Talk:Elves (Middle-earth)

Contents

1 Not a single elf... 2 Thranduil 3 Middle-earth -> Arda 4 "not to be found in Tolkien's writings" ...except in LotR ,and the Etymologies, and... 5 spelling choices 6 Hair color 7 Capitalisation: Elves, elves, elf, Elf etc

Not a single elf...

"it is specifically told that not a single Elf joined Morgoth or Sauron, the Enemies"

How about Maeglin? Ausir 23:57, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Or what about the entire Elvish origin of Orcs for that matter. — Jor (Darkelf) 00:19, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'll just delete this sentence. Ausir 00:21, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And another edit conflict ;-) I was busy rewriting it. — Jor (Darkelf) 00:23, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thranduil

What about Thranduil, of the Mirkwood Elves? He held one of the three rings... --Timo 23:59, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

No, he didn't. Ausir 00:01, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Are you sure? I think its in the appendix of LOTR. However, he was still important, as he ruled one of the elven forests, then after the Wars of the Rings, he and Elrond cured Mirkwood from the gloom --Timo 00:02, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

It's not in the appendix. Mirkwood was mainly cleared by Celeborn of Lórien. Thranduil was mainly a fringe figure, a Sindar who had become almost like his Silvan subjects. Thranduil was not even king at the time of the forging of the Rings of Power: his father Oropher was. The holders of the Elves were Gil-galad (two rings) and Galadriel: Gil-galad's rings went to his lieutenants Elrond and Círdan. Círdan then gave his ring to Gandalf. — Jor (Darkelf) 00:19, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Middle-earth -> Arda

Could someone move it back to Elves (Middle-earth)? While this disambiguation is not entirely correct, we chose it some time ago because Middle-earth is more commonly known than Arda. Besides, it's a bitch fixing all those double redirects :>. Ausir 09:59, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Seconded. The article ought to use the same disambiguation as the other M-e articles. [[User:Anárion|Missing image
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] 16:42, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another option I’d be happy with is to move the main article to Quendi, making all other links redirects. [[User:Anárion|Missing image
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] 16:43, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Moved back. [[User:Anárion|Missing image
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] 21:58, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"not to be found in Tolkien's writings" ...except in LotR ,and the Etymologies, and...

"...for example the now clichéd special affinity with nature and bows, as well as explicit references to "pointy ears", are not to be found in Tolkien's writings..."

This is not entirely accurate. The Elves of LotR are and The Hobbit are mostly woodland Elves (from Lórien and Mirkwood). The Noldor in the Silmarillion have very little to do with the woods, but the Sindarin Elves of Doriath certainly had a strong affinity for nature. Anyway, the most prominent Elf in LotR is Legolas, a Wood-Elf with a bow, so the associations come rather naturally from that, even though it isn't fair to assume that all haves have an affinity with nature and bows (although the former more than the latter has some real basis in fact).

As for pointy ears, there are two distinct references. In Letters, at one point Tolkien refers to Hobbits as having "ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'" (27), though of course that doesn't have to imply that his own Elves have pointed ears. However, the Etymologies in The Lost Road are quite explicit: "(Some think this is related to the next and *lasse 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].)"

Basically, the pointy ear question has been a subject of some debate, but unlike the great mystery of the Balrog's wings, the evidence is actually fairly conclusive. They probably did have pointed ears, although based on practical considerations they must have been only slightly pointed and "leaf-shaped", not the huge, spiky things common especially in Anime.

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how to correct this without going into great depth. I will probably add something about the pointy-ear thing eventually. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 17:52, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The pointed ears: yes, the [las]/[lassë]] quote is probably enough evidence. Also Tolkien's pictures of Elves seem to depict them with prominently drawn ears — suggesting they were pointed.

However, the Elves' affinity with nature is different than it is in AD&D: Elves simply were more in touch with it than Men, not as clichéd as the AD&D Silvan Elves.

