Elven Characteristics

[arathorn]

Originally Posted by Galin

By the way, anyone think that the following two descriptions are intended to be consonant with each other:





And...




Or to put it another way, how do you [anyone] interpret this second description, if [for sake of argument] it's read on its own, without the influence of other descriptions?

Or to put it another, another way: if Tolkien believed the first description was 'true' when he wrote the second, do you think he would write this second general description this way?

I think the second seems like a slight 'revision' [or the first, considering I don't know which came before the other] but at least one other person disagrees and [seemingly] finds them in easy accord with each other.

For me both sentences easily agree with each-other. In the second one he was talking about how rare was for their women to be less than 6' and immediately after that he states that their man are NO LESS than 6'6'', so it's pretty consistent the fact that he wasn't talking about an average(there is also no mention of that). The sentence is definitely more concerned into giving us a minimum height.
Kings and leaders were taller than the average (which isn't mentioned).
Supposing that 6'6'' is the full-grown elfmen average height is the same of saying that their woman average is also probably very close to 6'6'' and grammatically the semicolon";" is giving us an "antithesis" and also Tolkien never states that their woman were as tall as their man with only exceptions like Galadriel being as tall as Celeborn.