#and i'll take 'oh it doesn't matter actually for reasons' anyyyy day

[anghraine]

There are many reasons that I appreciate the evidence that Elrosian Dúnedain in LOTR remain distinctive from other Men, both visibly (the height, the natural beardlessness, the Elvish-Bëorian appearance) and in possible abilities (too many to list parenthetically). But one of the reasons I like it is the very reason that some people object to it.

Characters like Aragorn and Denethor are many, many, many generations removed from Elros. It's been thousands of years since he lived. Although there are canonical cases of intra-Elrosian marriage on Númenor and in Middle-earth, and it's likely that there would be many more than are described and any given Elrosian is descended from him multiple times, this isn't actually that important. Tolkien only mentions it when it's relevant for some other reason.

Even if Aragorn or Denethor or whomever were descended from Elros through exactly one(1) line and "should" only have an infinitesimal amount of Elvish/Maia blood (if any) from him, it would not matter. The fandom can be very fixated on precisely partitioning characters' ancestries. But the logic of Boromir being naturally beardless because of Elros, say, has nothing to do with how much of Elros's blood he could realistically inherit or what fraction of his ancestry is Elvish (whether through Elros or Mithrellas). He is of the line and people of Elros. That is what matters. And it's one of the few ways in which I find the canonical treatment of this somewhat refreshing by contrast with fandom.