How can there be so little intermarriage between elves and men in Tolkien's works? There's nothing to really suggest that they'd be romantically or sexually incompatible in any way, yet in the Fall of Gondolin it says that Beren and Tuor were the only men who had elven wives.
It all seems kind of bizarre to me.
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Damn what's with all the tolkien threads today
Probably bot related. Maybe some sort of feedback loop, or normal anons start more threads about X whenever they see others do it. Just like interest in authors like Guenon comes in waves.
Only a few times in the history of Arda were there unions of Elves and Men. The offspring of such marriages were known as Half-elven. There were three unions: Beren and Lúthien, and Tuor and Idril, in the First Age; and Aragorn and Arwen in the Third Age.
Additionally, according to a local legend, Imrazôr, the Prince of Belfalas, married the Elf-maiden Mithrellas, who gave birth to a son and a daughter before disappearing.
Thanks chatGPT. You failed to answer the question of *why* it's so rare, though.
And just so I don't make the same mistake that you did:
Whenever an elven-human union happened, their half-elven children seemed to have a choice to become human or elves (how this choice was made and when was not really explained), permanently sealing their fate to be one of them. From this, I think that half-elves weren't really "half" at all, despite having elven lineage. They were either 100% elven or 100% human and would suffer the corresponding fate of what path they chose: immortality but diminishing as you'd have to go into the West, or mortality but communion with God.
From this I assume that it'd be hard to tell if some random elf or human you saw in a city had an umpteenth-generation ancestor that was an elf or human. I don't think Tolkien's legendarium ever cared much about showing these random, mundane examples, always the really big hits in the world.
>There's nothing to really suggest that they'd be romantically or sexually incompatible in any way, yet in the Fall of Gondolin it says that Beren and Tuor were the only men who had elven wives.
I can think of a few more elf-human pairings, Aragorn and Arwen being the most obvious one, that proves this wrong. And I think, going back to my previous post, they really weren't romantically compatible most of the time. Humans and elves perceive everything vastly differently, elves remaining on Arda while humans would drift off far beyond in just a few short years. If I remember right elves married once and never divorced or cheated on their spouse (this is pretty blatantly inspired by Tolkien's Catholic views on marriage), and because elves were immortal, never had a reason to remarry because their partner would eventually return from the Halls of Mandos. I think knowing your partner would some day die and you'd be forever alone would be a huge burden to overcome for anyone, which is why there are so few examples of elves rescinding their immortality to pass on with their spouses (which worked out in the end, considering that Tolkien's gift of Illuvatar was communion with God, though the elves/humans didn't know this).
Elven men patrolled their thots, so they didn't have many opportunities to hoe it up with hue-mans and other races.
Tolkien wrote about this in the Silmarillon.
might have to do with the vastly different life expectancies
Finduilas, a Noldorin princess of Nargothrond, fell in love with Túrin, but he rejected her advances.[4] Gwindor, a lord of Nargothrond, advised her:
>"Not fitting is it that the Elder Children of Ilúvatar should wed the Younger; nor is it wise, for they are brief, and soon pass, to leave us in widowhood while the world lasts. Neither will fate suffer it, unless it be once or twice only, for some high cause of doom that we do not perceive."
Also Andreth, a Wise-woman of the Edain, and Aegnor, Finrod's brother, had fallen in love. However, Aegnor turned away, though neither took another partner for the rest of their lives.[5]
>Finrod explained, while Andreth would grow old and die, Aegnor would carry the memories of Andreth until the end of Arda, and he "would rather have a memory that is fair but unfinished than one that goes on to a grievous end."
We're still talking about large populations, though, where you're bound to have plenty of plenty of impulsive and bad actors. It's not like rape, slavery and forced marriages are unknown things in Tolkien's works either, so the idea doesn't really feel believable.
Aragorn was pretty interesting, as far as 3rd Age humans go, but you have to remember that most aren't long-lived adventurers who are actually noble Lords and kings.
most humans are just shit farmers who look like old milk past 30, and never do much of anything past basic survival, and thus wouldn't have much to talk about besides harvests and market seasons.
if you think also about how casual contact between the races doesn't seem like it was ever popular, the odds of many successful couples seems very unlikely.
who would be forcing whom into marriage?
who would be raping whom?
this is starting to feel like you're trying to make LOTR into a shitty harem /HFY setting.
it's rare because one side is an order of magnitude more advanced than the other, and thus is predisposed to look down on them entirely, like how adults look down upon most children.
that's a huge hurdle for a human to get over.
