I get knocked down but I get up again - you're never going to keep me down.

[Lalwendë]

Warning some spoilers within...

Originally Posted by Lush

The modern horror film genre, however, appears to use "apparent death" episodes more so on the evil characters than the good. Of course, it's very nice when a good guy (like Dewey in "Scream," if anybody knows what I mean) who has seemingly died comes back in the end. But overall, the most powerful moments are those when you believe the monster/psycho killer/evil witch/etc. to be dead, and then they suddenly spring back up to life again. It's like a demonic reversal of the Resurrection, a cross turned upside down (if you don't mind me using Christianity as a prop here).

I don't see Tolkien doing this. I do not believe he uses "apparent death" as a means of shocking the reader. Or does he?

Good point. The use of the bad guy coming back 'to getcha' has gone beyond cliche. I now watch horror films/thrillers fully expecting that to happen. It gives the hero another go at the baddie, just to underline his/her machismo. So much so that I remember ruining Dead Calm for some friends by laughing at the end and yelling "Hey suckers!" . The more shocking horror films these days seem to be the ones where they do all die at the end, and that's a growing trend. The 28 Days Later DVD comes packaged with two endings, one of which has the hero die. There was also Terminator 3 which does see the machines rise.

Tolkien's most shocking moments are the real deaths. I can't be alone in being struck by the death of Boromir, I know a lot of us will have drawn pictures of that scene! I was also deeply upset by the death of Theoden and the deaths of the Hobbits at the battle of Bywater. But I suppose that the apparent death and rebirth of Gandalf was a big shock too.

The only mistake as far as I'm concerned with what Tolkien did in LOTR is that I'd have liked to have seen more Elves 'die'. Really. It would make a particularly poignant point. But then one small part of me thinks that at the end, when they leave for Valinor, they might as well be dead. I often think of what a modern cynic, placed in Middle-earth would think when Sam or Aragorn spoke of the passing of the ship into the West; they'd be thinking that the reality was that the ship was lost at sea. Maybe Tolkien thought of this too, and when he chose to explain his mistake over Glorfindel within the context of Arda, he also used it to his advantage as an example of 'proof' that Valinor really does exist.

A bit rambling, but there you go.

[Rhod the Red]

"Tolkien's most shocking moments are the real deaths." Yes, the first loss recorded is the death of Theodred, I think. I feel sad, he could have made a great contribution to the Helm's Deep battle.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Lal, whom I seem to borrow from constantly

The only mistake as far as I'm concerned with what Tolkien did in LOTR is that I'd have liked to have seen more Elves 'die'. Really. It would make a particularly poignant point.

But wouldn't that defeat Tolkien's intent on showing that the Elves are not willing to become involved in warfare and are rather content in staying back and defending their own little parcels of ground while giving advice (and perhaps a couple of useful gifts) to those who can fight?

Trying to tie it back to the topic of this thread, isn't Tolkien trying to tell us that so many elves have died (actually died, not returned from the death... Glorfindel being an exception ) that they do not want to become directly involved in even more bloodshed? And perhaps their lack of compromise and their lack of strenght to re-generate after being kicked down is what brings about their defeat.

During LoTR we have examples of hobbits being "reborn" (Frodo) of men being "reborn" (Aragorn) and even of Maiar being "reborn" (Gandalf) but do we see any elves being reborn? (during LoTR, so Glorfindel does not count)

We don't. Perhaps this shows that the elves have lost that "fight" that they once had in them. In all the rebirths we see there is that intangible aspect of willingness to survive that helps the character through. Even when Frodo and Sam are at Mt. Doom and rivers of lava stream down the sides of the mountain, them being far away from food, drink or any possible rescuers we see them moving away from the destruction. They could have just sat there and let the fires of Orodurin end their misery, but even then they did a little bit of effort to survive... which ultimately paid off when Gandalf and the Eagles showed up.

Yet do we see that from the elves? They stay in Middle Earth and fight for their little tiny kingdoms, yet when they get tired they "simply" travel on to the West (I know it's not that simple, but what option did Frodo have? He did not know of the gift he'd be granted, he had no easy way out and he toughed it up until the end)

Perhaps their lack of that fire, that desperation that if they do not succeed on middle earth they will perish and die, is what caused the elves to stay rather than rise up again.

Yes, we cannot ignore the fact that if it was not because of Elrond or Galadriel Frodo, Aragorn and the rest would have never triumphed, yet we see no Feanor-like brave elves going to battle on shiny armours and single-handedly defeating companies upon companies of orcs.

And don't tell me that the elven strenght was in their wisdom. Sure, they were wise but can we ignore that they were excelent fighters? I think we cannot -and should not- do so. It is a statement, and an important one, that there were no elven companies on the fields of Pellenor.

