I love stories that subvert the elvish tropes. Maybe because so many have used the elves basically unmodified, it's great to see someone do it differently. In the Second Apocalypse, there is a race called the Nonmen who are clearly inspired by the elves. They are beautiful, immortal, strong, and talented in sorcery, like Tolkien's elves. But the trope is subverted in a variety of ways. They were not originally immortal, they were granted this "gift" by the main antagonists of the series. The same agent that gave them immortality also killed off all the females of their species. Moreover, while it made them ageless, it did not give them minds capable of coping with that agelessness, so many of them have gone insane. It's an interesting take on a darker version of elfdom.
Warcraft's elves are pretty subverted. They're more pawns for the higher powers than anything. Their immortality was a tool used to enslave them to protecting the World Tree. The logic being that if you make a race immortal and then make that immortality contingent on the World Tree being alive, they will be highly motivated to protect said World Tree.
Beyond that, they're kinda responsible for a suspiciously large number of bad things that happened in Warcraft history. There are so many examples I will definitely overlook several obvious ones here. Off the top of my head:
* the sundering (thanks, Azshara)
* yogg'saron entering the emerald dream (thanks, Fandral)
* Illidan, nuff said
* The Sunwell - I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call it a net bad thing. It contributed a lot to Arthas's descent into madness/ascent to power and unleashing Kel'Thuzad into the world again was pretty not good.
It would be interesting to have a story set in the stone age where Neanderthals are the "normal humans" and the Cro Magnons are the elves, the lithe, agile, gracile ones with childlike faces (compared to a Neanderthal) and a love of innovation and novelty.
This... isn't conclusively ruled out by modern archaeology, as far as I know, and it would allow you to talk about "half-elves" while maintaining the notion that they're still separate species.
I believe Carl Sagan played with the idea for a fictional story, but never got beyond what he explored as non-fiction (primarily, to my mind in the book The Dragons of Eden). Also, you can argue some of Stephen Baxter's books explore the ideas, though Stephen Baxter has tried to be both historically accurate enough that he generally doesn't use fantasy terms like dwarves/elves, and smart enough to not fall into stereotype traps that you could easily point to in his descriptions of other hominids. (It's a running theme in among other things his Manifold books, and probably most interesting in hints and tertiary themes in the Long Earth young adult fiction he cowrote with Terry Pratchett, where the term elves is actually used, though not entirely based on hominids known to this Earth.)
My very lay understanding is that in the cross-over period where early Sapiens lived with other hominids you could draw some parallels to Neanderthals as dwarves (or sometimes perhaps trolls) to Sapiens viewpoints at the time and in that case Denisovans might be elves.
If you want to throw in bad pop-genetics, there'd be more "half-dwarves" among European descendants and more "half-elves" among Asian descendants, from that viewpoint.
Check out Steven Brust's Dragaera books. The "humans" in the books, Dragaerans, are essentially Tolkienesque elves; the "Easterners" are human, essentially Hungarians. Dragaerans aren't immortal, but have several thousand year lifespans so the difference is not very important to Easterners. (One character is older than the Dragaeran Empire, more than 200,000 years, IIRC.) And then there's the Serioli.
I always thought the elves in Styx: Master of Shadows were a cool subversion of elven tropes. They're very dark and otherworldly looking, almost vampiric.
otherwordly and vampiric is how the elves in Discworld[0] are portrayed, with the "obvious" explanation that people now remember them differently as words have changed meaning over time.
> Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.
In the recent past, it was a generic term for any spirit. Under a Christian view of the world, elves were pagan spirits and therefore evil. You can check out the lyrics to the song "seven hundred elves", involving a farmer defending himself from forest spirits by hanging crosses around his house.
(Note that apparently this song uses "elves" to translate a Danish reference to "trolls".)
But this usage is known not to be the original view of elves. When the word originated, it didn't refer to something bad, as we can tell by the fact that so many Germanic names include an "elf" element: Alfric ("king of the elves"), Alvin ("friend of the elves"), Alfred ("advised by the elves"), etc.
