Lord Of The Rings: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Elves

10. Arwen And Aragorn Are Related

Lord of the Rings was pretty light on romance. But Jackson still managed to portray a convincing relationship between Aragorn and Arwen, resulting in the one real heartwarming, romance scene in the trilogy. But Aragorn and Arwen's union wasn't as touching as you might think...

Tolkien went to extreme lengths to construct a believable world. The Silmarillion is less a novel and more a history, chronicling the most significant events in Middle-earth before the War of the Ring. Dating back thousands of years, it gives a far wider context of his world and characters. Tolkien went to great lengths to tie his history back to his original stories, and he created vast and complex family trees - for any true Tolkien enthusiast these are like the holy grail of Middle-earth artefacts.

One slightly alarming revelation, however, is that Elrond was actually Aragorn's great great, etc. uncle. How does this work you ask? Bear with me because this is where things get a little complicated...

Elrond was the son of Eärendil, and Elwing, who were descended from Beren and Lúthien - the famed man and elf, who fell in love. Elrond and his twin brother Elros, were therefore both half-elven and given the choice to live among mortal men or immortal elves. Elrond chose the elven kind but Elros chose the life of a mortal man. He went on to become the first King of Númenor and the ancestor of Aragorn.

So when Aragorn marries Arwen it's sort of like he's marrying a cousin...