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pandaelf
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Post Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: September 27, 2009 02:11
Hey all!

I was just thinking about stuff and I started wondering, why Elros chose to be a mortal man? Choosing to be mortal means that Elros would be sundered from Elrond (whom I assume he was v. close with) and everyone else he knew (since the twins grew up among elves). Tolkien wrote the elves as beautiful, magical, immortal beings and I was wondering why anyone would choose to be anything else?

I know that Tolkien called death "The Gift of Men" but I've been trying to figure out in what sense that it's a gift. I've read in various places that it's because men aren't bound to the Earth but I was wondering what everyone here thinks? About immortality, the gift of Men, but most especially about Elros? (I'm writing fan fiction lol)
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: September 28, 2009 01:43
As far as I know, Tolkien never stated why Elros chose to become mortal. Maybe he just felt more akin to Men, like Eärendil, who let Elwing make the choice, and because of her became immortal.

As for why mortality is seen as a gift, that probably originates from Tolkien's own religious beliefs; afterlife is a very central concept in Christianity. But also, think of someone who would live as long as the world exists, through all the changes they would see and losses they would experience. In the end, it could become quite depressing, and one could also get very bored in a few million years.
ElfofCave
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Post RE: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: September 28, 2009 08:45
I agree with Morwinyoniel about the main reason for Elros to choose mortality is because he felt a stonger kinship with Men (at least that is one thing we agree about).

If you want to better understand Tolkien's notion on the 'Gift of Men' in relation to the Elves' "gift" of immortality, then have a look at this passage from the Akallabêth, it's from the part where the King of Numenor asks the messengers of Valinor why Men are banned from sailing West. He asks why Men are punished with death when the Elves do not die. The messengers reply with this:

"The Eldar, you say, are unpunished, and even those that rebelled do not die. Yet that is to them neither reward nor punishment, but the fufilment of their being. They cannot escape, and are bound to this world, never to leave it so long as it lasts, for its life is theirs. And you are punished for the rebellion of Men, you say, in which you had small part, and so it is that you die. But that was not at first appointed as punishment. Thus you escape, and leave the world, and are not bound to it, in hope or in weariness. Which of us therefore should envy the others?"


It is a very powerful passage because it clearly shows why immortality isn't always a good thing. The gift Iluvatar gave to Men was the ability to put aside all care and weariness - or as Charles Sanders Peirce puts it:

If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.
pandaelf
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Post RE: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: September 28, 2009 08:30
Hmm, very interesting. I hadn't read that passage from the Akallabeth before. I also hadn't read a Tolkien-ian positive passage about death before (besides calling it the Gift of Men). I always thought it was one aspect of his Christian-ness that he hadn't fully incorporated into his universe yet.

I've read passages where elves are somewhat disdainful of Men, even for their mortality. If Men were not also 'Children of Eru' as the Eldar would have it, than I think they would be looked down upon as animals (cause think about it: animals die, men die, dwarves die, but elves and Valar, high and powerful races DON'T die).

have you read "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth"? It was published after Tolkien's death in "Morgoth's Ring". It's basically Finrod discussing death with Andreth, and while it is insightful and interest it was not nearly as informative as the passage you quoted. Merci beaucoup for that, both of you : )
ElfofCave
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Post RE: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: September 30, 2009 07:55
The reason why some Elves are disdainful towards Men is, in my opinion, because of the lies/half-truths Morgoth spread about the coming of Men while in Valinor, and the fact that Men were destined to replace the Elves and inherit Middle-earth.

Yes I have read the "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" and it is one of my favourite of Tolkien’s writings, though for the most part I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it. But it too is a very good source if you want to understand how Elves and Men view their own and each others nature (the reason I didn’t mention I t last I posted was because I didn’t have my book with me), so you should read it again a couple of times if you want some more insight on the subject for your fiction.

The most important aspect in relation to the different nature of Elves and Men in the text, in my opinion, is as Finrod explains that even though Men are guests in Arda they can, and will, depart on to everlasting life while the Elves are tied to the history of Arda, and when Arda ends they will cease to exist. Men have a shadow behind them but the Elves have a shadow before them.

