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10-08-2021, 04:11 PM | #1 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
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However, in trying to assign weight to various things Tolkien wrote down, one can't go exclusively by chronology, because it's certainly the case that T had in his mind, and committed to paper, everything from considered ideas worked out in great detail with full commitment, to on the other hand passing notions he jotted somewhere and soon rejected or forgot. To me the "nette remark" smacks more of the latter than the former.
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10-08-2021, 04:23 PM | #2 |
Loremaster of Annúminas
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Second post because utterly unconnected to the first:
While Tolkien wavered as to precisely the rates at which Elves (and Numenoreans) matured, the consistent thread in all of these writings is that these longeval races nonetheless grew from birth to first maturity (~20 years in human terms) at a much faster rate than the rate of their aging, compared to humans. Roughly speaking, we spend a quarter of our lives (0-20) growing up, and then the remaining 3/4 (20-80) decaying. For both Elves and Dunedain, though, while Tolkien vacillated on what the ratio was it was much, much greater than 1:3. Aragorn's was about 1:10, and Elves naturally way, way more. This reflects back to a position I have long held, which was a minority position even before PJ cast a teenager to play Frodo and carved it in pop-culture stone: Frodo was not physically a teenager at 33 (and thereafter, because Ring). He was 33 in our regular human terms.* Hobbits, like Dunedain and Elves would fit the pattern: growth to adulthood at our rate, but slower decline thereafter. In ratio terms 1:4, since the average Hobbit life expectancy ("as often as not") was 100. I have always thought that Hobbits coming of age at 33, (besides the maths of one gross), was the university don's droll little joke-- No society as sensible as the Shire would ever consider young people in their twenties to be "adults!" *Mentally and emotionally, of course, he was 50, a middle-aged bachelor, not an ingenue. PJ never understood that.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
10-09-2021, 04:52 PM | #3 | |
Late Istar
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*It is fairly clear that in the writings from this time period, Tolkien had occasional lapses of memory. Nonetheless, I think it unlikely, given the amount of time he had evidently devoted ten years earlier to working out the details of Elvish growth and ageing, that this can be attributed simply to forgetfulness. |
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10-09-2021, 11:21 PM | #4 | ||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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10-12-2021, 05:39 AM | #5 | |||
Overshadowed Eagle
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But the "nette remark" isn't one of these: it's referencing the Quenya word nette, a descendent of the CE neter. So I was wrong. The reason I wasn't completely wrong is that the main text goes on to highlight how old a word "nette" is - appearing very closely in Sindarin and Telerin. So it could still be a word from the period of the March, which means that "the growth of Elvish children after birth was little if any slower" could still mean "in the period when this word was formed" - ie, the March. Quote:
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- 1959a: NoME 1.IX,X. Growth from birth was 1:144 in Aman, 1:100 outside; Galadriel is said to be 20 at the exile, or "in years about 20 x 144 = 2880". Pregnancy was briefly calculated to be 900 months (75 years). At another point, growth-years were 1:10 in Middle-earth, 1:100 in Aman, and 1:50 for Aman-born elves in Middle-earth. - 1959b: NoME 1, most text before 1.XV. 9-12 year pregnancy, maturity at 1:12 rate, and then 1:144 (sometimes 1:100 in Middle-earth). In some texts, in later Ages the mature rate quickened even more: 1:48 "in these latter days" (1.IX). At a later date, Tolkien specifically noted that the increased rate should not happen. - 1959c: NoME 1.XVI,XVII. 1 year pregnancy, to maturity at 1:1 rate, then at 1:144. Tolkien states that slower growth is "unlikely". - 1965: NoME 1.XVIII. In Middle-earth, "the Growth Years were relatively swift". 