board77

I posted most of the following in another message board, where Chapter 3 and the encounter with Gildor were being discussed, but I'd like to delve more deeply into the subject of elves, both in the Book and the Movie. There are so many conflicting images of them in both.

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Now the elves ... (gets a wistful, Samwise expression).

It's hard to imagine how someone would feel who is over 1000 years old and still in the health and strength of youth, and has seen so much. We poor mortals must trade wisdom for energy, growing feebler and more circumspect as we age. We both grow and die a tiny bit each day. We eventually tire of a life in which we can no longer fully participate. But would we tire of it if we still had youthful bodies?

I've always been struck by the way the elves (except Legolas and Arwen) are indifferent to mortal folk. On the one hand, we would seem so fleeting to them, and our problems so transient. Our short-term tempestuous relationships are hard enough for us to live through - imagine having that speeded up by a factor of 10 or 20 (as it would seem to the elves) and blinking in and out of existance. {Imagine reading 20,000 pages of "The Paths of the Dead - The Fallen From TORC."} But on the other hand, would they find us a momentary diversion in their incredibly long and repetitious lives? Would they still have a zest for exploration and learning, or would they eventually fail to find anything new under the sun? Would they all be detached and bored, even as they "made merry"? What would be the point of each new day?

What kind of wisdom and attitude would elves have after a 1000 years? Would self-centered and immature elves finally see the futility in self-agrandizement and self-indulgence, or would they have simply taken it to new extremes? Tolkien wanted his elves to be of higher quality than humans, so perhaps there were no immature elves (except for the first few years of their lives).

Elves do not age, so what level of maturity are they "stuck" in? The wood elves in The Hobbit seemed rather childish (I'd go so far as to say bratty). But Gildor's high elves seemed mentally in their 40s or 50s and physically more in their twenties. Legolas seems like a man in his 20s. He does not show the wisdom of his age (especially in the Movie).

It's difficult to imagine such an existence--where if a Man annoyed you, you could go and read a good book for a while, and return to find the annoyance had died of old age and now his grandson was nipping at your heels.

The wisdom of the Elves would be a mixed thing, I think. The knowledge of mortality gives such an edge to all joy and such a comfort to all sorrow. It has a mellowing effect that Elves could not know. I think they would strike us as coldly unconcerned; our life-changing loves and griefs would mean no more to them than the sneeze of a baby means to us.

Primula_Baggins wrote:

It's difficult to imagine such an existence--where if a Man annoyed you, you could go and read a good book for a while, and return to find the annoyance had died of old age and now his grandson was nipping at your heels.

If I were an elf, I would find humans to be fascinating and brave creatures. Let's take a step back and think about it. We humans lead our lives, fall in love, bring children to this earth while knowing all the time that sorrow, illness and death are just round the corner and it is a matter of time before we reach them. What is bravest than daring to love someone (friends, partners, family members) while knowing that one day we will lose them forever?

But this is a thread about elves. And I have a question about them, that I would hope one of the Tolkien scholars can help me with.

What I find very interesting with Tolkien's perception of the elves is that he sees them as part of Middle-earth. When ME is destroyed so are the elves. They are immortal but bound to their world. On the contrary, he sees men as not being bound to ME.

Reading Tolkien's cosmology I get the impression that ME is only a specific place at a specific time. There are other things happening at the same time, other divine forces who choose to stay away from Arda. Since humans are not tied to their world, when they die and ME is destroyed, their essences/souls can return to Eru (or do whatever Eru has in store for them). But the elves cannot - they are finished.

Can there be such a thing as an essence/soul with an expiry date?

Andri, in "Morgoth's Ring" (the 10th volume of the HoME series), your question about the ultimate fate of the Elves when Arda and Time come to an end is addressed (and there is indeed, hope for them beyond this end.) It's found in a lovely piece entitled "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth", which is basically a dialogue between Finrod Felagund and Andreth, a "wise woman" of the House of Beor, concerning the nature of death and immortality. It is one of my (and Voronwe's ) favourite writings by Tolkien: extremely beautiful, powerful and moving.

I preferred Tolkien's elves to PJ's. I thought PJ's were too Spock-like and boring. Then again, Tolkien's may be the same way, but it's been a while since I've read LotR. I liked his elves of Mirkwood in The Hobbit, though. They were a little more interesting.

