#i have to run to do a thing so ill stop there

Arvedui’s claim to the throne through his marriage to Princess Fíriel is interesting for a couple of reasons.

He makes a separate claim as heir of Isildur (though his father was alive at the time…), which is its own matter. But his additional argument that, under the laws of Númenor, his marriage to Fíriel gives him some claim to the throne of Gondor is frankly either duplicitous or ignorant. The laws of Númenor, after Tar-Aldarion, allowed women to rule in their own right. The only men to rule Númenor via the birth/lineage of their wives were usurpers.

Under Númenórean law, Fíriel’s status as daughter and only living child of the King of Gondor would make herthe rightful ruler, not Arvedui. If she’s dead by then, her claim would pass to her eldest child (regardless of gender), not Arvedui.

I think his attempt to bullshit his way into the kingship is somewhat obscured by the fact that, while the Council of Gondor rejects this claim, they do not reject it for being wrong (though it is). Rather, the Council’s argument is that Númenórean law has not been applied in either Gondor or Arnor/Arthedain at any point (this seems to be true) and that they do not consider women to have any place in the succession (i.e., not only can women not claim the throne, but men cannot claim the throne throughwomen because something something war). So they don’t cover themselves in glory, either.

I suspect the real issue is that the Council (and, it’s implied, the Dúnedain of Gondor in general) didn’t want Gondor to be ruled by Arthedain. Arthedain was an ally, yes, and one with which they had kinship, but also by that point had been a separate country with its own interests and priorities for a long time, and was also considerably weaker than Gondor. The Council could have made a narrower and fairer ruling dismissing Arvedui’s particular claim because of its misrepresentations, but that would open the door for Aranarth to claim the throne, which as far as they were likely concerned, would lead to exactly the same thing.

Tolkien suggests that one figure had an outsized role in all this: Pelendur, Steward of Gondor. As Steward, he would have been the chief of the Council, and acting ruler of Gondor between Ondoher’s death and the succession of the new king. But an interesting twist is that both Peoples of Middle-earth andNature of Middle-earth suggest/state that Húrin of Emyn Arnen, the direct forefather of the Stewards, was a descendant of Anárion without being of the “line” of Anárion—which, in all likelihood, means that Pelendurhimselfwas also descended from Anárion through a woman, and that the call he made wrt Fíriel applied to his own family as well and ensured that they could never claim the throne of Gondor.

I’m unsure what my takeaway from this is—just that I think it’s really interesting and more complicated than it’s sometimes treated.