Attention Exa!!!!
Elves do die of bleeding and their wounds does not heal quickly! How else would you explain them dying in the war by swords and spears being thrown from great distance, and being stabbed to death! Look at Wolverine in X-Men2, he took a bullet in his head, his H-E-A-D, OK, but after a few minutes, the bullet popped right out of his skull and he was ok again. If Elves did have some quick healing powers, then the swords, spears, etc. would've popped right out of their body and they'd be OK again as well, but it didn't. Anyway, if Elves does grow old, even though very slowly, then that means that they could die of old age, or live up to 30,000 years, but honestly even the most ambitious person in the world wouldn't want to live that long-you'd think after living for 2000 years when you have experienced everything the life has to offer like death of a close one, betrayal, sex, love, friendship etc. the life is very boring, so as Dumbledore said 'to a well organised mind death is, but the next great adventure', and if your mind is still not yet well organized, then you know what they say, 'you'll become wiser as you grow older' so give it about 2000 more years, then you will be wise as hell, so of course you will kill yourself, so this also means that given the chance the Elves could die of old age.
Anyway, J R R Tolkein wrote LOTR during the First World War, and medical science was nowhere as it is now, so he had no idea that if you can live for more than several thousand years then it means your cell regenerates very quickly when it is injured, which also means than your cell does not allow your body to be spoiled aka grow old, so thats why the Elves wound does not heal quickly-because their creator does not know a thing about it. He ( JRR Tolkein) was fighting in the war, the big WW1, ok? Visualize this, dead bodies everywhere, sounds of gunshot never stopping, then there is the fact of kill or be killed, eating your meal while sitting besides a rotting human corpse, every day news of your close one dying-the ones who fought the war with you, don't know weather you will ever see your girl/boy friend again and on top of all this, your worried weather your boy/girl friend's not having an affair with some one else wile you are away (pretty depressing, huh?If I were in his place, I'd put a bullet through my head and end my misery). So he created this world of his own, where he could be away from all of this and into a new world. Try reading the book you will see that he says a lot of unnecessary things just to deliever one tiny point, which clearly indicates that he does not want to come back to the real world, but wants to be left alone in his make-believe world,the reason-he wanted to survive probably, maybe he had a bet with the nature that he could take whatever harshness she could provide.
Good point, jennyanderson, sounds logical
Originally posted by Fire
Exa you sure about that rapid healing thingy?
But I with "healing quickly" I do not mean that it takes only seconds but still several days or weeks, but their bodies yet heal far faster than the ns' and elves might survive an injury that would kill any human.
Of course its not only that their bodies heal faster but they also have great healing skills (see Elrond...). They have no special magical powers or something but just a very resistant and strong body 🙂