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Why Tolkien is not coddling his readers, why Tolkien is awesome


Ser Scot A Ellison

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1 hour ago, Jo498 said:

I'd certainly agree that Feanor and Denethor can count as grey despite having failed/turned evil in the final judgement of the author, or in Feanor's case with the kinslaying at the latest, although his "original sin" was loving his handiwork more than the good of his fellow creatures. Also Thorin in the Hobbit.

My favorite Tolkien characters are and have always been Feanor and Denethor, for the very reason that although they make some, ahem, questionable choices, their motivations are completely understandable and, to some extent, even laudable. The Valar really screwed up the Silmaril situation, in my estimation, and I could scarcely blame Feanor for looking to make his own remedy.

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4 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I could scarcely blame Feanor for looking to make his own remedy.

A remedy that involved murder, theft, and burning the stolen ships afterwards just out of spite (thereby killing his own son, depending on the version)?

Don't get me wrong - Feanor is thoroughly entertaining as a character (we're talking someone who thinks any Noldo who doesn't speak with a lisp is involved in a conspiracy against his mother). In fact, he might be one of the greatest fantasy characters ever put to page. The point is that he (like Denethor) is a tragic figure, in the classical sense, brought low by fatal flaws.

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7 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Oh my gosh this is so right. The elves are all like, "Oh, I'll live forever and never get sick and never grow old, how can I stand this torment?" Mary, please.

Tracker,

You (and everyone else) is missing the point.  Elves aren't Human.  Why would the things that we believe would make us happy do the same for them?  Heck, why does anyone believe that eternal youth and health would gurantee happiness and not produce angst on a level we cannot comprehend?  

This "oh the 'poor elves'" sarcasm is ethnocentrism of the highest order.

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1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

My favorite Tolkien characters are and have always been Feanor and Denethor, for the very reason that although they make some, ahem, questionable choices, their motivations are completely understandable and, to some extent, even laudable. The Valar really screwed up the Silmaril situation, in my estimation, and I could scarcely blame Feanor for looking to make his own remedy.

The Elves have a habit of pursuing honour before reason, and Feanor is probably the most extreme example of this.  Men are less naturally gifted than Elves, but seem more level-headed in many ways.

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30 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Tracker,

You (and everyone else) is missing the point.  Elves aren't Human.  Why would the things that we believe would make us happy do the same for them?  Heck, why does anyone believe that eternal youth and health would gurantee happiness and not produce angst on a level we cannot comprehend?  

This "oh the 'poor elves'" sarcasm is ethnocentrism of the highest order.

Given the source material, I feel pretty comfortable mocking the pearl-clutching tendencies of the elves.

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49 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Tracker,

You (and everyone else) is missing the point.  Elves aren't Human.  Why would the things that we believe would make us happy do the same for them?  Heck, why does anyone believe that eternal youth and health would gurantee happiness and not produce angst on a level we cannot comprehend?  

This "oh the 'poor elves'" sarcasm is ethnocentrism of the highest order.

Certainly, for an Elf who falls in love with/makes friends with a mortal, it must be depressing to see that person die.

I imagine that's why Mithrellas abandoned the Lord of Dol Amroth.  She suddenly realised her husband would soon die, and she'd be destined to see all her children and grandchildren die.

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Which is incredibly ethnocentric.

You've unmasked me, Ser Scot. I am a closet racist who discriminates against imaginary creatures. I also police the bodies of mythical beasts, if you want to know--Ancalagon the Black definitely could have used a tuck or two, and don't get me started on Ungoliant. (Let's just say that cuffs and collar don't match.)

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1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

Given the source material, I feel pretty comfortable mocking the pearl-clutching tendencies of the elves.

I think my ability to sympathize is undercut by their literal power to pack up their bags and move to the Garden of Eden.

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16 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I think my ability to sympathize is undercut by their literal power to pack up their bags and move to the Garden of Eden.

