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Old 05-08-2004, 04:53 PM   #4
Son of Númenor
A Shade of Westernesse
 
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White Tree Assured fate vs. 'Hope without guarantees'

Durelin, your essential premise that Valinor is a place of "recompense" which the Elves are permitted to stay in to make up for the "punishment" of being confined to the Circles of the World seems slightly misguided. Tolkien obviously did not feel that the Elves' immortality was entirely a blessing for their race, but it was certainly not a punishment.
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The Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aesthetic, and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a higher level than is actually seen in Men. That is: they have a devoted love of the physical world, and a desire to observe and understand it for its own sake and as 'other' - sc. as a reality derived from God in the same degree as themselves - not as a material for use or as a power-platform.(Letters, 181)
The Elves loved & understood the earth as an individual creation of Ilúvatar, & their immense 'spiritual' bond with the natural world was derived from & nourished by their eternal confinement to Arda & Aman. Whereas Men were granted the gift to leave the confines of the world, & were (& are) subsequently less attached to it, Elves are benefactors & beneficiaries of the world on a much more spiritual plane.

The idea of uncertainty comes into play as well. Elves are bound to the earth from birth until the end of the world, & are all or mostly aware that they will eventually end up in the unending bliss of Valinor, wiser & more beautiful for having gone through the pain & suffering of the Long Defeat in Arda. Men, on the other hand, are granted the 'gift' to leave the world, but to a fate unknown, a "Hope without guarantees," as Tolkien described it. It may be true, as you suggest Durelin, that Men reach "the ultimate paradise in death," but then again it may not. Elves at least can be assured that they will spend their days in a land of peace. To say that "Valinor is not open to mortals because they have no need of experiencing this paradise" is, in my humble opinion, to miss the 'point' (a crude word, isn't it?): it isn't that they have no need, but simply that Valinor is not where their fate as a race ultimately lies. The argument could be reversed to say that Elves have no need to leave the confines of the world, for it is their lot to live in the unending paradise of Aman. 'Tis, if I may be so bold, like saying, "I haven't any need to see Paris, for I have been to Versailles." There is no 'need' to see either, and which is 'better' is merely a matter of taste.
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I mean, they live a short life, they die, and they go to "heaven." The elves however, are bound to the earth forever.(One of the Nine)
As I said, it is uncertain whether Men actually go to some sort of "heaven" (the Halls of Ilúvatar) any sooner than the Elves (who do, after all, end up leaving Arda after the Last Battle & the end of the world). Whether it is a better destiny to be sundered from the world & head into an unknown fate or be bound to the world & live with a general knowledge of your fate is, I suppose, ultimately a matter of opinion. I personally would not necessarily prefer one to the other, but I do not think either can be objectively described as worse than the other, nor that Valinor is a measure of compensation for a "punishment" of the Elves by Ilúvatar.
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why did Tuor go to Valinor? Or did he go because he was counted as one of the elves?(symestreem)
That is a pretty straightforward question with a pretty straightforward answer: yes, he was counted among the Firstborn:
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But in after days it was sung that Tuor alone of mortal Men was numbered among the elder race, and was joined with the Noldor, whom he loved; and his fate is sundered from the fate of Men(Quenta Silmarillion, "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin")
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Last edited by Son of Númenor; 05-09-2004 at 10:42 AM.
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