[davem]

Don't know if I'll be taking this off topic, but Iwonder whether Elvish reincarnation isn't due to their relationship with the stuff of Arda. They are bound within the Circles of the World, certainly, but it seems their fea are by nature bound to their hroa. In other words it is natural for them to be incarnate, & so, unnatural for them not to be bodied.

Obviously this would have been a problem for a Christian - as it wouldn't have been for a Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Pagan - as reincarnation is not accepted within Christianity.

So, Tolkien had a problem. His desire was to explore the nature & meaning of death for humans, to explain the love of the world in those destined to leave it, to account for the fact that in a universe created by a loving deity death is inevitable. He chose to explore the idea of death by placing mortal humans in a world alongside immortal Elves. He also sought to exlore what it would be like to live forever in the world. Perhaps it was his natural pessimism that lead him to concieve increasingly of this as a 'fate worse than death'. His Elves, like his Valar & Maiar, cannot escape the world, the fact of immortality within the circles of the world. This effectively requires either that their bodies be as immortal & impervious to harm as their spirits, or that they should 'reincarnate' in some form if their bodies were damaged beyond repair. The first option would make it impossible to introduce any real tragic element into their stories, as they would never suffer loss or seperation or grief - it would also risk turning his Legendarium from tragedy to farce.

So, Elves would by nature wish, or be drawn to, reincarnate, to be 'earthed' again. Miriel was seen as highly unusual, even 'unnatural' because she did not wish to reincarnate after the death of her hroa - it wasn't the 'done thing'. So we can assume that any Elves who did not wish to reincarnate were seen in a similar light.

Doesn't Tolkien say somewhere that all Elves were either consciously or unconsciously drawn to the West? Certainly we see this desire being awakened in Legolas, a Sindarin Elf who had spent his whole existence in Middle-earth. If this is the case then any Elf who 'died' & passed into Mandos would feel that they were 'Home', & have no desire to leave & return into Middle-earth. We have to remember that the Elves sought to escape from 'change', found it 'unnatural', & wished to halt it to the extent that they could. Middle-earth was a place of inevitable change, Valinor was not. The 'Undying Lands' are also 'Unchanging' Lands. They are, from what we can gather from the books, a place where change either does not happen, or where it is so slow as to be unnoticeable, even to Elves.

So, what attraction would Middle-earth hold for Elves, particularly after the dominion of Men? It seems Glorfindel returned for a specific purpose, & we can assume that it was a sacrifice on his part.

Tolkien's last ideas are interesting, but like all his later writings we cannot assume that they would have been his final thoughts on the matter. His problem was the essential nature of the Elves & specifically the nature of their relationship with the matter of Arda. Their innate love of Arda would almost require that they be incarnate, as this would be a kind of consumation between lover & beloved, a sort of 'marriage' between spirit & Matter - which could not easily be put assunder & would be seen as 'wrong' if it did take place - a kind of 'divorce' - it would seem almost to be a case of 'what Eru has joined together, let not Elf put assunder...

Men have a more transitory relationship with their bodies, because death is part of their nature. They are opposite to the Elves, in that for them physical immortality is against their nature, & was never meant to be. Hence the sufferings which result from attempts to attain this immortality. But the question Tolkien never properly answered was where this desire came from. HE suggested that Morgoth had made death fearful, but I'm not sure that works - why would Men fear something that was innate to them?