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Hi folks, i'm pretty new to LOTR so please excuse me if my question seems pretty basic........
From my understanding the Elves are an immortal race who just grow more wise & beautiful with age and they can choose to become mortal should they wish to do so, but having just watched TTT i was quite confused as to why the Elves (and Haldir?) were able to be killed. Dis they have to choose to become mortal in order to fight?

They are immortal in terms of age, but they can die from violence or accident like any being.

Or they could even die from great depression. Imagine that.
They were..uhm.. emotionally extreme.

this I understand but alot of this stuff about the elves I do not.
I am also new to area of the forums sodont worry your not on your own, endlessdeep.

Thanks for you answers folks......no more head scratching on that particular problem....

hihi you come her lara? that's the first time I notice

they can't just give up immortality whenever they wish...for they would stop cursing men for their gift. it's more subtle. And yes..they are immortals in age only (though i encountered a supposed limitation in silmarillion..some in terms of hundreds of centuries..or even more. I think it's enough to get bored)

Tolkien did theorise an age limit for them but it was stupidly long.

maybe elvs actually liked engaging in wars after a certain part of their life...after they get sick of it

I thought only the half elven got to choose which life to live(or loose)?

elves (true elves) just pasted into the halls of mandos and waited .

Right, Half-Elves actually CHOOSE literally.

Elves can EFFECTIVELY choose to become mortal if they become weary of life, but it isn't quite so conscious.

umm..so if you desperately gasp long enough your pointy ears will turn round? and the other way around?

It's vague. An Elf who becomes weary of life simply fades away. I doubt there is a medical analysis of it.

A Half-Elf, on the other hand, tends to become rather more one thing than the other.

it is often said that an elf can die from a battle of violence or a broken heart.

I heard the same things

back to the half-elven. Elrond was a half-elven, and he chose to be Elfkind. does that clear up anything for u?

so elves can choose 2 be immortal or mortal then???and if an elf(like elrond for example)is half elf,does that mean he is more man than elf or what????(how does that work exactly?)

and also,why could arwen choose to give up her immortal life??

it's not that easy. ush explains it earlier in this thread

Gee, why do I bother? Please read what has already come, people!

A Half-Elf evneutally becomes one thing or the other. Elrond has been Elf so long that he is indistinguishable from any other of his line.

Other Elves cannot literally CHOOSE to be mortal but HAVE been known to die from grief. So Arwen could not say "Right, I will be mortal now<" but she might follow Aragorn into death if she loved him enough.

I think Arwen is Half-Elf as well, but been long Elf, just like Elrond.

ok,that makes more sense.thankyou for explaining it twice




DQ

That's ok...

first may i say that afault has occured(ush agreed with me on something)
second ,Arwen as a decendant of Elrond can remain emortal as long as elrond stays in middle earth, if he leaves then they 2 have to leave or become mortal, this was the chose before arwen.

What does Elrond leaving have to do with it?

sure i have read somewhere that the children of elrond only have immortality while he stays in middle earth or they have to leave with him
i will try and find out where i could be wrong

You're probably wrong, sorry to say. The only reason Arwen was becoming mortal was because she wanted to marry Aragorn.

Hey Ush, what was the theorized age limit for Elves?

Ten thousand centuries.

About Elrond's children- when he leaves, they have to make their final choice about being mortal or not. There seems to be a thing running of Elrond's kids all being Half-Elven like him. But that's really more to do with the fact that Elrond leaving is synonomous with ALL the Elves leaving Middle-Earth, and the days of immortal beings there being gone.

Ten thousand centuries?! That's 1 million years!!!

Anyway, the Elrond thing makes sense to me...sort of.

Yes, it is a silly number.

I'm not quite sure about this. If i remember correctly Elrond and Elros were given the chance to choose what they should be.
Elros chose to be the first leader of the numenoreeans and elrond the elf side.
Why did i get the impression that that choosing was a favout..a particular case (because they're close blood of earendil..or whatever)

What's a favout?

Elrond and Elros were the FIRST, you see. Once the Valar had the two Half-Elven rbought to their attention, they said that both must choose whether they should from then on be judged as the first or second children of Ilvutar.

And from then on so it stayed.

ok

favour..minor mistake

okay heres how it is, if you are born to and elf and a man than you retain the characteristics of the elves, you are immortal. now at the end of the first age the gods gave elros and elrond (both half elven) the choice to be man or elf. of course elrond chose elf and elros man. now in the third age there were 3 half elves (possible 4 if you count the lineage of prince imrahil who is "rumored" to have elf blood, who better be in the next movie) the three were eladan elohir and arwen (excuse the spelling) they took on the traites of elves and lived for centuries being born in the second age. but again the gods gave them the choice at the end of the third age and they all chose to be of mankind.

...what he said How did you know this, the Silmarillion?

Some of it could be from there, like the Elrond and Elros part, but there are other books that just explain all of Tolkien's ideas and other little stories that he did not include in The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion.

In fact, the Second Age seems to be missing from the Silmarillion...

This had already been explained. Except in that Arwen is not born to Elf and Man. Elrond's wife is Galadriel's daughter. Elrond's children seem to be considered Half-Elven simply because they are his children.

thats true, but i guess if you have any man blood you are considered half elven. i picked up most of that stuff in the silmarillion and the other books that come with the silmarillion, but there are also other books that explain things like "Unfinished tales" plus there is a series of 12 books that describe the evolution of each of the stories called "the history of middle earth". they are pretty interesting but very tough and tiresome reading.

Unfinished Tales is an arse of a book, frankly.

what he saidlol

It does tell a lot though, from how you guys know so much about Tolkien's writings.