The ears...
 

I´m new here so I don´t know if you already have discussed this topic...

I can´t find anywhere in the books that the elves had pointy ears, the only thing I can remember of physical description was that they were greater than humans both to mind and body, and various haircolours..

But it seems that the common elf has pointy ears and is maybe taller but slimmer than a human.

Anyone got an opinion about this?

Hullo and welcome to the Downs.

Indeed there is no proof of elves having pointy ears. There have been some discussions on this point, and I guess that in these discussions all books, letters and other works of Tolkien were turned upside down. Never an answer is found, so I guess it's best to let people believe what they will on the subject.

Sorry that I couldn't help,
greetings,
lathspell

I think its just a film convention they used to make sure the audience knew they were Elves.

>And they look awfully cool, dont they?

*Tinnu sulks* I don't like the ears on the Hobbits. I'll live with the ears on the elves because it's sortah given that elves and brownies and pixies down thru the history of fairytale illustration have pointy ears.

But I would much rather have seen all of them untouched... no extra feet extentions, no ears, just very carefully crafted hair and costume. That would have been fine with me.

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Tirned Tinnu ]

John Howe gave elves pointed ears in his illustrations as did Alan Lee. My favorite picture of Galdriel by David Wyatt shows her with an elongated and slightly pointed ear, but it can be debated.

I know that John Howe's illustration of the hobbits hiding from the Ringwraith has one of the hobbits with pointed ears (the one covering his face), and Alan Lee has some hobbit ears that are suspiciously elongated.

Its hard to tell, because most of the illustrations I have handy are pictures of elves and hobbits with long or bushy hair.

Since elves and men inhabit genetically identical bodies (otherwise birth of Luthien would have been impossible), therefore there are no pointy or any other shape of ears involved with elves. They look exactly the same as humans.

That's not a given. Look at the superficial genetic variety among humans and the very real feature difference between, say, Caucasians and First Nations people, let alone Caucasians and Blacks, for example.

Just because they were genetically similar enough to bear offspring--thus, technically the same species--does not mean that there mightn't have been cosmetic differences . . . like pointed ears.

Besides which, Luthien was half-Ainu, not half-human.

Agreed. but none of them have triangular ears, right? :p

Luthien birth should be read "birth by Luthien", or if it suits you better - birth of Dior, or Earendil, as well as Arwen-Aragorn alliance would be fruitless.

Usually, I strongly perfer not to put "pointy" ears on tolkien elves if I have the chance. even though it would be fun, it just not seem right. I could not put ears on a picture of Feanor I drew, it did not look right.

About the movie thing, I suppose you have to do the ear thing because people are dense enough not to realise there is a difference, only in culture geography. The pointy ears is also widely accepted and expected.

Tolkien's only comment on this subject was that Elves have leaf-shaped ears.
He never said what sort of leaves he had in mind. Does anyone imagine Elves with cabbage-leaf ears?

I objected to the movie's use of pointed ears for hobbits until I read Tolkien's Letters - here is his own description of them (Letter 27): That would seem to indicate that elves have pointed ears as well!

Selmo, the idea of cabbage leaf ears for Elves is so funny - like boxers!!

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Estelyn Telcontar ]

I believe that Tolkien told an illustrator for the Hobbit that Bilbo had slightly pointed ears. I can't confirm it because I can't find my copy of Letters. I did not know that Tolkien ever commented on elves' ears, that's interesting, Selmo. 'Leaf'-shaped'. Cabbage-eared elves? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

'Leaf-shaped' probably means oval and pointed, but it's fun to speculate: oak? maple? ginko? palm-frond?

[edit: Thanks, Estelyn, glad to hear the actual quote in Letters. So it supports pointy elf-ears as well!]

[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]

well, this debate is going pretty well, but i think the real question here is wheather or not arwen and aragorn's children's ears were pointy... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Well, macaroni, after re-reading the appendixes to RotK, combing the Letters carefully, twice, and looking through all the footnotes of the Forgotten Tales, juxtaposing my research with popular Scandinavian, Celtic, Finnish, and Anglo-Saxon mythologies, and then throwing in a smattering of Greek, Persian and Egyptian mythologies for good measure, exploring all the writings of every member of the Inklings with special attention to CS Lewis, logging all his entries dealing with the fey folk and his descriptions, and then running similiarly worded sentences through a search engine of all known fantasy literature, I have concluded that we do not have definitive proof whether or not Tolkien intended Arwen and Elessar's children to have pointed ears, or even if he intended them to have ears at all!

Arwen and Aragorn's children would have had human ears. By becoming mortal, Arwen chose to be counted among men as she was the daughter of Elrond, just as Elrond's brother Elros did. By doing this, their children would have been completely human and would've had the same ears as every other human.

