How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

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How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by FaxModem1 »

In the Lord of the Rings movies, Legolas is capable of some rather impossible things, either due to CGI or trick photography. How is he capable of this? As an example, in the Pass of Caradras scene, Legolas is walking on the snow, so either he is lighter than it, or is able to somehow bypass gravity and not have his weight force himself down. So, what's the reason for this? Are all elves capable of this, or is there a specific reason Legolas can bypass the rules of physics as he pleases?

The scene in question



Start around 1:50 to see his amazing ability.

So, what are the reasons for this?
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Gandalf »

It's just a racial ability that's never really explained.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Lord Revan »

basically elves are magical, that particular scene Legolas of walking on top of the snown that humans are knee deep in, is in the books, Frodo even observes that Legolas isn't wearing boots but lighter shoes.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Batman »

It's not like they came up with this for the movie-in the same sequence in the book, Frodo notices that Legolas feet 'left little imprint on the snow'. Hey, at least in the movie he's actually wearing boots. :)
It's a fantasy setting so the real world rules of physics are already potentially optional for a lot of people, and Tolkien elves aren't exactly strangers to magic.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Borgholio »

Yeah, Elves are just supposed to be magically very sure on their feet.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Thanas »

Elves are more in sync with the earth, in some cases their magic directly affects the world they live in. Thus, due to this magical ability, I'd imagine the earth accommodates them whenever it can.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Batman »

Given they're highly magical creatures, Tolkien elves may have something akin to the D&D druid's Trackless Step ability (or for those of DSA turn of mind, a built-in always on 'Spurlos/Trittlos').
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Simon_Jester »

This also ties into their ability to make artifacts with magical properties (such as ropes that untie themselves when you need them to). It's not that they ritually chant spells when making the rope as such, it's that the inherent grace and divine aura of elves is such that they are just that good at making rope. Or walking across snow.

They're like... I think it was Nietzsche who made the observation that man stands on a tightrope between the apes and the angels. Tolkien's elves are pretty close to the 'angel' side of that tightrope, and consequently have some inherently supernatural abilities.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Serafina »

This is just an example of the subtle magic in Tolkiens work.

Elves are just so good at not disturbing what they walk upon that they don't sink into the snow either. And it's not even necessarily an universal elven property, it might just be something Legolas has a lot of training in.

The same applies to a lot of their works. Ropes that untie themselves only when you want them to are just very well-crafted ropes. Cloaks that make you near-invisible are just cloaks that are very-well crafted for the purpose of keeping you warm. Lembas and Miruvor are food that is so well-cooked that it is extremely nourishing.

This is not necessarily limited to Elves. The Valar and Maiar do it, just in slightly more exotic ways. Humans were certainly capable of it as well, as least the most mighty and experienced - the weapons forged in Anor are a good example, and Aragorns skills border on the supernatural as well (such as his healing hands).

Note that elves don't call these things "magic", since it's just a natural extension of their skills. They reserve the word "magic" for unnatural warping of things - pretty much only things done by Morgoth and his servants.
But even that magic is mostly about imbuing things with one skill and power. The One Ring is so powerful because Sauron poured so much of his essence into him. It makes you invisible because of his aptitude at trickery, and has a mighty controlling will because Sauron has one as well.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Isolder74 »

Their ropes don't just untie themselves when you need them to they are also as long as you need them to be as well. 600 foot cliff, it's long enough. 20 foot one, just the right length.

Metal that is super strong but light as a feather, while not being special ore like Mithril. Elvish tech is filled with magical extras.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by LaCroix »

Serafina wrote:This is just an example of the subtle magic in Tolkiens work.

Elves are just so good at not disturbing what they walk upon that they don't sink into the snow either. And it's not even necessarily an universal elven property, it might just be something Legolas has a lot of training in.
True to some extent - we usually only see these blatantly supernatural abilities in older and/or very experienced Elves. Normal elvish soldiers are a lot weaker than these characters. Still way better than Humans, Dwarves, or Orcs, but significantly less powerful than "hero" Elves.
Serafina wrote: The same applies to a lot of their works. Ropes that untie themselves only when you want them to are just very well-crafted ropes. Cloaks that make you near-invisible are just cloaks that are very-well crafted for the purpose of keeping you warm. Lembas and Miruvor are food that is so well-cooked that it is extremely nourishing.
Isolder mentioned the ropes being actual magical, and Lembas must be magical as well. It is described as something alike zwieback or crispbread, and according to the books you can get a full marching day's nutrition from one slice(the movies claim it's from one small bite). Since the real version of that wasa stuff would only be 60 calories per slice (15 gram - 4 calories per gram), and even peanut butter only barely reaches 6 calories per gram and butter, the most caloric procuct, is at 7-7.5 cal/gram.

