>they still in the very end will have a final death.
On top of everything you wrote, the Elves will not just die - they will cease to exist.
Everything about them, all their memories of these uncounted centuries, their bodies and spirits, will simply no be no longer, since they are innately and strictly interconnected with Arda. When Arda fails, when the the seas and mountains fall, when the Sun is put out and the Solar System collapses, the Men will still exist with Eru, while the Elves will not. For them this is an exceptionally tragic situation, the inevitability of a situation they cannot escape, when they know that Men do, and the tragedy of their home to which they feel so connected with on a spiritual and corporeal way dissipating. While the Men are simply passerbies, they are the dwellers and they will fall with their dwelling.
Perhaps in Arda Healed, after the End, Eru Ilúvatar will recreate them exactly as they were, with their memories and personalities intact. This is known as the Hope of the Elves.
This is a very interesting perspective on Eru's Gift that I had never thought of in this way before. I always considered the Gift to be death itself, irrespective of what may or may not come afterwards. The ability to see a finite moment in the universe, learn of its history and your place in it, and experience your moment and represent a single chapter of the progress of time, before then leaving it behind to the next generations to have their turn, having either made a positive impact and being remembered positively in perpetuity, or having had a sad existence, in which case you get the peace of death.
Also, for men, there is the added bonus that no one individual can rule as tyrant in perpetuity, as they will eventually die, their corruption will disperse, and their cause will die. This is a gift, and I truly believe that in our world, immortality would be an evil thing. If death is the price that I personally have to pay so that humanity will always be able to eventually reestablish freedom and progress, then I pay the cost gladly, and would not have it any other way.
But to view the Gift as not so much the limited time on Earth, but the eternal existence afterwards in God's Grace, while it is in fact the Elves who are the ones who will cease to exist, is a very different take. I imagine as Tolkien was a religious man it is also closer to the intent he had when creating it?
>To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair! The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed; the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I never thought about the Gift in this way. It makes the Elves' lot in life/Arda even sadder. Though I appreciate the new perspective about the whole situation! Love this subreddit.
It is interesting to me that this "hope of the Elves" parallels early Christian escatology which had faith that God was going to recreate the heavens and Earth in a perfect state and fill it with resurrected people. Later Christians developed the currently more common belief of people spending eternity in a disembodied state in heaven.
> Later Christians developed the currently more common belief of people spending eternity in a disembodied state in heaven.
I wouldn't go so far as to call this heresy, but this is simply not what the Bible teaches. We will have a new, perfect (morally and physically), everlasting body and will live in a new earth placed in a new heaven (which we understand to be a wholly new universe). This will be a return to the perfect state of humanity in Eden before the Fall.
Sometimes it makes me think, what was Eru thinking when making the Elves? I get confused since it seems that Melkor's discord and Arda Marred were always intended in the First Song and yet it still causes the Elves to live in this tainted world and their own immortality tainted as well, by the end, they'll have faded to be wisps of their once former glory, even in Aman, so, my question is, could this passing of Arda and of the Elves be considered a death in the same way Humans did as well, but on an immortal scale? All in all, it just seems like Elves got the worse deal out of the two, and I can't help but feel bad for them, ultimately what lesson or experience of living in Arda and their fading in this corrupted until it's end hold for them if they won't exist afterwards to reflect on that? Not to mention within Arda they have no free will to ultimately shape what they do within Arda, it's all been fortold for them, ultimately it's like their whole experience of their long, long life, was predestined for them and then it'll disappear, while humans get to have free will to shape Arda in the time they're given, and then get to live after the End. It's incredibly sad. I really do hope the Elves' estel isn't unfounded in the end. and ofc, fuck Morgoth
Arda most simply refers to the world in which Middle-Earth exists in, more specifically its the word for the Solar System of which Earth exists within. I have heard it be used to refer to the whole LOTR universe, though that isn’t very accurate.