>it's rare because one side is an order of magnitude more advanced than the other, and thus is predisposed to look down on them entirely
Doesn't seem to stop it from happening in our real world.
of course, but the elves don't seem to have sexual proclivities like humans do.
I don't think they have rape and pedophilia.
>She's just 90 years old you sick frick!
I'm not talking about children. I'm talking about elves not wanting to marry or reproduce with humans because they're inferior, less advanced, uglier, etc.
we are short lived and ignoble creatures whose memories are even shorter. Nobility is the natural state of man, aye, but we are marred
>who would be forcing whom into marriage?
>who would be raping whom?
Let's say some bandits capture a handful of elven girls and decide to make them their brides, since they're really pretty.
have you read the books?
or this is some isekai fanfiction?
We know that bandits exist, since Turin was hanging out with a bunch of them. We know that some elves like to roam the countryside alone or in small groups, so they have a chance of running into said bandits. We also know that bandits more or less do whatever they want with women they encounter.
Put this all together and there's a very high chance of involuntary copulation having had taken place between men and elves over the many thousands of years that both groups spent living on Arda.
I don't think you understand just how wide the gulf between humans and elves are in Middle Earth. Elves don't reproduce purely through biological sex either. Elven reproduction also requires a sort of deeper spiritual union between the two and the impartation of portions of their essences to the child.
A lot of your impulsive and bad actors died in 1st and second ages. The elves are old as frick
New ones would be born all the time.
bad human actors, but the elves will have learned better.
they mourn forever, it's not worth doing.
It's not like elves don't make babies anymore.
My nightghoul. Finduilas possibility was a huge possible turning point, things would have turned out very differently. But yeah Turin was a dummy as usual.
How would you treat random people who show up when you spend all day defending against orcs and spiders and other darksome beasts out of that fell wood? It's basically the hood over there.
Only 2 people had a choice. This is some kind of myth propogated, presumably by movie people or maybe folks who read only wikis.
Published silmarillion assumes authorship only during First Age as it happened, didn't take into account events beyond.
Finwe had both Miriel and then Indis.
>Finwe had both Miriel and then Indis.
And look how that turned out.
And to answer OP, the difference between Men and Elves is just too big. All the known couples end either in death, separation or immortality.
>Beren/Luthien
Luthien chooses to become mortal.
>Idril/Tuor
Tuor is made immortal.
>Finduilas/Turn
Separation, death
>Andreth/Aegnor
Separation, death.
>Imrazor/Mithrellas
Separation
>Aragorn/Arwen
Arwen chooses to become mortal but suffers immensely when Aragorn dies.
Even in Elwing and Earendil's case, Earendil let Elwing choose for him. We don't know what would have happened with Dior and Nimloth, but they, or at least he, died young anyway. Elrond married an Elf only after he chose immortality.
See? I also think people don't realise how separate those communities live. The highest chances for mingling might have been in the First Age but even then, Men were basically babies and the Elves heavily guarded their kingdoms.
They aren't exactly welcoming of outsiders.
Look at what went down in The Hobbit, those elves weren't hospitable at all.
Elf men are taller and richer than human men, obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but cmon
why do they keep casting such ugly men to play elves? Aren't they supposed to be super hot and immaculate?
It means elfussy is off-limits, nerd.
>How can there be so little intermarriage between elves and men in Tolkien's works?
absence of israelites
>the idea of not racemixing is too foreign for the mutt brain to comprehend
Grim. Dire, even.
Humans have always fricked any pussy that's nearby, so it's a foreign idea to humanity as a whole.
That's nonsense. What humans have always done is migrate and trade. That includes trading women. Race is a mere concept. Race as biology is in a constant state of flux. You /misc/tards are too fricking moronic sometimes.
Be less israeli.
