When I finished reading RotK for the 20th time today, I stopped to reflect upon the meaning and meaninglessness of existance. What I find so endearing about the Elves, is their bittersweet loss and longing, being blessed with the capacity and ability for the greatest beauty, wisdom etc. but all the while having to witness the loss of beauty and nature in the world. Elves are immortal but not eternal...how heavy the burden an Elf must carry, with the knowledge that they must exist until the end of the world. Elves envy the Gift of Man, the ability to die in the absolute sense, having been given a short amount of time in which to craft a meaningful existance and then die with a sense of identity. It is a pity then, that Men regard immortality as a rationalization for power, the Fall of Numenor occured because of Mankind's lust for power and immortality.

Let's draw some philosophical connections,

Buddhist philosophy, it is taught that "to exist, is to suffer", and the greatest aspiration is to reach "Nirvana" through enlightenment. For those who are unfamiliar, Nirvana is the state of existance in which one ceases to exist and becomes one with nothingness. According to Buddhist teachings, the existance of the Elves would be endless suffering. We suffer because of our attachments to the world, which is true for the Elves, as the three Elven Rings was forged for the very purpose of healing and preserving that which they loved.

Existentialism philosophy teaches that life is meaningless. It is meaningless because there is no God, thus no a priori guide. There IS a "God" in Tolkien's mythology, and that is inevitably Eru Iluvatar. Though He created man, he literally abandoned them to live their own lives, whereas the Elves are connected to Eru and the Valar in a way that Men cannot know. It could be noted then, that Men in Middle-Earth lead existential lives. Because life is meaningless, free will exists. Without a purpose, one is free to pursue their own purpose, craft their own meaning where there is none. Unfortunetly for the Elves, I would argue that they have no free will, their lives are bound to the existance of the world, subject to its causality.

Let us draw more connections and have a discussion about the merits and drawbacks of the immortality vs. mortality of Elves and Men in Tolkien's Arda.

Well this is not er...really a connection, but "to exist, is to suffer", is true. There is suffering in life. Even if immortality was eternal for the elves like in our imaginary world there would still be downs. It's like how vampires need to feed to supplement there lives which is not good especially that they turn evil. Elves still can die though...they just have wrinkle-free skin. lol. Elves to me our just like us they grow old but just more beautiful.

_________________



Capt. Jack: Shoot him and cut out his tongue! Then shoot his tongue!..and trim that scraggly beard.

yAAAy! The <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2007/tc20071218_443372.htm">Hobbit movie</a> is back on!!! Movie buffs get excited!

Yes such as witnessing the passing of everything they love. A burden that I think is unedurable.



Elves cannot die. When they are slain or die from grief; their souls return to the halls of Mandos before they are reincarnated in their original bodies and return to Middle-Earth.

Tolkien thus wrote:

The doom of the Elves is to be immortal, to love the beauty of the world,
To bring it to full flower with their gifts of delicacy and perfection, to last
As long as it lasts, never leaving it even when ‘slain’, but returning – and yet when the Followers come, to teach them, and make way for them, to ‘fade’ as the Followers grow and absorb the life from which both proceed. (L, p. 147)



I would refute that, Elves do indeed grow more wise and beautiful with age, but how can they feel the advantage of their longevity if they have never experienced mortality? Perhaps immortality is just like mortality but on an elevated level. In otherwords, perhaps it's worse. One year for a mortal may feel like an hour for the Immortal. Elves can experience the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow, they must experience the opposite ends of every spectrum. Men create art to acheive a sort of immortality, Elves are art themselves. While Men can pass away and have their art live on, Elves must preserve their culture and way of life from fading which is impossible in an ever-changing world.

It is no surprise then, that some Elves envy the gift of Man.

Interesting topic, Eden.

First of all I would like to question how can we (mortal readers of a modern world) ever know anything about immortal life?
We can only guess what it's like... I don't know how much Tolkien wrote about this matter, but mostly we're left with our own imagination.

I'm not sure whether you could say Tolkien's elves were Buddhists or Existentialists... At least I don't think they would consider life as suffering. They would love the beauty of the world too much.
Concerning the Existentialism... as far as I know the philosophy claims that life is meaningless and absurd because, as you mentioned, there is no God, so each individual has to create his own meaning. But again... elves don't believe in any god. They acknowledge Ilúvatar as the Creator but they don't worship him.
Well.. feel free to comment on this....!

Men must die and elves will live forever and none of them understand the gift or the curse of the other part. But one always longs for what he doesn't have and can't have.
I think you get to treassure life more when you know you only have a certain amount of time to live - at least you should. It motivates you to achieve more and work to fulfull dreams. Being imortal things would blend together, you have all the time in the world so why rush..! But I think things would become boring over time.. sorta been there, done that...

I wasn't sure whether the elves that did die were actually reincarnated... It doesn't really make sense... even though the elves go pregnant for a long time and don't have so many babies it would still be pretty crowded in the undying Lands in the Forth Age when almost all of the elves had departed Middle-earth....?

_________________
>>Be the change you wish to see in the world<<



Banner credit: Shadowcat & Nurrantiel Mashiara

Would you care to explain your basis for assuming that Men are abandoned by Eru to 'forge their own existance'? It may be from some of Tolkien's works that I haven't read yet, but in neither LotR, nor The Unfinished Tales, nor in The Silmarillion or the Books of Lost Tales have I ever noticed anything that would make me think something like that.

Also, I dissagree with your statement 'they are reincarnated and sent back to Middle-Earth' concerning the Elves. From what I've seen, not all elves, only some, were reincarnated like that. The way your said that makes it sound like they go there, and get reincarnated almost immediately. I do think they are reincarnated after a while, but I think that some are reincarnated long before others. Glorfindel and Finrod, for example.

About the Elves being immortal and having to go through the pain of that - that is of their own choice. That would be called 'being weary of Middle-Earth', in which case they can take a ship to Valinor, and live in peace. At least, that's how I interpreted all of that.

_________________

That sounds like a lot of ppl today... they kinda acknowledge a God but don't want to do anything about it. I can see how life would seem tiring and full of suffering if one lived that way!

Tolkien's Eru is never mentioned directly intervening in any affairs of Middle-Earth, however (at least to my knowledge), and neither men nor elves seem to be able to communicate directly with him.

I believe that Valinor was supposed to be a place where the Elves could find peace - otherwise why would they want to go there out of Middle-Earth?

_________________


<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

It's funny how Eru created elves and men, but left them to their own devices somewhat. Anyway, seems to be a shift from theism (a belief in a personal god) to deism (a god created the world and then left it alone). Perhaps it's because Tolkien was a Catholic...(no offense to any out there)

_________________
"Who are you?"
"I am the Sage-Child, bearer of wisdom past and hope for tomorrow.
Join me and see what was and must be.
Youth and age can conspire, if you just believe..."

I flew all the way from Texas to New England to spend two weeks with miss Nienor. 5 of those days were to survive on an uninhabited island. Booyah.

or maybe Illuvatar is involved in his world, just not to a highly noticeable degree, i.e. he may bring rain to a man whose family is in need of crop, though the man does not know this and simply thinks he got lucky

I think the fact that Tolkien was a Catholic actually makes a point in this case. He didn't want to invent his own god of Middle-earth because that would be blasphemous. This may be a reason why he had the Valar taking care of the world.

_________________
>>Be the change you wish to see in the world<<



Banner credit: Shadowcat & Nurrantiel Mashiara