"Dumb Tolkien questions?" Topic

I'm pretty familiar with the works of prof. Tolkien but lately, a few questions have been bugging me and I am hoping those more expert (or opinionated) will chirp in with their views on a couple of issues.

The first is perhaps the simplest -- is it entirely clear that Sauron in the Second Age went hostage to Numenor but left the One Ring behind in Barad-Dur? Because otherwise the Ring would have been lost in the Sea when Numenor was broken and Sauron lost his "fair shape"; and Sauron would not have been able to reclaim it for the battles of the Last Alliance.

Second, Elves are conventionally depicted with pointed ears, but is this truly Tolkien's intent? I've always assumed this depiction was accurate but when I reread the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin, I keep encountering episodes where noble Men are mistaken initially for Elves. How would this be possible if the Elves had noticeably different physical traits? It is also often stated how Elves and men are made in similar forms. So are pointy Elf ears a later invention not "authorized" by Tolkien's own vision? Anyone know offhand what he might have written about this in his letters? I've got this volume but I don't think the Index will help me with this particular specifc question.

AFAIK pointy ears is not a Tolkienism, but something added in from popular myth and culture later. Recall that modern elves owe as much to Tolkien as they do to FREX D&D (which got its influence from disparate sources).

Damon.

FWIW, the movies gave the elves those slightly pointy ears just so the viewers could tell who was an elf and who wasn't.

The older Rankin-Bass and Bakshi productions (and all the Hildebrand art) took a lot more artisitic license and put very obvious ears on the elves, IIRC. One look at Bakshi's earlier 'Wizards' is all it takes to realize he likes pointy-eared elves. My recollection of the Rankin-Bass 'Hobbit' is that the Wood Elves had real ceiling scrapers, too.

Pointy-eared elves come from the original European folktales and our depictions of them, but I don't recall if the Scandinavian alfar, from which Tolkien took much of his inspiration vs the southern Fae, were described with pointed ears.

Yes, Sauron had the Ring in Numenor, and was somehow able to carry it back with him to Mordor. Tolkien wrote (Letter #211, if you care to check it): "I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended."

Regarding ears, he wrote as indicated here:

tolkien.cro.net/elves/ears.html

Allen

As for the pointy ears, I think the only reference in all of Tolkien's works (can't remember which) speaks of leaf-shaped ears and leaves it at that.

One hopes he didn't mean maple leaves, or elves would look too weird!

Generally though the elves should look very similar to humans, Tolkien complained that an artist had drawn Legolas too thin and weedy whereas he should be 'strong as a young tree' apparently, and the elven heroes eg Feanor, Celebrimbor the Smith etc should be very physically stong indeed.

The main distinguishing characteristic seems to be the 'fairness' of the elves, with a mysterious light about them, and generally more graceful than men.

Ah crosspost w/aec

Your memory was good! But "…leaves it at that"??? Argh!

Allen

Bwaa haha!!

The One Ring was on Sauron's finger outside Baradur when he was disembodied and the One Ring taken. I wasn't aware that Sauron was in any way turned into a spirit-only being with the fall of Numenor: the change in him was from fairness to open evil, i.e. he could no longer hide his true nature after that fall.

Pointy ears are surely not Tolkien's intent: "leaf shaped" means tapered, not big or noticeably pointy like Spok ears! Elves and men are almost indistinguishable when men are fair to look upon. The first men were fair. Later the fallen races of men did not look like the first men so much except some noticeable individuals. Not even the Rohirrim could be mistaken for elves, and that race of men was quite noble (pure). Interestingly, the Dunedain resemble men rather than elves: even the Dunedain of Dol Amroth, the most noble of them all by the late Third Age, who had intermarried with Elves, were still Men in appearance.

Tolkien's Elves were distinguished by their longevity/immortality and lore, which created a definite appearance without him specifying exactly what that was racially: but nobody had any difficulty knowing an Elf when they saw one….

Good answers! Wow, Allen not only knows his stuff, he can produce it at will seemingly effortlessly.

I will also note that beardlessness was a mark of the Elves, so men who are elf-like (like the Edain/lords of Numenor) should not be shown bearded (as they are in the films). And that most Elves seem to have been dark-haired, contrary to conventional images, because it is always specially mentioned when they are golden-haired -- seems a trait associated mainly with certain distinctive families or individuals.