>Race as biology is in a constant state of flux
Kek'd. Almost got me there
Have you ever dated someone significantly dumber than you? As human to human you may as well be from different planets. Now, magnify that by however much additional wisdom and knowledge immortality avails you, a culture of deep knowledge, and an entirely different and arguably superior physiology brings. I can't remember if it's in the books, but in the movies Elrond lays out the line of reasoning pretty well...
Let's say you're a male elf. You have all the female elves theoretically available to you. If you find one, you can spend immortality with each other in more or less perfect bliss. Or you can choose a human who can't even comprehend your existence on any level and who you will watch age, die, and never be seen again. Why would you inflict that trauma UNNECESSARILY on yourself? You don't have to date mortals, so why do it given all of the downside and minimal to nonexistent upside? Even more selflessly, it's not fair to the human. They should be with someone who understands them as well and not just in a sterile conceptual sense, but in an actual lived in ontological sense.
As I said I recognized this when I dated those dumber girls. It wasn't even fair to them to invite them into my life because they couldn't handle it at all and it wasn't fair to myself. It's easy to underestimate how differences in that sort of thing can affect judgment, goals/ambitions, how you spend every minute of your day, your food choices, the people you associate with, the topics you respond to, the movies you choose, and on and on. And again, that is still a human to human gap. Elves to human would be even more extreme.
>writing a paragraph to a question like OPs
Kek, imagine...
based
>NOOO YOU CANT EFFORTPOST BECAUSE...YOU JSUT FRICKING CANT OK!?
>t. didn't understand the comment
Expected.
yes troony you are very intelligent and your motives too mysterious to comprehend for simple mortals
now go jump off a bridge
>you are very intelligent and your motives too mysterious to comprehend for simple mortals
You think you're joking, but you're 100% spot on. You only screwed up by using the troony cliché. Jumping off a bridge? Doesn't do anything to an immortal. Duh kid.
>There's nothing to really suggest that they'd be romantically or sexually incompatible in any way
It truly is great to live in the shadow of the death of your beloved for thousands of years after they pass away
Well Tolkien wasn't israeli so
I'd tell you to lobotomize yourself, but it seems /misc/'s already done it to you.
>muh /misc/
How do you not see that this is the equivalent of "muh joooos"? The fact someone can be this unself-aware is beyond me
yeah but it really is the israelites though
Oh I know. It's just funny to me how the knee jerk reaction to anything that's slightly uncomfortable or triggering is "muh /misc/" and yet they don't see the similarity of calling it out the other way
>shout moronic garbage about muh jooooos
>get called out
>b-but the left are the real anti-semites!
Who are you quoting?
>How can there be so little intermarriage between elves and men in Tolkien's works? T
You have to be mega-Chad to wet elven pussy. Ok Aragorn I guess I'll marry you if you become the greatest hero of the Third Age and defeat the supernatural demon god and become beloved king of all Western white men and colonize the Easterlings and Southrons. Oh, and before I forget, let me measure your height and make sure you really are 6'6". The Second Age Numenorians were often 7', you know (*sigh*).
Toll-coin wasn't writing porn you simpering little wanker
Honestly being such a chad that I convince a women who is functionally immortal to give that up and adopt a human lifespan is fricking hot, I wish I could do that...
Tolkien did not want to normalize race mixing because it is a myth that it is a form of eugenics
Because interbreeding is degenerate and dysgenic same as inbreeding. Inbreeding makes genetic mistakes and mutations accumulate in later generation. Interbreeding makes evolutionary adaptations dilute weakening the later generations, nullifying tens of thousands years worth of evolution.
All normal humans understand it on subconscious level and thus not normally attracted to relatives or other race. The exception to that are only paraphiliacs.
>paraphiliacs
Some animals express love through touch though...
men are for elves something like indians for us
Elves and Men are not just like different races or something, they're metaphysically incompatible, which is why God himself basically had to step in to fix the problem of what the child of the first Elf-Man union was even going to be.
The difference in lifespan makes it really unlikely. Elves know if they marry a human you will get old and die very quickly. Also you are extremely immature to them (Aragorn is the exception because he's a super-special Numenorian perfect king).
>nooooo why isn’t there racemixing in my 150 year old english fantasy!!!!!! I can’t enjoy it now!!!!!!
Cuz men don't like the ears
According to Tolkien's letters, the elves have ears that are the same as human ears.