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Originally Posted by narfforc
I think you two have been partaking of the weed......ha-ha, good to see humour is alive and kicking.
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Well, I was being quite serious! I think clues to Elven flammability may be found in the text if one searches closely. It seems to be a result of over-excitement or a reaction to extreme danger. For example, in Appendix B we find the following interesting incident:
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In the North also there had been war and evil. The realm of Thranduil was invaded, and there was long battle under the trees and great ruin of fire; but in the end Thranduil had the victory.
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Clearly the Mirkwood Elves in the
heat of battle had spontaneously combusted, igniting the surrounding trees. Of course, its possible that this was a deliberate strategy on the part of a highly trained squad of Suicide Elves (the 'Forlorn Hope'), who sacrificed themselves in an assault on the attacking Orcs.
EDIT
It occurs to me now that the 'Blasting fire' used by Saruman at Helm's Deep may provide evidence that Orcs were descended from Elves. If the Orcs had retained their Elven trait of combustibility he may have used shredded Orc.
This begs the question of what Gandalf used in his fireworks, too. One
hopes they were Orc based.....