[Mithalwen]

Farael, I think you are being a little harsh of the Elves, the Last Alliance really was their last hurrah. I think that the number of elves remaining in Middle Earth at the time of LOTR was really very small. There are four settlements of elves remaining and only two if them are "realms". I imagine the communities of Mithlond and Imladris were very small, albeit as home to all that remained of the Noldor save Galadriel, made up of relatively powerful individuals. Mithlond reamined to facilitate the departure of the elves and Imladris was a last ditch refuge for the free peoples and a base for Elrond to use his power to hold off the enemy as long as possible. Elrond isn't staying for his "kingdom". He never took the title of king he was surely entitled to after Gil-galad died. His personal interests would surely have been better served to have left years before. Despite his advice being ignored by Isildur, he stays the course charted by the ring being allowed to survive and his personal loss is all the greater. Imagine the course of events had Elrond reamained to provide a refuge for Bilbo and healing for Frodo.

Galadriel has other issues but she too remains and plays a vital if relatively passive part. Her silvan folk and Thranduil's were much more reclusive. Nevertheless Thranduil led home barely a third of the army that had departed for the last alliance. Those numbers are extremely unlikely to have been replenished.

I expect that the elves had lost their taste for war (and who could blame them - think of Elrond's word at the council- they had seen many defeats and fruitless victories) but they were not cowards and did not fear death. It was no longer their role to be agressors

[Farael]

Hmmm maybe I used too many strong words on my last post. I did not mean for the elves to be called "cowards" but they sure are part of the "passive resistance" rather than the active one. Both kinds of resistance are important, someone has to be able to think for any active meassures to be effective.

Yet what I was trying to say is that the elves were knocked down and weren't really getting up again. As they had another way out (Valinor) they didn't need to get up, they could flee, and that's why we don't see them as active participants in battle and same reason why we don't see them die.. they keep themselves out of harm's way because they know that if they survive, sooner or later they can seek their way West.

[davem]

I suspect the truth is that the Elves have cut themselves off for so long that they've lost touch with what's really gong on in the world. The world they knew has changed & they haven't kept up. They were always essentially a backward looking people. They chose to isolate themselves from all change & ended up being left behind. The fact that Sauron was defeated with so little input from the Elves as a whole surely demonstrates how little they were needed by the end of the Third Age. They were lost in dreams of 'old, unhappy far off things, & battles long ago'. ('For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings'). They were no longer capable of being & doing what you expect of them. I think they played the part they were capable of playing. They had lost heart & hope of any victory they would consider worthy of the name. If a whole race can suffer from clinical depression I think the Elves came pretty close to doing so.

[Firefoot]

I don't think it's completely fair to forget that Sauron did send three assaults against Lorien out of Dol Guldur, and there was also fighting on the part of the Mirkwood Elves on the same day as the second assault. It's not like they were sitting at home knitting socks.

You can blame them for not leaving their land to fight with the Rohirrim and the Gondorians, but that's really not quite fair. The Dwarves and the Men of Dale didn't go either; they had to defend their own homes. And consider Theoden: he didn't go to the aid of Gondor until Saruman was taken care of and they didn't have another army ready to march on them from the other side.

As for the Elves at Rivendell and the Grey Havens, I can't say I really blame them, either. They don't really want another fight. And after thousands of years of fighting off and on, first Morgoth then Sauron, can you really say that you'd feel differently? Most of them were pretty much ready to leave M-E; they were just waiting for the right time to do it. Why get embroiled in another war? Especially with Men, who really don't seem to think to highly of them - mythical, sorcerous...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Farael

I did not mean for the elves to be called "cowards" but they sure are part of the "passive resistance" rather than the active one. Both kinds of resistance are important, someone has to be able to think for any active meassures to be effective.

Originally Posted by davem

I suspect the truth is that the Elves have cut themselves off for so long that they've lost touch with what's really gong on in the world. The world they knew has changed & they haven't kept up. They were always essentially a backward looking people. They chose to isolate themselves from all change & ended up being left behind.

So maybe the elves were the Europeans in contrast to the Americans today?

Sorry, but this just sounds like so much rhetoric from today's world politics... And surely, it's an arguable point, both in the ME and in the real world.

But I'm not sure, whether to call the elves "backward looking people" in the first instance. I would say, that they were folks that looked to another directions than men.

[Lalwendë]

We have to remember that there were two sorts of Elves, those descended from the Noldor/Eldar and those Elves who had never left Middle-earth in the first place. Those in the latter group were staying there anyway (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Legolas is a rare example of a Silvan Elf who leaves for Valinor?); it was the Eldar who were thinking about leaving.

It seems that both kindreds had started to become isolated, though seemingly for different reasons. The Eldar had maybe started to think of leaving Middle-earth in the hands of Men and so had begun to retreat, but I think the 'ordinary' Elves had become more reclusive out of necessity.

I wonder if this says anything about Elven attitudes in the different kindreds?

Why I wanted to see Elven deaths in LOTR? I simply think it would have underlined the essential tragedy of the idea of the 'long defeat', that evil always rises again, and the struggle against it is futile though necessary. To see an 'immortal' die perhaps underlines the idea. Maybe Elrond could have followed Gil-galad and died at Pelennor? Might have been interesting to show how each 'generation' of Elves took part in the struggle and suffered/was sacrificed for the hundreds of generations of mortals that would follow?