I t hink PJ tried too hard to make his elves high and noble. They ended up becomind almost. . . cardboard characters. In the books, we see the Elves as at once very sad and mournful but also mirthful, like in the Hall of Fire. In the movie there's: Galadriel, who goes radioactive. Elrond, who apparently hates Men. Haldir, who seems to feel the same, except about Aragorn. Legolas of one and a half facial expressions. Arwen, warrior princess, who cries a lot. Celeborn, who doesn't do anything. And Figwit. Of course. None of them are ever happy or anything other than grim and, at times, angry. Tolkien presents them as real beings, PJ doesn't. Does that make any sense?

I find the Elves to be far more interesting in the Silm. Fëanor is fascinating, as are Eöl and Galadriel and Beleg and Luthien. They're not just perfect pointy eared people who sing a lot and give out gifts and advice. They do things and wage wars and get angry and are incredibly happy and, well, they're more real. It's kind of ironic, but the Elves get more character development in the Silm than they do in LOTR, or in the Hobbit.

As for maturity, the Elves probably mature really, really, really slowly. Legolas seems to be in his twenties or thirties, but he's also quite young for an elf, no? Whereas Gildor's Elves are much older, thus they seem older in maturity. I never really thought of them as getting "stuck" in a maturity level. It seems like they would get wiser and mentally older as well, just at a much slower rate that humans.

Thanks Athrabeth!

Darn, and I just made my monthly buy from Amazon. Oh, well, I can always treat myself to one more book.

Maiden - I agree with what you said about Tolkien's elves. PJ's elves were often not real enough. But maybe he wanted them to appear somewhat unreal and out-of-this-world? I don't know. Besides, we never get any real insights about any of the elves in the movies. The only one that we could hope for some more depth character would be Legolas (since he gets more screen-time than most of the other elves) but the choise of actor rather limited PJ's chances.

I am going to stop here - have to be at work in 30 min.

I hated the sequence with the hobbits watching the passing of the elves. The glowing light and the eerie music... very pretty, but Tolkien's elves were more down to earth than that. They were high and noble, but you could imagine them getting angry, or sitting down to eat a meal.

At least, that's how I saw it.

*~Pips~*

I detested PJ's elves. They were far too stiff. However, they were sad...one of the aspects they share with Tolkien's elves. The only thing I detest about Tolkien's wriitings is his view that beauty, wisdom, and sadness are inseperable. It's a very fatalistic, depressing viewpoint. However, that's a different conversation.

My favorite depiction of the elves are those from the Hobbit. I'd disagree with the analysis that the woodelves are immature...heck, by that, Everyone in the Hobbit is immature. The dwarves are complete asses. However, those elves seem to enjoy life. All the other depictions show elves that would be considered suicidal by modern psychiatrists.

I've thought about long life, immortality, and what a person would do with it. What do we do to pass the time? We do stuff. The most realistic elves in this aspect were the depictions of the early Noldor in the first part of the Sil. They spent their time Doing things. Think about being an elf...if you had that time, would you sit around eating, or would you be out poking around, looking around the world...at the very least, taking walks in the forest, naming all the trees, and watching them grow. I don't think Tolkien quite thought things through...thought about what his elves would be doing.

Guruthostirn wrote:

The only thing I detest about Tolkien's wriitings is his view that beauty, wisdom, and sadness are inseperable. It's a very fatalistic, depressing viewpoint. However, that's a different conversation.

Maybe I'm just slow, but I've never gotten the impression from Tolkien that beauty and sadness are inextricably linked. Granted, I'm generally pretty slow on the uptake, but I've never seen that. The sadness seemed to be about beauty, not that the sadness was beautiful. That is, they are mourning the passing of that which was beautiful. [/osgiliation]

Andri, you're probably right that he wanted to make them seem high and noble. But I think he took it a little too far. Galadriel was the best, in my opinion, but the radioactivity kinda blew that. And the fact that she seems to talk in a monotone half the time. (Which I think has to do with PJ's directing rather than Blanchett's abilities. She's a fabulous actress. Too bad it was kinda wasted.) And if he wanted to give Legolas characterisation, he shoulda chosen an actor with facial expressions.

Oops. I hate Gildor in the book. His whole character can be summed up as, "Hey! There's something really nasty and spooky waiting for you up ahead, but we won't tell you what. Tra-la-la. Have a cookie."

Most irritating.