Old elf mythology appears to have thought of them as human-like spirits, who might be conventionally or sexually dangerous, but who weren't evil.
Another interpretation is that fairies (and their Scandinavian equivalents, trolls) represented prechristian, or unchristianized, peoples. They were an "other" and that means something strange and foreign, and likely but not necessarily dangerous.
Concerning the steeleye span song, I'd like to point out that, the elves' perspective is that their home was under attack by the farmer
The corresponding race in the Second Apocalypse are the Sranc, an artificial genetic aberration derived from the Nonmen by aliens that possess superior biotech.
I concur with OP's comments that the Second Apocalypse is much darker than LOTR. The Sranc embody this difference. Partly due to how much more graphic detail an author can get away with these days, Sranc are much more brutal, bestial and disgusting than Orcs.
Besides the mere graphic violence, Bakker has a way of making things psychologically disturbing. For example, it's weird and scary that the Sranc have beautiful faces. Obviously the transgressions in their behavior are disturbing (they don't just want to kill you -- in fact, they'd prefer if you lived, so they can do unspeakable things to your body after subduing you). The orcs are just an ugly army of big brutish bad guys. But they fight with the same tactics as any other medieval army, at least to my recollection of the LOTR books. The Sranc (and Wracu and Bashrag etc.) are something different.
Absolutely. It's extremely psychologically compelling: the porcelain features, the "black seed", the imagery of thousands of screaming humanoid beasts hurling themselves ravenously at a shield wall.
imo the series (at least the first half) is eventually going to be seen as a defining piece of modern fiction.
While that's true, the situation with the Nonmen is . . . well . . . extreme. It's far worse than mere weariness. The whole world of Earwa is much darker and more violent than Tolkien's. Sauron would be a far preferable master even to the secondary antagonists in Second Apocalypse.
Warhammer 40k's Eldar are like this as well. They end up forking into factions with some giving themselves over into complete violent, orgiastic depravity and the other becomes extremely austere, self-denying ascetics.
Yes, the Eldar are a closer parallel to what the Nonmen are in these books. Although I'd probably still rather encounter the average Eldar in a dark alley.
You’d might like the Elves in The Nightmare Stacks by Charles Stross [0]. Which includes (mild spoiler) an assault on the city of Leeds in the UK by a combined-arms Elven battlegroup (think Waffen-SS with pointy ears). They have battle-tested air-land integration doctrine where their dragons operate in a close air support role. Some of their innate magical powers include foretelling and mind control over enslaved humans.
>Its people, the Melnibonéans, are not wholly human and are commonly depicted as elven. They are skilled with magic and beautiful, though psychologically similar to cats, with a callous nature. They lack a moral sense. Their actions are determined by tradition and by the search for pleasure and new sensations.
Moorcock also has denied that the Melniboneans are elves. To him "elves are the little things that you'll find in gardens or in rings in the countryside". There's a good, recent interview here where he talks about this and his opinion of Tolkien, which I wouldn't quite call despising it:
Tolkien elves are already a darker version of the typical fantasy elf [1]. Those that have only read LOTR are often surprised by the amount of infighting, betrayal, assassinations and straight up genocide in the Silmarillion.
[1] which ironically are based on the common perception of Tolkien elves.
The Gloranthan take is that the Elves - Aldryami - are more-or-less human-shaped plants, making them rather weirder in a lot of ways than their high-IQ-long-lived-humanoid equivalents.
While I never read Tolkien's notes and letters, I did read the Silmarillion and it does not consider Gandalf/Olorin/Mithrandir to be an elf. He is a maia which is not the same thing.
We do know that whatever Maiar are, they can have children with elves, from Melian and Thingol. Deducing that maia = elf from that is quite a leap in logic.
EDIT: Author was referring to Gandalf being mistaken for an elf, as per this excerpt of the unfinished tales:
"Mostly he journeyed tirelessly on foot, leaning on a staff, and so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf 'the Elf of the Wand'. For they deemed him (though in error) to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times work wonders among them."