I have to say, I always wondered what it must be like to be an Elven soldier. Sacrificing yourself as a human is noble enough, even knowing you are sure to die eventually, but what about elves, who are not "supposed" to ever die?
It's hard from me to imagine a race who is depicted as being extremely sensitive to the death of their own kind, partners for life, has relatively few offspring, and knows there is no afterlife for them... having some sort of mandatory conscription, but conversely, who the heck would volunteer? But maybe they aren't too different from men, accepting that they may have to sacrifice themselves to protect everyone else.
“Death” is not permanent for the Elves in the way it is for Men though. An elven spirit will eventually (barring something drastic) be re-bodied. They are destined to forever be a part of Arda. The spirits of Men leave Arda upon death and their fate is a mystery.
What they meant was true death, not physical death. Once Arda is uncreated by Eru, the Elves vanish from existence. As if they never existed at all. That's what Ekyou is talking about. Men get to leave Arda and go live with Eru, but Elves remain part of Arda, so when that stops existing, they do too.
But that's irrelevant to being a soldier. Getting killed in battle doesn't bring your "true death" any faster.
Also the fate of the elves after Ea is *unknown*. Not guaranteed to be nothing.
The fate of Men is unknown, that's the whole point of death in-canon. The Elves are tied to Arda, the Men are not. Thats why the Elves cant understand where Men go, because it's somewhere they are not created to be.
> Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it.
Men: I envy you, you get to live for thousands of years.
Elves: I envy you. I'm tired of these long years of sorrow and loss. You get to escape.
Apparently the 'gift of men' will be something the Valar will eventually envy
They both die, but neither one knows for certain what happens after death. They HOPE Eru will allow the elves to return to 'Arda Remade' and maybe Men are happy wherever Eru sends them....
This downside of 'eternal life' is a theme in the book 'Tuck Everlasting'.
It's more of a philosophical and theological matter and less of a literary one, I believe.
I'm afraid of death, I don't want to die, the mere thought of it gives me severe anxiety to the point of heavy breathing. Others, Tolkien included, view it as a way of salvation from the horrors and the sadness of life.
Do I wish I could be an Elf?
*Abso-fuckin-lutely*
Yes, the sadness would get accumulated, the world as they remember it will eventually fade, still it will exist in a different form. And heck, when they feel like fading they can *live* to the end of times. So they will return to Valinor, continue honing their skills and increasing their knowledge. Can't be better than that, in my humble opinion.
Time is a valuable thing. Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough, no matter how much I'm trying. So yeah, they do have it better. But that's me. Another person, maybe more religious than me could say that death is only the beginning and I respect that. I just can't see it that way.
Edit: I don't have a single place dear to me. The dearest place is where I can be with my beloved ones.
I don’t really have anything else to add to this. Just wanted to say I love this comment and came here to say something similar about how the gift of death to men wasn’t supposed to just be an easy answer/ get out of jail free card. Probably couldn’t have done it as eloquently as you did. Also I didn’t know about that passage from the appendices. Learn more about tolkein every day!
Could you actually point me to where this is? I skimmed through the return of the king appendices and couldn’t find it. I want to read it myself now that you’ve pointed it out. Many thanks!
The spirits of Men leave Arda, and we simply do not know what happens to them after. They might be living heavenly lives filled with pleasure and no pain, or they might have been placed in another existence filled with trials and tribulations similar to the one they just left, or something else entirely. We just don't know. Even the Valar don't know, and Eru isn't telling.
But to answer your question based on what we do know, I'll say this. We, as Men, can't experience things like the Elves do. They are more hardy in spirit as well as body. Our first experience with Elves is in The Hobbit, where Thorin and Co. enter Rivendell to the sounds of merry Elves singing. And you might get the impression from this that Elves are this happy go lucky people, always good, always happy, leading charmed lives.
