Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
Could the clothing of the early ones though have been so rudimentary, maybe just unadorned animal skins, that the Elves would just attack first? And the beards so wild and unkempt no facial details were apparent?
I think that would support a "no eat" argument though: the Elves killed them for safety reasons and let them lie, with no close scrutiny.
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Even as much as I agree with the general reasoning here that the Elves probably killed for safety reasons, I'm wondering about "let them lie," as
Inziladun puts it. It doesn't seem very Elven, for lack of a better word, to leave good-sized carcasses to rot--especially since killing for apparent defence probably indicates killing fairly close to dwelling places. Granted, the Elves probably have fewer sickness-related concerns about rotting corpses than Men, but I don't see it as being aesthetically likely even of the darkest of Avari to leave corpses to stink up the environment close to home.
I suppose it's possible that the Elves might have dug graves and hurriedly dumped the Petty-Dwarven corpses in without examining them, but we're either dealing with spectacularly unlovely Dwarves or with spectacularly inobservant (squeamish?) Elves if the idea that the Petty-Dwarves were beasts wasn't quickly disproven.
Indeed, it almost makes more sense if you accept an early date for the creation of Orks--i.e. before the fall of Utumno. Even if Orks hadn't really been seen by the Eldar in Beleriand and might only belong to murky legends from Cuivienen, the idea of inhuman (inelven?) roughly human-shaped beasts as a perversion to be shot on sight would fit well.