I think the author is saying that characters in Tolkein's world, who gave him the name 'Gandalf'='Wand Elf' must have thought him to be an elf, which would be evidence that those characters don't think it strange for an elf to have a beard.
I wonder if that author supposes the Malaysians, or whoever, thought orangutans (reported to mean "men of the forest") were humans? Or that those naming sea-cows thought that manatee were actually cows?
Surely his name having "modifier+elf" in it shows that he's recognised as distinctly not an elf, nor recognisable as one, but is considered to have elf-like characteristics. I don't think it tells you anything about whether it's strange for an elf to have a beard.
In that case that would make sense. From the other post on that website, it seems clear that the author is too knowledgeable to make that kind of mistake.
Is it a case of mistaken identity, or a nickname based on demeanor or skills or other attributes? (I haven't read much Tolkien, and not in decades.) Tarzan is sometimes called the "King of the Jungle" but not because anyone looked at him and mistook him for an actual king.
The article uses the fact that people thought Gandalf was an elf to justify the idea that elves can heave beards, which implies that the author thinks that they were correct in their belief.
Because people think elves can have beard, they are correct to thing Gandalf is an elf? That's some twisted inside-out logic.
Obviously they wouldn't think that Gandalf was an elf if they thought elves never had beards, so yeah, they probably thought elves had beards. And they were probably correct about that, considering we know of a real elf who had a beard.
But if elves can have beards, that doesn't mean everybody with a beard is an elf. That just makes no sense.
> But if elves can have beards, that doesn't mean everybody with a beard is an elf. That just makes no sense.
That's not what was said, though. The point is that having a beard is not a show-stopper when suspecting that someone is an elf. People could have suspected that Gandalf was an elf for any number of unmentioned reasons having nothing to do with his beard, it's just that his beard did not get in the way of that, so beards are clearly not considered outside of the elvish phenotype.
Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's not what 0xffff2 is saying, though. The fact that Gandalf could be an elf because Gandalf's beard doesn't rule it out, on account of some elves having beards, does not imply that Gandalf really is an elf. Elves having beards does in no way imply that the people were correct in their belief that Gandalf is an elf.
For anyone who's confused by this comment - the article said that Gandalf was called Elf of the Wand by men. Meaning men confused Gandalf with an elf, implying that beards on elves couldn't have been all that uncommon if Gandalf had one and was confused for an elf by men.
Yeah, that struck me as well, especially considering that I'm pretty sure OP has read way more Tolkien material that I have ever did. There must be something we are missing.
Not the author, and I did read the Silmarillion a long time ago, but I had assumed until now that Gandalf was an elf because he carried one of the elven rings.
Gandalf's existence is actually quite interesting, he's certainly at least a Maia but may in fact be a bit more. There are some murky points about whether he's a devoted servant of Manwe and one of the eldest Maiar - or whether he is actually just an avatar of Manwe.
Do you have a source on which you are basing this conclusion?
From my perspective, it is pretty well established that Gandalf is Olorin, a Maia distinct from Manwe. The non-interference of the Valar in the Third Age is also well known so it is doubtful Manwe himself would appear physically in Middle-Earth.
Also, all Maiar (or rather, Ainur) are the same age or, more accurately, ageless, since they existed before the world.
That's correct. Cirdan gave Narya, the ring of fire, to Mithrandir when he arrived.
"Take this ring, Master," he said, "for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. But as for me, my heart is with the Sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores until the last ship sails. I will await you."
I have a hard time believing that any immortal character in any fictional universe would be so cavalier with their life as an elf is. Imagine a world where the only way you could die is in some sort of accident or due to violence. The downside from even stepping outside, where you risk getting killed by a falling tree or any such random event, would be effectively infinite. I don't think this aspect is generally well-explored in fantasy.
Well, most elves are not of the kind that's cavalier about their lives: They went to Valinor and stayed there. Or stayed put in Doriath for millennia and then went to Valinor. Or to Greenwood, stayed there for a few millennia, and then went to Valinor.