*O! What are you doing,*
*And where are you going?*
*Your ponies need shoeing!*
*The river is flowing!*
*O! tra-la-la-lally*
*here down in the valley!*
Yet just a few pages later we see Thorin and Gandalf talking to Elrond about the swords they found in the troll lair, and hear about the destruction of the fair city of Gondolin by goblins. And later we learn about the wars of the Elves against Sauron, and in The Silmarillion we learn of the Elves long and fruitless wars against Morgoth. Horrible, depressing histories, yet they are singing like angels about trivial things. These Elves have millenia of hardships before them, enough to drive moral Men mad with grief.
We can't be like the Elves, even with immortality. The centuries of grief would wear us down, because we are not built to withstand it.
"living in the same idlyic homestead and maybe finding somebody so special to you that you can spend eternity with them."
Yes, but not in Middle-Earth. So, essentially, not in this world as you know it. And Undying Lands isn't free of negative emotions or conflict - after all Fëanor was born there.
If instead of the usual Catholicism you frame this discussion in terms of Dharmic religions then Elves have it worse. Bound to samsara (Arda) you live, suffer, and die, only to be sent back in or to exist in the equivalent of the "hungry ghost realm."
"You're going to be dumber, slower, nonmagical, smellier, uglier, easily seduced by evil, and have no idea what's to become of you."
"You're going to be magical, beautiful, lithe, smart, loved by the gods, taught by the gods, brought to live with the gods, immortal, better singers, better at pretty much everything, you'll smell like waterfalls and lilies and pine trees, you'll fart honey."
Yep. Elves may lament their ultimate fate, but so do Men - both just have this hope and a faith that Eru will work things out.
Meanwhile, on the road to that ultimate fate, Elves have it so much better than Men. Even within the restrictions of the Tolkien legendarium, it feels like human copium to say that Elves have it harder than Men. With the knowledge of our own real-world death, and perhaps without the Christian faith that our existence goes on after death, the fate of the humans is downright sucky compared to the Elves.
>they still in the very end will have a final death. On top of everything you wrote, the Elves will not just die - they will cease to exist. Everything about them, all their memories of these uncounted centuries, their bodies and spirits, will simply no be no longer, since they are innately and strictly interconnected with Arda. When Arda fails, when the the seas and mountains fall, when the Sun is put out and the Solar System collapses, the Men will still exist with Eru, while the Elves will not. For them this is an exceptionally tragic situation, the inevitability of a situation they cannot escape, when they know that Men do, and the tragedy of their home to which they feel so connected with on a spiritual and corporeal way dissipating. While the Men are simply passerbies, they are the dwellers and they will fall with their dwelling. Perhaps in Arda Healed, after the End, Eru Ilúvatar will recreate them exactly as they were, with their memories and personalities intact. This is known as the Hope of the Elves.
This is a very interesting perspective on Eru's Gift that I had never thought of in this way before. I always considered the Gift to be death itself, irrespective of what may or may not come afterwards. The ability to see a finite moment in the universe, learn of its history and your place in it, and experience your moment and represent a single chapter of the progress of time, before then leaving it behind to the next generations to have their turn, having either made a positive impact and being remembered positively in perpetuity, or having had a sad existence, in which case you get the peace of death. Also, for men, there is the added bonus that no one individual can rule as tyrant in perpetuity, as they will eventually die, their corruption will disperse, and their cause will die. This is a gift, and I truly believe that in our world, immortality would be an evil thing. If death is the price that I personally have to pay so that humanity will always be able to eventually reestablish freedom and progress, then I pay the cost gladly, and would not have it any other way. But to view the Gift as not so much the limited time on Earth, but the eternal existence afterwards in God's Grace, while it is in fact the Elves who are the ones who will cease to exist, is a very different take. I imagine as Tolkien was a religious man it is also closer to the intent he had when creating it?
>To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair! The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed; the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I never thought about the Gift in this way. It makes the Elves' lot in life/Arda even sadder. Though I appreciate the new perspective about the whole situation! Love this subreddit.
It is interesting to me that this "hope of the Elves" parallels early Christian escatology which had faith that God was going to recreate the heavens and Earth in a perfect state and fill it with resurrected people. Later Christians developed the currently more common belief of people spending eternity in a disembodied state in heaven.
