I’m going to add one thing about Elves and Men. Elves are the firstborn, and they live essentially forever, but they aren’t exactly prolific, if you get what I mean. Men, ephemeral creatures, do what men do, which is grow and spread like weeds. If you were the elves, you’d pretty quickly take an interest in a race of people likely to eat you out of house and home if you can’t figure out what to do about it. 
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
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!
[/QUOTE]
Hmm, this is true. Thanks.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Ok, I was just having a bit of fun there. But as I also mentioned, what would you an expect an Elf to value in someone else? Wisdom, experience, all the skill and character one would expect after being in middle earth for 3000 years. So I still can’t help but think that this is like, well, a 27 year-old falling for a 2 year-old, maybe not in physical stature but in comparative life experiences.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking this must be where the answer is, but I still can’t quite get my head around it.
[QUOTE=Balance]
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.
[/QUOTE]
This is a good point, but as you also said –
And an Elf has had at least an order of magnitude of them more than any Man or Hobbit or Dwarf. They must know nothing compared to an Elf.
Or am I just looking at the whole thing the wrong way?
[QUOTE=arseNal]
And an Elf has had at least an order of magnitude of them more than any Man or Hobbit or Dwarf. They must know nothing compared to an Elf.
Or am I just looking at the whole thing the wrong way?
[/QUOTE]
No, I think of it the same way. I mean, in the grand scheme of an elf’s life, marriage to a human male would be the equivalent of a torrid fling over Spring Break - maybe never to be forgotten, but a mere blip on the screen.
Unless that Elf gave up immortality and, in essence, decided that life was not worth living after that “torrid fling.” Just ask Luthien and Arwen. I wouldn’t denigrate the emotional commitment made by female Elves who truly, madly, deeply loved Men (odd that we never hear about an Elven male who falls as hard for a human female).
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Unless that Elf gave up immortality and, in essence, decided that life was not worth living after that “torrid fling.” Just ask Luthien and Arwen. I wouldn’t denigrate the emotional commitment made by female Elves who truly, madly, deeply loved Men (odd that we never hear about an Elven male who falls as hard for a human female).
[/QUOTE]
“That was great, it really was. You’re really great. Look, I got to get to work. I’ll call you next millenium, OK?”
It wasn’t technology that was bad. It was wanton lust for power and disregard for the environment. The hobbits could have been given all kinds of technology, fitted it to their ways and remained unchanged. They have their clocks (it seems certain that many have husband and wife figurines who come out and kiss on the hour), and likely clockwork toys (I see a jack in the box featuring a dragon with a ribbon tongue) and are content. It would never occur to them that the powder in Gandalf’s fireworks could be made into a weapon or used for destruction.
But Saruman comes along, hungry to regain lost power. He perverts the system of sherrif (previously used to settle property disputes ‘and knowin who has the best beer’) to his ends. While the hobbits would have made technology to work quietly in harmony with nature, Saruman rips up all the trees and dumps industrial waste. I haven’t read the Simarillion, but I’ve always thought Saruman is no longer even sure why he’s doing it. He’s fallen so far that he’s forgotten even the vague idea of forging new rings or making war machines.
Think again of Gandalf’s fireworks. Gunpowder clearly isn’t evil. But it becomes so in Saruman’s hands. Clocks aren’t evil. But they become so in Saruman’s hands.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
No, I think of it the same way. I mean, in the grand scheme of an elf’s life, marriage to a human male would be the equivalent of a torrid fling over Spring Break - maybe never to be forgotten, but a mere blip on the screen.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps, if she got to live on afterwards. But none of them do, do they? Marry a Man, give up your long years of Elf existence, and die for real like a human. It’s not a blip on the screen because it’s not allowed to be.
[QUOTE=Telperien]
Perhaps, if she got to live on afterwards. But none of them do, do they? Marry a Man, give up your long years of Elf existence, and die for real like a human. It’s not a blip on the screen because it’s not allowed to be.