Gee, that was a lot of effort, Bill. Why does such a scoundrel as Bill Ferny spend so much time researching elvish ears?

wow, indeed, it was a lot of research bill, [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] and thanks for your input voralphion but i think i'll stick with my first thought, that one ear would be human, and one would be elvish. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] hahaha. just kidding. yeah...

This is a fairly standardized answer, sorry if any points previosly made by other posters are repeated unnecessarily.

The reference to pointed ears mentioned above is taken from Letter #27, 1938 (!): . This obviously does not say anything about the shape of the ears of the Quendi. This description of Bilbo was aimed to be understood generally and by the public, Tolkien’s Quendi were at that time not commonly known, however. The ‘elvish’ thus refers to those ‘fairies’ of common European folklore, from which Tolkien took great pain to distinguish his Quendi, such as in the “Guide to Names in Lord of the Rings”: “The Elves of the mythology of The Lord of the Rings are not actually equatable with the folklore traditions about ‘fairies’”. It would be interesting to know whether the idea of pointed hobbit ears was not abandoned as well in the mind of their creator later on.

The often cited article in the Etymologies (HoME V) should here be given in full: This is a doubtful argument for two reasons. For once, this quote is to be dated long before the publication of the Lord of the Rings, that is, 1937/38, and has assuredly been abandoned. On the other hand, the quality of the statement itself is in turn questionable. The use of the comparative form does not denote definitely pointy shape.

The most important argument against pointed ears of the Quendi, is however one that can only be underlined with quotes with tremendous effort, for it extends over the whole of Tolkien’s meta-text and is a central point of the philosophical writings to be found in HoME X to XII. The physiologic nature of Man and Quendi is indeed exactly the same, the only difference is in the fate attributed to the fëar, not in the exterior of the hróar. This is also why Men and Quendi could only be distinguished by their eyes (cf. Tuor, UT), which were indeed mirrors of the soul. The choice of a half-elf would thus only affect the fate of his or her descendants, since the body would be the same in any case.

excellent, Sharkû.

*both hands upheld in expression of agreement

Are you kidding? Given what we know only certain elements of the Etymologies have proven 'out of date' or to have been 'abandoned' and from these we can hardly make a judgement on the whole especially given how much our understanding and vocabulary it reliant on this particuluar work. The Etymologies was not a 'draft text' soon after rewritten, abadoned or not later used.

What's more both stems can be found exemplified in the established canon, solidly establishing their foundation.

I was not talking about linguistics.

I was, however, talking about a different concept of Elves that was not dependent on linguistics.

I was not talking about linguistics.

In bringing up the linguistic connection you were. Saying that the note which provided the basis for the linguistic connection between the stems is out-dated when the connection obviously is not(i.e. again the exemplars in the canon) is, in essence making, what I feel to be an unwarrented linguistic judgement.

And if not that then you would need some sort of corroborating material to establish 'rejection' of the particular idea which, I do not believe, you have put forth.

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: Fingolfin of the Noldor ]

Elves were supposed to have superior senses to humans, such as eyesight and hearing, right?

And who else has hearing superior to humans? Animals.

And what kind of ears do most animals have? Big, pointy ears!

So it stands to reason that if Elves were going to have great hearing, they would have to have big, pointy ears, too. In fact, I think they should have had even bigger ears in the movie.

And they probably should have had great big eyes, too. Like those kids in the Keane paintings.

And here I thought all along.....
 

Well, I guess I was wrong. Hobbits do have slightly pointy ears according to Tolkien. Others have quoted Tolkien's Letter # 27, but I'll do it again just for the record:

If Arwen's ears were pointed, and Aragorn comes from half-elven lineage, why woudn't their kids' ears be (at least slightly) pointed?

Nevermind the fact that I never imagined any pointed ears in all my initial readings, and was quite convinced that there was no way Tolkien could go so low as to give any of his creations (arg) pointed ears! Well, doggone it, I guess I was wrong.

The point of ears ...
 

What's wrong with pointed ears? They are traditionally "Faerie".

A mark of the devils
 

It seems to me just as interesting that no one noticed that orcs have pointy ears as portrayed in the movie... But had there been any real indication as to the pointy ears of the orcs?

Well, if one holds with the proposition that Orcs were originally corrupted Elves, and assuming one accepts that (Tolkien's) Elves had pointed ears, then it makes sense that Orcs would have pointed ears too (albeit less shapely and attractive, no doubt :D ).

I dunno. I recall from Tolkien's On Fairy Stories that he disliked the idea that they are for the "nursery room"; I just had a presumed association of pointy ears with the nursery room. I guess Tolkien didn't. Go figure.

Yep, Orcs should have pointy ears if Elves do.

Having been outraged initially by pointy ears in the films, I was persuaded by that quote in HoME. I don't think that the genetic variation dictating pointy ears would prevent interbreeding any more that the one affecting eye-shape does. I mean of all the differences between elves and men, ear-shape would be the least significant surely?