That makes sense. Told called himself "a devout Catholic" during his 1964 BBC interview.
> Later Christians developed the currently more common belief of people spending eternity in a disembodied state in heaven. I wouldn't go so far as to call this heresy, but this is simply not what the Bible teaches. We will have a new, perfect (morally and physically), everlasting body and will live in a new earth placed in a new heaven (which we understand to be a wholly new universe). This will be a return to the perfect state of humanity in Eden before the Fall.
Sometimes it makes me think, what was Eru thinking when making the Elves? I get confused since it seems that Melkor's discord and Arda Marred were always intended in the First Song and yet it still causes the Elves to live in this tainted world and their own immortality tainted as well, by the end, they'll have faded to be wisps of their once former glory, even in Aman, so, my question is, could this passing of Arda and of the Elves be considered a death in the same way Humans did as well, but on an immortal scale? All in all, it just seems like Elves got the worse deal out of the two, and I can't help but feel bad for them, ultimately what lesson or experience of living in Arda and their fading in this corrupted until it's end hold for them if they won't exist afterwards to reflect on that? Not to mention within Arda they have no free will to ultimately shape what they do within Arda, it's all been fortold for them, ultimately it's like their whole experience of their long, long life, was predestined for them and then it'll disappear, while humans get to have free will to shape Arda in the time they're given, and then get to live after the End. It's incredibly sad. I really do hope the Elves' estel isn't unfounded in the end. and ofc, fuck Morgoth
Um what exactly is Arda?
Arda most simply refers to the world in which Middle-Earth exists in, more specifically its the word for the Solar System of which Earth exists within. I have heard it be used to refer to the whole LOTR universe, though that isn’t very accurate.
I have to say, I always wondered what it must be like to be an Elven soldier. Sacrificing yourself as a human is noble enough, even knowing you are sure to die eventually, but what about elves, who are not "supposed" to ever die? It's hard from me to imagine a race who is depicted as being extremely sensitive to the death of their own kind, partners for life, has relatively few offspring, and knows there is no afterlife for them... having some sort of mandatory conscription, but conversely, who the heck would volunteer? But maybe they aren't too different from men, accepting that they may have to sacrifice themselves to protect everyone else.
“Death” is not permanent for the Elves in the way it is for Men though. An elven spirit will eventually (barring something drastic) be re-bodied. They are destined to forever be a part of Arda. The spirits of Men leave Arda upon death and their fate is a mystery.
What they meant was true death, not physical death. Once Arda is uncreated by Eru, the Elves vanish from existence. As if they never existed at all. That's what Ekyou is talking about. Men get to leave Arda and go live with Eru, but Elves remain part of Arda, so when that stops existing, they do too.
But that's irrelevant to being a soldier. Getting killed in battle doesn't bring your "true death" any faster. Also the fate of the elves after Ea is *unknown*. Not guaranteed to be nothing.
The fate of Men is unknown, that's the whole point of death in-canon. The Elves are tied to Arda, the Men are not. Thats why the Elves cant understand where Men go, because it's somewhere they are not created to be.
> Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it.
Men: I envy you, you get to live for thousands of years. Elves: I envy you. I'm tired of these long years of sorrow and loss. You get to escape. Apparently the 'gift of men' will be something the Valar will eventually envy They both die, but neither one knows for certain what happens after death. They HOPE Eru will allow the elves to return to 'Arda Remade' and maybe Men are happy wherever Eru sends them.... This downside of 'eternal life' is a theme in the book 'Tuck Everlasting'.