Suppose that Valinor turns out to be dry, say?  That wouldn't be much fun for eternity.

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1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

You've unmasked me, Ser Scot. I am a closet racist who discriminates against imaginary creatures. I also police the bodies of mythical beasts, if you want to know--Ancalagon the Black definitely could have used a tuck or two, and don't get me started on Ungoliant. (Let's just say that cuffs and collar don't match.)

You're missing my point.  If Elves aren't human why attribute the same human emotions and motivations we have to them.  A species that doesn't age or die of anything but violent injury isn't going to be merely satisfied with functional immortality the way we might be.  

Even if we had it I'm sure we'd find things to be angsty about.

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1 hour ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I think my ability to sympathize is undercut by their literal power to pack up their bags and move to the Garden of Eden.

I know, right? 

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You're missing my point.  If Elves aren't human why attribute the same human emotions and motivations we have to them.  A species that doesn't age or die of anything but violent injury isn't going to be merely satisfied with functional immortality the way we might be.  

Even if we had it I'm sure we'd find things to be angsty about.

Scot, I will now reveal that my comment about elves was a bit tongue-in-cheek, so I recommend not spending much time thinking about it.

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On 12 November 2016 at 2:06 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You're missing my point.  If Elves aren't human why attribute the same human emotions and motivations we have to them.  A species that doesn't age or die of anything but violent injury isn't going to be merely satisfied with functional immortality the way we might be.  

I'm not replying to this directly, it just piqued my interest and led to my train of thought.

This is how I read the Elves:

They're what humans would be if we were utterly in-tuned with, and part of, the natural world. They don't really function the same as humans throughout the story at all. They've an enduring melancholy about them or seem to be lackadaisical when partying, with little in between. They don't really understand time in the same way that humans do, rather, as Frodo observes, moments seem to simply happen without time being a factor.

For them time is a cycle of natural order - until industry and war interfere with it.

The magic of the rings preserved the magic of their people indefinitely. Yet the destruction of the One Ring also ensured the fading of the other rings; their magic no longer preserved, magic began to fade away from Middle-Earth entirely. So their motivations are very different; they don't want change in the world, but preservation, consistency and resistance to progression in a way that humanity cannot abide.

Industry, mining are things the Elves cannot tolerate as humanity can. They don't see magic as magic, after all, and tell the Fellowship as such. Rather, it's just part of how the world works. They don't see themselves as immortal, as such, since they don't know any differently.

As a few others have mentioned above, I also think Faenor is a tragic villain. He isn't really evil, not inherently and malevolently so as Sauron is, rather he is drawn to the beauty of his creations and begins to lose sight of the natural beauty around him.

So while like us at a glance, they're a people apart, a different being entirely and something other-worldly to us.

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The Elves aren't hippies (and contrary to what Peter Jackson may show, they eat meat). The Noldor create and invent; the Teleri build ships (and presumably are entirely happy to chop down trees in pursuit of this).

The Elves are fundamentally human (certainly biologically human), but with greater intelligence, beauty, stamina, etc, while also being immortal, and never getting sick. "Perfect" humans, if you will, which just means they've got further to fall.

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Feanor is sympathetic because his misdirected love (this is a very catholic point, sin is not mainly not obeying some random commandment but loving the wrong things too much) is not love for power but love for the beauty of his own creations which is certainly a nobler way to fail than love of power. But the revenge excess and the kin-slaying clearly put him over the edge to the "dark side".

Denethor seems to want to make the best of a rather hopeless situation and he had been steadfast in the face of despair for a long time before succumbing.

The hippie stuff is not found in the Sil or the LotR books. Of course in the latter the Elvish kingdoms are so small that they do not need large and dirty industries and it might be correctly assumed that in earlier times the Noldor smiths and craftsmen were not as brutally ravaging the land as Saruman or Sauron (or later we humans). Nevertheless they certainly build stuff, including big cities like Gondolin and shaped nature. They did not live on trees.

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