The other possibility is that since ears (and nose-tips) are made of cartilidge, they do actually continue growing throughout life ( bad luck Christopher Ecclestone ;) )... so maybe the extensions merely reflect their long elvish life :p .... they could all look like Dumbo by the end of Arda...

That does seem rather a dismissive approach for one so absorbed with mythology. My understanding is that the idea of Faerie beings having pointed ears pre-dates the "nursery room" incarnations of fairy-tales and has its roots in the much grimmer (if you'll pardon the pun) origins of those tales. Aren't many creatures of ancient mythology also portrayed with pointed ears, or is that just a modern take on them?

Interesting. I wonder how and why "pointed ears" became one of the hallmarks of Faerie/Myth creatures.

I always saw elves having pointed ears. I don't know why but I assumed everyone else saw it that way too. Turns out that its not.

Actually I once saw a woman and her ears were actually really close to being pointy. It looked like she had elven ears as in the movie. Well... not quite but the ears were really similar.

Well, on the basis of the poll on this thread, you are in the majority (about 70% at the moment):

Elves' Ears

My own take on the quotes analysed by Sharkû above is at post #8. Needless to say, I am in the pointy ear camp. :D

Because pointy ears are unbelievably cool.

Seriously- ask some guy to draw a "super-cool-humanoid-type-thing" and I'll betcha 99% of the time the guy will stick pointy ears on the thing.

Vampires on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel look more evil with pointy ears. Vulcans on Star Trek look wiser with pointy ears. Elves in Lord of the Rings look hotter with pointy ears.

Why is this? I don't know. It's one of the great secrets of the universe. But there's certainly no doubt that pointy ears are just totally the way to go.

Perhaps Birdland was on to something when she said (in jest) that pointy ears give the impression of heightened senses (e.g. animals like bats) -- an attribute associated with fairies and elves in classical mythos. Powerful beings in Greek, Egyptian, et al. myths often have the features of animals. The Sphinx, centauri, satyrs, etc.

Here I am, on the internet, and I find myself nostalgic for the Downs. This is followed by the appropriate clicking and typing, then a glance at the long-backburned forums.

I can think of no better place for a return than a topic driven to death into the ground. ;)

At any rate...


Darn right.

Also, pointy ears set elves apart from your regular ol' human round ear, and way back in early times when we were creating myths to explain and excite, the idea of something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a human was a fresh, enticing idea.

And, as Lathriel mentioned, there are people out there with slightly pointy ears, which is a rarity. Rarities have always either been idolized or condemned throughout history, the former in this case being true.

I always thought that the elves had poined ears, long before I read any of Tolkien's other works. I don't really know why, unless it is something that became deeply rooted because of childhood fairy stories.
I think perhaps that our interpretations spring from the romantic traditions of Victorian and Edwardian times. They were obsessed with all thing 'Faerie', paintings, statuary and poetry crammed Victorian ladies' sitting rooms. In turn the Victorian conception of fairies and elves came from the classical Greek tradition of nature spirits; fauns, satyrs and the like which were all depicted with pointed ears.
This is the kind of tradition that Tolkien himself would have known from the nursery. That he moved away from the Victorian ideas (yet retained some) and made something more of his elves we can only be grateful for.

No-pointer here.
 

The quote so oft given does not even say if auricles were pointed, or, say, lobes. Why not consider lobes as candidates for pointing, than?

Because if the lobes were pointed Tolkien would've said so.
It doesn't have to say it. Everyone just assumes that it's the auricles that are pointed.

Here's an example...

"Vampires have pointy teeth."

Now, notice I didn't actually say that the points on the teeth were on the biting side of the teeth. Technically, the teeth might have spikes on their inner surfaces sticking in towards the vampire's throat and the biting surface could be flat.

Yet no one assumed such a thing when they read "Vampires have pointy teeth." Everyone assumed that it was the biting area that was pointy. Why? Because it's just generally known what is meant by pointy teeth. If the teeth are pointed in some way other than the usual way then I, as the author of the statement, would need to say something to specify. If I don't specify, then the teeth are pointed in the way everyone assumes they are.

Same thing with pointy ears. When people read that quote, I'd venture to say that every single person thought of pointy auricles, therefore Tolkien does not have to specify. If he had intended points on the lobes, he would've said so since no one assumes pointy lobes when they hear "pointy ears".

I think H-I's post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Or tongue-in-ear, if you like.

I figured he was being slightly silly- I mean, it's HI after all- but I had a nifty little answer that allowed me to mention vampires so I went ahead and posted anyway.

(also, chances are at least two or three people wouldn't know he was kidding in his post and would've tried to answer- and I doubt their answer would've been as cool as mine ;) )
Gah! :p I should've seen that coming. Nice one.