I am going to digress even further. I do not think that Tolkien himself ever figured out what elves would be like. In "The Hobbit" we have elves who are revengeful, revel in merriment, and care not a whit for the fortunes of other creatures who disturb their existence. ln LOTR, we have elves that are noble and wise, but also seemingly a bit unconcerned with the ultimate fate of ME, almost as if they know that they have outgrown thier time there and are seemingly just sort of wishy washy about the whole thing. They no longer seem to have any inpetus themselves to DO things, unless that might fall to the woodelves, those of Thranduil's/Legolas' kin, who at least take on the forces of Sauron when their homeland is invaded, and sort of the same for Lorien, which was mostly populated by their kin.

The only place where I see the elves having complex characters comes in those texts that mainly are in the Sil. HOME also contains many of these in differing formats. But, the earlier texts always have the elves far more human in their outlooks than the later ones do. For example, we never know how old Feanor was when the silmarils were stolen, but, from his actions, he acts just like one would suspect a human of age 40 or so would react. I am sure that he was man centuries older tahn this, but, he still had the passions and desires and faults of a human. The same goes for the nephews and sons and other decendents. They "Live" whereas by the time we get to Elrond in LOTR, he just seems to be resigned, as does Galadriel.

So, my take on the existence of the elves is that the more learned and experienced that they became with time, the more cautious and set in their ways that they became. Rather dull beings, sort of like zen masters who advocate always waiting or seeing what will play out. I do not think that Tolkien wanted his elves to be models for his human characters, it was almost as if he deliberately portrayed them as handing off the mantle, they no longer had any true role left in ME, and they were just waiting for the humans to step up to the task at long last.

PJ's elves were just there for glamor, kewlness and intrigue. I do not think that he got the role quite right for any of them. I hated Elrond and also Arwen to a large degree. Galadriel had her moments, but she also failed the purist test. He did make them far more interesting than they were in the books at least, but, for me, not in totally believable ways.

TheLidlessEyes wrote:

"Hey! There's something really nasty and spooky waiting for you up ahead, but we won't tell you what. Tra-la-la. Have a cookie."

But I must disagree: I've always read him as the much older, wiser individual who knows that a frank description would *terrify* the younger out of, well, their own free will. I don't know whether to put this to a) Tolkien had seen horrors and griefs he never (to my knowledge) described to others in non-fiction prose b) Tolkien was a wise enough author to know that the best part of horror lies in the reader's imagination
c) the theme of protecting the Hobbits - both the Shire in general and the members of the Fellowship in particular (or else they could not go on. )

I have had small-scale moments like this in RL, from both sides of this conversation. I feel for Frodo wanting to know more, in all innocence, yet I understand Gildor's tact and reticence.

This moment is repeated in the book: by Strider, by Elrond, by Faramir. "You're doing *what*? Hmn... a warning, and supplies for your journey. " (Galadriel is more frank: given who she is, it's fascinating how much equality she accords Frodo as a fellow Ringbearer. )

I can't quite imagine PJ's elves going though the history told in the Silmarillion. Having wars and getting angry, yes -- but what about friendliness, generosity, cooperation? (With the Ents, Men, or Dwarves?) What about raising children, talking to family members (aside from when certain unfortunate oaths are involved...), having friends and political alliances, falling in love? One thing I love about Tolkien's elves is they are high fey, but they're also so distinctive as characters. PJ managed to make the ones in LOTR rather cool and distant (except when they were angry or at war... )

Erm, did the adapters notice the anti-war themes in the book?

-Kushana

I liked the book Elves much more than the movie Elves. In the book they almost seemed real, sure they were the crazy snoody neighbors next door but they were fun to hang out with. Of course my view on the elves is they were much more humanistic in the books and had many flaws, I mean it was the elves after all that actually started the wars in ME, sure humans branched out and made more wars, but the basic war was started because of Big Brother to Demi-Gods “no I wont share my shiny’s”
Big Brother on coming home“, stupid Melkor stole my shiny’s and….. dad’s dead”
Big Brother to Little Brothers “I said shiny’s gone are you coming with me and dad’s dead”
Little Brothers “um sure”
Big Brother to Cousins “Give me your boat”
Cousins “Fuck you”
Big Brother “Give me your boat NOW”
Cousins “Get bent, ass”
Big Brother “Takes the boats, doffuss'es”
Little Brothers “um what????”
Big Brother “Promises…you said ….MY SHINY’S are GONE, and dad’s dead”

Later….
Little Brothers “Fucking Cold, stupid shiny’s”

Later again….
Sauron “sorry can I come home”
Valar “sure”
Sauron “I LIED…….”
Valar “out out out”
Sauron “I’ll show them….I can become a jeweler…”(wonders off to jeweler school)

