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The Elves seek not to go into the West, but to return into the West - they seem to think in terms not of going forward but of going back, as though their foray into the 'outer' world has been a 'circular' movement. Yet they take the 'straight' road to get back to where they started. They are constantly driven to 'return' is the West for them as much a symbol of the 'beginning' to which they are drawn as it is 'Home'?
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If indeed time in Arda was circular in some way, then I don't see any reason why Elves, being immortal, would not experience Time in that way. Perhaps this explains the do not/need not argument? (sorry
) Using my own words:
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if the Elves do not count the running years, not for themselves, this is emphatic. They simply do not count those years in their own reckoning. But if the Elves need not count the running years, not for themselves, then it's something that by dint of being immortal, it's not necessary for them to do.
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If they need not count the years, if they know to where they are going and from whence they came, what would be the purpose in counting years at all? Perhaps this difference between Men and Elves explains something of the nature of mortality - that
mortals can never know this.
Still, this theory would only 'fit' for the Eldar.
I am not so sure that Elven time can be speeded up or slowed down, I think that they perceive time at an entirely different pace to mortals, one outside our easy comprehension. They see the world as
Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by as mortal creatures are born, live and die in the mere blink of an eye to them; they see the world as
Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves as the great expanse of eternity is infinite.
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Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last
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Does this refer to the eventual contraction and inevitable expansion or rebuilding of the universe? Do the Elves experience every universe and hence know what fate will bring? Or will some other creation experience 'the next' universe?