Tolkien's Elves

[Shockley]

And besides that, in later ages there was the elf/dwarf racism in people like Celeborn and Thranduil, and even the wise and mighty Galadriel was subject to temptation from the Ring

While I'm not huge on reading sub-texts in Tolkien's work, this one always interested me. We have to accept, first and foremost, that the Silmarillion is essentially Elven propaganda. Couple that knowledge with what you hear about the elf/dwarf split in that book and in the Hobbit, it's very possible that the Elves are at fault for the split.

 

[Mindfire]

While I'm not huge on reading sub-texts in Tolkien's work, this one always interested me. We have to accept, first and foremost, that the Silmarillion is essentially Elven propaganda. Couple that knowledge with what you hear about the elf/dwarf split in that book and in the Hobbit, it's very possible that the Elves are at fault for the split.

Elven propaganda? With the scathing treatment that Feanor and the other kinslayers get, I am hesitant to call it that.

 

[Ireth]

Elven propaganda? With the scathing treatment that Feanor and the other kinslayers get, I am hesitant to call it that.

Exactly. The atrocities that the Feanorians committed are in no way excused or glossed over. The elves may not like that stain on their past, but they don't try to cover it up.

 

[Shockley]

Propaganda in the sense that it's the story of the elves by the elves (much as 'Lord of the Rings' is the War of the Ring from the view of the Hobbits). It has an elf bias in it, which is obvious when you read the work with that in mind - and I think that confirms how genius a writer Tolkien really was.

 

[Alex Beecroft]

I quite agree. If you dig into Tolkien's invented history, he subverts his own statement that elves are always good. But that doesn't tend to be what the majority of people take away from LotR or The Hobbit. The Hobbit in particular comes right out and says baldly "but they were elves and that means Good People."

Heh, I would go so far as to say that the Silmarillion was Noldor propaganda, in the sense of these Westerners coming to Middle earth and deciding that all the other elves they found there were 'dark elves'. But I carry on thinking that, if you're not a Silmarillion reader, or the kind of fan who has also chased up the however many volumes of HoME, the overwhelming impression from LotR and The Hobbit is that elves are always good. (They may be hot tempered, and possibly dangerous, but dangerous =/= morally bad.)

 

[Ireth]

The Hobbit in particular comes right out and says baldly "but they were elves and that means Good People."

Heh, I would go so far as to say that the Silmarillion was Noldor propaganda, in the sense of these Westerners coming to Middle earth and deciding that all the other elves they found there were 'dark elves'. But I carry on thinking that, if you're not a Silmarillion reader, or the kind of fan who has also chased up the however many volumes of HoME, the overwhelming impression from LotR and The Hobbit is that elves are always good. (They may be hot tempered, and possibly dangerous, but dangerous =/= morally bad.)

Well, one must also remember that The Hobbit was written when Tolkien was barely starting to create the world of Middle-earth, and so the elves didn't yet have their incredibly complex and morally-varied history as detailed in The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion was the result of years of planning, replanning, editing, revising, and it likely wasn't even finished with when his son compiled and published it.

 

[Shockley]

He had been working on Middle Earth for something like fifteen years when the Hobbit came out. While the Silmarillion certainly wasn't 'complete' at his death, it had gone through so many variations and revisions that there were several works you could almost call 'complete.' I'd say the Quenta Version, which he worked on at the same time as Lord of the Rings, is more or less complete and fully developed. The stuff he was working on at the time of his death was more about the theological underpinnings of the work than additional aspects of the narrative.