08-19-2019, 12:00 AM | #31 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
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Likewise, the Dunedain didn't have to listen to Sauron's temptings. The Elves of Eregion, likewise, didn't have to listen to Sauron when they made the Great Rings. Quote:
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08-19-2019, 06:57 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
To clarify: when I said "there was no original sin leading to mortality in Tolkien," I was being specific. The "leading to mortality" is an important part of that. Men didn't start out immortal and gain mortality through original sin.
Whether original sin exists at all in Tolkien can be debated. Yes, Men have a darkness in their past, but this darkness can be overcome: the early Numenoreans, for example, have done so. It takes Sauron and a whole new cycle of temptation to corrupt them. Lifespan is certainly influenced by corruption, but nothing Morgoth or Sauron do can change the essential morality or immortality of the Children of Iluvatar. |
08-19-2019, 10:43 PM | #33 | ||
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
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But the repentance did not free them from all the consequences. Even the Numenoreans were not totally free of it. The Hobbits, and the Wild Men, seem to be less burdened by it than most Men, as well, but they aren't free of it either. Quote:
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08-20-2019, 06:29 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
Tolkien's original sin comes from creation, when Morgoth was trying to usurp the song and introduce his own creative elements. Judo-like, Eä accepts and incorporates those themes to produce something yet grander.
So there are threads of corruption running through potentially everything in Middle-Earth: Men, Elves, Dwarves, whatever. And what you do in the face of it counts for more than its mere existence. |
08-20-2019, 06:47 AM | #35 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
For those that like a metaphysical angle, perhaps the elves have a problem with their supply of souls - conception requires a soul to inhabit the flesh, but there are fewer elven souls awaiting incarnation than are required for the species to reproduce rapidly. This allows you to drive the birthrate down.
Why will depend on the metaphysics of your setting... Other random ideas: An elven childhood of a century or so may not mean slow physical maturation - perhaps an elf is full grown in the same sort of time as a human, but is not considered an adult for much longer and thus is unable to participate fully in elven society, marry or whatever until they have hung around for a long time. This is the period of their life where they wander about the place annoying shorter lived species - they then go home, settle down and become NPCs (if they weren't already) and live until long after everyone is tired of them. Elves are hermaphrodites with a circumstantial gender - population stress caused by conflict with shorter lived species had forced most of them to assume their "male" gender (identified in comparison to mammals where the male is non-offspring bearing, optimised for resource control), thus reducing the proportion of "females" well below what is required for a replacement birthrate. Elves are naturally fae - immortal, non-reproducing outsiders and at least partially spirit beings. Being spirit/conceptual in nature they are suffering from what is essentially memetic mutation and, due to the influence of (mostly human) mortals they are becoming more fertile but shorter lived. One day they will be nothing more than humans with pointy ears and a bad attitude. The greatest amongst the elves are still terrifying, inhuman and immortal - and probably not that fond of mortals - the least are far more suited to being RPG characters... |
08-20-2019, 08:01 AM | #36 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
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08-20-2019, 09:50 AM | #37 |
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
I wonder, do most elves die of old age or do they die of illness, accidents, and war? The question is equally valid for fantasy humans as well: Humans have a positive growth rate if something isn't killing us off or social situations don't stabilize birth rates.
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08-20-2019, 12:40 PM | #38 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
Fantasy settings are far more dangerous than reality, so it's more amazing to me that there are any humans let alone huge populations.
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08-20-2019, 12:47 PM | #39 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
Quote:
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08-20-2019, 03:02 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Earth, mostly
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Re: Elven maturation and population growth
Quote:
In Tolkien, the Eldar die of accident or violence, but are immune to disease and aging. They were summoned to return to Valinor by the Valar just after the overthrow and exile of Morgoth, but they were permitted to take as long as they wished to go about it. (Almost all the remaining Elves chose to depart with the closing of the Third Age - there may have been a few stragglers even after, but the destruction of the One Ring and the departure of the Three Rings meant that the ability of the Eldar to channel the power or Eru Iluvitar within the confines of Arda would quickly diminish to nothing. Even Galadriel was starting to show her age by the time of the Last Departure, and that was even with the help of one of the Three.) Of the non-Elven kindreds, it's implied that Ents are similarly immortal, but over time will become indistinguishable from the trees they shepherd, while Hobbits are as mortal as Humans (and not much longer-lived - the Rohirrim could expect lives in excess of 80 years, while few Hobbits lived to be over 100 in the late Third Age). Among Men the Dunedain, as the last of the Numenorean peoples, were extremely long-lived by Humans standards, although of course even the eldest among them were still young from the viewpoint of the Elves (Galadriel was among those who left Valinor under the leadership of Feanor, after all, while Elrond Half-Elven was born to Elwing and Earendil the Mariner in Beleriand in the First Age, before Morgoth was banished by the Valar - his brother Elros was the first king of Numenor, and was mortal only because the brothers were allowed to choose whether they would bear the fate of Elves or Men).
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