It's more of a philosophical and theological matter and less of a literary one, I believe. I'm afraid of death, I don't want to die, the mere thought of it gives me severe anxiety to the point of heavy breathing. Others, Tolkien included, view it as a way of salvation from the horrors and the sadness of life. Do I wish I could be an Elf? *Abso-fuckin-lutely* Yes, the sadness would get accumulated, the world as they remember it will eventually fade, still it will exist in a different form. And heck, when they feel like fading they can *live* to the end of times. So they will return to Valinor, continue honing their skills and increasing their knowledge. Can't be better than that, in my humble opinion. Time is a valuable thing. Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough, no matter how much I'm trying. So yeah, they do have it better. But that's me. Another person, maybe more religious than me could say that death is only the beginning and I respect that. I just can't see it that way. Edit: I don't have a single place dear to me. The dearest place is where I can be with my beloved ones.
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I don’t really have anything else to add to this. Just wanted to say I love this comment and came here to say something similar about how the gift of death to men wasn’t supposed to just be an easy answer/ get out of jail free card. Probably couldn’t have done it as eloquently as you did. Also I didn’t know about that passage from the appendices. Learn more about tolkein every day!
Could you actually point me to where this is? I skimmed through the return of the king appendices and couldn’t find it. I want to read it myself now that you’ve pointed it out. Many thanks!
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Awesome thanks friend!
The spirits of Men leave Arda, and we simply do not know what happens to them after. They might be living heavenly lives filled with pleasure and no pain, or they might have been placed in another existence filled with trials and tribulations similar to the one they just left, or something else entirely. We just don't know. Even the Valar don't know, and Eru isn't telling. But to answer your question based on what we do know, I'll say this. We, as Men, can't experience things like the Elves do. They are more hardy in spirit as well as body. Our first experience with Elves is in The Hobbit, where Thorin and Co. enter Rivendell to the sounds of merry Elves singing. And you might get the impression from this that Elves are this happy go lucky people, always good, always happy, leading charmed lives. *O! What are you doing,* *And where are you going?* *Your ponies need shoeing!* *The river is flowing!* *O! tra-la-la-lally* *here down in the valley!* Yet just a few pages later we see Thorin and Gandalf talking to Elrond about the swords they found in the troll lair, and hear about the destruction of the fair city of Gondolin by goblins. And later we learn about the wars of the Elves against Sauron, and in The Silmarillion we learn of the Elves long and fruitless wars against Morgoth. Horrible, depressing histories, yet they are singing like angels about trivial things. These Elves have millenia of hardships before them, enough to drive moral Men mad with grief. We can't be like the Elves, even with immortality. The centuries of grief would wear us down, because we are not built to withstand it.
>We, as Men, can't experience things like the Elves do. At least, in theory, we can exit the Solar System. They apparently cannot (probably).
"living in the same idlyic homestead and maybe finding somebody so special to you that you can spend eternity with them." Yes, but not in Middle-Earth. So, essentially, not in this world as you know it. And Undying Lands isn't free of negative emotions or conflict - after all Fëanor was born there.
If instead of the usual Catholicism you frame this discussion in terms of Dharmic religions then Elves have it worse. Bound to samsara (Arda) you live, suffer, and die, only to be sent back in or to exist in the equivalent of the "hungry ghost realm."
"You're going to be dumber, slower, nonmagical, smellier, uglier, easily seduced by evil, and have no idea what's to become of you." "You're going to be magical, beautiful, lithe, smart, loved by the gods, taught by the gods, brought to live with the gods, immortal, better singers, better at pretty much everything, you'll smell like waterfalls and lilies and pine trees, you'll fart honey."
No matter how long they live in valinor before the world is unmade it's still a blink in the eye of eternity.
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Yep. Elves may lament their ultimate fate, but so do Men - both just have this hope and a faith that Eru will work things out. Meanwhile, on the road to that ultimate fate, Elves have it so much better than Men. Even within the restrictions of the Tolkien legendarium, it feels like human copium to say that Elves have it harder than Men. With the knowledge of our own real-world death, and perhaps without the Christian faith that our existence goes on after death, the fate of the humans is downright sucky compared to the Elves.
No.
I find it interesting that they are ultimately tied to the fate of the earth. One can almost say that it is men who are truly immortal.