Individual men were the ones who really played havoc with Fate. Look at Beren, and Tuor, and Isildur, just to name a few. Heck, Frodo and Sam had as great an impact.
Wise elves paid heed to these individual mortals, and the foresighted among them recognized something was foreshadowed by particular men. Remember Turgon’s words to Huor? Turgon knew that his people’s salvation would depend on Huor’s line!
Well, at least he knew better than to count on Hurin’s kids…
Arwen was about 2700 years older than Aragorn, who died at the age of 210. Love is a bit more than finding someone who is “badass”, btw. And who knows how Elves experience time, so I don’t see the problem with the Arwen/Aragon relationship.
Not to mention that:
and
And then, who do we have after the fall of Numernor? Isildur?
“Well, we’ve finally defeated Sauron. and all that’s left of his power is in this little ring, which I can easily destroy and free Middle Earth from his evil forever. On the other hand, I don’t really have enough jewelry…”
Castamir?
“Bwahaha! I’ve killed everyone who even remotely has a claim to the throne! What’s that? You’re overthrowing me? Aaak! I’m dying! Bye, my sons, go and become evil pirates now!”
The kings of Arnor? They couldn’t even hold onto it.
“What have the Numenoreans ever done for us? Nothing!”
Probably the most definitive quote about how the elves experience time was from Legolas when they were visiting the burial mounds of Rohan. Aragorn says there are nine mounds on one side and seven on another(two lines of kings) and the golden hall of Medusheld has stood for many long lives of men. Legolas says [from memory] “five hundred times the leaves have changed and fallen in Mirkwood during that time, and yet but a little while does it seem to us.”
I can only guess that the time Aragorn and Arwen had together(~150 years as husband and wife) would have been a very “little while” in her perception. Perhaps a very worthwhile and special time, but still short.
Enjoy,
Steven
Regarding the longevity/precedence of elves and their concern for men. I see it as a sort of wise uncle/hapless nephew relationship.
Qadgop is right, of course, but in brief, the World was sung into being by all of the angels and archangels according to themes given them by God (Maiar, Valar and Eru Iluvatar respectively), and after they’d sung it all Eru said “Compile and execute!” (OK, actually “Ea! Let these things Be!”). The music included some interference by Melkor who thought his own ideas were better than Eru’s and who managed to intimidate some other Ainur (collective term for Maiar and Valar) into singing along with him.
Elves are predestined to act according to how the Music was sung, but Men can actually introduce new ideas of their own - they have true Free Will. Of course much of what they do isn’t at all what Eru wanted and they are a great source of grief to him, but Free Will is Free Will and they could not be constrained to do only as Eru wished - and achieve things that the predestined Elves could not - unless they were indeed free.
In the end, the Ainur will sing again, this time accompanied by the Children, and everyone will fully understand his part in the Music, and Eru will give their new Music the Secret Fire so that it will never perish.
Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than my wife who got sick of my asking every time we watch the movies and just said, “It’s another planet, all right. And Sauron doesn’t have a spaceship. Now shut up.”
Thanks for the thorough answer!
Yeah, Denethor’s GondorPoll ratings were pretty damned low by the end. Along comes Aragorn, a ruggedly handsome war hero with a sky-high Q Rating and a magic sword. How’d you think it would turn out?
I never really bought that Saruman sent his minions looking for Isildur’s bones about a thousand years after Isildur died in the river. What did they realistically expect to find?
Or that Bilbo, Sam, Galadriel, Tom Bombadil, Gandalf, and Faramir could all reject the Ring… but we’re told over and over how alluring and irresistible it is.
Or that Tolkien could, with a straight face, name a seaport “Tuna.”
(As ever, well done, Qadgop).
Well, in America, a group with some innocuous-sounding name like Rangers of the North for Truth would smear him silly with a conveniently-timed book release, muddying the waters just enough to allow the status quo to continue.
How about some harlots?
I was always really annoyed by Thingol, personally. Big snob, with his Maia wife and all.
Tuna wasn’t a seaport. It was several miles inland, on a fairly steep hill.
I don’t really get how to spell Gilraen. I wish Chris would do a definitive volume so we can finally put this issue to bed.*
[sub]*Hey, I was going to say that I don’t really get whether balrogs have wings.[/sub]
I was never really satisfied with the explanation for the lack of participation from the eagles. I’ve heard all the excuses (we don’t want to be taxis for man, we don’t really care to get involved with the affairs of man, blah blah).
But then they seem to show up at the most opportune times (let’s help Bilbo out of a tree, let’s help Gandalf off the tower, let’s help in the battle at Mordor) but they can’t be bothered to help get the ring back to Mt.Doom. Yeah, I know they’re easy to spot and they can’t just fly over and drop the ring in without being detected but you’d think they’d at least give them a lift to somewhere near by flying really low or really high.
I think this is one where you just have to say, that if they did it that way it would have made a really crappy story 
No one wants to try and explain Tom Bombadil then?
That guy came out of nowhere.
Yeah, he did, and that’s just the way it is. There’s no explanation.
Tolkien pretty much said that he did not fit. He was a mystery and would be a mystery even to Elrond and Gandalf.
Now from the writers side: The first few chapters are still a lighter-hearted fairy tale like the Hobbit. Tom Bombadil was one of his daughter’s dolls that he had already spun stories about and he simply used this pre-existing character in the LotR. This is similar to how, Tolkien incorporated his ancient elven history into the Hobbit. He did things, reused things and then made them fit as he went along. Tom Bombadil was not originally part of Middle Earth and then he was. The difference with Tom is, that Tolkien never went back and made him fit. He remained a mystery.
Jim
Perhaps. The fact that 500 years seems “but a little while” to the elves doesn’t necessarily mean that it seems trivial to them. It could be interpreted more as “I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Consider a man. Say that he will live 70 years. When he gets stuck in heavy traffic for an hour on the way to work, that hour will seem like a long time. When he kisses his true love, a moment may seem like an age, or like no time at all. Objectively, these are tiny fractions of his life, but they don’t seem that way at the time.
A day is a day, no matter how long you live.