What breaks the enchantment?

[davem]

Originally Posted by eowyntje

I've never liked the elves because to me they were always too perfect, more perfect then humans, and I never liked the thought of a better race existing. So for me the elves from Lotr often broke the spell. The less perfect elves in the Hobbit did not have that effect on me, neither did Galadriel, who was described as frightfull at first. But characters like Elrond are too unbelieveable to me.

These reactions are obviously genuine, so I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that way, but it seems to me that it may be because you disapprove of what the characters do that breaks the spell, rather than what the characters do being unbelievable as such. This was the point I was making earlier, that rather than the author failing to cast the spell effectively it is we who break the spell.

Let's take the example of reading a novel set in WW2. What would your response be to someone who said the 'spell' was broken for them when it came to the Auschwitz episode, because 'the Nazis were just too nasty there' ?

Putting on one side the fact that the Elves of Middle earth are far from perfect beings, let's for the sake of argument imagine that they were absolutely perfect. All Tolkien would have to do is present them as perfect in a convincing way, a way that was believable within the world they inhabit. Once he has done that he has done what he set out to do. If the spell is broken for you wen you read about them because you have a problem with the idea of perfect beings per se, then that is not Tolkien's fault - your inability to to put up with perfect beings is part of the baggage you bring to your reading of the story. Tolkien would only be responsible if he failed to convince you that they were perfect.

In fact, from what you say, Tolkien made the Elves perfectly convincing but you just didn't like them.

When she married Faramir and gave all that up I didn't understand her, I though it was the wrong dissision.

Neither of those reactions means Eowyn is not a convincingly drawn character, just that you didn't understand & or approve of what she did.