The sociological response to the ossification of civilization, brought on by excessive longevity, is murder of the immortals.
We currently have several septuagenarians duking it out to be our next elected executive leader. Imagine the political discord that would exist between generations if all the leaders were over seven hundred years old. We'd be warring constantly over the inequality.
If one stays inside, eventually the 20th-generation scion of a human family that they have been collecting rents from all that time comes in to kill them, and free his children from the yoke of their undying ownership. Inspired, of course, by an alliance with their grandchild, who wants to inherit something of their own before they turn 500.
It's not that they are cavalier with their lives, as fighting to wrest resources away from their elders, when Death refuses to help. The young have no place to call their own in which to stay. The old cannot fortify against every threat, and must project the impression that they take enough risks to die from their own activities, otherwise be murdered for calcifying local developments.
Alternately, an immortal society could have a festival every century in which all property passes to one's living heirs, and the eldest living ancestor, who would otherwise receive no inheritance, is paid some cash by all their living descendants. I recall a story in which people above a certain age were banned from all governing roles, and could only fill advisory positions. Futurama had the retirement planet, where the eldest (a.k.a. Prof. Farnsworth) were imprisoned to keep them out of the way. Even the various cultural mythologies had new gods arising to slay and replace the old gods. It's very well explored--immortals get murdered. Even the Monkey King, who was six-ways immortal, faced execution, and when the gods discovered they couldn't kill him by any of the known methods of killing immortals, they instead put a mountain on top of him to keep him from moving.
Counterpoint: humans are long-lived compared to other creatures, yet we don't dress in bubble wrap. A human life is normal length to us, and we would risk it if needed. Young soldiers risk death at a fourth of their potential lifespan.
One thing that makes elves in Tolkien's works less OP is the fact that they are slaves to fate, just like anyone who does not share in the Gift of Men.
So, some of their "cavalier-ness" might come from that fact. They might know that it is impossible for them to contravene fate, and so if they are fated to die, then die they will. And if they are not fated to die, then die they will not.
I once saw a great comic strip that asked what if people truly valued their lives according to how many years they had left?
The comic depicted young people cowering inside because they had so much to lose, and all the old people were out doing adventure sports and crime since they had so little left to lose. One old man gets sentenced to life in prison and he barks “Ha! What a bargain!”
As an interesting linguistic side note in the German translation the Elves are called Elben. I believe this term is only used for Tolkien-Elves. The term Elf/Elfen exists in German as well and is commonly used in fantasy/RPGs to describe the standard pointy eared folks. Always thought that's a pretty curios thing.
This is actually not a side note, but a very important point.
The German translation simply replicates what Tolkien did:
He specifically used elf/elves in order to differentiate his creatures from the shakespeare-esque tiny fairies, which were much closer to what Disney did in Peter Pan than to his vision.
The correct English spelling at the time was elf/elfs, and he had to fight the proof readers and editors who constantly tried to correct his spelling.
Interestingly though, dwarf/dwarves, while also wrong (the plural would have been dwarfs), was actually an accident, since his dwarves are not too different from previous folklore.
Which explains why the German translation uses the standard "Zwerg" for them.
There is also the poem by Goethe, "Der Erlkönig". Although a literal translation would be The Alder King, it is usually translated to English as The Elf King.
Alder King does fit with the traditional idea of elves/faeries as non human spirits or supernatural beings associated with nature, who sometimes spirit away mortals to live in the fairy realm.
According to Wikipedia, the idea for the poem is believed to trace back to a Danish story about an Elf King. And Elf King in Danish sounds a bit like Alder King in German.
He so very much doesn't. Back in the days of Usenet, Michael was one of the best-read experts in our discussions, and I admired him for that a lot. There weren't that many of us who could go toe to toe with him in a debate about Middle-earth lore. (There certainly were a few! And honestly, intense debates with him did a lot to hone my own expertise in this stuff: it was fun, especially if you could avoid provoking too many flames.)