Big Brother and sons “die”

A bit later…
Little Brothers with other Cousins….build build build…
Humans “hey nice city”
Little Brothers with Cousins “what are you?”
Humans “um humans, Eru said he screwed up with you, made us”
Little Brothers/Cousins “Riiiiiiiight”
Enter Dragon….poof…
Humans “BBQ”

And a bit later….
Little Brothers “Rings sure rings…make rings….pretty rings, three for us, nine for them rednecks, assorted numbers for everyone else”
Sauron “I am a certified Jeweler, I can make your rings cheap”
Little Brothers “ooooh pretty”
Sauron “I LIED….”
Little Brothers “great, we are doffus’es”

Later, much later…
Little Brothers “HELP…..send Help”
Humans “ So what you need our help now”
Little Brothers “sure do”
Humans “well ok, sure”
March march march, slash slash slash, kill, kill, kill

Elrond of the Little Brother Brigade “throw ring in”
Humans “HELL NO”
Elrond “Stupid Humans always making us Elves do the work and save them”
Humans “WHAT?”
Hobbittity dude “give to me”…throws ring in “there all done”
Elves and Humans “Yeah”
Elves “You know if you weren’t so easily tempted this war would not have started”
Humans……pack pack pack pack pack…. “heres your ticket for the boat, you’re gonna be late…you got to go, bye, see ya, so long, chow, hasta la vista, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out” waves bye bye to elves…

Much much later….
Humans “pass me a beer, this BBQ is hot……who the hell are you? Mary call the cops we have some freak from the looney bin here says he’s an elf, he’s wearing a dress….kids get inside…hey what the hell are you doing to my tree? Mary get my .45 out of the closet….”

TheLidlessEyes wrote:

Oops. I hate Gildor in the book. His whole character can be summed up as, "Hey! There's something really nasty and spooky waiting for you up ahead, but we won't tell you what. Tra-la-la. Have a cookie."

Most irritating.

I love this fandom.

Tolkien's Elves
The Elves in The Hobbit, at first glance, are ... dreadful. What on earth is up with that camp 'fal lal lally come into the valley'? They suddenly become cool in the Battle of Five Armies.

The Elves of LOTR are mysterious and noble and enthralling. For many years though I found their detachment from humanity and Middle-earth really rather selfish. Once I'd read The Silmarillion, I understood Elves an awful lot better, and could sympathise with their tragedy and their yearning.

The Elves in The Silmarillion ... oh wow, I love these Elves. These feisty, fallible, fierce, wonderful, all-too-human Elves. I am rooting for them all the way. I don't like the Valar much, but I love the Elves.

Actually, I think you could sum up Tolkien's entire mythology thus: The Rise and Fall of the Elves.

PJ's Elves
Are really rather camp. Haldir, anyone? He cracks me up.

But I did find his death in TTT genuinely moving. It was just so moving watching an Elf DIE! I felt as if I was watching Haldir stare ahead into the Halls of Mandos. Sob.

The principal Elven characters in the film are depicted well, IMO. Bloom's Legolas is graceful, poised and elegant. A bit bland, but then Book Legolas is a bit bland. Pleasant fellow, useful to have around, the token Elf.

I adore Blanchett as Galadriel. It was a wonderful piece of casting, and I can overlook the PJ-isms because I could not have asked for a better Gladys.

I am very fond of Tyler's Arwen. Probably because she has taken such a merciless, and undeserved, bashing from the fandom all these years. But because Livvy's Elvish is so good, and because her Arwen is genuinely touching, and because she made me think more deeply about Tolkien's Arwen, and because she looks the part ... I like Movie Arwen.

Elrond ... well, no resemblance to Book Elrond, but I find him so entertaining that somehow I forgive PJ for Movie Elrond's extraordinary crabbiness. He was nice at the Coronation and the Havens, anyhow.

Movie Celeborn was great in the FOTR EE: just what an Elven-lord should be. Poor Celeborn is really shafted in the theatrical FOTR, confirming the opinion of most of the fandom that Celeborn is a twit.

Di, I could have written your post word for word--if I could write like that.

It's actually weird. There isn't a single point where we differ.

<Goes looking for "What Di Said" smiley>

Di of Long Cleeve wrote:

The Elves in The Silmarillion ... oh wow, I love these Elves. These feisty, fallible, fierce, wonderful, all-too-human Elves. I am rooting for them all the way. I don't like the Valar much, but I love the Elves.

