Meeting Elves - How would you have coped?

[Boo Radley]

Boo Radley meets an Elf while walking along... Let's listen in, shall we?

Elf: "Greetings, Man!"

BR: "Man? What are you, a Hippie?"

Elf: "Err.. no. I am an Elf! Gendolar is my name and I have lived in this land for 5,000 years!"

BR: "5,000 years? Yeah, I'll need to see some ID."

Elf: "What?"

BR: "Nothing. Never mind. So... you're an Elf, eh? Hmmm... so... Orcs, huh. What's up with them, anyways?"

Elf: "What do you mean? They are evil and an abomination unto the land!"

BR: "Kind of like Steeler's fans."

Elf: "What?"

BR: "Nothing. So.. Oh, OK... Stop me if you've heard this one. These three Orcs walk into a bar and they're each carrying a duck under their arm."

Elf: "What?"

[Lalwendë]

How do we know we'd even recognise an Elf if we saw one? And what does one look like anyway? Just a human with pointy ears? I personally think they are so much more than that.

My dad thinks that aliens, if they exist and have come to Earth, live amongst us. His reasoning is that if they can get to this planet then they have superior knowledge and will certainly know that to survive they will realise they must disguise themselves. Maybe Elves are the same? The Istari after all knew to disguise themselves as something unobtrusive, as old men...be careful and take note to be especially nice to pensioners in flat caps and car coats.

[Elmo]

Elves don't actually have pointy ears you know... see I can be a pedant too

An elf could never get into a night club though, even a bouncer wouldn't believe that Gendolar had a driving license which showed he was older than the wheel

[narfforc]

Hi Lal, didn't Stepen King base The Tommy Knockers on a Alien people/Fairy folk story. All over Britain there are stories of Faerie, today they would be called UFO stories'

[Folwren]

An interesting question, to be sure... perhaps a bit pointless, but interesting all the same.

I don't know how I would react. I'm inclined to think I would be very quiet and would listen a lot to what they said, as they spoke to someone else. I don't speak much to people older than I. I've been brought up with all the 'respect your elders' and letting them talk, not interrupting, listening carefully, and all the rest. Even though I'm becoming an adult myself, I still listen a lot, especially when it's an older person.

With an elf, I think it would be fascinating. Have you ever been around an old man who still has all his wits about him? You can learn so much from just listening to what a man like that has to say! And an elf...who doesn't grow old and who doesn't become feeble or looses his mind with age would be amazing.

No, I wouldn't envy their long life.

-- Folwren

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

Elves don't actually have pointy ears

A matter not solved so far. In HoME V, Tolkien states:

Originally Posted by Lost Road

The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human].

Subsequent research on the papers, such as those appearing in Vinyar Tengwar #45, confirm that Tolkien was indeed reffering to "human".

[The Might]

Umm...good question
I'd probably envy them a bit, but I'd probably take Tolkien's words into consideration as well. As said in the Silmarillion, the gift of death would be wanted by both Elves and Ainur as the ages pass, and perhaps Tolkien is right in saying that. It is probably something we can't understand as we are only "visitors" here on Earth, but perhaps with the passing of countless ages one would "fade away" slowly.
I'd probably have a lot of questions to ask.

Boo Radley, good point about not calling Elves Vulcans.
Still, I think they would be the type to answer with something more polite such as "Excuse me but I didn't understand thee" rather then "What?"

[Lalwendë]

Course, it also depends on if we're talking about Tolkien's Elves or the 'Elves' you can find if you look hard enough in our own world and open your mind...they're a whole lot more tricksy...

Originally Posted by narfforc

Hi Lal, didn't Stepen King base The Tommy Knockers on a Alien people/Fairy folk story. All over Britain there are stories of Faerie, today they would be called UFO stories'

Sounds interesting, I'll have to look into that one! Apparently at some point in the 50s people stopped seeing fairies and started seeing aliens. Might they be the same thing?

I liked how in Torchwood they managed to combine both in one story, with a little girl finding fairies at the bottom of her garden, which were in fact superhuman and quite sinister beings from the beginning of time itself - that's an episode well worth looking out for.

After God told George that He wanted George to be President, He told me that when I die, I get to go to Middle-Earth. Cool, Huh?
I asked eagerly, Well do you mind if I kill myself?!
But God said I had to wait.

[Boo Radley]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...be careful and take note to be especially nice to pensioners in flat caps and car coats.

I think that goes without saying.
But, do the Istari women also dress up like old men, because if they do, that's just wrong on so many levels.

Conversation continued...

BR: "Oh, by the way... love your cookies."

Gendolar: "Right! That's it, human... it's GO TIME!!!"

[Roa_Aoife]

You know, strictly from a scientific point of view, I'd be dying to get my hands on their mitochondria.

And possibly have them try to make snow angels....

[narfforc]

Yes Lal I saw the Torchwood episode, a modern version of a very old story, but exremely good.

[Mithalwen]

I'd like to claim we would have a discussion on the lines of Finrod and Andreth but I rather think I would be even less cool and more incoherent than when I got Louis Malle and Andreas Scholl's autographs (separate occasions). But surely now they would be faded.. and you might just sense their presence....

[Andsigil]

I think I would be captivated by the elves. In the end of it all, I wouldn't do very well.

I remember thinking when I read the core books that the death of every elf was more tragic than the deaths of men because each elf was not only something of a higher being, but a living museum as well.

To think what is lost by the death of just a single elf at the hands of some filthy orc from the Misty Mountains... ack, it just addles the mind.

And then there is the departure of the elves from Middle Earth. I could see myself at the Grey Havens, on my knees, begging them not to go and leave the world a dimmer place.