Suprising quotes in the LOTR

[SarumanCymraeg]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Which elves do you know of that strayed to evil?

There are one or two, though they are rare. There was one quite evil Elf in the Silmarillon but his name doesn't spring to my mind. And can you imagine Galadriel if she had taken the ring?

But I don't think EotR was trying to say that many Elves were evil, but rather that the effects of evil had as much effect on the Elves as, say, the Dwarves, in that different Elves estranged from each other (it has been suggested, for example, that Mirkwood and Lorien weren't over-friendly, and going back to the First Age there are many different splits among Elves).

I read this in this (http://www.istad.org/tolkien/legolas.html) article about Legolas. It's quite an interesting theory, if theory it is. It might help answer Mansun's question to a degree as well

In comments in his later letters and writings, Tolkien reveals a startling political divide between Lórien and Mirkwood, almost as great as that between Elves and Dwarves. Galadriel was an exile of the High-Elves (but had lived in Doriath among the Sindar); Celeborn was (in most accounts) a Sindarin kinsman of the King of Doriath. In the Second Age lived in Hollin for a while and visited Lórien often, when it was ruled by another Sindarin King and a friend of Oropher's (Amdir, father of the Amroth we hear about in the Lay of Nimrodel). While the Silvan folk of Lórien welcomed them, Oropher and his people did not. I have a feeling he was not at all happy when Galadriel, who was never free of her cravings for dominion until her showdown with Frodo, started wearing one of the Three Ruling Rings in S.A. 1590. I suspect this was when Oropher decided to make tracks:


"The Elvish folk of this realm had migrated from the south, being the kin and neighbors of the Elves of Lórien; but they had dwelt in Greenwood the Great east of Anduin. In the Second Age their king, Oropher [the father of Thranduil, father of Legolas], had withdrawn northward beyond the Gladden Fields. This he did to be free from the power and encroachments of the Dwarves of Moria, which had grown to be the greatest of the mansions of the Dwarves recorded in history; and also he resented the intrusions of Celeborn and Galadriel into Lórien. On Galadriel and Celeborn, UT: 270. "


Apparently Legolas does not know about these family politics, or at least, he never seems to have any misgivings about Galadriel and Celeborn. He doesn't think about why he has been raised as a Wood-elf rather than Sindar. That's just what he is.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

What SC said.

It's not that the Elves strayed to evil but that evil strayed to them.

[The Sixth Wizard]

There's someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since old times. . .

What I find strange about this is not the swearing but the fact that the orcs speak as if they really remember the 'old times'. Are orcs immortal? Someone give me a hyperlink.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

Well, that's a whole other discussion in itself, but it seems likely. You'll remember that the goblins in The Hobbit recognized Glamdring and Orcrist, two elvish swords that likely had not been seen for thousands of years (and even if they had, they hadn't been wielded by elves since Gondolin's fall).

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

Are orcs immortal?

I personally doubt that, unless we are talking about the maiar orcs mentioned in the Myths Transformed. And if the orcs in question have mannish blood, they aren't immortal:

Originally Posted by The conclusion of the Quenta Silmarillion, Valinor and Middle Earth before LotR, HoME V

Now all those who have the blood of mortal Men, in whatever part, great or small, are mortal, unless other doom be granted to them

Originally Posted by E & E

You'll remember that the goblins in The Hobbit recognized Glamdring and Orcrist, two elvish swords that likely had not been seen for thousands of years (and even if they had, they hadn't been wielded by elves since Gondolin's fall).

It is also presumed in the Hobbit that the trolls aquired the swords through looting:

Originally Posted by A short rest, The Hobbit

- I could not say, said Elrond, but one may guess that your trolls had plundered other plunderers, or come on the remnants of old robberies in some hold in the mountains of the North.

If the orcs in question were some previous owners of the swords, (and, even more, if the looting from them occured quite recently), then the memory problem doesn't seem so tricky anymore.