Tag: tolkien

Arwen, Eowyn, and Dis … The power clique I never knew I needed. +20 if the group also includes Mizim, more lady dwarves, Dol Amroth and/or other ladies.

Eowyn and Gimris = warrior-healers and BADASS LADIES EXTRAORDINAIRE (plus chatty old Ioreth too)

Arwen and Dis = do you want steely endurance beyond all imagination BC HERE WE ARE

Selga, Merilin, Bomfris and Mizim = don’t piss em off, they can and will shoot you

Lothiriel of Dol Amroth and Baris = will make music that destroys you utterly, takes you apart and breaks your heart and you will thank them for it

Bani, Thira, Narvi and Nerdanel = THEY CAN FIX IT, YES THEY CAN

(together they fight crime)

Anon who asked about elf ages- elves reach maturity after 50 and stop aging at 100. At that point they are physically the equivalent of a human 25-year-old (more or less), but there isn’t any chronological equivalent. BUT, there’s a theory that 144 elven years = 1 human year after the elf hits 100. In that case Tauriel, for example, who is above 600, would technically be in her early 30s, though in comparison to older elves it could be considered as young as the early 20s. (contd.)

(contd.) The elf’s lineage also plays a part. Like if you take Elrond, who is a Peredhel, he would physically look older than a full-blood elf like Galadriel even though she is much older in years. The Thranduilion boys would therefore all look roughly the same age (25-27) and the difference would lie in how careworn/weary they look rather than actual physical signs of aging, if that makes sense. Chronologically though, it isn’t possible to equate elven age with human age. Hope this helped! 🙂

Nonnie – look at this! Thank you so much, Rippy, you’re a gold-plated pal! *hugs* 

depressing quesiton – does every dwarf make it mahal’s hall? what happens to the ones that don’t?

idk, Nonnie. I’ve mentioned before that Mahal re-embodies his Dwarves in the Halls (there are a few answered asks regarding that, actually, if you check my ‘dwarves’ tag or ‘headcanony things’ tag). It’s a bit of a system, tbh, the way it has worked out. I’ll break it down, step by step, and see if that sparks any ideas…

Dwarf – Made by Mahal

Dwarf – Dies, is sent to Mandos’ Halls.

(canon bit: we know that the Dwarves believe that their halls of waiting, whilst still a part of Mandos’ domain, are set aside from other people’s halls. There they are looked after by Mahal until Dagor Dagorath, whoop)

Dwarf – in Halls, is re-made by Mahal in their eternal body (this guy takes a warranty seriously)

Previously, I have mused that perhaps those Dwarves who are truly awful souls, who are corrupted beyond help and are truly irredeemable, would not have been re-made by Mahal. Not sure where their fea goes. Perhaps Morgoth in Space has an Evil Dwarf Army, beyond the Door of Night? 

a while ago you said something that all of the elven bros (legolas, laindawar, laerophen) were older than what the usual age for elves to marry at. so, what i wanted to ask is how old do you think they would be in human years if that makes any sense. so, as an example, if legolas as an elf is 2,000 and something or whatever (i don’t know his age), then he would about 34 in human years?? i’m sure if that makes anymore sense, sorry!.

god, I don’t know if there really IS a comparison to be made to human ages here, Nonnie. There is effectively no end to an Elf’s life, if they are not killed or do not become weary of living, and so there’s no real thing as a human equivalent of 30′s, 40′s, middle-aged, old-age, etc. 

That said, we do know from Tolkien that most Elves are married at around 100 years of age. So that’s why that line is there.

We also know that some Elves are OOOOLD. But doesn’t mean that they are frail or their life is drawing to a close, like it would for a human? Their bodies simply do not age. So yeah. 

As Elves go, Legolas is young-ish. Arwen is older than him. But Tauriel was meant to be only 600? But she’s an Elf that is 600, not a ‘twenty-something’ human, nnngh. 

I don’t want to make you feel like I’m totally negative towards the idea, or that I’m being a snob about it. I’m glad you asked me, Nonnie, even though I feel like am not explaining this well! But I find it really hard to think of Elves and immortality and all that jazz being at all similar to the assumptions we make of mortal age brackets. 

IDK, I can’t see Legolas (or any Elf, for that matter) having an equivalence to a human age, considering their agelessness. To me there’s just Elves, and older Elves and younger Elves… and the difference is: Young Elves aren’t as tired – or as wise. Older Elves CAN GROW BEARDS (hey Cirdan!) and get weary of unchanging life. 

Other people who know Elves better than me might have some notions to put here, and I’d be glad to hear em! But that’s my little understanding of it, Nonnie, I’m sorry if it isn’t helpful *sheepish sort of look, pushes the cookies over*

linguisticparadox:

“‘Well, well!’ said a voice. ‘Just look! Bilbo the hobbit on a pony, my dear! Isn’t it delicious!’”

And later: “’Mind Bilbo doesn’t eat all the cakes!’ they called. ‘He is too fat to get through key-holes yet!’”

My #1 regret about the films is that they left out the fact that elves are ridiculous little shits.

poorquentyn:

It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point. 

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

You know what is a sureway to make me sad? Think of when the race of dwarves diminishes and dies out. Who are the last dwarves? Who was the last dwarf to die? Was there nobody to properly bury them? Did they die in their bed in their quiet mountain, or did they go and lay into their own timb before falling asleep for the last time? Did they close the gates of khazad-Dum forever before doing so? Did Mahal greet them hemlsef with word ‘Finally all of my children are with me’?

lsjdhgafalshgLJHGALJHJAJALDLAJGALJSADLJH I have thought this thought in passing once or twice, and every time it makes me 

*whimpers*

Ooooh, what about elven aging?

Hey Nonnie!

Again, LOTS is known about Elves – Tolkien loved his Elves OH SO VERY MUCH, after all!

Here’s a good run-down on Elven aging and the life-cycle of an Elf 🙂

Summarised, though, it goes like this:

– Elves have a gestation period of around 1 year.

– They celebrate their conception day, rather than their birthday (which must raise awkward questions for their parents, I assume…)

– They look around 7 years old (compared to a human child) when they are in fact 20 years old.

– Their minds, however, develop VERY quickly. So, we’re talking childlike geniuses here, I suppose?

– Puberty is anywhere between 50-100.

– They have however reached adult height at 50, so I assume their puberty is mostly filling-out/broadening etc. 

– They’re an adult at 100. 

– They live forever, huzzah! Unless killed/heartbroken/silmarils. 

– They appear to have ‘cycles of life’ – it’s unclear what is meant by this, but it is said that in an Elf’s third cycle of life, they can grow a beard. (HEY CIRDAN, NICE FACIAL FUZZ)