[/QUOTE]
OK, I suppose it would be the equivalent of a torrid affair with a terminally ill person over Spring Break, after which you cack yourself rather than live on without them? Makes even less sense to me, but I’m probably an unromantic fellow. 
regarding the OP - this is not something I don’t “get”, so much as something I’d liike to know more about, like Radagast and the other wizares - that is, who were the likely mates for Aragorn and Arwen’s daughters? We know their son becomes king after Aragorn. Whe is to become of their daughters? They would be pretty exceptional too, I would think.
The clocks were there, in my opinion, because they lent an air of familiarity. Didn’t Tolkien once state that even in fantasy there had to be a grounding in the familiar?
Thus we have familiar days of the week, familiar times of the day, and familiar fruits and vegetables and animals. I don’t know if he thought too deeply about the mechanism of clockwork, per se. I could be wrong.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
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.
[/QUOTE]
The Elves were not slaves to fate, but they could not disregard as much as humans could - largely, IMHO, because they could see it coming. Elves could foten get a taste of things to come and were less liekly to just go out and do something just because it seemed like a good idea.
Anyway, regarding Arwen and Aragorn: Character? Skill? Knowledge? You’d be hard-pressed to find an elf, even some of the greats, who had mroe of these than Aragorn. Plenty of them had much less of all three. He was a rather special individual, and even ordinary men had a vitality and spirit to them that Elves could and sometimes were attracted to. Aside from which, they understood it meant leaving this world and life itself behind and sometimes figured that, y’know, this place is nice but it wears so much after so long, and maybe this “doom of Men” wouldnb’t be so bad. A little rest would be nice…
My problems with LoTR:
-
Cirdan’s beard
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Relative strength, height, etc. of men, elves, and dwarves. The hobbit-man dichotomy has been pretty well spelled out, but it’s unclear how the other 3 races fit. Who can bench the most, Men or Dwarves? Who can swing a meaner sword, men or elves? Who is taller, Legolas or Aragorn? And for that matter, how tall and strong are the average (non-Uruk-hai) orcs?
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
I guess I don’t get why the people of Gondor love Aragorn so much. The stewards of Gondor have ruled for 1000 years, and apparently done a good job. Now, all of a sudden, everybody dumps them and picks some foreigner who’s lived all his life outside Gondor, and doesn’t have any experience ruling a state just because of who his ancestors are and he can do some magic tricks?
[/QUOTE]
An even more basic question. The line of kings was unbroken during those 1000 years; after the northern kingdom fell, they hung out as Rangers for a millenia. Why didn’t any of them claim the kingship of Gondor long before Aragorn? There wasn’t a question of bona fides; just bring along an elf or two from Rivendell, perhaps Gandalf as well, to say, “oh, yeah, he’s the king, you betcha” (in my mind, elves and wizards are from Minnesota).
Sua
Why it took so long for Gandalf to figure out Bilbo/Frodo had the One Ring.
[QUOTE=toadspittle]
- Relative strength, height, etc. of men, elves, and dwarves. The hobbit-man dichotomy has been pretty well spelled out, but it’s unclear how the other 3 races fit. Who can bench the most, Men or Dwarves? Who can swing a meaner sword, men or elves? Who is taller, Legolas or Aragorn? And for that matter, how tall and strong are the average (non-Uruk-hai) orcs?
[/QUOTE]
If you ask yourself this kind of question, Dungeons and Dragons is for you.
[QUOTE=Telperien]
Perhaps, if she got to live on afterwards. But none of them do, do they? Marry a Man, give up your long years of Elf existence, and die for real like a human. It’s not a blip on the screen because it’s not allowed to be.
[/QUOTE]
This is not true, Tuor and Idril are still alive, in this the Human made the sacrifice and has to live forever with a beautiful, ever-young elf maid.
