Quote:
Originally Posted by elbenprincess
Was that really his last word on it? I find that unbelieveble, for example the flight of the Noldor would have lasted 700 insetad of ca 50 years and Galadriel would have been ca. 19000 years old when leaving Valinor, and Tolkien often said that she did it in her youth and so on, but with 19000 years she wouldn´t have been that young and the 7000 sun years in ME wouldn´t seem that long in contrast to the 19000 years she lived in Aman and I wouldn´t buy her longing for the west, cause 7000 years for her would just be a small holiday.
|
Of course the point is also that in Aman, the time sort of "works" differently, or "feels" differently, probably. You might be for thousand years there, but you cannot compare it to the "mortal experience" of the same timeframe. So even if it was like that, it won't "count" the same way for the people as the years in Middle-Earth "count". That is also why I believe the number 144 was chosen - it is highly metaphorical number, used for example really often in relation to Biblical eschatology - in relation to the "last things" - because it has the sort of "special elements" in it (144=12x12 - 12 being the number of "fullness" - 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, etc etc - which Tolkien might have, or even very likely was thinking of when he wrote that; of course that all traces down to the speciality of the number in "daily matters" like 12 months per year and such...) - so (like e.g. in the biblical case) it probably should not be taken literally as number, but as representative of
something, something that should bring you to note "there's something special about that year in Aman, in fact, something VERY special" (because it isn't just "any" big number, but "this" kind of number).