Exactly. It's kind of similar to LOTR in some way. . . The Valar in the Silm kind of take the same role as the Elves in LOTR: they started it all, but then don't really want to get involved. . .

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Are really rather camp. Haldir, anyone? He cracks me up.

As hilarious as Haldir is, no one can beat Figwit.

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I am very fond of Tyler's Arwen. Probably because she has taken such a merciless, and undeserved, bashing from the fandom all these years. But because Livvy's Elvish is so good, and because her Arwen is genuinely touching, and because she made me think more deeply about Tolkien's Arwen, and because she looks the part ... I like Movie Arwen.

Arwen really, really bothered me. In a few parts, she's wonderful. All in all, TTT was probably the best. But Xenarwen is just. . . awful. Not that I have anything against women warriors (I mean, c'mon, look at my name ), but that's not Arwen's role. She is supposed to be the woman (she-elf?) who is noble and high and beautiful and does good by inspiring others. She makes Aragorn's banner, which is a very important symbol of his kingship. She and Éowyn have immensly different roles, and Tolkien made it that way and wrote them as they were for a reason, and I don't think they should have been fiddled with. I don't take issue with them expanding Arwen's role/weaving in "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen"--it's how they did it.

Primula_Baggins wrote:

Di, I could have written your post word for word--if I could write like that.

It's actually weird. There isn't a single point where we differ.

<Goes looking for "What Di Said" smiley>

You know, Prim, I can't stand the Valar. Except maybe Yavanna and Ulmo. And OK, Nienna and Este, because they feel compassion. The rest of 'em ... grrrrrrr.

Maiden ... *looks sheepish* ... first time I read LOTR, waaay back in 1983, I got annoyed with Tolkien for relegating Arwen to such a stereotypical Damsel Stuck in Ivory Tower role. Thank GOD for Eowyn, I thought at the time: she redeemed my view of Tolkien's view of women.

Of course, Tolks does create some extremely powerful and memorable women in his mythology.

Arwen became a whole lot more interesting to me when I read her tragic story in Appendix A - and it shocked me silly, I can tell you. I was devastated. Poor, poor Arwen.

One of the film trilogy's most sublime moments, IMO, is Frodo's vision of Galadriel on the steps of Cirith Ungol. She looks like a Renaissance painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary - a parallel which would not have displeased Tolkien, who made it clear in the Collected Letters that while he certainly did not intend Galadriel to actually represent Mary (that would have been an irreverent thing for a devout Catholic to do!) her character does reflect something of the sanctity and purity and wisdom which the Blessed Mother represents for Catholics.

Intimations of the divine feminine, you see.

Di of Long Cleeve wrote:

Maiden ... *looks sheepish* ... first time I read LOTR, waaay back in 1983, I got annoyed with Tolkien for relegating Arwen to such a stereotypical Damsel Stuck in Ivory Tower role. Thank GOD for Eowyn, I thought at the time: she redeemed my view of Tolkien's view of women.

Yeah, I wasn't thrilled with Arwen either until I read Appendix A. I gained so much respect for her. However. . . Éowyn is still my hero, and she always wil be. (In case you hadn't guessed )

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Of course, Tolks does create some extremely powerful and memorable women in his mythology.

Definitely! I haven't read all of Tolkien's works, far from it in fact. But from what I've read, I've always kind of wished that we saw more of Luthien as a real elf. Éowyn we really get to know, and I wanted that for Luthien, too. She's so incredible. Very strong, but not masculine like Éowyn is at times. (Maybe that's there in the LT. It's been a while. If it is, just ignore me.)

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Arwen became a whole lot more interesting to me when I read her tragic story in Appendix A - and it shocked me silly, I can tell you. I was devastated. Poor, poor Arwen.

Exactly! She's so much more interesting there. It's too bad Tolkien didn't find a way to work her into LOTR proper. Looking at Arwen and Éowyn are an interesting juxtaposition. They both go through such pain and sacrifice so much, but in such different ways.

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One of the film trilogy's most sublime moments, IMO, is Frodo's vision of Galadriel on the steps of Cirith Ungol. She looks like a Renaissance painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I've never looked at it like that, but now that you point it out, it's so true! She kind of looks like that when they're leaving Lothlorien, too. All in white and so calm and noble. It almost looks like she's glowing. . . Especially in the scene you mentioned she looks like a painting. It's one of my favourite moments in ROTK, especially aesthetically.