"I wasn't aware that Sauron was in any way turned into a spirit-only being with the fall of Numenor…"

You might want to look that up, then. It's pretty clear that his bodily form was destroyed, and he returned to Mordor in spirit form only. Then (just to show that the Professor was far from consistent; this is from "The Silmarillion"):

"There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise,… and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure."

So did he take it, or leave it?

Allen

What if they were maple leaves? Then they would have multiple points!

Are you suggestion elves are Canadian ?

Eh?

maples leaves

canadian

some sort of link (something to do with a flag maybe ?)

weak attempt at humour.

Good God it's 2AM in the UK, don't expect too much !

Going to Gondor eh? Well take off you hoser!

BTW, I'm guess OFM was following on. Eh?

Say that with a Canadian accent and it will become clear.

Yes, an even weaker attempt on my part.
Should I have said "oot 'n' aboot, eh?"

If Hobbits had been Canadian, presumably they would have mailed the Ring back to Barad-Dur with a polite note apologizing for retaining it so long without permission.

N'yuk-n'yuk=n'yuk!

Did the Hildebrandt brothers give Elves pointyears?
I wanna say no…
picture
neither did Angus McBride IIRC
picture

Same source as the one given earlier but the Tolkien Society also agree on ear points, and dark haired elves

Oh, I get it now.

that'll be because it's 10AM in the UK and I've now had coffee….

or maybe philodendron leaf shaped ears?

Banana tree leaves.

They'd be pretty distinctive then.

I think the beard thing is stretching it. I think Cirdan had a beard.

I think the inconsistency is part of the charm--makes it feel like legend. You can tell if someone is good by whether they're tall. So these folks have to be taller than those, and the really good ones are tallest, and the noblest are the tallest of those. Thingol was the tallest of the Children of Iluvatar. You mean taller than the occasional person who gets around 8'? Those kinds of things don't really seem to matter.

andy

So the smallest beings, Hobbits, with Hildebrandt pointy ears, are the least "good" of the lot?…

Google "Cirdan beard". The discussions will hurt your brain.

Cave trolls must be *really* good.

Allen

All seems straight forward enough – elves get beards in the third circle of their life, no-one knows what constitutes a circle of life, and some elves got their beards early. As the meerkats say "squueeek-squeek-squeek".

So imagine the conversation :

"wow Elrond man, I didn't realise you were so old"

"no, no, my elf dude friend of mine, like chill, I'm like totally still in the second circle of life but man I just got these whacky genes you know"

"Radical ! Is that why your ears are like cool maple leafs?"

"Eh ?"

Remember that The Silmarillion was not completed within Tolkien's own lifetime, and that what was published under that name represents his son's best efforts to finalise a work that Tolkien had been revising and rewriting since World War I.

What Tolkien wrote in his letters represents his thought at the time the letter was written. It is entirely possible that he for some time entertained a plotline in which the Ring was indeed brought to Numenor and somehow "spirited" out despite the purifying deluge which broke Sauron's own body.

In The Silmarillion as published, though, it is not explicitly stated that Sauron brought the ring with him, only that he took it back up when he returned to Barad-dur. The logical conclusion by that text would be that he secured it in Barad-dur before his "surrender" in order to make sure that nothing fatal could happen to him whilst he was in Numenorean captivity, and returned to it in disembodied form after the overthrow of Numenor.

Hmm. Just detected what I think is a major flaw in Tolkien (maybe someone else already mentioned it, I have not had time to read all of the posts in this thread).

IIRC, when Numenor sinks, the temple of Melkor cracks open, and Sauron falls into the fiery chasm below. It his here that he loses his "fair shape".

Now, ain't those the same fires that would be under Mount Doom?

Presto: Ring destroyed. Sauron destroyed. No WOTR. Gandalf can keep hanging around in Valinor. Sam and Frodo can spend their lives eating good Hobbit cooking.

aecurtis "You might want to look that up, then. It's pretty clear that his bodily form was destroyed, and he returned to Mordor in spirit form only. Then (just to show that the Professor was far from consistent; this is from "The Silmarillion"):"

No. It was a two stage process. After the Fall of Numenor, he gets ugly, but is still physical. After he is "slain" by Elendil and Gil-Galad, he "forsakes physical form."

Yep, that's how I recall it too.

Hmm. Just detected what I think is a major flaw in Tolkien…

The fires of Mount Doom are specific to that location. It can't just be any old fires under Middle Earth, no matter how much they "share" stuff underground. The One Ring was physically forged in a specific "forge": and that place was where Sauron built up his power….