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What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex (2002)
- propter_hoc 7y agoSite didn't load for me, here's an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20190323172706/http://www.ansereg.com/what_tolkien_officially_said_abo.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20190323172706/http://www.ansere...
- etiam 7y agoIt would be very interesting to have a corresponding one for elves before (and beyond) Tolkien.
- inawarminister 7y agoIIRC the Fae are the Celtic/Irish (British) equivalent of Norse elves and they do have the tradition of Changelings, half-Fey half-human children who can choose to be human or Fae when they went into adulthood. So not that much different in outcome from Tolkienish Eldar.
- slowmovintarget 7y agoI'll take Jim Butcher's fae. Funny enough, in Butcher's fiction, J.R.R. was the mortal champion of the Summer fae (the "nice" ones).
- inawarminister 7y agoI wouldn't. The worst of Eldars in the Silmarrion is much lesser evil than even the best among the Dresdenverse Fae. For one, the former doesn't try to steal your children because you inadvertently made a deal with them. But to be honest, as characters the Dresden Fae makes sense. And humans can and do become Fae, if only at the cost of your mortal soul. So not that much separation unlike the Firstborn and the Atani. (Incidentally, I really like this fanfic about Harry Potter waking up in Dresdenverse and got hitched with Aurora, the Seelie Summer Lady; breaking the canon plot in the process. I don't think a similar relationship can really happen between a Tolkien Elf and a human (or other mortal) without something really special going on. Like Aragorn or, uh, his First Age ancestors.
- wayoutthere 7y agoThis level of analysis on fiction makes me wonder if most organized religions are little more than devoted fandoms whose basis in fiction was lost over time. I can totally imagine a future civilization taking LotR or ASOIAF as the basis for a religion. Not that it would be a world I'd want to live in, but I can see it. If it can happen for Scientology, anything is possible.
- Fjolsvith 7y agoCheck out the Asatru religion.
- sorokod 7y agoI guess they are similar in that both strive to understand the universe more completley. Motivation may differ though, intellectual curiosity in one case, fear of eternal damnation in another.
- zebrafish 7y agoAt least with LotR, the fiction is intended to parallel Christianity which is an organized religion. Tolkien was C.S. Lewis’s primary introduction to the religion and inspired him to write fiction also based on gospel principles.
- krapp 7y agoAs I understand it, Tolkien strongly objected to the premise that his work was in any way allegorical in the same sense as C.S. Lewis' books. Writing about moral principles, the struggle between good and evil, how greed can corrupt, etc, isn't the same as writing a "parallel" to Christianity. Those themes are universal to humankind, not specific to a single religion.
- kepano 7y agoI’ve long thought this about Norse mythology. I don’t think there is much of a difference between being a fan of Thor in the 11th century or the 21st.
- joelmichael 7y ago
- m4r35n357 7y agoHeh, Tolkien thought of everything ;) Seriously though, "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" ("The Debate of Finrod and Andreth") is a masterpiece IMO. Starting out as a dry but interesting philosophical debate about how elves and humans see the afterlife, it develops to a truly devastating twist near the end.