'Its about death, the inevitability of death'

[davem]

Adanadhel, in a word, yeah, well, more or less [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Actually, I haven't really thought enough about it, but you've pretty much got what I meant, whether its acurate or not, I don't know.
What Saucepan Man & I were onto about the Elves has got me thinking , though. Its not just that the Elves had a tendency towards 'fascism' in their approach to other races. Its worse.
Tolkien says the Elves had 'flirted with Sauron'. OK, but what does he mean? In his letters Tolkien would often refer to Satan as Sauron. Tolkien was also a committed Christian who believed absolutely in the existence of Satan.
In other words, when he says the Elves 'Flirted with Sauron, he's actually saying they 'Dabbled in Satanism. But obviously he's not implying the kind of thing that went on in the last years of Numenor, with human sacrifice & such.
As I understand it, not being a Christian, the 'sin' of Satan was 'Pride', but not just swaggering around being superior. No, Satan's 'pride' took the form of considering himself superior to God. In other words, he decided God had got it wrong, & the world need to be put right. God made the World, Satan would set out to re-make it, 'in his own image'. So we come to the Elves. Don't they see things the same way? The world is 'wrong' & needs to be put right. But they also see themselves as 'superior' to everything else. And that sense of superiority comes from one thing - Immortality. They don't die & everything else does. So, for them, that's what's wrong, what has to be put right. Remove Death, & everything becomes like them - 'perfect'. This is how Sauron gets them - he offers to teach them how to make the Three Rings. Then they can remove death from the world. But really all the Rings offer is the Power to 'Embalm', not to remove death from the world, but more to remove Life, birth, growth, maturity, death. Mutability, change, it all goes & Arda becomes embalmed in an 'undying' (undead?) state.
For me, when Galadriel rejects the Ring, & says she will Diminish, & go into the West, & remain Galadriel, she is symbolic of all the Elves. 'Remaining Galadriel', is accepting her own , immortal nature. Going into the West is accepting the mortal nature of Arda & all things in it, & letting them be.