Andreth explains that Men believe that man kind was once immortal like the Elves, and that the separation of fëa and hröa is not a natural condition but a result of the “Marring of Arda”, and she refers to it as a “disaster” that befell Men. But Finrod recognizes that the ‘immortality’ of Men

…cannot have been the longevity within Arda of the Elves; otherwise they would have been simply Elves, and their separate introduction later into the Drama by Eru would have no function...

Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth


Finrod therefore believes that the “disaster” that befell Men was not that they became mortal (for if they had been immortal to begin with then they would have BEEN Elves), but that the “Marring of Arda” caused in Men fear of. As Tolkien puts it in the Commentary:

He therefore guesses that it is the fear of death that is the result of the disaster. It is feared because it now is combined with severance of hroa and fea. But the fear of Men must have been designed to leave Arda willingly or indeed by desire - maybe after a longer time than the present average human life, but still in a time very short compared with Elvish lives. Then basing his argument on the axiom that severance of hroa and fea is unnatural and contrary to design, he comes (or if you like jumps) to the conclusion that the fea of unfallen Man would have taken with it its hroa into the new mode of existence (free from Time). In other words, that 'assumption' was the natural end of each human life, though as far as we know it has been the end of the only 'unfallen' member of Mankind.


Tolkien explains the original plan concerning the death of Men as

an opportunity for dying according to the original plan for the unfallen: they went to state in which they could acquire greater knowledge and peace of mind, and being healed of all hurts both of mind and body, could at last surrender themselves: die of free will.


Aragorn, Frodo, Bilbo, Sam, Elros and the early Númenóreans achieved this intended end.

So if you look closer at Tolkien’s writings you discover that Men are in fact the true immortals in the mythology, because unlike the fëar of Elves, which was bound to Arda and therefore also the Time of Arda, the fëar of Men left Arda (and Time) altogether after the separation of fëar and hröa at death and moved on to an eternal existence beyond Arda.
cirdaneth
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Post Re: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: April 28, 2012 11:25
*bump*
Elthir
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Post Re: Elves, men, and immortality (Elros question)
on: April 29, 2012 11:06
The most important aspect in relation to the different nature of Elves and Men in the text, in my opinion, is as Finrod explains that even though Men are guests in Arda they can, and will, depart on to everlasting life while the Elves are tied to the history of Arda, and when Arda ends they will cease to exist. Men have a shadow behind them but the Elves have a shadow before them.


I think this phrasing could possibly be a little deceiving: Finrod does not explain that the Elves will cease to exist at the end, but rather notes that this is a possibility -- the same as it might be for Men when they die.


The shadow before the Elves is an ultimate death, but they do not know what will happen to them at this time; and actually Finrod has a vision of Arda Remade: '... and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers,...'

In any case the Elves had theories about themselves at the End of the World -- see also Laws And Customs Among the Eldar (Morgoth's Ring) for example:

'The new fea, and therefore in their beginning all fear, they [the Eldar] believe to come direct from Eru and from beyond Ea. Therefore many of them hold that it cannot be asserted that the fate of the Elves is to be confined within Arda for ever and with it to cease.'


Of course this post (my post) may be somewhat misleading in its brevity, but the point is to note that I disagree with the conception (that some seem to have) that the Elves will cease to exist at the End of the World (at least it is not necessarily so).

Maybe some think it's more fair that Men have true immortality in death while Elves have a limited immortality -- without true immortality when they ultimately die at the end of time however -- because they already had long life, or a 'limited immortality' within time?

But again, that is not only not a given but I think it misses the point: I think the reader is meant to compare the 'gift' of death to Men versus the serial longevity of the Elves in time.

In other words, very generally speaking now, the comparison is not ultimate immortality (but early death) versus ultimately ceasing to exist (but long life), but rather an extremely long life versus a realtively short life -- and with respect to death and the 'ultimate death' of the Elves, Tolkien once explained...


'(...) But what 'the end of the world' portended for it or for themselves they did not know (though they no doubt had theories). Neither had they of course any special information concerning what 'death' portended for Men. They believed that it meant 'liberation from the circles of the world', and was in that respect to them enviable. And they would point out to Men who envied them that a dread of ultimate loss, though it may be indefinitely remote, is not necessarily the easier to bear if it is in the end ineluctably certain: a burden may become heavier the longer it is borne.'

JRRT, letter 245, 1963


... and thus when it came to death and ultimate death, both Men and Elves needed estel in Eru concerning their continuation afterwards.
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