[QUOTE=SuaSponte]
An even more basic question. The line of kings was unbroken during those 1000 years; after the northern kingdom fell, they hung out as Rangers for a millenia. Why didn’t any of them claim the kingship of Gondor long before Aragorn? There wasn’t a question of bona fides; just bring along an elf or two from Rivendell, perhaps Gandalf as well, to say, “oh, yeah, he’s the king, you betcha” (in my mind, elves and wizards are from Minnesota).
Sua
[/QUOTE]
I believe there was one attempt, maybe **QtM ** whose memory for detail, can supply the passage, but I recall that one Northerner did make a claim to the Southern Throne.
[QUOTE=sciurophobic]
Why it took so long for Gandalf to figure out Bilbo/Frodo had the One Ring.
[/QUOTE]
What fate, what chance would cause the long lost Ring of Power to fall to the very Hobbit that Gandalf had taken a strong interest in. He strongly suspected later, but was not sure until he did years of research. He was no expert on the Ring of Power, that was Sauraman’s specialty.
Jim
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
I’m going to add one thing about Elves and Men. Elves are the firstborn, and they live essentially forever, but they aren’t exactly prolific, if you get what I mean. Men, ephemeral creatures, do what men do, which is grow and spread like weeds. If you were the elves, you’d pretty quickly take an interest in a race of people likely to eat you out of house and home if you can’t figure out what to do about it. 
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know, some of the first few generations of elves seemed to be able to crank out offspring. Finwe had five IIRC, as did Fingolfin, and Feanor had seven. It wasn’t until after the trees were extinguished that the birth rates for elves seemed to slow down a lot. Granted, that was probably 7,000 years before the Lord of the Rings takes place, so I guess small elf families were the norm by then.
Enjoy,
Steven
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Anyway, regarding Arwen and Aragorn: Character? Skill? Knowledge? You’d be hard-pressed to find an elf, even some of the greats, who had mroe of these than Aragorn. Plenty of them had much less of all three.
[/QUOTE]
Ok, but it still seems to me that this is mostly through hand-waving by Tolkien. How did he become so great in only the handful of decades that he went adventuring since leaving Rivendell? Besides Tolkien just saying so, that is. Does he learn things ten times as fast as your typical Elf? Maybe Elves like to spend centuries at a time just hanging out doing nothing? This is what I have a hard time with. Maybe I’m just being obtuse, I don’t know.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
If you ask yourself this kind of question, Dungeons and Dragons is for you.
[/QUOTE]
How many HP for Aragorn? How many for Legolas? And is Narsil a +1? What about after re-forging?
[QUOTE=arseNal]
Ok, but it still seems to me that this is mostly through hand-waving by Tolkien. How did he become so great in only the handful of decades that he went adventuring since leaving Rivendell? Besides Tolkien just saying so, that is. Does he learn things ten times as fast as your typical Elf? Maybe Elves like to spend centuries at a time just hanging out doing nothing? This is what I have a hard time with. Maybe I’m just being obtuse, I don’t know.
[/QUOTE]
To some degree, yes, Aragorn was described in detail of being tutored by the likes of Elrond himself and then he did spend 50 very hard years in the constant danger. Under a different name, he led the Gondorian forces under Ecthalion (Denethor’s father) to drive back the foes of Minas Tirith. He fought with Rohan for a stretch, and of course in the North. In Aragorn was the power like that of the men of old. He was greater than any of his forebears going back to Elendil himself.
The average elf did appear to spend much time engaged is leisurely pursuits.
Elladan and Elrohir (Elrond’s Half-Elven sons) were exceptions and it appears they might well have been greater trackers than Aragorn.
Glorifindel was a mightier warrior, but then he probably slew a Balrog and fought in Gondolin. He was an elf of the Light, so his age was truly great, much older than even Elrond. So when an elf chose to exert himself in some skill, yes they were better than this mere youth, Aragorn, but the average elf did not appear to specialize in the arts that he did.
Jim