A "marching day" would easily require 3000 calories (probably twice as much), which means for the waver thin lembas with nutritional values as good as butter to work like described, each slice would need to be as big as 33 wasa slices. That's a couple of square feet. What if "wafer thin" means something thicker than wasa, and mybe three times as big? A whole package contains 12 slices, so you'd need 3 packs. Put them side by side either way, and it's still a huge block. Either way you look at it, this is impossible to match with the description.

You'd need something with like 10 to 30 times the caloric content of butter to create Lembas in a reasonable size that maches the description - you just can't "cook that well". You simply can't do that without magic.

Also, just like the ropes, its mere touch actually hurts 'evil' creatures.
Serafina wrote: This is not necessarily limited to Elves. The Valar and Maiar do it, just in slightly more exotic ways. Humans were certainly capable of it as well, as least the most mighty and experienced - the weapons forged in Anor are a good example, and Aragorns skills border on the supernatural as well (such as his healing hands).
This is where your argument falls apart.
Valar and Maiar are magical beings like the Elves, and Aragorn is a Dúnedain, and therefore part elvish. They all don't count.
And Anor - that's the old name of Minas Tirith - the home of the Dúnedain - so if they made magical blades, they are most likely also made by part-elves.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Guardsman Bass »

No, it's implied that righteous humans (relatively) uncorrupted by Melkor's warping of the world can do this type of stuff as well, although their innate ability to do so isn't as great as that of the Elves. The Numenoreans at their peak built nearly indestructible fortifications that were utterly resistant to weather and time (Orthanc), the whole "healing hands" mentioned up-thread, and so forth.

Some of them may have had more openly "magical"-seeming personal power as well, considering that Elendil and Gilgalad were capable of "killing" post-Ring creation Sauron at the peak of his power.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Simon_Jester »

LaCroix, the point here is that in Tolkein, the normal practice of craftsmanship and what we call 'magic' are blurred. In English there is a distinction between 'preternatural' and 'supernatural,' and

So lembas is 'preternaturally' nutritious bread. But it is not 'supernatural' in that it has no capabilities that are not logically part of the nature of bread.* It doesn't let you fly, or pick up a huge boulder, or heal your wounds. Lembas isn't 'supernatural' in that it does anything other than what bread ought to do. It is 'preternatural' in that it does the one thing thirty times better than bread ought to do it, better than normal bread as we know it in the Fourth Age can ever do it.

Likewise, elven swords and armor are preternaturally sharp and strong... but as a rule they don't do anything exotic like shoot out bursts of flame, their functions are restricted to doing the normal things a sword does, very well. Elven cloaks hide you really well and shelter you really well, both of which are things cloaks are normally intended to do. Elven boats are really good boats, elven ropes are really good ropes, and so on.
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*Aside from being at least mildly harmful to evil creatures on contact... Which one can argue is from the residual grace imparted to it by the elves, who represent capital-g Good in a world where there is a very definite conflict between Good and Evil.

Now, whether we call such a thing, with preternaturally superior qualities, "magical" or not, depends on our attitude toward magic. In the context of Tolkein's novels, theology, and worldview...

It's like this. No, they are not magical, they are the product of superior craftsmanship, of a kind that was only possible in the Third and earlier Ages when a certain special grace had not yet faded from creation.

Nowadays, of course, it has, and no one could conceivably make a rope that unties itself and is as long as you need it to be. Or a slice of traveling bread nutritious enough to feed a strong man for a whole day. Even high technology might not let you do these things- because high technology is not the same as divine grace.

To expand on this, we can quote a character from one of Tolkein's friends novels, and say "it's all in Plato."

