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Lore Corner - Questions and Debates

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Adamin:

--- Zitat von: ThorinsNemesis am  3. Nov 2015, 22:27 ---My question is - what does this mean? I know it means that their spirit consumes their body and it becomes invisible.

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You're right with the first part as far as I know, but I can't remember anything about the second part. Elves cannot become invisible I think (without having any specific quote for that right now ;) ).

Their creative Spirit does consume their body over time, but more in a metaphysical way. They grow tired, weary, unmotivated. I think it's kinda like staying too long at a party. There comes a time (usually around 3 am), where you just want to go home. ;)

Tolkien actually had a physical fading in one of his early concepts. Back then the Elves literally faded in stature, and became the little fairy-like Elves like in Shakespeares Midsummernights Dream, or Santa Clauses Workshop. Thankfully Tolkien changed that later on. xD


Of course there's also an extreme Elf like Fëanor, always the exception to the rule:

--- Zitat ---[Fëanor] died; but he had neither burial nor tomb, for so fiery was his spirit that as it sped his body fell to ash, and was borne away like smoke; and his likeness has never again appeared in Arda, neither has his spirit left the halls of Mandos.
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The Silmarillion: Chapter 13 - Of the Return of the Noldor

ThorinsNemesis:
^^So they are still visible to everyone as normal after they fade?

Walküre:

--- Zitat von: ThorinsNemesis am  4. Nov 2015, 06:34 ---^^So they are still visible to everyone as normal after they fade?


--- Ende Zitat ---

I was never really convinced by the idea of Elves slowly fading into harmless and mourning spirits, similar to the fate of Sauron after the destruction of the One Ring.
As Adamin stated, their immortal soul consumes them more in a 'psychological' point of view, since their Immortality (very long lifespan deeply tied to the life and condition of the World itself) becomes antithetical to the ineluctable corruption and marring of Arda, started long before the Third Age.

So, the Elves naturally feel, after a long permanence in Middle Earth (especially in the Third Age), the dire and instinctive need to sail to the West and pass beyond the Sea, to truly live an immortal Life in immortal Lands, according to their own very Nature  :)

But, if some Elves still decide to remain in the World due to their pure love of it (something that refers mainly to the Teleri and the Avari), I definitely believe (according to my personal interpretation) that their bodies eventually decade and get old like the ones of the other Human beings.
I don't really like the idea of 'Elven Ghosts' wandering around the regions of the World in the Fourth and later ages  :P

Adamin:

--- Zitat von: ThorinsNemesis am  4. Nov 2015, 06:34 ---^^So they are still visible to everyone as normal after they fade?

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I'd say so, yes.

I also can't remember reading of an Elf, that lost its body, yet still was alive. Usually you have to die in order to seperate your soul from your body.
(although there's the Wraith thing of course, which is kindof an inbetween thing... Wow, that really is a complicated issue. [ugly])



--- Zitat von: DieWalküre am  4. Nov 2015, 11:09 ---I was never really convinced by the idea of Elves slowly fading into harmless and mourning spirits, similar to the fate of Sauron after the destruction of the One Ring.

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I never heard of that before. Is there really some source that describes something like that?

ThorinsNemesis:
So maybe the Elves who stayed in Middle-earth were still completely visible, still immortal beings, but felt a strong need to depart to Valinor?
In my theory Thranduil remained in Middle-earth to rule his kingdom and faded. And Tauriel, she went east to the foothills of the Orocarni Mountains and settled in with the Avari/Dark Elves near the coast of the East ocean; she faded too. Well, Thranduil and Tauriel remained in Middle-earth at least in my headcanon  xD.

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