[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

The diminishing of things is one aspect of Tolkien's stories that has always fascinated me. The idea that things generally get worse or weaker over time certainly makes for less happy endings. It adds to the tragedy. There are numerous examples: the decline of Middle-earth in general; the Elves; Numenor; the race of Men; the Hobbits and the Dwarves.

The examples that you give all seem to point towards a progression from the "fantastical" to the "mundane", which I suppose is inevitable in a series of epic fantasy tales which are said to be set in our own pre-history.

Originally Posted by davem

Others have pointed out (Flieger for one) that Tolkien had an 'Elvish' aspect to his character, a yearning for a lost ideal past. Maybe that's what comes through in his writings. He can accuse the Elves of wishing to 'embalm' the world, fix it into an ideal state from which it can never move on, but he has this nostalgic tendency himself.

This is an interesting point. The Elves yearn for a lost past and so attempt to "embalm" the world to preserve as much of that ideal past as they can. This tendency in Elves, together with their immortality, has always seemed rather "unnatural" to me, since it seems to work against and suppress the natural cycle of life, which is very much concerned with sweeping away the old to make way for the new. In this sense, Men in Tolkien's world come across to me as much more "natural" creatures than Elves (which is, I suppose, pradoxical in some ways, with Elves being portrayed as very much more in touch with "nature").

It is interesting, I think, that Tolkien to an extent recognised the "Elvish tendency" as a shortcoming, while (as davem states) very much sharing that tendency himself. As someone who is very much in favour of progress (although not necessarily always the way in which it is used), I find myself very much at odds with the approach of both Tolkien and his Elvish creations in this regard, since progress (the new replacing the old) seems very much a natural process to me. And yest here is another paradox. Although progress is a natural consequence of our development of intelligence, it can (and frequently does) put us at odds with nature.