[Orual]

I feel a little under-qualified for this thread, and for that and lack of time I'll keep this brief. The examples that were cited, as far as I can remember, were Tom and Goldberry's home, Lorien, Rivendell, and the Shire (of those in the Third and Fourth Ages). It seems to me that the one thing that connects these places were that they were all out of their time. Tom and Goldberry appeared, at least to me, as though they were like a rock in the middle of a stream. The world changed around them, but they stayed the same. It was much the same in the Shire, with the hobbits not taking much notice of the way the world of Men and Elves and Dwarves was changing, and going on in the way they had always done. Their culture evolved more than Tom and Goldberry's lifestyle did, but it evolved separately from the world outside. Lorien and Rivendell were both Elven communities, and, of course, the time of the Elves was ending. Soon it was to be that they would not be a part of Arda anymore. I suppose the best way to describe it would be that their cultural evolution had "wound down." They changed, and changed, and changed, as all cultures do, but they realized that soon it would all change, and they began to stay in their set ways, and stop changing.

I suppose that one could roughly compare it to traditional religious groups. They seem very isolated and almost elitist, because most people do not believe that way any more. Perhaps have forgotten how to believe that way, but that is for another debate. Because these religious groups have refused to change with the times (for better or worse, that again is another debate), they seem isolated and "out of place".

I hope that I made some sense!

~*~Orual~*~