Bows are not necessarily "fixed" on Elves either: with the exception of Beleg there is no special mention of bowmen under the Elves, and the Ñoldor in particular seem to have favoured swords and spears. [[User:Anárion|АПА́ДІОП]] 18:25, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's unfair to say that Tolkien's Elves necessarily have any special affinity with woods or with bows. But I think that the AD&D clichés most likely come from perceptions of Elves in LotR (specifically Legolas), and these perceptions are not entirely groundless. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 23:33, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was bold and went ahead and added some material about this. Feel free to edit. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 00:04, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good rewrites there. No need to change. [[User:Anárion|АПА́ДІОП]] 09:54, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

spelling choices

I noticed that the spelling Ñoldor has been used after a recent change. I don't think this is appropriate. The canonical spelling, used in all the books that people actually read (apart from the hardcore fans) is Noldor.

The spelling Ñoldor is also unnecessarily confusing, since most people know the letter ñ from Spanish, and will not know how it is pronounced here.

In general, I think that articles about Tolkien in Wikipedia should use the conventions of LotR and Silm unless they are specifically discussing earlier stages of the mythology. JulianBradfield 14:20, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The conventions in The Lord of the Rings were, in rare cases, later changed by Tolkien. The conventions in The Silmarillion are sometimes just plain wrong. There are places where Christopher Tolkien admits that he made mistakes (no one is blaming him, considering the difficult of the task). There is some discussion of the form Ñoldor at Talk:Ñoldor. If you want to discuss the current convention for dealing with such issues (which was the clear consensus at the time, but there is always room for improvement), under which the Ñ spelling is preferred, the discussion at the moment seems to be at Template talk:Mecanon (but see also Talk:Middle-earth and Middle-earth canon for some of the previous discussions). [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:14, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hair color

Especially given the films' "all elves are blonde" simplification, it might be nice to include a summary of exactly what is said in the various texts about elven hair color. (See e.g. the discussions [1] (http://www.tuckborough.net/legolas.html) and [2] (http://www.luchau.org/writing/elven_genetics.htm) and [3] (http://forums.middle-earthonline.com/archive/index.php/t-6507.html).) —Steven G. Johnson 22:34, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Capitalisation: Elves, elves, elf, Elf etc

My instinct tells me that Elvish, the Elves, Elven should be capitalied, but "Legolas is an elf", "two elves are dead" should not ("Lupin is a Man" seems wrong to me). Why is every Elf* and Elv* word capitalized? (This is not a rhetorical question - I speak from ignorance and a desire to know the answer). Lupin 21:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Consistency: Tolkien used lowercase "man" to describe any male (even non-humans), but always used uppercase Men when referring to humans. Other race names (Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents etc.) were also always capitalized. Therefore when within a Middle-earth context, and referring to the Middle-earth races, uppercase should be used. Thus: Oberon was king of the elves or fairies, and Thingol was (a) king of the Elves. User:Anárion/sig 23:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Interestingly, hobbits is often not capitalized in LOTR, though. Also, we have "elven-cloak", "elven-fingers", "elven-song", "elven-blood" and "elven-blades", but "Elven-tongue", "Elven-lore", "Elven-stars" and "Elven-lords". Lupin 01:15, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hobbits-as-a-race is questionable: they're clearly an offshoot of Men. Also, LotR is supposed to be Frodo's story: he would not have capitalized the word. Hobbits don't appear in the Silm or in other texts (asides from the occasional origin or footnote, where they *are* Hobbits, not hobbits). The examples you mention such as elven-cloak are not supposed to mean "Elven cloak" (cloak belonging to an Elf), but rather "elven-cloak" (cloak of an Elvish style, cloak coming from the Elves). Again these occurences are all from LotR (I can't recall or quickly find any from the Silm or HoME), and most of them in dialog. User:Anárion/sig 01:25, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So do you think we should capitalize "hobbits" here? How about "orcs" (capitalized in LoTR) or "trolls" (not capitalized in LoTR)? Lupin 01:39, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd capitalize them all—in a M-e context of course. It's what both J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien did/do (most of the time), and it's consistent. Trolls by the way is capitalized in the appendices (see the end of appendix F-I for example): "some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs". Note also the "troll-race" in the sentence before: the troll-race are the Trolls. User:Anárion/sig 01:53, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)