Who do you reckon is the braver race in general, men or elves?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Also, Men have less (or so it seems to me) natural certainity, serenity and wisdom when it comes to facing a tough place, so they are bigger heroes if they master themselves. Maybe it's just because they're all so young comapared to the Elves - they don't have the calm and confidence hundreds or thousands of years of ups and downs bring.

There is something that occured to me when reading this - you actually now made me stop at the memory of Elves in comparison to Men. It may be somewhat off-topic, or heading that way, but it is still touching the primal matter of the thread: The Elves, because of their longevity (or immortality) have many times the memories of past events and deeds in their personal memory; so their judgement is actually better influenced with personal experience. Whereas Men have only the memory shared and passed down through the generations, and every individual has to learn everything anew (well of course even a newborn Elf has to; however, generally speaking, a large part of the Elven population are people - pardon, Elves - whose knowledge reaches deep into the past). Quotes come to my mind... Elrond on the Council... then somebody (Gandalf? I can't remember now) said that "the Elves were once deceived by Sauron but they won't be deceived again" (I believe that is in response to Frodo's question whether Rivendell is safe). Especially this quote shows exactly what I have in mind: humans may forget easily, and had it not been for the knowledge of history, their failures and what lead to them, they would not know - whereas the Elves know from personal experience and can therefore better discern which choices may lead to which ends. This way, the Elven knowledge is a lot stronger. And if you look at the Elven history, really, the Elves learn from their mistakes and the mistakes do not repeat themselves - because usually there are large numbers among them of those who actually remember the past mistakes from their personal experience. Whereas, if you look at Men, their history is history of ups and downs. Look at the Númenoreans, for example. Look at the story of the Ring itself - a better example could not have been made. Sauron returned for the second time just because Isildur did not have the experience the Elves had. And even in the late Third Age, there were still Men, like Boromir, who had to learn their own way about the Ring - and with fatal ends!

This all is to say more about the uncertainty the Men face - they have too little to guide their lives. In cases like this, they have to rely only on the memories passed down to them. So in this way, they would be also braver - to simply rely on something without having the personal experience and "real", personal verification ("what if the memories passed down to me from my forefathers are not true?").

So yes, in this way I would see them as braver - in general.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But then, sometimes, ignorance is bliss. Eisenhower specified green troops for the first wave at Normandy, precisely because, unlike veterans, they wouldn't know, personally, what they were hurling themselves against.

[The Might]

I don't think the comparison is well chosen WCH...

Besides this, look at Eru's gift to the two races. While the Elves are indeed immortal and are forced to wait what may seem like an eternity for the world to end, Men are given the Gift of Death and for this it is said they are envied by both Firstborn and Ainur.

So death is indeed an uncertainty, something humans must all bravely face, but in the end they are rewarded.

Btw, I always thought that when dealing with this topic Tolkien also tried to make the reader feel that death isn't that bad after all and to put it into a new light... kind of a rebirth away from the troubles of the world. But, this is not the topic at hand.