet before they could get married.

So I have to ask a few related questions to put my mind at ease, although I don't think any answer will make this relationship seem any less unnatural.

1. Is it true that Aragorn and Arwen had never met before Aragorn was 21 or so?


2. Do we know anything about how the relationship began?


3. Am I wrong in thinking that, for most of his childhood and adolescence, Aragorn believed Elrond to be his real father? Tolkien Gateway says Elrond told Aragorn the truth about his ancestry when he was around 20 years old, and that before that point, he raised Aragorn as his own son; I took this to mean that Aragorn genuinely believed he was Elrond's actual son until then. If I was wrong, the Aragorn-Arwen thing might be less disgusting.

Answer

So here's a summary of answers, from "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", which appears in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings.

1. 
   

   Is it true that Aragorn and Arwen had never met before Aragorn was 21 or so?

   
   

   Yes. At their first meeting, Aragorn and Arwen's conversation includes the following interchange:

   
   

   
   

   "Often is it seen," said Aragorn, "that in dangerous days men hide their chief treasure.I marvel at Elrond and your brothers; for though I have dwelt in this house from childhood, I have heard no word of you. How comes it that we have never met before? Surely your father has not kept you locked in his hoard?"

   
   

   "No," she said, and looked up at the Mountains that rose in the east. "I have dwelt for a time in the land of my mother's kin, in far Lothlórien. I have but lately returned to visit my father again. It is many years since I walked in Imladris."

   
   

   
   

   It seems, then, that in fact Arwen had been in Lórien for at least 20 years—or perhaps at least 17; she may have been in Rivendell when Aragorn was too young to remember her.

   
   


2. 
   
   

   Do we know anything about how their relationship began?

   
   

   Again, yes. I'm not going to quote in extenso the passage from the Tale, but briefly here's what happens:

   
   
   
   
   • At age 20, "after great deeds in the company of the sons of Elrond" as the story tells it, Elrond is sufficiently pleased with Aragorn to tell him his true name and lineage.
   
   
   • The next day, Aragorn is walking in the woods, just being happy, and singing part of the Lay of Lúthien, when all of a sudden he sees Arwen; thinking he's in a dream, he calls her "Tinúviel".
   
   
   • She laughs and they get into a conversation (including the above excerpt) in which Aragorn realizes that she's actually a few thousand years or so older than he is. (According to Appendix B, Arwen was born in 241 of the Third Age and thus was 2710 years older than Aragorn.)
   
   
   • A few days later, he admits his love to his mother, Gilraen, who is with him in Rivendell and who doesn't entirely approve. (Elrond discusses the matter with him some time later, and more or less agrees with Gilraen.)
   
   
   • Realizing that he may never get to date Arwen, Aragorn says goodbye to her, Elrond, and his mom, and leaves to go off and do manly things for twenty-nine years.
   
   
   • At age 49, he comes back from a journey and rests for a while in Lórien. Unknown to him, Arwen is there. (She doesn't know he's there either.)
   
   
   • Galadriel cleans him up, and dresses him up, and he goes walking in the woods and encounters Arwen.
   
   
   
   • She falls in love with him at first sight. They discuss the fact that Aragorn is human, and that if betrothed, Arwen will have to renounce her elven status and die like him.
   
   
   • After what appears to be some intense agonizing over the question, she decides to do so.
   
   
   
   

   Not quite a "love at first sight" story, but something rather similar.

   
   


3. 
   

   Am I wrong in thinking that, for most of his childhood and adolescence, Aragorn believed Elrond to be his real father?

   
   

   There's no direct statement bearing on that question; however, the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen states the following:

   
   

   
   

   [After his father Arathorn's death] Aragorn, being now the Heir of Isildur, was taken with his mother to dwell in the house of Elrond; and Elrond took the place of his father and came to love him as a son of his own.

   
   
   

   
   

   That phrasing (together with the lack of evidence that Elrond and Gilraen were acting in any sense as man and wife) suggests very strongly to me that yes, you are wrong in believing that. Estel, as Aragorn was called when he was young, did not know his real name, or his ancestry; but I don't see any evidence that he thought Elrond was his biological father. Furthermore, although you do state (correctly) that "Elrond ... regarded Aragorn as his foster son", you then move on to state that Elrond was condoning his daughter's marriage to "his adopted son". There's a huge difference between those two concepts; and there's no evidence I can see to indicate that Elrond considered Aragorn an "adopted son" on the same level as Elladan and Elrohir, nor that Aragorn considered Arwen his "stepsister" in any sense. In short, I believe your statement

   
   

   
   

   Aragorn would have seen Arwen's brothers as his own brothers, her father as his father, and he would have heard much about his sister Arwen. Even if they had never seen each other before, they still would have regarded each other as brother and sister

   
   

   
   

   is seriously flawed.