Back When Elves Were Plentiful

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Grumman
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Re: Back When Elves Were Plentiful

Post by Grumman »

Patroklos wrote:Think about Legolas, probably the elve most people know the best due to the LOTR movies. The experiences of his day to day live don't really differ all that much from the other characters dwarf or human. His pace is the same from what we see, he gets angry and happy about the same things and he can die from everything the others can with the exception of age. THe only real substantial thing that sets him unequicably apart was he doesn't fear ghosts, which is stupid because we later see those ghosts can kill things just fine.
Movie!Legolas is hilariously skilled in the fine art of killing things, seemingly even by elf standards, so I don't think it's that surprising that he doesn't scare easily.
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Re: Back When Elves Were Plentiful

Post by Simon_Jester »

One interesting variable is the mechanism behind elves' longevity. The most interesting version I've had anything to do with starts with the premise that elves' physiology is very consciously controlled, requires certain precise chemical balances that in turn require precise mental balance.

Thus, elves spend a lot of time meditating on ecosystems because it's how they preserve the equilibrium they need to live so long. On the other hand, they're very comfortable with messy complexity- as would anyone be, who can begin to understand the operations of their own liver. They're similarly happy with insanely detailed philosophies, so their art and culture and politics and religion start to blur together in ways that befuddle a human observer- and which tend to cancel each other out on the large scale, because the different groups of elves have been deadlocked in argument for centuries while the world around them starts to change...
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Broken
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Re: Back When Elves Were Plentiful

Post by Broken »

Grumman wrote:
Patroklos wrote:Think about Legolas, probably the elve most people know the best due to the LOTR movies. The experiences of his day to day live don't really differ all that much from the other characters dwarf or human. His pace is the same from what we see, he gets angry and happy about the same things and he can die from everything the others can with the exception of age. THe only real substantial thing that sets him unequicably apart was he doesn't fear ghosts, which is stupid because we later see those ghosts can kill things just fine.
Movie!Legolas is hilariously skilled in the fine art of killing things, seemingly even by elf standards, so I don't think it's that surprising that he doesn't scare easily.
It is a strange movie oddity, but in the books Legolas "for whom the ghosts of Men have no terror" while the book Dead Men of Dunharrow kill with fear alone and indeed may not be material at all. Thus, Tolkien Elves would have no reason to be concerned with shades of Men.

This is because in Tolkien's cosmology the main difference between Men and Elves is the soul, not the physical body. Most of the superhuman feats of the First Age, Númenor, and others is due to the how close to the Light of the Two Trees and the Valar that person/people were. Thus the High Elves (Noldor) are generally superior to Sindar (Grey Elves like Legolas, lead by a Light Elf King and Maiar Queen) who are in turn greater then dark elves, who never saw the Light of the Two Trees. This is reflected in Men as well with the Edain/Númenóreans having greater power and longer lives then the Men who were never instructed by the High Elves. So it was not just a matter of "doesn't scare easily" but that ghosts of men have no sway over a Grey Elf. Although that does make me wonder if a dark elf would be frightened by a human shade or if the mere elven nature of the soul places it beyond their ability to terrify.
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The Noldor are the Wise, and the Golden, the Valiant, the Sword-elves, the Elves of the Earth, the Foes of Melkor, the Skilled of Hand, the Jewel-wrights, the Companions of Men, the Followers of Finwë.
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Elfdart
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Re: Back When Elves Were Plentiful

Post by Elfdart »

Esquire wrote:Maybe that explains the stereotypical elven superiority complex - anybody who has to survive a century of adolescence clearly deserves some sort of compensation. :D

I'm especially interested in Agent Sorchus' somewhat darker take on elf society, with constant wars as expansion used to control population pressures. Do we have any idea what the birthrate would be? Something above replacement level, obviously, but if individuals live somewhere between a thousand years and until killed that could be... (insert back-of-the-envelope calculating) anywhere above 1 per thousand individuals per year. I'd say that works as a minimum even if elves live forever, since there'd almost have to be at least one elf per thousand killed by a falling tree branch/giant spider/orc warband/tragic baking accident per year.

In an especially violent setting, you might see human women used to expand the population of half-elves 'quickly' to prepare for war, since they live longer than humans but mature faster than elves. I'm assuming, of course, that human/elf pairings have a higher fertility rate than elves do with each other.
What you and Agent Sorchus describe is similar to Poul Anderson's novel The Broken Sword, which is what Gygax patterned D&D's elves after (except that in Anderson's book, elves are highly susceptible to iron). In the book, the realm of Faerie is a parallel land inhabited by pagan gods, giants, elves, trolls, etc. who every once in a while meddle in the mundane real world. While the two are separate, one can travel from one to the other if they know where the two worlds merge* -and what goes on in one affects the other (For example, dryads die in gruesome fashion when Christians chop down the sacred oaks, and gods themselves die off as their temples are destroyed or abandoned in the world of men).

In Faerie, the elves are engaged in a long-running war with the trolls and goblins, while in the realm of man, Danes and Saxons fight over land in England. Imric, the leader of the elves, decides to stir up trouble among mankind (especially the ones following this newfangled religion) by snatching a human baby to raise as one of his own (humans can handle iron, which is deadly to elves) and replacing him with a half elf/half troll changeling.

* These crossroads are disguised with magic and other illusions to appear as normal parts of the countryside, and only humans with "witch-sight" can see them for what they are.
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