Right, I mean he was Olorin for millennia before Gandalf was spoken, let alone Westron existing. And being in man form changed him, I think, though I might’ve gotten that impression from the movies more. Certainly Saruman changed.
I think it is possible that Sauron didn’t know about Gandalf’s true nature until he’d totally corrupted Saruman. It’s not clear that Sauron even knew that the three Elven rings were still around.
I have no firm cite to say that he *did *know. However, no later than the attack on Dol Goldur, he had to know that the Istari were out there, operating in cooperation with and on at least the same order of power as some old and high-powered elves. They weren’t elves, and any investigation he undertook would likely convince him that they weren’t of any race of Men, either–they were too long-lived and unchanging for him to even take them for Numenorean survivors.
There is this from Tolkien’s notes on motivations in the Silmarillion, as found in Morgoth’s Ring:
It’s not clear at exactly what point in time Sauron might have entertained these thoughts, however.
I just want to throw in some geekiness about the swords (from The Hobbit, IIRC).
The swords’ names in Elvish were Glamdring and Orcrist; which translates in the Common Tongue to “Foe Hammer” and “Goblin Cleaver” (orc = goblin)…and orcs called them “Beater” and “Biter”. (hammers beat, cleavers bite).
The fact that Tolkien spent time on such throwaway word play pleases me no end.
I was wondering why the elves in the Peter Jackson movie had Spock ears. Seems too obvious a giveaway they are elves, rather than requiring close inspection.
This sequence of posts boggles me a little bit. Why is everyone ignoring markn’s post? Elwe presumably had offspring, and they had offspring, and somewhere in there we presumably get Celeborn, ipso fatso (sic) kin of Elwe. What am I missing? Why is this hard?
I figured that had already been adequately addressed. I was speculating about a specific point regarding the Firstborn. Half of what you quoted was a tangential discussion. (Good luck stamping those out in a fandom conversation.)
Because we know who Elwe’s wife and and offspring were. Melian (Mrs. Elwe) was a Maia, and Luthien was their only child*, and Luthy married Beren the mortal and became mortal herself. There’s no room for unknown descendants.
*I mean, I suppose they could have had more kids once he was reborn in Valinor, but that’s way too late timewise to be relevant.
As with everything in Middle-earth’s worldbuilding, It’s Kinda Complicated.
Narratively, the Valar fill the role of pagan gods, but Tolkien wanted his world to be compatible with Christianity. So the Valar are in a weird sort of tier between gods and angels. Even in his own writings, Tolkien was inconsistent about what he called them.
Even though the First Generation (by definition) had no parents, they’re still organized into three tribes. In what sense, precisely, you can say that the members of such a tribe are “related”, I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to call all of the members of one of the three tribes “kin”.
As others have noted, Bombadil doesn’t really fit the rest of the theology, and Tolkien included him because Tolkien loved him. So I think Bombadil really is the oldest – in an important sense, he predated Ardu, the one God who created the world.
I spent a lot of time trying to fit Bombadil in when I was younger, and I finally decided that Bombadil is an avatar of Ardu, an avatar that has sort checked out of the running of the world outside of the little patch of ancient forest that he loved. Take it or leave it.
As far as I know, in all of The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion, Tolkien never specifies anything about elvish ears. I think, in one of the HOMES stories, a human tries to sneak into Gondolin, and his eyes are the giveaway.
As far as I can tell, the main difference between Elves and Men, is that Elf s@#$ doesn’t stink. Everything the Elves do is grand, and glorious, and epic. Even when they turn evil, it’s always cosmic, Darth-Vader style evil. They would never just rob a liquor store.