That said, he also had a strong tendency to reach some conclusion on a controversial topic and then defend it to the death, even when most of us felt that the ultimate answer seemed unknowable or even fairly firmly different than what he claimed. His arguments were based on immense textual knowledge, followed up with emphatic assertions of truth if you dared disagree, and intense flames if you gave him the slightest excuse to get personal. He said, at times, that the rest of the newsgroup had a grudge against him and that people arguing against him were rejecting Tolkien's words or not arguing in good faith. For quite a while I remained on cordial terms with him and with everyone else, but at some point he decided that doing that constituted me enabling what he viewed as their toxic behavior, and we haven't interacted as friends since. All that is to say: the guy knows his stuff, and unless you're a top-tier expert he'll argue circles around you, but I still don't trust his conclusions on controversial topics.
If anyone wants a more balanced look at the Elf-ears question (from the same era when Michael wrote this FAQ, I think, or at least compatible with it), I've got an essay by Conrad Dunkerson on my site: http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Ears.html
I think it's more just that because everyone assumes they have pointy ears, it's good to point out that the text doesn't say so. It's good to point out common assumptions, as it helps us realize the unconscious biases we bring to a text.
I don't find that argument very convincing. I don't know if Balrog's have wings, but I do know they fall off high stuff a lot.
His analysis of the line, "it was LIKE a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe yet greater" is deeply flawed. He argues that since a simile was used to describe the Balrog's darkness (and it has darkness), then the simile used to describe its wings means it has wings. Tolkien says "like a shadow" because it's dark like a shadow but it's not a shadow because shadows don't have physicality like the Balrog's darkness. We're clearly talking about a supernatural phenomenon that the english language can only describe via simile. Tolkien's abandonment of simile in later passages is to simplify the language. Repeating the exact same simile over and over drags the writing down.
Here's what we do know about balrogs, their essential characteristics are darkness, fire, speed, strength and magic. Flying is not an essential characteristic. It's never mentioned directly, and description of their rapid movement tends to be very metaphorical. We also know that if they do fly, they don't fly like dragons or eagles because they played no part in the conflict between the dragon and eagles. Balrogs were tossed aside with all of Morgoth's unflying creations. Only flying dragons specifically posed any threat to the Valar, and that was because of their flight.
Back in our Usenet days (wow, around 20 years ago now), Michael was firmly in the pro-wing camp: he insisted that Tolkien was using a rhetorical technique where vagueness gave way to clarity, and there were definitely wings, and anyone who said otherwise was flat out rejecting Tolkien's words on the matter (or entirely failing to understand plain English). After years of lengthy debate, I eventually recognized that much of the argument boiled down to nothing but different definitions of "wing", and I championed a consensus position (as described here: http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/Creatures.html#BalWings). As I recall, Michael's response was to say more or less "Yes, that's obviously what I mean, but you're misrepresenting everyone on the 'no wings' side, who would never agree to such a statement." Of course, most of the 'no wings' folks also said, "Yes, that's what I've meant all along" (and yeah, some of them said, "But I know Michael would never agree with that"). It was pretty satisfying!
(And all these years later, it's nice to see that Michael is being reasonably explicit about that issue in his own writing on the topic. It's interesting to compare this 2010 archive link to the current version on his site: after he says "Yes, the Balrog had wings", he's now added a clarification that "The wings were simply shapes made of darkness." Though in the link later in this thread, he evidently can't resist one final jab at anyone who disagrees with him: "I like the book the way it is without all the rewriting and propaganda". And he describes other people trying to discuss the topic as "long-winded nonsense essays". Honestly, I haven't missed those bits of interacting with him.)
Growing up reading LOTR, Silmarillion, etc and ignoring the portrayal of Balrogs in LOTR movies, In the actual text I see: "and its wings were spread from wall to wall" (referring to the Balrog confronting Gandalf). Wings in the sense that gliders have wings, they can float/glide down but don't expect them to fly into the sky. If they could fly why didn't the Balrog that fought with Gandalf in Moria at Khazad Dum fly upwards when Gandalf broke the bridge? They ended up both falling, tumbling down to the abyss.