We can imagine lembas as being very close to the Platonic ideal form of bread, not just a bread but Bread itself. The 'ideal' bread is a bread that partakes of the fundamental nature of bread so much, so well, that if you saw it and tasted it you would say "this is exactly what bread is supposed to be!" Lembas may not be this perfect or this ideal- but, thanks to the divine grace that is present in the elves, it comes close.

Likewise elven ropes are Ropes, elven cloaks are Cloaks, these artifacts do everything that it is in the nature of a rope or a cloak to do, and do it very well.

Of course, it is possible for a very materialist person to say "ah, well, that's just a bunch of philosophical and religious mumbo-jumbo. It's really just magic bread." And within the frame of reference of said person... yes, lembas is simply 'magic bread.'

But to stop at that point is to fail to grasp a point about how Tolkein set up the world of his fiction.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by LadyTevar »

The explaination I've always heard was "Elves walk lightly upon the world". Who aid it and where I have to look up
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by LadyTevar »

This is fanfic: but it's as good an explanation as any imho.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10357006/1 ... nt-To-Know
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

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The Numenoreans were exceptional more or less due to Elven blood from the line of Luthien that goes all the way back to Thingol and Melian, one of the very first Elves and a Maiar. That's a heaping load of magic genetics right there. I don't recall if there was other intermarriage with the Elves, but they were descended from Men of the First Age, specifically the Houses of Beor and Hador, Elf-friends and allies in the war against Morgoth. So it's pretty much a given that they received High Elven technical knowledge and capabilities at least when Numenor and the Elves were friends. The specific magical feats such as healing hands seem to be limited to those of the royal lineage, hence Aragorn.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by PhilosopherOfSorts »

As far as the ropes "burning" Gollum, I actually always took that as Gollum just, you know, lying. Yelling and screaming and carrying on and generally throwing a tantrum so that the soft-hearted Hobbits would untie him, but not actually in any pain.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

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PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:As far as the ropes "burning" Gollum, I actually always took that as Gollum just, you know, lying. Yelling and screaming and carrying on and generally throwing a tantrum so that the soft-hearted Hobbits would untie him, but not actually in any pain.
I dunno, look at the scenes where he reacts (before Frodo tells him what they are) to the touch of other elf-made or -influenced materials, like the lembas. If you look at it as the materials having a "virtue" simply because of who made them, Gollum's "corrupted" nature causing something like a violent allergic reaction makes sense in that context.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

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Elheru Aran wrote:The Numenoreans were exceptional more or less due to Elven blood from the line of Luthien that goes all the way back to Thingol and Melian, one of the very first Elves and a Maiar. That's a heaping load of magic genetics right there. I don't recall if there was other intermarriage with the Elves, but they were descended from Men of the First Age, specifically the Houses of Beor and Hador, Elf-friends and allies in the war against Morgoth. So it's pretty much a given that they received High Elven technical knowledge and capabilities at least when Numenor and the Elves were friends. The specific magical feats such as healing hands seem to be limited to those of the royal lineage, hence Aragorn.
There's other stuff, too, though - like the longer life-spans which then (according to Tolkien) diminished regardless of interbreeding with other groups of Men back in Middle-Earth. It's not just a matter of them having Elvish knowledge and kings descended from a half-elf.
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Re: How(or why) does Legolas ignore gravity?

Post by Elheru Aran »

Guardsman Bass wrote:
Elheru Aran wrote:The Numenoreans were exceptional more or less due to Elven blood from the line of Luthien that goes all the way back to Thingol and Melian, one of the very first Elves and a Maiar. That's a heaping load of magic genetics right there. I don't recall if there was other intermarriage with the Elves, but they were descended from Men of the First Age, specifically the Houses of Beor and Hador, Elf-friends and allies in the war against Morgoth. So it's pretty much a given that they received High Elven technical knowledge and capabilities at least when Numenor and the Elves were friends. The specific magical feats such as healing hands seem to be limited to those of the royal lineage, hence Aragorn.
There's other stuff, too, though - like the longer life-spans which then (according to Tolkien) diminished regardless of interbreeding with other groups of Men back in Middle-Earth. It's not just a matter of them having Elvish knowledge and kings descended from a half-elf.
I thought the implication was quite obvious that the lifespan was from their Elven heritage, given how it keeps getting shorter after Elros, as they kept marrying other humans after that point. If other Numenoreans had similarly long lifespans, I'm not aware of that.
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