3 year pregnancy, grow to 24 at 1:3 rate, then 1:144 after that. The return to Middle-earth was at these rates. - 1967-8: NoME 2.III, the "nette remark". Growth after birth is "little if at all slower than that of the children of Men". If referring to a specific time-period, it's probably the Great March, but could be Third Age (the "writer" seems to be Gondorian). - 1969: NoME 1.XIX, Text 1. Elves age in cycles, and none had actually entered a new cycle before the end of the Third Age. - 1970: NoME 1.XIX, Text 2. "birth, childhood to bodily and mental maturity (as swift as that of Men)". Cycles, with the first being the bearing and raising of first set of children, followed by a "youth-renewing" and then a second set of children. This renewal weakened over time, until by the end of the Second Age such renewals were rare. It's clear that elves in Middle-earth, probably both before and after the sojourn in Aman, should be viewed as having a 1-year gestation, 24 years to full-grown, and then a 1:144 rate thereafter. The outstanding question is whether Tolkien intended this to apply in Aman, under the Trees. Every time he wrote separately about that period, he gave it a longer growth rate; but the specific note in 1.IX saying "No quickening" would seem to negate this. On the other hand, the 1965 1.XVIII seems to imply a quickening took place: "The [Growth-Years] were relatively swift, and in Middle-earth = 3 loar". And the 1970s 1.XIX indicates that elves were reaching "old age" sooner as time passed, implying some form of quickening still existed. The view that Galadriel was "young and eager" at the exile was long-held; her specific age of 20 is mentioned in multiple texts from 1959, as well as the 1965 text. I think it's dangerous to assume Tolkien tossed this out when he came up with the hair story, especially since the Shibboleth itself discusses her ill-will towards Feanor in conjunction with "from her earliest years". Given that the 1:3 rate is from a text mostly discussing Middle-earth, I think we have to assume that it was forgotten entirely. That makes the only options for growth in Aman either 1:1, or 1:12. At 1:12, Galadriel would be born around 5233, giving 240 years for Feanor to be inspired, harass her, make some jewels, make a sword, get kicked out, and come back. That's... feasible. It would mean that the Silmarils took ca. 1 growth-year to make, which is nicely poetic; and that Feanor was exiled for 1 growth-year, ie, "go away for as long as it took Miriel to bear you". (Unless there's a later source for how long either of those things took; I think both those dates come from the Annals of Aman.) hS
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10-12-2021, 07:38 AM | #6 | |
Late Istar
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10-12-2021, 10:01 AM | #7 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
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(Actually, that would be a more useful timeline than the one I started this thread with: a chronology of when the NoME texts were all written, and how they fall into HoME. Hmm...) hS
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10-12-2021, 02:57 PM | #8 | |||
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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Okay, after a very brief bit of research on the web, with nothing answering my question specifically, I'll just toss it out here: if one is truly ambidextrous, but chooses a specific hand to learn a skill -- such as sword fighting -- won't the person be better at this with the chosen hand? And if so, wouldn't Maedros, despite being ambidextrous, have to do some amount of training to get just as good, or better, at swordplay, as he had been with his right hand. I guess one might wonder why he didn't initially train equally with both hands, but that's avoiding the question Quote:
So while the word swift here appears to refer to/contrast to the 1:144 Life Years, the March of the Quendi was in Middle-earth in any case. Or have you changed your mind that the "nette remark" and EA&N can be pressed into one internal narrative, considering this . . . Quote:
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10-13-2021, 03:09 AM | #9 | |||
Overshadowed Eagle
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So - despite the birth-dates in Galadriel's line being the original cause of Tolkien's messing about with aging rates, and "Elvish Ages" being his final word on the subject - I think we reluctantly have to accept that "Elvish Ages" was forgotten or rejected. That leaves us with the very simple picture that elves in Middle-earth have always reached full growth in about 24 solar years (per "Generational Schemes", the "nette remark", and "Elvish Life-Cycles"). So in the wide view: yes, my mind has changed. Elvish aging in Aman is... unresolved, and basically hinges on whether one chooses to accept that Tolkien's repeated citing of Galadriel as effective-age 20 at the exile (NoME 1.IX, X, XI, & XVIII) still holds true when she's also the inspiration for the Silmarils. I think it does; and the last explicit "slower aging in Aman" text appears to be NoME 1.XI, "Ageing of Elves", which sets a 1:12 growth rate. (It's worth noting that the 1:1 rate was introduced in NoME 1.XVI, which states that "All the elaborate calculations based on... 12:1... are both cumbrous, and in early narrative (Awakening, and Finding, March, etc.) quite unworkable. Also unlikely." That puts aging in Aman into a grey area, after the "early narrative"; and I don't believe it is ever explicitly brought out of this uncertainty.) hS
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