I'm surprised he doesn't mention Native Americans as a source of inspiration for the elves. If you've read The Last of the Mohicans, this is very obvious (including parallels between Aragorn and Nathaniel/Hawkeye).
I am very surprised by this comment. Could you elaborate?
I read nearly everything published by JRR or Christopher, including notes and letters, and never is any north american influence mentioned.
There are Norse/Germanic/Finnish, Icelandic, Celtic, Byzantine (for Gondor) influences and Atlantis for Numenor, that's pretty much it.
It is also worth noting that Aragorn is not, in fact, the last of his race, as there are still other rangers. He is merely the last one of royal line.
Well, I'll try, but I don't know if I can explain it very well. In The Last of the Mohicans, Nathaniel (Indian name: Hawkeye) is a British-American scout and frontiersman who has largely forsaken white civilization, and lives/hunts/travels with a Mohican chief and his son. He speaks their language and understands their ways. The influence is a bit mixed up though; in TLOTM, there is an exiled chief, the last of his race, who wanders in the wilderness keeping his true identify a secret, but it's the Mohican, not Hawkeye. But in most other ways, Hawkeye is like Aragorn.
Another obvious similarity is the theme of the passing of an age - the natives have lived in their own old fashioned ways for centuries, but now they're receding, and their way of life is fading away in the face of increasing colonialism.
Finally, the storyline of the three companions Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli tracking their friends the captured hobbits across the wilderness, hopelessly outnumbered is pretty much lifted from TLOTM, although Toklien's version is far more epic.
I'm surprised that you would never have heard of this. I read that book only recently, but I always believed it was an influence on Tolkien. I remember reading that he used to dress up as a Native American to entertain children. Here's an interesting quote[1]:
"I had very little desire to look for buried treasure or fight pirates, and Treasure Island left me cool. Red Indians were better: there were bows and arrows (I had and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow), and strange languages, and glimpses of an archaic mode of life, and above all, forests in such stories."
TLOTH is pretty much set entirely in a forest, populated by almost mystical race of forest-people and their enigmatic white friend.
If he read books from that era (like Treasure Island) and had an interest in "Red Indians" then he must have read TLOTM.
I hope I've made a good case for this, but if not then I think reading the book will make the link much clearer.
Thank you! In Europe (well, outside the UK at least - I lived in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria) TLOTM is pretty much unknown to my generation. It is only left as a figure of speech, probably due to the movies.
Since multiple movies were made in the 60s, I suppose that it was not always so.
Wow, interesting discussion! Those guys are definitely looking for a standard of proof way beyond anything I can provide. I think the person who wrote
>>alas, his name was never directly mentioned by J.R.R.Tolkien, then it must be considered a feasible, even probable, speculation
went too far. Personally I think that given the similarities in themes and characters etc., it should be enough to prove that he read it. Which I admit I can't do (though I'm totally convinced of it myself).
As a Tolkien fan, Leonard Nimoy was among the first to correct people that Vulcans were nothing like Tolkien's elves. Among other things, it is said that Nimoy picked the distinctive Vulcan ear where the point is almost straight up specifically to differentiate it from usual book descriptions of elven ears.
Not quite, because Elves are not devoid of emotion or super-logical. But there are commonalities, I suppose... they share sympathy for hobbits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg
Really it doesn't make sense to connect these different things directly, because they point towards higher archetypes that we have embedded in our collective consciousness.
Tolkein originally had the "tall, beautiful, elder people" race to be fairies in his earlier stories. The elves in The Hobbit were very different from what they ended up being in Lord of the Rings. They were more mischievous and Santa Claus elf-like. It looks like he combined the two ideas for his later books.
He called them fairies in the beginning (in what is now the Silmarillion), but they were always taller and more beautiful than humans, always immortal in some way, and always arrived before humans.
He simply changed his names for them, as he also did with the 3 main race names.
